H
HavBlue
FWIW, there are other sources of information regarding the American Rebellion beyond Walt Disney.
The romantic notion that the British Army, lined up like bowling pins in red tunics, was no match for the wily, rustic Colonials hiding behind every tree is quite false. The British Army developed regular units that could fight guerrilla warfare long before the Revolution....Roger's Rangers is a good example. During the Revolution, the British army's Butler's Rangers gave a very good account of itself. The British army's Rifle Brigade with their black tunics and rifled muskets evolved during and after the Revolution.
If you read the history of the battles during the conflict, the Continental Army really didn't do that well on its own, nor did they have all 13 original Colonies on side.
Great Britain could easily have defeated the Revolution at any point in time...what defeated the British was Opinion At Home on the war. Britain tired of the war and allowed it to fizzle out, culminating in the surrender at Yorktown, where there were more French troops and ships than American.
To keep it in perspective, look at a map of the day....Britain didn't give up that much at the time, and still had a military presence in California, Oregon and Washington right into the 19th century.
And no, you can't have General Washington's bible back.
I disagree, the British had a chance early on but as the war developed that chance went away. The French did offer and supply their Navy (for roughly 2 months) which England was quite surprised to find in Chesapeake harbor waiting. After losing a short battle the English fleet retreated to New York. The seige of Yorktown by combined French and American forces was conducted to meet the European standards. Without hope of reinforcement or evacuation by sea, Cornwallis surrendered his army within a few weeks. This defeat was of sufficient size for the British government to cease operations in the colonies. In a sense the war was also a civil war as not all Americans were loyal to the fight. Two years later, in 1783, England signed a peace treaty in Paris with representatives of the United States led by Benjamen Franklin. England generously ceded to the new United States all of her holdings west of the colonies to the Mississippi. She gave Florida back to Spain and kept only Canada in the north for herself. Meanwhile the Spanish expanded their claim north to include the entire west coast of North America, based on a presence in California.
As for English taxes and the crown being a burden, that's them folks fault cause they've been paying for all that dead weight far to long to change things now.
