Desertion In The American Army During The Revolutionary War
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| Author | : Don N. Hagist |
| Publisher | : Westholme Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2014 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9781594162046 |
Nine Rare and Fascinating First-Person Profiles of Soldiers Who Fought for the British Crown Much has been written about the colonists who took up arms during the American Revolution and the army they created. Far less literature, however, has been devoted to their adversaries. The professional soldiers that composed the British army are seldom considered on a personal level, instead being either overlooked or inaccurately characterized as conscripts and criminals. Most of the British Redcoats sent to America in defense of their government's policies were career soldiers who enlisted voluntarily in their late teens or early twenties. They came from all walks of British life, including those with nowhere else to turn, those aspiring to improve their social standing, and all others in between. Statistics show that most were simply hardworking men with various amounts of education who had chosen the military in preference to other occupations. Very few of these soldiers left writings from which we can learn their private motives and experiences. British Soldiers, American War: Voices of the American Revolution is the first collection of personal narratives by British common soldiers ever assembled and published. Author Don N. Hagist has located first-hand accounts of nine soldiers who served in America in the 1770s and 1780s. In their own words we learn of the diverse population--among them a former weaver, a boy who quarelled with his family, and a man with wanderlust--who joined the army and served tirelessly and dutifully, sometimes faithfully and sometimes irresolutely, in the uniform of their nation. To accompany each narrative, the author provides a contextualizing essay based on archival research giving background on the soldier and his military service. Taken as a whole these true stories reveal much about the individuals who composed what was, at the time, the most formidable fighting force in the world.
| Author | : Daniel Krebs |
| Publisher | : University of Oklahoma Press |
| Total Pages | : 479 |
| Release | : 2013-04-30 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0806189053 |
Some 37,000 soldiers from six German principalities, collectively remembered as Hessians, entered service as British auxiliaries in the American War of Independence. At times, they constituted a third of the British army in North America, and thousands of them were imprisoned by the Americans. Despite the importance of Germans in the British war effort, historians have largely overlooked these men. Drawing on research in German military records and common soldiers’ letters and diaries, Daniel Krebs places the prisoners on center stage in A Generous and Merciful Enemy, portraying them as individuals rather than simply as numbers in casualty lists. Setting his account in the context of British and European politics and warfare, Krebs explains the motivations of the German states that provided contract soldiers for the British army. We think of the Hessians as mercenaries, but, as he shows, many were conscripts. Some were new recruits; others, veterans. Some wanted to stay in the New World after the war. Krebs further describes how the Germans were made prisoners, either through capture or surrender, and brings to life their experiences in captivity from New England to Havana, Cuba. Krebs discusses prison conditions in detail, addressing both the American approach to war prisoners and the prisoners’ responses to their experience. He assesses American efforts as a “generous and merciful enemy” to use the prisoners as economic, military, and propagandistic assets. In the process, he never loses sight of the impact of imprisonment on the POWs themselves. Adding new dimensions to an important but often neglected topic in military history, Krebs probes the origins of the modern treatment of POWs. An epilogue describes an almost-forgotten 1785 treaty between the United States and Prussia, the first in western legal history to regulate the treatment of prisoners of war.
| Author | : Alvin Rabushka |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 968 |
| Release | : 2015-07-28 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0691168237 |
Taxation in Colonial America examines life in the thirteen original American colonies through the revealing lens of the taxes levied on and by the colonists. Spanning the turbulent years from the founding of the Jamestown settlement to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Alvin Rabushka provides the definitive history of taxation in the colonial era, and sets it against the backdrop of enormous economic, political, and social upheaval in the colonies and Europe. Rabushka shows how the colonists strove to minimize, avoid, and evade British and local taxation, and how they used tax incentives to foster settlement. He describes the systems of public finance they created to reduce taxation, and reveals how they gained control over taxes through elected representatives in colonial legislatures. Rabushka takes a comprehensive look at the external taxes imposed on the colonists by Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, as well as internal direct taxes like poll and income taxes. He examines indirect taxes like duties and tonnage fees, as well as county and town taxes, church and education taxes, bounties, and other charges. He links the types and amounts of taxes with the means of payment--be it gold coins, agricultural commodities, wampum, or furs--and he compares tax systems and burdens among the colonies and with Britain. This book brings the colonial period to life in all its rich complexity, and shows how colonial attitudes toward taxation offer a unique window into the causes of the revolution.
| Author | : Donald F. Johnson |
| Publisher | : University of Pennsylvania Press |
| Total Pages | : 264 |
| Release | : 2020-10-23 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0812252543 |
In Occupied America, Donald F. Johnson chronicles the everyday experience of ordinary people living under military occupation during the American Revolution. Focusing on day-to-day life in port cities held by the British Army, Johnson recounts how men and women from a variety of backgrounds navigated harsh conditions, mitigated threats to their families and livelihoods, took advantage of new opportunities, and balanced precariously between revolutionary and royal attempts to secure their allegiance. Between 1775 and 1783, every large port city along the Eastern seaboard fell under British rule at one time or another. As centers of population and commerce, these cities—Boston, New York, Newport, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston—should have been bastions from which the empire could restore order and inspire loyalty. Military rule's exceptional social atmosphere initially did provide opportunities for many people—especially women and the enslaved, but also free men both rich and poor—to reinvent their lives, and while these opportunities came with risks, the hope of social betterment inspired thousands to embrace military rule. Nevertheless, as Johnson demonstrates, occupation failed to bring about a restoration of imperial authority, as harsh material circumstances forced even the most loyal subjects to turn to illicit means to feed and shelter themselves, while many maintained ties to rebel camps for the same reasons. As occupations dragged on, most residents no longer viewed restored royal rule as a viable option. As Johnson argues, the experiences of these citizens reveal that the process of political change during the Revolution occurred not in a single instant but gradually, over the course of years of hardship under military rule that forced Americans to grapple with their allegiance in intensely personal and highly contingent ways. Thus, according to Johnson, the quotidian experience of military occupation directly affected the outcome of the American Revolution.
| Author | : Robert K. Wright |
| Publisher | : Washington, D.C. : Center of Military History, United States Army |
| Total Pages | : 476 |
| Release | : 1983 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : |
A narrative analysis of the complex evolution of the Continental Army, with the lineages of the 177 individual units that comprised the Army, and fourteen charts depicting regimental organization.
| Author | : Paul K. Walker |
| Publisher | : The Minerva Group, Inc. |
| Total Pages | : 424 |
| Release | : 2002-08 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9781410201737 |
This collection of documents, including many previously unpublished, details the role of the Army engineers in the American Revolution. Lacking trained military engineers, the Americans relied heavily on foreign officers, mostly from France, for sorely needed technical assistance. Native Americans joined the foreign engineer officers to plan and carry out offensive and defensive operations, direct the erection of fortifications, map vital terrain, and lay out encampments. During the war Congress created the Corps of Engineers with three companies of engineer troops as well as a separate geographer's department to assist the engineers with mapping. Both General George Washington and Major General Louis Lebéque Duportail, his third and longest serving Chief Engineer, recognized the disadvantages of relying on foreign powers to fill the Army's crucial need for engineers. America, they contended, must train its own engineers for the future. Accordingly, at the war's end, they suggested maintaining a peacetime engineering establishment and creating a military academy. However, Congress rejected the proposals, and the Corps of Engineers and its companies of sappers and miners mustered out of service. Eleven years passed before Congress authorized a new establishment, the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers.
| Author | : Mark Edward Lender |
| Publisher | : University of Oklahoma Press |
| Total Pages | : 625 |
| Release | : 2016-04-18 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0806155132 |
Historians have long considered the Battle of Monmouth one of the most complicated engagements of the American Revolution. Fought on Sunday, June 28, 1778, Monmouth was critical to the success of the Revolution. It also marked a decisive turning point in the military career of George Washington. Without the victory at Monmouth Courthouse, Washington's critics might well have marshaled the political strength to replace him as the American commander-in-chief. Authors Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone argue that in political terms, the Battle of Monmouth constituted a pivotal moment in the War for Independence. Viewing the political and military aspects of the campaign as inextricably entwined, this book offers a fresh perspective on Washington’s role in it. Drawing on a wide range of historical sources—many never before used, including archaeological evidence—Lender and Stone disentangle the true story of Monmouth and provide the most complete and accurate account of the battle, including both American and British perspectives. In the course of their account it becomes evident that criticism of Washington’s performance in command was considerably broader and deeper than previously acknowledged. In light of long-standing practical and ideological questions about his vision for the Continental Army and his ability to win the war, the outcome at Monmouth—a hard-fought tactical draw—was politically insufficient for Washington. Lender and Stone show how the general’s partisans, determined that the battle for public opinion would be won in his favor, engineered a propaganda victory for their chief that involved the spectacular court-martial of Major General Charles Lee, the second-ranking officer of the Continental Army. Replete with poignant anecdotes, folkloric incidents, and stories of heroism and combat brutality; filled with behind-the-scenes action and intrigue; and teeming with characters from all walks of life, Fatal Sunday gives us the definitive view of the fateful Battle of Monmouth.
| Author | : Charles Patrick Neimeyer |
| Publisher | : NYU Press |
| Total Pages | : 441 |
| Release | : 1995-11-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 081475872X |
A unique and revealing analysis of the diverse body that made up the American revolutionary army One of the images Americans hold most dear is that of the drum-beating, fire-eating Yankee Doodle Dandy rebel, overpowering his British adversaries through sheer grit and determination. The myth of the classless, independence-minded farmer or hard-working artisan-turned-soldier is deeply ingrained in the national psyche. Charles Neimeyer here separates fact from fiction, revealing for the first time who really served in the army during the Revolution and why. His conclusions are startling. Because the army relied primarily on those not connected to the new American aristocracy, the African Americans, Irish, Germans, Native Americans, laborers-for-hire, and "free white men on the move" who served in the army were only rarely altruistic patriots driven by a vision of liberty and national unity. Bringing to light the true composition of the enlisted ranks, the relationships of African-Americans and of Native Americans to the army, and numerous acts of mutiny, desertion, and resistance against officers and government, Charles Patrick Neimeyer here provides the first comprehensive and historically accurate portrait of the Continental soldier.
| Author | : Stephen Brumwell |
| Publisher | : Yale University Press |
| Total Pages | : 475 |
| Release | : 2018-05-29 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 0300235186 |
A historian examines how a once-ardent hero of the American Revolutionary cause became its most dishonored traitor. General Benedict Arnold’s failed attempt to betray the fortress of West Point to the British in 1780 stands as one of the most infamous episodes in American history. In the light of a shining record of bravery and unquestioned commitment to the Revolution, Arnold’s defection came as an appalling shock. Contemporaries believed he had been corrupted by greed; historians have theorized that he had come to resent the lack of recognition for his merits and sacrifices. In this provocative book Stephen Brumwell challenges such interpretations and draws on unexplored archives to reveal other crucial factors that illuminate Arnold’s abandonment of the revolutionary cause he once championed. This work traces Arnold’s journey from enthusiastic support of American independence to his spectacularly traitorous acts and narrow escape. Brumwell’s research leads to an unexpected conclusion: Arnold’s mystifying betrayal was driven by a staunch conviction that America’s best interests would be served by halting the bloodshed and reuniting the fractured British Empire. “Gripping… In a time when charges of treason and disloyalty intrude into our daily politics, Turncoat is essential reading.”—R. R. B. Bernstein, City College of New York “The most balanced and insightful assessment of Benedict Arnold to date. Utilizing fresh manuscript sources, Brumwell reasserts the crucial importance of human agency in history.”—Edward G. Lengel, author of General George Washington “An incisive study of the war and the very meaning of the American Revolution itself…. The defining portrait of Arnold for the twenty-first century.”—Francis D. Cogliano, author of Revolutionary America
| Author | : Piers Mackesy |
| Publisher | : U of Nebraska Press |
| Total Pages | : 604 |
| Release | : 1992-01-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780803281929 |
The events of the American Revolution signified by Lexington, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Saratoga, and Yorktown are familiar to American readers. Far less familiar is the fact that, for the British, the American colonies were only one front in a world war. England was also pitted against France and Spain. Not always in command of the seas and threatened with invasion, England tried grimly for eight years to subdue its rebellious colonies; to hold Canada, the West Indies, India, and Gibraltar; and to divide its European enemies. In this vivid history Piers Mackesy views the American Revolution from the standpoint of the British government and the British military leaders as they attempted to execute an overseas war of great complexity. Their tactical response to the American Revolution is now comprehensible, seen as part of a grand imperial strategy.
