The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [85]
Washington’s men had managed to surround a British army in Boston, and they had taken the critical high ground of Bunker Hill overlooking the harbor, thus endangering the ability of English warships to stay and support the troops.[92] Overnight, it seemed to the astonished British commanders, the American “rebels” on the hill erected dug-in positions with trenches and earthworks. General Howe, the British commander, decided to assault the hill after a crucial maneuver to cut off and isolate the Americans was botched. The English “won” the battle of Bunker Hill, but the cost was very high. It took three assaults to take the bastion, and even the last assault was facing destruction when the rebels ran out of bullets. Most of the Americans got away. The position endangering the harbor was taken, but the English remained surrounded in the town. Howe decided to depart by sea for New York, thus escaping the siege and achieving better accommodations. This left Boston to the American patriots.
The Declaration of Independence
1776
The Continental Congress argued about independence from England. Even though a shooting war was underway many colonists wanted to stay with England. After the revolution was over, John Adams estimated that no more than one-third of Americans actively supported a break with the British Empire. As the debate in Congress droned on, a fellow named Thomas Payne published a pamphlet entitled Common Sense arguing to the vacillating public that Americans should be free. Should an island rule a continent, he asked? Public opinion then shifted strongly toward independence. Congress responded and on July 4, 1776, adopted the Declaration of Independence, expertly penned by Thomas Jefferson. The break with England was complete, and now the Americans had to make the dream a reality. All those signing the declaration were traitors, and England would be overjoyed to hang them. Each pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause of freedom, and almost to a man they would sacrifice all three in the war for independence. Some died in action, many suffered bankruptcy, and all were stressed to the limit by the needs of the cause. These were the men who not only signed the charter of freedom but put everything they had on the line in a bid for success. Modern critics call them “dead white men.” But they were among the greatest men that ever lived. They signed a document declaring war on the mightiest empire of the time—the British Empire—and the chances of success were meager. England had fleets of ships while the Americans possessed none; England benefited from massive numbers of well-trained men while the Americans mustered farmers who never fought in an all-out war; England had money, and lots of it, while the Americans had little money to pay and feed an army. And these were only a few of the problems. The disparity in national strength was profound.
Early Defeats and Trenton—the Last Chance
These disadvantages were on display at once as the British inflicted a terrible series of defeats on Washington and his small army in the summer of 1776. New York and New Jersey easily fell to the British. Washington nearly lost his entire army, and the war, in these contests. In battle after battle he was outmaneuvered, and the English regulars and their German mercenaries, the Hessians, outfought his army. Washington’s men fought well enough for a relatively untried army, but they were consistently out flanked, outmaneuvered, or outnumbered so defeat followed defeat. By the winter of 1776, the men in the Continental Army were in rags, starving, and unpaid. Washington’s army had been 20,000 men, but the size had shriveled dramatically as defeat followed defeat. Many of the one year enlistments ended on January 1, 1777, when the army would dwindle to 3,000 men. Without money for food, clothing, and pay