An indispensable resource for investigating America's War for Independence, this book provides a comprehensive yet concise narrative that combines the author's original perspectives with the latest scholarship on the subject.Without the War for Independence and its successful outcome for the patriots, the course of American development-our institutions, culture, politics, and economics-would have run in radically different directions. From any perspective, the War for Independence was one of the seminal events of national history. This book offers a clear, easy-to-read, and complete overview of the origins of the imperial crisis, the course of the war, and the ultimate success of the movement for independence. It also emphasizes the human cost of the struggle: the ferocity of the fighting that stemmed from the belief among participants on all sides that defeat was tantamount to cultural, political, and even physical extinction.The narrative encompasses the author's original insights and takes advantage of the newest scholarship on the American Revolution. The book includes primary documents and biographical sketches representative of the various participants in the revolutionary struggle-for example, private soldiers, senior officers, loyalists, women, blacks, and Indians-as well as famous speeches and important American and British official documents. The edited documents offer readers a sense of the actual voices of the revolutionary struggle and a deeper understanding of how primary documents serve historians' narration and interpretation of long-ago events. The result is a new synthesis that brings a deeper understanding of America's defining struggle to an informed public readership as well as college and high school students.

Explains how a colonial rebellion in America became part of a world war

List of IllustrationsSeries ForewordPreface and AcknowledgmentsChronologyPrologue: "In Arms and in Motion": The Origins of a WarChapter 1. Fortunes of War: Patriot High Tide and Imperial CounterattackChapter 2. New Realities, New Challenges: From Colonial Rebellion to World WarChapter 3. Imperial Reset: New Strategy, New ProblemsChapter 4. Patriot Nadir: War without End, 1780Chapter 5. The Wars within the War: Stark Challenges, Dark RealitiesChapter 6. Fortunes of War: The Southern CampaignsChapter 7. Yorktown and BeyondEpilogue: A War in RetrospectAnalytical EssaysDefining Moments: The Battle of Trenton Reconsidered: Did a Raid Really Save the Revolution?Perspectives Essay: "Do Not Quite Despair": Patriot Logistics and the Struggle for VictoryCounterfactual Essay: The "Indispensable Man": Would the Revolution Have Succeeded without George Washington?Biographical EssaysBenedict Arnold (1741-1801)John Barry (1745-1803)Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea (1743-1807)Dragging Canoe (ca. 1738-1792)Johann Ewald (1744-1813)Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)Bernardo de Gálvez (1746-1786)Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834)William Livingston (1723-1790)Flora MacDonald (1722-1790)Joseph Plumb Martin (1760-1850)Robert Morris (1734-1806)Frederick North, Lord North (1732-1792)Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)Comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807)Peter Salem (ca. 1750-1816)Deborah Samson (1760-1827)Han Yerry Tewahangarahken (ca. 1724-ca. 1794)Colonel Tye, or Titus Cornelius (ca. 1753-1780)Primary DocumentsSpeech of Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775, Richmond, VirginiaChief Dragging Canoe Warns against Land Treaties with the Americans, 1775Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775George III Closes Parliament with Observations on America, 1776General Washington Reports a Grim Military Situation, December 1776Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1John McCarter Recalls the Death in Action of Two of His PupilsJohn Laurens Argues for the Emancipation and Enlistment of Black Troops, February 2, 1778Captain George Hanger on the Eve of Battle, June 27, 1778The Reverend Nicholas Collin Despairs as Civil War Rends His Congregation, 1778Two Songs, Two Sides"I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight!" John Paul Jones Battles HMS SerapisThe Ladies of Trenton Raise Funds for the Continental Army, July 4, 1780Lieutenant Colonel Francis Barber Laments the State of the New Jersey Troops, February 28, 1781Nathanael Greene Decides to Take the War into South Carolina, 1781Thomas Jefferson Describes Cornwallis's Occupation of Elkhill Plantation, 1781Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe Learns He Must Surrender at YorktownEdward Gibbon Explains the British Loss of the American ColoniesJoseph Plumb Martin Recalls His Discharge from the Army, 1783George Washington Bids Farewell to the Continental Army, November 2, 1783Annotated BibliographyIndex