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The American Revolutionary War Essay

The Revolutionary War which started in 1775 and ended in 1783, also recognized as the Revolution of America, resulted from rising tensions between the occupants of the 13 Great Britain colonies of North America and the central government that supported the British Empire. The armed conflict began in April 1775 with battles between colonial military men and British troops in Concord and Lexington, and the rebels waged a complete war for freedom the next summer. France joined the colonist’s side of the American Revolution in 1778, transforming what had become a civil war to international conflict. In 1781, the Continental Army effectively won its independence after France assistance helped Britain surrender at Virginia, although the war was not officially over until 1783.

The Cause for the War

Tensions were rising between British authority and colonists for years before the American Revolution's uprising in 1775.

The Indian and French Wars (1756-1763), or the Seven-year war, brought the supremacy of the Crown to new territories. The costly conflict, however, brought about new unpopular taxes. The British government's efforts to increase revenues by targeting high taxes to the colonies (in particular, the 1765 Stamp Act, the 1767 Townshend act, and the 1773 Tea Act) met with high protest between several colonists, complaining about their lack of parliamentary representation and requested equal rights with other British subjects.

In 1770, a revolutionary rebellion led to violence when soldiers of Britain unleashed fire against a local mob, killing five people in what is now called the Boston Massacre. After the December of 1773, the outraged Parliament enacted several measures (known as Coercive, or Intolerable Acts), when the Indian mohawk band was performing in the Mohawk Indian outfit, focusing upon British ships, dumped 342 tea chests in Massachusetts in the Boston Tea Party.

The reciprocal meeting in Philadelphia in September 1774 was a group of colonial delegate members, including John and Samuel Adam of Massachusetts, George Washington, John Jay of N.Y., and Patrick Henry of Virginia. The First Continental Congress opposed unrepresented political and the retention of territories of the British army rather than seeking freedom from Britain. It stated rights due to every citizen, including property, freedom, assembly, jury trial, and life. In May of 1775, the Continental Congress voted to meet again, but violence had already erupted by that time.

Thousands of British soldiers moved from Boston to nearby Concord, Massachusetts, on the night of 18 April 1775, to seize a cache of weapons. The alarm sounded from Paul Revere and other drivers, and colonial militiamen started mobilizing to stop the Red coats. Local militiamen fought with British soldiers in the Battles of Concord in Massachusetts and Lexington on April 19, representing a "shot heard around the world," which marked the beginning of the War.

The war had extended into other regions in the first spring of 1776. American troops stopped British invasions at Moore's Creek in North Carolina and Sullivan's Island in Charleston. The US invasion of Canada stalls and ends up failing at the end of the year, following initial successes, particularly the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in the Upstate of New York. Towards the end of 1775 and the beginning of 1776, the British quickly built up forces to strike back in Canada and New York. The British invaded New York in the summer of 1776, after five successive losses for Washington's troops in the Harlem Heights, Long Island, White Plains, Fort Washington and Fort Lee.

Declaration for Independence

In Philadelphia, at the Second Continental Congress, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, among other delegates, voted in favor of the establishment of the Continental Army, and Washington as its commander. On 17 June, the colonial forces incurred high casualties on General William Howe's British government on Breed's Hill, Boston, in the first major struggle of the Revolution. The battle, known as Bunker Hill Fight, resulted in British success, which brought the revolutionary cause support. The US troops had struggled to keep British people in Massachusetts throughout the winter and fall. Artillery seized at Ticonderoga in New York added to a shift in the balance of that battle at the end of winter. Throughout March 1776, the British abandoned the town, and Howe and his troops fled to Canada to plan for a great New York war.

The End of the War

Towards the 1781 fall, Green's U.S forces had succeeded in pushing Cornwallis and all his troops to retreat to Virginia's Yorktown, where York River flushed into the Chesapeake Bay. Washington marched toward Yorktown helped by the French army under General .J.B.de Rochambeau with a total number of 14,000 forces. In contrast, a group of French underwater warships about36 in number stopped the British from reinforcing or evacuating. Cornwallis was captured and defeated and compelled on 19 October to give up his entire unit. The General for the British, claiming sickness, dispatched his subordinate Charles O'Hara to surrender (The Frenchman fled to Washington), and Washington bowed to Benjamin Lincoln, his deputy, as he asked Rochambeau to surrender his sword.

While in the battle of Yorktown, the protest for the independence of America was successful, modern viewers did not yet see it as a decisive victory. British forces stayed positioned around New York, and Charleston was still home to the main strong army.

Although none of the two sides took decisive action for two years, the withdrawal of British forces from Savannah and Charleston at the end of the war finally pointed to the solution. American and British delegates negotiated provisional peace conditions in late November of that year in Paris and Great Britain officially recognized the freedom of the U.S in the Paris Treaty on 3 September 1783. At that same time, Britain concluded separate peace deals with Spain and France (who had joined into the war in 1779), drawing to an end the Revolution of America after a long eight years. The British still controlled Charleston, Savannah, CanadaThe American Revolutionary War Essay, and New York at the time the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, ending the war in favor of the American colonists.

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