American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), or the American War of Independence, was a conflict between Great Britain and its 13 North American colonies, who declared independence as the United States of America. Initially a rebellion within the British Empire, the war took on a global scope when France and Spain joined against the British, contributing to the eventual American victory.
The war was the central part of a broader political upheaval, the American Revolution (c. 1765-1789), which had taken root over a decade before the first shots were fired. The quarrel between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, over the issue of parliamentary taxes, steadily escalated, as colonists were divided into factions; the Whigs, or Patriots, opposed the taxes on the basis that they were unconstitutional, while the Tories, or Loyalists, remained in support of Great Britain. Tensions sometimes boiled over into acts of violence, such as the Boston Massacre (1770) and the Boston Tea Party (1773); a group of political agitators known as the Sons of Liberty was also known to assault Loyalists, tarring and feathering them.
In 1774, Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by issuing the so-called Intolerable Acts, which aimed to punish Boston by closing its harbor to commerce and suspending representative government in Massachusetts. In September 1774, 12 of the 13 colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress, where it was decided that the New England militias should begin preparing for a potential conflict with British soldiers. Amidst these rising tensions, General Thomas Gage, military governor of Massachusetts, knew that he could not crush a rebellion with the meager forces he had on hand and sought to suppress the New England militias before they had a chance to strike. He decided to achieve this by seizing stores of munitions that the militias had kept stockpiled in various towns.
Shortly after midnight on 19 April 1775, 700 elite British soldiers marched toward the town of Concord, where one such stockpile of weapons was stored. Despite Gage's attempts at discretion, the Patriots had discovered his intentions several days in advance; no sooner had the British troops set out than two Patriot riders, Paul Revere and William Dawes, were on their way to alert the militias. When the British soldiers reached the town of Lexington, on the road to Concord, they were confronted by 70 militiamen. After a brief standoff, a shot was fired; although it is unknown who fired it, it became immortalized as 'the shot heard round the world'. The British forces responded by firing two musket volleys, killing eight militiamen and wounding another ten.
After clearing the colonial militia off Lexington Green, the British continued on to Concord, where they encountered more resistance from 400 militiamen. After discovering that most of the munitions had already been removed by the Patriots, the soldiers began their 12-mile (19 km) retreat to Boston. The Patriots harassed them utilizing guerilla warfare, and by the end of the march, they had lost 273 casualties, compared to 95 Patriot losses. By then, the number of Patriots had swollen to 15,000 men. Encouraged by their victory in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Patriots laid siege to the 6,000 soldiers trapped inside Boston.
