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On the morning of 19 April 1775, British rebels waited for the arrival of the British militia on the green at Lexington, Massachusetts. The British army had reports that two ringleaders of what we would now call 'insurgents' were in Lexington and that there was an arms cache in nearby Concord. Here was the scene of martyrdom and the start of the war of American Independence. If the rebels had been put down and the British had not been forced to retreat to Boston perhaps the war would not have started, although gaining independence was only a matter of time anyway.
George Washington, who had learned his soldiering with the British, was given command of the Continental Army. In January 1776, the Englishman Thomas Paine's Common Sense appeared which was the first argued published work for American independence. On 4 July 1776 came the Declaration of Independence. In 1777, the surrender at Saratoga of General John Burgoyne (1722-1799), who led the British from Canada, was good reason for the French to join on America's side.
The deciding event of the war was in October 1781. The British commander in Virginia, Charles Cornwallis (see below) had many successes against the Americans in the south. During the summer of 1781, Washington's army was suffering from disease and mutiny and everything looked optimistic for the British. Cornwallis advanced on Chesapeake Bay, set up his base at Yorktown and thought he would be supported by the Royal Navy. But the French had told Washington that his attack plan in the north was wasted and that he should march south to Virginia.
Washington was not happy being told what to do by the French, but nevertheless followed the argument and the French and American armies arrived in Virginia in September 1781. The French Navy then attacked the British fleet in Chesapeake Bay and the Royal Navy retreated to New York, leaving Cornwallis isolated. In October, Cornwallis was forced to surrender Yorktown. From that moment, the British recognized the war was lost.
Cornwallis was the son of the first Earl Cornwallis and became the first Marquess Cornwallis. He began his soldiering as a cadet at the Turin Military Academy and was an aide to the Marquess of Granby during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). His surrender at Yorktown did not mean the end of his public career. For seven years, he was governor general and commander-in-chief in India (1786-1793). He returned to England and was sent as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, where he put down the 1798 rebellion. In 1802, he negotiated the so-called Peace Treaty of Amiens with the French that was only a truce. Ironically, that war with France saw the distinguished action of his admiral brother, William who for two years blockaded Brest and so did a great deal to thwart Napoleon's plan to invade southern England.
At the surrender of Yorktown, the British forces were not the proud and distinguished troops often portrayed in popular stories. It is said that when Cornwallis's men paraded through the lines of their French and American victors, the band played The World Turned Upside Down.
Thoughts on the Battle of Lexington by an eye witness.
Sylvanus Wood, who claimed to have been one of the rebel survivors of Lexington Green battle, addresses the President.
"Mr. President: The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasonings with each other is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances. I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"
Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson
"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
