1781

1781 PDF Author: Robert L. Tonsetic
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612000789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
A detailed chronicle—including eyewitness accounts—of the year American Patriots turned the tables on the British in the US War of Independence. In 1781, the future of America hung by a thread. British troops occupied key coastal cities, from New York to Savannah. After several harsh winters, the American army was fast approaching the breaking point. Mutinies began to emerge in George Washington’s ranks, and it was only the arrival of French troops that provided a ray of hope for the American cause. 1781 was a year of battles, from the Patriot victory in the Battle of Cowpens, to Gen. Nathaniel Greene’s impressive Southern campaign. In the Siege of Yorktown, the French fleet, the British fleet, Greene, Washington, and the French army under Rochambeau all converged in a fateful battle that would end with Cornwallis’s surrender on October 19. In this book, Robert Tonsetic provides a detailed analysis of the key battles and campaigns of 1781, supported by numerous eyewitness accounts, from privates to generals in the American, French, and British armies. He also describes the diplomatic efforts underway in Europe during 1781, as well as the Continental Congress’s actions to resolve the immense financial, supply, and personnel problems involved in maintaining an effective fighting army in the field.

1781

1781 PDF Author: Robert L. Tonsetic
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612000789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book

Book Description
A detailed chronicle—including eyewitness accounts—of the year American Patriots turned the tables on the British in the US War of Independence. In 1781, the future of America hung by a thread. British troops occupied key coastal cities, from New York to Savannah. After several harsh winters, the American army was fast approaching the breaking point. Mutinies began to emerge in George Washington’s ranks, and it was only the arrival of French troops that provided a ray of hope for the American cause. 1781 was a year of battles, from the Patriot victory in the Battle of Cowpens, to Gen. Nathaniel Greene’s impressive Southern campaign. In the Siege of Yorktown, the French fleet, the British fleet, Greene, Washington, and the French army under Rochambeau all converged in a fateful battle that would end with Cornwallis’s surrender on October 19. In this book, Robert Tonsetic provides a detailed analysis of the key battles and campaigns of 1781, supported by numerous eyewitness accounts, from privates to generals in the American, French, and British armies. He also describes the diplomatic efforts underway in Europe during 1781, as well as the Continental Congress’s actions to resolve the immense financial, supply, and personnel problems involved in maintaining an effective fighting army in the field.

The Guns of Independence

The Guns of Independence PDF Author: Jerome Greene
Publisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 1932714685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
In early 1781, after his victories in the Southern Colonies, Lord Cornwallis marched his army north into Virginia. He believed the Americans could be decisively defeated in Virginia and the war brought to an end. George Washington believed Cornwallis's move was a strategic blunder, and he moved vigorously to exploit it. Feinting against General Clinton and the British stronghold of New York, Washington marched his army quickly south. With the assistance of Rochambeau's infantry and a key French naval victory at the Battle off the Capes in September, Washington trapped Cornwallis on the tip of a narrow Virginia peninsula at a place called Yorktown. And so it began. Operating on the belief that Clinton would arrive with reinforcements, Cornwallis confidently remained within Yorktown's inadequate defenses. Determined that nothing short of outright surrender would suffice, his opponent labored day and night to achieve that end. Washington's brilliance was on display as he skillfully constricted Cornwallis's position by digging entrenchments, erecting redoubts and artillery batteries, and launching well-timed attacks to capture key enemy positions. The nearly flawless Allied campaign sealed Cornwallis's fate. Trapped inside crumbling defenses, he surrendered on October 19, 1781, effectively ending the war in North America.

The Invasion of Virginia 1781

The Invasion of Virginia 1781 PDF Author: Michael Cecere
Publisher: Journal of the American Revolu
ISBN: 9781594162794
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
By the sixth year of the American Revolution, Britain determined that Virginia would be the key to subduing the entire rebellion. The American War for Independence was fought in nearly every colony, but some colonies witnessed far more conflict than others. In the first half of the war, the bulk of military operations were concentrated in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Following the battle at Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey, in 1778, British strategy moved to the South, where their armies clashed with Continental troops in Georgia and South Carolina. Surprisingly, Virginia saw little fighting up to this point in the war. This changed suddenly in 1781, when the turncoat Benedict Arnold led 1,600 seasoned British troops on a successful raid up the James River to Richmond, destroying Patriot property along the way. Arnold's bold stroke demonstrated Virginia's vulnerability to attack and the possibility that the colonies could be divided and subdued piecemeal. British General Henry Clinton decided to reinforce Arnold in Virginia, while events in North Carolina, including the battle of Guilford Courthouse, convinced British General Charles Cornwallis that defeating the Patriots in Virginia was the key to ending the war. As historian Michael Cecere relates in The Invasion of Virginia 1781, the war's arrival in the largest colony had unintended consequences for Cornwallis and his powerful British force. -- Inside jacket flap.

Winning Independence

Winning Independence PDF Author: John Ferling
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635572770
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 753

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Book Description
Co-Winner of the 2022 Harry M. Ward Book Prize From celebrated historian John Ferling, the underexplored history of the second half of the Revolutionary War, when, after years of fighting, American independence often seemed beyond reach. It was 1778, and the recent American victory at Saratoga had netted the U.S a powerful ally in France. Many, including General George Washington, presumed France's entrance into the war meant independence was just around the corner. Meanwhile, having lost an entire army at Saratoga, Great Britain pivoted to a “southern strategy.” The army would henceforth seek to regain its southern colonies, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, a highly profitable segment of its pre-war American empire. Deep into 1780 Britain's new approach seemed headed for success as the U.S. economy collapsed and morale on the home front waned. By early 1781, Washington, and others, feared that France would drop out of the war if the Allies failed to score a decisive victory that year. Sir Henry Clinton, commander of Britain's army, thought “the rebellion is near its end.” Washington, who had been so optimistic in 1778, despaired: “I have almost ceased to hope.” Winning Independence is the dramatic story of how and why Great Britain-so close to regaining several southern colonies and rendering the postwar United States a fatally weak nation ultimately failed to win the war. The book explores the choices and decisions made by Clinton and Washington, and others, that ultimately led the French and American allies to clinch the pivotal victory at Yorktown that at long last secured American independence.

Alexander Hamilton and the Battle of Yorktown, October 1781

Alexander Hamilton and the Battle of Yorktown, October 1781 PDF Author: Phillip Thomas Tucker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510769366
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Discover the little-known role Alexander Hamilton played in the decisive battle of the American Revolution: Yorktown. Alexander Hamilton and the Battle of Yorktown, October 1781 is the first book in nearly two and a half centuries that has ever been devoted to the story of Alexander Hamilton’s key contributions in winning the most decisive victory the of the American Revolutionary war at Yorktown. Past biographies of Hamilton, including the most respected ones, have minimized the overall importance of the young lieutenant colonel’s role and battlefield performance at Yorktown, which was key to forcing the surrender of Lord Cornwallis’s army. Hamilton led the assault on strategic Redoubt Number Ten, located on the left flank of the British defensive line, and captured the defensive bastion—an accomplishment that ensured the defeat and surrender of Cornwallis’s army that won the American Revolution and changed the course of world history. You thought you knew the full story of the founding father of the American financial system from Lin Manual Miranda's Broadway smash hit Hamilton, but Alexander Hamilton and the Battle of Yorktown, October 1781 brings into sharp relief the vital role he played in the most important battle of the American Revolution, as told by renowned historian Phillip Thomas Ticker, PhD.

The Department of War, 1781-1795

The Department of War, 1781-1795 PDF Author: Harry M. Ward
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description


Peter Oliver’s “Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion”

Peter Oliver’s “Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion” PDF Author: Peter Oliver
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804706018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
One difficulty in writing a balanced history of the American Revolution arises in part from its success as a creator of our nation and our nationalistic sentiment. Unlike the Civil War, unlike the French Revolution, the American Revolution produced no lingering social trauma in the United States—it is a historic event widely applauded by Americans today as both necessary and desirable. But one consequence of this happy unanimity is that the chief losers of the War of Independence—the American Loyalists—have fared badly at the hands of historians. This explains, in part, why the account of the Revolution recorded by self-professed Loyalist and Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, Peter Oliver, has heretofore been so routinely overlooked. Oliver's manuscript, entitled "The Origins & Progress of the American Rebellion," written in 1781, challenges the motives of the founding fathers, and depicts the revolution as passion, plotting, and violence. His descriptions of the leaders of the patriot party, of their program and motives, are unforgiving, bitter, and inevitably partisan. But it records the impressions of one who had experienced these events, knew most of the combatants intimately, and saw the collapse of the society he had lived in. His history is a very important contemporary account of the origins of the revolution in Massachusetts, and is now presented here in it entirety for the first time.

Cornwallis Papersthe Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Theatre of the American Revolutionary War

Cornwallis Papersthe Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Theatre of the American Revolutionary War PDF Author: Charles Cornwallis Marquis Cornwallis
Publisher: Naval & Military Press
ISBN: 9781845747923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
"This work deals with Britain's last throw of the dice in the American Revolutionary War. Comprising six volumes, it contains a fully edited transcript of almost all the papers that were written by, or came before, Lord Cornwallis during his command in the south. The papers cover the siege of Charlestown, his tenuous occupation of South Carolina and Georgia, the autumn, winter and Virginia campaigns, and ultimately his capitulation at Yorktown. Among a mass of matters that are also covered are Craig's occupation of Wilmington, his operations there, the Spanish threat to East Florida, and the eventual collapse of British authority elsewhere in the south. The papers are arranged in 14 parts and 68 chapters. In view of the numberless inaccuracies published about the war most parts begin with an introductory chapter, the purpose of which is to present the papers in an accurate, balanced and dispassionate way. Whether such chapters are seen to succeed will, inevitably, depend to a degree on the perspective from which the papers are viewed. The papers open the door to re-evaluating certain aspects of the war. The introductory chapters very briefly provide pointers besides addressing certain important considerations that have long gone by default"--Publisher's description.

Cowpens 1781

Cowpens 1781 PDF Author: Ed Gilbert
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472822374
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
This is a blistering account of the battle of Cowpens, a short, sharp conflict which marked a crucial turning point in the American Revolution. With Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and the British troops in hot pursuit, Daniel Morgan, leading a small force of 700 Continentals and militia, chose the Cowpens as the battlefield in which to make a stand. The two forces clashed for barely more than 45 minutes, yet this brief battle shaped the outcome of the War in the South and decisively influenced the conflict as a whole. The authors provide a shrewd analysis of what was perhaps the finest tactical performance of the entire war. Bird's-eye views, vivid illustrations and detailed maps illuminate the dynamism of this clash between two of the most famous commanders of the War of Independence.

The Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation PDF Author: Merrill Jensen
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299002046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
"Here is a book which deals with clashes between economic and political factors in the American Revolution as realistically as if its author were dealing with a presidential election."--Social Studies "An admirable analysis. It presents, in succinct form, the results of a generation of study of this chapter of our history and summarizes fairly the conclusions of that study."--Henry Steele Commager, New York Times Book Review