One of the amazing things about the American Revolution is that we beat the best army in the world. Washington was pretty amazing.
While I am in no way disagreeing with the writer, he seems to have forgotten a lesson, I learned during a tour of Shiloh.
“Winners get National Cemeteries and the narrative, while the losers get a common mass grave and scorn.”
Spoken by a man who had at least two relatives buried in that mass grave.
Taking money to take away other people freedom doesn’t make you a good person, even if you are brave, even if you are good at it.
In reality, MacArthur was a brave man. I recall reading a story about an infantryman in the Pacific. I believe it was during the New Guinea campaign. Anyway, the infantryman was advancing through hostile jungle, and he glanced to his side. There was MacArthur, doing a little recon of his own with a few staff officers.
Some British tactics were OK, some were foolhardy. But the overall strategy set by the top generals was incoherent. Both Burgoyne and Howe made major mistakes in the first years of the war. The British never really recovered from these errors.
The other problem was that all soldiers, and most supplies, had to be shipped across 3000 miles of ocean. This was enormously expensive. The American forces could recruit soldiers locally.
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I studied a fair amount about the American Revolution and it still is an interest of mine. I have to say that I don’t remember Cornwallis being portrayed as some stuffy snob. I remember him being portrayed in most of what I read as an aristocrat who initially opposed the war, but then was an intelligent, risk-taking commander who fought well. The one really bad thing I heard about him was that he fired into his own troops to try to win a battle. Howe is the one who was portrayed as dithering and undercutting his field commanders.
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In the 1950s, I once played in that cave. I would ride my bike with my friends from Hampton to Yorktown, where we would play on the battlefield all day and then ride back to arrive home before the street lights came on.
I haven’t seen it in 55+ years, but I’ll bet someone has the cave cordoned off and all decked out with period furnishings that weren’t there when my friends and I played there.
Of course, if a ten year old kid were to ride a bicycle from Hampton to Yorktown today without adult supervision, the law would butt in and get involved.
What a nice way to say rapine and pillage, leaving a path of destruction as wide but more complete than Sherman did with a much larger army.
The American geography was exceptionally daunting. Well-trained troops used to fighting on mostly flat territory in Europe faced a much rougher environment in the heavily forested and mountainous America. Plus, the winters were much harsher, and some places, like the South, could and did cause Brit soldiers to come down with bad diseases.
In short, the British army would have needed a much larger army to subdue the rebels and more time. With all the other stuff they had going on in Europe and other places, they couldn't do it.
My wife and O have been enjoying a series on Netflix about the revolution. “Turn - Washinton’s Spies” is a pretty good historical drama roughly based on the Culper spy ring, and features many characters on both sides based on history. I’m sure much of the story line is invented in the fine details, but many facts we have checked are portrayed fairly accurately. Well worth watching... especially for the sense of honor and duty from soldiers on both sides.
I’m sure they fought it bravely, but thankfully the British public quickly got tired of the engagement.
[PAUSE]
The Settlers say that they can wear anything they want and shoot from behind rocks and bushes and everywhere;
The British must wear red and march in a straight line.
The Coin Toss
Bill Cosby
I don’t think too many British have been disparaged other than Banastre Tarleton.
Contrary to popular depiction, the American Revolution was just as much a civil war as the later Civil War. A third sided with the revolutionaries, a third were Loyalists and a third tried their best to stay out of it. Calling one side “the British” is misleading. They all were, but a third of them fought and won to cease being British. Had they lost, the history would be entirely different, as would the perception of the people who fought and lost.
A British Sniper could have killed Washington but he didn't shoot him because Washington had his back to him as he rode by. The British Sniper thought it wouldn't have been honorable to shoot him in the back.
Meanwhile, the outnumbered and outclassed Americans used Guerrilla War tactics to pick off the regimented British Troops, something that was considered outside the boundaries of War in Civilized Society.
While we talk of the Battles, any little thing could have changed the course of History.
They were the est army in the world. They were defeated by people fighting for an ideal.
Funny how that happens.