The Revolutionary War

Patrick Henry

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be

purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what

course others may take; but as for me, give

me liberty or give me death!

--Patrick Henry, 1775

Thomas Paine

“ON the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense”

Richard Henry Lee

Resolved, That these United Colonies are,

and of right ought to be, free and

independent States, that they are absolved

from all allegiance to the British Crown, and

that all political connection between them

and the State of Great Britain is, and ought

to be, totally dissolved.

--Richard Henry Lee

The Declaration Committee

Thomas Jefferson

The Graff House

Jefferson’s “original Rough draught”

Revolutionary War Timeline

•Battle of Trenton 1776

Surprise Attack

Reinvigorated the Colonists

Washington Crossing the Delaware

Independence Hall (1778) (Declaration Chamber)

Benjamin Franklin

“We must all hang

together, or

assuredly we shall

all hang separately.”

John Hancock

“There, I guess King

George will be able to

read that.”

King George III

The Declaration of Independence (John Trumbull)

Jefferson’s epitaph

“Author of the

Declaration of

Independence [and] of

the Statute of Virginia

for religious toleration &

Father of the University

of Virginia”

Washington Crossing the Delaware (Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze)

Note…Surprise attack at Battle of Trenton, German Artist painted in 1850 to inspire European Revolutions of 1848

Burgoye’s Surrender at Saratoga

Trumbull 1822

Washington at Valley Forge

• Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was a onetime member of the elite General Staff of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. No longer in the Prussian Army, indeed without employment of any kind, von Steuben offered his military skills to the patriot cause. Washington immediately assigned him the duties of Acting Inspector General with the task of developing and carrying out an effective training program. He was a drill instructor, he was full of energy, and he taught the soldiers how to fire their guns faster.

• Numerous obstacles threatened success. No standard American training manuals existed, and von Steuben himself spoke little English. Undaunted, he drafted his own manual in French. His aides often worked late into the night, translating his work into English.

• Von Steuben shocked many American officers by breaking tradition to work directly with the men. One officer wrote of von Steuben's "peculiar grace" as he took "under his direction a squad of men in the capacity of drill sergeant.“ Washington, with von Steuben's aid, had made an army of the Continental troops. With their French allies, the Americans could now proceed with the war, which would rage on for many years.[4]

• Battle of Saratoga (1777)–Turning Point of the War–French Enter

The Northwest Campaign (1778-79)

George Rogers Clark

Battle of Yorktown 1781• Last Major Battle• Cornwallis surrenders

Surrender of Cornwallis (John Trumbull)

Treaty of Paris of 1783

"We were better

tacticians than was

imagined.“

--John Adams

Treaty of Pars• Officially Ends the war• Articulated Borders (everything east of Mississppi

and from Great lakes to Florida• Allow the collection of debts • Respect loyalists property