American Revolution - Who Had the Better Chance of Winning?
The American Revolution had started. The American colonists were fighting to be free from
England. Who had the better chance of winning? Both sides had things that would help them.
There were also many things that would hurt them in the war.
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The colonists who wanted to be free were called Patriots. They would have a tough battle
ahead of them. England was very powerful. Some colonists did not want to fight England. The
Patriots would have to fight them, too. The colonists did not have a lot of training. They did not
have many cannons or gunpowder. England had a navy. The colonists did not.
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The colonists did have advantages. The Patriots had rifles. They were very good shots. They
had a great leader. George Washington would be in charge of the army. He had fought in the
French and Indian War. He knew how to fight in a war. He would be a great leader.
3
The Patriots were fighting on their own land. They would be protecting their homes and
farms. They would not want to give up their land to the British. Many Patriots would die trying
to protect what they owned.
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The English soldiers were very strong. They had a lot of training. Many of them had fought
in other wars. England also had a strong navy. It was the best in the world. The ships could move
the soldiers quickly.
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African Americans fought on England's side. England promised freedom to slaves who
helped them win the war. Native Americans also helped England. They did not want the
colonists to win. England hired people to fight with them. These soldiers came from Germany.
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Many of the colonists wanted England to win. These colonists were called Loyalists or
Tories. Many colonists were Loyalists. They did not want to be free of England. They thought
the other colonists should not fight the war. They were merchants. They were also part of the
English government. Many Loyalists lived in the south. Few lived in the north.
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The Loyalists had a tough time during the war. The Patriots would tar and feather people who
wanted England to win. Many Loyalists had to leave their homes. They went back to England or
to Canada. Many lost their homes and their stores.
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England had problems in the war, too. England was fighting three thousand miles from
home. Soldiers and supplies took months to get to the colonies. It also took months for messages
to get back to England. English soldiers were not sure how to fight in the forests. They marched
in straight lines. That made it easy for the colonists to hide behind trees and shoot them.
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Both sides had a chance to win the war. There were things that would help them and things
that would hurt them. It would be many years until a winner was clear.
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1. Why did the colonists have a tough battle ahead of them at the beginning of the
Revolutionary War?
2. What advantages did the colonists have in their fight against England?
3. What challenges did the English face in their fight against the colonists?
4. Who do you think had the best chance of winning the Revolutionary War? Why?
The Midnight Ride
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Listen, my children, and you shall hear
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Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
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On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
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Hardly a man is now alive
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Who remembers that famous day and year.
That is a part of a poem. It was written by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. He wrote it in 1860. The poem is about an important
part of history.
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Paul Revere was born in 1734. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the second
child born in his family. Paul Revere went to a writing school when he was young. Then, he
became a student of his father. His father was a gold and silversmith. His father taught him
everything he knew. Paul became a copper engraver.
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In 1756, he joined the military. Paul got married. He and his wife had children. They had
seven daughters. They had a son. Paul's wife died. He got married again. Together with his
new wife, they had five sons. They had three daughters.
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On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride. Dr. Joseph Warren sent for Paul.
He wanted him to ride to Lexington, Massachusetts. He was to warn Samuel Adams and John
Hancock. He had to tell them that the British troops were coming. The troops were coming to
arrest them. The people of the towns of Lexington and Concord had to be warned, too, that the
British were coming.
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Paul Revere came up with a signal. There was a church bell tower in the middle of
Boston. It could be seen easily. If the British troops were coming by water across the river,
two lanterns would be hanging in the tower. If the troops were coming by land, one lantern
would be hung. On that famous night, two lanterns were hung in the tower.
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Paul Revere took off on horseback. He warned the people that the troops were coming.
Two more riders joined Paul to help. One's name was William Dawes. His name was Dr.
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Samuel Prescott. Dr. Prescott was the one who went on to Concord. The British stopped the
other two riders. They took Paul's horse.
Paul walked the rest of the way to Lexington. He got there just in time to see the battle on
Lexington Green. Paul Revere's warning helped the American troops. They were able to stop
the British.
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Paul Revere's ride became a part of American history. Experts say that Paul Revere had an
important part of the American Revolution. He not only warned the American troops. He
created an important alarm and message system.
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After the war, Paul went back to his business. He made silverware. He made church bells.
Paul Revere died in 1818. Church bells rang to let people know he had died. Some of the bells
were those that Paul had made.
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1. Who was Paul Revere?
2. How did Revere help the colonists in their fight against England?
Lexington and Concord
The colonists were getting ready for war. Each colony started a
militia. The militias started to train. They needed to learn how to fight.
They were getting ready to fight a war. The militia would be fighting
sooner than they thought.
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The colonists started to gather weapons. They put these weapons in
Concord. Concord was about twenty miles from Boston, Massachusetts.
The colony began to train people to fight. The people were called
minutemen. They were called this because they were ready to fight in a
minute.
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England sent more troops to Boston. Soon, there were four thousand troops in the city. An
English general heard about the weapons. He decided to surprise the colonists. He sent seven
hundred troops to Concord. They were to destroy the weapons.
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The troops left at night on April 18, 1775. They thought no one saw them leave. They were
wrong. Colonists were watching the soldiers. They hung lamps in a church. The lamps meant the
soldiers were leaving.
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Paul Revere jumped on his horse. He rode to Lexington. It was about five miles from
Concord. He warned the colonists that the soldiers were coming. The soldiers arrived in
Lexington on April 19. Seventy minutemen were waiting. No one knows who fired first. When it
was over, eight colonists were dead. The soldiers went to Concord and destroyed the weapons. It
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looked like they had won the battle.
They didn't know the battle wasn't over. The soldiers started to march back to Boston.
Outside Concord there were three hundred minutemen waiting for them. The soldiers had to
retreat. They tried to get back to Boston. In the forests, there were four thousand colonists hiding.
They shot at the soldiers all the way back to Boston. In the end, the English soldiers were
defeated. Seventy-three soldiers had been killed. About two hundred were injured or missing.
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The minutemen were considered heroes. They had fought in the first battle of what would be
the Revolutionary War. Sixty years after the battle, a famous poet would write about what they
had done.
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A difficult time was ahead for the colonists. The war would be long. Many men would die.
The battles at Lexington and Concord had ended any hope of stopping the war. It was too late.
They had come too far. Their only choice now was to fight for freedom.
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1. Who were minutemen?
2. Why were the minutemen considered heroes?
The Battle of Bunker Hill
The Patriots had lost early battles in the war. They weren't going
to give up. The American soldiers went to Boston. They surrounded
the town. British soldiers could not attack. They were trapped in
Boston. It did not look like the war would end quickly. The
Americans did not want to lose.
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In 1775, the Patriots were in charge of two hills near Boston.
Hills were important in the war. They were easier to defend. The
British general wanted to be in charge of the hills. He decided to attack the Americans. He would
force them to leave the hills.
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The British soldiers attacked on June 17. They sent a lot of soldiers up the first hill. It was
named Breed's Hill. This is where most of the battle was fought. The soldiers marched in a
straight line. There were people beating drums. Other soldiers carried flags.
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The soldiers got close to the Americans. That is when the Americans fought back. There
were 1,600 Patriots on the hill. They fired their guns as fast as they could. The British soldiers
had to slow down. Soon, they had to retreat.
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The British soldiers did not give up. They started up the hill a second time. The Patriots
waited for them to get close. Then they shot at the soldiers again. The British soldiers made it a
little closer to the top of the hill. But they had to give up again. Soon, they had to retreat to the
bottom of the hill.
The British general would not give up. He told the soldiers to attack for a third time. The
soldiers had to crawl over the bodies of the soldiers that had already been shot. This time they
made it to the top of the hill. The Patriots had run out of gunpowder. They could not fight back
against the British any longer. They had to retreat off Breed's Hill.
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The British soldiers then attacked Bunker Hill. There were not as many Patriots there. They
did not have any ammunition either. The British quickly made it to the top of that hill, too.
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The British soldiers had won the battle. The British army had lost a lot. At the beginning of
the battle, there were almost 2,400 British soldiers. At the end, almost 1,100 had been killed or
hurt. The Patriots had done much better. Fewer than 400 soldiers had been killed or wounded.
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The Battle of Bunker Hill was the first large battle of the American Revolution. It showed the
British that the Americans were not afraid to fight. It also showed the Americans that the British
would not be easy to defeat. Both sides would struggle while trying to win the war.
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1. Why were hills important in the war?
2. Who won the Battle of Bunker Hill?
3. What was important about the Battle of Bunker Hill?
Colonial soldiers
It is not easy to be a soldier. Before you can ever face the enemy, you have to go through
hard training. If you don't, you will not be ready for battle. When you do go into battle, it is very
dangerous. You also have to be ready to face the fact that you might need to take the life of
another human being. The life of the colonial soldier was made harder by the fact that it was a
very unusual war. The enemy they faced came from their own homeland. They might even have
come from the same town.
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The British army was very powerful. The men were well trained and well supplied. Many of
the men chose to be in the army to stay out of jail. Some chose the army because they could not
find a job that would pay enough to feed their families. Although the money they got was not
much, it was better than begging or going to debtors' prison. In times of war, the British
government offered much more money than they could earn in menial jobs. In the army they
received food, clothing, education, and money for their families.
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The colonists didn't always see the need for an army. When the English king started taxing
the colonists in a way the citizens did not like, many felt they needed a force of men to protect
them from their protectors. The training the colonists received was not very good and was
usually given by former members of the British army. Small groups of citizens of a town would
train together in a militia, or voluntary force.
3
The British army had a long musket they called the "Brown Bess." It was very accurate for
long range shooting. It was hard to load and took a considerable amount of time to get ready to
shoot. The colonists only had hunting muskets they used to put food on their tables. Many were
old and well used.
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The British wore elegant uniforms. They had white ruffled shirts and white, tight leggings
which came to their knees. They wore tall black boots and tall black hats. The most striking part
of the uniform was the bright red coat with gold braid. This bright coat is the reason they were
called "Redcoats" or, if it was an insult, "Lobsterbacks." Most of the colonial army wore the
clothes they brought with them to battle. Those lucky enough to have a uniform had something
similar to the British, except the coats were blue.
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Perhaps the biggest difference between the British and Colonials was in their fighting styles.
The British marched closely to each other in rows. When they were ready to do battle, one row
dropped down to their knees, and the second row stood over their shoulders. They maintained
this formation until they received an order from their commander to move on or retreat. The
colonists didn't use any kind of formation. They hid behind trees, rocks, or hills to do their
shooting. They would shoot and then run to a new location. The British had only seen this type
of warfare when they had fought against the Indians in America. Colonial leaders such as George
Washington had noticed that this type of attack had been quite successful and used it against the
British. The method proved to be a big advantage in helping the Patriots win the war. It didn't
hurt that the colonists were fighting on land that they were familiar with. It also was a matter of
great pride for them to know that they were fighting for what they believed was theirs to begin
with, freedom in a new world.
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1. Why was the British Army powerful?
2. Compare the weapons that the British army had to the weapons the colonists had.
3. How was the fighting style of the English different than the fighting style of the
Colonials?