The Art of War: The American War of Independence

Collection

U.S. History on Your Side

Jean-Christophe Malevil

The Art of War:

The

American

War

Of

Independence

U.S. History on Your Side

Introduction

The American colonists had a very special relationship with England since many of them originated from this country. As the days were passing by, the colonists enjoyed a salutary neglect. They were far from the English monarch who enjoyed in turn the bounties of his colonies. The trade on which the colonists and the king relied was of benefit to all of them. Not only did they feel free but also they were loyal to their English king. During the Seven Years War, siding with their English brothers, they took up arms against the French. After all, they were English subjects and should defend the crown if they were asked to do so. In 1763, the French and Indian War was over. By the mid 1760’s, the understanding between the American colonies and the mother country was crumbling. The harmony which had existed turned into discord when the English Parliament decided to tax the American colonies because of the high cost of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and thus all the colonies were thrown into turmoil. The more the colonists rose up against Britain, the more troops the British sent to enforce the laws. From skirmishes to attempts to settle matters, the relations between the two countries were so strained that they could break up at any time.

A chain of cause and effect was to disrupt the next years. The colonies declared their independence and plunged into a state of war. The reasons why the colonies wanted to secede from Britain were on different levels. There were those who wanted their liberty for they thought themselves oppressed by a tyrannical ruler or those who wanted freedom to get rid of England with which they had to share a part of their profits.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord (1775) triggered the American War of Independence. Many Americans subscribed to ideals of freedom simmering in the air. They wanted to fight for a just cause, that of liberty, and decide on their own future. They were ready to die. They were motivated. They inherited military techniques from the former French and Indian War but they had to pit their strength against the world’s largest navy and one of the best professional armies.

A major problem for the American colonists was that one third of the people remained loyal to the crown and another third did not know what to think about the war. The various colonies which rejected the authority of a king did not completely want to rely on the sole authority of a Continental Congress. The only force in the colonies was that of the militias but they were not trained for pitched battles even if they excelled in guerrilla warfare. The Continental Congress realized that relying only on guerrilla warfare would not allow the American colonists to take well populated cities and ports occupied by the British army. In order to win the American War of Independence, they had to demonstrate their ability to fight European types of battles. Then, they would be able to rely on foreign support.

The Continental Congress needed strategies, a military establishment like that of England and leadership. The war it intended to wage would require money, men and the experience of soldiers skilled in the art form of warfare such as it was waged in the 18th century. The American resistance to power got organized with great difficulty but how could the American colonists hope to defeat the English in the art of war?

Part I

American

Resistance

to

Power

1. The Rise of Patriotism in the Thirteen Colonies

1.1 Propaganda

In 1765, the Stamp Act generated a political storm for it affected nearly every member of colonial society, but elite leaders assumed direction of the resistance movement. Middle class artisans and business men created the Loyal Nine in Boston to fight the Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty went as far as using violence to prevent enforcement of British laws. By 1768, all over the Thirteen Colonies, merchants adopted a non-importation non-exportation and non-consumption agreement. This agreement was to collapse in July 1770 but be that as it may, the Sons of Liberty resisted taxation by not drinking taxed tea.

In 1768, Samuel Adams who was closely linked to the Loyal Nine defied Massachusetts’ royal governor by drafting a circular letter to the colonies appealing to them to think about their common grievances. Samuel Adams’ Committees of Correspondence requested that appointed people exchange information and spread it throughout New England. The Committees of Correspondence slowly became effective tools in the fight against Great Britain and coordinated measures to defend colonial rights. Even women themselves had played a major role in the rise of patriotism. The Daughters of Liberty had a moral influence on public opinion.

But thoughts are often higher designs than going up to the front line or making guerrilla warfare are. As early as the 17th century there was a growing feeling of self-reliance among colonists and the feeling that they could be autonomous. These sentiments were transferred into literature and religion

New England and more particularly Boston became a hotbed of revolutionary activism for independence from Great Britain. New England’s Patriots played leading roles in establishing the new nation at the end of the war. Strange as it may be, the majority of colonists had but little enthusiasm about the idea of any independence whatsoever but ten per cent of fervent activists made every effort to win them over.

Propaganda was the main vitriolic and ferocious weapon used by the Patriots to manipulate public attitudes in the colonies and especially in New England where it was organised through meetings and publications. It contributed greatly to the victory. We can define propaganda as being the spreading of ideas, information, or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person as well as being ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause{1}. During the American War of Independence, propaganda was above all an organised effort to conceal facts and policies. The role of propaganda was to control public opinion and to stimulate the desire for independence. It was the art of telling people what they wanted to hear. Thomas Paine understood that he had to put the idea in the colonists’ heads that independence was the only good decision to make. 

Propaganda had different forms. There were newspapers, pamphlets or speeches whose concepts were often abstract and led to many interpretations. But its very aim was to have power over people’s thoughts. Thanks to Committees of Correspondence, propaganda was floating in the air and slowly began lurking in men’s soul. Thus, the Boston Massacre, which was at the least the result of provocation, passed into American folklore as a characteristically brutal attempt by the military to put down peaceful protest by ill-used citizens. {2}

The leadership of newspaper publications was in the hands of printers under pseudonyms making mountains out of molehills. The press often gave personal opinions rather than factual accounts. All followed Samuel Adams’s motto: Where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will enkindle it. Propaganda was used as a weapon and it was as efficient as any military weapon:

Deflowering virgins," together with bayoneting wounded prisoners, was, according to the patriot newspapers, the art of war as practised by the British army.

{3}

The British army punished itself by mistreating its prisoners for those who escaped from its jails were a godsend for propagandists. Benjamin Franklin, for his part, "[compiled] a School Book of choice atrocity stories, profusely illustrated and also printed a fictitious newspaper… containing an account of the cruelties perpetrated by the Indians at the orders of the British… This fabrication… was regarded as a genuine document."{4} Propagandists made it their duty to show the colonists that Britain was not as fair as she pretended to be and that the forgiveness she promised was but hot air. It was a period when the Patriots needed to convince not only other Americans but also the whole of Europe of the legitimacy of their rebellion.   

In 1775, 42 newspapers were published in the colonies{5}, 15 of them were printed in New England. The Boston Gazette had a circulation of several thousand copies. But according to Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, nine tenths of what was read in the newspapers of occurrences in Boston was either utterly counterfeit or revoltingly distorted and adulterated. Moreover, Patriots never hesitated to destroy or burn any press which might have published negative items about them and their actions. But newspapers such as the