-
Batte of Lexington
British soldiers went to Concord to seize illegal guns that the minutemen had. They were met with 70 minutemen and when told to put down their guns, they walked away with the guns. Someone fired, 8 minutemen were killed, 10 injured and 1 British soilder was injured. First batlle, lasted only 15 minutes. Then they headed out for Concord. -
Battle of Concord
While in Concord, the British found the arsenal empty and lined up to head back to Boston. But it turned into a slaughter. Between 3,000-4,000 minutemen had assembled for attack, the began shooting at the redcoats form behind stone walls. British Soldiers were dying by dozens. -
Bunker Hill
British General Thomas Gage sent an attack on minutemen. He ordered 2,400 redcoats up the hill, The minutemen did not fire until the last minute, they began advancing to the redcoats fired at them and then retired. After the shooting had stopped, the colonists had lost 450 men and the British had lost over 1,000 men. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War. -
New York
A British General sent troops to meet in New York so they could finish off the colonists. The British sailed into the New York Harbor with 32,000 soldiers. Many of them German mercenaries and hired soldiers. Britain started to push Washington's army across the Delaware River. -
Trenton
After being pushed out of New York by the British, Washington’s army prevailed. On Christmas night, Washington led his men of 2,400 in small rowboats across the Iced Delaware River. The made a surprise attack at the hessians and British that night. -
Philadelphia
After the battle in Trenton, the British regrouped and captured the American capital at Philadelphia. -
Saratoga
General John Burgoyne, a British general decided to take an army down a route of lakes from Canada to Albany to meet a troop of british soldiers in New York, to then isolate New England from the rest of the colonies. While he was fighting the Colonial army and New England, he did not realize that the other British troops were not coming to his aid because they were busy trying to maintain Philadelphia. American troops surrounded Burgoyne and made him surender. -
Valley Forge
Washington and his army were very low in food and supplies. About 2,000 of his men died but the rest did not desert him and prevailed. They survived in a winter camp in Valley Forge. -
Marquis De Lafayette
A military leader that that lobbied France into bringing Frenh reinforcements. He lead a command on Virginia for the last 2 years of the war. -
Yorktown
The British had Generals Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis to capture Charles town and South Carolina. Cornwallis decided to take his 7,500 men to Virginia to try and capture it. But as soon as Lafayette and Washington found out they went down south to Yorktown. The French naval forces had defeated a British fleet then blocked the entry of the Chesapeake Bay. By late September, 17,000 American and French troops surrounded the British and began bombarding them day and night. -
Treaty of Paris
Cornwallis finally surrendered. John Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin were discussing peace talks in Paris. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed and America was finally independent.
