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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution states:
"1200 Hessians were killed in action and 6,354 died from illness or accident. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessians states:
"17,313 Hessians returned to their homelands. Of the 12,526 of those who did not, about 7,700 were killed in battles."
These claims are contradictary according to my interpretation of the context in each case. Perhaps the contexts are unclear. So, possibly more important is the fact the casualty figures in the first article are dangling, the context is apparently "The War of Independence" but is it really so? Somebody who knows something about history should make an adjustment -- Martin H.
"Boston was evacuated by British troops in October [1775]."
Hmm. Evacuation Day is celebrated on March 17th in the Boston metro area, presumably to line up with the evacuation, but I suppose it's entirely possible that the date was chosen for other reasons. So is the article wrong, or is the holiday wrong? -- EdwardOConnor
"The largest army seen in Western Europe since Roman times"? I was all set to kill this, but realized that it was *just* barely possible that he only sent part of it and that's what the quoted figure of 75,000 represents. If that's the entire sum, though, it's not even close to the largest army. Spain and France cleared five times that figure in wars during the 16th and late 17th centuries....Does anyone care to stand up for this statement? -- Paul Drye
-- Paul Drye
I can't find any reason why the present title for this article is used other than that it follows the 1911 Encyclopedia. The much shorter exact phrase "American Revolution" just gave me 327,000 Google hits versus only 19,700 for "American Revolutionary War" and 9,800 for "American War of Independence". Any thoughts?
Thanks for your reply, Brian. I wouldn't try to explain why Google gives different counts to different users.
I started to question this when I was looking at the List of Battles, in particular the first Battle of Cape Saint Vincent. It was a naval battle in 1780 between the British and Spanish, which my dictionary of battles classes as belonging to the "War of the American Revolution". Many naval battles in this war did not involve American troops at all; sending an American fleet into the Indian Ocean (Battle of Trincomalee) at that time would have been an inconceivable squandering of limited resources. I very much agree that the term "American Revolution" has a broader scope than any title that includes "War" - it would include much of the political activity, and the actions of the terrorist freedom-fighters at the Boston Tea Party. Eclecticology
'
'the American Revolution began much earlier and was a larger scheme including the war It was? Care to enlighten us as to what that larger scheme was? -- Zoe
I'm new to this project, so if this repeats an earlier discussion, I agologize. That said, has anyone talked about creating the lsarger article describing the American Revolutionn. What I suggest is a much larger scope than the war, but with more detail than you should see in U.S. History. My question for observers is: what are your thoughts about the content and flow of such an article? Lou I 20:27 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)
Any objections to moving this to American War of Independence? Lirath Q. Pynnor
Surly it is the other way round the "American War of Independence" was a side show and one of a series of wars in the traditional struggle between Britain and France where each tries to give the other a good kicking (and which continues to this day by all means short of armed conflic)? In cold war parlance it was a Proxy war. The war as not about "revolution" it was about gaining "independence" so that the 13 colonies could decide how to govern themselves. If they chose to revolutionise their form of government, that was an internal issue and not directly relevant to the wars aims. For example if at the end of the war the 13 colonies had decided to invite some German prince to come and be their king, like Greece did at the end of their war of independence in the 1800s, then the issues which led to war, its duration and outcome would have been no diffrent. Philip Baird Shearer 11:06, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In the UK it is usually referred to as the "American War of Independence". For example the 1911 version of Britannica encyclopedia uses that name. [1]. BTW as I said above (back in March) it was part of the traditional struggle, which continues to this day: See the fuss in the last month between France and the UK over the EU [2] [3] and the 2012 Olympic games [4], with the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar adding grist for the mill (but theirs is bigger [5]). Philip Baird Shearer 9 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)
It seems best to keep it as "American Revolutionary War" as that is how it is known in the US and the Americans won. It is better known as the "American War of Independence" in Britain, but Britain lost the war and there are fewer British Net users than American ones. JimmyTheOne 22:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I've just discovered that Wikipedia considers "the [American] Revolutionary War" and "the American Revolution" as two different things. I've lived in America all my life and never heard of that! Indeed, I would say that "the American Revolution" and "the Revolutionary War" synonymous and widely (if not exclusively) understood terms for the actual war. But if "American Revolution" has become a technical term used by historians, could there at least be a note clarifying the popular and academic connotations? -- Dablaze 18:31, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
American Revolutionary War (1911 Encyclopedia, part 1) and American Revolutionary War (1911 Encyclopedia, part 2) were listed on VfD, but suggestions made that they be merged here instead. They currently redirect here, but from the page history, the original can be found if anyone wants to merge this information. It is also listed on Cleanup. Angela . 22:29, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC)
I believe it is inaccurate to say that: "Loyalties It should be noted, however, that a large proportion of the population did stay loyal to Britain, or at least remained neutral during the war. Loyalists, known as Tories, included members of the aristocracy who had a lot to lose, as well as recent immigrants who identified more with their birthplace than their new home. Both during and following the war, Tories were forced to flee to Canada or Britain. Many Native Americans also opposed the revolution, believing that they were likely to suffer more at the hands of independent Americans than the British. An estimated 10-15% of colonists were Loyalists, and about one-third of them left the United States. Some 70,000 Loyalists fled, along with 2,000 Native Americans. 50,000 of these Loyalists went to Canada, where they helped form the colonies of New Brunswick and Ontario. Some black Loyalists went to Sierra Leone." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Revolutionary_War)
AS it is seeming ly unsupported and in that:
regarding the American Revolutionary War of Indepdence (please not this as my response to the issues earlier stated) that "One-third loyal, one-third patriot, one-third undecided." (John Adams (“2. Loyalists a. 100,000 left the colonies4. Declaring Independence (WAYCROSS COLLEGE DR. COREY LESSEIG http://www.waycross.edu/faculty/coless/Am1lec.htm)
(which I recall was corroborated by Dr. Herbert Apteker in lectures attended by
Andrew Zito) and in that:
“Loyalists, that sizeable pro-British element, perhaps a majority when open war began, who had stood by established law and imperial unity against revolutionary upheaval” ( http://www.canadianheritage.org/books/canada4.htm) “New York City, which was at that time more pro-British than England itself.“ (The Tribes and the States W. J. Sidis chapter 23, http://www.sidis.net/TSChap23.htm)
The question the colonial elite must have repeatedly asked each other is if the growing class hatred developing in the colonies could be focused against the pro-British elite, and be deflected from themselves, the national elite? (Lecture Notes 3 - The American Revolution African American History - Spring 1999 Department of History, St. John's University by Omar, Ali http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/4275/StJohnsLec3.html ). "about 40% of the population was pro-British. (The Presbyterian Rebellion ( by Harry Seabrook (harry@littlegeneva.com" http://www.littlegeneva.com/docs/presbyterian.htm )
The lectures and notes that Zito cites are intersting but not entirely accurate. First, we must know that no one knows the TRUE numbers of rebels, tories, and indifferent population. That said, New York City was originally a hotbed of the revolution. From 1765-1775 as many incidents happened ther as the more widely known ones in Boston. By the end of 1775 the royal governor had to leave, and withdraw a small garrison with him. The notes cited claim that there were a great many loyalists in New York. By the summer of 76, there were. Open fighting in New England caused numbers of Tories to leave home. When the British left Boston in March, Tory refugee centers became NYC and Nove Scotia. Everyone expected the British Army to come to New York.
I removed the Society of the Cincinnati material from the End of the War section. Ot's jusst not appropriate there. There is a link at the bottom of the article, and a brief description might belong on the Revolution article, not the revolutionary War article. Also, the claim of 'oldest' is false, the Knight of Malta certainly go back farther. Removed material included: The Society of the Cincinnati was formed in May of 1783, and General Washington elected President of The Society. Washington continued as the Society's President until his death in 1799. The Society of the Cincinnati is the oldest military and hereditary organization in the world, and is still active today. Lou I 12:50, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Conflict spread, and the outnumbered British garrisons in the 13 colonies were quickly defeated. Outnumbered by who? -- Spencer BOOTH 14:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
First the war is summarized from the beginning through Saratoga. Then the whole war is described in more detail, restarting from the beginning to the end. Then the quicker summary starts up again where it left off, at Saratoga. Does anyone else think the story would be less confusing if it were told in order? Art LaPella 02:16, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
I don't feel comfortable reverting back part of a revert from a much more experienced user, but it struck me as throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Sometimes I agreed with the newest version, sometimes with the previous version, and often I wasn't sure which was better. Here's one of several examples where I agreed with the previous version: "Operations against Canada were soon discontinued, Arnold drawing off the remnant of his army in May 1776." was reverted back to "Demonstrations against Canada...". I don't know what demonstrations meant in 1911, but to me a demonstration means protesters carrying signs, not Benedict Arnold's army with muskets and cannons. Dictionary.com agrees with me. Art LaPella 17:30, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
Well, as you can see, I've started the much-needed cleanup process. My approach is to throw out the turgid 1911 prose, replacing it with a "just the facts" summary of the various campaigns, in rough chronological order. I figure the challenge will be to summarize the war in a way that will be clearly understandable to the lay reader, without cluttering it up with too many details. So, I concentrate on generals and admirals, with the occassional colonel or chief or other notable, and try to leave discussion of tactics, casualties, etc. to linked articles about specific battles or actions. I'll do New York & New Jersey next. There's much yet to be done, feel free to jump in.-- Kevin Myers 01:27, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've changed the line mentioning the song at the Yorktown surrender, adding a link discussing whether it was actually played.
I notice that in the article about the American Revolutionary War, the Americans are often called rebels. To me, this sounds like a bit of bias. "Rebel" isn't usually used as a positive term outside of Star Wars, and since they are rebels to the British, it is not exactly a sympathetic tone. In the same context, constantly calling the Americans "patriots" would be biased as well. Maybe just "Americans" would be a more neutral term. BTW, I'm just changing and adding a few tidbits here and there to make it a little more interesting. No worries, no changes to the actual informative parts of the article. --God 11/18/04 22:12 PST
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To have a url that's different from the title is a bit confusing. Or is this done deliberately to stress that there are two names for it? That would only make sense if they were equally much in use.Is that the cae? I've only ever heard it referred to as the 'US war of indendence'.
And that makes me think (to complicate matters). Wasn't it really a civil war? After all, it was (mainly) British versus British, right? Just in a colony, but officially that was part of Great Bitain, no? Of course the other two names apply as well, stressing different aspects of it, but at the time it must have been seen as a civil war, I suppose. If so, I'd say that should be mentioned. Although it's confusing that there was another civil war in the country later on.
America is considered by many to mean the entire continent also known as 'the Americas'. And there have been several wars of independence in that continent, so shouldn't it be called the 'USA war of indendence'? But then there's another country in America called 'United States' that also had a war of independence, namely Mexico. Oh dear....
And another thing. Spain entered the war in 1779, but did not recognize the new American nation and sent no troops to America to fight alongside the USA. How did they enter the war then? Or is the international war against the British supremacy meant?
DirkvdM June 28, 2005 06:51 (UTC)
The section titled "European-American Colonists" contains several paragraphs that are general statements about the army and are not race-specific. These paragraphs should be removed to another section or the section should be renamed. Ken Arromdee 03:35, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I've edited the section to refer to "colonists". I highly doubt the statistics were broken down by race. Ken Arromdee 14:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Could be word for word. Someone want to go through them, make sure there isn't any info in one not in the others, and root through the history to see if anything was deleted when those sections were duplicated? TransUtopian 04:20, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm looking now at 1779 figures based on Lord North's return-books in the William Clements Library, and they chart North American troop dispositions at about 39,000, as opposed to listed 60,000. That doesn't include the Irish Establishment (for which there don't seem to be good records), but unless there were 21,000 Irishmen fighting in North America, I think this is a rather inflated figure. Fearwig 03:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Spain participated by supplying munitions, not troops. The exception was a single expedition led out of Louisiana, but I don't recall enough about it to pretend I'm adding anything useful. Fearwig 03:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I removed the following recent addition...
This might well be true, but it belongs on the talk page, not stuck in the article. I'll try to check it out if someone doesn't beat me to it. -- Mwanner | Talk 02:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
This article drastically needs a British perspective. At the moment, it is quite Amerocentric. I added the term " American Loyalists" to the template, because the Loyalists represented at least 15-20% of the population of the Thirteen Colonies. There is a specific reason why including both the British Empire and American Loyalists is not redundant. While Loyalists considered themselves and were perceived by others to be subjects of the British Empire, internationally, American Patriots were also subjects of the British Empire until the Treaty of Paris. For the same reason that we don't say that the American Civil War was a war between the United States and the United States, however, we differentiate between the USA (loyalists) and the CSA (rebels). Here we must differentiate between Patriots and Loyalists. During the Revolution, there were two types of colonists: those who were loyal to the British Crown and those who sought independence from it. We should not diminish the fact that the war was anot a universally-popular one; the Patriots were considered to be British subjects in rebellion by the international community (and by Loyalists). The Loyalists were also still Americans, in the sense of being inhabitants of the American colonies.
It should be made explicit that there were many "Americans" who did not support the War and who were loyal to the Crown.
Ideally, the template would indicate a war of Patriot Colonists versus the British Empire and Loyalist Colonists.-- AaronS 01:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
If it is already well-covered in the article, then there should be no problem in adding a bit more specificity to the template. What is your objection, after all? The template serves as a very general summary of the war. The summary should not be so general that important information is excluded, and not so specific that it no longer is useful. If someone were to merely check the template in reading this article, they would be under the presumption that the war was fought between the colonists and the far away Great Britain. In reality, however, the war was fought amongst the colonists themselves as well as between the rebels and Great Britain. This should be explicit in the template.
Since you haven't really offered a clear objection, other than that my addition is "redundant" (I've already shown that it is not), I'm going to add "American Loyalists" back into the template.-- AaronS 21:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments, Kevin. Looking at the American Civil War article, the warbox there probably isn't accurate. The War of Independence, after all, was a British civil war. The American Civil War article should have the United States versus the "Southern Rebels," or something to that extent, since the Confederacy was never recognized. So, I think that we've both got it wrong. The American Civil War article must be changed; otherwise, we would be obliged to characterize the War of Independence as a war between Great Britain and the United States, which I think we both agree would be silly.
I'm going to propose this change on the American Civil War discussion page.
Here I think the warbox should characterize the war as one between American Rebels (not Patriots, since there was no American patria, "patriot" is mainly a propaganda term, and "rebel" is the proper label, since they were rebelling against their government) and their allies and Great Britain and its allies. France is a significant enough ally of the rebels to be specified explicitly, and American Loyalists are a significant enough ally of Great Britain (yes, they were in fact British, but so were the rebels) to be listed explicitly.
The main reason why I think that this is necessary is because I do not think that the warbox, as it was before I edited it, properly demonstrated the fact that the War of Independence was not necessarily a popular war (especially not until it seemed like it could be successful) and that there were many colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain (and were forced to flee to Canada). It was, as you say, a civil war. Moreover, the way it was before made it seem as if the war was between "us," over here, and the British, over there.
Think of it this way: the American Civil War warbox would be terribly misleading if it listed the conflict as being between the United States and American Rebels (or even American Patriots, since the Confederates most certainly were Americans, and considered themselves to be citizens of the Confederate States of America!). Rather, it should be displayed as between the United States and Confederate or Southern Rebels.
Now does my request really seem all that unreasonable?-- AaronS 00:10, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for ignoring my argument as to why the redundancy doesn't matter. Perhaps you should address that before you revert my edit.-- AaronS 02:26, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Aaron's British view seems to be that this is a civil war. (Sorry if I've interpreted you incorrectly). IMHO we should not adopt that for the article as a whole. The wording in combatants is quite enough, thank you. If the rebels lose its a civil war, if they win its a revolution. This we have, for example, the English civil war, but the Glorious Revolution. Id say take loyalists out of the box. Lou I 18:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi, well I'm British. I read the article, though not carefully enough to consider every detail. I am certainly not a historian, to comment on the details. However, the phrase 'American revolutionary war' is a new one to me. I was taught about the 'American war of independence'.
Next, it seems odd to me to view this as a war between the British Empire and Americans. My slightly hazy history did not really consider that we had an empire at that time. America was a colony. I don't know its legal staus, but I think it might have been regarded as just another part of the United Kingdom, nothing so grand as to be considered an empire. It may be that in retrospect this is now regarded as part of the rise of the British Empire, but certainly I was taught it as a war between the United Kingdom (very possibly in fact England really rather than the entire United Kingdom, this was a kingdom controlled by England) and americans. I still regard it this way. I looked at the article linked to 'British Empire, and found hardly a reference to India, which in many ways was the heart and soul of the British Empire and what I immediately associate with the phrase. Much of the rest was colonies (like America) which feel much more like parts of Britain than an outside Empire, but also which did not become important until later. The independent Scottish parliament was only dissolved in 1707, which was just another step in the process of creation of the core of the United Kingdom. I fancy America was just regarded as British subjects adventuring abroad, and this was how they regarded themselves? Possibly the 'empire' at this stage was more like a franchise to run a business. Maybe historians have a different view? This may not help much, but such history as I have heard here more recently seems of the view that the war was essentially a political balls up, that with sensible policies the americans had absolutely no interest in rebellion and would have been very happy (indeed preferred) to remain loyal subjects of the crown. There is a reference in the article to whigs and Tories, one of which is defined as loyalist and one patriot, yet these were (and one still is) British political parties forming competing governments of the UK. Sandpiper 20:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I feel that there needs to be more focus on the impact of French Intervention in the Revolutionary War which was the major turning point, and i feel the article would benefit from a greater explination of the motives behind the Rebellion . I think theres a tendancy by some to not look objectivly at the events but to rather propogate the American national myth hence 'patriots'. that said this isnt a critisism more a request Joey1986 21:19, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, the discussion of the war could use more attention to the non-American aspects. Until I just added a brief mention, there was no discussion of the siege of Gibraltar at all. The discussion of the war in the Caribbean is limited to a link to the Battle of the Saintes article, but there was considerable Anglo-French naval conflict in the Caribbean for the last five years of the war. So there's definitely room for improvement on that front. john k 05:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Someone inserted a little information about US General James Potter into the Harry Potter James and Lily Potter article, saying he was an american revolutionary war hero. I dumped the information into its own article. Does anyone know anything about him, or have a better view on whether he deserves an article or is mentioned anywhere else? If so, can anyone who knows about this subject sort him out? Sandpiper 13:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I have started assembling a List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War. This is not a straightforward task, so any help and input would be appreciated. I have also made a proposal for an infobox on the Talk page. -- Leifern 00:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Despite the above section and discussion I am not convinced that Patriot is the correct choice. If anything Patriot refers more ably to the colonists who are usually termed loyalists.
Whilst Rebel may seem to be a bad label by many, these revolutionaries were rebelling. However you define what they were rebelling against. They were Rebels.
In 1770s the term was used, in Britain, France and America, to refer to supporters of the new USA. It is certainly not ambiguous, and if anyone thinks so they should speak up. Rjensen 22:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
See http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&id=vGkbn8vx3P4C&dq=american&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Fq%3Djeremy%2Bblack%2Bamerica%2B%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a&pg=PP8&printsec=3&lpg=PP8&sig=v2bZwSTqEL3UlSNnJBKbBfymZGU Rjensen 23:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Professor J R Pole (in Companion to the American Revolution 2004), is an eminent authority and he loves the word revolutionary. As in era, period, mind, generation, cause , thought, beliefs, agenda.... I used Google.Book to get these examples. But NOT when talking of armies. ( he uses American armies 11 times, and revolutionary armies zero times). As I say, it's not idiomatic to talk about Revolutionary armies, navies, regiments, etc. Another issue lurking here. Some people seem to ge geographical determinists. They think terms like American, German, British, French are related ONLY to geographical areas tou can see in an atlas. Since you have both USA and North America, there is a ceratin ambiguity in using the atlas for the word American. But in fact the terms have geographic, ethnic, cultural and political components, and how they mix is a very complex issue. The riots in France this year were about, who is French? It was not in dispute where the rioters lived or were born–the atlas cannot help much in explaining the riots. In 1776 the British had a world empire and to be British meant to ne loyal to the Empire. Check out United Empire Loyalists. To be American meant to have allegiance to the new USA. That could happen if you lived in Paris (like Franklin) or even London. And Europeans could and did come over to become Americans, permanently and fight for the USA. (Like John Paul Jones, or von Steuben). Rjensen 06:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
All the "colonies" vanished in 1775-76 when the Brits removed all their colonial officials. Only in Georgia, for a while, did they even attempt to ressetablish a colonial government. All the former colonies became states and should be called such. The war was NOT fought between Britain and some colonies. It was fought with the United States of America, a new country. Rjensen 07:12, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I note that the current "to do list" proposes reducing the "War at Sea" section in favour of a short summary paragraphs without headings. The section is poorly constructed, but reducing it will relegate the primary war efforts of the most powerful participants (Britain and France) after 1778 to an even lower status than they currently have in the article. I raises the issue of what the war was about (and, hence, what this article is about).
In short, if the "War at Sea", or perhaps "the wider war", is not worthy of significant mention in this article on the "American Revolutionary War", perhaps the wider war does deserve an article of its own under "American War of Independence". (For comparison, see the way the French and Indian War has evolved as a separate article to the Seven Years War. JimmyTheOne 22:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution states:
"1200 Hessians were killed in action and 6,354 died from illness or accident. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessians states:
"17,313 Hessians returned to their homelands. Of the 12,526 of those who did not, about 7,700 were killed in battles."
These claims are contradictary according to my interpretation of the context in each case. Perhaps the contexts are unclear. So, possibly more important is the fact the casualty figures in the first article are dangling, the context is apparently "The War of Independence" but is it really so? Somebody who knows something about history should make an adjustment -- Martin H.
"Boston was evacuated by British troops in October [1775]."
Hmm. Evacuation Day is celebrated on March 17th in the Boston metro area, presumably to line up with the evacuation, but I suppose it's entirely possible that the date was chosen for other reasons. So is the article wrong, or is the holiday wrong? -- EdwardOConnor
"The largest army seen in Western Europe since Roman times"? I was all set to kill this, but realized that it was *just* barely possible that he only sent part of it and that's what the quoted figure of 75,000 represents. If that's the entire sum, though, it's not even close to the largest army. Spain and France cleared five times that figure in wars during the 16th and late 17th centuries....Does anyone care to stand up for this statement? -- Paul Drye
-- Paul Drye
I can't find any reason why the present title for this article is used other than that it follows the 1911 Encyclopedia. The much shorter exact phrase "American Revolution" just gave me 327,000 Google hits versus only 19,700 for "American Revolutionary War" and 9,800 for "American War of Independence". Any thoughts?
Thanks for your reply, Brian. I wouldn't try to explain why Google gives different counts to different users.
I started to question this when I was looking at the List of Battles, in particular the first Battle of Cape Saint Vincent. It was a naval battle in 1780 between the British and Spanish, which my dictionary of battles classes as belonging to the "War of the American Revolution". Many naval battles in this war did not involve American troops at all; sending an American fleet into the Indian Ocean (Battle of Trincomalee) at that time would have been an inconceivable squandering of limited resources. I very much agree that the term "American Revolution" has a broader scope than any title that includes "War" - it would include much of the political activity, and the actions of the terrorist freedom-fighters at the Boston Tea Party. Eclecticology
'
'the American Revolution began much earlier and was a larger scheme including the war It was? Care to enlighten us as to what that larger scheme was? -- Zoe
I'm new to this project, so if this repeats an earlier discussion, I agologize. That said, has anyone talked about creating the lsarger article describing the American Revolutionn. What I suggest is a much larger scope than the war, but with more detail than you should see in U.S. History. My question for observers is: what are your thoughts about the content and flow of such an article? Lou I 20:27 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)
Any objections to moving this to American War of Independence? Lirath Q. Pynnor
Surly it is the other way round the "American War of Independence" was a side show and one of a series of wars in the traditional struggle between Britain and France where each tries to give the other a good kicking (and which continues to this day by all means short of armed conflic)? In cold war parlance it was a Proxy war. The war as not about "revolution" it was about gaining "independence" so that the 13 colonies could decide how to govern themselves. If they chose to revolutionise their form of government, that was an internal issue and not directly relevant to the wars aims. For example if at the end of the war the 13 colonies had decided to invite some German prince to come and be their king, like Greece did at the end of their war of independence in the 1800s, then the issues which led to war, its duration and outcome would have been no diffrent. Philip Baird Shearer 11:06, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In the UK it is usually referred to as the "American War of Independence". For example the 1911 version of Britannica encyclopedia uses that name. [1]. BTW as I said above (back in March) it was part of the traditional struggle, which continues to this day: See the fuss in the last month between France and the UK over the EU [2] [3] and the 2012 Olympic games [4], with the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar adding grist for the mill (but theirs is bigger [5]). Philip Baird Shearer 9 July 2005 19:17 (UTC)
It seems best to keep it as "American Revolutionary War" as that is how it is known in the US and the Americans won. It is better known as the "American War of Independence" in Britain, but Britain lost the war and there are fewer British Net users than American ones. JimmyTheOne 22:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I've just discovered that Wikipedia considers "the [American] Revolutionary War" and "the American Revolution" as two different things. I've lived in America all my life and never heard of that! Indeed, I would say that "the American Revolution" and "the Revolutionary War" synonymous and widely (if not exclusively) understood terms for the actual war. But if "American Revolution" has become a technical term used by historians, could there at least be a note clarifying the popular and academic connotations? -- Dablaze 18:31, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
American Revolutionary War (1911 Encyclopedia, part 1) and American Revolutionary War (1911 Encyclopedia, part 2) were listed on VfD, but suggestions made that they be merged here instead. They currently redirect here, but from the page history, the original can be found if anyone wants to merge this information. It is also listed on Cleanup. Angela . 22:29, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC)
I believe it is inaccurate to say that: "Loyalties It should be noted, however, that a large proportion of the population did stay loyal to Britain, or at least remained neutral during the war. Loyalists, known as Tories, included members of the aristocracy who had a lot to lose, as well as recent immigrants who identified more with their birthplace than their new home. Both during and following the war, Tories were forced to flee to Canada or Britain. Many Native Americans also opposed the revolution, believing that they were likely to suffer more at the hands of independent Americans than the British. An estimated 10-15% of colonists were Loyalists, and about one-third of them left the United States. Some 70,000 Loyalists fled, along with 2,000 Native Americans. 50,000 of these Loyalists went to Canada, where they helped form the colonies of New Brunswick and Ontario. Some black Loyalists went to Sierra Leone." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Revolutionary_War)
AS it is seeming ly unsupported and in that:
regarding the American Revolutionary War of Indepdence (please not this as my response to the issues earlier stated) that "One-third loyal, one-third patriot, one-third undecided." (John Adams (“2. Loyalists a. 100,000 left the colonies4. Declaring Independence (WAYCROSS COLLEGE DR. COREY LESSEIG http://www.waycross.edu/faculty/coless/Am1lec.htm)
(which I recall was corroborated by Dr. Herbert Apteker in lectures attended by
Andrew Zito) and in that:
“Loyalists, that sizeable pro-British element, perhaps a majority when open war began, who had stood by established law and imperial unity against revolutionary upheaval” ( http://www.canadianheritage.org/books/canada4.htm) “New York City, which was at that time more pro-British than England itself.“ (The Tribes and the States W. J. Sidis chapter 23, http://www.sidis.net/TSChap23.htm)
The question the colonial elite must have repeatedly asked each other is if the growing class hatred developing in the colonies could be focused against the pro-British elite, and be deflected from themselves, the national elite? (Lecture Notes 3 - The American Revolution African American History - Spring 1999 Department of History, St. John's University by Omar, Ali http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/4275/StJohnsLec3.html ). "about 40% of the population was pro-British. (The Presbyterian Rebellion ( by Harry Seabrook (harry@littlegeneva.com" http://www.littlegeneva.com/docs/presbyterian.htm )
The lectures and notes that Zito cites are intersting but not entirely accurate. First, we must know that no one knows the TRUE numbers of rebels, tories, and indifferent population. That said, New York City was originally a hotbed of the revolution. From 1765-1775 as many incidents happened ther as the more widely known ones in Boston. By the end of 1775 the royal governor had to leave, and withdraw a small garrison with him. The notes cited claim that there were a great many loyalists in New York. By the summer of 76, there were. Open fighting in New England caused numbers of Tories to leave home. When the British left Boston in March, Tory refugee centers became NYC and Nove Scotia. Everyone expected the British Army to come to New York.
I removed the Society of the Cincinnati material from the End of the War section. Ot's jusst not appropriate there. There is a link at the bottom of the article, and a brief description might belong on the Revolution article, not the revolutionary War article. Also, the claim of 'oldest' is false, the Knight of Malta certainly go back farther. Removed material included: The Society of the Cincinnati was formed in May of 1783, and General Washington elected President of The Society. Washington continued as the Society's President until his death in 1799. The Society of the Cincinnati is the oldest military and hereditary organization in the world, and is still active today. Lou I 12:50, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Conflict spread, and the outnumbered British garrisons in the 13 colonies were quickly defeated. Outnumbered by who? -- Spencer BOOTH 14:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
First the war is summarized from the beginning through Saratoga. Then the whole war is described in more detail, restarting from the beginning to the end. Then the quicker summary starts up again where it left off, at Saratoga. Does anyone else think the story would be less confusing if it were told in order? Art LaPella 02:16, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
I don't feel comfortable reverting back part of a revert from a much more experienced user, but it struck me as throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Sometimes I agreed with the newest version, sometimes with the previous version, and often I wasn't sure which was better. Here's one of several examples where I agreed with the previous version: "Operations against Canada were soon discontinued, Arnold drawing off the remnant of his army in May 1776." was reverted back to "Demonstrations against Canada...". I don't know what demonstrations meant in 1911, but to me a demonstration means protesters carrying signs, not Benedict Arnold's army with muskets and cannons. Dictionary.com agrees with me. Art LaPella 17:30, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
Well, as you can see, I've started the much-needed cleanup process. My approach is to throw out the turgid 1911 prose, replacing it with a "just the facts" summary of the various campaigns, in rough chronological order. I figure the challenge will be to summarize the war in a way that will be clearly understandable to the lay reader, without cluttering it up with too many details. So, I concentrate on generals and admirals, with the occassional colonel or chief or other notable, and try to leave discussion of tactics, casualties, etc. to linked articles about specific battles or actions. I'll do New York & New Jersey next. There's much yet to be done, feel free to jump in.-- Kevin Myers 01:27, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've changed the line mentioning the song at the Yorktown surrender, adding a link discussing whether it was actually played.
I notice that in the article about the American Revolutionary War, the Americans are often called rebels. To me, this sounds like a bit of bias. "Rebel" isn't usually used as a positive term outside of Star Wars, and since they are rebels to the British, it is not exactly a sympathetic tone. In the same context, constantly calling the Americans "patriots" would be biased as well. Maybe just "Americans" would be a more neutral term. BTW, I'm just changing and adding a few tidbits here and there to make it a little more interesting. No worries, no changes to the actual informative parts of the article. --God 11/18/04 22:12 PST
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To have a url that's different from the title is a bit confusing. Or is this done deliberately to stress that there are two names for it? That would only make sense if they were equally much in use.Is that the cae? I've only ever heard it referred to as the 'US war of indendence'.
And that makes me think (to complicate matters). Wasn't it really a civil war? After all, it was (mainly) British versus British, right? Just in a colony, but officially that was part of Great Bitain, no? Of course the other two names apply as well, stressing different aspects of it, but at the time it must have been seen as a civil war, I suppose. If so, I'd say that should be mentioned. Although it's confusing that there was another civil war in the country later on.
America is considered by many to mean the entire continent also known as 'the Americas'. And there have been several wars of independence in that continent, so shouldn't it be called the 'USA war of indendence'? But then there's another country in America called 'United States' that also had a war of independence, namely Mexico. Oh dear....
And another thing. Spain entered the war in 1779, but did not recognize the new American nation and sent no troops to America to fight alongside the USA. How did they enter the war then? Or is the international war against the British supremacy meant?
DirkvdM June 28, 2005 06:51 (UTC)
The section titled "European-American Colonists" contains several paragraphs that are general statements about the army and are not race-specific. These paragraphs should be removed to another section or the section should be renamed. Ken Arromdee 03:35, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I've edited the section to refer to "colonists". I highly doubt the statistics were broken down by race. Ken Arromdee 14:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Could be word for word. Someone want to go through them, make sure there isn't any info in one not in the others, and root through the history to see if anything was deleted when those sections were duplicated? TransUtopian 04:20, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm looking now at 1779 figures based on Lord North's return-books in the William Clements Library, and they chart North American troop dispositions at about 39,000, as opposed to listed 60,000. That doesn't include the Irish Establishment (for which there don't seem to be good records), but unless there were 21,000 Irishmen fighting in North America, I think this is a rather inflated figure. Fearwig 03:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Spain participated by supplying munitions, not troops. The exception was a single expedition led out of Louisiana, but I don't recall enough about it to pretend I'm adding anything useful. Fearwig 03:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I removed the following recent addition...
This might well be true, but it belongs on the talk page, not stuck in the article. I'll try to check it out if someone doesn't beat me to it. -- Mwanner | Talk 02:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
This article drastically needs a British perspective. At the moment, it is quite Amerocentric. I added the term " American Loyalists" to the template, because the Loyalists represented at least 15-20% of the population of the Thirteen Colonies. There is a specific reason why including both the British Empire and American Loyalists is not redundant. While Loyalists considered themselves and were perceived by others to be subjects of the British Empire, internationally, American Patriots were also subjects of the British Empire until the Treaty of Paris. For the same reason that we don't say that the American Civil War was a war between the United States and the United States, however, we differentiate between the USA (loyalists) and the CSA (rebels). Here we must differentiate between Patriots and Loyalists. During the Revolution, there were two types of colonists: those who were loyal to the British Crown and those who sought independence from it. We should not diminish the fact that the war was anot a universally-popular one; the Patriots were considered to be British subjects in rebellion by the international community (and by Loyalists). The Loyalists were also still Americans, in the sense of being inhabitants of the American colonies.
It should be made explicit that there were many "Americans" who did not support the War and who were loyal to the Crown.
Ideally, the template would indicate a war of Patriot Colonists versus the British Empire and Loyalist Colonists.-- AaronS 01:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
If it is already well-covered in the article, then there should be no problem in adding a bit more specificity to the template. What is your objection, after all? The template serves as a very general summary of the war. The summary should not be so general that important information is excluded, and not so specific that it no longer is useful. If someone were to merely check the template in reading this article, they would be under the presumption that the war was fought between the colonists and the far away Great Britain. In reality, however, the war was fought amongst the colonists themselves as well as between the rebels and Great Britain. This should be explicit in the template.
Since you haven't really offered a clear objection, other than that my addition is "redundant" (I've already shown that it is not), I'm going to add "American Loyalists" back into the template.-- AaronS 21:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments, Kevin. Looking at the American Civil War article, the warbox there probably isn't accurate. The War of Independence, after all, was a British civil war. The American Civil War article should have the United States versus the "Southern Rebels," or something to that extent, since the Confederacy was never recognized. So, I think that we've both got it wrong. The American Civil War article must be changed; otherwise, we would be obliged to characterize the War of Independence as a war between Great Britain and the United States, which I think we both agree would be silly.
I'm going to propose this change on the American Civil War discussion page.
Here I think the warbox should characterize the war as one between American Rebels (not Patriots, since there was no American patria, "patriot" is mainly a propaganda term, and "rebel" is the proper label, since they were rebelling against their government) and their allies and Great Britain and its allies. France is a significant enough ally of the rebels to be specified explicitly, and American Loyalists are a significant enough ally of Great Britain (yes, they were in fact British, but so were the rebels) to be listed explicitly.
The main reason why I think that this is necessary is because I do not think that the warbox, as it was before I edited it, properly demonstrated the fact that the War of Independence was not necessarily a popular war (especially not until it seemed like it could be successful) and that there were many colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain (and were forced to flee to Canada). It was, as you say, a civil war. Moreover, the way it was before made it seem as if the war was between "us," over here, and the British, over there.
Think of it this way: the American Civil War warbox would be terribly misleading if it listed the conflict as being between the United States and American Rebels (or even American Patriots, since the Confederates most certainly were Americans, and considered themselves to be citizens of the Confederate States of America!). Rather, it should be displayed as between the United States and Confederate or Southern Rebels.
Now does my request really seem all that unreasonable?-- AaronS 00:10, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for ignoring my argument as to why the redundancy doesn't matter. Perhaps you should address that before you revert my edit.-- AaronS 02:26, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Aaron's British view seems to be that this is a civil war. (Sorry if I've interpreted you incorrectly). IMHO we should not adopt that for the article as a whole. The wording in combatants is quite enough, thank you. If the rebels lose its a civil war, if they win its a revolution. This we have, for example, the English civil war, but the Glorious Revolution. Id say take loyalists out of the box. Lou I 18:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi, well I'm British. I read the article, though not carefully enough to consider every detail. I am certainly not a historian, to comment on the details. However, the phrase 'American revolutionary war' is a new one to me. I was taught about the 'American war of independence'.
Next, it seems odd to me to view this as a war between the British Empire and Americans. My slightly hazy history did not really consider that we had an empire at that time. America was a colony. I don't know its legal staus, but I think it might have been regarded as just another part of the United Kingdom, nothing so grand as to be considered an empire. It may be that in retrospect this is now regarded as part of the rise of the British Empire, but certainly I was taught it as a war between the United Kingdom (very possibly in fact England really rather than the entire United Kingdom, this was a kingdom controlled by England) and americans. I still regard it this way. I looked at the article linked to 'British Empire, and found hardly a reference to India, which in many ways was the heart and soul of the British Empire and what I immediately associate with the phrase. Much of the rest was colonies (like America) which feel much more like parts of Britain than an outside Empire, but also which did not become important until later. The independent Scottish parliament was only dissolved in 1707, which was just another step in the process of creation of the core of the United Kingdom. I fancy America was just regarded as British subjects adventuring abroad, and this was how they regarded themselves? Possibly the 'empire' at this stage was more like a franchise to run a business. Maybe historians have a different view? This may not help much, but such history as I have heard here more recently seems of the view that the war was essentially a political balls up, that with sensible policies the americans had absolutely no interest in rebellion and would have been very happy (indeed preferred) to remain loyal subjects of the crown. There is a reference in the article to whigs and Tories, one of which is defined as loyalist and one patriot, yet these were (and one still is) British political parties forming competing governments of the UK. Sandpiper 20:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I feel that there needs to be more focus on the impact of French Intervention in the Revolutionary War which was the major turning point, and i feel the article would benefit from a greater explination of the motives behind the Rebellion . I think theres a tendancy by some to not look objectivly at the events but to rather propogate the American national myth hence 'patriots'. that said this isnt a critisism more a request Joey1986 21:19, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, the discussion of the war could use more attention to the non-American aspects. Until I just added a brief mention, there was no discussion of the siege of Gibraltar at all. The discussion of the war in the Caribbean is limited to a link to the Battle of the Saintes article, but there was considerable Anglo-French naval conflict in the Caribbean for the last five years of the war. So there's definitely room for improvement on that front. john k 05:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Someone inserted a little information about US General James Potter into the Harry Potter James and Lily Potter article, saying he was an american revolutionary war hero. I dumped the information into its own article. Does anyone know anything about him, or have a better view on whether he deserves an article or is mentioned anywhere else? If so, can anyone who knows about this subject sort him out? Sandpiper 13:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I have started assembling a List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War. This is not a straightforward task, so any help and input would be appreciated. I have also made a proposal for an infobox on the Talk page. -- Leifern 00:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Despite the above section and discussion I am not convinced that Patriot is the correct choice. If anything Patriot refers more ably to the colonists who are usually termed loyalists.
Whilst Rebel may seem to be a bad label by many, these revolutionaries were rebelling. However you define what they were rebelling against. They were Rebels.
In 1770s the term was used, in Britain, France and America, to refer to supporters of the new USA. It is certainly not ambiguous, and if anyone thinks so they should speak up. Rjensen 22:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
See http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&id=vGkbn8vx3P4C&dq=american&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Fq%3Djeremy%2Bblack%2Bamerica%2B%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a&pg=PP8&printsec=3&lpg=PP8&sig=v2bZwSTqEL3UlSNnJBKbBfymZGU Rjensen 23:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Professor J R Pole (in Companion to the American Revolution 2004), is an eminent authority and he loves the word revolutionary. As in era, period, mind, generation, cause , thought, beliefs, agenda.... I used Google.Book to get these examples. But NOT when talking of armies. ( he uses American armies 11 times, and revolutionary armies zero times). As I say, it's not idiomatic to talk about Revolutionary armies, navies, regiments, etc. Another issue lurking here. Some people seem to ge geographical determinists. They think terms like American, German, British, French are related ONLY to geographical areas tou can see in an atlas. Since you have both USA and North America, there is a ceratin ambiguity in using the atlas for the word American. But in fact the terms have geographic, ethnic, cultural and political components, and how they mix is a very complex issue. The riots in France this year were about, who is French? It was not in dispute where the rioters lived or were born–the atlas cannot help much in explaining the riots. In 1776 the British had a world empire and to be British meant to ne loyal to the Empire. Check out United Empire Loyalists. To be American meant to have allegiance to the new USA. That could happen if you lived in Paris (like Franklin) or even London. And Europeans could and did come over to become Americans, permanently and fight for the USA. (Like John Paul Jones, or von Steuben). Rjensen 06:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
All the "colonies" vanished in 1775-76 when the Brits removed all their colonial officials. Only in Georgia, for a while, did they even attempt to ressetablish a colonial government. All the former colonies became states and should be called such. The war was NOT fought between Britain and some colonies. It was fought with the United States of America, a new country. Rjensen 07:12, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I note that the current "to do list" proposes reducing the "War at Sea" section in favour of a short summary paragraphs without headings. The section is poorly constructed, but reducing it will relegate the primary war efforts of the most powerful participants (Britain and France) after 1778 to an even lower status than they currently have in the article. I raises the issue of what the war was about (and, hence, what this article is about).
In short, if the "War at Sea", or perhaps "the wider war", is not worthy of significant mention in this article on the "American Revolutionary War", perhaps the wider war does deserve an article of its own under "American War of Independence". (For comparison, see the way the French and Indian War has evolved as a separate article to the Seven Years War. JimmyTheOne 22:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)