quick study

- Second meeting
- Met in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775
- Full slate of thirteen colonies represented
- Conservative element in Congress still strong
despite Massachusetts shooting
- No well-defined sentiment for independence only
a desire to continue fighting w/ the hope that the king and Parliament would
consent to a redress of grievances
- Drafted new appeals (which were spurned) to the
British people and king
- Also adopted measures to raise money and to
create an army and navy (anticipated a possible rebuff)

- May 1775
- Small American force under Allen and Benedict
Arnold surprised + Captured the British garrisons at Ticonderoga and Crown
Point
- Secured a priceless store of gunpowder and
artillery for the siege of Boston

- A hill seized by colonists in June 1775
- Was actually Breed’s Hill
- From this hill they menaced the enemy in Boston
 - Sharpshooting Americans mowed down the frontal
attack of redcoats
- Hill was abandoned in disorder due to the
colonists running out of gunpowder

- July 1775 Continental Congress adopted this to
profess American loyalty to the crown and beg the king to prevent further
hostilities
- Following Bunker Hill King George III shut off
all hope of reconciliation
- August 1775 George III officially proclaimed the
colonists in rebellion deeming the skirmishes treason and punishable by hanging

- Published in 1776
- Was one of the most influential pamphlets ever
written
- Author was radical, a once impoverished
corset-maker’s apprentice who had come over from Britain a year earlier
- Became a whirlwind best seller, within a few
months reached a total of 120,000 copies
- Flatly branded the shillyshallying of colonists
as contrary to “common sense”
- Called for independence and a republic

- June 7 Congress appointed a committee to prepare
a formal statement of separation
- Task fell to Thomas Jefferson
- Formally approved by the Congress on July 4,
1776
- Gave his appeal universality by invoking the
“natural rights” of humankind, not just British rights

- American rebels = Patriots/Whigs
- Named after the opposition factions in Britain
- Fought against the Loyalties/Tories

- Loyalists
- Named after the dominant political factions in Britain

- 1777 London officials adopted an intricate
scheme for capturing the vital Hudson River valley (success would allow Britain
to sever New England from the rest of the states and paralyze the American
cause)
 - Main invading force was under
actor-playwright-soldier “Gentleman Johnny”

- After his repulse at Quebec in 1775 he had
retreated slowly along the St. Lawrence River back to the Lake Champlain area
- Was shot in the leg at Quebec
- Turned traitor in 1780

- Ambitious, greedy, unscrupulous and feeling
underappreciated
- Plotted w/ the British to sell out the key
stronghold of West Point which commanded the Hudson River, for 6300 Euros and
an officer’s commission
- Plot was discovered in the nick of time by
accident

- British devised a plan to roll up the colonists
starting in the S, where the Loyalists were numerous
- Colony of George ruthlessly overrun 1778-79
- Charleston, S Carolina fell in 1780 – surrender
of the city involved the capture of 5000 men, 400 cannon

- Scotsman
- Led a naval establishment consisting of only a
handful of nondescript ships commanded by officers one of which was him
- Chief contribution was in destroying British
merchant shipping and thus carrying the war into the waters around the British
isles

- British general Cornwallis had fallen back to
Chesapeake Bay at Yorktown after futile operations in Virginia (Was awaiting
seaborne supplies and reinforcements)
- Admiral de Grasse operating w/ a powerful fleet
in the W Indies, advised the Americans he was free to join w/ them in an
assault on Cornwallis at Yorktown
- Washington seized the opportunity, made a swift
march of 300+ miles to Chesapeake from New York
- Beset the British by land while de Grasse
blockaded them by sea
- Cornwallis was completely cornered
- Surrendered his entire force of 7000 men,
October 19, 1781

- A French admiral operating w/ a powerful fleet
in the West Indies
- Gave the French the chance to cooperate w/ the
Americans in a brilliant stroke
- Advised the Americans he could join them in
assaulting Cornwallis at Yorktown
- Helped Washington by blockading the British by
sea

- After Yorktown many Britons were weary of war
and increasingly ready to come to terms
- George III still eager to continue to fight
- Britain suffered heavy reverses in Indian and W
Indies
- A Whig ministry rather favorable to the
Americans replaced the Tory regime of Lord North
- 3 American peace negotiators gathered at Paris:
Ben Franklin, John Adams, John Jay (had explicit instructions from Congress to
make no separate peace and to consult w/ French allies at all stages of the
negotiations – American representatives chafed under this directive)
- John Jay = suspicious of Old World intrigue;
unwilling to play France’s game, saw they would betray America’s interests to
satisfy those of Spain’s; secretly made separate overtures to London
- British formally recognized the independence f
the United States
- Granted generous boundaries, stretching from the
Mississippi to the Great Lakes to Spanish Florida
- Loyalists were not to be further persecuted
- Congress was to recommend to the state legislatures that confiscated Loyalist
property be restored
- States vowed to put no lawful obstacles in the
way of British creditors collecting debts long owed