• MAKING THE REVOLUTION

• WAR

• 1. Anticipating War
• 2. Committing to War
• 3. Leading the War
• 4. Sustaining the War
• 5. Reporting the War
• 6. Fighting the War
• 7. Living in War
• 8. Losing the War
• 9. Winning the War
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WAR: 1775-1783

9. Winning the War

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The Revolutionary War had lasted six years—from the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775 to Cornwallis's surrender in 1781—and peace negotiations had dragged on for another two years. Finally, on September 3, 1783, the final treaty was signed in Paris, and it was no mere truce between fighting nations weary of combat. The United States had won. Britain had lost. The stunned and reduced imperial power agreed to recognize the thirteen states as "free, sovereign and independent" (not just autonomous within the empire), relinquish all territorial claims to its former colonies, evacuate its military forces, and allow Americans fishing rights in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland (a critical issue). Here we look at America's victory from the dark days of 1780 through the arduous months of treaty negotiations to the official end of the war.

• Governors' appeals for citizen unity in the war effort, 1780-1781, selections. As often happens in war, the Revolutionary War lasted longer and brought more hardship and discord than envisioned in the heady days of 1775-76. Patriot leaders, fearing a collapse of the war effort in the early 1780s, urged citizens to rededicate themselves to the cause of liberty, disavow self-serving actions that helped the enemy, and bring a swift victorious end to the war. The two "exhortations to renewed vigor" excerpted here were issued by the governors of Pennsylvania and Connecticut, John Reed and John Trumbull (not the artist whose work is presented in this section). How did they inspire duty and hope on one hand and tap anger and vengefulness on the other? What did they ask the people to do and not to do? How did they explain the failure of state governments to maintain order and justice consistently? We recommend reading the appeals aloud to emphasize their cadence and urgency. (2 pp., Library of Congress).



• Satirical epitaph for King George III after the defeat of Britain, broadside, 1782. In 1782, after the defeat of Britain and the commencement of peace negotiations, the Philadelphia printer Francis Bailey published a triumphant in-your-face broadside condemning King George and heralding the victor "A M E R I C A." As official printer for Congress and Pennsylvania during the war, Bailey had published many official documents including the Declaration of Independence, and he may have penned this scathing and provocative satire. It's quite a piece: in one page it encapsulates the history of the Revolutionary period, voices the Patriots' utter contempt for British leadership, and celebrates in verbal fireworks and graphic flourish the triumph of the "thirteen glorious republics." Again, we recommend that you read Epitaph aloud, with dramatic excess. (7 pp.)





• Benjamin Franklin, letters from Paris on the peace process, 1781-1784. Franklin spent almost one third of his life in Europe serving as a diplomat for the American colonies (seventeen years in England) and for the United States (nine years in France). In 1776 he arrived in Paris as the first diplomat representing the newly declared United States of America, and he single-handedly (with a morale boost from the American victory in the Battle of Saratoga) achieved the 1778 alliance with France that turned the tide of the American Revolution (see #4: Sustaining the War). His final diplomatic mission was to negotiate, with a team of American commissioners, a peace treaty with Britain to solidify the goals of the revolution. To complicate the task, separate treaties had to be finalized with allies France and Spain. It was a daunting mission. In these selections from Franklin's letters, we follow the intricate obstacle-ridden process of negotiating a peace treaty. Government leaders change, negotiators change, goals change. One side tries to divide and manipulate the others. Transatlantic correspondence is dreadfully slow—orders from Congress don't arrive and peace commissioners' reports are lost (and letters are opened by spies and re-sealed). A preliminary treaty must first be signed and ratified, then the final treaty must be signed and ratified. For Franklin—in his seventies and almost a stranger to his native country—the longing to return to America was deep. And to his close friends he revealed his contempt for war: "All war are follies . . . When will man be convinced of this . . . ?" (9 pp.)



• Zoomable maps of North America, 1783-1784. These two British maps were published as updates of previous maps to reflect the preliminary peace treaty signed in January 1783 (the final treaty was signed September 3, 1783).
  
  
  • - 1783: The United States of America . . .
  • - 1784: Bowles's New Pocket Map of the United States of America . . . .

  How do the maps reflect American victory from a British viewpoint? How do they differ in using color to identify the territory now recognized as the independent United States? What information is provided "in" the area of the Atlantic Ocean in each map? How would American-produced maps differ from the British maps? See Discussion Question #32 to compare these maps with earlier British maps of the American colonies. (Library of Congress; view online.)

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