The War for American Independence

An indispensable resource for investigating America's War for Independence, this book provides a comprehensive yet concise narrative that combines the author's original perspectives with the latest scholarship on the subject. Without the War for Independence and its successful outcome for the patriots, the course of American development-our institutions, culture, politics, and economics-would have run in radically different directions. From any perspective, the War for Independence was one of the seminal events of national history. This book offers a clear, easy-to-read, and complete overview of the origins of the imperial crisis, the course of the war, and the ultimate success of the movement for independence. It also emphasizes the human cost of the struggle: the ferocity of the fighting that stemmed from the belief among participants on all sides that defeat was tantamount to cultural, political, and even physical extinction. The narrative encompasses the author's original insights and takes advantage of the newest scholarship on the American Revolution. The book includes primary documents and biographical sketches representative of the various participants in the revolutionary struggle-for example, private soldiers, senior officers, loyalists, women, blacks, and Indians-as well as famous speeches and important American and British official documents. The edited documents offer readers a sense of the actual voices of the revolutionary struggle and a deeper understanding of how primary documents serve historians' narration and interpretation of long-ago events. The result is a new synthesis that brings a deeper understanding of America's defining struggle to an informed public readership as well as college and high school students.

Mark Edward Lender, PhD, is professor emeritus and former vice president for academic affairs at Kean University. He holds a doctorate in history from Rutgers University.

List of Illustrations
Series Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
Chronology
Prologue: "In Arms and in Motion": The Origins of a War
Chapter 1. Fortunes of War: Patriot High Tide and Imperial Counterattack
Chapter 2. New Realities, New Challenges: From Colonial Rebellion to World War
Chapter 3. Imperial Reset: New Strategy, New Problems
Chapter 4. Patriot Nadir: War without End, 1780
Chapter 5. The Wars within the War: Stark Challenges, Dark Realities
Chapter 6. Fortunes of War: The Southern Campaigns
Chapter 7. Yorktown and Beyond
Epilogue: A War in Retrospect
Analytical Essays
Defining Moments: The Battle of Trenton Reconsidered: Did a Raid Really Save the Revolution?
Perspectives Essay: "Do Not Quite Despair": Patriot Logistics and the Struggle for Victory
Counterfactual Essay: The "Indispensable Man": Would the Revolution Have Succeeded without George Washington?
Biographical Essays
Benedict Arnold (1741-1801)
John Barry (1745-1803)
Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea (1743-1807)
Dragging Canoe (ca. 1738-1792)
Johann Ewald (1744-1813)
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Bernardo de Gálvez (1746-1786)
Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)
Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834)
William Livingston (1723-1790)
Flora MacDonald (1722-1790)
Joseph Plumb Martin (1760-1850)
Robert Morris (1734-1806)
Frederick North, Lord North (1732-1792)
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)
Comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807)
Peter Salem (ca. 1750-1816)
Deborah Samson (1760-1827)
Han Yerry Tewahangarahken (ca. 1724-ca. 1794)
Colonel Tye, or Titus Cornelius (ca. 1753-1780)
Primary Documents
Speech of Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775, Richmond, Virginia
Chief Dragging Canoe Warns against Land Treaties with the Americans, 1775
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775
George III Closes Parliament with Observations on America, 1776
General Washington Reports a Grim Military Situation, December 1776
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1
John McCarter Recalls the Death in Action of Two of His Pupils
John Laurens Argues for the Emancipation and Enlistment of Black Troops, February 2, 1778
Captain George Hanger on the Eve of Battle, June 27, 1778
The Reverend Nicholas Collin Despairs as Civil War Rends His Congregation, 1778
Two Songs, Two Sides
"I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight!" John Paul Jones Battles HMS Serapis
The Ladies of Trenton Raise Funds for the Continental Army, July 4, 1780
Lieutenant Colonel Francis Barber Laments the State of the New Jersey Troops, February 28, 1781
Nathanael Greene Decides to Take the War into South Carolina, 1781
Thomas Jefferson Describes Cornwallis's Occupation of Elkhill Plantation, 1781
Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe Learns He Must Surrender at Yorktown
Edward Gibbon Explains the British Loss of the American Colonies
Joseph Plumb Martin Recalls His Discharge from the Army, 1783
George Washington Bids Farewell to the Continental Army, November 2, 1783
Annotated Bibliography
Index