Friday Book Review: The True History of the Revolutionary War Part III

 

Last week I posted concerning passion week delaying the last installment on this book.

The True History of the Revolutionary War Part III

 For the first three years (1775-1777) of the war General Sir William Howe fought under the orders of “Use the Sword and Olive Branch.” This explains his toying with Washington like a cat with a mouse.

He’d get Washington in a bind like Brookline Heights and Harlem Heights, then let him go. He herded him through New Jersey into Pennsylvania, but never threw used his superior numbers to overwhelm him, which he could have easily done. At any time when Washington was hold up in Valley Forge, he could have squashed him like a bug. He didn’t. He left Burgoyne to fight his way down New York on his own, which resulted in the loss at Saratoga. Howe’s only miscalculation was Burgoyne bungling his march so badly he had to surrender. It’s only my conjecture, but he most likely thought Burgoyne would get roughed up on his march to New York City and lick his wounds. At this point Britain might have reconsidered the cost of the rebellion and given America its independence.

Saratoga changed the dynamic. France and Spain signed an alliance with the colonies and declared war on England. Admiral Sir Richard Howe sailed to Gibraltar to life a siege of England’s most valuable asset. England could no longer afford the Hessian mercenaries and a large army on the continent. Fighting took place between the nations in the Caribbean, Africa, India, and the Spice Islands (Indonesia).

General Howe was relieved, and he went home a very much richer man than he arrived. Graft and Corruption by officers and Quartermaster’s was rampant.

General Sir Henry Clinton replaced Howe and his orders dropped the condition of using the olive branch. He was to put the colonies to the sword.

Parliament did offer the olive branch by offering the colonies independence of a sort by allying itself with England for protection. The plan the Colonial Congress first offered to Parliament before the Declaration of Independence. It was too late for compromise after so much blood had been shed.

A French fleet landed four thousand men at Newport, Rhode Island which were bottled up by the a few British ships for years.

To punish New York for the loss at Saratoga Clinton’s sword was unleashed in Wyoming Valley where all settlements were massacred by soldiers and their Iroquois allies. They invaded the neighboring county and did the same. England had a habit of withdrawing and leaving their native allies vulnerable to colonial retribution and the Iroquois Nations were destroyed. This is one of those dirty laundry parts of history left out in middle school and high school textbooks. It’s barely mentioned in U.S. or American history college texts.

The British raided coastal cities burning and pillaging as they went, killing all prisoners. They called it bayonets only.

The next phase of the war went to the south. Here was the real mistake and how the British lost the war. This part of the colonies comprised most of the loyalists. Colonel Campbell took Charleston while General Prevost drove up from Florida to Charleston. He decimated South Carolina leaving a thousand slaves to starve to death. From this time on they gathered the slaves and resold them to the Caribbean colonies.

This inflamed the loyalists and those that up to this time stayed out of the fight. A colonel Buford marched to Charleston to try and aide the city, but turned around when he heard it had fallen. A British Colonel Tarleton caught up with Buford and wiped the force out to a man. From this point on when the rebels won a battle, and the British raised the white flag of quarter the rebels responded by saying “Tarleton’s quarter.”

The actions of the British could be compared to Sherman’s march to the sea. Maybe this is where Grant and Sherman came up with the idea.

 Cornwallis was placed in charge of South Carolina, and he decided to invade North Carolina. If you get a map and look at which colony had the most battles fought on its soil, it is North Carolina.

Cornwallis started his first invasion with a large baggage train causing him to advance slowly. He was defeated by the hit and run tactics of rebels in the swamps and had to turn back, losing most of his baggage train. This was working until Congress sent General Gates to take command and he stupidly decided on a frontal attack. (Not in the book, but when the bullets started flying it was reported Gates rode north and didn’t stop till he passed three states. So much for the Gates being the hero of Saratoga.) The army he left behind was killed to the last man.

This was the lowest point of the war, not even Valley Forge demoralized the rebels as the scourging of South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina. The French and Spanish were rethinking the alliance. Holland joined the alliance but was quickly bottled up in their ports by the British Navy and they lost Cape Town. They really got the short end of the stick. Then Benedict Arnold turned traitor. Washington only by the skin of his teeth kept West Point from being handed over to the British by the hero of Saratoga.

(Arnold was given command of part of North Carolina, he asked the rebel traitors what they would do if he was in their hands, they responded, “We’d take your good leg and bury it at Saratoga in your honor and hang the rest of you.” Could be apocryphal).

Cornwallis brought the war out of the ashes to the rebel’s victory. He invaded North Carolina again without a baggage train. They would live off the land. The problem was that his first invasion devastated the first part of the march. The further he marched up North Carolina Rebel General Nathaniel Greene moved into South Carolina and cut his retreat. He was defeated at King’s Mountain and Cowpens without a way back to Charleston leaving him to press on to the north expecting the British Navy to rescue him when he reached the Chesapeake River.

Here is where Fisher praises Washington for being a master strategist. He gathered his men to march on New York. They were little better clothed and fed than the army at Valley Forge. The British fleet was recalled from the Caribbean to New York. Rochambeau was finally able to leave Newport and march to Washington’s aide. When they joined up, they pivoted from New York to Yorktown. The French navy followed the British and blocked the Chesapeake bay keeping the British navy from giving Cornwallis relief.

With Cornwallis’s surrender hostilities mostly settled down. New York and Charleston were still in British hands, but the rest of the colonies were under rebel control. Many of the loyalists or Tories fled to either Nova Scotia or the Bahamas.

It was two years before the treaty was signed and another year before the British left New York and Charleston.

 

Final insight: Fisher contended that a British victory would be hollow. That the rebels had a plan B so to speak. They would move to the west of the Allegheny mountains and form a new country there. Much like the Boers of South Africa tried to do a hundred years later.

He also contended that the revolutionary spirit would not die out and that the British would have to maintain a strong military presence to keep the peace. He likened it to 700 years of occupation of Ireland with no peace in sight. He wrote this in the late 1800’s and for Northern Ireland it is still true today.