Loyalists 119political institutions and a new national spirit, all in
the midst of war.
Always the military situation took precedence, for a
single disastrous setback might make everything else
meaningless. At the start the Americans already pos-
sessed their lands (except for the few square miles occu-
pied by British troops). Although thousands of colonists
fought for George III, the British soon learned that to
put down the American rebellion they would have to
bring in men and supplies from bases on the other side
of the Atlantic. This was a most formidable task.
Certain long-run factors operated in America’s
favor. Although His Majesty’s soldiers were brave and
well disciplined, the army was as inefficient and ill-
directed as the rest of the British government.
Whereas nearly everyone in Great Britain wanted to
crack down on Boston after the Tea Party, many bog-
gled at engaging in a full-scale war against all the
colonies. Aside from a reluctance to spill so much
blood, there was the question of expense. Finally, the
idea of dispatching the cream of the British army to
America while powerful enemies on the continent still
smarted from past defeats seemed risky. For all these
reasons the British approached gingerly the task of
subduing the rebellion. When Washington fortified
Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston, General
Howe withdrew his troops to Halifax rather than risk
another Bunker Hill.
For a time, the initiative remained with the
Americans. An expedition under General Richard
Montgomery captured Montréal in November 1775,
and another small force under Benedict Arnold
advanced to the gates of Québec after a grueling
march across the wilderness from Maine.
Montgomery and Arnold attempted to storm the
Québec defenses on December 31, 1775, but were
repulsed with heavy losses. Even so, the British troops
in Canada could not drive the remnants of the
American army—perhaps 500 men in all—out of the
province until reinforcements arrived in the spring.
Awareness of Britain’s problems undoubtedly
spurred the Continental Congress to the bold actions
of the spring of 1776. However, on July 2, 1776, the
same day that Congress voted for independence,
General Howe was back on American soil, landing in
force on Staten Island in New York harbor in prepara-
tion for an assault on the city. Soon Howe had at hand
32,000 well-equipped troops and a powerful fleet
commanded by his brother, Richard, Lord Howe. If
the British controlled New York City and the Hudson
River, they could, as Washington realized, “stop inter-
course between the northern and southern Colonies,
upon which depends the Safety of America.”
Suddenly the full strength of the empire seemed
to have descended on the Americans. Superior British
resources (a population of 9 million to the colonies’
2.5 million, large stocks of war materials and the
industrial capacity to boost them further, mastery of
the seas, a well-trained and experienced army, a highly
centralized and, when necessary, ruthless govern-
ment) were now all too evident.
The demonstration of British might in New York
harbor accentuated American military and economic
weaknesses: Both money and the tools of war were
continually in short supply in a predominantly agri-
cultural country. Many of Washington’s soldiers were
armed with weapons no more lethal than spears and
tomahawks. Few had proper uniforms. Even the most
patriotic resisted conforming to the conventions of
military discipline; the men hated drilling and all
parade-ground formality. And all these problems were
complicated by the fact that Washington had to create
an army organization out of whole cloth at the same
time that he was fighting a war.
Supply problems were handled inefficiently and
often corruptly. Few officers knew much about such
mundane but vital matters as how to construct and
maintain proper sanitary facilities when large numbers
of soldiers were camped at one place for extended
periods of time. What was inelegantly known as “the
itch” afflicted soldiers throughout the war.The American Revolutionatmyhistorylab.comLoyalists
Behind the lines, the country was far from united.
Whereas nearly all colonists had objected to British
policies, many still hesitated to take up arms against
the mother country. Even Massachusetts harbored
manyLoyalists, or Tories, as they were called; about
a thousand Americans left Boston with General
Howe, abandoning their homes rather than submit-
ting to the rebel army.
No one knows exactly how the colonists divided
on the question of independence. John Adams’s off-
the-cuff estimate was that a third of the people were
ardent Patriots, another third loyal to Great Britain,
and the rest neutral or tending to favor whichever
side seemed to be winning. This guess is probably as
useful as any, although in keeping with Adams’s char-
acter he may have understated the number who
agreed with him and overstated those opposed to his
position. Most historians think that about a fifth of
the people were Loyalists and about two-fifths
Patriots, but there are few hard figures to go by. What
is certain is that large elements, perhaps a majority of
the people, were more or less indifferent to the con-
flict or, in Tom Paine’s famous phrase, were summer
soldiers and sunshine patriots—they supported theSeetheMap