Table Of ContentIBT053 - SH of American Revolutionary War:Layout 1 20/3/13 13:27 Page i
I.B.TAURIS SHORT HISTORIES
I.B.Tauris Short Histories is an authoritative and elegantly written
new series which puts a fresh perspective on the way history is taught
and understood in the twenty-first century. Designed to have strong
appeal to university students and their teachers, as well as to general
readers and history enthusiasts, I.B.Tauris Short Historiescomprises
a novel attempt to bring informed interpretation, as well as factual
reportage, to historical debate. Addressing key subjects and topics
in the fields of history, the history of ideas, religion, classical studies,
politics, philosophy and Middle East studies, the series seeks inten-
tionally to move beyond the bland, neutral ‘introduction’ that so
often serves as the primary undergraduate teaching tool. While always
providing students and generalists with the core facts that they need
to get to grips with the essentials of any particular subject, I.B.Tauris
Short Histories goes further. It offers new insights into how a topic
has been understood in the past, and what different social and cultural
factors might have been at work. It brings original perspectives to
bear on manner of its current interpretation. It raises questions and
– in its extensive further reading lists – points to further study, even
as it suggests answers. Addressing a variety of subjects in a greater
degree of depth than is often found in comparable series, yet at the
same time in concise and compact handbook form, I.B.Tauris Short
Histories aims to be ‘introductions with an edge’. In combining
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brings history up-to-date for an increasingly complex and globalised
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‘Stephen Conway’s A Short History of the American Revolutionary Waroffers proof
that big things come in small packages. In lucid prose, without a whiff of cant,
Conway cuts through a century-long scholarly logjam about whether the American
Revolution is best seen as a war about home rule, or about who should rule at home
(as Carl Becker famously posed the question). Instead, Conway gives us a global
American Revolution with multiple causes and ambiguous and far-reaching conse-
quences. Conway’s A Short History of the American Revolutionary War locates the
conflict’s deep roots early in the colonial period, and traces its broad branches from
Boston to Bengal, Philadelphia to the Philippines. His tight narrative tracks the war’s
many fronts in North America, the Caribbean, West Africa, South Asia, and beyond.
Conway explores multiple wars as well as multiple continents: here unfolds a brutal
civil war as well as a heroic struggle of colonial liberation, a European and ultimately
a global conflict as well as the war that made the United States. A political and
cultural conflict, Conway’s Revolutionis first and foremost a shooting war, with all
the attendant drama and contingency of the finest military history. A diverse cast of
characters – ranging from ministers in London; to generals in far-flung fields; to
African-Americans fighting for freedom, Native Americans demanding alliance, and
women seeking safety and stability – gives a human face to bloody insurrection and
grand strategy. This is the work of a master historian at the height of his powers. I
know of nothing like it.’
– Jane Kamensky, Harry S Truman Professor of History, Brandeis University
‘A major scholar of the Revolutionary War, Stephen Conway has written an outstanding
introduction for both students and laymen. He excels in placing the war in a global
context including Europe, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and India. He has
demonstrated better than anyone the diffusion of British troops and ships throughout
the world, and the extent to which military demands in the Caribbean deflected
much-needed resources from winning the war in the American colonies. Transcending
the narrow national focus of so many accounts, he reveals this to have been a war
in which Britain was more isolated than at any other time in its modern history and
in which it was threatened with serious attempts of invasion for the first time since
the Spanish Armada. Conway offers a compelling explanation of why Britain lost
America. At the same time, his broader perspective shows that it was a war that the
British did not entirely lose, since they won major victories against the Bourbons in
1782 and succeeded in bankrupting France.’
–Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Professor of History, University of Virginia and Saunders
Director, Robert H Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello
‘Stephen Conway’s Short Historytakes a remarkably enlarged view of the American
Revolutionary War: from a rebellion in the British colonies of North America to the
intervention of European powers, to fighting that spread round the globe, to a
postwar settlement in which Britain fared unexpectedly well. Conway has told this
sprawling story with authority and clarity. He has shown that while the British were
unable to keep thirteen of their American colonies, they did have the fiscal and naval
resources to survive the war and fare better than their enemies in the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth century. This Short Historyis just the place to begin to under-
stand the American Revolutionary War.’
–Ira D Gruber, Harris Masterson, Jr Professor Emeritus of History, Rice University
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THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTIONARY
WAR
STEPHEN CONWAY
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Published in 2013 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave
Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © 2013 Stephen Conway
The right of Stephen Conway to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book,
or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the
images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.
ISBN: 978 1 84885 812 1 (hb)
ISBN: 978 1 84885 813 8 (pb)
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Sabon by Ellipsis Digital Limited, Glasgow
Printed and bound by T.J. International, Padstow, Cornwall
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Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Dramatis Personae 13
Timeline 23
Chapter 1: The Long Road to Lexington 31
Chapter 2: The War for America 57
Chapter 3: The World War 87
Chapter 4: Civilians 120
Chapter 5: Endings and Explanations 144
Chapter 6: Epilogue 171
Notes 181
Further Reading 207
Index 211
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Preface
All authors incur heavy debts in writing a book; I am no exception.
Over many years of studying the American Revolution, my under-
standing has been enriched by reading the work of a large number
of other historians. I have not been able to do justice to their con -
tribution to my thinking in the Notes to this book, but another
indication of the extent of my appreciation comes in the form of
the ‘Further Reading’ section at the end. One particular debt merits
highlighting. I have benefited greatly from the new perspectives
opened up by the work of the Contractor State Group – a network
of scholars in many different countries that has been studying the
impact of war-related spending on various European states in the
eighteenth century. The Contractor State Group is already respon-
sible for several volumes of essays, all of which I found very helpful.
More importantly, perhaps, members of the Contractor State Group
have been generous in their willingness to share ideas not yet in
print. My colleagues and friends Rafael Torres Sánchez of the Univer-
sity of Navarra at Pamplona and Joël Felix of the University of
Reading have talked to me extensively about their respective inter-
ests in Spain and France in the American Revolutionary War. The
three of us hope, one day, to write a book together that considers
the war from the vantage points of its principal European partici-
pants; I hope they will consider this slim volume as helping us to
reach that goal.
I have also learned a lot from my contact with the historians
involved in the Oxford Handbook on the American Revolution,
edited by Jane Kamensky and Edward Gray. I attended a confer-
ence run by the editors in a snowbound Chicago in February 2011,
vii
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Stephen Conway
at which I was able to talk with many leading American historians
of the Revolution; more recently Jane and Ed kindly invited me to
a conference on ‘Britain’s American War’, in the very congenial setting
of the Huntington Library in California, which stimulated me to
think in new ways about a conflict with which I was already very
familiar. I am grateful to all who contributed to those two confer-
ences, both established historians and newcomers; the presence of
so many of the latter emphatically demonstrated that a talented new
generation of scholars is looking afresh at the American Revolution
and its war.
Unusually for a brief and synoptic study of this kind, I have drawn
extensively on archival material. Much of it had been consulted years
ago, as part of my research for earlier books, but some has been
examined specifically for this work. I am greatly indebted to the
archivists at the following institutions: the Bedfordshire Record Office,
Bedford; Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts; Birmingham
City Archives; the British Library, London; the Centre for Bucking-
hamshire Studies, Aylesbury; the Centre for Kentish Studies,
Maidstone; Dr Williams’ Library, London; the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Hull University Library; the Huntington
Library, San Marino, California; Leicestershire Record Office,
Leicester; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the National Archives
of Scotland, Edinburgh; the National Archives of the United Kingdom,
Kew; the National Army Museum, Chelsea; the National Library of
Ireland, Dublin; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; the
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; the National Maritime
Museum, Greenwich; the New-York Historical Society, New York
City; the New York State Library, Albany; Nottingham University
Library; the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast; the
Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich; Sheffield Archives; the Somerset
Record Office, Taunton; the Staffordshire Record Office, Stafford;
the Surrey Record Office, Guildford; the West Suffolk Record Office,
Bury St Edmunds; the West Yorkshire Archives Service, Leeds; the
William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am also grateful
to the owners of private collections, particularly the Marquess of
Bath for access to his papers at Longleat; Lady Elizabeth Godsal,
who allowed me to examine the Colleton, Garth and Godsal Family
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Preface
Papers at Haines Hill; the Duke of Northumberland, who gave me
permission to use the Percy Papers in Alnwick Castle; and Mr Oliver
Russell, who arranged for me to see the Macpherson Grant Papers
at Ballindalloch Castle.
I should like to record three further debts. The first is to the
History Department at University College London. I am fortunate
to work with such marvellous colleagues, whose work always inspires
me to further efforts with my own. The students I have taught over
the years have also stimulated me to think afresh about many issues
that had been settled in my mind; imagining how they might react
to what I was writing helped me greatly to decide on the structure
and content of the current work. My second debt is to Alex Wright
of I.B.Tauris, who asked me to write the book and persisted even
when I doubted whether I had the time to undertake the task.
Despite my early reservations, I have enjoyed revisiting the Amer-
ican Revolution and its war, and I thank Alex for his encouragement
and support. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my family,
especially my wife and son, who for many years have put up with
my absorption in the War of Independence with remarkable patience
and good nature.
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