AP American History
The American Tactics of the
Biography and Footnotes
Style of writing
American History Term Paper
December 13, 1999
The American Tactics of the Revolutionary War
Most of Europe thought that the British with their immense amount of capital, soldiers and supplies would beat the American resistance in the American revolutionary war without much of an effort. However the Patriots realized, from their earliest difficulties, to capitalize on the enemy's weaknesses. Guerrilla warfare and a strategy that emanated from the ability to manipulate events to their own benefit enabled the Americans to defeat the ostensibly more powerful British.
The Americans suffered great abuse from their mother country. The British laid upon the Americans heavy taxes between the years 1764 to the middle of 1776. They created such taxes in the Sugar Act, Townshend Act, Tea Act, the Intolerable Acts and many other acts. These acts over the course of the years destroyed much of the faith that Americans had in the British government. The greater portion of the population thought the British were inadequate rulers and that they could do a much better job in ruling themselves . The Americans were tired of the Quartering Act which let British troops be housed in their own homes. They didn't enjoy housing British troops so that their families could be spied upon or have their children raped. The least the Americans thought they deserved was the right to have a representation in Parliament and the right to settle the land over the Appalachian Mountains . If the farmers could have more land to work on, the Americans could have a surplus of food to ship to other countries creating a better economy for the American people.
Over the course of about twenty-five years the Americans sent over 500 bills to the British House Of Trade trying to repeal the economic acts that Britain laid down upon them . The Americans also tried to convince the British to let them have the ability to trade with other countries. If the British would have allowed this the common people of American would have been doing better economically; the percent of poor people would have been lowered greatly and the average income would have gone up a great deal . The reason it would have gone up so much is that Britain controlled the prices of products. The British decided how much they would buy a product for from the Americans and charge them two or three times as much to buy it back. All the American people really wanted was to be treated properly. As Thomas Paine said in Common Sense the British treated the Americans like an abusive mother would treat her child.
Due to the economic hardships the Americans suffered they knew that they were going to face many problems in the war. The Americans knew that the British had a larger supply of men ranging from more experienced
generals to more soldiers . The British had such a surplus of income from all of their colonies that they were able hire and supply mercenaries from Germany to come and fight in America. They had a stronger navy and a lot more artillery than the Americans had. The Americans faced many other disadvantages such as lack of guns, ammunition, food, clothing, and most of all they were heavily outnumbered by men . The British had most advantages except for three main things. The first of all the British had a harder time setting up their supply line because they were so far away from any major base . Their main head quarters was on Long Island. The...
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5. Ward Christopher, The War of the Revolution Volume One, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1952
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