Table of Contents

* Introduction The Fierce Spirit of Resistance * Mohawk Indians Spill Tea in Boston Harbor * Parliament Punishes the Bostonians * Intolerable Acts Unite the Colonies * Boston Beleaguered and Saved Congress Asserts the Rights of Americans * Union for Resistance * The First Congress Debates the Rights of Americans * The Declaration of Rights The War Begins * Will the Americans Fight? * Colonel Leslie's Expedition to Salem * The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere * A Town Called Lexington * Concord * Sounding the Alarm * Ticonderoga * Virginia Takes the Road to Revolution Bunker's Hill * The Siege of Boston * Bunker's Hill: The American Version * Bunker's Hill: The British Version The Battle for Boston * Washington Is Appointed to the Command of the American Army * Boston under Siege * Creating an American Army * Holding the Army Together * The British in Boston Are Frustrated and Bored * The British Navy Ineffectively Harasses the Americans * Boston Redeemed The Canadian Campaigns * The Beginning: The Capture of St. Johns and Montreal * Arnold Leads an Expedition to Quebec * The Fateful Assault on Quebec * The Army in Retreat * Arnold Saves the American Army: The Battles on Lake Champlain "A Great Empire and Little Minds" * A Great Empire and Little Minds Go Ill Together * The American War Divides English Opinion * Discontent in Britain * The War of Pamphlets * The Great Debate * George III Hires Mercenaries The Great Declaration * Benjamin Rush Limns Some of the Founding Fathers * Defiance or Reconciliation * The Turn of the Tide * Independence like a Torrent * The Final Debate * The Great Declaration The Loyalists * The Loyalists Argue Their Cause * The Ruth of Civil War * The Propriety and Legality of Loyalist Oaths * The Rising Tide of Fury * Tory Defiance * Loyalists in Exile * The Return of the Natives The Struggle for Democracy at Home * All Power Is in the People * Massachusetts Realizes the Theories of the Wisest Writers * Two Bills of Rights * Freedom Embraces Religion as Well as Politics * How Reconcile Freedom to Slavery? * Austerity, Morality and Equality * Education for a Free People * Will the Revolution Wipe Out Class Distinctions? The Battle for New York * The Redcoats Bring War to the Middle States * The Eve of Battle * The Howe's' First Attempt at Conciliation * The Battle of Long Island Begins * Sullivan Leaves the Back Door Open * Stirling Makes a Gallant Stand * The Withdrawal to New York * The Futile Mission of the Howes: The Negotiations with Members of Congress * Awaiting the Attack * The East River Crossing and the Kip's Bay Rout * The British Repulse at Harlem Heights * New York in Flames: The Great Fire of September 20 * The Martyrdom of Nathan Hale * Awaiting Howe's Next Move * The Retreat to White Plains * Howe's Futile Stroke at White Plains * The Fall of Fort Washington The Burgoyne Campaign * The Plan for a Three-Pronged Attack on New York * First Round: A War of Words * The Fall of Ticonderoga * Burgoyne's First Serious Blunder * The Jenny McCrea Atrocity * The Rout of St. Leger * The Hessian Disaster at Bennington * Saratoga: The First Phase: Freeman's Farm * Six Henry Clinton's Relief Expedition * Saratoga: The Last Phase: Bemis Heights * The Surrender of Burgoyne Howe Invades Pennsylvania * Philadelphia Is the Objective * Brandywine * The Fall of Philadelphia * Germantown * The Struggle for Control of the Delaware * Valley Forge * The "Conway Cabal" * The British Abandon Philadelphia France Comes In * America Seeks Foreign Aid Without Entangling Alliances * France Gives Aid Short of War * France Enters the War England Seeks Reconciliation * The Attempt to Woo Franklin * The Carlisle Commission * Forlorn Hopes of Peace The Patriots Seize the Initiative in the Middle States * General Prescott is Captured * Lafayette's Abortive Expedition to Canada * Monmouth * The Rhode Island Campaign of 1778 * Stony Point * Paulus Hook * Springfield * Benedict Arnold Fires New London Spies, Treason and Mutiny * Dr. Church Goes over to the Enemy * Arson in America and England * A Regius Professor Remains Loyal to His King * Dr. Edward Bancroft Gives the History of His Career as a Spy * The Treason of Benedict Arnold * The Capture and Execution of Andr * Mutiny The Home Front in the War * Munitions, Supplies and Impressment * Holding the Price and Wages Line * Further Efforts to Hold the Price Line * The Issuance and Control of the Currency * An End to Depreciation: The Forty-to-One Formula * The Bank and the Financier * Profiteers and Profiteering Health, Hospitals and Medicine * Setting Up a Medical Establishment * The Ravages of Smallpox on the Expedition against Canada * The Breakdown of Hospital Services * Dr. Shippen and Dr. Rush Try to Bring Order out of Chaos * The Impact of the War on Medicine Prisons and Escapes * Stormont Rejects Franklin's Plea for Mercy to Prisoners * John Leach and His Companions Sugger in a Boston Prison * The Sufferings of American Prisoners in New York * The Horrors of the British Prison Ships * Congress Keeps the "Convention" Troops in America * The Sufferings of Loyalist and British Prisoners * American Prisoners in English Gaols * Captain Asgill Is Reprieved as a Compliment to Louis XVI Songs and Ballads of the Revolution * Patriot * Loyalist and British Sea Battles and Naval Raids * Founding the American Navy * Congress Runs the Navy * Sandwich Presides over the Misfortunes of the British Navy * The Naval War off the New England Coast * A Submarine in New York Waters? * The Naval War in Foreign Waters American Diplomats on the Vaunted Scene of Europe * The American Commission Is Riddled with Dissension * Mission to Spain * John Adams Descends upon the Dutch War Out of Niagara * Both Sides Enlist Indians * Wyoming * The Americans Strike Back: The Sullivan Expedition * The Americans Strike Back: The Broadhead Expedition * The Final Campaigns along the New York Borderlands The Redcoats Carry the War to the South * The Charleston Expedition The Second Campaign to Conquer the South * The Fall of Savannah * Advance and Repulse in Georgia * Prevost's Charleston Expedition * The Franco-American Expedition to Recapture Savannah * The Fall of Charleston * The Massacre at the Waxhaws * Patriots Whip Tories at Ramsour's Mill * Pillage and Civil War Flame in South Carolina * At Camden Gate's Northern Laurels Turn to Southern Willows * The Patriot Cause Looks Up: King's Mountain The Turn of the Tide * Partisan Warfare Takes Its Toll * Cowpens, the Patriots' Best-Fought Battle * The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Guilford Courthouse * The Partisan Role in the Reconquest of South Carolina * Hobkirk's Hill, the Second Battle of Camden * The Fall of the British Outposts * Eutaw Springs Yorktown: Washington's Vindication * Washington's Strategy Looks to the Chesapeake * De Grasse's Naval Victory * The Siege * Cornwallis Surrenders Winning the Peace * France Seeks to Dictate the American Peace * Britain Sues for Peace * "The Point of Independence" * The Battle for the Fisheries * The Settlement of the Loyalist Question * The Reception of the Peace Treaty Closing Scenes * In England Defeat Shakes the Foundations of Monarchy * The Alternatives of Dictatorship or Republican Government * Washington's Parting Advice to the New Nation * "Peace Made, a New Scene Opens"

About the Author

Henry Steele Commager, adistinguished historian, has written many books, including The American Mind, and, as editor, Documents of American History and The Blue and the Gray . Richard B. Morris, one of our country's most respected scholars, has authored The American Revolution Reconsidered and John Jay: The Making of a Revolutionary.