Thomas Fleming - Author of a number of books on the American
Revolution, including a biography of Thomas Jefferson - has a new
book, "Liberty! The American Revolution," published by Viking. It
is a companion to the PBS series of the same name... We asked
Fleming to highlight for us some important things we might not know
about our war of independence.
Most Americans think they know all about the Revolution simply
because they are Americans. In fact, the real story - not the one
in most textbooks - is crammed with little-known facts. Here are
13 points to ponder:
1. The Americans of 1776 had the highest standard of living and lowest taxes in
the Western World.
Farmers, lawyers and business owners in the Colonies were
thriving, with some plantation owners and merchants making the
equivalent of $500,000 a year. Times were good for many others
too. (The vast majority of business owners and professionals were
white males.) The British wanted a slice of the cash flow and
tried to tax the Colonists. They resisted violently, convince that
their prosperity and their liberty were at stake. Virginia's
Patrick Henry summed up their stance with his cry: "Give me
liberty or give me death!"
2. There were two Boston tea parties.
Everyone knows how 50 or 60 "Sons of Liberty," disguised as
Mohawks, protested the 3 cents per pound British tax on tea by
dumping chests of the popular drink into Boston Harbor on Dec. 16,
1773. Fewer know that the improper Bostonians repeated the
performance on March 7, 1774. The two tea parties cost the British
around $3 million in modern money.
3. Capt. John Parker of the Lexington Militia did not say: "If they want a war,
let it begin here."
Alerted by Paul Revere Parker and 78 militiamen mustered on
the Lexington, Mass., town green on April 19, 1775. They wanted to
send a warning to the 700 British soldiers marching on Concord to
seize the weapons and gunpowder there. But Parker had no desire to
start a war. The words were put into his mouth 100 years later.
He positioned his men as far away from the British line of march as
possible. As the British approached, Parker ordered his men to
disperse. The British opened fire on them without provocation,
starting the Revolution.
4. Benjamin Franklin wrote the first declaration of independence.
In 1775, Franklin, disgusted with the arrogance of the British
and appalled by the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, wrote a
declaration of independence.
Thomas Jefferson was enthusiastic. But, he noted, many other
delegates to the Continental Congress were "revolted at it." It
would take another year of bitter conflict to persuade the Congress
to vote for the Declaration of Independence written by Jefferson -
with some astute editorial suggestions by Franklin.
5. Nathan Hale was hanged not only for spying but also for trying to burn New
York.
On Sept. 20, 1776, American soldiers, some of them members of
Hale's regiment, filtered into British-held New York and stashed
resin-soaked logs in numerous buildings. A spark turned the
incendiary devices into roaring infernos. (The Americans were
trying to deprive the British army of winter quarters.) Hale was
caught the following day, after the fire destroyed more than a
fourth of the city. He admitted he was a spy and hanged without a
trial because the British considered him one of the incendiaries.
6. History's first submarine attack took place in New York Harbor in 1776.
The Connecticut inventor David Bushnell called his submarine
the Turtle because it resembled two large tortoise shells of equal
size joined together. The watertight hull was made of 6-inch-thick
oak timbers coated with tar. On Sept. 6, 1776, the Turtle targeted
the HMS Eagle, flagship of the British fleet. The submarine was
supposed to secure a cask of gunpowder to the hull of the Eagle and
sneak away before it exploded. Unfortunately, the Turtle got
entangled with the Eagle's rudder bar, lost ballast and surfaced
before the gunpowder could be planted.
7. Benedict Arnold was the best general in the Continental Army.
"Without Benedict Arnold in the first three years of the war,"
says the historian George Neumann, "we would probably have lost the
Revolution." In 1775, the future traitor came within a whisker of
conquering Canada. In 1776, he built a fleet and fought a bigger
British fleet to a standstill on Lake Champlain. At Saratoga in
1777, his brilliant battlefield leadership forced the British army
to surrender. The victory persuaded the French to join the war on
the American side. Ironically, Arnold switched sides in 1780
partly because he disapproved of the French alliance.
8. By 1779, as many as one in seven Americans in Washington's army was
black.
At first Washington was hesitant about enlisting blacks. But
when he heard they had fought well at Bunker Hill, he changed his
mind. The all-black First Rhode Island Regiment - composed of 33
freedmen and 92 slaves who were promised freedom if they served
until the end of the war - distinguished itself in the Battle of
Newport. Later, they were all but wiped out in a British attack.
9. There were women in the Continental Army, even a few who saw combat.
Probably the best known is Mary Ludwig Hays, nicknamed "Molly
Pitcher." She replaced her wounded husband at his cannon during
the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. Another wife of an artilleryman,
Margaret Corbin, was badly wounded serving in her husband's gun
crew at the Battle of Harlem heights in 1776. Thousands of other
woman served in Washington's army as cooks or nurses.
10. George Washington was the best spymaster in American history.
He ran dozens of espionage rings in British-held New York and
Philadelphia, and the man who supposedly could not tell a lie was
a genius at disinformation. He constantly befuddled the British by
leaking, through double agents, inflated reports on the strength of
his army.
11. By 1779, there were more Americans fighting with the British than with
Washington.
There were no less than 21 regiments (estimated to total 6500
to 8000 men) of loyalists in the British army. Washington reported
a field army of 3468. About a third of Americans opposed the
Revolution.
12. At Yorktown, the victory that won the war, Frenchmen outnumbered
Americans almost three to one.
Washington had 11,000 men engaged in the battle, while the
French had at least 29,000 soldiers and sailors. the 37 French
ships-of-the-line played a crucial role in trapping the 8700-strong
British army and winning the engagement.
13. The Kind almost abdicated when the British lost.
After Yorktown, George III vowed to keep fighting. When
Parliament demurred, the King wrote a letter of abdication - then
withdrew it. He tried to console himself with the thought the
Washington would become a dictator and make the Americans long for
royal rule. When he was told that Washington planned to resign his
commission, the monarch gasped: "If he does that, sir, he will be
the greatest man in the world!"