The American Revolution Battles

Lexington and Concord (Apr 19, 1775)

General Thomas Gage, the military governor of Massachusetts, knew he was sitting on a powder keg. Since Parliament had imposed the Coercive Acts in response to the Boston Tea Party, American...

Bunker Hill (Jun 17, 1775)

After the battle at Concord on 19 April 1775, the British beat a hasty retreat back to Boston. With American colonists hot on their heels and taking potshots at them from behind rocks and tre...

For most of the war, Americans entertained the illusion that Canada was ripe for the picking, that freedom-craving Canadians would rally to the American call and join them in ousting their common B...

New York (Aug 26, 1776 - Aug 30, 1776)

The British commanders felt humiliated after being driven from Boston. A ragtag militia had imprisoned them in the city and then forced them out with a canon seized from one of their own Brit...

Trenton and Princeton (Dec 25, 1776 - Jan 3, 1777)

Washington had been humiliated in New York. He had botched the defense of the city and been forced to flee with his army north along the Hudson with the British close on his heels. He t...

Saratoga (Sep 19, 1777 - Oct 17, 1777)

In 1777, ambitious General John Burgoyne convinced the British ministry that he could deal a devastating blow to the Americans by leading an army from Canada south through Lake Champlain and into t...

Monmouth (Apr 28, 1778)

The winter of 1778 was a hard one for the American troops at Valley Forge. Dressed in rags, short on food, and crowded into makeshift huts, they prompted Washington to send unusually blunt petition...

Charleston (Feb 11, 1780 - Feb 12, 1780)

Having failed to crush the American rebellion in the northern colonies, the British decided in late 1778 to concentrate their efforts in the South. There were more loyalists in South Carolina...

Camden (Aug 16, 1780)

Despite the crushing defeat at Charleston, Patriot loyalists in the Carolina interior waged a dogged campaign against British and Loyalist forces. In April, General Washington sent them some...

Cowpens (Jan 17, 1781)

After the disaster at Camden, Nathaniel Greene was given command over America’s southern army. More prudent than Gates, he avoided a direct confrontation with Cornwallis and his increasingl...

Yorktown (Aug 30, 1781 - Oct 19, 1781)

After the crushing defeat at Cowpens and the costly “victory” at Guilford Court, British General Charles Cornwallis decided that the Carolinas could not be subdued until Virginia, which had sup...