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Helped to feed the American forces
- During the Revolutionary War, agriculture helped to feed the American forces, and in the Continental Congress it saw U.S. commodity exports as a major lever in building alliances with other nations, creating the model Commercial Treaty of 1777 (Jefferson later sought to use the curtailment of American agriculture exports, the embargo, to force Britain and France to change their maritime policies toward the United States).
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Why were most humble farmers against the Revolutionary War?
Farmers, it could be conjectured, understood the vital role of ports in conveying the wheat that left their farmsteads for flour markets in New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, and thence to ultimate sale and consumption in the West Indies and southern Europe.
The determination of most farmers to give their prime allegiance to their homes and locality had been amply demonstrated during the French and Indian War when the authorities had very limited success in getting pro-vincial troops to fight beyond the point of immediate danger. If the uninvolved were common in the countryside the remainder there
- Overview
- Land campaigns to 1778
The American Revolution—also called the U.S. War of Independence—was the insurrection fought between 1775 and 1783 through which 13 of Great Britain’s North American colonies threw off British rule to establish the sovereign United States of America, founded with the Declaration of Independence in 1776. British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after a long period of salutary neglect, including the imposition of unpopular taxes, had contributed to growing estrangement between the crown and a large and influential segment of colonists who ultimately saw armed rebellion as their only recourse.
salutary neglect
Learn more about salutary neglect, the British government policy that provided for loose imperial supervision of the North American colonies.
How did the American Revolution begin?
On the ground, fighting in the American Revolution began with the skirmishes between British regulars and American provincials on April 19, 1775, first at Lexington, where a British force of 700 faced 77 local minutemen, and then at Concord, where an American counterforce of 320 to 400 sent the British scurrying. The British had come to Concord to seize the military stores of the colonists, who had been forewarned of the raid through efficient lines of communication—including the ride of Paul Revere, which is celebrated with poetic license in Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1861).
Battles of Lexington and Concord
Americans fought the war on land with essentially two types of organization: the Continental (national) Army and the state militias. The total number of the former provided by quotas from the states throughout the conflict was 231,771 men, and the militias totaled 164,087. At any given time, however, the American forces seldom numbered over 20,000; in 1781 there were only about 29,000 insurgents under arms throughout the country. The war was therefore one fought by small field armies. Militias, poorly disciplined and with elected officers, were summoned for periods usually not exceeding three months. The terms of Continental Army service were only gradually increased from one to three years, and not even bounties and the offer of land kept the army up to strength. Reasons for the difficulty in maintaining an adequate Continental force included the colonists’ traditional antipathy toward regular armies, the objections of farmers to being away from their fields, the competition of the states with the Continental Congress to keep men in the militia, and the wretched and uncertain pay in a period of inflation.
By contrast, the British army was a reliable steady force of professionals. Since it numbered only about 42,000, heavy recruiting programs were introduced. Many of the enlisted men were farm boys, as were most of the Americans. Others were unemployed persons from the urban slums. Still others joined the army to escape fines or imprisonment. The great majority became efficient soldiers as a result of sound training and ferocious discipline. The officers were drawn largely from the gentry and the aristocracy and obtained their commissions and promotions by purchase. Though they received no formal training, they were not so dependent on a book knowledge of military tactics as were many of the Americans. British generals, however, tended toward a lack of imagination and initiative, while those who demonstrated such qualities often were rash.
Because troops were few and conscription unknown, the British government, following a traditional policy, purchased about 30,000 troops from various German princes. The Lensgreve (landgrave) of Hesse furnished approximately three-fifths of that total. Few acts by the crown roused so much antagonism in America as that use of foreign mercenaries.
Britannica Quiz
Aug 15, 2018 · Farmers make their livelihoods cultivating the earth and typically shun the limelight. Students exposed to the colonial and Revolutionary periods of American history are made to focus on the growing tension with Great Britain, the lives and personalities of the Founding Fathers, and the major battles of the war.
Even prior to the war years, American farmers pushed into new areas for settlement. By 1775, when fighting erupted in the American Revolution, some sixteen thousand farmers, most from western Massachusetts and Connecticut, were already settled in the area that would become the state of Vermont.
During the war, farmers received draft deferments as well as loans for increasing production through mechanization, land acquisition, and increased use of fertilizers. The index of gross farm production (with 1939 at 100) rose from 108 in 1940 to 126 in 1946.
many farmers and planters helped to further, agriculture remained the way of life for most Americans throughout the revolutionary era. Yet it was a way of life which depended for continued growth and prosperity on ocean-borne commerce, and hence upon British and American merchants and shipowners who carried surplus American farm produce to the ...
