The Latest Challenger

Securing Independence, Defining Nationhood (1776-1778)

-In November of 1775, Colonel Henry Knox brought British artillery to Fort Ticonderoga to reinforce the siege of Boston

-Knox and his men used primitive sleds to pull fifty-nine cannons through a snow-covered forest. Through freezing temperatures, they eventually reported back to George Washington in January of 1776, one of the Revolution's great acts of heroism and endurance

-Knox served on Washington's staff during the war, and became the nation's first secretary of the war in 1789

-The revolution allowed white northerners and southerners the first chance to learn what they had in common, and they bonded through mutual admiration for one another

-As an act of desperation, the thirteen original colonies declared independence on July 1776

-The United States of America was formalized with the "Articles of Confederation"

Prospects of War

Loyalists and Other British Sympathizers

-As late as January 1776, most colonists did not want to believe that declaring independence from Britain was the only option

-20% of all whites either opposed the rebellion or did not offer support for the Confederation

-Loyalists did not with the patriots that independence was the only way to save colonists constitutional rights

-Americans inflicted the worst atrocities of the war upon each other

-125,000 English, Scottish, and Irish landed from 1763 to 1775, the greatest number