American Revolutionary War

“ Virginia's share in the history of the nation has been gallant and leading, but the Revolutionary war was emphatically fought by Americans for America; no part could have won without the help of the whole, and every victory was thus a victory for all in which all alike can take pride—American Monthly Magazine.
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UNCROWNED QUEENS AND KINGS, AS SHOWN THROUGH HUMOROUS INCIDENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
One by one the years have dropped into the abyss of the past, since the close of the war for American Independence. ”

“ We are proud of the part our class played in the stern struggle for independence and we say that the truth about 1776, the truth about the revolutionary period, both before and after the war for independence was over, shall conquer the lies of the present American ruling class. ”

“ Thus he brings to light, what every one ought by this time to know, that the Revolutionary War, far from being undertaken by the will of a free citizenry, was actually forced upon the American people by a small minority in the teeth of the earnest opposition of a highly respectable percentage of thoughtful citizens, while another large part of the colonists was quite indifferent to the issue. ”

“ When we consider the American Revolution, we are apt to think of it as a great war which all the inhabitants of the Colonies rose up against Great Britain, determined, no matter what might be the hardships and privations, no matter what the cost in blood and money, to achieve their independence and the right to govern themselves. ”

“ They have struggled with astonishing success for the rights of mankind and have emancipated themselves from the shackles of foreign power. America has indeed obtained incalculable advantages by the Revolution; but in the innumerable list of evils attendant on a state of war, she, as well as Great Britain, has lost her thousands of brave soldiers, veteran officers, hardy seamen, and meritorious citizens, that perished in the field or in captivity, in prison ships, and in the wilderness, since the beginning of the conflict. ”

“ The common opinion in the United States regarding the American Revolution is that it was a war waged against Great Britain in which the American people as a whole rose up against the mother country in order to protect themselves against unjustifiable and unbearable oppression. ”

“ That the war-cry of the howling leaders of Secession and treason is, let us drive back the advance guard of civil and religious freedom; let us have more slave territory; let us build stronger the tyrant system of slavery in the great American Republic. Remember, too, that your very presence among the troops of the North would inspire your oppressed brethren of the South with zeal for the overthrow of the tyrant system, and confidence in the armies of the living God—the God of truth, justice, and equality to all men. ”

“ When it was seen that the most distinguished and successful general that had engaged in the royal cause was obliged to surrender himself and his whole army prisoners of war, the generality even of those who had been the most earnest for the subjugation of America, began now to be convinced that it was totally impracticable. ”

“ These asserted without hesitation that this self-created peerage of military origin would throw an undue weight into the scale of the army; while the sincere votaries to freedom and the natural equality of man apprehended that this institution would give a fatal wound to the liberties of America.
Many judicious observers of the story of mankind thought that the United States had now, at the conclusion of the war, an opportunity to make a fair experiment between the advantages of a republican form of government and more despotic modes. ”

“ But after all these woes which England had inflicted upon America, her own statesmen, with almost undivided voice, declared that the interests of both nations were alike promoted, by having a few feeble colonies elevated into the rich and flourishing republic of the United States. Thus the war of the [Pg 355] American revolution must be pronounced to have been, on the part of England, which forced it, one of the most disastrous and senseless of those blunders which have ever accompanied the progress of our race. ”

“ Never on the face of the earth has a war so terrible been waged on so little cause. The French Revolution—whose atrocities we have not yet emulated, thank God—was the frenzied outbreak of a nation trodden under foot and writhing in the grasp of tyranny such as no American ever dreamed of. ”

“ Before he is roused to a participation in violent public action, he bears much, reflects deeply and resolves nobly. But when the oppressions of rulers become so intolerable as to induce the yeomanry of a country to leave their ploughs and peaceful firesides, and draw the avenging sword, let them beware—the day of retribution is at hand. Thus it was at the commencement of the American revolution—when the implements of husbandry were exchanged for those of war and the farmers joined in the glorious cause of liberty—the fate of England’s power over the colonies was sealed for ever. ”

“ But for the substantial aid thus rendered by the fleet and the army of France it can hardly be doubted that the American Revolution would have been crushed, Washington and Franklin would have been hanged as traitors, and monarchical historians would elegantly have described the horrors of the great American rebellion. ”

“ What the French took from the Americans was their theory of revolution, not their theory of government—their cutting, not their sewing. Many French nobles served in the war, and came home republicans and even democrats by conviction. It was America that converted the aristocracy to the reforming policy, and gave leaders to the Revolution. "The American Revolution," says Washington, "or the peculiar light of the age, seems to have opened the eyes of almost every nation in Europe, and a spirit of equal liberty appears fast to be gaining ground everywhere." ”

“ But the seeds of separation were sown, and the ball of empire rolled westward with such astonishing rapidity that the pious mind is naturally excited to acknowledge a superintending Providence, that led to the period of independence, even before America was conscious of her maturity. Precipitated into a war dreadful even in contemplation, humanity recoiled at the idea of civil feuds and their concomitant evils. ”

“ The American people are now striving to rise. Enterprise as difficult as glorious! Whatever may be the issue of the first conflict, it will be only the first conflict. There will be many others; the uprising of a great people is not the work of a day. Sometimes at peace, sometimes perhaps at war with the States that take in hand the cause of slavery, the American Confederation will witness the development, one after another, of the consequences necessarily produced by that decisive event, the election of Mr. Lincoln. ”

“ The United States may congratulate themselves on the success of a revolution which has done honor to the human character by exhibiting a mildness of spirit amid the ferocity of war, that prevented the shocking scenes of cruelty, butchery, and slaughter, which have too often stained the actions of men, when their original intentions were the result of pure motives and justifiable resistance. They have been hailed by distant nations in terms of respect and applause for the glorious an successful stand made by them in favor of the liberties of mankind. ”

“ He knows that the United States of America came into existence by a revolution, but "revolutionary" is for him in this connection merely an adjective of time used to locate and describe a war fought between two powers toward the end of the eighteenth century. He does not realize, or realizes but dimly, the essential kinship of all revolutions. ”

“ Whenever and wherever they have since moved, either by peaceful agitation or by physical force, to meliorate systems of government, whether in France at the close of the last century, or afterward on the second subversion of the elder branch of the Bourbons, or in the recent overthrow of the constitutional king, or in Ireland, or in England, or in Italy, or in Greece, or in South America, whether they succeeded or failed, there, in the tumult or in the strife, was the spirit of the American Revolution. ”

“ On July 6, 1861, the Economist, reviewing the progress of the war preparations to date, asserted that it was universally agreed no restoration of the Union was possible and answered British fears by declaring it was impossible to believe that even the American madness could contemplate a servile insurrection. ”

“ The American Revolution is undoubtedly the most interesting event in the pages of modern history. Changes equally great and convulsions equally violent have often taken place in the Old World; and the records of former times inform us of many instances of oppression, which, urged beyond endurance, called forth the spirit of successful resistance. ”

“ The manifest reluctance of some to oppose the power of Britain, the dread that others felt of so potent an adversary, the ill success of the American arms in Georgia, the surprise of the cavalry and other parties that were coming to their relief, the arrival of British reinforcements, and the rapid advance they made to conquest, appalled the inhabitants, and obliged the citizens soon to abandon all hopes of even saving their town. ”

“ Thus on the eve of one of the most remarkable revolutions recorded in the pages of history, a revolution which Great Britain precipitated by her indiscretion and which the hardiest sons of America viewed in the beginning of opposition as a work reserved for the enterprising hand of posterity, few on either side comprehended the magnitude of the contest, and fewer still had the courage to name the independence of the American colonies as the ultimatum of their designs. ”

“ The revolving wheel whirled the old colonies out of existence, and cunningly framed and polished new state governments. The Revolution turned the British empire down, and pushed the United States of America up. The Revolution rolled to the bottom of the wheel Governor Gage of Massachusetts, and Governor Tryon of North Carolina, and Governor Dunmore of Virginia; and up to the top revolved Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. The Revolution was like a religious conversion: it set the American people out of their old ways, and into a new upward path. ”

“ Since the political fabric of the South has been overthrown, a brave and virtuous people cherish with a more tenacious affection than ever, that honorable reputation which was their birthright, and which they worthily [Pg 503] illustrated during the late war. The violent commotion with which the American Union was but lately convulsed has renewed the historical analogy of revolutions, not less in the sequel than in its progress. ”

“ Close on the skirts of the romantic and inspiriting transactions of the American War of Independence rises the sombre and sublime story of the French Revolution,—the most peculiar and awfully interesting of all human events. From the midst of this tragic condition rolls forth, like a torrent of burning lava from a blazing volcano, the great European War, convulsing all nations, overturning nearly all thrones, devastating almost the whole surface of Europe, and presenting to our astonished gaze the lurid career of the most surprising conqueror in the world's history. ”

“ In this whirlpool of political turmoil rebellion had time to grow and thrive in its southern strongholds, for its imminence could not be forced upon the cool consideration of a people whose traditions had so long been those of prosperous peace. The idea of a civil war, in which thousands on thousands of brave Americans would redden the soil but just denuded of its primeval timber, was an idea so horrible that the most iron-hearted man failed to recognize it as a possibility. ”

“ The American Civil War, as regards continuity, numbers of men steadily engaged, resources employed, and persistence of the combatants, was the "Great War," to date, of all modern conflicts. Not only British, but nearly all foreign observers were of the opinion by midsummer of 1864, after an apparent check to Grant in his campaign toward Richmond, that all America had become engaged in a struggle from which there was scant hope of emergence by a decisive military victory. ”

“ Besides, an attempt to abase the motives of the Revolutionary patriots was plainly evident to objectors in the assertion that “Trivial offenses on the part of governments cannot justify revolution. Only oppression and serious danger can justify war. It cannot be said that the Colonies had actually suffered much. ”

“ I call it a Revolution, for it is a rebellion only on their side; it is a Revolution for the American people. [Applause.] This is the true character of the great struggle for the preservation of our nationality, a struggle which was initiated, not when the first gun was fired upon Fort Sumter, but when the slave aristocracy uttered the first threat of disunion; which arrived at its crisis when the slave aristocracy failed in its attempt to obtain complete control of our National Government, and struck the blow against the life of the nation ”

“ The strangest of all is to see peace men, those in the States who were members of peace societies, and who were sending delegates to peace congresses, laboring to inaugurate civil war, with the expressed object of working a revolution throughout the nation, ultimating in a dissolution of the Union; and all to procure the emancipation of the slave. Simple men! They should learn that revolutions involving such grave consequences are not usually set on foot by murderers and thieves. ”