American Revolution Posters, Prints & Charts, pg 2/7
for social studies classrooms, history buffs and reenactors.

Battle of Long Island
Battle of White Plains
Battle of Trenton

Battles of Saratoga
Battle of Camden
Battle of Monmouth

Battle of Long Island (also know as the Battle of Brooklyn or Brooklyn Heights), took place in late August of 1776.

The British had given up Boston after Bunker Hill and Admiral Howe had evacuated by sea to New York City; Washington followed in an effort to protect the important seaport of New York.

Via a flanking move from Staten Island across Long Island, the British defeated the Americans. Most of Washington's troops escaped, ferried across the East River to Manhattan on the night of August 29 with darkness, fog, and bad weather immobilizing Admiral Howe's fleet.

In early September, after the Battle, Connecticut school teacher Nathan Hale volunteered to find out what the British were doing in New York. Hale was caught and executed; he reportedly said, “I only regret that I have but one life to give my country.”

In November of 1778 George Washington was forced to abandon Fort Washington in Manhattan to Fort Lee in New Jersey, across the Hudson River.

Howe did not pursue the retreating Washington army at White Plains but returned to take Fort Washington and Fort Lee, gaining control of the New York harbor and surrounding area for the duration of the war.

The size of Washington's army and public support were shrinking, the Continental Congress had abandoned Philadelphia.

The following months are best described by Thomas Paine's words, “These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”, as the Continental Army continued to fall back from the increasing number of British troops, retreating across New Jersey into Pennsylvania. In fact, Paine published volume one of The American Crisis, a series of pamphlets, that began with those famous words, on December 19, 1776, just in time to help keep soldiers whose enlistments had ended, stay, and to recruit for the ranks of Washington's army.

The first Battle of Saratoga took place on September 19, 1777 at Freeman's Farm; the second was at Bemis Heights, on October 7. The British commander, General Burgoyne, having lost a 1,000 men and facing the approaching winter, surrendered to General Horatio Gates on October 17th.

When the news of the Continental victory reached King Louis XVI, the French decided to throw in with the American's against their old foe, the British.

The victory was such a boost to the Americans that a quilt block, Burgoyne Surrounded, commemorates the tactic of surrounding Burgoyne's army.

FYI - The fortifications military engineer Tadeusz Kosciuszko supervised contributed significantly to the American victory.

George Washington's Continental Army spent the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Valley Forge (a valley where an iron forge was located) was close enough to Philadelphia that the troops could harass the British but far enough away to avoid a surprise attack.

The supplies for the army were desperately short and Washington said “that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place ... this Army must inevitably ... Starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can.”

In the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey on June 28, 1778, the main Continental Army attacked the British forces under Henry Clinton.

British officer Charles Cornwallis seized the initiative when American officer Charles Lee faltered.

George Washington was able to consolidate his troops on heights behind marshy ground and used artillery and the battery under Nathanael Greene to force Cornwallis to withdraw.

FYI - Mary Hays, the wife of an American soldier, brought water for the troops, and is considered a model for Molly Pitcher.

The Battle of Camden in South Carolina on August 16, 1780, was a staggering defeat for the Continental forces lead by General Horatio Gates.

The Battle of Cowpens (South Carolina) on January 17, 1781, was a decisive victory for the Continental forces lead by General Daniel Morgan.

Yorktown, Virginia, was the site of the last major land battle in the Revolutionary War, and the surrender of the British Army under General Lord Cornwallis on October 19, 1781. The surrender lead to negotiations which resulted in the Treaty of Paris, 1783.

After the Revolutionary War coins were the only sure method of payment. Paper money was only as valuable as the reliability and proximity of the bank that issued it.

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