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The King ended all hopes of reconciliation when he hired thousands of German troops, called Hessians, to help defeat the rebellious Americans. King George III refused to even look at the Olive Branch Petition, and in August 1775 declared the colonies to be in open rebellion. The second, the “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms,” traced the history of the controversy, condemned the British for everything they had done since 1763, and rejected independence but affirmed the colonists’ purpose to fight for their rights. The first was the “Olive Branch Petition” professing American loyalty and advancing one last plea to the King to prevent further hostilities. In July 1775, the Continental Congress issued two major documents. Once the Continental Congress dealt with the military crisis, the delegates drafted an appeal to King George and Parliament hoping to reach a compromise settlement. Washington had great leadership skills, was wealthy, aristocratic, and from Virginia, which appeased everyone. Many representatives were wary of the rebellious spirit coming from the northeastern colonies. The choice of Washington as Commander-in-Chief was also a shrewd political compromise. The assembly organized the troops who had gathered around Boston into the Continental Army, appointing George Washington Commander-in-Chief.Īlthough Washington had never commanded more than twelve hundred men, his participation in the French and Indian War made him one of the most experienced officers in America. Congress first dealt with the disorganized military.
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The Second Continental Congress met the next month, on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, with representatives from all 13 colonies in attendance. A British General reported to London that the rebels had earned their respect. At the end of what many consider the first day of the Revolutionary War, the British troops had suffered over 250 casualties, while the Americans had fewer than 100 casualties. The British troops pushed on to Concord, destroyed whatever supplies the Patriots had not removed, and were forced to retreat by a growing number of American militiamen. No one knows which side fired the shot, but it was, in the often quoted phrase of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "the shot heard 'round the world."Ī flurry of gunfire ensued, leaving several Minute Men dead and wounded. When the redcoats arrived at Lexington, about 70 Minute Men refused the British solders’ orders to disperse, and a shot was fired. The Massachusetts Patriots, as they were calling themselves, had been accumulating arms and training “Minute Men,” so named because they were said to be ready to fight in a minute. They were to confiscate colonial weapons and gunpowder and capture John Hancock and Sam Adams, the leaders of the “rebel militia.” When local Patriots heard the purpose of the British troops, they sent Paul Revere and William Dawes on their famous rides to alert the countryside and warn Hancock and Adams that the British were coming. In April 1775 on orders from the Crown, British soldiers, or redcoats as Americans referred to them, marched west from their station in Boston to Lexington and Concord. Americans were not yet calling for independence, but formation of the First Continental Congress, combined with the colonists’ reactions to the Coercive Acts, led King George III to believe the colonies were in a state of rebellion. Americans reacted with trade boycotts, and they also began to slowly unite and take political power into their own hands.
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These acts crushed many of the chartered rights of colonial Massachusetts and infringed on the rights of the other colonies.
Outline 4 points of every mans battle series#
In 1774, as a response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed a series of acts, called the Coercive Acts.