The Declaration of Independence

(It almost didn’t happen.)

Samuel Adams lived from 1722 to 1803. He was a business entrepreneur and a politician. All his business ventures failed, except for a small brewery he managed to keep going. That brewery still exists today, in Boston, bearing his name. He did better at politics. He could not help it; it was in the family genes. His second cousin, John Adams, became the second president of the fledgling United States of America. Samuel later became governor of Massachusetts from 1793 to 1797. He became the major voice of the colonists, crying for independence and separation from Great Britain, when the British imposed the Townshend Acts upon the colonists from 1767 to 1773. Those Acts placed taxes on imported lead, glass, paper, paint and tea, demanded that the colonists quarter the troops that were sent to enforce these taxes, at the colonists’ expense, and threatened closure of the New York parliamentary body if these demands were not met. There was an outpouring of protest about these taxes without representation. The most strident of those voices which rose in protest was that of Samuel Adams. His father had been treated by the British with great disdain, now they were treating him and all the other colonist like dirt, again. The colonists refused to comply with those taxes, forcing the British to repeal those Acts, other than the tax on tea, in 1773. In response, Samuel Adams organized the Boston tea Party in 1773. The British retaliated to the tea party by sending troops to quell the disobedient colonists.

Samuel Adams reported on the Lexington and Concord battles that followed, on April 19, 1775, sending those accounts to colonial newspapers. His reports were always factual, but he always made it clear that the British had no business being here. He continued to call for American independence and was gratified when a second continental congress convention was organized beginning May 10, 1775, to discuss that topic. At that conference, there were a few delegates who wanted to still be loyal to the King of England, but in a separate category. Those voices were soon quelled. The great majority of the delegates were angry. They wanted complete separation from Great Britain; they approved forming a committee to write a declaration of independence. The committee that was formed to write that declaration of independence had several very capable wordsmiths on it, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and Benjamin Franklin, but they all deferred to Thomas Jefferson. He was a stutterer and had never been able to express himself well vocally. To compensate, he concentrated on expressing himself artistically with the written word. It took him two weeks to compose and then write down that declaration of independence from Great Britain. The committee felt that slavery was too controversial a subject, so those phrases condemning slavery, both in England and in the colonies, were stricken from the original draft. England, South Carolina and Georgia were at that time still actively importing and using as slaves, Black people from Africa. When the Declaration of Independence was presented to the conference-at-large, in July of 1776, there was some discussion, but no changes in language were made. It was accepted as written on July 2, 1776, approved by the conference-at-large on July 3, 1776. All 56 of the delegates who were present signed it, including Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin, on July 4, 1776. It remains one of the most poetic pieces of prose literature in the English language.

When “mad” King George III of England received this missive of separation, he and the British parliament were outraged at this audacious act, and for that reason, sent an army to subdue these disobedient colonists. The American Revolutionary War that followed did not initially go well for the colonists. The colonial army was poorly clothed, poorly fed, and sometimes did not have any guns for their soldiers. They were losing more battles than they were winning. The British invaded from the south, easily capturing Savannah and Augusta, but had trouble taking Charleston. It took three tries; they finally succeeded in May of 1780. They missed, by five minutes, capturing Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. In the North, the British planned a pincer movement against the colonial forces, sending troops from Fort Quebec, under General John Burgoyne, down the Hudson River; troops under Brigadier General Barry St. Leger from Ft. Oswego in western New York, going east; troops in New York under General William Howe up from the south via the Hudson. They were ordered to meet in Albany, severing the New England colonies, which contained the agitators for independence, from the southern colonies, which were more sympathetic to the British cause. The instructions from commanding General George Germain were not explicit enough for General St. Leger and General Howe, however, so St. Leger and Howe followed their last clearly known plans: St. Leger set up a siege of Ft. Stanwix, from August 7-27, 1777, and Howe went to Philadelphia to take it in September of 1777. They did not understand that they were to meet and join forces with General Burgoyne in Albany, New York. General Burgoyne and his army of 8,000 soldiers were left to battle against 12,000 colonials. The colonials intercepted the British army at Saratoga, nine miles short of their goal, Albany. The British army had muskets, which had a range of 100 yards. The colonials had a corps of sharpshooters with rifles, recruited by General Washington; their rifles had a range of 300 yards. The sharpshooters specialized in hiding in the woods and picking off the British commanding officers, one by one. During the battles at Freeman’s farm on September 18,1777 and of Bemis Heights on October 7, there were heavy losses of British forces. When General Burgoyne counted, he had 5,791 soldiers left out of the 8,000. When surrounded, with dwindling forces and no reinforcements, General John Burgoyne surrendered to General Horatio Gates on October 17, 1777.

The British responded to this loss by sending additional troops to subdue the rebellious colonials. The new British troops were under the command of General Charles Cornwallis. He began his campaign with captures of Savannah, Augusta and, after three tries, Charleston on May 2, 1780. Then he divided his army, leaving part of them to protect Savannah and Charleston, and took 8,000 soldiers up north, to divide supply lines from the northern states to the southern states. He quartered for the winter in Yorktown, Virginia, in preparation for attacks on Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Albany.

Meanwhile, the French had been reluctant to become more involved in the American conflict, because they were deep in debt from several wars with Great Britain. They had been sending gunpowder, guns and other armaments, but not troops. Benjamin Franklin, using the Saratoga Battles as an example, finally convinced the French that it was in the best interest of France to give further aid to the American cause. The French, who now believed that the colonists were going to win, were willing to sign two treaties on Feb 6, 1778: The Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which recognized The United States of America as an independent nation; and the Treaty of Alliance, in which France pledged to send troops to aid in their cause. The French at first sent 3000 troops, arriving at Rhode Island in June of 1780, then later sent 6000 more. This bolstering of forces made a siege of Yorktown possible, beginning September 28, 1781. Under that siege, General Charles Cornwallis was forced to surrender himself and his army to General George Washington, on Oct. 19, 1781. That act ended most hostilities in the American revolutionary war.

In the South, the colonials had retaken Savannah, and laid siege to the British forces in Charleston. That siege lasted from March 29 to May 12, 1780. The remaining stronghold of British loyalists at Augusta were placed under siege by Andrew Pickens, from May 22 to June 6, 1781.

The colonist’s rebellion may have been quashed, and the colonists may have remained under British rule, were it not for the ambiguous instructions General St. Leger and General Howe received from Major General George Germain, in the Northern British campaign, and the interventional aid of the French in a timely manner, in the Southern British Campaign. A formal end to this revolutionary war was fashioned in the Treaty of Paris, in 1783. Had the instructions from General Germain to his Generals in the field been more specific and had the French delayed in sending ships and troops to help the Continental Army, we would be celebrating our Independence Day on a different day than July 4, or not at all.