Rebels! The American Revolutionary War

Trevor's Journal, sometime in the winter of the late 1770s. Date unknown.

Well, we're alive. And safe. Both a miracle in my opinion. We've arrived sometime in the Revolutionary war. I'm not sure when or where, exactly. All I know is it's cold, several of these American soldiers are sick, and past Trevor is driving me insane. Can you imagine? He hid 4T-2 in a grain barrel that we slept next to every night for the last week or two and he didn't remember where it was! I guess it doesn't help that I didn't remember either. I am, after all, him. I just can't believe he's so selfish. I am eager for his trip to Czechoslovakia. Plus, he's got his own 4T, so he can go whenever he wants to. Except he chose to stick with us for another round. Sigh.

It's hard to guess what year we're in during the war. Most people don't realize that the Revolutionary war lasted eight years. Eight years! Can you imagine having war in your homeland for eight years? This is why I'm not sure what time period we're in, and I don't think it's wise for me to ask someone. People don't get it when a time traveler asks what year it is. They think you're crazy.

The official "date" that the war started is April 19th, 1775. There were a lot of events leading up to it, though. For starters, the British had begun to get very oppressive. They begun to tax the American people on things that the British people didn't get taxed on, treating the American colonies like they weren't British citizens. This made everyone pretty mad. At one point so many people got mad at the outrageous tax on tea that they snuck onto a ship at night and dumped it all into the water. This outraged the Brits and the King and they sent troops to keep the colonies under control. This made the Americans all the more resentful- they were being treated like criminals.

The day things escalated was the sad and fateful day of March 5th, 1775. This event has become known as the Boston Massacre.

Oh, past Trevor is trying to get my attention. Just a second...

Ahem, I'm back. Past Trevor was begging me to take him to go meet George Washington. Honestly. I'll take him to meet him later. I feel like I'm talking to a child... not to my own self who is me. I can treat myself kinda bad sometimes. That's just weird.

Oh, yes. Back to the slave trade that lead to the Civil War. Wait... no, that's not right. I was talking about Boston Massacre. I'm sorry, I have been under so much stress lately that I'm not even remembering what era I' m writing about. 

Boston Massacre was started by a group of civilians (obviously in Boston) yelling at a British sentry. They started insulting him and threatening to hurt him, which was not a nice thing to do. This was because they were starting to get really mad about the taxes and being treated like criminals and all that. Eight other soldiers came to the rescue of the sentry, and the crowd started to throw things and yell threats. Most of these British soldiers were young, and without orders they fired their guns into the crowd, killing three people and injuring others. Two other people died later on from the wounds.

That was it for the Americans. War began against the British, starting with the battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775.

The war was brutal to both sides. The British lost about 24,000 men to injuries and death. The Americans had approximately 8, 445 men wounded, 10,000 died from disease, 8,500 who died in British prisons and about 8,000 who died in combat. That's over 34,000 men. Pretty sad.

The war ended on September 3rd, 1783. It ended in Yorktown, Virginia. Actually, interestingly enough, if the Americans hadn't won the battle of Yorktown democracy in America could have had a very different outcome.  To quote ushistory.org: "The war virtually came to an end when General Cornwallis was surrounded and forced to surrender the British position at Yorktown, Virginia. Two years later, the Treaty of Paris made it official: America was independent."

If the Revolutionary War hadn't happened, sad as it was to see two countries kill each other over things that may have been settled democratically (had they relented and tried to see past their own selves) it was one of the most important wars America has ever been in. Without it happening we wouldn't have had a start in Democracy. This is huge. Can you imagine America belonging to Britain all the way up to World War Two? What would have happened then? Who would have won World War Two?

We don't know. Whatever would have happened, we can rest assured that God had a plan through the bloodshed to create one of the strongest nations in the world.

Today in history: Today the Siege on Boston began on March 2nd, 1776. General George Washington (later to become the first President) ordered the bombardment of Boston on this day in attempts to take the city over. By March 17th the city was under American control. So today you can realize that 239 years ago the siege on Boston began. Kind of exciting, right?

Little Known Fact: Most people don't realize that George Washington was not a very good General. He was a very good man and full of love for his country and America (which is why he made a wonderful President. He was a very humble man and hadn't actually wanted to be President, he only agreed after telling everyone he wanted the government to be run by the American people.) but not a very good military commander. One example was when he ordered a surprise attack to take over Fort Ontario in 1783. Five hundred American soldiers marched towards Fort Ontario in February. They marched in the night, but there was one problem, They couldn't find the fort! By dawn the next day they'd marched in circles for over four hours and were still a mile away from the fort. The element of surprise was lost, so the men retreated without firing a shot. Though George Washington himself was not involved with the march, there were a couple of instances of this happening under his command. He had a bit of trouble keeping all his men together. Inspiring them, yes. Keeping them in order... not so much. We're just glad he did a far better job as a President than a General!