Saratoga-Yorktown 1777-1781 by Izabella Rusinowa

Yorktown was a former tobacco trading post now in decline, not much bigger than a large village. With that news, French King Louis XVI entered into a formal military alliance with the United States, and in February 1778, France joined the war. However, the French refused to provide more than arms and money throughout 1777, until they learned in December 1777 about Saratoga and Burgoyne’s surrender. Franklin had also been a diplomat before the Revolution, spending several years in London on behalf of the colonies. Franklin was an ideal choice for Enlightened France, which revered Franklin for his scientific accomplishments and his known reputation as a brilliant man. In December 1776, Benjamin Franklin was sent by Congress to France to attempt to secure a critically needed alliance.

Indeed, 1777 did prove to be the pivotal year of the war, but not in the way the British intended. That winter, the British planned a complicated campaign in which British armies from Canada and New York would strike out across New England and link up, with the goal of cutting off the Northern colonies. French forces would play a crucial role at the end of the war, and the Treaty of Paris would conclude the Revolution with one last great surprise.Īt the end of 1776, the American war effort was on the verge of collapse, and despite Washington’s success at Trenton, the British were confident that they could quell the rebellion in 1777. While disorganized militias fought the Battles of Lexington & Concord, George Washington would lead the Continental Army in the field while men like Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia and Benjamin Franklin negotiated overseas in France.

The political and military nature of the Revolutionary War was just as full of intrigue. From 1764-1775, a chain of events that included lightning rods like the Townshend Acts led to bloodshed in the form of the Boston Massacre, while the Boston Tea Party became a symbol of nonviolent protest. The American Revolution is replete with seminal moments that every American learns in school, from the “shot heard ‘round the world” to the Declaration of Independence, but the events that led up to the fighting at Lexington & Concord were borne out of 10 years of division between the British and their American colonies over everything from colonial representation in governments to taxation, the nature of searches, and the quartering of British regulars in private houses.

Saratoga-Yorktown 1777-1781 by Izabella Rusinowa