"Myths" of the American Revolution

[bayonetbrant]

So, I'm not channeling my inner SailorSaturn.

This is from The Smithsonian...

We think we know the Revolutionary War. After all, the American Revolution and the war that accompanied it not only determined the nation we would become but also continue to define who we are. The Declaration of Independence, the Midnight Ride, Valley Forge—the whole glorious chronicle of the colonists' rebellion against tyranny is in the American DNA. Often it is the Revolution that is a child's first encounter with history.

Yet much of what we know is not entirely true. Perhaps more than any defining moment in American history, the War of Independence is swathed in beliefs not borne out by the facts. Here, in order to form a more perfect understanding, the most significant myths of the Revolutionary War are reassessed.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/myths-of-the-american-revolution-10941835/?all

I. Great Britain Did Not Know What It Was Getting Into
II. Americans Of All Stripes Took Up Arms Out Of Patriotism
III. Continental Soldiers Were Always Ragged And Hungry
IV. The Militia Was Useless
V. Saratoga Was The War's Turning Point
VI. General Washington Was A Brilliant Tactician And Strategist
VII. Great Britain Could Never Have Won The War

There's more at the link...

[BanzaiCat]

[Martok]

Hmm.  I guess I wasn't really aware of most of those myths, with the possible exception of  #3 (and only in a more general sense -- that of being woefully undersupplied for most of the war).  I wasn't under any illusions about the rest of them. 

Heh.  Yeah... 

[Centurion40]

So, I'm not channeling my inner SailorSaturn...

LOL.

If you were, you would have posted this:

[Centurion40]

This I did not know!

Moreover, beginning in 1778, the New England states, and eventually all Northern states, enlisted African-Americans, a practice that Congress had initially forbidden. Ultimately, some 5,000 blacks bore arms for the United States, approximately 5 percent of the total number of men who served in the Continental Army.

The African-American soldiers made an important contribution to America's ultimate victory. In 1781, Baron Ludwig von Closen, a veteran officer in the French Army, remarked that the "best [regiment] under arms" in the Continental Army was one in which 75 percent of the soldiers were African-Americans.