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American Revolutionary War soldiers

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Abbott, Adams, Alexander, Allen and 16 others
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Profiles

  •
    Caleb Munson (c.1735 - 1815)
    A Patriot of the American Revolution for NEW JERSEY with the rank of PRIVATE. DAR Ancestor # A082995 GEDCOM Note Biography When Caleb Munson was born in 1735 in Morristown, New Jersey, his fat...
  • Caleb Munson, III (1747 - 1826)
    A Patriot of the American Revolution for CONNECTICUT with the rank of RECRUITING OFFICER. DAR Ancestor # A082993 The information added to this tree today for the four generations of ancestors for C...
  • Caleb Munson (1746 - 1802)
    A Patriot of the American Revolution for CONNECTICUT with the rank of PRIVATE. DAR Ancestor # A082987
  • Bazel Munson (1730 - 1803)
    A Patriot of the American Revolution for CONNECTICUT with the rank of CAPTAIN. DAR Ancestor # A082984
  • Jacob Meyer Fretz (1732 - 1808)
    A Patriot of the American Revolution for PENNSYLVANIA with the rank of PRIVATE. DAR Ancestor # A042595 II. Jacob Fretz, b about 1732, d —, m Magdalena Nash, daughter of William Nash, about 1755. ...

For DAR information, see Daughters of the American Revolution‎.

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) or American War of Independence began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and concluded in a global war between several European great powers.

The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby many of the colonists rejected the legitimacy of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation, claiming that this violated the Rights of Englishmen. The First Continental Congress met in 1774 to coordinate relations with Great Britain and the by-then thirteen self-governing and individual provinces, petitioning George III of Great Britain for intervention with Parliament, organizing a boycott of British goods, while affirming loyalty to the British Crown. Their pleas ignored, and with British soldiers billeted in Boston, Massachusetts, by 1775 the Provincial Congresses formed the Second Continental Congress and authorized a Continental Army. Additional petitions to the king to intervene with Parliament resulted in the following year with Congress being declared traitors and the states to be in rebellion. The Americans responded in 1776 by formally declaring their independence as one new nation — the United States of America — claiming their own sovereignty and rejecting any allegiance to the British monarchy.

France's government under King Louis XVI secretly provided supplies, ammunition and weapons to the revolutionaries starting in 1776, and the Continentals' capture of a British army in 1777 led France to openly enter the war in early 1778, which evened the military strength with Britain. Spain and the Dutch Republic – French allies – also went to war with Britain over the next two years, threatening an invasion of Great Britain and severely testing British military strength with campaigns in Europe — including attacks on Minorca and Gibraltar — and an escalating global naval war. Spain's involvement culminated in the expulsion of British armies from West Florida, securing the American colonies' southern flank.

Throughout the war, the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy American coastal cities, but control of the countryside (where 90% of the population lived) largely eluded them because of the relatively small size of their land army. French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading at Yorktown in 1781 to the surrender of a second British army. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

Numbers of Continentals Soldiers and Militia

Various accounts of totals have been made. One is by Lorenzo Sabine (1846) see page 31.

Notable people of the American Revolutionary War

Profiles of those who favored independence for Britain's American Colonies,

Political leaders

Military leaders

Continental Army

Continental Navy

Other notable people

  • Betsy Ross (1752 - 1836), the seamstress who "created the American flag"
  • Rev. Timothy Dwight, IV (1752 - 1817), appointed by Congress chaplain in Gen. Parsons's Connecticut Continental Brigade. Among the several war songs he composed is "Columbia." He was later President of Yale.
  • John Trumbull (1756 - 1843), a painter of historical scenes. His Declaration of Independence, Surrender of General Burgoyne, and Surrender of Lord Cornwallis hang in the rotunda of the United States Capitol.
  • Charles Willson Peale (1741 - 1827) painter of founding fathers' portraits, and founder of the first American museum of fine art, the Philadelphia Academy of Art.
  • Peter Wallace, Jr. (1719 - 1784)

Missing notable profile

Please help by locating these missing profiles and add them to the project.

  • Louis Lebèque Duportail
  • Horatio Gates
  • Edward Hand
  • Johann de Kalb
  • Charles Lee
  • Lachlan McIntosh
  • Alexander McDougall
  • Richard Montgomery
  • John Paterson

External links

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