Founding Myths Read Online Free Page A

Revolutionary Era, when and where did both political and military authority first transfer from British officials to colonials? This is a logical question to ask for any revolution, but it is not often posed for this one. If it were, those sleepy-eyed farmers whom Paul Revere allegedly awoke would be restored to their place in history.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  •     In 1777, Britain lost a force of some eight thousand in its failed Hudson River expedition. Four years later it lost a similar number at Yorktown, but it still had forty thousand troops in North America and the West Indies stationed in nearly impenetrable strongholds. Why did one defeat trigger the end of the war, while the other did not? Posing this question requires us to examine Britain’s struggles to maintain its vast empire, challenged on many fronts by other world powers. The question itself—again quite logical but rarely asked—would lead to an expanded look at the end of the war and lay to rest the David-bested-Goliath mythology surrounding Yorktown.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  •     At Valley Forge soldiers suffered in the cold. Did they suffer from the cold during other winters as well? Was Valley Forge in fact the coldest? These are questions curious fifth graders might ask but textbooks don’t. If they did, we would hear about Morristown as well, and soldiers who mutinied. The Valley Forge story would not disappear, but its triumphalism would be tempered. We would see that the everyday problems faced by soldiers in the Continental Army were not solved by the winter at Valley Forge.
    The questions continue, or at least they should. That’s the only way we can clear the air. We might not learn exactly how it was in Revolutionary times, but we can free the people who lived back then from shackles placed upon them by later generations.

PHOTO CREDITS
    Introduction and chapters 2, 5, 10, and 12 are taken from John Grafton, The American Revolution, a Picture Sourcebook: 411 Copyright-Free Illustrations (New York: Dover, 1975).
    Chapter 1 is from Harper’s Weekly, June 29, 1867, reproduced in Alfred F. Young and Terry J. Fife, We the People: Voices and Images of the New Nation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).
    Chapter 4 is from Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1851–1852).
    Chapter 7, by Barry Faulkner, is from the National Archives, Washington, D.C.
    Chapters 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, and 15 are from the Granger Collection, New York.