...t the colonists had been unable to hide. Then, as the British turned back to Boston, they ere set upon by angry Minute Men ho peppered them from behind fences and trees. After the raid, the British counted 273 dead, ounded, and missing the Americans had lost 93. Far more important than the skirmish itself ere the propaganda possibilities it dropped into the patriots hands. They concocted chilling reports of British atrocities and rapine, and convinced many of the colonists that Britain as thirsting for American blood.On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. By June, 65 delegates had arrived, representing all 13 colonies. None of them could have imagined that they ere to continue in session ith only brief recesses for the next 14 years. They ere a distinguished group sitting among them ere the men ho ere to be the first three presidents of the United States.The Congress ould support the action Massachusetts had taken, and yet there as no formal resolve that the Continental Congress creates a Continental army, hose existence as recognized only in an off-hand announcement of the Congress.The Congress as almost unanimous in choosing ashington as commander-in-chief of the American forces. Like many an American leader to come, ashington had some qualities to satisfy every group.The choice of ashington as commander-in-chief as a fortunate one. True, ashington did not turn out to be a brilliant tactician. His courage, tenacity, honesty, and dignity ere in the long run more vital to success than as military genius.No that a commanding general had been named, the Second Continental Congress turned to the delicate task of defining just hat is policy as to be toard Britain. On July 6, 1775, it set forth the reasons for resisting General Gage in a Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms.At the same time, Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, hich had been dran up by John Dickinson. Here e have a measure of the ide division of opinion among the delegates. This petition put the blame for the colonial disorders on the Kings ministers, and begged the King to keep Parliament from further tyranny until a plan of reconciliation could be orked out. Apparently the moderates still hoped that Parliament ould repeal the Coercive Acts ithdra the redcoats, and renounce its claim to legislate for the colonies. But the petition reached George III in August he refused to receive it, brushing it aside on the grounds that it had been ritten by a disloyal and illegal group. He responded ith a proclamation of his on, announcing that the Americans ere to be considered rebels and that all loyal persons should refrain from offering them any assistance.hile the politicians ere still debating in Philadelphia, soldiers had thron themselves into action in the field. After the crippled British troops had made there ay from Concord back to Boston, hundreds of American militiamen came streaming in from the countryside to take up positions on the heights overlooking Boston. General Gage strengthened by fresh troops, decided that he ould drive the patriots from Breeds Hill. And in the engagement of June 17, 1775, no knon as the Battle of Bunker Hill, he did manage to dislodge the Americans, but at a frightful cost. This as the bloodiest battle of the ar. The Americans lost almost 400 men, and the English more than 1,000. To eeks later, General ashington arrived outside Boston to take command of loosely organized companies he had yet to forge into a fighting army. He had heavy cannon pulled all the ay from recently captured fort Ticonderoga in Ne York, and in March, 1776, he had them mounted on Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston.In May, 1775, the Vermonter Ethan Allen had made an unauthorized but successful raid against the British posts at Cron Point and Ticonderoga. No ashington decided to take Quebec and try to in control of all Canada.In accordance ith his plan, to separate forces, one led by Richard Montgomery and the other by Benedict Arnold, invaded Canada in the fall and inter of 1775. The able Montgomery took Montreal and ent on to meet Arnold outside Quebec. The combined forces no made a heroic assault upon Quebec against superior numbers in a blinding snostorm on December 31, 1775. Montgomery as killed, Arnold as ounded, and the attack failed. Arnold retired to Ticonderoga, hich he reached in June. The expedition had been a ghastly fiasco, ith about 5,000 men lost.The average Englishman had no heart for the fight against the colonials, and there as nothing like a national draft. So the government as obliged to look around for foreign mercenaries in order to assemble the troops that ere needed in America. The Empress of Russia refused to supply soldiers, but six petty princes in south and est Germany ere happy to sell the services of their subjects for cash. Almost 30,000 mercenaries ultimately served ith the British army in America. Colonial propagandists, notably Benjamin Franklin, ere quick to exploit this move, and their protests ere echoed by Americas sympathizers in Parliament.The British resolution to press the ar vigorously, coupled ith the announcement that mercenaries had been hired to help fight it, stiffened the ill of those Americans ho had already taken a stand for independence. Even a year after Lexington and Concord most Americans had not decided that freedom from England as hat they really anted.Early in 1776 there appeared in Philadelphia a pamphlet from the hand of Thomas Paine hich did much to push public opinion to accept hat had in fact become inevitable. In clear and persuasive prose, Paine listed the advantages the colonies ould enjoy once they had formed themselves into an independent nation free trade ith the countries of the orld, release from Britains European conflicts, freedom from having to appeal to a court 3,000 miles aay.Many of the colonists had already accepted the logic and the consequences of separation from the mother country. Talk of English tenderness in the past and threats of English punishment in the future left them unmoved. On April 6, 1776, the Congress had already opened American ports to the commerce of all nations of the orld except Britain. In itself this as a revolutionary act hich put the Americans commercially outside the empire and set them in defiance of its regulation. As the members of Congress realized hen they debated this step, it made a declaration of independence inevitable. The gains of independence ould surely outeigh the advantages of even the most favorable position ithin the empire. On July 2, 1776, the Congress at Philadelphia voted for independence. On July 4, it adopted the Declaration of Independence, hich had been dran up chiefly by Thomas Jefferson. ziBtICJmHsHCJmHsHCJ5CJtmHsH5CJtmHsH56CJtsmHsHvxzBD
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