The War of Independence

The War of Independence, by John Fiske

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Title: The War of Independence
Author: John Fiske
Release Date: March 13, 2007 [EBook #20803]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Number 62
(Double Number)
RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE BY JOHN FISKE
WITH MAPS, INDEX AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Price, paper 30 cents; linen, 40 cents
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The Riverside Literature Series
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
BY JOHN FISKE
WITH MAPS, INDEX, AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
[Decoration]
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 85 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
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COPYRIGHT, 1889 BY JOHN FISKE
COPYRIGHT, 1894 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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PREFACE.
This little book does not contain the substance of the lectures on the American Revolution which I have delivered in so many parts of the United States since 1883. Those lectures, when completed and published, will make quite a detailed narrative; this book is but a sketch. It is hoped that it may prove useful to the higher classes in schools, as well as to teachers. When I was a boy I should have been glad to get hold of a brief account of the War for Independence that would have suggested answers to some of the questions that used to vex me. Was the conduct of the British government, in driving the Americans into rebellion, merely wanton aggression, or was it not rather a bungling attempt to solve a political problem which really needed to be solved? Why were New Jersey and the Hudson river so important? Why did the British armies make South Carolina their chief objective point after New York? Or how did Cornwallis happen to be at Yorktown when Washington made such a long leap and pounced upon him there? And so on. Such questions the old-fashioned text-books not only did not try to answer, they did not even recognize their existence. As to the large histories, they of course include so many details that it requires maturity of judgment to discriminate between the facts that are cardinal and those that are merely incidental. When I give lectures to schoolboys and schoolgirls, I observe that a reference to causes and effects always seems to heighten the interest of the story. I therefore offer them this little book, not as a rival but as an aid to the ordinary text-book. I am aware that a narrative so condensed must necessarily suffer from the omission of many picturesque and striking details. The world is so made that one often has to lose a little in one direction in order to gain something in another. This book is an experiment. If it seems to answer its purpose, I may follow it with others, treating other portions of American history in similar fashion.
CAMBRIDGE, February 11, 1889.
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CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JOHN FISKE vii
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. THE COLONIES IN 1750 4
III. THE FRENCH WARS, AND THE FIRST PLAN OF UNION 26
IV. THE STAMP ACT, AND THE REVENUE LAWS 39
V. THE CRISIS 78
VI. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE 104
VII. THE FRENCH ALLIANCE 144
VIII. BIRTH OF THE NATION 182
COLLATERAL READING 195
INDEX 197
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LIST OF MAPS.
Facing page
INVASION OF CANADA 92
WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGNS IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA 120
BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN 130
THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN 172
NOTE.--These maps are used by permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. Ginn & Company.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
To relate, by way of leading up to this little book, all the previous achievements of its author would--without disrespect to the greater or the less--have somewhat the appearance of putting a very big cart in front of a pony. But no idea could be more mistaken than that which induces people to believe a small book the easiest to write. Easy reading is hard writing; and a thoroughly good small book stands for so much more than the mere process of putting it on paper, that its value is not at all to be judged by its bulk. The offhand word of a man full of knowledge is worth a great deal more than the carefully prepared utterance of a person who having spoken once has nothing more to say. In our introduction to this work, therefore, we propose to reverse the common process of tracing the author's development upwards, and instead, after stating the mere events of Mr. Fiske's life, to begin with "The War of Independence" and to follow his work backwards, attempting very briefly to show how each