Lesson 3: Winning the War

The two sides entered the war with vastly different challenges and strategies. General George Washington adopted a Fabian Strategy, knowing he could not defeat the powerful British army in a head-on collision. Instead, he avoided decisive battles to keep the Continental Army intact, hoping to wear the British down over time until they lost the will to fight.

In contrast, the British Army faced a nightmare of logistics. Although they had a superior military, they had to transport all soldiers, weapons, and food across 3,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. This distance made communication slow and resupply difficult, giving the Americans a strategic advantage as long as they kept the war going.

In 1777, the British attempted to divide the colonies by marching south from Canada. However, American forces used the dense wilderness to their advantage, trapping General Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga. The British surrender was the first major defeat of a large British army and boosted American morale.

This victory was the strategic turning point of the war because it convinced France that the Americans could actually win. Following Saratoga, Benjamin Franklin secured the French Alliance. France provided the United States with money, troops, and crucially, a navy, transforming the colonial rebellion into a global war that Britain could not easily win.

By 1781, the British army under General Cornwallis retreated to the Yorktown Peninsula in Virginia, expecting to be resupplied by British ships. This geographic position proved to be a fatal mistake. Washington moved his army south to block the land route, effectively trapping the British forces against the sea.

Crucially, the French Navy defeated the British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake, cutting off Cornwallis's escape route and supply line. Surrounded by American and French troops on land and blockaded by sea, Cornwallis surrendered at the Battle of Yorktown. This victory broke the British will to fight and effectively ended the Revolutionary War.