1. [Image source: W. B. Woolen]
Revolutionary War
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, front of dust jacket cover.]
[Image source: W. B. Woolen]

2. [Massachusetts Historical Society]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages ]
“I rely on the hearts of my subjects, the only true support of the Crown,” declared George III. Yet by his rigid views of royal duty he forfeited affection within his Empire and his own family. In 1771 Their Majesties George and Charlotte boasted six children (of an eventual 15).
[Massachusetts Historical Society]

3. [Image source: Microsoft Encarta 98]
The Thirteen Colonies before 1763
Prior to France's defeat in the French and Indian War ( ), Great Britain had 13 colonies in North America. Each colony was a separate entity with its own government. Inter-colony ties were not created until events, such as the French and Indian War and conflicts with Great Britain, united the colonists.
[Source: "The 13 Colonies before 1763," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]
[Image source: Microsoft Encarta 98]

4. [Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pqge 27]
Touring his country’s post roads, Benjamin Franklin stops his chaise for a mug of fresh milk at a wayside house. As deputy postmaster-general for British North America, he traveled hundreds of bumpy miles in 1754 and again in 1763 to improve the speed of the mails. His efficient postal system drew the colonies together. When tensions rose in the 1770’s, patriot couriers rode his routes with secret dispatches for revolutionary committees of correspondence in the provincial towns.
[Atwater Kent Museum]

5. Tax Stamps
Because Britain had accumulated large war debts, Parliament passed the Stamp Act in The act was intended to generate revenues that would help pay for the cost of maintaining a permanent force of British troops in the American colonies. All official documents, including deeds, mortgages, newspapers, and pamphlets, had to bear British government stamps in order to be deemed legal.
[Source: "Tax Stamps," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]

6. [Red Hill Shrine, Brookneal, Virginia]
“Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third - may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!”
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 15.]
Patrick Henry in a Speech on the Stamp Act in the House of Burgesses, Williamsburg, Virginia 29th May 1765
[Red Hill Shrine, Brookneal, Virginia]

7. [Red Hill Shrine, Brookneal, Virginia]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell page 14.]
[Red Hill Shrine, Brookneal, Virginia]

8. Townshend Acts 1. Suspended the New York Assembly.
2. Imposed customs duties on colonial imports of glass, red and white lead, paints, paper, and tea. (The Revenue Act)
Townshend Acts
measures passed by the British Parliament in 29th June 1767, affecting the American colonies
were named for their sponsor, the British chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend
a subsequent legislative act established commissioners in the colonies to administer the customs services and to make sure the duties were collected
were tremendously unpopular in America
-the British crown dissolved the Massachusetts legislature in 1768 in response to published criticism of the measures
[Source: "Townshend Acts," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]
[Image source:

9. Protest of the Townshend Acts
[Image source:

10. 1770

11. Mr. Mrs. J. William Middendorf, II, New York.
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 18.]
Boston Massacre
5th March 1770
The Boston Massacre was not a massacre but actually a street fight between a mob and a squad of British soldiers that ended with the deaths of five colonists. This picture was engraved, printed, and sold by Paul Revere but does not depict events as they actually happened.
[Source: "Boston Massacre," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]
Mr. Mrs. J. William Middendorf, II, New York.

12. 1772

13. [National Geographic Society Library.]
Rhode Island smugglers board and burn the revenue cutter Gaspee 9th June 1772 after it had run aground.
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages ]
The captain was wounded when the patriots overpowered the crew, who had merely been trying to enforce the customs laws. Prominent merchants led the raid themselves without any disguise. Although the Crown offered a reward of 500 pounds, no one would name the perpetrators to the commission of inquiry.
[National Geographic Society Library.]

14. 1773

15. Boston Tea Party
16th December 1773
popular name for the action taken by a group of Boston citizens to protest the British tax on tea imported to the colonies
the duty on tea was retained to demonstrate the power of Parliament to tax the colonies when most of the provisions of the Townshend Acts were repealed
the citizens of Boston would not permit the unloading of three British ships that arrived in Boston in November 1773 with 342 chests of tea
-the royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, would not let the tea ships return to England until the duty had been paid. On the evening of December 16
a group of Bostonians, instigated by the American patriot Samuel Adams and many of them disguised as Native Americans, boarded the vessels and emptied the tea into Boston Harbor on the evening of 16th December 1773
-when the government of Boston refused to pay for the tea, the British closed the port
[Source: "Boston Tea Party," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]

16. [Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 23.]
[Sketch by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company, Worcester, Massachusetts.]

17. Samuel Adams, “father of the Revolution.”
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 22.]
[City of Boston, Museum of Fine Arts]

18. 1774

19. [Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages 28-29.]
29th January 1774 – His Majesty’s Privy Council insult his most distinguished American subject: Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who stands quietly before them. He was in London as the agent for Massachusetts.
[Painting by Charles Schuessele, Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery]

20. Boston Port Act Included the following provisions:
the closing of Boston harbour to commerce
Salem replaces Boston as capital
Boston replaced by Marblehead as the port of entry
Boston Port Act
legislation passed by the British Parliament in March 1774
designed to punish the people of Boston for their destruction of tea in Boston Harbor on 16th December 1773 (one of the so-called Intolerable Acts)
bill aroused widespread indignation, and June 1, the day on which the bill went into effect, was observed as a day of fasting and prayer. To enforce the legislation, British troops occupied Boston, and the harbor was blockaded. Towns in New England, however, frustrated the British effort to force submission by sending grain and other foods to Boston. The Boston Port Act was one of the measures that led to the calling of the First Continental Congress. See Also Boston Tea Party.
[Source: "Boston Port Act," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]

21. [Image source: Historical Society of Pennsylvania]
Colonel George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee leaving a session of the First Continental Congress.
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 50.]
All three men were delegates to the Congress being held in Philadelphia in Washington is wearing the garb of a colonel in the French and Indian War. Scholars now believe that Washington first put on militia blue in May 1775 to indicate his mood as delegates talked of peace while preparing for war.
[Image source: Historical Society of Pennsylvania]

22. “The die is now cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph.”
King George III in late-1774

23. 1775

24. [Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 36.]
Friends of Paul Revere smuggled him out of Boston by moonlight, right under the guns of HMS Somerset, which was anchored in the Charles River.
[Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]

25. [Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]
“The regulars are out!”
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 36.]
[Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]

26. [Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages 38-39.]
Tradition states that as Revere, Dawes, and Prescott dashed past the home of Josiah Nelson, he awoke and rushed outside, only to be slashed with a saber by one of the pursuing redcoats.
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages ]

27. [[Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 36.]
Revere warned two patriot leaders at Parson Jonas Clarke’s house. In this depiction, gray-haired Sam Adams questions him as John Hancock stands off to one side clutching a musket and spoiling for a fight.
[[Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]

28. [Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages ]
“If you go any further you are a dead man,” swear British officers capturing Paul Revere about three miles beyond Lexington. Revere’s fellow couriers, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott escaped. Dr. Prescott galloped on to Concord, and its town bell called the neighborhood to arms.
[Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]

29. Battles of Lexington and Concord
19th April 1775
Battles of Lexington and Concord
On the night of 18th April 1775, British General Thomas Gage ordered his troops to Concord, Massachusetts, to seize a large cache of arms and gunpowder that American colonists had stored there. Boston patriots rode quickly toward Lexington and Concord to warn people about the approaching army. The colonial militias first opposed the British at Lexington. However, the British continued on to Concord. There additional colonial militias forced them to retreat and harassed them all the way back to Boston.
[Source: "Battles of Lexington and Concord," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]J

30. Battle of Lexington Green
“First Casualties at Lexington”
Out to destroy colonial stores of gunpowder and arms, British troops under General Thomas Gage set out for Concord, Massachusetts, on 19th April They met a force of minutemen in Lexington. It is unknown who fired the first shot, but the two sides exchanged gunfire. With this exchange, the American Revolution had begun.
Hulton-Deutsch Collection
[Source: "First Casualties at Lexington," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]
70 minutemen confronted the British at Lexington
-8 minutemen are killed and 10 are wounded
-1 British soldier was wounded
[Image source:

31. [Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages 42-43.]
The death of Jonathan Harrington is depicted in this engraving from 1859 owned by the Dunfey family. Harrington actually dragged himself to the doorway of his home , where his wife saw him die.
[The Dunfey Family]

32. “Fire, fellow-soldiers, for God’s sake, fire!”
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages ]
Major John Buttrick’s neighbors responded to his shouted command, and two of the king’s soldiers fell dead on the bridge. Charging across the bridge, the Minutemen drove their panic-stricken enemies back into Concord. Ultimately three British and two Minutemen were killed at the clash over the North Bridge northwest of Concord.
[Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]

33. [Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages ]
“Foot of the Rocks” by Aiden Lassell Ripley depicts the British retreat from Concord.
British losses for the expedition numbered about 250 killed and wounded, while American casualties came to about 90
[Painting by A. Lassell Ripley, The Paul Revere Insurance Company]

34. [Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages 52-53.]
The Continental Congress named George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army 15th June He assumed command of the Grand Army of the United States in Cambridge under an elm 2nd July In reality, he probably arrived unannounced and a few idle troops saluted him as he rode past the Yard at Harvard College that Sunday afternoon.
[The Dunfey Family]

35. Colonel William Prescott
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 65.]
[Painting by F.C. Yohn, circa 1910,
The Continental Insurance Company]

36. [Image source: http://www. delart. mus. de. us/CollectionHTML/pyle
“The Battle of Bunker Hill” by Howard Pyle is actually a depiction of the advance up Breed’s hill.
Howard Pyle
( )
American illustrator, teacher, and writer
born in Wilmington, Delaware
his stories and illustrations for Harper's Weekly and other periodicals established his reputation
was director of illustration at the Drexel Institute of Technology, Philadelphia, from 1894 to 1900
established the Howard Pyle School of Art in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1900
-conducted free courses in illustration
work often deals with American history and medieval folklore
illustrations feature a realistic style and a bold line
[Source: "Pyle, Howard," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.]
[Painting by Howard Pyle, 1898, Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts, Delaware Art Center].htm]

37. Martyrdom of Joseph Warrenton
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, pages ]
the British succeeded in driving American forces from Breed’s Hill in the Battle of Bunker Hill 17th June 1775
Joseph Warren was a famous physician and patriot who had volunteered to fight as a private. John Trumbull witnessed the assault that resulted in Warren’s death from his post four miles away at Roxbury. This painting was his first Revolutionary canvass to glorify the war’s first great battle.
[Painting “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill” by John Trumbull, 1786,Yale University Art Gallery]

38. [Fort Ticonderoga Museum]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 57.]
Colonels Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen captured Fort Ticonderoga 10th May 1775
“Surrender in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!”
[Fort Ticonderoga Museum]

39. Arnold invades Canada fall of 1775
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 68.]
Benedict Arnold’s campaign to conquer Canada was one of the greatest feats in American history. In late-September 1775 he left Fort Western with 1,000 men and traversed uninhabited forests. The batteaux, which were crammed with supplies, often capsized in the rapids. Two soldiers’ wives endured and survived the hardships of the march, earning the respect of everyone. The men carried the boats on their shoulders to bypass the Moxie Falls. “A direful howling wilderness not describable.” The small force battled illness and starvation as they encountered rough hills, flooded valleys, and swamps. Only 600 men arrived at Quebec to participate in the siege.
Brigadier General Richard Montgomery captured Montreal 13th November 1775
[Engraving from Our Countryby Benson Lossing]

40. [Painting by Alonzo Chappel, Chicago Historical Society]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 71.]
Brigadier General Richard Montgomery was mortally wounded in the attack of Quebec conducted under the cover of a blizzard 31st December 1775
[Painting by Alonzo Chappel, Chicago Historical Society]

41. [Painting by Tom Lovell, Dixon “Ticonderoga” Pencil Collection]
[Image source: The Revolutionary War by Bart McDowell, page 75.]
Colonel Henry Knox moved 50-odd pieces of artillery by ox-drawn sled from Fort Ticonderoga across the snow-covered Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts to Boston during November The route followed old Indian trails through the deep snow. A “cruel thaw” in January resulted in many cannon sinking through the ice covering the rivers. Knox and his men merely pulled the cannons out and pushed on.
[Painting by Tom Lovell,
Dixon “Ticonderoga” Pencil Collection]