Celebration Of Those Who Fought For Our Freedom - Part I

Dear Readers,

I understand that America has fought my wars and battles to secure our freedoms. Every man or woman who ever put on a uniform to protect us in the past or present is a hero in my book.

Today's entry will be about the American Revolution - The War of Independence. The description below is brief and will by no means give all the details of the prelude to war or of the war itself.

In 1763, the British moved to tighten imperial control by putting soldiers in the American frontiers. The British wanted Americans to contribute to this "imperial defense" and pay part of the bill. This plan started a long controversy about Parliament's right to tax. In December, 1773, a group of Bostonians dumped a cargo of British tea into the harbor to protest against the British effort to tax Americans. The bad situation kept snowballing. The Boston Tea Party really irked the British and they started infringing on America's rights. The British closed the Boston Harbor and put the whole state of Massachusetts under military rule.

This was enough to make us mad and we were determined to get the British "off our backs". Then came the battles of Concord, Lexington and Bunker Hill and we were in a full fledged war.

The war raged on from 1775 to 1783. It eventually spread from the east coast of America to the northern territories and other countries even got involved. It was on October 19, 1781 that Cornwallis realized he had lost the war and surrendered his entire army of 7,000 men at Yorktown. With the surrender at Yorktown, King George lost control of Parliament to the peace party, and there were no further major military activities in North America. The British had 30,000 garrison troops occupying New York City, Charleston, and Savannah. The war continued at sea between the British and the French fleets in the West Indies. The formal end of the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris and Treaties of Versailles were signed on September 3, 1783. The United States Congress of the Confederation ratified the Paris treaty on January 14, 1784.

The total loss of life in the War is not known. Approximately 25,000 American Revolutionaries died during active military service. About 8,000 of these deaths were in battle. The other 17,000 deaths were from disease, including 8,000-12,000 who died while prisoners of war. The number of Revolutionary soldiers seriously wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to 25,000. So the total casualty figure was about 50,000.

Yes readers, our ancestors were heroes and look what they fought for and won - OUR FREEDOM. I have several ancestors that fought during this war and I know you do, too.