Portraits of War

The Battle of Princeton (1782)
by James Peale

QUICK FACTS

Within nine months, the Americans exhaust their supply of gunpowder. Not able to manufacture it in sufficient quantities, they rely on imports — mainly from the Caribbean.

CONTENTS

Battles

British Commanders-in-Chief in North America

Lieutenant General Jeffrey Amherst, 1758—63
Major General Thomas Gage, 1763—75
Lieutenant General William Howe, 1775—78
Lieutenant General Henry Clinton, 1778—82
General Guy Carleton, 1782—83

Continental Army Commander-in-Chief

General George Washington, 1775—83

Perspectives

The issue of taxation had immense symbolic importance on both sides of the Atlantic. Like most of his fellow members of Parliament, [Lord Frederick] North regarded the right of Britain to tax America as integral to the absolute and indivisible supremacy of Parliament over America. The concept of parliamentary sovereignty was more than an abstract doctrine. It had emotional resonance as a constitutional victory won against the monarchy in the Glorious Revolution, following the deposition of James II in 1688. It was regarded as essential for the protection of liberty in general. For Britain, the right to tax the colonies was fundamental to its authority to govern America. At the same time, taxation united colonial opposition more than any other grievance.

— Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy

The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (2013)