The Gap

 

  Growing up in the city of Boston, I took a proprietary interest in the Revolutionary War. Much of the agitation against Britain happened there: the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party. The war started in the suburbs of Lexington and Concord. The first major battle, Bunker Hill took place in the city. After the battle, the Continental Army with George Washington in command, laid seige to the city and forced the British to evacuate its army to Canada. 

   All that happened in the first year, April 19, 1775 to March 17, 1776, before the Declaration of Independence was promulgated. As I got older, I completed the rest of my knowledge of the war. After Bunker Hill, smaller battles break out in the southern colonies. American soldiers take and lose Quebec. About the time of the Declaration of Independence, the British get serious and attack New York with overwhelming forces. Washington and his army barely escape.

  New Jersey becomes the cockpit of the war. The Americans are mostly beaten, but get new life by surprising the Hessians in Trenton on Christmas Day, 1776. It was back and forth for the next several months and things were looking bad until the remarkable American victory at Saratoga, NY in October, 1777. Saratoga convinced France that the United States was for real and France allied themselves with the Americans for a chance to get revenge on their ancient enemies. 

  French help was crucial but spotty and the war was still Britain's to lose. The difference was leadership, with Washington cornering Cornwallis in Yorktown. The French fleet managed to show up at just the right moment and Cornwallis was forced to surrender. Now this occurred on October 19, 1781. The British prime minister, Lord North resigned and historians consider this the effective end of the war. But the war is always dated 1775-1783. What happened in those two years before the final treaty was signed in Paris?

  Much. Peace negotiations didn't begin till the following April. Meanwhile there were several lesser battles in America while the British and French fought each other in the Caribbean and India. 

  The Americans forced the British out of Savannah in July, 1782. The British held on in Charleston till December of ‘82 and didn't leave New York until November of 1783, ten months after the Treaty of Paris had been signed on this day.

  France bankrupted itself by helping the Americans. King Louis XVI got much of the blame for the hard times that followed.  The French people saw that a king was an encumbrance and got rid of poor Louis ten years later.  

Where the Treaty of Paris was signed (note plaque).