Revolution! The War begins

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Revolution! The War begins
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Lexington and Concord

• The first shots starting the revolution were
  fired at Lexington, Massachusetts. On April 18,
  1775, British General Thomas Gage sent 700
  soldiers to destroy guns and ammunition the
  colonists had stored in the town of Concord, just
  outside of Boston. They also planned to arrest
  Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two of the key
  leaders of the patriot movement.

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• Paul Revere rode to Lexington and alerted Samual
  Adams and John Hancock. By the time the British
  soldiers reached Lexington, Samual Adams and John
  Hancock had escaped.

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Fort Ticonderoga

• Ethan Allen, and Benedict Arnold crossed Lake
  Champlain at dawn, surprising and capturing the
  still-sleeping British garrison at Fort
  Ticonderoga.
• served as a morale booster and provided key
  artillery for the Continental Army

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Bunker Hill

• The Americans waited until the British were
  within 15 paces (till they could see the whites
  of their eyes), and then unleashed a bloody
  fusillade. Scores of British troops were killed
  or wounded the rest retreated down the hill.
• Again, the British rushed the hill in a second
  wave. And again they retreated, suffering a great
  number of casualties.

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• By the time the third wave of British charged the
  hill, the Americans were running low on
  ammunition. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued. The
  British eventually took the hill, but at a great
  cost.
• Bunker Hill convinced the king that the situation
  in the Colonies had escalated into an organized
  uprising and must be treated as a foreign war.
  Accordingly, he issued a Proclamation of
  Rebellion.

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Trenton and Princeton

• General George Washingtons army crossed the icy
  Delaware on Christmas Day 1776 and, over the
  course of the next 10 days, won two crucial
  battles of the American Revolution. In the Battle
  of Trenton (December 26), Washington defeated a
  formidable garrison of Hessian mercenaries

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• at Princeton they had defeated a regular British
  army in the field. Moreover, Washington had shown
  that he could unite soldiers from all the
  colonies into an effective national force.

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Saratoga

• The victory gave new life to the American cause
  at a critical time
• the success at Saratoga gave France the
  confidence in the American cause to enter the war
  as an American ALLY.