20 Myths About The American Revolution We’ve All Been Foolishly Confusing As Facts

It’s certainly true that the authorities had introduced new taxes, most notoriously on that most British of commodities: tea. But the tax story’s actually more complicated. For example, in 1764 a Sugar Act slashed the tax on molasses by 50 percent. But the legislation was still unpopular because it also included other measures.

The fact was that the American colonists had often dealt with British taxes in a time-honored way. They simply bypassed them by smuggling goods and therefore paying zero duty. But the colonists didn’t take kindly to the idea that this habit might be curtailed. Worse, tax-evaders were now to be tried by a court sitting with no jury and presided over by Royal Navy personnel. Previously courts had operated with local juries and judges who tended to take a fairly relaxed view of the law.

It’s easy to think that in 1775 the good folks of the 13 rebellious colonies rose up as one to cast off the intolerable yoke of British imperialism. Easy, but completely wrong. True, there was a burst of enthusiasm at the start of the war. A force of more than 15,000 New England colonists rushed to besiege the British Army base at Boston.

When the fighting dragged on, though, the realities of armed combat against well-disciplined and highly trained British troops became apparent. Some now thought it politic to stay in their farms and homesteads rather than face the dangers of war. In an article published in 2010, the Smithsonian magazine quoted George Washington’s words. He lamented that “compleating the army by Voluntary Inlistments” was an uphill task.

After the American colonists had won the war, there were those in Britain who claimed that defeat for the British had been an inevitability. But they were speaking with that great aid to judgment: 100 percent hindsight. In fact, historians have argued the exact opposite. The British forces could have emerged victorious from the conflict. So why didn’t they?

The Smithsonian magazine has pointed out that there was a real chance of crushing the colonists in 1776 when fighting raged across New York. At that point the rebel military leaders were seriously inexperienced and facing professional soldiers. Plus France was yet to throw in its lot with the Revolutionaries. But when the British had the colonist fighters penned in on the Harlem Heights, they failed to press home their advantage. If they had, it’s entirely possible they could have snuffed out the armed rebellion there and then. 

Paul Revere’s ride to warn people that British soldiers intended to destroy an arms dump at Concord, Massachusetts, is legendary. But how much of the story is accurate history and how much simply legend? One thing we can certainly dismiss is the tale that Revere hollered “The British are coming!” as he rode through the night.

If Revere had shouted anything, it’s likely he would’ve been stopped in his tracks. The Massachusetts terrain was crawling with British soldiers who wouldn’t have reacted well to someone yelling warnings about their approach. And another thing, while we’re here. Revere didn’t make it to Concord. British troops actually stopped him close to Lexington.

One common myth is that the rebels were little more than a barefoot, ragged rabble. They were apparently in such dire straits that they scarcely had enough to eat. Early in the war the rebels certainly lacked the structure and equipment that the British Army could boast. But as the conflict went on, the revolutionaries became an increasingly professional force.

The truth on the ground in this war, which of course raged over large territories, was actually very diverse. For example, when a consignment of winter coats arrived from France during 1779 there were so many of them that storage became a problem. On the other hand, according to the Smithsonian, at the Valley Forge winter camp in Pennsylvania disease and starvation killed one in seven troops. Yet in nearby Downingtown a Private Martin wrote, “We had very good provisions all winter.”

One reading of history has it that Britain got itself into a war with American colonists more or less by accident. In other words, the colonial power blundered into conflict with its American subjects without proper forethought. The Smithsonian magazine points out that many believed that Britain’s “political leaders had failed to comprehend the gravity of the challenge.” 

But that view’s contradicted by the historical record. The truth is that the British administration weighed up the option of using force against the colonists in January 1774. That was shortly after the Boston Tea Party protest and more than a year before hostilities started at the Battle of Lexington in April 1775. So Britain’s entry into the Revolutionary War was hardly a last-minute fling of the dice.

The rebels had two armed forces: the Continental Army and the militias. The former ran along the lines of a formal force while the latter were much more ad hoc. The militia system was actually based on a British model. It called for all able-bodied males aged 16 to 60 to serve as the occasion arose. During the war, as many as 200,000 colonists became militiamen, double the number of the Continental Army.

There’s been a persistent claim, even in the U.S., that the militias were of little use in the field. The Smithsonian quotes George Washington’s view that to “place any dependence on Militia is assuredly resting on a broken staff.” While it’s true that the militiamen suffered some defeats, there were also occasions when they fought bravely and prevailed. For example, militia fighters played a key part at the 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse, which led to the British abandoning North Carolina altogether.

A strongly held view is that the defeat suffered by the British at Saratoga in 1777 led to the course of the war being set conclusively in favor of the American rebels. There’s no doubt that it was a disastrous moment for the British campaign. The heavy casualties in the months leading up to the Saratoga rout amounted to 1,300.

The British leader General John Burgoyne and nearly 6,000 of his men surrendered and were taken prisoner. Yet other later events can be identified as more important turning points. An obvious one came in the fall of 1781 at Yorktown, when the British General Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000-strong force to the rebels. As the Smithsonian points out, British prime minister Lord North greeted to the defeat with dismay, declaring, “Oh God, it is all over.”

George Washington’s undoubtedly an American hero. But was he, as many think, a brilliant general? In 1799 Yale College president Timothy Dwight certainly thought so. The Smithsonian quotes his words praising Washington as a man who created “extensive and masterly plans” for his battles. But a dispassionate examination of his military record suggests a rather different verdict. Even Washington himself was none too confident in his own abilities.

The Smithsonian quotes Washington recognizing his “limited and contracted knowledge… in Military Matters.” One example of a tactical error came in the earliest major battle for the Continental Army, on Long Island in 1776. On that occasion he overstretched the limited rebel forces, which resulted in the loss of a quarter of his troops. But in the long run the colonists won, of course, so we’re always likely to remember Washington as a military mastermind.

Some claim that the American rebels defeated the British because of the redcoat generals’ substandard battle-plans. Yet the fact is that the British emerged victorious in most of the set-piece battles they fought against the colonists, as the American Battlefield Trust website points out. It cites British victories such as those at Camden, Brandywine and Long Island.

The British assembled in their traditional manner in close ranks and firing concerted volleys with their muskets. While this type of formation might appear vulnerable to attack, the firepower that could be released in heavy bursts was an advantage. And if your soldiers were kept in a close body, communication was easier in the confusion of battle. British soldiers showed the effectiveness of those strategies on many occasions.

The story goes that the colonists had one special grievance arising from the conduct of the British Army. That was the billeting of troops on private civilian households. It’s easy to see why that would be resented. Imagine being forced to provide lodgings in your home to a hostile enemy at gunpoint. But did that really happen?

Largely, the answer is “no.” Accommodation for soldiers was certainly controversial, though, and the British authorities did face problems in housing the troops. So they attempted to insist that the local assemblies should pay for their lodging, a suggestion that didn’t go down well. And though the British were allowed to appropriate abandoned farm buildings, they didn’t have the authority to force private citizens to board soldiers in their homes. 

It seems obvious, doesn’t it? The American colonies rose against their cruel masters because of the intolerable oppression they lived under. The truth, though, is somewhat different. The colonists had in fact experienced a large degree of autonomy. Don’t forget, the British government was a long way off across the Atlantic, a sea journey of at least three weeks.

The system of government in America did involve the assignment by the British of a governor for each colony. But the colonists themselves elected members of the governing councils. So locally elected citizens had a direct say in how their affairs were conducted. According to the Revolutionary War Journal website, the British seldom intervened in day-to-day American affairs.

What caused the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773, when disgruntled colonists hurled crates of East India tea into Boston Harbor? The myth is that the demonstration was a reaction to the outrageous cost of the beverage, which was caused by the tax that the British had imposed on the commodity.

So, the spark that eventually set off the revolutionary war was caused by over-taxed tea, or so the story goes. Yet tea was actually more expensive in Britain than it was in America at the time of the Boston Tea Party. In fact, the price of tea in America was lower thanks to a subsidy from the British designed to increase trade for the East India Company.

Another common misapprehension is that the colonial American economy was severely hampered by British rule. Britain exploited the colonists ruthlessly for its own profit, leaving the Americans in dire straits, or so it’s claimed. So let’s check the facts on that assertion. According to the Revolutionary War Journal, when hostilities broke out in 1775 the American economy was actually going great guns.

In fact, the colonists were more prosperous and enjoyed a better standard of living than their British cousins on the other side of the Atlantic. They were also better off than the citizens of other European countries. The colony’s export trade was in rude health as well – in 1771 the Americans shipped 105 million pounds of tobacco to enthusiastic British smokers.

Many believe that the unfortunate Americans lived under the ruthlessly domineering jackboot of a heavy military presence. So that was another reason the colonists were compelled to rise against their despotic masters. In truth, though, for much of the time there was no standing British army in the colonies. The only armed forces were the colonists own militias.

Troops were later sent from Britain to fight in the French & Indian War, which lasted for seven years from 1756. And some had been sent to America in the period just prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775. But for most of the colonial period, the British simply weren’t able to carry the cost of maintaining an army 3,000 miles away on the other side of the Atlantic.

It’s easy to believe that the American colonists must have been unanimous in their desire for total independence from Britain. But actually there were those who would’ve been happy with an amicable relationship with Britain. They wanted self-governance while remaining under the British crown. Many colonists believed that their quarrel was with Parliament rather than with King George III.

As late as July 1775, nearly four months after hostilities had started with the Battle of Lexington, the Second Continental Congress signed off on an extraordinary message to King George. It was known as the Olive Branch Petition. Among other things it assured the monarch that the colonists were “faithful subjects… of our Mother country.” Of course, the petition was in vain and the war rumbled on to its final conclusion of complete independence.

Of course, it goes without saying that a patriotic British population was bitterly opposed to American independence. Or does it? In fact, many Britons took the view that it’d be better to allow the Americans the freedoms they wanted. Going to war to defend America’s colonial status was far from a universally popular proposition.

In a 2018 article Time magazine cited the views of the businesspeople of Bristol, an important English port and trading city. They wrote to King George in 1775 begging him to make peace with the Americans. The merchants’ main concern was actually the lucrative transatlantic trade. And one British parliamentarian, Thomas Townsend, went as far as to declare that war against the colonists was “unjust in its Principle and ruinous in its consequences.”

It’s a firmly held belief that American farmers fired the first shot of the Revolutionary War. That myth has been firmly implanted in American minds by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “Concord Hymn,” which mentions “the shot heard ’round the world” from the guns of “embattled farmers.” According to the National Constitution Center website, though, that tale is unlikely to be true.

The Library of Congress website states that a more plausible version of who fired the first shots of the war arises from the Battle of Lexington. As 700 British troops turned up there at daybreak on April 19, 1775, they were met by 77 rebels. Gunfire was soon exchanged, but who actually fired the initial round is lost in the mists of time. So we just don’t know if it was the redcoats or the minutemen.

One version of Revolutionary War history has it that the rebels devastated the redcoats by firing on them from long range. They were able to accomplish this with their accurate rifles. The muskets used by the British Army, in contrast, only had a short effective range. This tactic, it’s said, gave the militias and the Continental Army an important advantage on the battlefield and in irregular warfare.

But the stark realities of the battlefield meant that shooting the enemy from a distance was often not an option for the colonists. Close-quarter combat was not infrequent and the British were skilled in the use of the bayonet. And the truth is that many of the patriots were armed not with rifles but with the less accurate muskets.

Here’s one that everybody knows. Independence was declared on July 4, 1776. Except it wasn’t. In fact, the celebrations and firework displays held every year on that date are actually happening on the wrong day. The meeting of the Continental Congress that voted for independence was on July 2. The Declaration of Independence document was merely adopted on the 4.

Plus the delegates to congress didn’t actually sign off on the Declaration until the next month. John Adams, a Founding Father and later the second president, didn’t think July 4 was significant. The Business Insider website quotes his words. He wrote that “the Second of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.” But it’s probably far too late now to change the independence celebration date.