David McCullough Quotes

In a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people. Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country alarmed at one common danger came forth to meet it.

Soldiers of the American Revolution fought that 18th century war with heavy muskets. In the early 20th century, we kids fought it every Fourth of July not only with exploding powder and shimmering flares, but with all of our senses.

John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy, but he was actively involved.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine issued 'Common Sense,' advocating independence from Great Britain.

Robert Treat Paine was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

… in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress

United Colonies

Samuel Adams was truly the man of the Revolution.

Within four months, from the very day on which the Boston Port Bill reached America, the deputies of eleven provinces had convened in Philadelphia, and in four days more there was a complete representation of twelve colonies, containing three millions of people.

My great-grandfather fought with the Colonial Army in New England in the American Revolution.

There are plenty of Minutemen. People willing to be Minutemen. Where are the people that want to be George Washington? Where are the Benjamin Franklins? Where is Sam Adams? Where is John Adams?

Yes here's to the founding fathers - slave-owners, British citizens who didn't want to pay taxes.

I can't rightly say where deciding to write about the American Revolution came from; I had bits and pieces of information about the war and about the country at that time that I'd collected over the years and, of course, I'm comfortable in the woods, so, finally, it just all feel into place.

New Hampshire is one of the birthplaces of American freedom and independence - a place with a love and a passion for liberty.

Many of us came away from our youth thinking that the story of the Revolution was that the Americans were patriots fighting the oppressive British. It was kind of good versus evil, liberty versus tyranny. When you get into it, you find that it was much more complicated.

Didn't George Washington say, 'He who controls Afghanistan will carry New Jersey?'

If the Founding Fathers and other patriots who fought during the Revolutionary War could see the United States today, I believe they would be proud of the path that the thirteen colonies, now fifty strong states, have taken since then.

From April 1775 to July 1776, the undeclared war between England and its American colonies smoldered, flared up, appeared to sputter out... It was hardly, ever, a mass rebellion.

After being Washington's aide for four years and becoming the hero of Yorktown, Hamilton was viewed with a great deal of suspicion because of his association with Tories.

Patrick Henry aligned himself against ratification. So did Richard Henry Lee.

May it be long before the people of the United States shall cease to take a deep and pervading interest in the Fourth of July, as the birthday of our national life, or the event which then occurred shall be subordinated to any other of our national history.

I would like to acquire a document autographed by John Witherspoon, who signed the Declaration of Independence and is one of my American heroes.

By the Declaration of Independence, dreaded by the foes an for a time doubtfully viewed by many of the friends of America, everything stood on a new and more respectable footing, both with regard to the operations of war or negotiations with foreign powers.

A declaration of the independence of America, and the sovereignty of the United States was drawn by the ingenious and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from the state of Virginia.

I had a visit from Mr. James Buchanan, Secretary of State. He told me that he had formerly visited my father at Quincy [MA], and said that in speaking to him of some of the Tories during our Revolutionary War, he said they were men of great respectability, fine talents, and excellent private character, but that they were all deplorably loyal—an epithet which Mr. Buchanan said had greatly diverted him.