David McCullough Quotes
When I read that the British army had landed thirty-two thousand troops - and I had realized, not very long before, that Philadelphia only had thirty thousand people in it - it practically lifted me out of my chair.
Cole, Bruce. "A Life in History: An Interview with David McCullough." Humanities, vol. 24, no. 4, National Endowment for the Humanities, July/Aug. 2003.
Note that Britain was blockading Boston in the middle of 1775, some time before the outbreak of battles in Concord and Lexington in 1776. What Gates did not tell Lord Dartmouth, and maybe did not know himself, was that the skilled Massachusetts sailors smuggled a great deal through the blockade in small boats at night landing in the many inlets and coves in the Boston area. Also, do not think of Boston in 1775 as today. At that time most people had, in the city, their own farms and gardens and grew much of their own food. The Boston Commons was a common area for grazing sheep. So the British Blockade of Boston was not very effective.
The simplistic view that the American colonists were patriots and the British were the colonizers against whom the colonists revolted is not really accurate. The American colonists were polarized into patriots and loyalists. The Loyalist Americans ranged from many of those merchants whose business depended upon England, those whose family were still in England, those whose religion made them loyal to the Church of England, slaves who would be free under British law, Americans who had strong cultural and intellectual ties to England and those Americans who were great believers in monarchy and whose honor required that they fulfill the oath that they had taken to the King of England. Some of the worst atrocities of the American Revolution occurred in the battles of these Americans against each other. See {82105} for more on this point.
This was written more than a year before the American Revolution Battles began. It took time to ship the men and supplies to America and the British did not handle that task with much efficiency. See {636926} for another of the King’s statements.
In the French & Indian War, Braddock had organized a military expedition to destroy some of the forts that the French had constructed. (See {37008}.) Braddock and the other military officers thought that the force Braddock had organized would be overwhelming and easily accomplish the objective. Benjamin Franklin was one of the only Colonial leaders who expressed concern about the expedition–{583427}. This was one of the first battles for a promising young officer named George Washington who had two horses shot out from under him.
The crackdown on Boston which was intended to set an example and intimidate all of the other colonies backfired, and the British were told about it by their own officials in America. But they were so rigid and ideological about monarchy, that the stimulated rebellion rather than suppress them.
1776 at the Battle of Bunker Hill This was the first formal battle of the American Revolution. The British officers perceived the American colonials as a rag-tag collection of men with no experience or skill at arms. Looking for glory they led from the front and if nothing else the Colonials were superb marksmen who picked the officers off easily. After that battle, British officers were more prudent and respectful of the revolutionaries.
David Gaub McCullough is an American author, narrator, popular historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.
