The depth of the history around the American Revolution is captured in the Liberty or Death Event Cards.  Below is a sample of the Patriot Faction first Event cards with a brief discussion of the history.

Card Number 4. The Penobscot Expedition

The largest American naval expedition of the war, a flotilla of 19 warships mounted by the Provincial Congress of the Province of Massachusetts Bay sailed from Boston in July of 1779 for the upper Penobscot Bay in the District of Maine (then a part of Massachusetts colony.) The flotilla also included a ground force of more than 1,000 colonial troops as well as a 100-man artillery detachment under the command of Lt. Colonel Paul Revere. The goal was to reclaim control of what is now mid-coast Maine from the British who had seized it a month earlier, renaming it New Ireland. The Patriots paid a heavy price in the fighting over three weeks in July and August of 1779. As the British were reinforced the Patriot fleet was destroyed as it fled up the Penobscot River. It was one of Britain’s greatest victories of the war. The Expedition was also the United States’ worst naval defeat until Pearl Harbor 162 years later in 1941.

Card Number 5. William Alexander, Lord Stirling

As a Brigadier General in the Continental Army, at the Battle of Long Island, Lord Stirling led the stalwart, well-trained 1^st Maryland Regiment in repeated attacks against a superior British Army force at the Old Stone House and took heavy casualties. Heavily outnumbered, his brigade was eventually overwhelmed and Stirling himself was taken prisoner during the retreat, but not before repelling the British forces long enough to allow the main body of

Washington’s Continental troops to escape. He was praised by both Washington and the British for his bravery and audacity. Released in a prisoner exchange he was promoted to the rank of major general and became one of  Washington’s most trusted generals.

Card Number 6. Benedict Arnold

He distinguished himself through acts of valor including the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, the Victory at Valcour Island, the Kennebec Expedition against Quebec (including preserving the American Army on its retreat from Canada), the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut (after which he was promoted to major general), operations in relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix, and key actions during the Battle of Saratoga where he suffered leg injuries that sidelined him for several years. Frustrated with being passed over for promotion and accused of corruption, Arnold decided to defect and opened secret negotiations with the British. Arnold’s scheme to surrender Fort West Point to the British was exposed. Arnold fled down the Hudson River to the British sloop-of-war Vulture, narrowly avoiding capture by the forces of George Washington, who had been alerted to the plot.

Card Number 18. “If it hadn’t been so stormy…”

Weather affected the operations of both Rebel and Royalist armies. It was a variable that was often unpredictable and unforgiving. British commander Lord Cornwallis might have escaped from Yorktown on the night of October 16, 1781 if it hadn’t been so stormy. Cornwallis proposed to evacuate his trapped army across the York River estuary on flatboats, then fight his way north to join British forces in New York. In the middle of it, a violent thunderstorm disrupted the crossing. The crossing had to be abandoned, and “thus expired the last hope of the British army,” according to one of its officers. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.

Card Number 23. Lieutenant Colonel Francis Marion

Starting in 1780 Francis Marion engaged in the devastating guerrilla warfare that earned him the title of “Swamp Fox.” Although virtually in a sea of enemies, Marion and militia leaders Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens kept resistance alive in South Carolina until the Continental Army could recapture the region.

Articles in this Series: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4

Author: Harold Buchanan