We’ve certainly cooked ourselves up a pretty glowing review of the Revolutionary War, and why wouldn’t we? It’s the birthing moment of our proud nation, so making sure it’s got an awesome origin story is important. A more nuanced, confusing look at exactly how we ended up gaining our independence from Britain? Well, that doesn’t make for as many fireworks.
If you choose to dissect the actual events, though, there’s a lot more weird bits of luck and random occurrences than you might remember.
The Word Independence Never Appears in the Declaration of Independence
Or, as the document is actually called, “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.” In a strange, historical equivalent to the fact that Seinfeld never actually says “What’s the deal,” the word “independence” never appears once on the entire piece of paper, which seems so unlikely that you start to think they got halfway through, realized they’d never said “independence” and decided to keep it up the rest of the way, reasoning, “Maybe somebody in the future will find this mildly interesting.”
It Involved the First Ever Submarine Attack
If you were asked to name the first time a submarine was used in war, you probably wouldn’t be thinking back to redcoats and minutemen, but it did indeed happen during the Revolutionary War. Named, naturally, the Turtle, it was a one-man, oak submarine designed by David Bushnell to carry a keg of gunpowder and attempt to blow out the hull of British ships. Something that was attempted against the HMS Eagle in New York Harbor. The submarine parts worked just fine, but it was unable to penetrate the ship’s hull, and the homemade torpedo detonated harmlessly, making the whole thing a bit of a wash.
We Owe France A Whole Lot of Credit for the Win
This is a detail that most history buffs are probably well aware of, but doesn’t jibe with the general independent vibe we like to ascribe to the Revolutionary War. (I am deeply sorry for how much that sentence sounded like something out of Hamilton.) The fact is, proud Americans would sure like to think our victory over the British was constructed out of pure elbow grease and gumption, and not from international assistance, much less from the French. In fact, it’s extremely unlikely America would have won the war without French support, both financially and in the form of boots on the ground. For all that, we later refused to even let them have their own fries.
There Was An Assassination Plot to Kill George Washington
Maybe one of the reasons George Washington was considered such a great leader were his powers of intuition. Point in case being that he appointed a secret committee before signing the Declaration of Independence to look out for plans to take him out, and they immediately found one. Given that the person in charge of the assassination was to be Washington’s bodyguard Thomas Hickey, there’s a good chance they would have successfully made it happen, too. Instead, it was uncovered, and Hickey was executed.
It Was An Incredibly Long War
How drawn-out the Revolutionary War was also often falls by the wayside (it lasted just over seven years). We’d like to think it was a bunch of redcoats showing up, getting mowed down by minutemen and boom-pow: America. But the Revolutionary War was the United States’ longest military engagement until Vietnam took that dubious record. Meaning it was a longer war than either of the World ones.