Wars That Shaped the Nation

In 1775, American minutemen at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, fired the “shots heard around the world.” The colonists fought the British to establish their independence from New York to Georgia and from Massachusetts Bay to the Indian territories beyond the Appalachian Mountains. From 1776 to 1778, fighting centered near New York and Philadelphia. In 1780, the British focused on a campaign in the South. Unsuccessful and pursued by Generals Nathaniel Greene and George Washington, the British retreated to Yorktown, Virginia. In 1781, under the tightening siege of French and American forces, the British, under Lord Cornwallis, surrendered. The Continental Army moved to nearby New Windsor, New York, until the British recognized American independence with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. West Point’s role in the American Revolution was critical because the Hudson River was a major transportation route in the colonies, and the bend there was the only major obstacle a ship had to negotiate between New York City and Albany. The Americans recognized this at the outset of the war and began plans to fortify the ground on both sides of the river and construct a chain obstacle from West Point to Constitution Island. The British raided the island in 1777 as part of a campaign to take the entire river. In 1778, the Americans shifted to the higher ground at West Point and its surrounding hills, building a fortress the British never challenged. The weapons of the Revolution show the state of the gunmaker’s art at the end of the eighteenth century: all the guns were imported from Europe because America had no cannon foundries at the beginning of the war, their bronze and ornate detailing reflected the artistic nature of cannon casting in France and England, these smoothbore muzzle loaders could fire solid shot weighing 6 to 12 pounds, and the shorter weapon on the carriage was a howitzer captured at Saratoga designed to deliver plunging fire from a high angle onto entrenched troops.

West Point, New York · United States