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CHAPTER 3: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCESouth Carolina, to confront Britishforces led by General Charles Cornwallis.But Gates’s makeshift armypanicked and ran when confrontedby the British regulars. Cornwallis’stroops met the Americans severalmore times, but the most significantbattle took place at Cowpens,South Carolina, in early 1781, wherethe Americans soundly defeated theBritish. After an exhausting butunproductive chase through NorthCarolina, Cornwallis set his sightson Virginia.VICTORY ANDINDEPENDENCEIn July 1780 France’s King LouisXVI had sent to America an expeditionaryforce of 6,000 men underthe Comte Jean de Rochambeau.In addition, the French fleet harassedBritish shipping and blockedreinforcement and resupply of Britishforces in Virginia. French andAmerican armies and navies, totaling18,000 men, parried with Cornwallisall through the summer andinto the fall. Finally, on October 19,1781, after being trapped at Yorktownnear the mouth of ChesapeakeBay, Cornwallis surrendered hisarmy of 8,000 British soldiers.Although Cornwallis’s defeatdid not immediately end the war— which would drag on inconclusivelyfor almost two more years — anew British government decided topursue peace negotiations in Paris inearly 1782, with the American siderepresented by Benjamin Franklin,John Adams, and John Jay. On April15, 1783, Congress approved the finaltreaty. Signed on September 3,the Treaty of Paris acknowledgedthe independence, freedom, andsovereignty of the 13 former colonies,now states. The new UnitedStates stretched west to the MississippiRiver, north to Canada, andsouth to Florida, which was returnedto Spain. The fledgling colonies thatRichard Henry Lee had spoken ofmore than seven years before hadfinally become “free and independentstates.”The task of knitting together anation remained. 9OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORYTHE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONThe American Revolution had a significance far beyond the North Americancontinent. It attracted the attention of a political intelligentsia throughout theEuropean continent. Idealistic notables such as Thaddeus Kosciusko, Friedrichvon Steuben, and the Marquis de Lafayette joined its ranks to affirm liberalideas they hoped to transfer to their own nations. Its success strengthened theconcept of natural rights throughout the Western world and furthered the Enlightenmentrationalist critique of an old order built around hereditary monarchyand an established church. In a very real sense, it was a precursor to theFrench Revolution, but it lacked the French Revolution’s violence and chaosbecause it had occurred in a society that was already fundamentally liberal.The ideas of the Revolution have been most often depicted as a triumphof the social contract/natural rights theories of John Locke. Correct so far as itgoes, this characterization passes too quickly over the continuing importanceof Calvinist dissenting Protestantism, which from the Pilgrims and Puritans onhad also stood for the ideals of the social contract and the self-governing community.Lockean intellectuals and the Protestant clergy were both importantadvocates of compatible strains of liberalism that had flourished in the BritishNorth American colonies.Scholars have also argued that another persuasion contributed to theRevolution: “republicanism.” Republicanism, they assert, did not deny theexistence of natural rights but subordinated them to the belief that the maintenanceof a free republic required a strong sense of communal responsibilityand the cultivation of self-denying virtue among its leaders. The assertion ofindividual rights, even the pursuit of individual happiness, seemed egoistic bycontrast. For a time republicanism threatened to displace natural rights as themajor theme of the Revolution. Most historians today, however, concede thatthe distinction was much overdrawn. Most individuals who thought about suchthings in the 18th century envisioned the two ideas more as different sides ofthe same intellectual coin.Revolution usually entails social upheaval and violence on a wide scale.By these criteria, the American Revolution was relatively mild. About 100,000Loyalists left the new United States. Some thousands were members of oldelites who had suffered expropriation of their property and been expelled;others were simply common people faithful to their King. The majority ofthose who went into exile did so voluntarily. The Revolution did open up andfurther liberalize an already liberal society. In New York and the Carolinas,large Loyalist estates were divided among small farmers. Liberal assumptionsbecame the official norm of American political culture — whether in the disestablishmentof the Anglican Church, the principle of elected national andstate executives, or the wide dissemination of the idea of individual freedom.Yet the structure of society changed little. Revolution or not, most people remainedsecure in their life, liberty, and property.6465