Quotes from Ray Raphael

In the American mind, the outcome of the Revolution has always overshadowed the event itself.

The devastating effects of diseases and parasites relating to sanitation—dysentery, typhoid fever, typhus, lice, scabies—might have been reduced had the Continental Army paid more attention to the traditionally female job of maintaining adequate hygiene. Since men died of disease as often as they died in battle, the failure to take preventative measures must be counted as a military liability.

History texts say much about spinning bees and boycotts—but why so little about women being looted, raped, widowed, and left homeless?94

Whereas the British command not only allowed but facilitated prostitution, the American command, operating on the belief that citizen-soldiers ought to remain chaste, would not permit it.

The rape of "ladies" was strictly taboo, but this protection did not apply to women and girls without social standing.) The fear of rape, as well as the actual experience, gave a unique twist to women's experience of the Revolutionary War.

Having failed to advance into the interior of the northern or middle states, the British commanders turned their attention to the South, where they expected to receive support from local loyalists—reportedly more numerous than in New England—and perhaps even from slaves, who had every reason to fight against their Whig masters.

Although some common folk might enjoy a sip now and again, the major consumers of tea participated in a ritual activity which was prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of colonists.21

Although it too was imported, coffee did not carry the same social or political stigma as tea. Americans started brewing beans instead of leaves during the Revolution and never looked back.

Like the patriot camp followers, American women who cast their lot with the British army were primarily refugees with no other means of support.

Officially, the British army did not permit rape; in practice, officers tolerated the abuse of women if the victims were not of their own class. Since upper-class women were employed in the quartering of officers, they enjoyed a minimal level of respect; lower-class females, on the other hand, received virtually no respect from the occupying army.

women who were widowed or made homeless joined the nearest army, offering their services more to avoid starvation than to further their political beliefs.

The theory of "diffusion"—ideas spreading from top down, from the few to the many—still informs much of our telling of history. But that's not always the way history works. Except in totalitarian societies, people (even common people) tend to pursue, of their own volition, their personal interests and the interests of their communities. This was certainly true during the years leading up to the American Revolution.

Despite their contributions, camp followers ranked on the very bottom of the social scale. Although the soldiers for whom they toiled may have appreciated their services, they received nothing but scorn from the upper classes.

Independence was declared by wealthy merchants, planters, and lawyers; independence was won by poor men and boys while those who were better off gave but grudging assistance.

Sarah Hodgkins neither signed petitions nor shamed men into battle; instead, she served her country, as most women did, within the context of her ceaseless labors and familial obligations

Native Americans and African Americans, although victimized, hardly remained passive. Using a variety of strategies, they tried to take advantage of the rift between colonists and the mother country:

When we focus on those few women who fought in the war, and when we further mythologize their deeds, we inadvertently downgrade the real lives of the mass of women who did not raise arms but who still played active and important roles in the Revolutionary War.

Even within the rigid structure of the military, common soldiers exercised more power than usual. They elected their own noncommissioned officers. Often, they refused to obey orders; occasionally, they mutinied. They deserted almost at will. More so than in most wars, they challenged or ignored traditional lines of command: try as he might, George Washington was never able to force his men to kick women camp followers out of the wagons.

Spurred by necessity, women of the Revolution helped keep a torn society from falling apart. A single entry from the diary of Temperance Smith, the parson's wife from Connecticut, reveals how religion, politics, work, and family, thoroughly interwoven, enabled women to carry on: On

According to Wood's critics, however, this "idea of equality" left many in the lurch: women who could not vote, almost half a million slaves, somewhere between 110,000 and 150,000 Native Americans, about 80,000 to 100,000 loyalists who had to leave their homes (as well as hundreds of thousands of others who remained where they were but faced repercussions for their prior allegiances), and even many patriots who remained without property at war's end.

All men are created equal," at the time, was certainly not intended to include women, slaves, or Indians. It was a radical concept for its day, regardless of its limited scope. Beyond that, as Wood and others have maintained, the concept of equality served as a blueprint for the future, pointing in a direction which would eventually extend across the lines of gender and to all racial, ethnic, religious, or political minorities.

But loyalists came in all shapes and forms, and they were not all rich.

If they sided with the king, they did so from defiant self-interest, not humble submission. Perhaps Jury Wheeler expressed the mood best when he pronounced that if he were forced to carry arms in the rebel army, his first target would be his captain.

By and large, these were not wealthy people. Whig leaders, on the other hand, came primarily from the upper crust of local society.