John Shy and Revolutionary War
John Shy raised the question of how the American Revolution could have been successful at all against the greatest military and economic power of the 18th Century and one that had a longer imperial reach than any other. Yes in the end Great Britain gave up its North American colonies after the defeat at Yorktown in 1781 and the collapse of Lord North's ministry. Over 200,000 men fought in the Continental Army at one time or another and perhaps even more in the local at state militias, an enormous number in a country with a white population of only about two million. In addition to the conventional battles that have been well-covered in the traditional histories, there were a far larger number of skirmishes and ambushes by local militias and irregular forces that made British control impossible outside of large towns and garrison areas. Throughout North America in 1775-81 there was widespread use of "threats, terrorism, and irregular or guerilla warfare, that are at once most difficult to stop and most likely to change docile, obedient subjects into unhappy, suggestible people."[footnoteRef:1] [1: John Shy, "The Military Conflict Considered as a Revolutionary War" in Stephen G. Kurtz and James H. Hutson (eds) Essays on the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of...
127.]
In addition, the British continually overestimated the size and strength of the Loyalist population, including in New Jersey in 1776, New York and Pennsylvania in 1777-78, and in the South during the last phase of the war. Heavy-handed treatment of the local population by German mercenaries, Loyalists and regular British troops also alienated neutrals and half-hearted rebels, who found "no advantage in submission to
government and came to see flight, destruction, or resistance as the only available alternatives."[footnoteRef:2] By 1779-80, Lord North had already concluded that the
war was lost, but King George III feared that if Britain lost North America, other colonies would revolt, including Ireland. Therefore, the North
ministry "staked its political life on the
success of pacification in the South," and when this failed it fell from power.[footnoteRef:3] As in the North, the British and the Loyalist allies could not really control the periphery away from the coasts and large towns and garrisons, and from Georgia to the Carolinas "irregular bands made complete physical security unattainable for many pacified areas."[footnoteRef:4] [2: Shy, p. 134.] [3: Shy, p. 142.] [4: Shy, p. 145.]
Steven Rauch agreed that the British government badly misjudged the true situation in the South. They imagined that the majority of whites were Loyalists eager to "overthrow their tyrannical Whig governments when British…
