Tag: 10/26/1775

  • A New Facet of War–October 26, 1775

    Cover art for October 28, 1775: The Old Feather Store in Boston, 1775. Print by Louis Prang & Co., 1860. via the National Museum of American History digital archives.

    With both Boston and Canada in a state of stalemate, there wasn’t a lot of active fighting going on in the Colonies.

    Not until, as we said yesterday, General Woodford stumbled into a bunch of British soldiers preparing to attack Hampton, VA. This set off the first major battle of the Revolution in a southern state, and one of our first significant victories.

    But in the meantime, Congress discovered that a shooting war wasn’t the only tool they had at their disposal: they had economic power as well, and they began to leverage that.

    We mentioned in the past that the Colonies didn’t have a ton of economic clout, but the cost of war combined with whatever other money-related tactics they could try, added up to a bigger impact than originally postulated.