In 1764, England passed the Sugar Act, which added new, heavy fees to products such as sugar and wine. This was highly unpopular in America and led to protests and demonstrations. The Currency Act, instituted that same year, raised taxes on all American exports from two and a half percent to five percent of the total value.
Then, in 1765, the Stamp Act was created. Now the colonists had to pay extra duty, or customs, taxes on newspapers, legal documents, and other necessary papers. Many colonists were upset about this, and what had once been peaceful protests now became violent riots. Pamphlets were published criticizing King George III and suggesting that it was time for the colonies to control their own destiny.
After a year of angry demonstrations, England finally repealed the Stamp Act. But in its place, the even more restrictive Townshend Acts of 1767 were imposed. These acts taxed crucial products such as paper, tea, glass, lead, and painting supplies. The rebel colonists, who were now calling themselves “patriots,” responded with still more protests and boycotts. However, the patriots were still a minority, and many colonists continued to support the throne. The patriots bitterly referred to those supporters as loyalists, or Tories.
The rebellion was at its strongest in the historically independent and feisty colony of Massachusetts. Recognizing this, England sent extra troops to occupy Massachusetts in 1768, which just raised tensions all the more. The British troops wore distinctive uniforms and were known as redcoats. Some colonists sarcastically called them lobsterbacks because they thought the bright red jackets resembled cooked lobsters.
In March 1770, an angry mob in Boston began throwing snowballs at a detachment of redcoats. The British soldiers responded to this rather minor attack by opening fire. Several civilians were killed, and this event became known as the Boston Massacre. The first man shot was Crispus Attucks. He is considered by many to be the first person killed in the Revolutionary War, even though actual combat was still years away.
With each new outrage, more colonists began to rebel. The movement toward independence was growing. In 1772, a British schooner called the Gaspee, that was used to enforce revenue laws, hit a sandbar while patrolling the waters near Providence, Rhode Island. A group of patriots promptly boarded the ship and burned it.
Realizing that they were losing control, the British authorities tried to squash the rebellion. Unfortunately, their tactics only made the patriots more defiant. England passed the Tea Act of 1773, giving the East India Company a monopoly on selling tea. It may not have seemed important to King George and Parliament, but for many patriots, the Tea Act was a final indignity they could not tolerate.
In December of 1773, a group of patriots led by the charismatic Samuel Adams dressed up as Native Americans and snuck onto three ships anchored in Boston Harbor. The rebels dumped at least 340 chests of tea — more than 10,000 pounds — into the ocean. This event was the famous Boston Tea Party.
England promptly passed what became known as the Intolerable Acts. Some people also refer to these laws as the Coercive Acts. These included the Boston Port Act, the Administration of Justice Act, the Quartering Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the Quebec Act. Among other things, these laws resulted in the port of Boston being closed to all shipping except for food and fuels, and in British soldiers being permitted to occupy uninhabited buildings and, later, private homes if they so chose.
For the first time, the colonists realized that they had to pull together instead of splitting into individual colonies. The First Continental Congress was held in September 1774. Representatives from twelve of the thirteen colonies attended.
Alarmed by this, England sent four more regiments of British troops to police the colonies. The patriots responded by forming their own militias and underground organizations. It was becoming increasingly clear that armed conflict was inevitable.
In April of 1775, British General Thomas Gage was ordered to send troops out of Concord to destroy a large supply of weapons. His other assignment was to capture two of the most powerful patriot leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. So on the night of April 18th, General Gage sent a force of at least seven hundred men marching out to Concord.
Luckily, word of this raid leaked out, and a brave patriot named Paul Revere waited near the Charles River for the famous “one if by land, two if by sea” signal from his fellow rebels. When he saw the light flash in the tower of the Old North Church in Boston, he leaped onto his horse and began his famous ride to warn everyone.
Hearing the loud cries of “The British are coming!” John Hancock and Samuel Adams were able to escape long before the redcoats arrived. The British troops marched into the town of Lexington first. Approximately fifty militia members, called “minutemen,” were waiting for them, holding muskets. There was a long, tense standoff, as neither side wanted to back down.
Then, suddenly, an unknown British soldier pulled the trigger. This was famously called “the shot heard ’round the world.” Immediately, everyone else began firing. Once the flurry of shooting was over, the British troops continued their march into Concord. They found the arms depot and destroyed a number of weapons and shovels, as well as a supply of flour. Their mission accomplished, the redcoats began to march back to Boston.
More angry minutemen met them at the North Bridge in Concord, and there was another swift exchange of fire. The British were able to escape, but various groups of minutemen chased them all the way back to Boston. Almost one hundred Americans were wounded or killed, while the British lost about three hundred men.
Blood had been shed, and now there would be no turning back. The American Revolution had begun.
Three weeks later, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. This time, all thirteen colonies attended. They decided to form a Continental Army to replace the small militias, and a young but experienced soldier named George Washington was appointed to command it.
A few weeks after that, the first major battle of the Revolutionary War took place. It is called the Battle of Bunker Hill, but it actually took place on Breed’s Hill. American troops initially occupied Bunker Hill, east of Boston, but then moved over to the strategically stronger Breed’s Hill. Once there, they dug trenches and waited for the British to attack.
Under the command of Major General William Howe, the British did just that. England, expecting an easy victory, was surprised by the bravery and tenacity of the American soldiers. General Howe ordered his men not to fire until they could “see the whites of their eyes!” As a result, he lost almost 1,000 men in the battle, while the Americans had less than half that many casualties. The British ultimately managed to chase the patriots off the hill, but the battle cost them dearly. More than a third of the British forces had been killed or wounded.
In 1776, the colonies signed their Declaration of Independence and vowed to be a free and independent democratic country. The fighting went on for another seven bloody years, but in 1783, England finally conceded and signed a peace treaty.
The Thirteen Colonies were now the United States of America.
Beginning in 1620, when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the Thirteen Colonies were controlled by Britain. As the colonies became more established, the colonists grew tired of Britain’s rules, and rebelled against taxes and trade laws by staging protests and boycotts. England responded by sending extra troops to occupy Massachusetts. The arrival of the troops in Boston Harbor on October 1, 1768, is depicted in this engraving by Paul Revere.
The British troops wore distinctive red uniforms and were known as redcoats. Some thought the uniforms resembled cooked lobsters — thus, the name lobsterbacks.
The Boston Massacre, one of the major clashes between the patriots and British soldiers, took place on March 5, 1770. After an angry mob of patriots threw snowballs at them, British troops responded with gunfire, as shown in Paul Revere’s engraving. Several civilians were killed, including Crispus Attucks, considered by many to be the first person killed in the Revolutionary War.
After the British closed Boston Harbor to all shipping but food and fuel, and imposed more laws, the colonists decided to pull together. The First Continental Congress was held, and militias and underground organizations were formed. Taverns, traditionally places to do business or to gather with friends, were used often as meeting places for these underground organizations. The Lamb Tavern (top) is a typical tavern of the day. The interior may have looked something like this inn (bottom).
Tavern customers sometimes ordered a simple meal to go along with their beer or ale. The meat was cooked over an open flame using a turnspit, which allowed the meat to be cooked evenly. Larger dogs were trained to walk on the treadmill that turned the turnspit.
Printing presses like this one were used by the patriots to produce pamphlets and broadsides criticizing England for its tyranny and encouraging the people of the colonies to seek liberty.
This cartoon of a rattlesnake cut in segments represents the divided American colonies and was designed by Benjamin Franklin at the time of the Albany Congress of 1754. Franklin’s rattlesnake appeared again in 1774 as a symbol of American unity against Britain.
A patriot who was convicted by the British of involvement in activities against England might be punished in any number of ways. The pillory, or stocks, held the hands and head up, forcing the imprisoned person to face the public.
Coded letters and encryption devices were sometimes used to communicate important information. These letters often used symbols or numbers in place of letters or words in case an important letter fell into enemy hands. This letter from General Henry Clinton, the British commander in New York, to General John Burgoyne uses an hourglass overlay to reveal a message.
Modern map of the continental United States, showing the location of Boston, Massachusetts.
Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts, were the sites of some of the earliest battles in the Revolutionary War.
Barry Denenberg is the author of several critically acclaimed books for young readers, including the Dear America title When Will This Cruel War Be Over?, which was named an NCSS Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, and a YALSA Quick Pick. Praised for his meticulous research, Barry Denenberg has written books about diverse times in American history, from the Civil War to Vietnam.
He says, “The American Revolution, more than any event in American history, has been presented to young readers as an abstract, artificial, distant, and disembodied occurrence involving old men who wore funny clothes and later became statues and oil paintings.
“After reading biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Sam Adams, and realizing how human and real they were, I set out to create William Thomas Emerson.
“I hoped to accomplish two things: to reveal, through the eyes of a young boy, what it was like to live in 1774 in Boston. And to bring the revolution to life by showing how it affected ordinary people and how they affected it.”
Mr. Denenberg’s nonfiction books include An American Hero: The True Story of Charles A. Lindbergh; Voices from Vietnam, a Booklist Editor’s Choice Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; The True Story of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, a Junior Library Guild Selection; All Shook Up: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley; and Nelson Mandela: “No Easy Walk to Freedom,” all published by Scholastic. He is also the author of Titanic Sinks! and Lincoln Shot: A President’s Life Remembered. He lives in Bedford, New York, with his wife, Jean, and their daughter, Emma.
The author would like to thank Chris Kearin and his fellow “book people” for their help.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:
Cover art by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative.
Paul Revere’s engraving of Boston Harbor, The American Revolution: A Picture Sourcebook, Dover Publications Inc., Mineola, New York.
British soldiers’ uniforms, ibid.
Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre, ibid.
Illustration of the Lamb Tavern, Old Boston Taverns and Clubs, by Samuel Adams Drake and Walter K. Watkins, 1917, W. A. Butterfield.
Interior of tavern, copyright © 1957 by Edwin Tunis. Copyright renewed © 1985 by Elizabeth H. Tunis. First appeared in Colonial Living, published by HarperCollins. Now published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Turnspit dogs, ibid.
Colonial printing press, ibid.
Rattlesnake cartoon, The American Revolution: A Picture Sourcebook, Dover Publications Inc., Mineola, New York.
Pillory, reprinted with permission from Curious Punishments of Bygone Days, by Alice Morse Earle, by Applewood Books, Carlisle, Massachusetts, awb.com.
Coded letter, Clements Library, University of Michigan.
Maps by Heather Saunders.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, William Thomas Emerson is a fictional character, created by the author, and his journal and its epilogue are works of fiction.
Copyright © 1998 by Barry Denenberg
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-47006-3
This edition first printing, December 2012
The display type was set in Wells Grotesque Medium.
Cover design by Steve Scott
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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