| A | B |
|---|
| George Washington | chosen by the Second Contienental Congress as commander of Continental forces |
| Reasons for the selection of George Washington | to gain southern support; he was a man of integrity |
| William Howe | British commander who defeated Washington at Brandywine and Germantown but whose delays allowed the Patriots to isolate and defeat Burgoyne at Saratoga |
| Nathaniel Greene | the fighting Quaker; aide to Washington and the hero of the Carolina campaign and Guilford Courthouse |
| John Burgoyne | British commander defeated at Saratoga |
| Benedict Arnold | the true hero of Saratoga; traitor who tried to turn West Point over to the British |
| Charles Cornwallis | Commander of the British army in the South; captured Charleston, won at Camden; surrendered at Yorktown |
| Thomas Paine | radical republican who wrote "Common Sense" and "The Crisis" |
| Barry St. Leger | British commander defeated at Oriskany, New York |
| George Rogers Clark | captured British outposts on the Ohio River; a frontier fighter |
| Richard Henry Lee | made the motion to adopt the Declaration of Independence |
| Horatio Gates | the "hero" of Saratoga and the goat of Camden |
| John Paul Jones | commander of the "Bonhomme Richard"; defeated the Serapis on the high seas |
| Thomas Jefferson | author of the Declaration of Independence; governor of Virginia during the Revolution |
| Marquis de Lafayette | young, well respected French officer; later a major player in the events of the French Revolution |
| Admiral de Grasse | commander of the French navy; defeated the French off the coast of Virginia sealing the fate of Cornwallis's trapped army |
| Patrick Henry | fiery Virginia speaker who proclaimed "give me liberty or give me death." |
| Comte de Rochambeau | commander of the French army in America; the brains behind Yorktown |
| John Jay | American negotiator who gained huge concessions from the British in the Peace Treaty of Paris |
| mercenaries | paid, hired soldiers, for example the Hessians |
| natural rights | the theory that the rights of man come from God, not from government |
| privateering | private ships engaging in warfare and the capturing of commercial shipping on behalf of a government |
| Second Continental Congress | met after the Battles of Lexington and Concord; Declared Independence in 1776 |
| Common Sense | Thomsa Paine tract that laid out the arguments in favor of American independence and the formation of a republican government |
| Declaration of Independence | statement to the world for the reasons that the colonies felt justified in claiming Independence; voted into effect on July 2, 1776 |
| Loyalists | aka; Tories; those colonists who supported the British in the Revolution; at least one-third of the population |
| Whigs | aka Patriots those who supported independence; probably about a third of the population of the colonies |
| Treaty of Paris of 1783 | treaty that ended the Revolution on very generous terms for the new United States |
