# American revolution and the French **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893 "2016-05-16T04:35:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/21 "2016-05-17T21:34:20Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > But until the French and Indian War, in which George Washington fought, the French were holding the English Colonies to the eastern seaboard. British gains in 1763 cut the French holdings by nearly half. No. The French and Indian War reduced French holdings on mainland North America to zero. In the peace treaty which ended the war, the British took the land east of the Mississippi River, and Spain was awarded the land west of the Mississippi River. It was only much later, in 1800, after Spain had fallen under the sway of a corrupt pro-French courtier ([Manuel Godoy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Godoy)), that Spain retroceded western Louisiana to France, which promptly turned around and sold it to America. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/22 "2016-05-17T23:41:05Z")
[Deleted by user so I can write a better post later.] ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/23 "2016-05-18T00:28:11Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > It didn’t help that for a lot of folks the idea of creating an Independent Country included enough distrust of authority to make them resist the very idea of a Continental Army. They wanted the fighting to be done with local militias, defending their homes. And the record of the militias in battle was, to be charitable, mixed. Some did well, others bolted and ran, others tried hard but got slaughtered. War is not a business for amateurs. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/24 "2016-05-18T00:33:59Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > War is not a business for amateurs. Even if you get to hide behind rocks and trees and shoot at guys marching in ranks wearing bright red uniforms. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/25 "2016-05-18T18:37:12Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Even if you get to hide behind rocks and trees and shoot at guys marching in ranks wearing bright red uniforms. It may not seem obvious to someone looking at how we fight modern wars, but hiding behind rocks and trees and shooting at the guys marching in rank was a very bad idea for the guys doing the hiding. What ended up happening back in those days was that the guys hiding behind the rocks and trees manage to pick off a few of the guys in line, but then the line reaches the first guy hiding behind a rock or a tree. And since he is hiding behind something, he’s not in a line and doesn’t have a line of guys to either side of him. So he’s alone facing a whole bunch of guys with long pointy things (aka bayonets). Not wanting to get stabbed by the long pointy things, he breaks and runs. The line of guys advances, and marches forward until it contacts the next guy who is hiding behind something, and the same thing happens. At each individual point where the line meets a hiding guy, the hiding guy ends up alone against several guys in red uniforms, so the hiding guy is always outnumbered and runs. The only way to stop the advancing line was with a line of your own. Washington’s men always ended up breaking and running as a result of these kinds of tactics. It wasn’t until his men got trained in proper toe-to-toe bayonet fighting and proper military discipline so that they wouldn’t just break and run that Washington could finally put up a decent fight against the British. So yeah, war is no business for amateurs. Subtle changes in musket technology in the 1840s and 1850s (rifled barrels with Minie balls and the change from flintlocks to percussion locks) combined with changes in tactics made advancing lines a bit suicidal by the time of the Civil War, as Pickett’s charge disastrously proved. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/26 "2016-05-18T19:21:13Z")
I thought that the Continental Army always fought in rank and file; the “Green Mountain Boys” and such units sniped from cover. The British Army command with muskets was “Ready, level, fire”. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/27 "2016-05-18T20:01:34Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I thought that the Continental Army always fought in rank and file; the “Green Mountain Boys” and such units sniped from cover. > > The British Army command with muskets was “Ready, level, fire”. Some units used what were called skirmisher tactics which was to have light infantry armed with rifles (in some cases…the French skirmishers used smooth bores IIRC) in front of the main lines to disrupt enemy formations or snipe at officers and the like. However, these tactics still relied, ultimately, on having a heavy infantry line somewhere. Otherwise what would happen in the days before repeating fire arms is that the enemy cavalry would destroy your skirmishers. It seems very un-intuitive to us today, but what engineer\_comp\_geek said is mainly true…skirmisher tactics in and of themselves weren’t very effective against heavy line infantry and cavalry before you had weapons with higher rates of fire. When the Continental Army finally became a really effective fighting force was when they developed line training and tactics to go along with their skirmisher tactics and use them together effectively…and, yeah, that was after the fledgling CA brought in folks from Europe (Germans as well as French) to give us that training and doctrine to create a disciplined fighting force, instead of the more random militia quality we had previously. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/28 "2016-05-18T22:15:50Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > No. The French and Indian War reduced French holdings on mainland North America to zero. In the peace treaty which ended the war, the British took the land east of the Mississippi River, and Spain was awarded the land west of the Mississippi River. > > It was only much later, in 1800, after Spain had fallen under the sway of a corrupt pro-French courtier ([Manuel Godoy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Godoy)), that Spain retroceded western Louisiana to France, which promptly turned around and sold it to America. Thanks for the correction. I saw that it said Louisiana and didn’t check the map legend. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/29 "2016-05-18T23:14:20Z")
> [@XT](#): > > …and, yeah, that was after the fledgling CA brought in folks from Europe (Germans as well as French) to give us that training and doctrine to create a disciplined fighting force, instead of the more random militia quality we had previously. This is true, but one of the key British weaknesses was their serious shortage of cavalry. that lack meant they couldn’t scout effectively or target Continental weak points in that manner. This was a crucial advantage for the American forces, and gave them breathing room to develop a solid military core. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893/30 "2016-05-25T16:54:34Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > As someone pointed out above, the British were very busy fighting the French and other countries elsewhere. > > Alternate history often asks the question, “How far would Hitler have gotten if the USA were still a British colony?” Well, Napoleon wouldn’t have sold Louisiana to the British, so the colonies may have a border on the Mississippi. If London had not simply used its blockade to tell the Americans to just take it. Imagine, the Louisiana Seizure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-revolution-and-the-french/754893.md?page=1)