“What do we mean by the American Revolution?”
John Adams might have mused these words in 1818, decades after the event, but the former president felt certain about this: The revolution “was effected before the war commenced.” It had begun some time before, “in the Minds and Hearts of the People.” Yet for most of the 1760s, no one envisioned a wholesale transformation in the relationship between the mother country and colonies, much less a severing of that relationship altogether.
Thomas Sheppard teaches War Studies at the Marine Corps University Command and Staff College. The opinions expressed here are entirely his own, and should not be attributed to any government actor or agency.
