American Revolution vocabulary

Bounty

• A payment of $10 to $200 to recruits in return for enlisting in the army or militia during the American Revolution.

Campaign

• A series of military maneuvers lasting a few weeks or months against an opposing army.

Fife

• A high pitched flute that both armies used for military style music. Soldiers who played the fife were also known as pipers.

Firecake

• The sparse food item made of water and flour, cooked on a flat rock near a campfire. Many Continentals were reduced to eating only firecake during the Revolution.

Flintlock Musket

• A muzzle loading musket or long firearm that uses a flint in the hammer to strike a spark and ignite the black powder. Many flintlocks in the Revolutionary War were British ‘brown bess” muskets.

Fortnight

• Old English term meaning 14 days, or two weeks time.

Hunting Shirt

• Linen fringed shirt or light jacket worn by most American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Replacement for military wool jackets of regulations.

Strategy

• The art of military command as to an overall plan of war. How to deploy troops and where to deploy troops are parts of strategic plan.

Tomahawk

• The light ax carried by Continental soldiers, partly because of the lack of bayonets for their muskets.

Treaty

• A formal, binding agreement between two or more countries usually sealed by signatures of representatives.

Victuals

• Common eighteenth-century term for food, or rations.

Winter Quarters

• The static winter camp of armies during the winter months. The most famous American winter quarters during the Revolution was at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, during the winter of 177-1778.

American Revolution Quotes #4

John Paul Jones

General Nathanael Greene

Lafayette at Yorktown

General Charles Cornwallis

Lord North

James Otis