What were the greatest battles of the American Revolution?
Yorktown, where Cornwallis surrendered his army to Washington and Rochambeau on 19 October 1781, tops our ranking, because it ended the major fighting and led to the peace that recognized independence. Next come Saratoga in 1777, which brought France into the war, Lexington and Concord in 1775, Trenton in 1776 and the sea battle off the Chesapeake in 1781.
Our fifteen battles run from the first shots at Lexington in April 1775 to the surrender at Yorktown in October 1781. They are ranked by score, with most weight on how well each battle is known and on what it decided; see how we chose and ranked them. We count battles fought in North America and its waters, and a siege or a sea battle only when it decided the war, as Yorktown and the Chesapeake did. That leaves out the long sieges of Boston and Charleston, the bloodless capture of Ticonderoga and the battles Britain fought against France and Spain far from America, at Gibraltar, Les Saintes and in India.1
For the rest of the story, from the colonial wars to Vietnam, with every American battle on this site grouped by era, see our guide to the military history of the United States.
For the war as a whole, its causes, campaigns, allies and the peace of 1783, see our guide to the American Revolutionary War, 1775 to 1783.
1 Yorktown, 1781
- Where
- Yorktown and Gloucester Point, Virginia
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Besiegers
- About 16,000 to 20,000 American and French troops under Washington and Rochambeau, with de Grasse’s French fleet holding the bay
- Defenders
- About 7,500 to 9,000 British, German and Loyalist troops under Cornwallis
- Outcome
- Surrendered 19 October 1781; 7,416 British missing and captured
In the summer of 1781 Lord Cornwallis fortified Yorktown, on the York River, as a base the Royal Navy could supply. It became a trap. On 5 September a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse drove the British from the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, while Washington and his French ally Rochambeau marched south from New York. By late September the allies at Williamsburg numbered some 16,000 by our sum of the park historian Charles Hatch’s figures, 19,900 by the American Battlefield Trust’s count; Cornwallis had about 7,500 by Hatch’s count, 9,000 by the Trust’s.2
On 28 September the allies closed around the town, opened siege lines on 6 and 11 October, and on the night of 14 October French troops stormed Redoubt 9 while Alexander Hamilton’s light infantry took Redoubt 10. On 17 October a British officer with a flag of truce appeared on the parapet; on 19 October the garrison marched out to Surrender Field and laid down its arms: a third of all British forces in North America, the National Park Service notes. The Trust counts 7,416 British missing and captured. Parliament voted for peace in March 1782, and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 recognized the United States as independent. Myth vs fact: the British band playing “The World Turned Upside Down” is a later story the Trust calls apocryphal.3
Why it ranks here: It is No. 1 because it alone has full marks for recognition, decisiveness, consequence and certainty: the surrender ended the major fighting and led to the peace that recognized independence, and no other entry reaches 48 points. Memory is 4, as no national holiday marks the day.
2 Saratoga, 1777
- Where
- Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights, near Saratoga, New York
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Sides
- Continental Army and militia under Horatio Gates vs British and German troops under John Burgoyne
- Strength
- About 8,500 Americans in September, 13,000 to 15,000 by October, vs about 6,000 to 7,500 British and Germans
- Result
- American victory; about 6,300 British and German soldiers surrendered on 17 October 1777
In 1777 General John Burgoyne set out from Canada with about 7,500 men to march down Lake Champlain and the Hudson to Albany, where General William Howe was expected to meet him from New York and cut off New England. The plan came apart. Howe went to take Philadelphia instead, and a third column under Barry St. Leger gave up its siege of Fort Stanwix and fell back to Canada. Burgoyne pressed on, crossed the Hudson and found Horatio Gates’s army, about 8,500 strong, dug in on Bemis Heights.4
He attacked at Freeman’s Farm on 19 September and held the field at a cost of almost 600 men, then dug in to wait for help from New York that never came; by October the American army had grown to about 13,000. On 7 October he tried again at Bemis Heights and failed, and Benedict Arnold, riding out in front, led the Americans into the Breymann Redoubt and was badly wounded in the leg. Surrounded and cut off near Saratoga, Burgoyne surrendered on 17 October: about 6,300 British and German officers and soldiers, with some 600 women and children, laid down their arms. The news reached the French foreign minister Vergennes in December and decided him for an alliance, signed on 6 February 1778, and French troops and ships later helped force the surrender at Yorktown. A 155-foot obelisk marks Burgoyne’s last camp.5
Why it ranks here: Consequence is full, because the surrender brought France into the war, and so is certainty, but the fighting went on for four more years and the name is less known than Yorktown’s, so recognition and decisiveness are 4.
3 Lexington and Concord, 1775
- Where
- Lexington, Concord and the road back to Boston, Massachusetts
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Sides
- Massachusetts minutemen and militia vs British regulars sent by General Thomas Gage
- Strength
- About 4,000 militia over the day vs 700 regulars, about 1,500 with reinforcements
- Result
- American victory; about 300 British and 93 American casualties
By April 1775 General Thomas Gage, commanding in Boston, faced the threat of open rebellion, and he sent some 700 regulars to seize the provincial military stores at Concord, twenty miles to the northwest. Patriot spies learned of the plan. On the night of 18 April Paul Revere and William Dawes rode out to raise the alarm, and though the riders were stopped on the road, the alarm was already spreading.6
At dawn on 19 April some 70 militiamen under Captain John Parker faced the regulars on Lexington Green. They were already dispersing when a shot rang out; the British fired a volley and killed eight of them. Who fired first is still unknown. At Concord’s North Bridge the militia fired back, and the British began a running retreat to Boston, ambushed along what is now Battle Road. About 4,000 militiamen joined the fight during the day. The American Battlefield Trust counts 1,500 British engaged once reinforcements arrived, and about 300 British and 93 American casualties. The New Englanders who gathered afterward besieged Boston and became the core of the Continental Army. The North Bridge volley is Emerson’s “shot heard round the world”, and the first stanza of his “Concord Hymn” is carved on the Minute Man statue by the bridge. The day is still marked as Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts and Patriot’s Day in Maine.7
Why it ranks here: The first shots of the war, Emerson’s line and a state holiday give it full marks for recognition and memory, but the column got back to Boston and nothing was decided that day, so decisiveness is only 2, and certainty is 4 because no one knows who fired first.
4 Trenton, 1776
- Where
- Trenton, New Jersey
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Sides
- Continental Army under George Washington vs a Hessian garrison in British service under Colonel Johann Rall
- Strength
- About 2,400 Americans vs 1,500 Hessians
- Result
- American victory; about 900 Hessian casualties, most of them captured
By December 1776 Washington’s army had been beaten around New York and chased across New Jersey into Pennsylvania, and many of his soldiers’ enlistments ran out at the end of the month. Across the Delaware, 1,500 Hessians under Colonel Johann Rall held Trenton, worn out by weeks of militia raids. Rall had ignored an order to fortify the town.8
On Christmas night Washington took about 2,400 men, with horses and 18 cannon, across the ice-choked river in a nor’easter, nine miles above Trenton; the two other columns could not cross at all. After a ten-mile march through snow they struck the town from two sides around daybreak on 26 December and caught Rall by surprise. The running fight through the streets was one-sided. Rall was mortally wounded, and the American Battlefield Trust counts 22 Hessians killed, 83 wounded and about 800 captured, against five Americans wounded. A week later Washington won again at Princeton, and the Ten Crucial Days, from the crossing to Princeton on 3 January 1777, kept the Revolution alive. Myth vs fact: Emanuel Leutze’s painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware” shows a broad river, but where the army crossed it was only about 300 yards wide. Reenactors still cross it in replica Durham boats, and Trenton keeps a Patriots Week each December.9
Why it ranks here: With Princeton it decided the winter campaign and revived a cause that seemed lost, so decisiveness 3 and consequence 4, and Leutze’s painting keeps it in memory; but it was a small fight whose name is less known than Lexington’s or Yorktown’s, so recognition is 4.
5 The Chesapeake, 1781
- Where
- Off Cape Henry, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, Virginia
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Fleets
- French fleet under the Comte de Grasse vs British fleet under Rear Admiral Thomas Graves
- Strength
- 24 French vs 19 British ships of the line
- Result
- Tactical draw, strategic French victory; British fleet withdrew to New York
In 1781, as Cornwallis fortified Yorktown, the Comte de Grasse answered a call from Washington and Rochambeau and sailed from the Caribbean on 5 August with 37 ships, 28 of them ships of the line, and 3,000 troops; Washington turned his army south to meet him. Samuel Hood brought 14 British ships of the line north, missed the French on the way and joined Admiral Thomas Graves at New York, and on 31 August Graves sailed for the bay with 19.10
On the morning of 5 September Graves found the French at anchor inside Cape Henry. Instead of attacking at once he formed his line, and de Grasse got his ships out to sea; as they came out the British counted 24 ships of the line. The firing began at a quarter past four and lasted a little over two hours. Wind and confusing signals kept the British rear out of range; the British had 90 killed, 246 wounded and six ships damaged, the French about 210 casualties. Days later de Grasse slipped back into the bay, where the Comte de Barras had arrived from Newport with eight more ships of the line. Graves scuttled the sinking Terrible and went back to New York, and Cornwallis, cut off by sea, surrendered at Yorktown on 19 October. No Americans took part, the National Park Service notes, yet without it the victory at Yorktown would have been impossible.11
Why it ranks here: A two-hour draw that sealed Cornwallis’s fate earns full marks for decisiveness, consequence and certainty, but few people outside naval history know it and no holiday or famous painting keeps it alive, so recognition 3 and memory 2.
6 Bunker Hill, 1775
- Where
- Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Sides
- New England militia under Israel Putnam and William Prescott vs British regulars under William Howe
- Strength
- About 2,200 Americans vs about 2,400 to 3,000 British
- Result
- British victory; 1,054 British and about 450 American casualties
After Lexington and Concord, New England militia ringed Boston, held by General Thomas Gage. Around midnight on 16 June hundreds of them, under Colonel William Prescott and General Israel Putnam, dug an earthen redoubt on the Charlestown peninsula. Ordered to fortify Bunker Hill, Prescott built on lower Breed’s Hill instead, and a British map later swapped the names, so the battle carries the wrong one.12
Gage sent General William Howe across the Charles River with roughly 2,400 men, the National Park Service says (the American Battlefield Trust gives 3,000), and they had to wait for the midday tide. Twice the regulars climbed the hill and were thrown back by close-range volleys; on the third try, with the defenders out of powder, they broke into the redoubt. Legend has Prescott telling his men not to fire until they saw the whites of the enemy’s eyes. The British took the hill at a cost of 1,054 killed and wounded, against about 450 American casualties, and Charlestown burned. General Henry Clinton called it “a dear bought victory”. The British stayed in Boston until March 1776. Fifty years after the battle Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the 221-foot granite obelisk on Breed’s Hill, and 17 June is still Bunker Hill Day, a legal holiday in Suffolk County.13
Why it ranks here: A British victory that showed the militia would stand against regulars, kept alive by the monument and Bunker Hill Day, so recognition and memory 4; but it decided nothing, because the British stayed in Boston for nine more months, so decisiveness 2. It ties Kings Mountain and Cowpens on 35 and goes above both on recognition.
7 Kings Mountain, 1780
- Where
- Kings Mountain, a ridge just inside South Carolina near the North Carolina line
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Sides
- Patriot backcountry militia, the Overmountain men, under William Campbell, Isaac Shelby and John Sevier vs Loyalist militia under Major Patrick Ferguson
- Strength
- About 900 to 1,800 Patriots vs about 1,000 to 1,125 Loyalists (disputed)
- Result
- Patriot victory; Ferguson killed and nearly all his force killed, wounded or captured
After the fall of Charleston and the rout at Camden in 1780, Cornwallis sent Major Patrick Ferguson to raise Loyalist militia and guard his left flank, and Ferguson warned the backcountry rebels that he would march over the mountains, hang their leaders and lay their country waste with fire and sword. The threat backfired. Backcountry militia gathered at Sycamore Shoals on 25 September and went after him.14
On 7 October they found him on Kings Mountain, a ridge he boasted he could hold, surrounded it and climbed from all sides, fighting from tree to tree; three bayonet charges drove them down, and each time they came back. Ferguson was shot from his horse leading a breakout, and his men surrendered; he had been the only Briton on the field. The counts disagree: the American Battlefield Trust gives 910 Patriots against 1,125, NCpedia about 1,800 against 1,000, with 28 Patriots killed against 119 Loyalists killed and 664 captured. Cornwallis fell back into South Carolina and put off his invasion of North Carolina. Sir Henry Clinton later called it “the first Link of a Chain of Evils” that ended in “the total loss of America”, as NCpedia quotes him. The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail follows the militia’s route, and an annual commemoration retraces the 1780 march.15
Why it ranks here: It stopped Cornwallis’s first move into North Carolina, decisiveness 3, and began a chain of events kept alive by the trail, consequence and memory 4; few outside the South know the name, recognition 3, and the numbers are disputed, certainty 4. Of the three battles on 35 it goes below Bunker Hill on recognition and above Cowpens as the older.
8 Cowpens, 1781
- Where
- The Cowpens, a frontier pasture near today’s Chesnee, South Carolina
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Sides
- Continentals and militia under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan vs British regulars and the British Legion under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton
- Strength
- About 1,000 to 2,000 Americans vs 1,100 to 1,250 British (disputed)
- Result
- American victory; about 800 to 870 British killed, wounded or captured
In December 1780 Nathanael Greene, new in command in the South, split his small army and sent Daniel Morgan into western South Carolina. Cornwallis sent Banastre Tarleton, 26 and hated since the Waxhaws, after him. Morgan turned to fight on 17 January 1781 at the Cowpens, an open pasture with the flooded Broad River at his back.16
He built his plan around his militia’s weakness. Riflemen in front picked off officers and fell back; Andrew Pickens’s militia fired two volleys and withdrew; behind them waited John Eager Howard’s Continentals, with William Washington’s cavalry hidden. Tarleton charged straight in. When Howard’s line, misreading an order, pulled back, the British broke ranks to chase it; the Continentals turned, fired at close range and went in with the bayonet, while cavalry and militia closed around both flanks. The numbers are disputed: the American Battlefield Trust gives 1,065 Americans against 1,150 British, the South Carolina Encyclopedia about 2,000 against 1,250. The National Park Service handbook counts 110 British dead, 200 wounded and some 530 prisoners against 12 Americans killed (the Trust says 25); Tarleton escaped. To win back the prisoners Cornwallis chased Morgan and Greene across North Carolina in the Race to the Dan, which wore his army out. Congress gave Morgan a gold medal.17
Why it ranks here: Morgan’s double envelopment destroyed Tarleton’s force and set off the chase that wore Cornwallis down, so decisiveness 3 and consequence 4, but the name is known mostly in the South, recognition 3, and the numbers are disputed, certainty 4. It ties Bunker Hill and Kings Mountain on 35 and goes below Bunker Hill on recognition and below Kings Mountain as the younger battle.
9 Princeton, 1777
- Where
- Princeton, New Jersey
- War
- American Revolutionary War, the “ten crucial days” after Trenton
- Sides
- George Washington’s Continental Army and militia against Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood’s British brigade
- Strength
- About 4,500 Americans against 1,200 British (American Battlefield Trust)
- Result
- American victory; Hugh Mercer mortally wounded
A week after Trenton, Washington was cornered again. On 2 January 1777 Cornwallis came down from Princeton with 5,500 men and pinned the American army behind Assunpink Creek at Trenton. That night Washington left a small force to keep the campfires burning and dig noisily, and slipped away with the rest of the army by back roads toward Princeton, held by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood with about 1,200 men and eight guns.18
At dawn on 3 January the two sides blundered into each other at the Clarke farms. Hugh Mercer’s brigade, mostly riflemen without bayonets, was broken by a British bayonet charge; Mercer, taken for Washington, was clubbed, bayoneted seven times and left for dead, and died nine days later. Cadwalader’s untried Philadelphia militia began to give way too, until Washington rode among them, led them to within thirty yards of the British line and gave the order to fire. The British broke, and the regiments nearer the town were swept back to Nassau Hall, where many surrendered. The counts differ: the American Battlefield Trust estimates about 230 British killed and wounded and 250 captured against some 80 Americans, while British Battles lists 40 British dead, 58 wounded and 187 missing. Soon afterward the British pulled most of their troops out of New Jersey, and Washington’s army marched into winter quarters at Morristown.19
Why it ranks here: Princeton finished what Trenton began and ended the winter campaign, so decisiveness 3 like Trenton, with recognition, consequence, memory and certainty as in our guide to American victories against the odds; it has always lived in Trenton’s shadow, so recognition and memory 3, and no other entry has its 34 points.
10 Quebec, 1775
- Where
- The Lower Town of Quebec City, Province of Quebec (now Canada)
- War
- American Revolutionary War, the American invasion of Canada
- Sides
- Continental troops under Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold against Governor Guy Carleton’s regulars, Canadian militia and seamen
- Strength
- About 1,200 Americans against a garrison of about 1,800
- Result
- British victory; Montgomery killed, about 400 Americans captured
In the autumn of 1775 Congress tried to bring Canada into the rebellion. Richard Montgomery took Fort Saint-Jean and on 13 November occupied Montreal, while Benedict Arnold led a second column through the Maine wilderness; the Dictionary of Canadian Biography writes that only some 600 of his 1,100 men reached the St. Lawrence. Together they laid siege to Quebec, held by Guy Carleton with about 1,800 regulars, militiamen and seamen. With smallpox in the camp and many enlistments running out at the end of the year, Montgomery decided to attack on the first dark night.20
It came on 30 to 31 December. At about 5 a.m., in a raging snowstorm, Montgomery led some 200 men along the river toward Près-de-Ville while Arnold’s 600 attacked the Lower Town from the other side. Warned by deserters, British seamen and Canadian militia waited unseen and cut Montgomery down with one volley. Arnold was shot in the leg; his men broke through a barricade but were surrounded in the narrow streets and surrendered. The American Battlefield Trust counts 51 Americans killed, 36 wounded and 387 missing or captured, against 5 British killed and 13 wounded; the Dictionary gives 60 to 100 killed or wounded and about 400 captured. When British ships arrived on 6 May 1776 the besiegers fled, and by July they had been driven out of Canada.21
Why it ranks here: The assault decided the invasion of Canada, so decisiveness 3, and because no second attempt was made Canada stayed British, consequence 4; in the United States the battle is little remembered, memory 2. It ties Long Island and Guilford Courthouse on 31 and goes above both on consequence.
11 Long Island, 1776
- Where
- Brooklyn, at the western end of Long Island, New York
- War
- American Revolutionary War, New York campaign
- Sides
- George Washington’s Continental Army against William Howe’s British and Hessian army
- Strength
- About 10,000 Americans against 20,000 British and Hessians
- Result
- British victory; about 2,000 Americans killed, wounded or captured (American Battlefield Trust) to about 3,000 (World History Encyclopedia), against 388 British
After the British left Boston, Washington rightly guessed that New York was their next target. On 22 August Howe ferried 10,000 infantrymen across to Long Island. Washington’s first line, on the wooded Heights of Guan, left the Jamaica Pass on its far left almost unguarded; Loyalists told the British about it, and on the night of 26 August Howe marched some 10,000 men round the American flank.22
On the morning of 27 August the flanking column fell on the American rear while the Hessians attacked from the front, and the line on the heights collapsed. Near Gowanus Creek about 400 Maryland soldiers counterattacked to let their comrades escape; the First Maryland lost 256 men killed or captured. The American Battlefield Trust puts the American loss at about 2,000 against 388 British, while World History Encyclopedia counts almost 2,000 killed, wounded or drowned and another 1,000 taken prisoner. Howe chose to dig in rather than storm Brooklyn Heights, and on the stormy night of 29 to 30 August Washington took the whole army across the East River to Manhattan without losing a man. The Trust’s fact page and World History Encyclopedia call it the war’s largest battle, with 40,000 men in all; the Trust’s battle page counts 30,000 engaged. New York was lost, and the British stayed until November 1783.23
Why it ranks here: The defeat cost the Americans New York for the rest of the war, but the army escaped to fight on, so decisiveness and consequence 3, and the American losses are still disputed, certainty 4. It ties Quebec and Guilford Courthouse on 31, goes below Quebec on consequence and above Guilford Courthouse as the older.
12 Guilford Courthouse, 1781
- Where
- Guilford Courthouse, near present-day Greensboro, North Carolina
- War
- American Revolutionary War, southern campaign
- Sides
- Nathanael Greene’s Continentals and militia against Lord Cornwallis’s British army
- Strength
- About 4,400 Americans against 1,900 to 2,100 British
- Result
- British victory; 532 British killed, wounded and missing by Cornwallis’s own return
After Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis was determined to destroy Nathanael Greene’s southern army in one decisive battle, while Greene gave up ground to buy time. In March 1781 he judged his army ready and chose to fight at Guilford Courthouse with about 4,400 men against Cornwallis’s 1,900 redcoats, by the National Park Service’s count; the American Battlefield Trust gives the British 2,100.24
On 15 March Greene formed three lines: North Carolina militia in front, Virginia militia behind them, and the Continentals on the third line. The North Carolinians fired twice and ran; the Virginians fought hard before giving way; at the third line the 33rd Foot was driven back and the Guards were stopped by William Washington’s dragoons and the 1st Maryland. Greene then pulled his army off the field intact. Cornwallis’s own return listed 93 killed, 413 wounded and 26 missing, 532 men and so more than a quarter of the 1,900, by our sum; of the 1,310 Americans on the list Greene’s adjutant drew up, 1,046 were missing, most of them militiamen who had simply gone home. “Another such victory would ruin the British army,” Charles James Fox told the House of Commons, as the Park Service records. Cornwallis marched to Wilmington on the coast and from there into Virginia, where seven months later he surrendered at Yorktown.25
Why it ranks here: The victory ruined the army that won it and set Cornwallis on the road to Yorktown, but on its own it decided only the campaign in the Carolinas, so decisiveness and consequence 3. It ties Quebec and Long Island on 31 and goes below both, Quebec on consequence and Long Island as the younger.
13 Sullivan’s Island, 1776
- Where
- Fort Sullivan (now Fort Moultrie), Sullivan’s Island, at the mouth of Charleston harbor, South Carolina
- War
- American Revolutionary War, the British expedition to the South, 1776
- Sides
- South Carolina troops under Colonel William Moultrie against Commodore Sir Peter Parker’s squadron and General Henry Clinton’s troops
- Strength
- More than 400 men and 31 guns in the fort (6,400 Americans around Charleston) against nine warships and about 2,500 soldiers
- Result
- American victory; about 220 British and 37 American killed and wounded (American Battlefield Trust)
After the British left Boston in March 1776, Howe sent Henry Clinton south to rally the Loyalists, and Charleston was chosen as the target. Guarding the harbor mouth was a fort on Sullivan’s Island begun only in February and still unfinished: two walls of palmetto logs sixteen feet apart with sand packed between them, 31 guns, and a garrison of more than 400 men under Colonel William Moultrie.26
On 28 June Clinton’s troops tried to wade across Breach Inlet from the neighboring island and found it far too deep, while Sir Peter Parker brought nine warships against the fort. For some nine hours they pounded it, but the spongy palmetto logs swallowed the shot, and Moultrie’s gunners, short of powder, fired slowly and well. When a ball cut down the flagstaff, Sergeant William Jasper climbed onto the rampart and set the blue flag up again. Three British ships ran aground, and at about 9:30 p.m. Parker drew off; the stranded Actaeon was burned before dawn. The fort was named after Moultrie, and Charleston stayed free until the British came back and took it in May 1780. South Carolina still marks 28 June as Carolina Day, an old celebration revived in 1995 with a resolution of the General Assembly, and the state flag adopted in 1861 joins the fort’s palmetto to the blue of Moultrie’s flag.27
Why it ranks here: The repulse kept the British out of the South until they took Savannah at the end of 1778, so decisiveness and consequence 3, and Carolina Day and the state flag keep it alive at home, memory 4; outside South Carolina few know the name, so recognition 2.28
14 Brandywine, 1777
- Where
- Brandywine Creek around Chadds Ford, Chester County, Pennsylvania
- War
- American Revolutionary War, Philadelphia campaign
- Sides
- George Washington’s Continental Army against William Howe’s British and Hessian army
- Strength
- About 14,600 Americans against 15,500 British and Hessians (American Battlefield Trust)
- Result
- British victory; about 1,000 to 1,300 American and 550 to 590 British casualties
In the summer of 1777 Howe left New York by sea to take Philadelphia, the largest city in the colonies and the seat of Congress. He landed at the head of the Chesapeake, and on 9 September Washington drew up his army behind Brandywine Creek at Chadds Ford, on the road to the city. But two fords to the north, Trimble’s and Jefferis’, were left unguarded.29
On 11 September, in morning fog, while Wilhelm von Knyphausen with nearly 8,000 men made a show of attacking at Chadds Ford, Howe marched the rest of the army upstream, crossed at the two unguarded fords and appeared on the American right. The divisions of John Sullivan and Lord Stirling were overrun, Knyphausen then pushed across at Chadds Ford, and Washington’s line collapsed. Nathanael Greene’s division held the British off as a rear guard until dark, and the army fell back in order, helped by the Marquis de Lafayette, who stayed on the field though wounded. Brandywine Battlefield Park calls it the largest single-day battle of the war, with nearly 30,000 soldiers on the field. The American Battlefield Trust counts about 1,300 American and 587 British casualties; British Battles gives about 1,000 and 550. On 26 September Cornwallis marched into Philadelphia, and the British held it until they left for New York the following June.30
Why it ranks here: Brandywine opened the road to Philadelphia and decided the first round of the campaign, so decisiveness 3, but losing the capital changed little, because the army survived and the British gave the city up nine months later, so consequence 2. It ties Monmouth on 29 and goes above it as the older.
15 Monmouth, 1778
- Where
- Monmouth Court House (now Freehold), New Jersey
- War
- American Revolutionary War, the British march from Philadelphia to New York, 1778
- Sides
- George Washington’s Continental Army against Sir Henry Clinton’s British army
- Strength
- 5,400 to 11,000 Americans engaged (counts differ) against about 10,000 British
- Result
- Inconclusive; about 325 to 350 American and 300 to 380 British casualties, many from the heat
In June 1778 Clinton gave up Philadelphia and marched his army across New Jersey toward New York. Washington followed with an army drilled through the winter at Valley Forge, and on 28 June near Monmouth Court House he sent Charles Lee to strike the British rear guard. The Trust counts only 5,400 Americans engaged against 10,000 British; British Battles gives about 11,000 against 10,000.31
Lee, who had no faith in his troops, let it fall apart, and when Cornwallis turned on him his brigades began to retreat without orders. Washington rode up, removed Lee from command and threw out a delaying force while the main army formed on Perrine Ridge. Then came, in the Trust’s words, some of the longest sustained combat of the war and its largest field artillery duel, in heat above 100°F; British Battles writes that up to 100 men may have died of heatstroke. Greene’s division threw back Cornwallis’s attack, and that night the British slipped away.32
Myth and fact: Molly Pitcher, the woman who carried water to the guns and took her husband’s place when he fell, is the day’s legend. Mary Ludwig Hays was there, and Private Joseph Plumb Martin saw a woman serve a cannon throughout the battle, but no known account from the time uses the name; the stories first appear in the 1830s, and historians see Molly Pitcher as a composite of many camp followers.33
Why it ranks here: Neither side won and the British reached New York, so decisiveness and consequence 2, but the legend of Molly Pitcher keeps the day alive, memory 4. It ties Brandywine on 29 and goes below it as the younger.
How we chose and ranked these battles of the American Revolution
We counted a battle of the American Revolutionary War, from the first shots at Lexington in April 1775 to the end of the fighting, fought in North America or its waters, or at sea by an American captain, as John Paul Jones was off Flamborough Head. A siege or a sea battle counts only when it decided the war, as Yorktown and the Chesapeake did in 1781, so the long sieges of Boston and Charleston are left out, and so are the battles that Britain fought against France and Spain far from America, at Gibraltar, Les Saintes and in India. Yorktown is also weighed among the greatest sieges in history, the Chesapeake among the greatest naval battles, and the Revolution's battles against the rest of the country's wars in the greatest battles in American history; American victories against the odds explains why Trenton, Princeton, Cowpens and Kings Mountain, where the Americans were the larger side or close to even, are not on that list.34
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which battles of the Revolution are the greatest and best known; decisiveness, consequence and memory count twice, and certainty once. Where a battle is also ranked in one of our other guides, it keeps the scores it has there:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of decisive battles, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Decisiveness (×2). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of a state, 3 if it decided a campaign, 1 if it settled nothing beyond the day itself.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if it changed the map or the course of history for generations, 1 if it changed nothing beyond the war.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a national day, a monument, a proverb, a march, a famous work of art), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and events are confirmed by independent sources, 1 if they rest on one source or are disputed.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better known battle, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them. It explains, for example, why Bunker Hill, which every American schoolchild knows, is only sixth, below the sea battle off the Chesapeake that few remember: the British won the hill and stayed in Boston for nine more months, while the French fleet off the Virginia Capes sealed Cornwallis's fate at Yorktown.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Decisiveness ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yorktown | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 48 |
| 2 | Saratoga | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 43 |
| 3 | Lexington and Concord | 5 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 41 |
| 4 | Trenton | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 39 |
| 5 | The Chesapeake | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 38 |
| 6 | Bunker Hill | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 35 |
| 7 | Kings Mountain | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 35 |
| 8 | Cowpens | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 35 |
| 9 | Princeton | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 34 |
| 10 | Quebec | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 31 |
| 11 | Long Island | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 31 |
| 12 | Guilford Courthouse | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 31 |
| 13 | Sullivan's Island | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 30 |
| 14 | Brandywine | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 29 |
| 15 | Monmouth | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 29 |
Close calls
Three battles came close and did not make the fifteen:
Bennington, 1777. On 16 August 1777 more than a thousand militiamen under John Stark overran the German, British, Loyalist and Native force that Burgoyne had sent under Friedrich Baum to seize horses and supplies, at Walloomsac, New York, about ten miles from Bennington. Burgoyne lost more than 200 dead and badly wounded and more than 700 prisoners or missing, against about 70 Americans, and never got the provisions he needed. Vermont still keeps 16 August as Bennington Battle Day, a legal holiday. It scored 28, one point behind Monmouth: it weakened Burgoyne before Saratoga but decided nothing of its own.35
Oriskany, 1777. On 6 August 1777 about 100 Loyalists and 400 Mohawk warriors ambushed Nicholas Herkimer’s column of almost 800 militia and 60 Oneidas in a ravine six miles from Fort Stanwix; the American Battlefield Trust counts 465 American casualties against 28, and Herkimer, shot in the leg, died ten days later. The siege of the fort was lifted only on 21 August, by a relief column, so the battle itself decided little. It scored 26, and it ranks among the greatest ambushes in history.36
Flamborough Head, 1779. On 23 September 1779, near the English coast, John Paul Jones in the Bonhomme Richard fought the new fifty-gun HMS Serapis until Captain Richard Pearson surrendered; the Bonhomme Richard sank two days later and Jones sailed the Serapis to a Dutch harbor. Myth and fact: the reply “I have not yet begun to fight!” comes from an account by Lieutenant Richard Dale published in 1825, more than forty years later, and the Baltic convoy that Serapis guarded escaped; the historian Jack D. Warren Jr. calls the battle “of no military importance”. It scored 25.37
Why are the siege of Boston and Ticonderoga not on the list?
Both are left out by our scope, not by their scores. A siege counts here only when it decided the war, and the siege of Boston, from 19 April 1775 to 17 March 1776, decided the war in New England: once Washington had fortified Dorchester Heights with artillery, the British sailed away. They came back that summer at New York, so the war went on. The siege's one great battle, Bunker Hill, is sixth on our list.38
Ticonderoga was a raid rather than a battle. On 10 May 1775 Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold surprised a garrison of about 50 men and took the fort without anyone being killed. Its real importance came months later, when Henry Knox hauled its guns over frozen rivers and the snow-covered Berkshire Mountains to Boston, and from Dorchester Heights they forced the British out of the city. It belongs to the story of the siege. Scored like the other candidates, the siege of Boston would have reached 34 points, level with Princeton, and Ticonderoga 29, level with Brandywine and Monmouth.39
Which battle was the turning point of the American Revolution?
The usual answer is Saratoga, second on our list. When the news of Burgoyne's surrender reached the French foreign minister Vergennes in December 1777, it decided him for an alliance, signed on 6 February 1778, and French troops and ships later helped force the surrender at Yorktown. In the South the tide turned at Kings Mountain, which Henry Clinton later called “the first Link of a Chain of Evils” that ended in “the total loss of America”, and at Cowpens, after which Nathanael Greene and Daniel Morgan led Cornwallis on the long chase that wore his army down.40
More from this war on Echoes of Battle: The Battle of White Plains, The Fall of Fort Washington, Battle of Germantown, The Ten Crucial Days
Why these battles matter
These battles created the United States and showed that a determined people, with foreign help, could defeat the foremost empire of the age. Their stories, from the stand at Bunker Hill to the long game in the Carolinas, still shape how Americans understand their founding. See also our guide to the greatest battles in American history.
