Bellum Battlefield Explorer
Explore Revolutionary War battles by state, year and result, then follow the campaign from one engagement to the next through tactical analysis, sourced strength and casualty data, command decisions, maps and historical images.
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Massachusetts · April 19, 1775
On April 19, 1775, a British expedition to Concord collided with militia resistance at Lexington, North Bridge and along a sixteen-mile battle road. The day did not resemble one compact battle: it became a chain of encounters that ended with the regulars fighting their way back toward Boston.
New York · May 10, 1775
The May 10, 1775 capture of Fort Ticonderoga was a small action with disproportionate strategic value. The rebels gained a key northern post, material, and a foothold on the route toward Canada, while the fort’s artillery later became part of the Boston siege story.
Massachusetts · June 17, 1775
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought primarily on Breed’s Hill on June 17, 1775. Britain captured the position, but the casualty bill and the defenders’ resistance made the battle one of the most consequential tactical demonstrations of the opening year.
Virginia · December 9, 1775
Great Bridge was a short but strategically important Virginia battle on December 9, 1775. The confined approach favored the Patriot defense, and the Crown defeat accelerated the collapse of effective royal authority in the colony.
Quebec · December 31, 1775
The failed American assault on Quebec on December 31, 1775 was the climax of the invasion of Canada. It combined severe operational time pressure with difficult urban terrain, divided assault columns and a determined garrison under Guy Carleton.
North Carolina · February 27, 1776
Moores Creek Bridge on February 27, 1776 was a campaign interception as much as a firefight. Patriot forces used the crossing to break a Loyalist column before it could unite with British forces arriving on the North Carolina coast.
Massachusetts · March 4, 1776
The occupation of Dorchester Heights in March 1776 ended an eleven-month siege without a set-piece battle on the scale of Bunker Hill. Artillery, fortification and geography combined to make the British position in Boston strategically untenable.
Quebec · June 8, 1776
Trois-Rivières on June 8, 1776 was an attempted counterstroke during the collapsing Canadian invasion. The Americans entered difficult ground, failed to achieve surprise and were pushed back toward the Lake Champlain line.
South Carolina · June 28, 1776
Sullivan’s Island on June 28, 1776 was an artillery and naval-positioning battle. William Moultrie’s unfinished palmetto fort absorbed a punishment that British planners expected to be decisive, while shoals and weak army-navy coordination frustrated the larger attack on Charleston.
New York · August 27, 1776
The first major battle after the Declaration of Independence was a major British tactical victory. The subsequent East River evacuation preserved Washington’s main army, while competing force and casualty estimates require careful separation by source and measurement scope.
New York · September 15, 1776
The Battle of Kip’s Bay on September 15, 1776 was an amphibious landing on Manhattan’s East River shore that converted the British victory on Long Island into a direct threat to the American army still spread across lower Manhattan. Naval gunfire, a rapid landing of roughly 4,000 Crown troops, and the collapse of the militia line forced Washington to accelerate the withdrawal toward Harlem Heights. Its importance lies less in a long firefight than in the way sea power, landing-site choice, command uncertainty and road geometry nearly turned an evacuation into an encirclement.
New York · September 16, 1776
A morale-important American battlefield success fought in upper Manhattan one day after the landing at Kip’s Bay.
New York · October 11, 1776
Valcour Island was a tactical defeat that served a wider delaying purpose. Arnold’s improvised fleet could not defeat the stronger British squadron, yet the fight forced the northern invasion to spend precious time winning control of Lake Champlain.
New York · October 18, 1776
A delaying engagement in the Westchester phase of the 1776 New York campaign.
New York · October 28, 1776
A British victory during Washington’s retreat north of New York City, with major source-definition differences in commonly repeated troop-strength figures.
New York · November 16, 1776
The fall of Fort Washington was one of the most damaging American defeats of the 1776 New York campaign.
New Jersey · November 20, 1776
The Battle of Fort Lee on November 20, 1776 was principally an evacuation race. Four days after Fort Washington fell across the Hudson, Cornwallis crossed into New Jersey, landed north of Fort Lee and threatened to close on Nathanael Greene’s garrison. The Americans escaped before being trapped, but left guns, stores and equipment behind. The action opened the hard retreat across New Jersey that carried Washington’s army toward the Delaware and, one month later, the counterstroke at Trenton.
New Jersey · December 21, 1776
The Battle of Mount Holly, also called the action at Iron Works Hill, was a three-day sequence of skirmishes in Burlington County from December 21 to 23, 1776. Samuel Griffin’s small militia force repeatedly withdrew before Carl von Donop’s much larger Hessian detachment. Tactically the Crown troops drove the Americans from successive positions and occupied Mount Holly. Strategically, however, Donop’s movement placed a substantial Hessian force well south of Trenton on the eve of Washington’s attack there, which is why the episode matters far beyond the number of shots fired.
New Jersey · December 26, 1776
Washington’s surprise attack at Trenton transformed the immediate strategic mood of the war and opened the Ten Crucial Days.
New Jersey · January 2, 1777
The Second Battle of Trenton on January 2, 1777, also known as the Battle of the Assunpink Creek, was the defensive hinge between the victories at Trenton and Princeton. Cornwallis advanced toward Trenton with a stronger Crown column while Edward Hand’s Americans delayed him along the road. Washington then formed south of Assunpink Creek, where repeated attacks against the bridge and crossings failed to break the line before darkness. The American success was incomplete until Washington solved the next problem: how to avoid being pinned and destroyed the following morning. His answer was the night march toward Princeton.
New Jersey · January 3, 1777
The culminating victory of the Ten Crucial Days, fought on January 3, 1777.