Britain won many times in the battlefield but lost in the taverns.
Taverns were plentiful and they were the social network of colonial
life. Some areas of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania had them every few
miles. One could get mail in a tavern, hire a hand, talk to friends,
sell crops, buy land, and eat some good chow. In these places, capable
and literate American settlers, many of whom had three or four
generations on American soil, debated ideas, mustered militias and
formed opinions. And after an apple jack and a roasted hen, with the
warmth of a fireplace, one might even talk about throwing off the yoke of the Mother Country.
It
didn't start out immediately with a call for war. It started with a
protest of the Stamp Act, other Intolerable acts, non-compliance,
boycott and overall a call for assertion of American rights. I would
argue that in those debates in homes, taverns and colonial assemblies
(and assemblies were often conducted in taverns), London didn't have 'a man' in the tavern to argue their side. And so the resistance swelled and went from lobby to boycott to arms gathering, to arms-using.
The
colonies before being fully united were gathering news from each other
and thus a blow in New England was felt in the Middle States and
eventually South. Here's what Christopher Marshall, a "fighting Quaker'
and patriot leader in Philadelphia writes about how Philadelphia
reacted to the crackdown in Boston in 1775.
