Abstract
This thesis examines the impact that weather had on armies during the American War of Independence. It argues that weather affected the operations of both American and British armies in three areas: strategy, influencing the planning of campaigns; tactics, affecting the course of battles; and administration, adding to the daily work of maintaining armies in the field and keeping them functional. Year after year, in all four seasons, generals and soldiers had to cope with phenomena such as rain, snow, heat, and fog. Weather was capricious, sometimes helping one army and harming the other, and sometimes hindering both armies. Generals often tried to use the weather to gain an advantage and to mitigate the damage weather might do to their armies. The first chapter addresses weather’s activity in early years of the war, up to the end of 1777. The second chapter focuses on the war in the north from 1778 to the end of major fighting in 1781, and the final chapter covers the impact of weather in that same period in the southern theater, concluding with the Franco-American victory at Yorktown. No previous study has concentrated on weather’s role in the war as a whole. While weather was not the sole force that guided the armies’ actions or decided the outcomes of battles or the war, this thesis demonstrates how the weather helped shape the Revolutionary War alongside other better-recognized factors such as political, economic, or logistical issues, and warrants recognition as such.
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