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Following
the skirmishes in Massachusetts at Lexington
and Concord in April 1775, more organized engagements
took place, with the Americans under
Benedict
Arnold seizing
Fort Ticonderoga in New York in May and the British gaining
a costly victory at Bunker
Hill in Boston in June. In July,
General
George Washington arrived in Massachusetts to formally
assume command of the new Continental Army. The American
invasion of Canada launched in September ended with defeat
on December 31 in the Battle
of Quebec.
In
March 1776, General Washington forced the British out of
Boston with siege guns moved from Fort Ticonderoga, and
then pursued the British as they moved their forces to New
York.
In
June 1776, Virginia delegate Richard
Henry Lee offered the Congress convened in Philadelphia
the resolution that "these United Colonies are, and
of right ought to be free and independent States".
Taking up Lee's resolution, Congress appointed a committee
to compose the colonies' list of grievances to King George.
Committee member Thomas
Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence during
early summer 1776 in his rented Philadelphia rooms, with
Jefferson's first draft edited by
John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin,
Roger Sherman and Robert
Livingston. The draft was then presented before the
Congress on June 28, which after debate made 39 revisions
to the draft, adopting the Declaration on July 4th. Congress
also authorized the document's printing and distribution
to the colonial legislatures and armies in the field. On
July 9, Washington had the Declaration read to the army
(see Washington letter
to General Artemus Ward). Afterwards, revelers in the
city pulled down the statue of George III, which resided
in New York's bowling green, and subsequently melted George
and his horse into several thousand lead balls for Continental
army muskets.
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