Taking the Offensive...
General George Washington stared out from the high-ground of his Cambridge headquarters, watching the ice break up in Boston Harbor.
The British still occupied Boston, while Washington and the Continental Army remained on the outskirts and Henry Knox's cannons sat in reserve, waiting to be deployed. He pondered the many ways they could now hit the British at once...
Out on the water, his small fleet of schooners had been harassing British supply ships off the Massachusetts shoreline for months, but Washington's Cruisers weren't the only American ships at sea.
In the Bahamas, twelve hundred miles south, Esek Hopkins stood on the deck of Alfred and studied the coastline of Great Abaco Island through his glass.
In North Carolina, the ashes of the Loyalist army at Moore's Creek Bridge were still smoldering — and people in South Carolina were starting to ask dangerous questions as a result.
March would be the month the Patriots stopped reacting and started seizing control.
The Bahamas, March 1
Esek Hopkins had left Delaware two weeks earlier with orders to patrol the Virginia and Carolina coasts. Amid arguments in the Second Continental Congress — and an increasingly impatient John Adams pressing for action at sea — he had been hastily appointed as Commander in Chief of eight ships, six of which were converted merchant ships — the entire Continental Navy.
Granted broad discretionary power over his orders, Hopkins seized the initiative. Rather than patrolling the east coast, he pushed south to the waters off Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, ready to strike the British garrison at Fort Montagu.
The fleet had been battered by stormy seas on the way down. Two ships, Hornet and Fly, had become separated. Hopkins didn't know what happened or if they'd rejoin.
It didn’t matter. His intelligence reported that Nassau was lightly defended and sitting on a stockpile of gunpowder the Continental Army desperately needed. Hopkins had already made up his mind: he and his six remaining vessels were going to take those supplies.
Two hundred Marines were crammed below decks, sweating in the Caribbean heat. One of Hopkins' lieutenants — a sharp-eyed man named John Paul Jones — was already studying charts of Nassau's harbor.
The plan was simple: sail into Nassau just before dawn, hit the forts before anyone could react, and haul off as much gunpowder as they could. Hopkins’ men captured two local sloops along the way and detained their Loyalist captains — the pilots would guide the fleet through the harbor and answer questions about what defenses awaited them.
Nassau, March 3 — Dawn
British Governor Montfort Browne was still sleeping when his sentries fired the warning guns at Fort Nassau.
Four cannons — the alarm signal!
Browne threw on a shirt and ran to the window.
He could just make out three ships approaching in the harbor in the early light, and they weren't flying British colors.
Thirty poorly-armed militiamen were all he could muster, so he ordered them to Fort Montagu and hurried back inside to make himself "a little decent."
Jacket, wig, shoes...
Hopkins saw the flashes and heard the cannons fire. He had to make a call — the surprise was blown. Still unsure of his odds, he turned his ships around in search of a different approach.
By the time Browne was dressed and had bolted to the fort, the American ships had turned away. The American element of surprise may have been gone, but the British here were poorly-trained and under-supplied — they had no chance of mounting any real defense, and Browne knew it...
Hanover Sound, March 3 — Noon
Hopkins held council with his captains.
The dawn assault had failed. Nassau was awake and waiting.
But John Paul Jones had studied the maps and surveyed the area — his intelligence was confirmed by the captured Loyalist captains; Browne's militia was small, weak, and had nowhere to run.
A new plan took shape.
Instead of sailing into the harbor, they'd land the Marines east of Fort Montagu and take it from the land side.
By early afternoon, 200 Marines and 50 sailors came ashore unopposed. It was the first amphibious landing by what would become the United States Marine Corps, and no one fired a shot to stop them.
A British lieutenant named Burke rode out from Fort Montagu to see what was happening. When he saw the size of the American force, he rode out with a flag of truce to ask what they wanted.
Nothing much... just all of the powder and military stores on the island.
Burke raced back to report.
Browne arrived with eighty more militiamen, ordered three guns fired for show, then completely deserted the area.
By nightfall, the Marines held Ft. Montagu.
But Browne had sized up the situation when Hopkins' fleet arrived and acted fast to save the gunpowder. Rather than fight, he had his men load the powder onto two ships. By midnight, 162 of the 200 barrels had been loaded onto two ships, and set sail under cover of darkness north to St. Augustine, Florida.
Hopkins and his council had neglected to post even a single ship to guard the harbor entrance.
The gunpowder slipped away in the dark.
Nassau, March 4 - Daybreak
The Marines marched into Nassau the next morning and took the town without resistance. Browne was arrested and brought aboard Alfred in chains.
Hopkins spent the next two weeks loading everything that wasn't nailed down: 103 cannons, 38 remaining barrels of gunpowder, mortars, shot, shells, and stores. He pressed a local sloop into service to carry the overflow.
It wasn't the haul he'd hoped for — Browne had outwitted him — but what he did capture was still significant. No time to count it now... just load it all and head north.
Philadelphia, Early March
John Adams sat with his eyes glazed over in the Pennsylvania State House, watching delegates argue over prize courts and cargo distribution percentages.
A few weeks ago, he'd been glad they were debating privateering — now it had grown tedious.
How much of a captured ship's value went to the crew? How much to the ship's owner? What happened if a privateer seized a vessel wrongfully? Who adjudicated disputes?
Charleston, Early March
Christopher Gadsden, a fiery Charleston merchant and delegate to South Carolina’s Provincial Congress, stood before the body to demand an answer to a question that had been brewing for months: if they were raising armies, seizing forts, and ignoring British governors, why on earth were they still pretending to answer to a king!
New Hampshire had written a temporary constitution as a wartime stopgap back in January — a provisional framework to keep the colony running since they'd run off the royal authority. Gadsden wanted South Carolina to go further — as in a full government.
He wanted to replace British authority entirely.
The debate was fierce. Some delegates called it premature. Others called it treason.
But Gadsden and the radicals kept pressing...
Cambridge, March 4 — Nightfall
The same night Hopkins' Marines occupied Nassau, Washington launched his plan.
The cannons Knox had dragged out of the wilderness were going where Washington knew they'd matter most: Dorchester Heights.
It was the perfect position. The high ground south of Boston overlooked everything... the entire harbor and every single British position. Washington was determined to fortify it overnight and get the guns in place.
The job felt impossible. Dorchester Heights was frozen solid — no way to dig trenches.
Instead, Washington's engineers built fortifications above ground using prefabricated timber frames, packed with whatever they could find. Hundreds of men worked through the night in near silence. Cannons were hauled up the slopes. Walls went up.
By dawn, Dorchester Heights bristled with artillery — Howe would wake up trapped.
Boston, March 5 — Dawn
British officers in Boston arose to sip their morning tea, don their wigs... and blink in disbelief at the sight of an American fort that hadn't been there the night before.
British General William Howe stared at the Heights through his looking glass and did the math. He couldn't stay.
Howe gave the order immediately: evacuate!
The American guns could pound his fleet in the harbor and his troops in the city.
There was no defending this position, no time to mount a counterattack.
Boston was lost and they'd be lucky to make it out alive.
Boston Harbor, March 17
The British fleet sailed out of Boston on a cold, clear morning.
Over a hundred ships — warships, transports, supply vessels — loaded with troops and Loyalist families hustling whatever possessions they could carry. Within a fortnight, they left behind a city they'd occupied for years.
Washington watched from Dorchester Heights as the sails disappeared over the horizon. The siege was over because of one well-calculated gamble, but there was no time to relish in this small victory.
The British were leaving, but where were they headed?
Washington suspected New York. It was the next logical move — better harbor, more Loyalist support, control of the Hudson River. If Howe was smart, that's where he'd go.
Washington was already planning the march south.
Philadelphia, March 23
The vote passed.
Less than a month after Adams had convinced Congress to relent, letters of marque were now more than February's permission slips. They were licenses backed by the law, and the guarantee that if you risked your ship and your life hunting British cargo, the rebellion would protect you... and pay you.
Within days, ship owners from Massachusetts to Georgia would be lining up for their letters. The war at sea just became legal - let the hunt for British ships begin...
The Atlantic, Mid March
Hopkins' fleet had set out to sea on the 17th, sailing north with the spoils from Nassau.
He had been outsmarted by Browne, letting most of the gunpowder escape his grasp, but his fleet was hauling over a hundred cannons and enough stores to make a huge difference.
Hopkins was satisfied knowing he'd arm regiments that didn't even have munitions yet.
Charleston, March 26
Three days later, the ayes rang out in Charleston.
Gadsden raised his voice along with his fellow delegates as South Carolina's Provincial Congress voted on the constitution he'd fought for.
Outside, word spread through Charleston's streets — South Carolina had a constitution.
Not a measly petition or a protest, but a full-fledged framework for governing itself.
The document created a complete government with an executive, a legislature, and courts. South Carolina was the second colony to take the step, but it had gone further than the first. To the north, Moore's Creek Bridge had already silenced the Loyalists in North Carolina — and in the vacuum of that silence, independence talk was growing. Others were watching.
Ramping Up
March ended with the British evacuating Boston, Hopkins' fleet sailing home with a hundred cannons, and South Carolina governing itself under its own constitution.
The Patriots weren't winning — but they sure weren't losing anymore. And the rebellion wasn't just fighting anymore, public sentiment was churning and the rebellion was now building the machinery to govern itself.
Patriots had spent January and February deciding to fight back against the King. March was the month they took that fight to multiple fronts — land, sea, politics — and started acting... independent.
The momentum had turned. Time would tell if it would hold.
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