Perkins Research in the Military

Revolutionary War  (1775-1783)

   The Revolutionary war started aprox. 1765 when the "Stamp Act" was passed on the "America's" to raise revenue for Britain's Military Troops. This started a rebellion of the citizens against British taxation in the American Colonies. The stamp act was appealed by the Boys of Liberty. In 1767, Britain announced that they wanted to impose the "Townsend Act", which was a tax for glass, lead, tea, paint and paper that were imported from Britain to help relieve the financial burden of British merchants. Once again the colonists protested. Ships bound for America were seized to enforce this tax and the Americans rioted in the streets. In 1770 a riot occurred between British troops and the Boston citizens. In 1773 the Townsend Act did not pass but the "Tea Act" did and this prompted the actions of the "Boston Tea Party". In 1774 Britain passed laws to punish the citizens of Massachusetts known as the "Intolerable Acts". In 1775 the first armed encounter against British Troops took place. . In May, 1775, The "Green Mountain Boys" captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British. In June 1775, the Battle of "Bunker Hill" took place. George Washington took charge on the American Troops in July, 1775. In June, 1776 British arrived with German Soldiers .On July 4, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed declaring the colonies "are and of right ought to be free and independent states". Thereafter the Americans fought not as rebellious British subjects, but as citizens of a sovereign nation repelling invasion by a foreign power. On Sept. 3,1783 the Treaty of Paris was signed and the War was officially over.

Click here for a list of:

Perkins Men who served in the Revolutionary War 

       If you would like to order your Soldiers Military papers from the National Archives. Please read the the information Here

War of 1812  (1812-1814)

   The war of 1812 was fought over the maritime between the British and the U.S. with both belligerents violated the maritime rights of neutral powers. The U.S., endeavoring to market its own produce, was especially affected. To preserve Britain's naval strength, Royal Navy officers impressed thousands of seamen from U.S. vessels, including naturalized Americans of British origin, claiming that they were either deserters or British subjects. The U.S. defended its right to naturalize foreigners and challenged the British practice of impressments on the high seas. Relations between the two nations reached a breaking point in 1807, when the British frigate Leopard fired on the USS Chesapeake in American territorial waters and removed, and later executed, four crewmen. The belligerents seized nearly 1500 American vessels between 1803 and 1812, thus posing the problem of whether the U.S. should go to war to defend its neutral rights. At the urging of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress passed the "Embargo Act" of 1807, prohibiting virtually all U.S. ships from putting to sea. Because the legislation seriously harmed the U.S. economy and failed to alter belligerent policies, it was replaced in 1809 by the Non-Intercourse Act. .In 1813 American forces reoccupied Detroit after Oliver Hazard Perry captured the British fleet on Lake Erie, thus enabling William Henry Harrison to defeat the combined British and Indian forces at the battle of the Thames in October. The Royal Navy by 1813 had blockaded much of the eastern coast and thus ruined U.S. trade with foreign nations. By late summer the U.S. had to face invasions from combined army and naval forces at Lake Champlain and in Chesapeake Bay. A U.S. naval victory on Lake Champlain in September 1814 compelled one invading army to retreat to Canada, but not before other British troops had burned Washington, D.C., Great Britain and the U.S. agreed to commence peace negotiations in January 1814. The U.S. wanted an end to all objectionable British maritime practices and also demanded cessions of Canadian territory. Britain sought a neutral Indian buffer state in the American Northwest and wanted to revise both the American-Canadian boundary and the 1783 Treaty of Paris that had established U.S. independence. They finally agreed to return to the antebellum status quo in a treaty signed at Ghent, Belgium, on Dec. 24, 1814. This treaty was ratified by Britain four days later and by the U.S. Senate on Feb. 16, 1815. Between these dates a final battle was fought on January 8, when a British army landed at the mouth of the Mississippi River and was defeated near New Orleans by forces under Andrew Jackson. Britain never again pursued its disputes with the U.S. to the point of risking war.

Click here for a list of:

Perkins Men who served in the War of 1812

         If you would like to order your Soldiers Military papers from the National Archives. Please read the the information Here