American Revolutionary War/Talk

"Boston was evacuated by British troops in October [1775]."

Hmm. Evacuation Day is celebrated on March 17th in the Boston metro area, presumably to line up with the evacuation, but I suppose it's entirely possible that the date was chosen for other reasons. So is the article wrong, or is the holiday wrong? -- EdwardOConnor

"The largest army seen in Western Europe since Roman times"? I was all set to kill this, but realized that it was *just* barely possible that he only sent part of it and that's what the quoted figure of 75,000 represents. If that's the entire sum, though, it's not even close to the largest army. Spain and France cleared five times that figure in wars during the 16th and late 17th centuries....Does anyone care to stand up for this statement? -- Paul Drye

---

• As I threatened earlier, I took out the claim that the army the British assembled was the largest seen since Roman times.

• Similarly hyperbolic was the claim that Philadelphia was the second largest city in the British Empire. While it's true that all English cities were remarkably smaller than London, and the colonial cities were correspondingly far up the list, at least Manchester and Liverpool were still bigger than Philadelphia in 1776 (the twice so or more).

--Paul Drye