This year, the day following Thanksgiving Day isn't just Black Friday, a day of Christmas shopping specials, but the date, 228 years ago, when Americans actually won their first war.
The Revolutionary War began on July 4, 1776, but did not end until the evacuation of New York City by the British on November 25, 1783.
To many, their historical recollection of the American Revolutionary War is focused on the date the war began, July 4th 1776.
Few recall the date the war ended, 7 long arduous years later, on November 25th 1783.
Evacuation Day
Following the American Revolution, Evacuation Day on November 25 marks the day in 1783 when the last vestige of British authority in the United States "its troops in New York" departed from Manhattan. The last shot of the American Revolutionary War was reported to be fired on this day, as a British gunner on one of the departing ships fired a cannon at jeering crowds gathered on the shore of Staten Island, at the mouth of New York Harbor (the shot fell well short of the shore).
Evacuation Day, celebrated until World War I, honored the loss of over 10,000 American prisoners of warduring the occupation of New York by the British:
During the war, at least 16 hulks, including the infamous HMS Jersey, were placed by British authorities in the waters of Wallabout Bay off the shores of Brooklyn, New York as a place of incarceration for many thousands of American soldiers and sailors during about 1776–83.[8][9] Over 10,000 of these prisoners died from intentional neglect.
Their corpses were often tossed overboard, though sometimes they were buried in shallow graves along the eroding shoreline.[10] Many of the remains became exposed or washed up and were recovered by local women over the course of following years, later to be interred nearby in the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument at Fort Greene Park, once the scene of a portion of the Battle of Long Island.
The British Are Going!
American flags vanished from Manhattan after the British forced George Washington's army from the city in September 1776. But early on Tuesday, November 25, 1783, the day chosen for the redcoats' departure from New York, a Mrs. Day raised the Stars and Stripes over her Murray Street tavern. Captain William Cunningham, the British provost marshal, tried to pull the banner down. "Take in that flag," he roared, "the city is ours till noon." Mrs. Day bloodied his nose with a broomstick, dealing "the Captain such lusty blows as made the powder fly in clouds from his wig, and forced him to beat a retreat."
Celebration of Evacuation Day persisted until the start of the Macy's Day parade combined with Thanksgiving Day eclipsed the desire to commemorate that WINNING moment in American history.