Not even close. Washington was the indispensable man, as Flexner has called him. While the victories in the south were important, there were four British armies operating in or above Virginia.
Had they bagged Washington’s army at any point, the Revolution would have collapsed.
Thomas Jefferson? He ranks among the most expendable. Jefferson eschewed warfare, thought it beneath him, and favored talking his foes into submission.
Three indispensable men to the RevWar: Washington for military strategy and leadership; Thos. Paine for the ideas and writing advocating the Revolution; and Ben Franklin who gave it international legitimacy.
I forgot Mrs. Loring. She kept General Howe “occupied” long enough for General Washington’s army to survive.
General Green in the south. Wore out Cornwallis and forced him into the Yorktown trap.
All of them.
Happy Independence Day
God
Along with 18 and 30, I say George Washington.
Today we know that the great man himself entertained doubts about the cause. With New England states cut-off, a British force to the south, with inflation exploding and with desertions, in 1780, he wrote in his diary, “We seem to be verging so fast to extinction that I am filled with sensations to which I have been a stranger till these three months.”
The French secretly offered the British terms involving their keeping New York, the Carolinas and Georgia, but the offer was rejected. King George III thought that the financial collapse would soon be followed by a military collapse. Yet, George Washington pressed forward (publicly) and the Americans soldiered on.
A second person who could be identified as indispensable is King Louis XVI. His loan of 1779 in silver (which arrived here the next year), along with an army under General Rochambeau and a navy under Admiral D’Estaing gave the Americans new impetus and were crucial at keep the British navy at bay, during the Yorktown campaign. Some people cite Dr. Benjamin Franklin for his role in securing this loan. But, let’s give the French their due. We’ve been repaying our debt to them ever since.
Multiple people had critical roles to fill.
I would still say Washington. Motivating troops to fight, and being right there with them. Not letting them get away with undisciplined crap because “war”. Later, not becoming a napoleon even though people begged him to.
David McCullough was going to write a biographical history of the Revolution centered around John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. After he had done his first year of intensive research he realized that in his opinion John Adams was THE essential man. He changed his focus an wrote his best seller biography on John Adams.
Henry Knox!
(watching The Revolution series on TV and I was reminded about him).
Book store owner, military groupy and artillery fanboy.
Boston is sieged. The Patriots need artillery. Ol’ Knox says “umm guys? Why don’t we get those guns sitting around at Fort Ticonderoga?”
He goes up there. Gets the guns. It takes him awhile but he gets those guns to Boston.
Washington gets a high point quickly fortified (like, overnight, surprising the crud out of the Brits) and the Brits say...
Hey, how about you let us walk out of here all peaceful like?
After the Brits are gone, Washington looks around at his staff and says “umm... any of y’all know where we might find some gunpowder for these here guns that Knox got for us?”
Would the siege of Boston been lifted without Henry Knox’s efforts?
Culper Sr.
Post; thread BUMP! Thanks to all posters.
History
Robert Morris. No question about it.
Daniel Morgan. Nathaniel Greene. Francis Marion.
I’m going with Washington if only one can be made. All of them together created one force of nature - a true miracle arranged by God. It’s chilling to even try to comprehend it.
The Marquise de Lafayette.
After Washington, of course, and speaking in terms of military figures, Nathaniel Greene immediately comes to mind as a potential "Second Least Expendable"—and that's despite his enormous blunder at Fort Washington during the New York campaign of 1776, where he convinced Washington he could hold the fort. Instead, the entire bloated garrison was surrendered, decimating the Continental army and resulting in thousands of Patriot POWs.
In "The American Revolution in the South" by Henry Lee—Robert E. Lee's father, and a superb Revolutionary officer in his own right—we see—via firsthand accounts—how Greene's masterful out-generaling of Cornwallis throughout the South was absolutely key to engineering the ultimate fate that Cornwallis met at Yorktown.
Had Greene not replaced Gates after that general's crushing defeat at Camden, the outcome in the South would likely have been equally disastrous.
Thinking in terms of the earlier part of the Revolution, I'd have to say Samuel Adams was indispensable, so he'd be another candidate for "2nd least expendable".
The First Maryland Line.