Before his death, he had completely retired from the military. His moto of ‘Live free or die,’ became the official motto of New Hampshire in 1945. James Armistead James Armistead was a slave born on December 10, 1760. He was one of the mosr important figures in the American Revolution as he was also a spy and worked as a double agent in order help the colonists overthrow the British. In 1781, Armistead joined the army under Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette lost most of his men trying to fight the British soldiers and the traitor Benedict Arnold in Virginia. He needed an advantage over the British troops or else his entire fleet would have fallen and thus he used Armistead to spy on the British. Armistead went to the British camp and pretended to be a slave who was set free. He mingled with the troops and sent information to Lafayette and his men. Eventually he started to spy for the British as well, but he gave them false information. Thus he was also known as a double agent. He gave the colonists valuable information that the British were marching their troops to Yorktown in order to make it their new main base for operations. Lafayette and George Washington, upon hearing this news, seized the town and ambushed the British, which crippled their …show more content…
He died in 1818, but his legacy lives on as five U.S. Navy ships have been named after him so far. Elizabeth “Betsy” Hagar Elizabeth Hagar was a colonist who had faced severely harsh times in life. Both of her parents died before she even became a teenager. She became an orphan in 1759 at the age of nine. She migrated all over the colonies and stayed wherever she got shelter. However, there was a silver lining. In the midst of migrating so often, she developed a skill with machinery, as well as blacksmith tools. She used these skills to colonists’ advantage. She began to refurbish weapons that had already been used in battle. She refined muskets, canons, various guns and she also forged ammunition. She did all this with the help of a local blacksmith at his shop. They did this work in secret because it was illegal to use the government’s weapons against them. Although not much is written about her in the history books, she played a huge part by providing arms to the colonists. Without her, the war would have gone in favor of the