1776
By David McCullough
Perseverance and Spirit have done wonders in all ages.
General George Washington.
We've reviewed books about the American Revolutionary War before on this series; in 2016 we reviewed Fullisers (recommended to me be a reader of this review series!) and back in 2015 we reviewed George Washington Military Genius (another recommendation!). This year, given the difficulties the country seems to be facing, I thought it right to review a book detailing perhaps the single hardest year of the nation's life. That being the first year of 1776 when the nation was officially born and nearly strangled in its crib. Let me talk a bit about David McCullough first.
Mr. McCullough was born in Pittsburgh Philadelphia in 1933, on July 7th, so first let me wish him a happy early birthday. He began attending Yale University in 1951 and graduated in 1955 with a degree in English Literature. He harbored ambitions of becoming a playwright or fiction writer and served apprenticeships at Time, Life, the United States Information Agency and American Heritage and was eventually hired by Sports Illustrated. During this period he married his wife Rosalee, who he met when they were 17, they are still together and have five children and nineteen grandchildren. Mr. McCullough, at this point working for American Heritage, was writing in his spare time (for three years) and his first book the Johnstown Flood was published in 1968 to high praise. He decided to become a full time writer and we have all reaped the benefits ever since. Mr. McCullough has received the Pulitzer prize twice, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and more awards than I could really list in this review without sacrificing space for the book. All in all Mr. McCullough has contributed greatly to people's understanding of history through his writings and for that I am thankful. Now let's get to the book.
The book as you might imagine covers the year of 1776, for those of my readers not from the Anglo-sphere, that is the year that the United States of America declared its independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Before then the original thirteen states of my home nation were colonies ruled from London. I won't go into the arguments that compelled my founding fathers to rebel against King and Country, save to say that they were hotly debated issues in America and England and provoked powerful emotions. Powerful enough that certain words that couldn't be taken back were exchange and on the heels of those words, we began to exchange bullets. The British Government led by King George III resolved that what was needed was to use armed force to hammer the rebels back into line, feeling that to compromise at this point would only inflame greater demands. In addition was the belief that if a show of force wasn't made right then, that there would be a fight later as groups like the Sons of Liberty would continue pushing for independence. The Continental Congress was resolved that while they didn't want a fight, if it meant protecting their natural rights as free men, they were gonna fight. The British Army started out the year in Boston, and as if summoned out of the aether by magic, armed rebel companies gathered to put the British redcoats to siege. The Battle of Bunker Hill had just happened and emotions are high but emotions alone don't win wars.
Mr. McCullough takes some time to review the nature of the armies present here. The fact that the Rebel army, not quite yet the Continental Army of legend and near myth was made up of mostly New England volunteers and basically a collection of amateurs is fully displayed here. Most of them were volunteer companies who simply showed up for the siege of Boston. They had elected officers and no supply chain, and were organized by colonial origin. So you had companies from New York, brigades from Delaware, platoons from Pennsylvania and so on and so forth. Additionally Mr. McCullough takes pains to point out that while most of the British Troops were not yet combat veterans at this point, they were still professionals. They were uniformed, well armed and by the standards of the day very well trained. On top of this they were led by a professional officer corps, many of whom were veterans with experience in war. In short everything the American army wasn't. While George Washington had been appointed in command, he had not been a soldier for years and even then his record, while not awful, wasn't anything stellar either. General Washington's officer corps was also made up of men who for the most part had never fought in battle. Mr. McCullough is careful to introduce us to the officers on both sides as these are for the most part the men who will be either creating the Continental Army, slowly forging it into an instrument that while maybe not the tactical equal of the British will be at least capable of fighting the British Army and achieving victories in the field at the end. On the other side are the men who were fighting at the end of an extremely long supply chain in a foreign land, and were charged with the difficult task of ending the rebellion and returning British rule to the 13 colonies without starting a cycle of constant uprising and insurgency.
The book covers the Boston campaign, where the Americans and British would each in turn besiege and occupy Boston. It's during this we meet men such as Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene, as well as officers that you likely never heard of in your history class. That said, I think Nathaniel Greene and Henry Knox make good examples of the general run of colonial officers. Both these men were still young men, with no experience in warfare or in commanding large groups of men. Despite that they are able to rise to high rank and high responsibility based on their willingness to work and sacrifice to get that work done. Course they had to do a lot of on the job learning which led to spectacular successes, driven by the fact that no one told them what they were trying to do was impossible. As well as rather obvious failures, also driven by the fact that they weren't entirely sure what was possible and what wasn't. We're given a good example of this in Henry Knox, whose family situation also serves as a microcosm of what America as a whole was going through. Henry Knox was a self made man, the eldest son who when his father died turned to working to support his family at the age of twelve (this is a common refrain in the colonial ranks, including George Washington's father, who died when the General was eleven). He worked up to owning his own book store which ended up being a fashionable hang out for loyalist Americans and his wife was the daughter (Lucy Flucker) of a noted Loyalist family. His brother in law served in the British Army and after the war, his in laws fled to England and never returned. Henry Knox's fortunes were sealed by his expedition to Ticonderoga. On Henry's suggestion George Washington sent him to steal some cannons from a pair of British forts and bring them back to Boston. In the dead of winter. Using wooden, ox drawn wagons and sleds. The cannons weighted 60 tons and the distance was 300 miles. If you're not sure why this is a big deal, I invite you to load down your car with as many heavy objects as possible, drive it off road and then try to push it uphill for 3 miles.
The battles for New York and Long Island are also covered. More attention is paid to the American side of things than the British side but there still plenty of care put on both, detailing things such as on the British side General Howe and General Clinton's inability to get along. There's also some social gossip such as General Howe's supposed affair with Mrs. Elizabeth Loring. It's here that we see how much George Washington had to learn as frankly the American forces are shown being outsmarted, out-maneuvered and out fought by the British. General Washington's forces weren't just pushed out of New York without putting up much of a fight, they were also chased clear across New Jersey by the British without managing to win any major battles and losing the vast majority of the minor ones. Mr. McCullough doesn't try to marginalize this, he is very clear in showing just how vastly superior British Arms were in 1776. At this point it shouldn't be a surprise though. While modern Americans may be justly smug in their claim to having the best logistical system on the planet and honestly pretty much of all of human history; in the Revolutionary War our logistics, that is the system of getting supplies to soldiers, was so awful that the British were getting their powder, uniforms and weapons shipped across an ocean and they were still better supplied than us. So the American Troops were clothed in rags, had next to no ammo, a shortage of weapons, boots, firewood and basically a shortage of every needed supply except enemies. Add in that many troops had only volunteered for short periods and hadn't been paid for a large chunk of their enlistments. The fact that Washington held the army together as an operational force, while constantly avoiding contact with a better supplied and trained army, in the middle of winter in New England and New Jersey.... Well despite having constant tactical loses and failures, General Washington still comes out looking like an amazing leader of men.
That said the book does end on a high note if you're an American Patriot, with the battle of Trenton. Needing a victory, after being chased out of two colonies and having lost Boston and New York City Washington elected to attack across the Delaware river on Christmas striking at an isolated post of Hessians. Hessians were German mercenaries hired by King George III to help bring his armies up to strength. The book discusses them in greater length but I will note for the record that the Hessians were not popular with the Americans and often accused of war crimes (most often of killing surrendering rebel troops, which the British do seem to confirm, if not as commonly as Americans accuse). For that matter British officers were also prone to accusing the Hessians of war crimes, especially when parts of New Jersey went up flames and was looted by the British forces. Anyways Trenton helped maintain faith in the Revolution at a time when everything seemed grim and Mr. McCullough walks us through it and the aftermath of the battle.
The book only focuses on a single year, so if you're looking for a general text on the Revolutionary war, this isn't it. It does however give a good look at what may have been the grimmest year in our history and lets us see how close we came to having the Republic snuffed out in the very year of its birth. It's an appreciation for the challenges we've faced in the past I find that helps us maintain faith in the future. If you're looking for a book that focuses on part of the Revolution or you're interested in seeing the first brutal lessons that shaped the Continental Army and George Washington... Then this is the book for you. 1776 by David McCullough gets an A from me.
Next week we return to fiction. Keep reading.
Other reviews about the Revolutionary War:
http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2015/07/george-washingtons-military-genius-by.html
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