Early modern warfare Books

Book SynopsisFor decades Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s marriage has been characterized as discordant and tumultuous. In Abraham and Mary Lincoln, author Kenneth J. Winkle goes beyond the common image of the couple, illustrating that although the waters of the Lincoln household were far from calm, the Lincolns were above all a house united.

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Book SynopsisExplores the experiences and qualities that made Abraham Lincoln one of America’s most revered leaders. This volume provides an illuminating overview of the Civil War and Lincoln’s administration, focusing on the ways in which his unique combination of psychological maturity, determination, and political wisdom made him the North’s secret weapon.

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Book SynopsisPresents the first volume to explore the provisions made during the US Civil War for amputees in need of artificial limbs - programmes that, while they revealed stark differences between the resources and capabilities of the North and the South, were the forebears of modern government efforts to assist in the rehabilitation of wounded service members.

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Book SynopsisAlthough they inhabited different political, social, and cultural arenas, Abraham Lincoln and the pioneer generation of Latterday Saints, or Mormons, shared the same nineteenth century world. Bryon C. Andreasen’s Looking for Lincoln in Illinoisrelates more than thirty fascinating and surprising stories that show how the lives of Lincoln and the Mormons intersected.

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Book SynopsisFew American Civil War operations matched the controversy, intensity, and bloodshed of Confederate general John Bell Hood’s ill fated 1864 campaign against Union forces in Tennessee. In the first ever anthology on the subject, The Tennessee Campaign of 1864, fourteen prominent historians and emerging scholars examine this operation.

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Book SynopsisFrom his early years as a smalltown lawyer through his rise to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln respected the rule of law. In this incisive essay collection, scholars from a variety of academic disciplines explore Lincoln’s actions as president and identify within his decisionmaking process his commitment to law and order and the principles of the Constitution.

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Book SynopsisAlthough the US changed dramatically between the presidential terms of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, these two leaders shared common interests and held remarkably similar opinions on important issues. In this volume, Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler describes the views of two of the US’s greatest presidents and explains how these views provide valuable insight into modern-day debates.

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Book SynopsisReveals that the relationship between the president and Congress, though sometimes contentious, was cooperative rather than adversarial. Harris draws intriguing sketches of nineteenth-century congressional leaders and shows that, contrary to what historians have traditionally concluded, radical Republicans did not dominate their party or Congress.

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Book SynopsisAlthough most Americans believe that the Battle of Gettysburg was the only turning point of the Civil War, the war actually turned repeatedly. Events unfolded in completely unexpected ways and had unintended consequences. Turning Points of the American Civil War examines key shifts and the context surrounding them, demonstrating that the war was a continuum of watershed events.

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Book SynopsisBetween Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860 and his departure for Washington three months later, journalist Henry Villard sent scores of dispatches from Springfield, Illinois, to various newspapers describing the president-elect's doings. With Sixteenth President-in-Waiting Michael Burlingame has collected all of these dispatches in one insightful and informative volume.Trade Review“Michael Burlingame keeps collecting and editing important Lincoln materials. This time, Burlingame has found, compiled, and edited, in chronological order and with informed annotations, the almost daily reports of brilliant young journalist Henry Villard on Lincoln’s three months as president-elect. Villard’s dispatches to the New York Herald and two other newspapers provide revealing information on Lincoln’s daily routine as president-elect—his personality, physical appearance, reception of visitors—and on life in Springfield. The dispatches are filled with humorous anecdotes. Villard’s well-written newspaper reports from Springfield are the best source that we have on Lincoln during the critical months after his election, when he was waiting to become president, and as secession was unfolding in the lower South. General readers as well as historians owe Burlingame a debt of gratitude for this valuable edition of Villard’s dispatches.”—William C. Harris, author of Lincoln and Congress“Nobody knows better than Michael Burlingame that rarely consulted files of old newspapers contain ‘high-grade ore for the historian’s smelter.’ His magisterial biography of Abraham Lincoln, published a decade ago, made ample use of such material. In this volume, Burlingame ably excavates the writings of journalist Henry Villard, the most astute correspondent posted to Springfield, Illinois, during the fateful months following the 1860 election. Day after day, Villard described Lincoln’s emerging response to the dreadful and unexpected reality of Southern disunion. When secessionists spurned Lincoln’s assurances that he had ‘no right to meddle with slavery’ in the states where it already existed and no wish to impose ‘Negro equality,’ Villard realized that the incoming president might ultimately have to use force to maintain the Union. The taut drama captured in these long-ago dispatches will command the attention of scholars and the wider reading public.” —Daniel W. Crofts, author of Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union

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Book SynopsisA rising-star historian offers a significant new global perspective on the Revolutionary War with the story of the conflict as seen through the eyes of the outsiders of colonial society Winner of the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award • Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey History Prize • Finalist for the George Washington Book Prize Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has revitalized the study of early America’s marginalized voices. Now, in Independence Lost, she recounts an untold story as rich and significant as that of the Founding Fathers: the history of the Revolutionary Era as experienced by slaves, American Indians, women, and British loyalists living on Florida’s Gulf Coast. While citizens of the thirteen rebelling colonies came to blows with the British Empire over tariffs and parliamentary representation, the situation o

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Book SynopsisThis is the story of the Confederate navy's Savannah Squadron, its relationship with the people of Savannah, Georgia, and its role in the city's economy. In this well-written and extensively researched narrative, Maurice Melton charts the history of the unit, the sailors (both white and black), the officers, their families, and their activities aboard ship and in port.

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Book SynopsisStorm of Words is a study of the ways that southern Presbyterians in the wake of the Civil War contended with a host of cultural and theological questions, chief among them developments in natural history and evolution. Southern Presbyterian theologians enjoyed a prominent position in antebellum southern culture. Respected for both their erudition and elite constituency, these theologians identified the southern society as representing a divine, Biblically ordained order. Beginning in the 1840s, however, this facile identification became more difficult to maintain, colliding first with antislavery polemics, then with Confederate defeat and reconstruction, and later with women's rights, philosophical empiricism, literary criticisms of the Bible, and that most salient symbol of modernity, natural science. As Monte Harrell Hampton shows in Storm of Words, modern science seemed most explicitly to express the rationalistic spirit of the age and threaten the Protestant conviction that s

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Book SynopsisThis first comprehensive biography of Thomas Goode Jones records the life of a man whose political career reflects the fascinating and unsettled history of Alabama and the Deep South at the turn of the twentieth century. In tracing Jones's career, Brent J. Aucoin offers vivid accounts of the great events and trends of this pivotal period.Trade ReviewBrent Aucoin has performed a real service by rescuing Governor (and Judge) Jones from obscurity and explaining his importance not only to Alabama history but to American civil rights history. The book—particularly its vivid account of Jones’ legal fight against peonage—portrays Jones as a man who, like his fictional counterpart Atticus Finch, lived a complex and sometimes contradictory life as he tried to balance justice against the racial mores of the Jim Crow-era South.” —Joseph A. Ranney, author of In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Law

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Book SynopsisProvides incomparable insights into women's lives during America's Civil War era. Marilyn Mayer Culpepper's respect for these nineteenth-century women and their experiences, as well as her engaging and intimate style, enable her to transport readers into a tumultuous time of death, destruction, and privation.

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Book SynopsisThis fascinating narrative tells the story of a remarkable regiment at the center of Civil War history. The real-life adventure emerges from accounts of scores of soldiers who served in the 4th Michigan Infantry, gleaned from their diaries, letters, and memoirs; the reports of their officers and commanders; the stories by journalists who covered them; and the recollections of the Confederates who fought against them.

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Book SynopsisEssential addition to every Peninsular War library.

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Book SynopsisCovers Napoleon's cavalry and artillery of the line and the technical corps of engineers etc. Details the organization of the cavalry and artillery regiments, their weapons, equipment and uniforms. Gives an overview of how the various types of cavalry, and artillery, were used in battle.

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Book SynopsisNapoleon Bonaparte and Juliette Recamier were both highly influential and well-known in France, yet they were often at odds with each other. Their story played out on the European stage during a period of political upheaval and new political ideas. Napoleon gained power in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and he would go from spectacular victories to dismal failure. His defeat in the early nineteenth century would result in Europe acquiring new national borders and with that Britain, Russia, and the United States would gain greater international influence. Juliette, on the other hand, wielded her own power. Because of the tumultuous French Revolution, noble and aristocratic landowners were being replaced by a new wealthy class in the private sector. Juliette and her husband were among the beneficiaries of this growing affluence and influence, and her power came from her new-found position in society. Juliette also viewed life differently than Napoleon. She saw life from the standpoint of a wealthy socialite whereas Napoleon's desires were always shaded by his military experiences and his meteoric rise to power. Along the way, Juliette would have to face the testy Emperor, and she would find that his own brother would fall for her. Even some of Napoleon's greatest enemies would woo her.

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Book SynopsisThe Trafalgar Chronicle is the publication of choice for new research about the Georgian Navy, sometimes called Nelson's Navy', though its scope includes all the sailing navies of the period from 1714 to 1837. The theme of the 2021 issue is Georgian Navy encounters with indigenous and enslaved populations'. The theme is particularly relevant to current-day discussions and social activism occurring across the globe, that have brought new insights and perspectives to Western history of colonisation, exploration, and slavery. The lead article, by 1805 Club member Tom D Fremantle, tells the story of his ancestor, Philip Gidley King, who sailed to Botany Bay with the First Fleet in 1787\. becoming the first Lieutenant Governor of Norfolk Island. and the third Governor of New South Wales. His encounters with the Maoris are unforgettably touching. Another contribution reveals how the British lured slaves away from their American masters' plantations with the promise of freedom during the War of 1812. In the tradition of recent editions, the 2021 Trafalgar Chronicle contains biographical sketches of Nelson's contemporaries including Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Saunders, naval hero of Quebec; Sir Harry Neale, Baronet GCB, a royal favourite; and Admiral Sir Philip Durham, a Trafalgar Captain turned politician. Meanwhile, Captain Christer H gg, RSwN Rtd regales readers with the tale of Captain Johan Puke leading the Swedish fleet in a daring breakout from the Russian blockade at Viborg in 1790. Scholars and students, experts and enthusiasts fascinated by the era of the sailing navy will be absorbed by the latest edition of this handsomely illustrated journal.

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Book SynopsisPortraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Alabama in the Civil War is the tenth volume in this acclaimed series showing the human side of the country’s great national conflict. Over 230 photographs of soldiers and civilians from Alabama, many never seen before, are accompanied by their personal stories and woven into the larger narrative of the war both on the battlefield and the home front. Alabama is unusual among the Rebel states in that, while its people saw little fighting inside its boundaries, nearly one hundred thousand Alabamians served with Confederate units throughout the South. This volume chronicles their experiences in almost every battle east of the Mississippi River—especially at Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg under the legendary Robert E. Lee; at Murfreesboro and Chickamauga as part of the ill-fated Army of Tennessee; and at the famous siege of Vicksburg. Ultimately Union soldiers did invade the state, and Alabamians defended their homeland against enemy cavalry raiders at Selma and against Federal warships in the fight for Mobile Bay. The volume also includes accounts of some of Alabama’s leading politicians as well as several of its more ordinary citizens. This new volume contains the same quality of photography and storytelling that has attracted Civil War enthusiasts since the first volume was published in 1987, making it another welcome addition to the series Civil War History called “a sensibly priced, beautifully produced photographic history.”

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Book SynopsisThis title presents the previously unpublished record of a white doctor's service with African American troops during the Civil War. In early 1863, in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Massachusetts began recruiting black soldiers to serve in the Civil War. Although the first regiment formed, the 54th Massachusetts, would become the best-known black regiment in the war, the second regiment raised, the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, performed equally valuable service in the Union Army. Burt Green Wilder, a Boston-born, Harvard-educated doctor-in-training, was among the first white officers commissioned to staff the 55th Massachusetts. Like other officers serving in the state's African American units, Wilder was selected for his military experience, his 'firm Anti-Slavery principles', and his faith in the value of black troops. From the time he joined the 55th in May 1863 until the regiment was discharged in September 1865, Wilder recorded his experiences and observations. He described the day-to-day activities of a Civil War surgeon, the indignities suffered by black enlisted men at the hands of a War Department that denied them the same treatment offered to white troops, and the role of the regiment in the campaign around Charleston and in Florida. Service in the southern states also allowed Wilder to indulge a passion for natural science and comparative anatomy, including the collection of unusual species, one of which - the spider known as Nephila wilderi - still bears his name. After the war he completed his medical studies at Harvard and joined the faculty of Cornell University, where he became a distinguished professor of zoology as well as an outspoken advocate of racial equality. In his introduction to the volume, Richard M. Reid analyzes Burt Wilder's diary and places it within the context of the war, the experience of African American troops, and Wilder's life and career.Trade Review"Wilder's diary is a rich text for historians of the Civil War, black troops, medicine, the South, race, and the history of American natural science. It includes detailed information on Civil War medicine, on the day-to-day experiences of a white officer in a black regiment, on the black troops themselves, and the innumerable issues (fatigue labor versus combat, discrimination in terms of equipment, pay, status, medical care) that defined life for the men of the U.S. Colored Troops. Wilder's is an important voice that needs to be heard by a broad range of scholars and students of Civil War and late nineteenth-century America." - John David Smith, editor of Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era"

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Book SynopsisThis book tells the story of the Reverend Jacob Bailey, a missionary preacher for the Church of England in the frontier town of Pownalborough (now Dresden), Maine, who refused to renounce allegiance to King George III during the American War of Independence. Relying largely on Bailey’s unpublished journals and voluminous correspondence, James S. Leamon traces Bailey’s evolution from his rustic background through his Harvard education and subsequent career as a teacher, Congregational minister, and missionary preacher for the Church of England. Along the way, Bailey absorbed many of the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment, but also the more traditional conviction that family, society, religion, and politics, like creation itself, should be orderly and hierarchal. Such beliefs led Bailey to oppose the Revolution as unnatural, immoral, and doomed to fail. Reverend Bailey’s persistence in praying for the king and his refusal to publicise the Declaration of Independence from his Pownalborough pulpit aroused hostilities that drove him and his family to the safety of Nova Scotia. There, in exile, Bailey devoted himself to assisting fellow refugees while defending himself from others. During this time, he wrote almost obsessively: poems, dramas, novels, histories. Though few were ever completed, and even fewer published, in one way or another most of his writings depicted the trauma he underwent as a loyalist. Leamon’s study of the Reverend Jacob Bailey depicts the complex nature and burdens of one person’s loyalism while revealing much about eighteenth-century American life and culture.

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Book SynopsisA lavishly illustrated essay collection that looks through a global lens at the American Revolution and re-positions it as the real 1st world war “Every American should read this marvelous book.” —Douglas Brinkley, author of Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America From acts of resistance like the Boston Tea Party to the shot heard 'round the world, the American Revolutionary War stands as a symbol of freedom and democracy the world over for many people. But contrary to popular opinion, this was not just a simple battle for independence in which the American colonists waged a David versus Goliath fight to overthrow their British rulers.In over a dozen incisive pieces from leading historians, the American struggle for liberty and independence re-emerges instead as a part of larger skirmishes between Britain and Europe’s global superpowers—Spain, France, and the Dutch Republic. Amid these ongoing conflicts, Britain's focus was often pulled away from the war in America as it fought to preserve its more lucrative colonial interests in the Caribbean and India. With fascinating sidebars throughout and over 110 full-color images featuring military portraiture, historical documents, plus campaign and territorial maps, this fuller picture of one of the first global struggles for power offers a completely new understanding of the American Revolution.

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Book SynopsisAt the onset of the American Revolution, the British expected to quell the rebellion quickly with a show of overwhelming force. In an experiment in asymmetric warfare, David Bushnell created the first submarine vessel designed specifically "for the destruction of vessels of war." On a quiet September night in 1776, sergeant Ezra Lee maneuvered Bushnell's strange little craft out from Manhattan and into the midst of the greatest naval fleet ever assembled in the Americas. Lee's goal was to sink the British flagship HMS Eagle by attaching a powerful explosive to its hull. Although the mission was unsuccessful, Bushnell's concept of submarine warfare was considered by George Washington to have been "an effort of genius."David Bushnell was raised in the town of Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecticut River. More than two centuries later, another Turtle would be launched into the same river within sight of Bushnell's first forays with his vesselduring the summer of 1775. Under the direction of technical arts teacher Frederic J. Frese, students at Old Saybrook High School created a working replica of Bushnell's submarine, facilitated through an education partnershipwith the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island, where Roy R. Manstan was a mechanical engineer and Navy trained diver. With twenty-first century submariners at the helm, the Turtle replica was subjected to a series of operational tests at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. In Turtle: David Bushnell's Revolutionary Vessel, the authors provide new insight into Bushnell's "engine of devastation," tracing the history of undersea warfare before Bushnell and the origin of the many innovations Bushnell understood would be necessary for conducting a covert submarine attack. The knowledge gained from testing the Turtle replica enabled the authors to speculate as to what America's first submariner Ezra Lee experienced that September night and what may have caused the attack to fail. Roy R. Manstan and Frederic J. Frese

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Book SynopsisA Journal of the American Revolution Book: While attacking the British and their allies at Stony Point, Paulus Hook, and upstate New York, George Washington prepared a bold plan to end the war in New York City Despite great limits of money and manpower, George Washington sought to wage an aggressive war in 1779. He launched the Sullivan-Clinton campaign against Britain's Iroquois allies in upstate New York, and in response to British attacks up the Hudson River and against coastal Connecticut, he authorized raids on British outposts at Stony Point and Paulus Hook. But given power by Congress to plan and execute operations with the French on a continental scale, Washington planned his boldest campaign. When it appeared that the French would bring a fleet and an army to America, and supported by intelligence from his famed Culper spy network, the American commander proposed a joint Franco-American attack on the bastion of British power in North America New York City to capture its garrison. Such a blow, he hoped, would end the war in 1779. Based on extensive primary source material, Washington's War 1779, by historian Benjamin Lee Huggins, describes Washington's highly detailed plans and extensive prepara- tions for his potentially decisive Franco-American cam- paign to defeat the British at New York in the fall of 1779. With an emphasis on Washington's generalship in that year from strategic and operational planning to logistics to diplomacy and how it had evolved since the early years of the war, the book also details the other offensive opera- tions in 1779, including the attacks in upstate New York, Stony Point, and Paulus Hook. Although the American and French defeat at Savannah, Georgia, prevented Washington from carrying out his New York offensive, Washington gained valuable experience in planning for joint operations that would help him win at Yorktown two years later.

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Book SynopsisRedcoats. For Americans, the word brings to mind a occupying army that attempted to crush a revolution against king and country. For centuries these soldiers have remained hidden despite their major role in one of the greatest events in world history. There was more to these men than their red uniforms, but the individuals who formed the ranks are seldom described in any detail in historical literature, leaving unanswered questions. Who were they? Why did they join the army? Where did they go when the war was over? In Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution, Don N. Hagist brings life to these soldiers, describing the training, experiences, and outcomes of British soldiers who fought during the Revolution. Drawing on thousands of military records and other primary sources in British, American, and Canadian archives, and the writings of dozens of officers and soldiers, Noble Volunteers shows how a peacetime army responded to the onset of war, how professional soldiers adapted quickly and effectively to become tactically dominant, and what became of the thousands of career soldiers once the war was over. In this historical tour de force, introduced by Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson, Hagist dispels long-held myths, revealing how remarkably diverse British soldiers were. They represented a variety of ages, nationalities, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and many had joined the army as a peacetime career, only to find themselves fighting a war on another continent in often brutal conditions. Against the sweeping backdrop of the war, Hagist directs his focus on the small picture, illuminating the moments in an individual soldier's life—those hours spent nursing a fever while standing sentry in the bitter cold, or writing a letter to a wife back home. What emerges from these vignettes is the understanding that while these were “common” soldiers, each soldier was completely unique, for, as Hagist writes, “There was no ‘typical' British soldier.”

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Book Synopsis“I have now nothing to trouble your Lordship with, but an affair that happened on the 19th instant . . .” General Thomas Gage penned the above line to his superiors in London, casually summing up the shots fired at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The history of the Battles of Lexington and Concord were the culmination of years of unrest between those loyal to the British monarchy and those advocating for more autonomy and dreaming of independence from Great Britain in the futre. On the morning of April 19th, Gage sent out a force of British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to confiscate, recapture, and destroy the military supplies gathered by the colonists and believed to be stored in the town of Concord. Due to the alacrity of men such as Dr. James Warren, Paul Revere, and William Dawes, utilizing a network of signals and outriders, the countryside was well-aware of the approaching British, setting the stage for the day’s events. When the column reached the green of Lexington, Massachusetts, militiamen awaited their approach. The first shots of April 19th would be fired there. The rest of the day unfolded accordingly. Historians Phillip S. Greenwalt and Robert Orrison unfold the facts of April 19, 1775, uncovering the amazing history that this pivotal spring day ushered in for the fate of Massachusetts and thirteen of Great Britain’s North American colonies with In a Single Blow.

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Book SynopsisDecember 1776: Just six months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, George Washington and the new American Army sit on the verge of utter destruction by the banks of the Delaware River. The despondent and demoralized group of men had endured repeated defeats and now were on the edge of giving up hope. Washington feared “the game is pretty near up.” Rather than submit to defeat, Washington and his small band of soldiers crossed the ice-choked Delaware River and attacked the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey on the day after Christmas. He followed up the surprise attack with successful actions along the Assunpink Creek and at Princeton. In a stunning military campaign, Washington had turned the tables, and breathed life into the dying cause for liberty during the Revolutionary War. The campaign has led many historians to deem it as one of the most significant military campaigns in American history. One British historian even declared that “it may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater or more lasting results upon the history of the world.” In Victory or Death, historian Mark Maloy not only recounts these epic events, he takes you along to the places where they occurred. He shows where Washington stood on the banks of the Delaware and contemplated defeat, the city streets that his exhausted men charged through, and the open fields where Washington himself rode into the thick of battle. Victory or Death is a must for anyone interested in learning how George Washington and his brave soldiers grasped victory from the jaws of defeat.

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Book SynopsisBack in print! A visual and narrative overview of the principal military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. Symonds narrates each battle in a clear, concise, and readable way. Accompanying two-color, full-page maps make everything easy to understand, and make this book an ideal classroom text, battlefield tour guide, or library reference.

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Book SynopsisRevolutionary War historians and biographers of Charles Lee have treated him as either an inveterate enemy of George Washington or a great defender of American liberty. Neither approach is accurate argues author Christian McBurney, who stresses that in order to fully understand the war’s most complicated general, objectivity is required. His new book, George Washington’s Nemesis: The Outrageous Treason and Unfair Courtmartial of Major General Charles Lee during the American Revolution, relies on original documents (some newly discovered) to combine two dramatic stories involving the military law of treason and court-martials, creating a balanced view of the Revolution’s most fascinating personality. General Lee, second in command in the Continental Army led by George Washington, was captured by the British in December 1776. While a prisoner, he prepared and submitted to his captors a military plan on how to defeat Washington’s army as quickly as possible. This extraordinary act of treason, arguably on a par with Benedict Arnold’s heinous treachery, was not discovered during his lifetime. Many historians shrug off this ignoble act, but it should not be ignored. Less well known is that throughout his sixteen months of captivity and even after his release, Lee continued communicating with the enemy, offering to help negotiate an end to the rebellion. After Lee rejoined the Continental Army, he was given command of many of its best troops with orders from Washington to attack the rear of British General Henry Clinton’s column near Monmouth, New Jersey. Lee intended to attack on June 28, 1778, but retreated in the face of Clinton’s bold move to reverse his march. Two of Lee’s subordinate generals—without orders and without informing Lee—moved more than half of his command off the field. Faced with the possible destruction of the balance, Lee ordered a general retreat while conducting a skillful delaying action. Many historians have been quick to malign Lee’s performance at Monmouth, for which he was convicted by court-martial for not attacking and for retreating in the face of the enemy. This was a miscarriage of justice, stresses McBurney, for the evidence clearly shows that Lee was unfairly convicted and had, in fact, by retreating, performed an important service to the Patriot cause. The guilty verdict was more the result of Lee’s having insulted Washington, which made the matter a political contest between the army’s two top generals—only one of them could prevail. McBurney’s objective pen makes George Washington’s Nemesis a gripping, fast-paced study that relies upon facts, logic, and hard evidence to set the historical record straight.Trade ReviewAn interesting account of a fascinating character’s role in the American Revolution - one can always skip the legal discussion! * Miniature Wargames - Arthur Harman *

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Book Synopsis“An Army of skeletons appeared before our eyes naked, starved, sick and discouraged.” Gouverneur Morris recorded these words in his report to the Continental Congress after a visit to the Continental Army encampment at Valley Forge. Sent as part of a fact-finding mission, Morris and his fellow congressmen arrived to conditions far worse than they had initially expected. After a campaigning season that saw the defeat at Brandywine, the loss of Philadelphia, the capital of the rebellious British North American colonies, and the reversal at Germantown, George Washington and his harried army marched into Valley Forge on December 19, 1777. What transpired in the next six months prior to the departure from the winter cantonment on June 19, 1778 was truly remarkable. The stoic Virginian, George Washington solidified his hold on the army and endured political intrigue, the quartermaster department was revived with new leadership from a former Rhode Island Quaker, and a German baron trained the army in the rudiments of being a soldier and military maneuvers. Valley Forge conjures up images of cold, desperation, and starvation. Yet Valley Forge also became the winter of transformation and improvement that set the Continental Army on the path to military victory and the fledgling nation on the path to independence. In The Winter that Won the War: The Winter Encampment at Valley Forge, 1777-1778, historian Phillip S. Greenwalt takes the reader on campaign in the year 1777 and through the winter encampment, detailing the various changes that took place within Valley Forge that ultimately led to the success of the American cause. Walk with the author through 1777 and into 1778 and see how these months truly were the winter that won the war.

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