About this item
Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin are known to all; men like Morgan, Greene, and Wayne are less familiar. Yet the dreams of the politicians and theorists only became real because fighting men were willing to take on the grim, risky, brutal work of war.The soldiers of the American Revolution were a diverse lot: merchants and mechanics, farmers and fishermen, paragons and drunkards. Most were ardent amateurs. Even George Washington, assigned to take over the army around Boston in 1775, consulted books on military tactics.Here, Jack Kelly vividly captures the fraught condition of the war-the bitterly divided populace, the lack of supplies, the repeated setbacks on the battlefield, and the appalling physical hardships. That these inexperienced warriors could take on and defeat the superpower of the day was one of the remarkable feats in world history.
About the Author
Jack Kelly is an award-winning author and historian. His new book "VALCOUR: The 1776 Campaign That Saved the Cause of Liberty" tells the neglected story of one of the most critical and suspense-filled campaigns of the Revolutionary War. That summer, patriots knew they had to stop an enemy invasion from Canada by any means necessary. Their success meant they would continue to fight for another year, setting up their breakthrough victory at Saratoga. Kelly's "BAND OF GIANTS: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America's Independence" received the DAR History Medal. He is also the author of "THE EDGE OF ANARCHY," an account of the Pullman Strike of 1894; "HEAVEN'S DITCH", a cultural history of the Erie Canal; and "GUNPOWDER," an account of man's first explosive. He has published five novels, and is a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in Nonfiction Literature. He lives and works in New York's Hudson Valley.
