AMERICANS GENERALLY REGARD George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as the two giants of our history. And yet the degree of understanding we have accorded the two men is vastly one-sided. Lincoln we feel we know. We pace the second floor of the White House with him as, back in 1862, he anguishes over the fate of the Army of the Potomac or contemplates one of his all-too-frequent changes in the command of that army. We sit with him in Ford’s Theater as John Wilkes Booth sneaks up behind him. But not so George Washington. The Father of Our Country is revered by nearly all of us, but primarily because we have been told that he should be revered. The real, living Washington, with his ups and downs, his strengths and weaknesses, has been buried in myth.
So it is with the two great wars during which each of these statesmen led our fortunes. The Civil War, like Lincoln, is vivid in our memory, kept constantly alive by hundreds of new book titles every year, by reenactments of battles at our great national parks, even by automobile license plates carrying the ever-defiant Confederate battle flag. The American Revolution, on the other hand, is largely forgotten. The “redcoats” are no longer pictured as the brutal enemies they once were in the American imagination. The period from 1775 through 1781 was fraught with confusion, upheaval, uncertainty, and incredible danger to Patriot leaders and citizens alike. But it has been lost in our consciousness.
The reasons for our so abandoning the Revolution are obvious: the passage of time, the paucity of reliable records, general indifference to our national heritage, and the timing of the invention of the photograph, which came upon the scene some fifty years after the Revolution. The reasons, actually, are not important; the fact of our neglect, at least to the historically minded, is important indeed.
In this book, Major Battles and Campaigns: Battles of the Revolutionary War, Col. W.J. Wood is making a contribution toward rectifying our ignorance of and indifference to the American Revolution. It is a worthy endeavor, and in approaching it Colonel Wood has been conscious that he is battling obstacles. Two of these are the mythology that has grown up around our Revolution and the very complicated nature of the war itself. Let me address the second problem first.
The serious reader, trying to make some sense out of the strategic course of the Revolution, is baffled by an appalling lack of pattern. A study of the war involves a plethora of battles, some large and some small, fought at great distances from each other, encompassing various sections of the United States and Canada. Usually one campaign would hold center stage at a time,1 governed by the objectives of the British high command, who always retained the strategic initiative. Those objectives are not always clear to the reader. It is sometimes difficult to analyze why high-ranking British officials decided to occupy one portion or another of the United States at a given time. Why, for example, did Sir William Howe ignore the wishes of his superiors that he join Sir John Burgoyne at Albany in 1777, a move that would have altered the course of the war? The author goes into such problems with zest, and he succeeds in unraveling them with considerable success.
When it comes to the study of various individual Revolutionary battles, we find a lack of uniformity in quality, methods of operation, and competence of commanders among the armies. A British force, for example, might contain a leaven of British regulars but include as well some regiments of Hessian mercenaries, Canadian militia, and Indians—though usually not all four groups at once. An American force would vary even more because of the vast chasm in military proficiency between raw, untrained militia and the relatively well-trained Continentals. An American force might contain both these elements, although some of the most famous American successes such as Bunker Hill and Kings Mountain were fought by militia alone. Like the British, the Americans also recruited Indians as auxiliaries, though not nearly to the same extent.
The sheer number of battles fought in this erratically-conducted war makes it impossible for the author to cover every one in a single book. Colonel Wood has overcome this difficulty by abandoning at the outset any effort to follow the Revolution through as a strategic continuum. Rather, he selects certain battles to describe, purposefully omitting others. His criteria for selection includes the drama of a particular engagement, its ability to illustrate a certain military principle, and its uniqueness. None of the battles described herein exactly, or even closely, resembles any of the others. The author does, however, strive to give some continuity, some tie-in, by skillful cross-reference. He compares British tactics at Brandywine in September 1777, to those employed a year earlier on Long Island, to mention only one instance. He has successfully striven to create an overall picture by emphasizing the highlights.
As to the mythology surrounding this poorly reported war, Colonel Wood takes much of it head-on in his very thorough and educational Author’s Introduction. In that indispensable section, he clearly describes the various types of soldier who fought on either side, what each had to contend with, the equipment each carried, the nature of the weapons each employed, and the tactics by which each unit attempted to derive the greatest combat effectiveness from the weapons it carried. Vital to an understanding of those tactics, of course, is an understanding of the organizations in which the troops of both sides fought.
That indispensable Author’s Introduction will also give the reader an astonishing picture of the British regular, the once-maligned redcoat. That unfortunate creature was not always a soldier by choice. Sometimes he had signed up in the British army as a fugitive from some unbearable place in British society, but too often he was a victim of the indiscriminate press gangs. He was conscripted (theoretically) for life, and his lot afforded little by way of life’s amenities. The British Tommy fought and marched for great distances in the unfamiliar American heat, stifled by uniforms fit only for the parade ground, a condition which the author describes masterfully. His picture calls forth our respect for the remarkable British soldier.
Besides the mythology surrounding our accepted view of the participating soldiers, Colonel Wood punctures other false concepts. One is the supposed superiority of the rifle over the musket under all conditions. He invites protest from super-patriots when he points out that only half of the American troops at Bunker Hill got into the fray; many of the non-participants were sheer skulkers. And finally he reminds us, in his chapter on Quebec, that the colonists were engaged in a full-scale war, even offensive operations, months before the Declaration of Independence.
THE AUTHOR ALSO DEALS DEFTLY with the colorful personalities who star in the drama. Of these the most remarkable treatment is accorded to the acknowledged traitor Benedict Arnold. His case is worthy of a moment’s examination.
Arnold’s crime of treason (and betrayal of Washington as well) was consummated by his abortive effort to sell to the British the plans for the defense of the strategic position on the Hudson River, West Point, New York. His act merits no defense; his British counterpart, Major André, was hanged when apprehended, and in the eyes of the colonists, Benedict Arnold deserved the same fate. His ignominy lasts. West Point cadets are still made well aware of the blank shield that hangs on the wall of the Old Cadet Chapel: the name of Arnold has been forever eradicated. In the American military there can be no ambivalence in condemning the traitor.
But history demands a more balanced view of a man’s life, and if the student thereof is to benefit from his readings, then even the traitors, the Benedict Arnolds, deserve to have their side represented.
Colonel Wood has treated this subject with admirable evenhandedness. He does not defend Arnold or his later action. But neither does he denigrate Arnold’s early contributions to the cause of American independence. He simply recounts the zeal, the self-sacrifice, the bravery, and the imagination that Arnold displayed up to and including the Saratoga campaign (1777). He tells of the two severe wounds that Arnold incurred during this time. All through this recounting, however, the author points out the character flaws that later brought on his disillusionment and treason. It is well that Arnold, by such fair treatment, receives his due.
Another great beneficiary of Colonel Wood’s careful analysis is, not surprisingly, General Washington himself. Viewed strictly as a military leader, Washington is seen as he learns from his early mistakes and develops professionally. Washington’s progress is not consistent, however; his brilliance at Trenton and Princeton at Christmas 1776 is followed, not preceded, by his inexplicable blundering at Brandywine nine months later. Colonel Wood gives credit to Washington for the former while not sparing the Great Cincinnatus for the latter.
The salient characteristic of Washington that shines through these pages is his great sense of balance, of his acceptance of responsibility. When Washington had completed his service to the British Crown in 1759, upon Virginia’s retirement from the French and Indian War, he was, though a colonel of militia, still a brash youngster—albeit an energetic, aggressive, and experienced one. After the intervening sixteen years we see a Washington who is capable of weighing the consequences of each action and making mature, usually prudent judgments. Thus he passes up the prospect of seizing the British base at New Brunswick, New Jersey, after his surprising victory at Princeton, great as that prize would have been. We see him assessing that decision in a message to Congress admitting the possibility of his own mistake, even the possibility that he himself had lost an opportunity to end the war. We see the commander in chief worrying about recruiting, supplying, clothing, even paying his army, matters that the Continental Congress, in a more developed country, should have been taking care of for him. Washington is impressive on the battlefield, but he is even more so when solving his everyday, grubby, but all-important administrative problems.
This book also contains splendid characterizations of many other important leaders, British and American. Among them are Prescott, Stark, Putnam, Herkimer, Greene, and Morgan on the American side. Carleton, William Howe, Burgoyne, St. Leger, and Cornwallis are featured on the British side. No photos are available, of course, but the author’s word pictures do much by way of substitute.
Bill Wood has done a remarkable job in researching Battles of the Revolutionary War. He has developed his vast amounts of material into a readable, sometimes folksy, narrative, spiced on occasion by wry observations based on his own experiences as a lifetime soldier. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill is proud to publish this story. Anyone who desires to attain a feel for the dramatic times that accompanied the birth of this country would do well to read it.
1. Sometimes, as with the Saratoga campaign (Burgoyne) and the Philadelphia campaign (Howe), which includes Brandywine, Germantown, and Valley Forge, they were fought simultaneously. But that circumstance was rare.