1776

NewMexiKen has completed David McCullough’s 1776, a military history of that fateful year newly out in paperback.

After an opening chapter detailing the politics in Britain, McCullough traces the action, from the successful American siege of Boston (forcing the British ultimately to abandon the city), through a series of dreadful and disastrous American defeats in New York, the demoralizing retreat across New Jersey and, at the end of December and beginning of January, the miraculous American victories at Trenton and Princeton. McCullough includes much from the contemporary correspondence and reminisces of the participants; the reader learns more about the war fighters than the fighting, but that is good.

The American army was hardly more than tattered remnants when it reached the Delaware River and crossed into Pennsylvania. As Thomas Paine so famously wrote that December of 1776:

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Considering the circumstances — the depleted American ranks, the British naval and military superiority — it really is rather remarkable that Americans today are taking coffee breaks rather than stopping for tea and biscuits. The reason — in two words — George Washington, who learned from his (and other’s) mistakes, and, while often losing hope, never lost faith.