It's at least partly because of the lack of photographs.
Posted on 11/11/2004 11:00:39 AM PST by 68skylark
And yet the attempted crossing of the Delaware wasn't driven by boldness, or military genius, or anything like that. The war funding authorization of the Continental Congress was due to expire at the end of that year, and there were indications that they were getting fed up over the lack of military success in the revolution. Washington knew that he had to deliver some kind of dramatic victory before December 31st in order to ensure that they would extend the authorization into the next year. That's why all those events took place right around Christmas time.
bump!
Historically, there has been an unfortunate tendency to focus on a few (admittedly very important) men. I never paid much attention to the Revolutionary War until I discovered ancestors who had been involved. Gritty stuff, indeed... and worthy of more (non-Marxist) historians.
Michael Shaara's son wrote a novel recently...pretty good read. I, for one, have always enjoyed the Rev. War period. Hope to visit Boston sometime
Our participation in WWI, while potentially decisive, was nowhere near the traumatic event for us as it was for the French, Germans, British, etc. There is quite an extensive literature from these sources on the war, and France is strewn with well-tended memorials.
Trenton and Princeton are stirring battles, and as someone who regularly drives across the Deleware Memorial Bridge (five minutes from my home), I often think back on these battles. Calling them a turning point is accurate.
Maybe part of the problem is that, despite their importance, they were small-unit affairs. A thousand farmers sneak into Trenton and massacre a few hundred drunken German mercenaries in their sleep Rules of war, I'm not disputing the heroism, just noting that it isn't quite as exciting as a stand-up fight involving huge armies.
Could the weaponry also be a factor? Muzzle-loaded muskets, linear tactics (for the Brits, which the Americans tried to emulate). Smooth-bore artillery firing solid-shot. No tanks, no machine guns, no grenades (just Grenadiers).
While that mag was edited by Catton and by his successor, Oliver Jensen, it was arguably the best history magazine ANYwhere, ANYtime. The current Military History is giving it a run for its money, but it's obviously limited in scope.
Unfortunately, in the late 70s the magazine went softcover and thereafter directly to hell. Started reworking older articles and getting extremely political. I let my subscription lapse at that point.
But I have ALL the early issues from when it went hardcover back in 1952 (I think) and quite a few softcover issues from when it was the Journal of Local History in the late 40s and early 50s.
If you can hit a yard sale and get back issues from the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, they are well worth your trouble.
The period from the French & Indian War to the ratification of the Constitution is, for me, the most exciting period in U.S. history. Breaking the colonies away from the mother country and establishing the republic is a breathtaking story against seemingly insurmountable odds. Here are some of my favorite books:
1. Saratoga, Richard Ketchum
2. Drums Along the Mohawk, Walter Edmonds
3. Arundel (1930), Rabble in Arms (1933), Oliver Wiswell (1940) by Kenneth Roberts (exciting books!). Arundel is the rousing tale of Colonel Benedict Arnold’s doomed march on Quebec in 1775.
4. Anthony Wayne, Solder of the Early Republic, David Nelson
5. Paul Revere's Ride, David H. Fisher
6. First Salute, Barbara Tuchman
7. Benedict Arnold - Patriot & Traitor, Willam S. Randall
8. Rebel! A Biography of Thomas Paine, Samuel Edwards
9. J.P. Martin - Private Yankee Doodle (one of the few first person chronicles of the Revolutionary War)
10. Decision on the Chesapeake, Harold Larrabee (story of the French & English naval battle off the Chesapeake that made the victory of Yorktown possible)
11. Chaining the Hudson, Lincoln Diamante. Story of unknown or little-reported weapons, including the the huge chains pulled across the Hudson to prevent British warships from going up river.
12. The Night the Revolution Began : The Boston Tea Party, 1773, Leslie Griwswold (one of the few accounts of the rather murky Boston Tea Party)
13. The Minutemen, General John. R. Galvin.
It may not have been as traumatic for us, but most of the issues involved are still not resolved and are being fought over right now. There is no Iraq without WWI.
And maybe those issues of not very exciting battles also effect its reception
The Revolutionary War wasn't well documented by its participants because paper wasn't widely available and literacy rates were much lower than they were 80 years later in the Civil War. It's a real shame that there aren't more first-person accounts of the revolution. Check out "J.P. Martin, Private Yankee Doodle"
actually there is a lot of evidence that literacy at around that time was almost universal
The battles on the West Front in WWI were, as you noted, not decisive for the most part, which may account for the lack of interest. I'd often overlooked books about the war for that reason, until a recent reading spree. And the battles against the Turks in Baghdad must just seem too long ago to interest the general reader.
The war does reward a closer reading. The development of tactics, the war of (yes) maneuver on the East front and in the Middle East. And this quote from the French General Foch at the crisis of the war in early 1918, chewing out the British generals, liberally "borrowed" a generation later by Churchill:
"Why are you not fighting? I would fight all the time. I would fight in front of Amiens. I would fight in Amiens. I would fight behind Amiens. I would never stop fighting. I would never surrender."
Any sailor knows enough not to stand up in a rowboat.
"George Washington's War", by Robert Leckie, is an excellent and very thorough account of the conflict, from the Battle of Quebec that ended the French and Indian War right up to "I've grown not only old, but also quite blind, in your service."
Very thick book, but a fast-moving read that delves into the personalities and human factors while at the same time containing plenty of detail to keep the military historian involved. Very vivid portraits of the main participants on all sides and their motivations.
It's at least partly because of the lack of photographs.
Funding had something to with it but the Continental Congress was notoriously lax in getting any money to the army anyway.
The biggest deadline that Washington faced was that the enlistments of most of the New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware regiments ran out at the end of December. If he did not strike when he did, his army would for all practical purposes, cease to exist on January 1st. Due to the victory at Trenton, Washington was able to encourage many of his troops to stay with the army for another two weeks, which gave him a fighting force at the 2nd Battle of Trenton (January 2, 1777) and the final stunning blow to the British Army, the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey (January 3, 1777).
Tha American victories at Trenton and Princeton hit the English like a sledgehammer and once news reached Europe, it encouraged the French to begin secret arms shipments to the Americans in late February 1777. I forgot which English officer said it but shortly after the news of Trenton and Princeton reached him, he stated that there was now no way that the Crown could save the American Colonies.
Could be. I'll always remember my father telling me, with regard to the Washington Crossing the Delaware painting: "Of course, that isn't what really happened. He wouldn't be dumb enough to stand up in the boat. And if he was, he would have fallen out. But a real photo wouldn't be nearly as patriotic"
That feeds into the argument that the Revolution is too stylized, too much the stuff of legend, for people to feel close to it. Even before the canonization, GWash was not considered an outgoing or approachable man.
Though there is an anecdote in George Washington's War about him and his entourage encountering an off-duty soldier at Valley Forge, enjoying a jug of something that probably wasn't milk. One of the officers berated the man for looking so slovenly and drunk. The soldier replied that Washington probably thought he was too good to share a drink. Washington took the jug, had a good pull at it, and passed it around for his officers to do the same before riding off. The soldier is said to have sworn "See, you are a real man. Now I'll follow you to the end of the earth."
Could be. I'll always remember my father telling me, with regard to the Washington Crossing the Delaware painting: "Of course, that isn't what really happened. He wouldn't be dumb enough to stand up in the boat. And if he was, he would have fallen out. But a real photo wouldn't be nearly as patriotic"
That feeds into the argument that the Revolution is too stylized, too much the stuff of legend, for people to feel close to it. Even before the canonization, GWash was not considered an outgoing or approachable man.
Though there is an anecdote in George Washington's War about him and his entourage encountering an off-duty soldier at Valley Forge, enjoying a jug of something that probably wasn't milk. One of the officers berated the man for looking so slovenly and drunk. The soldier replied that Washington probably thought he was too good to share a drink. Washington took the jug, had a good pull at it, and passed it around for his officers to do the same before riding off. The soldier is said to have sworn "See, you are a real man. Now I'll follow you to the end of the earth."
Has anyone read the Kent Chronicles by John Jakes which go from the American Revolution to the War in Vietnam if my memory seves me right
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