Customer Reviews:
Helpful and Practical.......1998-07-22
This book gives great practical ideas and strategies for dealing with children of all ages and stages. I found it particularly helpful for my toddler who is in the "terrible" twos. The tips really help. There are great sections on children from nontraditional families also. It's a great book!
Amazon.com
Most of us are familiar with the role that North and South Carolina played in the American Civil War: if nothing else, every grade-schooler knows the significance of the 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. But to popular historian John Buchanan, "that tragedy is of far less interest than the American Revolution. The Revolution was the most important event in American history. The Civil War was unfinished business." And the Carolinas, Buchanan convincingly argues, were the most critical theater in that conflict, with their wild Back Country seeing "a little-known but savage civil war far exceeding anything in the North."
The Road to Guilford Courthouse is no less than a tour de force of pop military scholarship, an exhaustive battle-by-battle account of the Crown's grinding march to wrest the Carolinas from the resourceful Rebels. Beginning with Colonel William Moultrie's valiant defense atop the palmetto ramparts of Fort Sullivan against an outnumbering force of British men-of-war to the final "long, obstinate, and bloody" exchange at Guilford Courthouse, Buchanan meticulously recounts each skirmish, battle, and shift of strategy in the campaign. Relying on copious primary and secondary sources, he brings the combatants to life, from the worthy but somewhat obscure, such as Nathanael Greene, whom George Washington considered to be his successor should he fall, to soon-to-be legends such as Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. --Paul Hughes
Book Description
A brilliant account of the proud and ferocious American fighters who stood up to the British forces in savage battles crucial in deciding both the fate of the Carolina colonies and the outcome of the war.
"A tense, exciting historical account of a little known chapter of the Revolution, displaying history writing at its best."—Kirkus Reviews
"His compelling narrative brings readers closer than ever before to the reality of Revolutionary warfare in the Carolinas."—Raleigh News & Observer.
"Buchanan makes the subject come alive like few others I have seen." —Dennis Conrad, Editor, The Nathanael Greene Papers.
"John Buchanan offers us a lively, accurate account of a critical period in the War of Independence in the South. Based on numerous printed primary and secondary sources, it deserves a large reading audience." —Don Higginbotham, Professor of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Customer Reviews:
A Stunning historical achievement!.......2007-05-18
Lexington...Yorktown...Saratoga. These are some of the most popular battles fought during the American Revolution. However, John Buchanan offers an extremely valuable account of the southern theater of operations during the war.
By the fall of 1779, the war in the north had come to a grinding halt, forcing General Sir Henry Clinton to try another approach in his war against the rebels. Based on the notion that the southern portion of America held more Tories than the north, he chose to invade Charleston in late 1779 and move north.
Buchanan documents this tactic and strategy in great detail, mainly focusing on the war in the Carolinas under the leadership of General Charles, Lord Cornwallis. The amount of research the author exhibits is obvious as Buchanan goes into excruciating detail, offering the reader ample background information and individual vignettes on the major characters. Leaders such as Charles Cornwallis, Francis Marion, Banastre Tarleton, Daniel Morgan, and Nathaniel Greene are discussed in great detail. Furthermore, their individual tactics are thoroughly written upon as well as the battles in which they fought in.
Buchanan's focus is NOT a historical survey of the entire southern war, but rather the events which took place from 1780 on. Having said that, he delivers an amazingly-concise account that illustrates the valuable contribution the southern war played in America's eventual victory.
Quite good.......2007-04-02
The book has three facets that highly recommend it. First, the author has a mature intelligent voice that comes through in his writing enabling him to depict events with empathy and depth. Secondly, the work is comprehensive, describing small partisan actions that otherwise get short shrift. Third, I enjoyed his choice of assessing the command skills of the various combatants. His reasoning is sounds and buoyed well by the facts as he, admittedly, presents them. I also found his prose style engaging.
My only criticism is that he gives equal time to minor engagements and major battles. He also describes so many skirmishes that without maps or illustration they tend to dissolve into one another. Furthermore, it would have been nice if he had chosen to chronicle the remainder of the campaign. Of course, my desire for the book to be longer only demonstrates my appreciation of it.
I recommend it.
Good but not Great.......2007-03-27
In reading "The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas", I found it to be a good overview of the revolution in the South where my ancestors fought. I would have found it to be much better for my needs in researching family history if the book had more maps and a much better index. I would have preferred more maps and fewer pictures of the combatants.
Mixed feelings.......2006-11-13
I have mixed feeling towards John Buchanan's book "The Road to Guilford Courthouse--The American Revolution in the Carolinas" because although the author seems to have a good grasp of the subject and has a relatively easy-to-read writing style, he frequently gets caught up in the myriad of less relevant battle and personnel details. This makes getting through the book a grind.
Having said that, it was definitely fun to learn about some of the characters that played significant roles during the stage of the Revolutionary War that took place in the Carolinas. This is a part of the war that doesn't get much attention even though it is where the war was won, where the tides were turned. The British make a decision to get out of Philadelphia and finish up their conquest by invading through the Loyalist populated South, and then all of a sudden wind up surrendering at Yorktown. I was missing something before reading this book.
Coming from Rhode Island and being an early American history buff, I was a little disappointed that Nathanael Greene didn't get more coverage, but it appears that most of the fighting in the Carolinas was done by others, who do get their due in the book. Particularly, with regards to unknowns getting their due, it was especially fun to learn about Daniel Morgan and Banastre Tarleton, but also Thomas Sumpter and the Battle of Kings Mountain. It was interesting to get a taste of how a war was fought in the swamps of Carolina. Buchanan does do a particularly good job of quoting frequently from primary source material--this really helped to bring the 225 year old story alive.
In the end, the book could have summarized more in some areas and delved more deeply into others. Also, note that the book ends with the battles of Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse and doesn't cover the war through Virginia and the eventual surrender at Yorktown.
Finally, one very, very important problem with the book--the maps and illustrations used are totally inadequate. This makes understanding the action very difficult. Very frustrating!!
Brings His Historical Characters Back to Life.......2006-10-21
Buchanan has done a remarkable job of bringing to life the key Revoluntionary War characters and events of 1780-81 in the Carolinas. His masterful interpretation of personalities and their motives provides insight into the critical battles of the southern war. He moves back and forth between the major antagonists on both sides to develop the background for understanding the brilliance of the rebel strategy and the British arrogance that lead to their eventual loss in the south. Not only do we learn about famous personalities such as Francis Marion, Daniel Morgan, Nathanael Greene, Lord Cornwallis and Banastre Tarleton, but we gain an understanding of the anonymous mortals without whom the Revolution would have been lost: the individual militia men from the back country of the Carolinas. Buchanan has an uncanny ability to explain in simple language the complexities of the troop placement and individual unit actions that occurred in the various battles. However, his book would be immensely improved if he had provided maps of the region and of the battlegrounds he described. Like many biographers, Buchanan grows to have an attachment (or detachment) for the people he has so painstakingly researched, which I find of great interest. One must be aware of some of the potential bias that might creep in with any biographical interpretation, including his. I recently finished biographies on Daniel Morgan and Nathanael Greene, yet discovered new information about each man in Buchanan's exposition. A very thorough job, indeed. One caveat: one should probably have read somewhat extensively regarding the Revolution to fully enjoy and understand Buchanan's book. He occasionally assumes some prior knowledfge of events and people.
Book Description
In this classic account of the Revolutionary War experiences of the North Carolina Continentals, Hugh F. Rankin traces the events leading to war in North Carolina and follows all the campaigns and battles in which the North Carolina Continentals took part--Brandywine, Germantown, Charleston, Savannah, Camden, Eutaw Springs, and others. He also provides descriptions of almost all of the significant personalities in the Continental Army. Originally published in 1971, this new edition contains a foreword by Lawrence Babits, introducing the book to a new generation of scholars and general readers interested in the Revolutionary War.
Customer Reviews:
Great reference and point of departure.......2006-09-25
This is a great history of NC & the Revolutionary War, not just the NC Continentasls as the tilte implies. Its valuable for researchers of the era in NC, as Rankin's work is based solidly in the archives. It should be noted however that this is a MILITARY study almost exclusively, and has very little to say about the social aspects of the war in NC.
Customer Reviews:
A WELL-DONE OVERVIEW OF THE BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURTHOUSE!.......2006-07-29
For many historians, the battle of Guilford Courthouse was the American defeat that assured final American victory in the American Revolution (1775-1783). Historian Thomas E. Baker gives good reasoning for this claim in "Another Such Victory." Baker's little book is an exceptional account of the legendary battle fought on March 15, 1781. In his books, Baker discusses the men, stratgies, mistakes, and heroism that defined not only this battle, but how it affected the final outcome of the war.
Baker's book is a great read. It shows how a British victory led to final American victory in the war that turned the world upside down. I highly recommend this for both professional and amateur historians!
Grade: A+
Book Description
In March of 1781, Nathaniel Greene's militia and cavalry withstood a punishing frontal assault by Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse deep in North Carolina territory. Although the British won the battle, fought on March 15, 1781, it left the British so weak that the Americans' road to victory at Yorktown began there.
Da Capo's new "Battleground America" series offers a unique approach to the battles and battlefields of America. Each book in the series highlights a small American battlefield-sometimes a small portion of a much larger battlefield-and tells the story of the brave soldiers who fought there. Using soldiers' memoirs, letters and diaries, as well as contemporary illustrations, the human ordeal of battle comes to life on the page.
All of the units, important individuals, and actions of each engagement on the battlefield are described in a clear and concise narrative. Detailed maps complement the text and illustrate small unit action at each stage of the battle. Then-and-now photographs tie the dramatic events of the past to the modern battlefield site and highlight the importance of terrain in battle. The present-day historical site of the battle is described in detail with suggestions for touring.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating Focused Treatment.......2003-04-15
As a long time fan of the American Revolution, I happily purchased this title. I was pleasantly surprised. Although it is not a long book, it is very tightly focused on the leading participants, Greene and Cornwallis, as they head toward their monumental battle at Guilford Courthouse.
The background and information provided on the men, strategies, backgrounds, and development of the campaign is outstanding, as are the maps, which are the best I have ever seen on this battle. The writing is also outstanding--very flowing and poetic, and yet scholarly, complex, and fast-paced. The author has a literary "hook" at the beginning and end of every chapter. Indeed, the begins with Greene surveying the field at Guilford and deploying his men--and then goes back in time and marches the armies in place.
Highly recommended.
Book Description
In the Spring of 1781, the American Revolutionary War had dragged on for almost six years, and neither side had gained a decisive advantage. When the British commander Lord Cornwallis launched his invasion of North Carolina in early 1781, his objective was to destroy General Nathaniel Greene's army, not to capture territory. Greene fell back before him into Virginia, and his force grew daily as militia flocked to the colours, and a revitalised American army took the offensive. At Guilford Courthouse on 15 March 1781 the two armies met. In a see-saw battle, victory seemed to be within the American grasp, but the British held off a fierce counterattack by American infantry and cavalry, forcing Greene to concede the field. It was a British victory but at a terrible cost - Cornwallis lost over a quarter of his command. When news of the 'victory' reached Britain, a politician remarked; 'Another such victory would ruin the British army'. The battle led to the recapture of the Carolinas by Greene, and set in motion a chain of events that would culminate in the surrender of Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown seven months later.
Customer Reviews:
Another Missed Opportunity..........2004-01-19
This book was an outstanding opportunity to bring the scholarship on the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, one of the most decisive of the War of the American Revolution, up to date. However, this book on the whole is a miss for three reasons. First, there was no apparent attempt to use archival material from the Maryland or Delaware State historical associations, from which much material is available on those units of the Continental Line from those two states. The Maryland and Delaware Continentals were arguably the best of the Continental units that formed the hard core of the American regulars and were on a par in discipline, training, and combat performance with the well-trained British and German regular regiments that fought against them. The 1st Maryland wrecked to British battalions during the course of the battle, and the Delawares, under the dauntless Captain Robert Kirkwood, performed both in the screening and skirmish role as well as taking part in the hard fighting at the American third line.
Next, there is no reference that shows that the Company of Military Historians, with its excellent resources, was used in the preparation of this volume, which would have helped with uniforms and equipment. This is especially telling in the third color print by the artist depicting the defeat of the 2d Battalion of Guards, which wore a compaign uniform from its deployment to North America in 1776 to the end of the war. The Company of Military Historians is a treasure trove of information and not to use them, or their excellent publications (their Journal and the hardback publication, Military Uniforms in America, edited by Col John R. Elting, and having contributors such as Herbert Knotel, Frederick P. Todd, H. Charles McBarron, Clyde Risley, and Henry Larter) is a major error.
Last, and most importantly, the staff at the Guilford Courthouse Military Park was not consulted by the author. If they had been, it would have been found, among other things, that the American third line, where the bulk of the Continental infantry was posted, was actually further back in the woodline than previously thought. The park historians are excellent and are continually finding and updating material and knowledge and if a book is being done on the battle, they should be both consulted and used as references. This the author failed to do. Hence, the book, as and when published, was outdated and inaccurate from the beginning and therefore useless as a reference to the battle. Again, a major mistake that irreparably damaged this volume.
Minor mistakes, such as having a picture of the Battle of Eutaw Springs on the cover, stating that British grenadiers of the period wore mitre caps instead of bearskins, stating that the Delaware Battalion had a Virginia company assigned (they were brigaded with Washington's cavalry and a rifle company for the battle, but the riflemen were not part of the battalion), and overstating Gates strength at the Battle of Camden further denigrates the reliability of the book.
Lastly, I found it very strange that Hatch's The Battle of Guilford Courthouse, published by the National Park Service in 1971 wasn't used as a reference, or at least wasn't listed. It is full of primary source material, orders of battle, strengths and losses for both sides, and is an essential reference for any study of Guilford Courthouse.
This volume is not recommended, and as a last piece of information, I have been told that the staff of the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park will not stock it in their excellent book store as it is inaccurate and not up to date. That in itself says a lot and is a definitive verdict on the inherent value of the volume.
Decent but Weakened by Exaggerations & Omissions.......2002-10-25
According to Angus Konstam, author of Osprey's Campaign Series volume 109, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1781, "marked a turning point in the war [the American Revolution]." Konstam has written an interesting and detailed account of the clash of American General Greene's army with British General Cornwallis' army near an obscure North Carolina courthouse in March 1781. Konstam's account is decent, but should be given the plethora of secondary and primary sources on this subject. However, readers should be forewarned that this author has a tendency for exaggeration and bizarre interpretations of fact.
Guilford Courthouse 1781 begins with a fairly lengthy 20-page introductory section that outlines the background to the campaign. The standard sections on opposing commanders and opposing armies total 14 pages and offer a decent synopsis of the two armies that fought at Guilford Courthouse. The campaign narrative itself is divided into two separate chapters: a 13-page chapter on the maneuvers of both armies in the weeks prior to the battle and a 34-page chapter on the battle itself. The author concludes with a short aftermath section, notes on the battlefield today and a bibliography. The campaign narrative is supported by five 2-D maps (the war in the south in 1780-1, the race to the Dan River, the road to Guilford Courthouse, the battle at Weitzel's Mill, and the initial deployments at Guilford) and three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps (one for the British attack on each of the three American defensive lines at Guilford Courthouse). There are also three excellent battle scenes depicting actions at each of the three lines. Overall, the graphic quality of this volume is quite good.
There are a number of important omissions in Konstam's campaign narrative. First, the author provides no breakdown on casualties for either side. A quick search on the internet provided this information, in the form of the post-battle casualty reports from Greene and Cornwallis, broken down by individual units. This is a significant omission, particularly in a battle that involved less than 7,000 combatants. Second, the American order of battles appears to be inaccurate; Konstam does not list the Delaware Battalion or North Carolina militia cavalry, although they both suffered casualties in the battle and are mentioned in other sources. These flaws may seem minor, but seem to indicate a slap-dash approach to the subject.
The author also betrays an annoying tendency for exaggeration throughout the text. During the early phase of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Konstam uses a contemporary source which claimed that after the first volley from the North Carolina militia that, "one half of the [British] Highlanders dropped on that spot." Yet if one bothers to look up the casualty data for the British 2/71st Highlanders - data the author neglected to include - one can see that this battalion suffered only 29% casualties during the entire battle, not 50%. Konstam then exaggerates, claiming that when the Highlanders returned fire, "great gaps were blown in the American line." Again, the casualty data indicates that the North Carolina militia suffered only 11 casualties out of about 1,000 men during the battle, so the reader might question if losing one man out of every 100 constitutes "great gaps." Instead, the North Carolinians ran as fast as they could, which is why so few were hit. Indeed, the missing casualty data would demonstrate just how badly the American militia performed at Guilford Courthouse: 11 of the 18 militia deaths occurred in one of the Virginia brigades, meaning that the other three ran after suffering only 1-2% casualties. The author also clearly exaggerates the strategic significance of the battle when he claims that, "by failing to defeat Nathaniel Greene's army, Cornwallis had committed a strategic error which cost Britain the very southern colonies his men fought so hard to keep." The turning point in the American Revolution occurred with the victory at Saratoga in 1777 and subsequent French intervention, not due to some indecisive clash in the backwoods of North Carolina. It is also a non-sequitor to argue that the Battle of Guilford Courthouse inevitably led to Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown seven months later, since Cornwallis had many options that might have changed the result. Konstam's contention that Guilford Courthouse was a British victory is equally exaggerated, if not absurd. If the British won the battle, why did they abandon their wounded and retreat 200 miles to coast! All six British battalions suffered over 20% casualties and Cornwallis' army had become almost combat ineffective. Guilford Courthouse was truly indecisive; neither side accomplished their mission and both armies retreated.
A little military analysis might also have gone a long way in this volume. Konstam mentions that Greene's troops established defensive positions after the battle to inhibit a British pursuit, which raises the question - why didn't Greene establish obstacles or defensive positions prior to the battle? Greene occupied the battlefield the night prior and had at least 12 hours to prepare, along with ample manpower and certainly plenty of trees. Readers should recall that the Massachusetts militiamen were able to construct a sturdy redoubt atop Breed's Hill in 1775 that cost the British attackers dearly. Nor is there much analysis of the American battle plan. Why did Greene fail to form a reserve, despite his 2-1 numerical superiority? Cornwallis' did have a small reserve - only about 18% of his army - but he used it to influence the battle at critical moments. Greene wasted half his cavalry (Lee's) by deploying it in wooded terrain on the flank, when it could have been massed to provide a mobile reserve. Finally, Greene negated his 2-1 numerical superiority by placing his troops in three lines that were not mutually supporting or even visible to each other, thus allowing Cornwallis to attack each line sequentially and defeat it.
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