Book Description
“The most comprehensive and authoritative study of Washington’s military career ever written.”
–Joseph J. Ellis, author of His Excellency: George Washington
Based largely on George Washington’s personal papers, this engrossing book paints a vivid, factual portrait of Washington the soldier. An expert in military history, Edward Lengel demonstrates that the “secret” to Washington’s excellence lay in his completeness, in how he united the military, political, and personal skills necessary to lead a nation in war and peace. Despite being an “imperfect commander”–and at times even a tactically suspect one–Washington nevertheless possessed the requisite combination of vision, integrity, talents, and good fortune to lead America to victory in its war for independence. At once informative and engaging, and filled with some eye-opening revelations about Washington, the American Revolution, and the very nature of military command, General George Washington is a book that reintroduces readers to a figure many think they already know.
“The book’s balanced assessment of Washington is satisfying and thought-provoking. Lengel gives us a believable Washington . . . the most admired man of his generation by far.”
–The Washington Post Book World
“A compelling picture of a man who was ‘the archetypal American soldier’ . . . The sum of his parts was the greatness of Washington.”
–The Boston Globe
“[An] excellent book . . . fresh insights . . . If you have room on your bookshelf for only one book on the Revolution, this may be it.”
–The Washington Times
Customer Reviews:
Deconstructing His Excellency.......2006-08-17
Well written and researched, the writing style a little difficult at times. I felt the author was over critical of Washington, especially since he spends 99% of the narrative criticizing him and, in the last chapter, alots only a few pages to defending him. Overall a good read, but I would pickup His Excellency by J. Ellis, 1776 by Mccollough, or Washington's Crossing by Fischer first.
General George Washington is a superb military history!.......2006-06-28
Bravo Dr. Edward Lenge! This book is a fascinating account of the military career of the Father of our Country! George Washington (1732-1799) was the first US President; a planter at
Mt. Vernon and is solidly planted as the indispensable man during the American Revolution. Without Washington's grit and
daring, perseverance and leadership there is a real possibility that the American experiment would have died an early death.
Washington with a band of rag-tag, often hungry and ill-trained troops defeated the greatest military machine in the eighteeth century in the shape of the British regulars led by General
William Howe.
1776 saw Washington victorious in Boston recapturing the city for the patriot cause. 1777 was a bitter year which began brightly with victories at Trenton and Princeton only to founder in the defeats suffered at Brandywine Creek and Germantown.
The harsh winter of Valley Forge in late 1777-1778 led to a reformulation of the army which pressed ahead to victory over
Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.
All of the major battles led by Washington are chronicled in
depth from Boston to Monmouth to final victory. Washington had
great flaws as a military man; he was sometimes indecisive; overly bold; poor in topographical placing of troops and could
be harsh. Nevertheless, it was because of his inimitable courage
and grit which led the army to victory over loyalists, a hard to
work with Congress and the mighty British army .
The American Revolution was hardfought, bloody and our freedom was bathed in the blood of brave men and women. This story needs to be told.
Lengel's book begins with Washington's career in the French and Indian War which culminated in Braddock's defeat; covers the years from 1759-1776 when his acquisition of land, slaves and
the formation of the Virginia Regiment won him colonial fame to
the culminating crown of his career; victory in the War of Independence. Washington was a great man who accomplished much with what he had to work with in men, materials and his strong
willpower never allowing him to quit in tough situations.
Lengel's book is well illustrated with helpful maps and an impressive bibliography of first person accounts and letters and correspondence from Washington's fertile pen. This is one of the
best books I have ever read on Washington's military career.
Well done!
Ok, But Not Great.......2006-04-16
This book didn't capture and articulate the struggle of the Continentals in the manner in which "1776" by David McCullough did. It merely laid out facts in a straightforward manner which wasn't that inspiring and quite aseptic. I usually judge the greatness of a book by how often I highlight passages by the author. The cap stayed on my highlighter for most of the book. For students of the era it's a book worth reading, I simply wouldn't put it at the top of my must-read list.
Did anyone proofread this book??.......2006-04-14
I was enjoying this book for the first sixty-seventy pages until I read Mr. Lengel's description of Ft. Ticonderoga. He places the Fort on the Hudson River. (????) Ft. Ticonderoga, so important a location in the French/Indian and Revolutionary wars is, in fact, on Lake Champlain. Mr. Lengel also incorrectly writes that Henry Knox, after retrieving the cannons from Ft. Ticonderoga takes them down the Hudson. This too is incorrect. Knox and his men took the cannons across land to Lake George (which was frozen in winter), down to Lake George village and south to Albany before turning east to Boston. I'm totally shocked that no review of this book mentions these inaccurate statements. Anyway, after about 100 pages I took the book back to the library. I couldn't depend on the rest of his facts-so what's the point of reading it?
Indispensable Biography of America's Indispensable Man.......2006-03-10
This is a masterful and engaging account of how an untrained impetuous youth turned his ambition for military glory into a life-long quest for the public good - and in the process became one of the greatest military heroes of world history. Based extensively on primary sources - especially Washington's own correspondence, two-thirds of which cover the period of the Revolutionary War - this factual and well-written book tells the dramatic story of how Washington, despite his weaknesses and mistakes and losses of battles, organized from volunteers and conscripts a professional army that wrestled victory away from the most powerful and experienced army in the world. Even the title itself is revealing - A Military Life - for both Washington and his contemporaries considered Washington primarily as a military commander, despite his political and other services to his country. Must reading not only for military enthusiasts but for anyone interested Washington or the history of America.
Book Description
This is the first book that offers a you-are-there look at the American Revolution through the eyes of the enlisted men. Through searing portraits of individual soldiers, Bruce Chadwick, author of George Washington's War, brings alive what it was like to serve then in the American army.
With interlocking stories of ordinary Americans, he evokes what it meant to face brutal winters, starvation, terrible homesickness and to go into battle against the much-vaunted British regulars and their deadly Hessian mercenaries.
The reader lives through the experiences of those terrible and heroic times when a fifteen-year-old fifer survived the Battle of Bunker Hill, when Private Josiah Atkins escaped unscathed from the bloody battles in New York and when a doctor and a minister shared the misery of the wounded and dying. These intertwining stories are drawn from their letters and never-before-quoted journals found in the libraries belonging to the camps where Washington quartered his troops during those desperate years.
Customer Reviews:
Oversweeping Generalizations.......2006-12-29
Those who are educated on the soldiers in the American Revolution will be offended by the oversweeping generalizations in this book. Chadwich uses only the journals of soldiers within the war. Roughly 150 journals were used in making his observations, when nearly 200,000 plus served. He should of spent more time at the National Archives going through the pension records of each soldier. Most soldiers came from the lower spectrum of the social economic ladder, not the professions Chadwick states. In addition, most soldiers could neither read or write, leaving them no opportunity to write a journal or track their journey through the Revolution. Only by having someone else fill out their pension applcation years later have we learned much more about the common soldier in the Revolution. I do not reccomend this book. I think Caroline Cox's "A Proper Sense of Honor and Courage" is much better.
A 1776 follow-up.......2006-10-24
If you loved the book "1776" you will love this book. It is written much the same way. The author mixes first hand accounts with explanations of events and strategic implications. He also focuses on things most authors forget. This book is an excellent way to tell the story of the American Revolution.
The author tells the story of George Washington's Army through the eyes of those who fought it. He does intermingle some background history to help the reader better understand what the soldier writes about. Where as his history isn't comprehensive it is enriching. He does talk about certain campaigns of the American Army like our attempt to capture Canada which most people forget about. Through the eyes of the soldiers you get a true idea of the kinds of sacrifices the first soldiers endured to bring about our freedom. The descriptions are good in the soldiers writings makes you personnally feel these sacrifices. The writing makes the issues facing the Army like disease outbreaks like small pox, walking around in snow without shoes, hunger and other things come alive almost like you are experiencing it. You will understand the Revolution better than anything else by reading this book.
I highly recommend this book for any history lover no matter what your level of history knowledge is.
Good Despite Some Oddly Jarring Inaccuracies.......2006-08-15
I found this book both informative and in many ways refreshing. There are too many narrative accounts that tend to slide past what it meant to be a member of the Continental Army on a day-to-day basis--and what fighting the war meant to the individual soldiers who did it.
On the other hand, there were more than a few oddly jarring notes in a work which purports to break new ground. Early on, Chadwick exclaims that "Hundreds of residents of Charlestown [Mass]...raced out into nearby streets and meadows to watch the fighting...." Maybe so, but since the town was being burned down to the ground, more likely they were fleeing for their lives.
A few pages later, in describing the battle on Breed's (misnamed Bunker's) Hill, Chadwick declares that "...throaty cheers from the Americans despite cannonballs exploding around them." Well, eighteenth century cannonballs did not explode. Common shells did, but field guns fired solid shot and canister which did not include explosive properties.
There are not very many of these sloppy errors, fortunately, but the fact that some are present suggests a certain carelessness with detail. In a book that hopes to open a new and somewhat revisionist approach to studying the war, this can be a problem.
Ordinary people make history, too.......2006-07-15
I really enjoyed this book. It brought to life in vivid detail the deprivations and tribulations faced by the ordinary soldier in the Revolutionary Army. There have been so many books written about the leaders of the Revolution (some good, some pretty boring), but so few volumes about the ordinary men who made up the colonial troops. These people were the foundation of the new country and they deserve to be documented. The author chooses to give us their stories in an interesting way and paints word pictures that let the reader see exactly what conditions were like for the common soldiers. I was fascinated and could hardly put the book down. If all history was presented in this easy to understand and interesting way, more students would love it as much as I do.
Enjoyable to read, but not really much new information..........2006-04-22
This is a generally well-written and enjoyable to read book, but it doesn't quit live up to its sub-title: The Untold Story of George Washington and the Men Behind America's First Fight for Freedom. The book is foremost a retelling of the Battles of the Revolution. It does present viewpoints from the soldiers and others who fought, but I didn't really find a great deal that hasn't been written before, although the portion devoted to Blacks in the Revolution was interesting. Interesting also is how many soldiers died from poor conditions and disease. But I didn't come away feeling that I really got to know the "Men Behind America's First Fight for Freedom." As I said before, the book is mainly a retelling of the story of the battles of the War and secondly, a telling of the battles from the perspective of the common soldier.
For those who haven't read a great deal on the Revolutionary War, this would be a good book to start with. It is enjoyable, easy to read, presents an overview of the history of the War, and gives a perspective on the War from both the commanders and the common soldier. However, if the reader is one who has read a great deal on the Revolutionary War, there isn't really a great deal that is new here. It is a good book, but not one I would put on my top-ten list of Revolutionary War books.
The one thing I found irritating about the book is that several times it left some loose ends dangling. For example, one point in the book tells of George Washington's sometimes leniency toward those who were being disciplined. The author goes on to tell of a group of men sentenced to death for desertion and re-enlisting in order to collect another sign-on bonus. Washington, however decides the punishment is too harsh and so asks "...their officers if there was some mitigating circumstance that he could use...to spare them." Then the author states that Washington pardons them all. Okay, but what did the officers present to Washington to enable him to pardon them? I don't know and apparently neither did the author because we are never told in the book. This same lack of relevant information appears several times in the book.
If it were me and I really wanted to look at the war from a soldiers viewpoint, I would read a book such as "Private Yankee Doodle" by J.P. Martin. Martin's story has been described as "One of the best first-hand accounts of war as seen by a private soldier ever written." In my opinion, the Martin book is much better at describing the life of the soldier in the Revolutionary War. "The First American Army" does, in fact, use the Martin book as source of information.
All in all, "The First American Army" is an enjoyable to read book that presents a decent view of the War from the viewpoint or the soldier. It isn't a great book however. And it doesn't present a great deal of new information. This book would probably be more enjoyed by those with only a general knowledge of the War, not by those who already have read a great deal on the subject. To sum up, this is a good, enjoyable to read book that gives an overview of the battles of the Revolution while at the same time giving us some insight into the lives of the common soldier.
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El Invierno En Valley Forge/Winter at Valley Forge (Historia Grafica/Graphic History (Graphic Novels) (Spanish))
Matt Doeden
Manufacturer: Capstone Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
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ASIN: 0736866213 |
Book Description
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.
Book Description
Starting with the decision by patriot leaders to create a corps of officers who were gentlemen and a body of soldiers who were not, Caroline Cox examines the great gap that existed in the conditions of service of soldiers and officers in the Continental army. She looks particularly at disparities between soldiers' and officers' living conditions, punishments, medical care, burial, and treatment as prisoners of war. Using pension records, memoirs, and contemporary correspondence, Cox illuminates not only the persistence of hierarchy in Revolutionary America but also the ways in which soldiers contested their low status.
Intriguingly, Cox notes that even as the army reinforced the lines of social hierarchy in many ways, it also united soldiers and officers by promoting similar conceptions of personal honor and the meaning of rank. In fact, she argues, the army fostered social mobility by encouraging ambitious men to separate themselves from the lowest levels of society and giving them the means to enact that separation. At a time when existing social arrangements were increasingly challenged by war and by political rhetoric that embraced the equal rights of men, Cox shows that change crept slowly into American military life.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent discussion of the double standard of the day.......2007-01-15
Dr. Cox has written a very well-researched account of the differing lifestyles, and attitudes towards, officers and enlisted person during the American War of Independence. Without the historical background, it is nearly impossible for people with today's sensibilities to understand the dichotomy. We have long left behind the life when a "commoner" was expected to doff a cap in the presence of a gentleman, or the fact that such individuals were really not held to be as "equal" as some of our documents from the periods would seem to indicate. "All men are created equal" clearly did not apply to everyone. In fact, the breaking down of the the distinction between the gentry and "the common herd" was something that many revolutionary leaders neither anticipated nor advocated (see S. Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution or Revolutionary Characters, for example). Washington himself, as Cox notes, was a huge proponent of the distinction and believed that the accepted superiority of the character and intelligence of "gentlemen" was necessary for military order. Cox makes this accepted distinction crystal clear and shows the implications for how the troops were treated and were considered by the population at large. To our eyes, the distinctions between how officers and enlisted persons were treated seems arbitrary and most unfair. Cox's careful historical analysis allows us to understand this better by understanding the thinking of the day regarding the make-up of the people involed. I would recommend Freeman's Affairs of Honor as excellent supplemental reading.
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Public Lives, Private Virtues: Images of American Revolutionary War Heroes, 1782-1832 (Garland Studies in American Popular History and Culture)
Christop Harris
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Political
| Leaders & Notable People
| Biographies & Memoirs
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Washington, George
| ( W )
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ASIN: 0815334826 |
Book Description
Public Lives, Private Virtues surveys portraits of American Revolutionary heroes in books, magazines, and school texts from 1782 to 1832 and relates these sketches to cultural changes of the period. Faced with rapid and sometimes unsettling change, historians, biographers, and editors of period offered their readers narrative and visual portraits of heroes, hoping to promote classical civic virtues during a time when business-minded Americans increasingly pursued individual gain. The fifty years following the Revolution saw biography shift from historical narration to description of private experience. The most interesting of the biographers, Mason Locke Weems, created an original life of Washington, adapting his style to the needs of book buyers, who were put off by the cost of conventional histories and attracted to the books' entertaining stories. During this period magazine editors in the mid-Atlantic and New England states occasionally wrote sketches of heroes to provide readers examples of virtue, but their major contribution was to publish original graphic portraits. Some magazine illustrators copied portraits by American painters; others fashioned elaborate allegorical pieces. Brief narratives of Revolutionary heroes met the needs of the growing number of New England schoolbook authors especially well. By reading descriptions of the war's heroes and their adventures, authors believed children would learn virtue as well as rhetorical skills. In all their forms during this period, narratives and portraits of Revolutionary heroes extolled classical virtues even though the rise of commerce and Americans' pursuit of individual wealth made these virtues anachronistic.
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Tench Tilghman: The Life and Times of Washington's Aide-De-Camp
L. G. Shreve
Manufacturer: Tidewater Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
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Washington, George
| ( W )
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Battles
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ASIN: 0870332937 |
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The British Empire, 1784-1939
James Truslow Adams
Manufacturer: Dorset Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0880297069 |
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Empire On The Seven Seas - The British Empire 1784-1939
James Truslow Adams
Manufacturer: Cousens Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1406701246 |
Book Description
EMPIRE ON THE SEVEN SEAS THE BRITISH EMPIRE 1784-1939 BY James Truslow Adams CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS - NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS - LTD - LONDON 1940. PREFACE IN RECENT centuries the greatest political factor in the modern world has been the British Empire. This is particularly true of the last hundred and fifty years. It is not merely that the Empire rules a quarter of the globe territorially, and a quarter 500,000,000 of its inhabitants. Its trade and financial influences have been equally important, and above all its political. The Mother of Parliaments in London has brought into being the free governments in all quarters of the earth which now make up the British Commonwealth of Nations. Its story, with all its shadows, is the story of the steadily increasing freedom of the individual citizen and of the free human spirit. The volume now presented opens with the defeat of the Empire against a European world in arms, and the loss of the colonies which have since grown into the United States of America. The loss seemed overwhelming but from apparent ruin the British built up a still greater empire, the greatest the world has ever seen. After the losses, the frivolities and scandals of the earlier Hanoverian rulers, there suddenly and unexpectedly rose the sun of the Victorian Era, the greatest in English history next to the Elizabethan. A succession of statesmen, such as Lord Palmerston, Lord Grey, Russell, Disraeli, Gladstone, Salisbury and others, not only brought Britain to her highest pinnacle of power and prestige, but nursed the old liberties into the forms of modern democracy. Crisis after crisis, national and international, arose and were met in the age-old muddling way but conquered in the end. The scenes and actors constantly shift. France, with Napoleon at its head, was the first great menace to liberty in the period. In the crisis of the world today, with its ruthless dictatorships, no previous period offers a closer parallel or a more interesting comparison than the Napoleonic. For twenty years Britain fought on, more than once deserted by every Continental Ally, until at long last the would-be Dictator of Europe was carried to life exile on a British battleship. Problems at home called for revolution but there was none. In stead, in British ways, there were compromise, conciliation, and such great Reform Bills as those of 1832 and 1867, with all the social legislation which followed. Overseas, the first empire had been lost largely because of inflexible ideas as to government. There followed a long period of comparative indifference to over seas possessions, together with the ferment of the new ideas of imperial reformers. In the latter part of the nineteenth century came the race for world empire which can be compared only with that of the Elizabethan period of expansion of European populations and energies. From that developed the tensions which led to the World War and again to the war of today. At present, the Empire is once more facing fearful odds, per haps the greatest crisis in its, and our, history. What has happened in the conquests made by Germany and Russia in the past year or so, as well as the crushing of freedom of thought and speech in their own lands for some years, shows all too well what would happen to the world if the ambitions of Hitler and Stalin could be achieved. Aided by France, the one great opponent to the coming of a new Dark Age to the soul and mind of man is the British Empire, Our own fate is more at stake than many realize. The Hitler-Stalin conquests mean more than mere annexations of ter ritory and population in the old sense. They mean the wiping out of freedom and the type of western civilization which Europe and America have slowly achieved during centuries...
Books:
- Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (Modern Library Paperbacks)
- God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (P.S.)
- History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
- How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed
- I Was Right On Time
- In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War
- In the Pit with Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy
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