Good Read

Recently I read 1776 by David McCullough, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, whose ability to spin a fascinating tale out of the facts of history has no parallel. He tells a Wonderful story, full of ordinary characters caught in an extraordinary time and living a history whose outcome they did not know.

McCullough begins his tale in London on October 26, 1775, the day King George III when before Parliament, declared the American colonies in rebellion and made clear his resolve to crush it. Extensive research into both American and British archives brings the following year into high focus through the writings of generals, military men, letters home from freezing, starving soldiers, and letters to those soldiers from wives and sweethearts battling the same war on the lanes and byways of the growing country.

HIstory has taught us mainly about George Washington, Father of our Country, General, astride his noble steed. The real records show him to be indecisive and leaning strongly on the opinions of Nathaniel Greene, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller whose preposterous ideas actually worked even in the dead of winter.

Washington had never led an army into battle and it seemed to this reader that his greatest ability for a long time was his ability to retreat without the enemy, and sometimes even his troops, recognizing what was happening. He called it “repositioning” the troops.

The Declaration of Independence is dealt with only as a political statement that turned the war from rebellion to treason and set the bar of victory even higher. It did give new impetus to the war and spirit to the fighters.

McCullough delves deeply into the British story as well. British Commander, William Howe, led his highly disciplined red-coats into battle after battle with a valor that we rarely read about in American history books.

There is no final conclusion in 1776 as the war drones on for another six years. Washington has an idea, however, that changes the course of the war and of history. It is still a wonder things turned out the way they did.

I was reading a very good mystery at the same time I was reading 1776 and I found myself laughing because as I reached for a book, I discovered I needed to get Washington off that mountain, over that river, through that battle, more than I needed to discover “who done it”. This is a terrific, electrifying telling of an amazing, powerful story of all sorts of ordinary people who fought for an idea and thereby created a country.