1776 by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster, 386 pages, $32)
Who’s your Daddy, America? It’s the George Washington you know: regal, determined and heroic. And the one you don’t: crestfallen during the early years of the Revolution, sensitive to his lack of formal education and vainglorious in winning command of the Continental Army. David McCullough offers a compelling portrait of General Washington in 1776, an account of the pivotal year in the Revolutionary War. Armed with a treasure trove of diaries, contemporary newspaper accounts and letters from the players in the long slog of battle with Britain, McCullough delivers a history lesson that reads like a novel, with Washington taking center stage. Not far behind him are the grim realities of war: dysentery, lice, smallpox, famine, property seizures, profanities, and whorehouses.
Through Washington’s letters, McCullough unearths many lesser-known aspects of the general’s thoughts. In one remarkable instance, as Washington frets during the siege of Boston, he writes: “Could I have foreseen what I have and am like to experience, no consideration upon earth should have induced me to accept this command.”
Washington’s military blunders are here, such as the disastrous New York campaign, as well as his considerable ability to reinvigorate esprit de corps.
McCullough makes a convincing case of how hopeless the so-called rebellion was in its early months. Far from the inevitable triumph offered in schoolbooks, the revolution sparked by the Founding Fathers’ eloquence would have resonated little without Washington’s relentless battlefield defiance in the face of all logic.
So what rallied these bedraggled amateurs? Washington’s political savvy, coupled with the surprising effectiveness of young generals Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox. And in many cases, chance played a big role. After the Continental Army endured a stinging defeat at Brooklyn, wind currents kept British ships from sealing off the East River escape route. An early morning fog hours later gave Washington’s retreating troops cover and prevented further assaults.
McCullough also effectively debunks myths of British cowardice on the battlefield. Gone, too, is the familiar caricature of King George III as dullard.
Still, Washington and the makeshift Continental Army trump the estimable British monarch and his powerful military. Even William Howe, the British general at the siege of Boston, acknowledges American ingenuity after being surprised by a daring move at Dorchester Heights. “My God,” Howe said, “these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.”
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 5, 2005.
