1776 is history by Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough. Ordinary Heroes is an historical novel set in the last days of World War Two by lawyer/author Scott Turow. Neither of them is particularly preachy but they share three messages: war sucks; sometimes people have to fight; war brings out the best and worst in people. Sounds trite when I write it but these are both brilliant books.
It’s quite possible that McCullough wrote all of 1776 based on notes left over from John Adams. The view this time is from Washington’s headquarters with a few glimpses from the HQs of British Generals Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton.
Washington took command of ragtag American troops surrounding British-occupied Boston in 1775. He was appalled by the state of his army and its lack of discipline. One of his first orders was a dress code so that officers could be distinguished from the people they led. He thought that the appearance of leadership was essential to the ability to lead; he set a great example of this on his great white horse in magnificent uniform. As important to his men as his appearance was his location: near the front, in danger, apparently unafraid.
Despite being a Virginia aristocrat, Washington took talent where he found it. Henry Knox was a twenty-five year old book store owner whose military training consisted of reading every book about military tactics he could get his hands on. It was Knox who suggested to Washington that the artillery from Fort Ticonderoga (captured earlier by Ethan Allan and Benedict Arnold) in upstate New York could be hauled over the winter snow and the frozen Hudson to Boston.
McCullough writes: “ That such a scheme hatched by a junior officer in his twenties who had no experience was transmitted so directly to the supreme commander, seriously considered, and acted upon, also marked an important difference between the civilian army of the Americans and that of the British. In an army where nearly everyone was new to the tasks of soldiering and fighting a war, almost everyone’s idea deserved a hearing.”
Washington told Knox to go get the guns and he did. It was these guns deployed on Dorchester Heights which drove the British from Boston in a battle that began March 4, 1776, the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. The fact that the British meant to leave anyway in the Spring for tactical reasons didn’t diminish the glory of the feat or the impact on a nation-to-be.
But after the glory of Boston things went badly for Washington and his army. The British who left Boston occupied New York City to no one’s great surprise. Washington almost managed to leave his army trapped on Long Island when he misestimated the British attack and didn’t set up adequate defenses. If the wind hadn’t blown in a direction which kept the British fleet out of the East River and if a providential fog hadn’t arisen to allow the night evacuation to continue into the next day, it is quite possible the Revolution would have ended with the destruction of most or all of the rebel army.
The most that could be said about Washington and his army during the Fall of 1776 was that they executed retreats well. They were pushed back all the way across New Jersey – those that didn’t just desert and go home. Many units had only enlisted for a year and their time was almost up. Some of Washington’s staff plotted against him with the Continental Congress.
But then Washington crossed the Delaware. He beat the Hessians who probably weren’t really drunk at Trenton. He retreated from Trenton and then made a lightening assault on the British in Princeton. These battles at the end of 1776 didn’t have great military importance. But, had they not happened, it is unlikely the revolution would have continued.
McCullough concludes: “The year 1776… was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few-victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.
“Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning – how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference – the outcome seemed little short of a miracle.”
More on Ordinary Heroes in a future post.