Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought

by Michael Stephenson

Book Overview

Michael Stephenson's Patriot Battles is a comprehensive and richly detailed study of the military aspects of the War of Independence, and a fascinating look at the nuts and bolts of eighteenth-century... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006073261X
• ISBN13: 9780060732615
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 421 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Refreshing New Look at the Rev War

This book is more like a treatise on the Rev War. It provides a good study on the arms, weapons, and training of the war, and of 18th century conflict in general in the first part of the book. The author includes the now obligatory chapters on women and blacks in the conflict to satisfy the PC crowd. The second part provides a select summary of the important battles of the war. Here we get good thumbnail accounts of the actions with nice detail and analysis. One of the things often over-looked about Rev War battles was the paucity of casualities in most actions. The author makes some attempt to explain it, but perhaps the most obvious was the fact that both sides fought the war for the most part using two-rank lines. The British started the conflcit with their standard three-rank line, but under the tactical reforms of Sir William Howe quickly opted for two. The Americans were using two ranks simply because they had to stretch out their often weak regiments on the battlefied. These thin lines were possible in America because there was never a signiciannt cavalry element to exploit them. In europe most armies employed three and sometimes four ranks which gave them greater depth and firepower, but also resulted increased casualties from musketry and artillery. In the Rev War the two-rank line did the opposite. This explains the relatively small numbers of losses in many of the battles. The author uses modern terms and tries to be a bit cool at times, but in general he is right on the mark with most of his observations and conclusions. I think many reviewers are too stuck in the old school of Washy worship and the more traditional approach toward study of this conflict. Washy gets his due as an inspirational leader, but we also see him as a conservetive leading a Revolutionary army, something which was anathema to him at times I think. His stratgey was often flawed as at Germantown and Monmouth, yet he was the one man who held it all together. We get to see these contrasts instead of the usual eulogies. The author is also not feaful to look at some of the many British victories of the conflcit, something which many older writers are loath to do. So we get Camden for a change, the most devastating loss ever suffered by an American field army before modern times, except perhaps for some of our War of 1812 debacles perhaps! For a strict military history of the Rev War, one can't beat Christopher Ward and his older book, but this work has merit providing as it does a modern take on a subject that has been well worn over the years. I give it five stars for the author's bravery in attempting to dispel many Rev War myths. He strives to be factual, and is not the usual story teller which so many US historians tend to be on this subject. Worth having next to Ward, Wood and others on your Rev War reference shelf.

Patriot Battles Delivers: A Generally Positive Review

War may be Hell, nevertheless men love to read and write about war. Michael Stephenson is certainly equal to the task of writing about war professionally and passionately. It is obvious that he loves the writing, and if you enjoy military history, you'll love the reading. Purpose of the Book The subtitle of Patriot Battles is How the War of Independence Was Fought. The subtitle holds two keys to the book. The first is the purpose of the book: to answer the how question for all parties concerned in the war. The second is a key thesis of Stephenson's work: the war fought between the American colonies and their British brothers from 1775-1783 was actually quite conservative all things considered. That is, that it is better called the War of Independence than the Revolutionary War. It was essentially a change in management, from British to American, rather than a radical revolution in authority, society, and tradition. What he means is not that there were no radical ideas or results, indeed there were. Rather, the War was not accompanied by the mass upheaval, wide bloodshed, and chaotic shifts seen in later revolutions such as in France a few decades later or those throughout the 20th century. Part One: The Nuts and Bolts of War Patriot Battles is divided simply into two parts. The first, "The Nuts and Bolts of War," covers in 11 chapters the details of battle and war during the War of Independence. Stephenson succeeds at putting the reader in the place of the soldiers and leaders on both sides of the conflict. He provides a bluntly honest portrayal of their motives, weapons, equipment, and plight with a flair for iconoclasm. In fact, he enjoys this myth-busting, letting the reader know, for instance, that the Americans were rarely found in uniform "blue-and-buff," instead they were just happy to have cloths, coats, and shoes. The famed American rifleman, as deadly a shooter as he was, wasn't quite the favored warrior of imagination either, instead most commanders, Washington included, preferred the musket man. Washington would have preferred to do otherwise than forced to in almost every way. Washington considered himself a Gentleman after the English-European tradition and deeply desired to fight in a European manner with national uniforms, bold battle plans, traditional tactics, and an aristocratic officer's class. But he didn't have any of those things and instead did very well with what he had. He also learned to play the Fox, something else he didn't really like-he would have preferred bold, open warfare-but he became very good at it. By the end of the war Washington neared his ideals, but by then, well, it was over. Part Two: The Great Battles The second half of the book, "The Great Battles," covers in brief the 18 key battles of the War of Independence. The order of battle, the battle's terrain, and the key movements for each are laid out in useful description. Interestingly enough, most of these battles were won b

Beautifully written relevant history

This extraordinarily well-written history of the American Revolution is a great read. The glowing encomiums on the back of the book from the serious, big-gun historians--Chernow, Beevor, and Cowley--are richly deserved! And the parallels with many other American wars work wonders to awaken the past by linking it directly with our present notions of heroism and the American Way. As Stephenson explains, "Also viewing the War of Independence through the lens of other imperialist wars, particularly America's involvement in Vietnam and Iraq, helps rescue it from the Disney World of history to which it has been consigned." This wonderful, richly textured, enlightening book transformed my potted notions of our singular past and heightened my love for our Great Experiment.

Great book, Iraq references are distracting

First off, let me start off by saying this is an excellent, gripping book with lots of data, maps, and stories from the Revolutionary War. It is a very good-sized book, not too long or too short, and is about the size of a regular hardcover, which makes it easy to carry around. I would compare it to An Army at Dawn, were it not for the frequent, illogical, and wrong comparisons to the war in Iraq. They would not bother me so much had they not been based on the stereotype of the U.S. Army, bribing poor citizens with college money and waging a war of imperialism. Both of those ideas are wrong, because more than 2/3 of the Army comes from the middle class, not the low class and we are not going to make Iraq a colony. They do not make sense in this context, political views aside. There's no reason for even comparing the two wars in a history book. If the comparisons are supposed to help the reader "relate," then it's the author's fault for not allowing the reader to get in the time period. Overall, it was a very good book. The uneeded Iraq references constantly irked me though, and prevented me from fully enjoying the book.

FOG OF REVOLUTIONARY WAR: A MASTERFUL LOOK AT FORCES, EQUIPMENT, STRATEGY & TACTICS, & MAJOR BAT

FIve REVEALING Stars. Historian Michael Stephenson has produced a masterful look at the overall military aspects of the Revolutionary War. As a military person, I feel Mr Stephenson has produced a nearly exhaustive, wide-ranging, and very enlightening analysis of the Revolutionary War, down to the "nuts & bolts": the Continental army versus the "ministerial army". And he gets into the overall politics affecting the warfare. While some of this has been covered elsewhere, it's his unique points of view about both sides that are both informative and refreshing, adding in many quotes from varied sources. At this point in time in the 21st Century, he may well be one of the first historians to begin drawing deep parallels and comparisons of the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, the world wars, and especially the Vietnam and Iraq eras. He reaches some substantially salient conclusions that explode myths about the heroic, somewhat romantic nature of the forces involved. Many of these troops were vagrants, repentant criminals, freemen and slaves, native Americans, and mainly poor whites, with all expecting basic creature comforts and pay which they often did not get, operating "within a system that was unapologetically exploitative." Mr Stephenson puts the reader in touch with that era's warfare. "Eighteenth-century warfare seems exotically formalized, strangely balletic, and "unreal" by modern standards." "To march to within, say, forty yards of an enemy, receive his fire, and then close in for the kill took a prodigious amount of nerve." Individual chapters are dealth with in detail covering an impressive amount of subject matter such as the American soldier; "Lobsterbacks"; some very brave women ("Trulls and Doxies"); the "dilemma" of blacks (totally excluded in the beginning but, beyond those who eventually did fight, allowed into the war as laborers or disappointingly 're-enslaved' to white enlistees in some cases); the surprising position of native Americans; "the big guns" (where one cannonball could cut three men in half); the grisly matter of medical care (the case of Captain John Stokes may surprise you); and the huge matter of logistics-the author says "Brooklyn" could have been a turning point for the British had Howe been better supplied, had his troops been rested, and the weather more favorable (wind, rain, and fog). So far away from home, Britain's huge logistical problems were maniford: even something as simple as providing for draft horses required 29 pounds of oats and hay per horse per day. Indeed at Brooklyn, Washington turned down 400 sorely-needed (as it later turned out) Connecticut cavalry men because of his own lack of supplies to feed their horses. Battles examined in detail stretch from Lexington & Concord, and Bunker Hill in 1775 through Trenton I and II, the Philadelphia and Saratoga Campaigns, to Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, and Chesapeake Capes in 1781 with appropriate maps. But the words of Charles Gravier, the