The British Are Coming by Rick Atkinson

This book is the first of a trilogy to go step by step through the Revolutionary War, this volume covering 1775-1777. What it does not do is the preambe, what exactly happened over time that led to open defiance of the British, mostly in New England, but also in the Southern states when slavery was threatened. The South couldn't survive without it. What it does do is walk through the decisions made once there was war and what their consequences were. This is not the good part if you are an American, and it doesn't reflect well for the British either. It is a book full of mistakes that were made. The first two years of the Revolutionary War harrowing. New England’s early fights at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill receive fresh attention. But lesser-known engagements at Moore’s Creek, Great Bridge, and Sullivan’s Island were watershed events. Such Patriot victories proved to be crushing setbacks to the King’s cause in the southern colonies, ensuring that the region would remain largely untouched by the war until 1780. Then there is America’s ill-fated attempt to wrest Canada from British control.. This is given lengthy attention here (really, that characterizes much of the book--brace yourself if you are looking for the Cliff Notes version). The entire campaign was a major undertaking during the first critical year of the war, but with the hindsight of over two centuries, it’s apparent that the affair was ill conceived, poorly supplied and, ultimately, badly led. The effort likewise siphoned tremendous resources and manpower from the Continental Army at a time when it could ill afford such diminution of its strength. British efforts would be narrowly focused in the north, and led to a year of disaster for the Patriot cause. From the pages of Atkinson’s book, George Washington clearly emerges as the “indispensable man” of the Revolution, but a commander who nonetheless faced an embarrassing string of battlefield drubbings subsequent to the British invasion of New York during the summer of 1776. After the near collapse of the Continental Army – and the Patriot war effort – during the retreat across New Jersey, Washington gambled big, and won, during his desperate attacks on Crown detachments at Trenton and Princeton. Atkinson’s closing chapters offer a riveting account of the legendary winter campaign that turned the tide of the war.