Catherine Woodman's Reviews > 1776

I have been kind of stuck in the history of the late 18th and early nineteenth century of late--which was an appropriate thing for me to continue on my recent trip to Vermont--I missed reading this when it came out, even though I like David McCullough but I am not a big non-fiction reader, but got around to it, and it is a great companion to the John Adams biography by this author as well as Plain SImple Men and event eh Andrew Jackson biography (plus I am sure a number of ones that I haven't read about Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson). THis delineates the very beginning of the war from a military strategy standpoint, as well as the political climate at the time, and kind of sets up why the war might have gone the way it did, as well as the kind of leader that Washington was. He made some serious mistakes early on, but he learned from them and learned quickly. He was also a keen judge of who was going to be similarly minded to him--Nathaniel Green of Rhode Island was probably the most gifted strategist, despite age and lack of real experience, and Washington made use of him early and to the end of the war. Really a nice short introduction into what happened that year.