American Revolution Documentary

Glad they are using Rick Atkinson as a consultant. I have read both of his recent books on the Revolution.
 
uncmba said:
Glad they are using Rick Atkinson as a consultant. I have read both of his recent books on the Revolution.
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For Atkinson fans...




250 years on: The lasting impact of the Revolutionary War | BBC Global (12:02)​



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The second in a triology, The Fate of the Day...



books



THE FATE OF THE DAY: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 | By Rick Atkinson | Crown | 854 pp. | $42

Rick Atkinson Makes the American Revolution Come Brilliantly Alive

"To label this book military history, or even American history, does it a disservice. While battles are described with enough detail to please fans of the genre (and enough skill to make both strategy and tactics legible for those who are not), Atkinson’s canvas is vast. Once the French enter the war in 1778, the American Revolution becomes a world conflict, involving Europe, India and the Caribbean. Atkinson covers the fallout from the battle for St. Lucia, where 1,500 French soldiers lost their lives, with as much care as the British capture of Savannah.

Just as impressive is his attention to minutiae: the danger of using green timber in ship building; the obstacles of finding housing in a city that’s burned to the ground; divisions within individual families over politics; and the intense suffering caused by hunger, exposure and disease on troops, displaced citizens and horses (his command of the equine world is prodigious).

Recognizing that the people of the 18th century had an intimate relationship with nature, Atkinson grounds his account in the weather, flora, fauna, tides, crops and night skies that provided meaning in their lives: “Woolly bear caterpillars” displaying “wide black rings” are harbingers of a harsh winter in New Jersey; stars above the Thames River “wheeled in their courses,” while “fields of maize, rye and flax” lie abandoned mid-harvest near the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Descriptions of events include sounds and smells as well as appearances. Where the Chesapeake Bay was wide, Atkinson writes, “the land could be smelled in loamy whiffs but not seen. Swans and sea eagles circled” the British fleet “and blue crabs swarmed by the many thousands near the surface.” “The Fate of the Day” evokes dozens of battles, almost none of which marked a conclusive shift in the fortunes of Britain or the patriots, but Atkinson’s ability to work at this level of detail keeps his depictions fresh. This is great history."

 
Don, I read both of those books, and the thing that stood out to me as a retired Military Officer was the effect of sickness and infection. For instance, the British captured thousands of Colonials at Charleston, and kept them in open fields. Many tried to escape, and then the British put them on prisoner ships. 800 of those men died from typhus.

Simply put, we had many times the number of troops and sailors die from disease than from combat wounds. It has correctly been a great focus of the military to figure out how to stop disease, because it drastically limited their combat effectiveness. That involves science, believing in the truth and whatever path it takes you. And yet we seem to be in an era where we don’t believe in that anymore.

The other thing I got from this series of books was a realization that the British never really controlled much territory. They could barely control anything past the ports where their ships were docked. And their biggest error was at Saratoga where they got hundreds of miles away from the Fleet.
 
uncmba said:
Don, I read both of those books, and the thing that stood out to me as a retired Military Officer was the effect of sickness and infection. For instance, the British captured thousands of Colonials at Charleston, and kept them in open fields. Many tried to escape, and then the British put them on prisoner ships. 800 of those men died from typhus.

Simply put, we had many times the number of troops and sailors die from disease than from combat wounds. It has correctly been a great focus of the military to figure out how to stop disease, because it drastically limited their combat effectiveness. That involves science, believing in the truth and whatever path it takes you. And yet we seem to be in an era where we don’t believe in that anymore.

The other thing I got from this series of books was a realization that the British never really controlled much territory. They could barely control anything past the ports where their ships were docked. And their biggest error was at Saratoga where they got hundreds of miles away from the Fleet.
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Kings Mountain (albeit, the British forces were Tories), Cowpens (50/50 British Regulars and Tories), and Guilford Courthouse (overwhelmingly British and German Regulars) were all costly battles for the British and fought great distances from the Fleet.
 
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