For the "Generator," Winter 2006
Battle of Brooklyn 1776
SMCGS member Linda Reno will be speaking to the Society at our 23 January
2006 meeting on the subject "Maryland 400." Linda's talk will be about
the
role played by soldiers from Maryland in helping to save General
Washington's army from total disaster during and after the Battle of
Brooklyn in August 1776. I am sure we will all learn something about this
critical point in American History from Linda.
For both those who will be able to come and hear Linda's lecture and those
who live away and can't make our meetings, I want to give you a list of
books you might wish to read that will give you some background on this
important battle. First, there is David McCullough's current best-seller
[1776], which I highly recommend. Although you might not figure it out
from
the title, perhaps an even better book on this early phase of the
war is
David Hackett Fischer's [Washington's Crossing] [2004].
Barnet Schecter's [The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the
American Revolution] [2002] and noted historian Thomas Fleming's [1776:
Year
of Illusions] [1975] are both good additional sources of
information. Why
did the British attack the New York area in the summer of 1776 ? Both
[Divided Loyalties: How the American Revolution Came to New York] by
Richard
M. Ketchum [2002] and [Under the Guns: New York 1775-1776] by Bruce
Bliven,
Jr. [1972] will give you the military and political reasons that the
British
thought New York would be the base from which they could re-conquer
the
rebellious American colonies.
If you want some good, general overviews of the American Revolution, one
of
the best is [Liberty !] by Thomas Fleming [1997], the companion book
to
the
PBS television series. This book is beautifully illustrated. Another
well
illustrated volume is [The American Heritage Book of the Revolution]
[1971]
with the narrative by Bruce Lancaster. From the [Oxford History of
the
United States] series Robert Middlekauff's [The Glorious Cause: The
American
Revolution, 1763-1789] is solid reading. Page Smith wrote a highly
readable
two volume work [A New Age Begins: A People's History of the
American
Revolution] [1976]. For the military side of the war, the modern classic
is
[The War of the Revolution] by Christopher Ward [1952].
If you are interested in "first person" accounts of the war, you might
find
[The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for
Independence]
edited by John C. Dunn [1980] and [The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six:
The Story
of
the American Revolution as Told by Participants] edited by Henry
Steele
Commager and Richard B. Morris [1975] worthwhile. My personal favorite,
written in his old age by a former 15 year-old teenage soldier who joined
Washington's army just after the defeat at Brooklyn, is [Private Yankee
Doodle] by Joseph Plumb Martin, edited by George F. Sheer [1963].
And you can't really know much about the Battle of Brooklyn, unless you
know
something about the great man who tasted bitter defeat there,
General
George
Washington. The "standard" biography is still Douglas
Southall Freeman's
massive [George Washington: A Biography]. Volume Four [Leader of the
Revolution] [1951] covers the events around the Battle of Brooklyn. A bit
newer is [George Washington in the American Revolution (1775-1783)]
[1968],
the second of a four volume biography by James Thomas Flexner. More
recent
biographies include [His Excellency George Washington [2004] by Joseph
Ellis, [General George Washington: A Military Life] [2005] by Edward G.
Lengel, and Bruce Chadwick's [George Washington's War: The Forging of a
Revolutionary Leader and the American Presidency] [2004].