Book Review: The 10 Key Campaigns That Defied the Odds and Birthed Our Nation

The 10 Key Campaigns That Defied the Odds and Birthed Our Nation

Edited by Edward G. Lengel. ISBN-13: 9781684511259, Published August, 2020. Regnery History.

Many American are familiar with portions of the War for Independence…Lexington, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Yorktown, Washington, Hamilton, Benedict Arnold. All familiar names, but how did it all fit together. How did merchants, lawyers, farmers, and cobblers all come together and defeat the combined forces of the British Empire, its powerful Navy, and their Hessian auxiliaries. For that matter, who were the Hessians, and what is an auxiliary?

Eminent historian, Ed Lengel has brought together ten of the most highly respected Revolutionary War experts to present the stirring narratives of history altering military campaigns that formed a new nation. Accessibly written, the lay reader will take a tour through British America from Quebec City’s frozen fortress, to the Concord’s Old North Bridge, Cross the Delaware with Washington and through South Carolina with the “Swamp Fox” Frances Marion. After reading these ten riveting essays, every American will sound like an expert on our nation’s fight for freedom.

Includes:10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution 

1. Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill by Glenn Williams
2. Quebec and the Champlain Valley by Mark Anderson
3. Brooklyn to Fort Lee by Todd Braisted
4. The Crossing and The Ten Crucial Days by William L. Kidder
5. Ticonderoga To Saratoga by James Kirby Martin
6. Brandywine to Valley Forge by Michael C. Harris
7. The Monmouth Campaign by Mark Lender
8. Charlestown to Kings Mountain by John Buchanan
9. From Cowpens to Guilford Courthouse by John Maass
10. The Allied March to Yorktown by Robert Selig

 Washington, D.C. How did the battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill, Yorktown, etc. all culminate in an American victory? In The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution, editor Edward Lengel brings together ten of today’s most respected Revolutionary War experts to tell the stirring narratives that explain it all. These ten military campaigns changed history and brought in the birth of a new nation.

The American Revolution remains—now, nearly 250 years since it began—a relatively new field of study. Historians are exploring parts of it for the first time. The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution represents some of the best new work and keenest insights on the Revolutionary War. In it, the war’s leading historians look closely at the campaigns that paved the way to victory in the quest for American independence. This is history in the truest sense—carefully researched, clearly described, and best of all told with a storyteller’s instinct for high drama and excitement. For the story of America’s founding is dramatic, indeed—one of the most dramatic stories ever told.

Through the riveting narratives of The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution readers will:

• Survive the battle of Brooklyn Heights and cross the Delaware with Washington in 1776
• Bushwhack down the Champlain Valley with Johnny Burgoyne in the summer and fall of 1777
• Struggle through winter with Washington and his beleaguered troops in Valley Forge
• Endure the oppressive heat and the massive battle on New Jersey farmland at Monmouth Courthouse as spring turns to summer in 1778
• Journey south in 1780 into a bloody civil war—Tory versus patriot, neighbor versus neighbor in Georgia and the Carolinas
• Join the patriots in 1881 as they maneuver north into Virginia, where Washington and the French navy can trap the British on the Yorktown Peninsula

Complete with maps and suggested further reading, The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution is a short course in one of history’s most consequential wars, explaining how citizens became soldiers and how their dedication, determination, and force of will defeated the world’s greatest power and launched a nation like no other.

Introduction to Edward G. Lengel: Lengel is senior director of programs at the National World War II Museum’s Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. He received his PhD. from the University of Virginia, where he was a full professor and directed the Washington Papers Project from many years. He wrote the new history of Colonial Williamsburg as a “Revolutionary in Residence.” Lengel has written fourteen books on American History, including General George Washington: A Military Life and Never in Finer Company: The Men of the Great War’s Lost Battalion. Lengel is co-recipient of the National Humanities Medal and has won two writing award from the Army Historical Foundation.

Carol Duff, MSN, BA, RN

Carol graduated from Riverside White Cross School of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio and received her diploma as a registered nurse. She attended Bowling Green State University where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Literature. She attended the University of Toledo, College of Nursing, and received a Master’s of Nursing Science Degree as an Educator.

She has traveled extensively, is a photographer, and writes on medical issues. Carol has three children RJ, Katherine, and Stephen – one daughter-in-law; Katie – two granddaughters; Isabella Marianna and Zoe Olivia – and one grandson, Alexander Paul. She also shares her life with her husband Gordon Duff, many cats, and two rescues.

• Carol’s Archives 2009-2013