In this gripping chronicle of America's struggle for independence, award-winning historian Ferling transports readers to the grim realities of that war, capturing an eight-year conflict filled with heroism, suffering, cowardice, betrayal, and fierce dedication.

John Ferling brings to this book nearly forty years of experience as a historian of early America. He is the author of nine books and numerous articles on the American Revolution and early American wars, and has appeared in four television documentaries devoted to the Revolution and the War of Independence. His book A Leap in the Dark won the Fraunces Tavern Book Award as the year's best book on the American Revolution. He and his wife live in metropolitan Atlanta.

• Illustrations and Maps


• Preface


• Introduction: "My Country, My Honor, My Life": Bravery and Death in War


• Part One: Going to War, 1775-1776


• 12: "Fear Is Not an American Art": The Coming of the War"A Loss That Is Greater Than We Can Bear": Going to War


• 3: Choices, 1775


• Part Two: The War in the North, 1776-1779


• 4: "Hastening Fast to a Crisis": June 1775-June 1776


• 5: Choices, 1776


• 6: "Knock Him Up for the Campaign": The Battle for New York, 1776


• 7: "This Hour of Adversity": To the End of 1776


• 8: Choices, 1777


• 9: "The Caprice of War": America's Pivotal Victory at Saratoga


• 10: "We Rallied and Broke": The Campaign for Philadelphia, September-December 1777


• 11: Choices, 1778


• 12: "A Respectable Army": The Grim Year, 1778


• 13: Choices, 1779


• 14: "A Band of Brotherhood": The Soldiers, the Army, and the Forgotten War of 1779


• 15: "We Have Occasioned a Good Deal of Terror": The War at Sea


• 16: Choices


• Part Three: The War in the South, 1780-1781


• 17: "A Year Filled With Our Disgraces": Defeat in the South, 1780


• 18: "Southern Means and Southern Exertions": Hope and Despair, June-December 1780


• 19: Choices, 1781


• 20: "Bloody and Severe": The Pivotal Southern War, Early 1781


• 21: "We Are Suspended in the Balance": Spring and Summer 1781


• Part Four: American Victory, 1781-1783


• 22: "America is Ours": Victory at Yorktown, 1781


• 23: Choices, 1782


• 24: "May We Have Peace in Our Time": Peace and Demobilization, 1782-1783


• 25: "Little Short of a Miracle": Accounting of America's Victory


• Abbreviations


• Notes


• Bibliography


• Index