Arguably, no other revolution in history has enjoyed such a brilliant gallery of thinkers as the one that led to the founding of the United States. America's Founding Fathers is centered on the personal philosophies, opinions, thoughts, witticisms, and feelings of the exemplary men who founded our nation. This book gathers together the founding fathers' best quotations on a variety of subjects including life, love, marriage, family, children, religion, patriotism, sacrifice, law, professionalism, medicine, public health, education, money, "modern" society, the Revolutionary War, humor, and death. Colleagues and rivals, friends and enemies, the eight founding fathers-Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Rush, and Thomas Paine-here provide their views on subjects as relevant now as ever.

In the late summer and fall of 1777, after two years of indecisive fighting on both sides, the outcome of the American War of Independence hung in the balance. Having successfully expelled the Americans from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end the rebellion the following year and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy, sending General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if it was a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in the North. Less than three and a half months later, however, a combination of the Continental Army and Militia forces, commanded by Major General Horatio Gates and inspired by the heroics of Benedict Arnold, forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. The American victory stunned the world and changed the course of the war. Kevin J. Weddle offers the most authoritative history of the Battle of Saratoga to date, explaining with verve and clarity why events unfolded the way they did. In the end, British plans were undone by a combination of distance, geography, logistics, and an underestimation of American leadership and fighting ability. Taking Ticonderoga had misled Burgoyne and his army into thinking victory was assured. Saratoga, which began as a British foraging expedition, turned into a rout. The outcome forced the British to rethink their strategy, inflamed public opinion in England against the war, boosted Patriot morale, and, perhaps most critical of all, led directly to the Franco-American alliance. Weddle unravels the web of contingencies and the play of personalities that ultimately led to what one American general called "the Compleat Victory."

This book describes the everyday lives of people during the American Revolution as they adapted to the political and military conflicts of the time. Students studying the American Revolutionary War learn primarily about battles and how independence from the British was achieved. In Voices of Revolutionary America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life, readers get the largely untold story of the American Revolution: the ongoing issues and details of life in the background, behind the battles. This book surveys the entirety of the Revolutionary era, describing topics like marriage, childbirth, learning a trade, cost of living, slavery, and religion in the late 18th century. While some documents from the 1760s and early 1770s are provided to present general information about life, the book focuses on the years of the war from 1775 to 1783 and describes how the prolonged conflict impacted people's day-to-day lives. Includes original documents showing the impact of war on daily life, such as a series of letter exchanges between John and Abigail Adams showing how Abigail ran the family farm while John was serving in the Continental Congress Provides a chronology of events in American history during the Revolutionary Era Supplies a bibliography of important books, websites, and films related to the Revolution and its impact on Americans Contains a helpful glossary of terms

In the relations between colonial European traders and the Indians of the southern backcountry, trade was a powerful manipulative tool used by both sides in their attempts to control each other. This anthropological and sociological study examines how European traders sought out native women as cultural instructors, translators, and sexual companions. The network of native women, fur traders, and colonial diplomats functioned as an invisible social, political, and economic web throughout the backcountry. Although this web was an integral part of the colonial struggle for the region, it is often overlooked or ignored in conventional histories.

Women played a key role in this system of economic exchange. They benefitted materially from this arrangement, while the traders enjoyed increased political power as a result of the cohabitation. These Anglo-Indian unions helped to impose Euroamerican values on native societies, and, in part, the women functioned as unofficial diplomats for their people. Colonial governments hoped that the efforts of these frontier traders would impose stability on the tribes, but the profit-seeking of many such traders often resulted in bloody conflict instead.

The seven-volume edition contains about 500 constitutional texts, constitutional amendments, failed constitutions and draft constitutions from the United States, all in their original languages and alphabetically ordered. The texts, including some rare original versions, have been edited and annotated on the basis of the printed official state documents and conventions, consulting the original manuscripts. The constitutional documents from South Carolina to Texas are published in volume VI and the constitutional documents from Vermont to Wisconsin are published in volume VII.

Winner of an Award of Merit in the Christianity Today Book Awards, History/Biography category
On January 17, 1776, one week after Thomas Paine published his incendiary pamphlet Common Sense, Connecticut minister Samuel Sherwood preached an equally patriotic sermon. "God Almighty, with all the powers of heaven, are on our side," Sherwood said, voicing a sacred justification for war that Americans would invoke repeatedly throughout the struggle for independence.
In Sacred Scripture, Sacred War, James Byrd offers the first comprehensive analysis of how American revolutionaries defended their patriotic convictions through scripture. Byrd shows that the Bible was a key text of the American Revolution. Indeed, many colonists saw the Bible as primarily a book about war. They viewed God as not merely sanctioning violence but actively participating in combat, playing a decisive role on the battlefield. When war came, preachers and patriots alike turned to scripture not only for solace but for exhortations to fight. Such scripture helped amateur soldiers overcome their natural aversion to killing, conferred on those who died for the Revolution the halo of martyrdom, and gave Americans a sense of the divine providence of their cause. Many histories of the Revolution have noted the connection between religion and war, but Sacred Scripture, Sacred War is the first to provide a detailed analysis of specific biblical texts and how they were used, especially in making the patriotic case for war. Combing through more than 500 wartime sources, which include more than 17,000 biblical citations, Byrd shows precisely how the Bible shaped American war, and how war in turn shaped Americans' view of the Bible.
Brilliantly researched and cogently argued, Sacred Scripture, Sacred War sheds new light on the American Revolution.

Young Continental soldiers carried a heavy burden in the American Revolution. Their experiences of coming of age during the upheavals of war provide a novel perspective on the Revolutionary era, eliciting questions of gender, family life, economic goals, and politics. "Going for a soldier" forced young men to confront profound uncertainty, and even coercion, but also offered them novel opportunities. Although the war imposed obligations on youths, military service promised young men in their teens and early twenties alternate paths forward in life. Continental soldiers' own youthful expectations about respectable manhood and their goals of an economic competence and marriage not only ordered their experience of military service; they also shaped the fighting capacities of George Washington's army and the course of the war.

"Becoming Men of Some Consequence" examines how young soldiers and officers joined the army, their experiences in the ranks, their relationships with civilians, their choices about quitting long-term military service, and their attempts to rejoin the flow of civilian life after the war. The book recovers young soldiers' perspectives and stories from military records, wartime letters and journals, and postwar memoirs and pension applications, revealing how revolutionary political ideology intertwined with rational calculations and youthful ambitions. Its focus on soldiers as young men offers a new understanding of the Revolutionary War, showing how these soldiers' generational struggle for their own independence was a profound force within America's struggle for "its" independence.

Focuses on the military, political, diplomatic, and economic aspects of the War or Revolution - allowing the reader to grasp the complex web of interactions that occurred at different times throughout the war. This is a key topic in American history and on American history courses. Other books don't focus so clearly on the military aspects, in totality from a practical viewpoint.

Showcasing French participation in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution, this book shows the French army at the heart of revolutionary, social, and cultural change. Osman argues that efforts to transform the French army into a citizen army before 1789 prompted and helped shape the French Revolution.

"Larson's elegantly written dual biography reveals that the partnership of Franklin and Washington was indispensable to the success of the Revolution." -Gordon S. Wood From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, illuminating their partnership's enduring importance. NATIONAL BESTSELLER * One of Washington Post's "10 Books to Read in February" * One of USA Today's "Must-Read Books" of Winter 2020 * One of Publishers Weekly's "Top Ten" Spring 2020 Memoirs/Biographies Theirs was a three-decade-long bond that, more than any other pairing, would forge the United States. Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklin-an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north-and George Washington-a slavehold ing general from the agrarian south-were the indispensable authors of American independence and the two key partners in the attempt to craft a more perfect union at the Constitutional Convention, held in Franklin's Philadelphia and presided over by Washington. And yet their teamwork has been little remarked upon in the centuries since. Illuminating Franklin and Washington's relationship with striking new detail and energy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson shows that theirs was truly an intimate working friendship that amplified the talents of each for collective advancement of the American project. After long sup porting British rule, both Franklin and Washington became key early proponents of inde pendence. Their friendship gained historical significance during the American Revolution, when Franklin led America's diplomatic mission in Europe (securing money and an alliance with France) and Washington commanded the Continental Army. Victory required both of these efforts to succeed, and success, in turn, required their mutual coordination and cooperation. In the 1780s, the two sought to strengthen the union, leading to the framing and ratification of the Constitution, the founding document that bears their stamp. Franklin and Washington-the two most revered figures in the early republic-staked their lives and fortunes on the American experiment in liberty and were committed to its preservation. Today the United States is the world's great super power, and yet we also wrestle with the government Franklin and Washington created more than two centuries ago-the power of the executive branch, the principle of checks and balances, the electoral college-as well as the wounds of their compromise over slavery. Now, as the founding institutions appear under new stress, it is time to understand their origins through the fresh lens of Larson's Franklin & Washington, a major addition to the literature of the founding era.

Band of Giants brings to life the founders who fought for our independence. Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin are known to all; men like Morgan, Greene, and Wayne are less familiar. Yet the dreams of the politicians and theorists only became real because fighting men were willing to take on the grim, risky, brutal work of war. We know Fort Knox, but what about Henry Knox, the burly Boston bookseller who took over the American artillery at the age of 25? Eighteen counties in the United States commemorate Richard Montgomery, but do we know that this revered martyr launched a full-scale invasion of Canada? The soldiers of the Revolution were a diverse lot: merchants and mechanics, farmers and fishermen, paragons and drunkards. Most were ardent amateurs. Even George Washington, assigned to take over the army around Boston in 1775, consulted books on military tactics. Band of Giants vividly captures the fraught condition of the war-the bitterly divided populace, the lack of supplies, the repeated setbacks on the battlefield, and the appalling physical hardships. That these inexperienced warriors could take on and defeat the superpower of the day was one of the remarkable feats in world history.

A fresh examination of the life and crimes of the highest-ranking federal official ever tried for treason and espionage American Traitor examines the career of the notorious Gen. James Wilkinson, whose corruption and espionage exposed the United States to grave dangers during the early years of the republic. Wilkinson is largely forgotten today, which is unfortunate because his sordid story is a cautionary tale about unscrupulous actors who would take advantage of gaps in the law, oversight, and accountability for self-dealing. Wilkinson’s military career began during the Revolutionary War and continued through the War of 1812. As he rose to the rank of commanding general of the US Army, Wilkinson betrayed virtually everyone he worked with to advance his career and finances. He was a spy for Spain, plotted to have western territories split from the United States, and accepted kickbacks from contractors. His negligence and greed also caused the largest peacetime disaster in the history of the US Army. Howard W. Cox picks apart Wilkinson’s misdeeds with the eye of an experienced investigator. American Traitor offers the most in-depth analysis of Wilkinson’s court-martial trials and how he evaded efforts to hold him accountable. This astounding history of villainy in the early republic will fascinate anyone with an interest in the period as well as readers of espionage history.

Scattered in archives and historical societies across the United States are hundreds of volumes of manuscript music, copied by hand by eighteenth-century amateurs. Often overlooked, amateur music making played a key role in the construction of gender, class, race, and nation in the post-revolution years of the United States. These early Americans, seeking ways to present themselves as genteel, erudite, and pious, saw copying music by hand and performing it in intimate social groups as a way to make themselves-and their new nation-appear culturally sophisticated. Following a select group of amateur musicians, Cultivated by Hand makes the case that amateur music making was both consequential to American culture of the eighteenth century and aligned with other forms of self-fashioning. This interdisciplinary study explores the social and material practices of amateur music making, analyzing the materiality of manuscripts, tracing the lives of individual musicians, and uncovering their musical tastes and sensibilities. Author Glenda Goodman explores highly personal yet often denigrated experiences of musically "accomplished" female amateurs in particular, who grappled with finding a meaningful place in their lives for music. Revealing the presence of these unacknowledged subjects in music history, Cultivated by Hand reclaims the importance of such work and presents a class of musicians whose labors should be taken into account.

It's 1780, days after Benedict Arnold flees to the British when his treasonous plot to surrender the American fort at West Point is discovered and Gideon's Revolution is about to begin. General George Washington orders a secret mission for two Continental Army soldiers to go behind enemy lines, abduct Arnold, and return him to his countrymen to be tried and hanged. Washington selects one of the soldiers, Gideon Wheatley, for the mission because Arnold would trust him. Wheatley fought under Arnold's command at Saratoga and tended to the gravely wounded general for several months at Albany's military hospital. After feigning desertion to the British Army to join Arnold's corps of loyalists, Wheatley and his comrade John Champe seek out Washington's spies in New York and develop a plan to seize the traitor. But when the abduction is foiled, the soldiers are trapped by their own deceit and forced to fight alongside Arnold's raiding army, as if they were traitors themselves. Years after the war, pressed by memories that haunt him and seeking redemption, Wheatley must decide whether he alone can exact revenge on his former friend and commander, a decision that sends him across the Atlantic to London to find and confront Arnold. Gideon's Revolution is an American origin story based on real historical events, an odyssey that reveals the profound human tensions between loyalty and betrayal, allegiance and treason, revenge and the possibility of forgiveness.

John Leland (1754-1841) was one of the most influential and entertaining religious figures in early America. As an itinerant revivalist, he demonstrated an uncanny ability to connect with a popular audience, and contributed to the rise of a "democratized" Christianity in America. A tireless activist for the rights of conscience, Leland also waged a decades-long war for disestablishment, first in Virginia and then in New England. Leland advocated for full religious freedom for all-not merely Baptists and Protestants-and reportedly negotiated a deal with James Madison to include a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Leland developed a reputation for being "mad for politics" in early America, delivering political orations, publishing tracts, and mobilizing New England's Baptists on behalf of the Jeffersonian Republicans. He crowned his political activity by famously delivering a 1,200-pound cheese to Thomas Jefferson's White House. Leland also stood among eighteenth-century Virginia's most powerful anti-slavery advocates, and convinced one wealthy planter to emancipate over 400 of his slaves. Though among the most popular Baptists in America, Leland's fierce individualism and personal eccentricity often placed him at odds with other Baptist leaders. He refused ordination, abstained from the Lord's Supper, and violently opposed the rise of Baptist denominationalism. In the first-ever biography of Leland, Eric C. Smith recounts the story of this pivotal figure from American Religious History, whose long and eventful life provides a unique window into the remarkable transformations that swept American society from 1760 to 1840.

American independence was won not just with ideas and words, but also through force of arms. A key element of that battlefield victory was the combat leadership provided by a fierce list of hard-fighting warriors at the regimental, brigade, and division echelons or their naval equivalents. Founding Fighters recounts the stories of fifteen of the American Revolution's most important and colorful battlefield commanders. Collectively, these men participated in virtually all of the war's significant battles and campaigns. They experienced the conflict in all its variants: conventional contest between opposing armies, brutal guerilla struggle between partisans and regulars, frontier and naval fighting, and civil war pitting neighbors, and even family members against each other. These "founding fighters" helped win stunning victories, knew ignominious defeats, and suffered physical and spiritual privation through times when ultimate victory and independence appeared impossibly remote. While the "Founding Fathers" remain eternally popular with the general American reading public, a number of important Revolutionary-era military figures remain much less known (and, in some cases, forgotten). Cate rectifies this. Richard Montgomery, Charles Lee, and Horatio Gates were former British officers who turned from redcoats to rebels, casting their lots with the patriot cause. Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene were self-taught amateurs who shared New England roots and an innate genius for war. Benedict Arnold and John Paul Jones each possessed burning personal ambition and zeal for glory, traits that led one to ignominy and disgrace and the other to immortality as the father of the American Navy. A trioof South Carolinians--Thomas Sumter, Andrew Pickens, and Francis Marion--waged savage partisan warfare in some of the war's darkest days against British occupiers and their Loyalist supporters. Three rough and ready frontiersmen--Ethan Allen, George Rogers Clark, and Daniel Morgan--inspired their followers to important victories. More than a mere examination of battlefield exploits and personalities, however, this book illuminates fascinating aspects of American military and cultural history and offers a superb window for investigating two of the enduring themes of the American military tradition, civil-military relations and the respective roles and worth of professional and citizen soldiers.

Focuses on the military, political, diplomatic, and economic aspects of the War or Revolution - allowing the reader to grasp the complex web of interactions that occurred at different times throughout the war. This is a key topic in American history and on American history courses. Other books don't focus so clearly on the military aspects, in totality from a practical viewpoint.

The Revolutionary War was nearing its end in early 1783. In his Hudson Highlands stronghold, General Washington kept a wary eye on the British force in New York City, 60 miles away. His soldiers, owed months of back pay and promised pensions, chafed under martial authority. A nationalist faction in Congress seized upon this discontent to instigate the Newburgh Conspiracy, a plot by Continental Army officers to menace civil officials who opposed the Impost, a 5% tax on imports to be collected by the central government, to satisfy the nation's debts. The army--by this time a formidable force of seasoned veterans--was provoked into threatening the very liberties it had fought to defend. This book examines this last major crisis of the Revolution, when Washington stood between his men and the American people.

From December 1777 through June 1778, the American Revolution achieved a remarkable turnaround. I these months the Continental Army recovered from abject demoralization at Valley Forge to achieve a stunning victory against the British at Monmouth Courthouse. This compelling history chronicles how the war began to turn-from the consequential leadership of General Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette to the experiences of the men who marched and fought in the ranks-and reexamines one of the most controversial periods of early American history.

* Includes new maps and an expanded treatment of the War of 1812, allowing students to grasp further dimensions of the conflict and the emergence of the United States. * Broad scope and interdisciplinary approach fully contextualize the Revolution, giving readers a comprehensive view of the era. * Fourth edition has been fully revised and updated to incorporate the insights of the latest scholarship throughout.

Originally published in 1979, this was the first biography of Jonathan Potts, a prominent Pennsylvania Quaker and physician who served in the Continental army during the Revolutionary War. It was also the first study to be published since 1931 of the role of medical doctors in the northern campaigns. No detailed memoir by an army physician or surgeon has survived to document the conditions they faced. The military career of Dr. Potts, reconstructed here from source materials, including first-hand accounts by Potts and his contemporaries provides considerable information to fill this historical gap.

Originally published in 2011, this volume publishes the letters of Jeremy Belknap and Ebenezer Hazard. The letters encompassed twenty years, from 1779 to 1798, during a time when the United States was warring against England, establishing new governments, building a national identity, exploring the hinterland, and refining an American identity in prose and verse. The letters of Hazard and Belknap tell of an age when science and religion had not yet divorced due to irreconcilable differences, when the most profound philosophy nestled comfortably next to a childlike fascination with the remarkable. The two friends explored in their epistles the nature of love, death, and piety; the best way for humans to govern themselves; matters of religious and scientific truth and the best means to arrive at it; the methods and writing of history; human credulity; and the wonders of nature.

Originally published in 1967, this book is a concise and ideal study of one of the most important periods of American history and is ideal for A Level students and as an introduction for undergraduates. It discusses the social, economic and political context for Lincoln's meteoric rise and the legacy of his many achievements including the abolition of slavery.