Sir John St. Clair served as the Deputy Quartermaster General for General Edward Braddock during his campaign to capture Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio in 1755. St. Clair had great responsibilities for the Braddock Campaign, and he was the first British Deputy Quartermaster General to serve in North America in its history. The traditional interpretation of the campaign is that Braddock was old, slow, conservative, a martinet, focused upon discipline of his soldiers, poorly versed in tactics, uninterested in his soldiers or their welfare, logistically naive, unwilling to cooperate with the colonists, and disdainful of the specific conditions on the Virginia frontier. A virtual litany of logistical, military and leadership crimes has been laid at Braddock's feet. The St. Clair correspondence that comprises the core of this study of the Braddock Campaign presents a radically different interpretation of General Braddock. This study further presents a study of St. Clair's role as Quartermaster on the subsequent, and successful, 1758 Campaign by Brigadier General John Forbes against Fort Duquesne. This new transcription of St. Clair's correspondence offers, for the first time, the possibility to perform a comprehensive study of the logistics that facilitated both the Braddock and Forbes Campaign.

In 1760, General Jeffery Amherst led the British campaign that captured Montreal and began the end of French colonial rule in North America. All Canada in the Hands of the British is a detailed account of Amherst's successful military strategy and soldiers' experiences on both sides. Newly promoted general Jeffery Amherst took command of British forces in North America in 1759 and soon secured victories at Fort Duquesne, Louisbourg, Quebec, Fort Ticonderoga, and Niagara. In 1760 William Pitt, head of the British government, commanded Amherst to eliminate French rule in Canada. During the ensuing campaign, Amherst confronted French resurgence at Quebec and mounted sieges at Isle aux Noix and Fort Levis, both of which were made difficult by French strategic placements on nearby islands. As historian Douglas R. Cubbison demonstrates, however, Amherst was well before his time in strategy and tactics, and his forces crushed French resistance. In this first book-length study of Amherst's campaign, Cubbison examines the three principal columns that Amherst's army comprised, only one of which was under his direct command. Cubbison argues that Amherst's success against the French relied on his employment of command, control, communications, and intelligence. Cubbison also shows how well Brigadier General James Murray's use of what is today called population-centric counterinsurgency corresponded with Amherst's strategic oversight and victory. Using archival materials, archaeological evidence, and the firsthand accounts of junior provincial soldiers, Cubbison takes us from the eighteenth-century antagonisms between the British and French in the New World through the Seven Years' War, to the final siege and its historic significance for colonial Canada. In one of the most decisive victories of the Seven Years' War, Amherst was able, after a mere four weeks, to claim all of Canada. All Canada in the Hands of the British will change how military historians and enthusiasts understand the nature of British colonial battle strategy.

The American victory over the British at Saratoga in 1777 was arguably the pivotal event of the American Revolutionary War. The British defeat led France and Spain to declare war on Britain, transforming a colonial uprising into a world war and, by distracting the British with a European conflict, assuring the colonists' success. The British troops at Saratoga were led by Lieutenant General John Burgoyne, and two years after his defeat he faced a parliamentary investigation into his conduct of the campaign.
In "Burgoyne and the Saratoga Campaign," Douglas R. Cubbison presents the papers that Burgoyne gathered preparatory to his appearance before Parliament, together with Cubbison's own interpretive narrative of the campaign, based on these documents and other sources. The papers, most of them published here for the first time, comprise Burgoyne's correspondence with the governor general of Canada, the British secretary of state for America, and the commander of the British army during the Saratoga expedition. The letters and reports outline the campaign's political organization and planning, logistical preparations, and implementation.
Burgoyne is one of the most colorful and fascinating figures of the American Revolution. A successful British commander in Portugal during the Seven Years' War, he was also a popular playwright, and those of his letters included and carefully annotated here reflect his literary gifts. At the outbreak of the revolution in 1775, Burgoyne was promoted to major general. Thanks largely to his political connections, he was dispatched in 1776 to lead the detachment of the British army sent to stop the rebels from seizing Canada. Cubbison concludes that the ultimate defeat of this expedition at Saratoga was due to lax planning in London and in the field. Burgoyne's cavalry career in Europe had not prepared him for warfare along the waterways and deep in the woods of Canada and New York. The general also seriously underestimated the capabilities of the American rebels.
The documents Burgoyne assembled in 1779--and Cubbison's narrative and analysis of the challenges faced by Burgoyne and his associates--are crucial for understanding this turning point in the Revolutionary War.