Any recommendations?

Just finished "1776" by David McCullough. Was very interesting.

And, just started "His Excellency: George Washington" by Joseph Ellis. Too soon to tell.

"1776" as mentioned is good, but the best I've ever read is the series by Allen Eckert. The Winning of America series consists of six volumes, including The Frontiersmen, Wilderness Empire, The Conquerors, The Wilderness War, Gateway to Empire, and Twilight of Empire. These are written so as to flow like a story, and as each book goes along he, I can't think of the literary term, puts a little number at the end of many paragraphs referencing a source for the info in the back of the book. I can't recommend them highly enough.

See if you can locate a copy of "Scalps and Tomahawks", edited by Fredrick Drimmer, Coward-McCann, NY. NY. 1961

Its a very good narritive of Indian captivity 1750 to 1870 with 10 pages of footnotes.

I'll recommend Fusiliers by Mark Urban. The 23rd Regiment (the Royal Welsh Fusiliers), were present in America from Lexington Green in 1775 to Yorktown in 1781. The book traces the regiment and its battles from Bunker Hill, through the 1777 campaign in PA, to SC, the Battle of Camden, into NC and the Battle of Guilford Courthouse and finally to Yorktown. I enjoy a book that covers an entire war through the experience of one unit and this book is of that type.

I haven't read it in a long time, but isn't Last of the Mohicans also set during those wars?

As a kid growing up in the 50s I enjoyed my American History textbooks and read everything I could find on the Revolution. Now they have probably removed that part of our heritage from the textbooks.

I read the whole series along time ago and really enjoyed it.
Even though it's fiction, the places and events are accurate.

Also, even though the movie was good, it is NOTHING like the book. IIRC, the series starts with "The Deerslayer".

"The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War" by Fred Anderson and "The Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in North America" by the same author have gotten good reviews.

Have not personally got around to reading them yet. A good portion of the N. American fighting occurred close by me.

Washington should have been killed twice during the French and Indian war. Once with Gen. Braddock when Braddock was killed not far from where I live. The second time was at Fort Necessity not far from the Braddock attack when it rained and both sides powder got wet. The French stopped the Indians from killing him and his men and made him sign an agreement to leave the country. He didn't leave.

By far Allen Eckert!

You will feel like you are part of the experience!

Williams Fowler's Empires at War is very good...came out a few years ago.

It sets what we call the French and Indian War in context....it was the Seven Years War in Europe...maybe the first real world war, since it was fought in India, Europe, West Africa, the Caribbean, North America, and wherever the Royal Navy could find a Frenchman at sea.

It was one of several sequels to what we called Queen Anne's war in the early 1700s, which was the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe.

http://www.amazon.com/Empires-War-Struggle-America-1754-1763/dp/0802714110


I have read Crucible of War that Battue listed and recommend it as well.

2 for now.

French & Indian "A Few Acres Of Snow" by Robert Leckie.
Revolution "An Angel in The Whirlwind" by Benson Bobrick.
I got some other I recomend too, but I've gotta hunt them up!
7mm

When I was at the Saratoga Battlefield earlier this year I picked up the Richard Ketchum upon the recommendation of the Park Rangers. I found it an excellent read on the Saratoga Campaign.

"Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War"
Richard M. Ketchum

http://www.amazon.com/Saratoga-Turn...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1281498025&sr=1-1

or tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/237d8st

I found this book a good read on the Mohawk Valley during the F&I and Revolutionary Wars.

"Bloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York's Frontier"
Richard Berleth

http://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Mohawk...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1281498429&sr=1-1

or
http://tinyurl.com/2dvsdzh

Finally, I agree with Battue and Steve_NO about Fred Anderson's book. I am currently about halfway through the 800 pages. The author is a bit of cynic and has some interesting thoughts.

For example, he notes that George Washington recounted that doctors treating the wounded from Braddock's defeat found large numbers of the wounds were from musket balls more in line with the Brown Bess than indian rifles. That, with contemporary accounts of how many soldiers were shot down by leaderless British troops randomly firing volleys, seems to imply a "Death Blossom".

Another example, is during the Bloody Morning Scout. He matter of factly points out that the abject rout of American troops from that ambush was the fastest way to get out of the kill zone. And coupled with the very effective fighting withdrawal by the accompaning Mohawk scouts, probably saved hundreds of lives. For those not familiar with the battle, not to worry. The Americans eventually rallied, defeated the pursuers, captured the French Commanding General, retook the ambush zone and surprised the ambushers who were still looting the bodies. They then killed large numbers of the ambushers.

"Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766"
Fred Anderson

http://www.amazon.com/Crucible-War-...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1281498936&sr=1-1

or

http://tinyurl.com/2emhcl2

I've enjoyed reading "A Few Acres of Snow" and "George Washington's War" both by Robert Leckie. This was the same Robert Leckie that was portrayed in HBO's "Pacific."

founding Brothers by Ellis

+2 my favorite is the Frontiersman.


maddog

Also recommend "Patriots, The Men Who Started the American Revolution" by AJ Langguth.

Agree with above comments on "1776" and "Wilderness Empire". I have the "Frontiersman" on order.

Exkert is goods and entertaining, but he has frequently been proven wrong in many specific particulars, so much so that he is regarded as a general guide at best to serious reenacting types.

To give one example for a firearms board; serious scholarship is showing that it was probably the Indians who were the serious riflemen of the Frontier, certainly in terms of numbers in the beginning.

F&I

A Crucible of War Fred Anderson. Cynical, as noted earlier, but probably that is a healthy way to look at all wars.

Redcoats Steven Brumwell. Fascinating study of the men who filled the British ranks, both English and Colonials.

White Devil Steven Brumwell. A Robert Rogers biography. Rogers was the original Ranger, and came up with his famous set of rules, still very relevant today. Much of the book dwells on the St Francis raid, which took the Abenakis (a name hardly recalled today, but those guys were bad in their day) out of the war.

War on the Run John Ross. Four stars for this one, a Robert Rogers biography that out-does Brumwell. Gives a much better account of Rogers' role versus the British aristocracy and high command. A much better account too of his abortive efforts against the Cherokee, and his political assassination by his enemies when he was in command at Detroit. Also leads into the Rev War, where Rogers chose the wrong side.

Through So Many Dangers Robert Kirk. Probably the best captivity account. Kirk was a member of a Highland Regiment captured outside of Fort Pitt. IIRC he lived with the Indians in the Ohio Country for two years before returning to his regiment. He wrote his memoirs while he was stationed in Ireland. A good account of Indian society and the Ohio Country.

Rev. War

Darn it, as so often happens I cannot lay a hand on the FIRST book I would recommend about the American Revolution. Written by a British Historian who has spent much time in America (Italian surname) specifically in response to the movie "The Patriot". The guy's purpose was to cut through all the popular fictitious beliefs that have become part of our national lore. A great book, I'll post when I find it. A thoroughly cynical book.

Washington's Crossing David Hackett Fischer. Speaking of popular fictitious beliefs. We commonly trivialize Washington's crossing of the Delaware. This well written book puts this remarkable achievement in context; a brilliant counterstroke executed under conditions of great hardship by an enemy (us) that should have been down and out. Also gives a well-written overview of the fall of New York and Washington's retreat across Jersey.

The Battle for New York Barnet Schecter. Almost nobody knows about this one, the author is a New York City school teacher. A highly detailed and well-written account of the British landing on Long Island and the subsequent defeat of the Rebels around New York.

"Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War" Already mentioned above.

I'm reading a really good biography about Conrad Weiser right now. Paul Wallace wrote it but I imagine it's hard to find.

Read "Hornet's Nest" (Into the Hornet's Nest?) by Jimmy Carter
It is a fiction based on Revolutionary War life in the south.
He made a lousy president, but it is a very good read.

Huh? got a cite?

that would be a neat trick considering their weapons were poor quality smoothbore trade muskets or worn out smoothbores, usually damaged or defective captures from European wars dumped on the "savage" market.

I'd like to see some scholarship on (a)use of rifles..which at that time were all individually crafted..by Indians (b) any example in history of someone witnessing Indians shooting target practice.

just sayin'

Daniel Boone said he could always outshoot Indians in target matches because they jerked the trigger all the time.

+1 on 1776

Here is a good one you'd enjoy Steelie.

Another vote for the Eckert books.

The Frontiersmen is an awesome book.

I used to teach my students a short lesson on Washington, Fort Necessity and the whole affair. It's an amazing story for several reasons. I bet the vast majority of Americans have never even heard about it though.

I have a copy of "A Rabble in Arms" by Ken Roberts. Someone here at the fire sent it to me, I can't remember who.
If you want it I'll pass it along, just pm me an addy.

If you want fiction, James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Series is really good, light reading & entertaining.

The 3 books in the collection are "The Deerslayer", "The Pathfinder", and "The Last of the Mohicans".

All feature the main character Natty Bumpo, aka, Hawkeye at various stages of his life.

MM

Thanks all, my cart at Amazon is full.

I probably pass Braddocks grave site and Fort Necessity 20 times a year.

The Fort was nothing more a circle of planks stuck in the ground that surrounded a block house. They have a new museum on the grounds that I have yet not had the chance to visit. Washington called it "A Charming field for an encounter"

At this stage of his life Washington's fort building skills were lacking to say the least.


An interesting and violent time for all present.

Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts, not a fast read. It's an old historical fiction. It is more about Robert Rogers. Not a page burner though.

Interesting quote from Anderson, "The Crucible of War", page 411, on the change in the Redcoats' (In America) marksmanship during the Seven Years War:

Another vote for "Washington's Crossing" by Fischer and "An Angel in the Whirlwind" by Bobrick.

You might as well read "Albion's Seed" by Fischer because it explains the roots of our nation's present divisions.

Numerous, go hang out on a reenactor board....

The basic question begins with numbers, as per www.americanlongrifles.org

No technological development occurs in a vacuum, and the American longrifle as a technological as well as an artistic development was no exception. It is generally accepted that the American longrifle evolved from the Jaeger rifle brought to the colonies by German gunsmiths in the early 1700�s and most certainly imported in some quantity along with English arms up until the American Revolution. The Jaeger was a short, stocky, usually large caliber, flintlock rifle designed for hunting by the well to do in the fields and forests of Europe. At one time, some thought that rifling and a patched ball were innovations unique to the American longrifle. They weren�t. These things were known to European gunsmiths for at least two centuries before the American longrifle and were incorporated into the Jaeger. Some also have the impression that the Jaeger was heavy and hard to handle. They were not. From personal experience, I know that Jaegers were surprisingly light and easy to handle. In fact, I would much prefer to carry a Jaeger in the woods than a typical longrifle.

That begs the question, why were changes made? Well, the standard answer has been something along the lines that the American longhunter needed an economical, accurate, and long range gun to put food on the table, take skins for cash, and protect their families from Indian raiders. The Jaeger rifle was accurate but it was not necessarily a long range gun or economical in terms of lead.

It has been thought that in order to accommodate the needs of the longhunter, the early gunsmiths started to elongate the barrel and reduce the caliber of their rifles. These two design changes did three basic things; increase accuracy and range, and decrease the amount of lead used for bullets. It is easy to see how a longer barrel could increase accuracy for long range shots, but the added length also allowed for the effective use of larger powder loads to support those long range shots. The more powder you put down the barrel, the more time and therefore more barrel length you need for the powder to fully combust.

The potential to use higher powder loads and the higher muzzle velocity that that produces also supports the use of smaller balls. A smaller ball with a fully combusted higher powder load can have the same impact energy as a larger ball with a smaller charge. The higher muzzle velocity will also give you a flatter ballistic trajectory and longer range. Lastly, the smaller ball size means less lead to buy and carry and less powder for small game at short distances.

All in all, the American longhunter got economy along with the ability to make long range shots and take down large game if needed. At least, this is the standard answer that you will glean from some of the earlier research.

While I have generally accepted this explanation for the elongation of the barrel and reduction in bore size in the American longrifle, the argument has always seemed to be a little too contrived and does have some problems. Peter A. Alexander, in his new book The Gunsmith of Grenville County-Building the American Longrifle, proposes another theory based on some of George Shumway's research.

While no one denies the influence of the Jaeger on the development of the American longrifle, Peter Alexander proposes that the English trade gun had as much influence as the Jaeger. The argument goes that there were not enough white longhunters to account for all the rifles we know were made and most frontier settlers did not have guns of any type.

Who then, owned all those early longrifles. The answer, according to Alexander, is the Indians. He contends that, as the primary harvesters of furs and skins on the North American continent at the time, the Indians had the most need of rifles and the wealth from the fur trade to buy them. This argument has the ring of truth to me.

According to Alexander, the real reason for the longer barreled American rifle, was that the Indians had become accustomed to the long barreled English trade guns and wanted rifles of similar form. The German gunsmiths here, and possibly in Germany, supplied what their customers wanted. There may have been more style than substance at work in the evolution of the American longrifle. Imagine that!

When Alexander and Shumway talk longrifles, people listen....



But then ya gotta look at specific examples, to do them all would require pages and pages. But, starting from the F&I era, someone mentioned Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania agent to the Iroquois....

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

One day Shickellamy said to Conrad Weiser, �I have had a dream. I dreamed that Tarachiawagon gave me a new rifle.� Conrad, who owed much of his success to his strict observance of Indian etiquette (which believed all dreams would eventually come true), is said to have answered the dream with the rifle, and then to have spoken for himself.

�I, too, have had a dream,� he said. �I dreamed that Shickellamy gave me an island in the Susquehanna,� and he indicated the Island of Que at the mouth of Penn�s Creek, on the site of what is now the town of Selinsgrove. The old chief, we are told, matched Weiser�s politeness, but, �Conrad,� he said, �let us never dream again.�



OK, so oral history can be wrong. Robert Kirk however, Scottish captive in the Ohio Country in the 1760's ("Through So Many Dangers", mentioned above), when Boone was still a teenager, specifically mentions buying a rifle the first time he went in to trade with his Indian 'family'.

By that time the bigger, more settled Indian towns could have glass windows, iron hinges, sawn timber houses, orchards, split rail fences the works... and blacksmiths. Source by the 1770's mention Delawares repairing their own rifles in the Diaries of David Zeisberger, Moravian missionary, 1772-1781.




About that time, down South, the British found themselves on the receiving end of Cherokee sniping...

http://www.historyonfilm.com/docs/cherokee-war.htm

Lyttelton was replaced by William Bull in the spring of 1760 and the damage caused by the raids persuaded Major General Jeffrey Amherst to send eleven hundred regulars, including a battalion of Highlanders, under command of Colonel Archibald Montgomery. His second-in-command was Major James Grant, who had been captured at Duquesne and recently exchanged for a French officer.

Montgomery�s men arrived at Charleston in early April and marched through Cherokee territory to relieve Fort Prince George, burning numerous towns along the way. However, when the expedition moved into more mountainous terrain in late June, Cherokee rifles and guerrilla tactics enabled them to wear down the British.

If ya take the time to find the primary sources, the Brits were getting picked off at ranges measured in hundreds of yards.





Um, no, actually. Comes down to this, the Indians were "longhunters" (ie. professional hunters in the back country) in large numbers decades before Daniel Boone crossed the mountains. In the 1740's those Cherokee's were trading up to 150,000 "bucks" (deer skins) annually at Savannah.

The Indian trade was big business, in fact the ONLY business in the interior on the other side of the settlement line. Big business too cranking out workable quality smoothbores and knives etc for this trade back in England.

So much so that Indian trade guns, usually long barrelled (see the longrifle link up top) are now classified into "types" or periods, with known English makers. Surviving examples (and their $1,800 repros) are well balanced, lightweight and functional. Also, almost all the surviving traders' invoices list different grades of trade guns.

So where were an aproximatley 4,000 Cherokee men of combat age (to name just one tribe) getting them rifles? Seems like smiths in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland stepped in to fill the void.

Up north, Sir William Johnson's papers have him doling out rifles to the Iroquois by the barrel-full over the decades, so much so that if you are going to reenact that period up there, if you wanna carry a rifle and be from Upstate New York you had better come as an Indian.

In the Rev War period the most documented rifles we know of along the Mohawk valley is in the post-war reimbursement claims of the American-allied Oneidas and Tuscaroras. This despite the fact that by that time the Iroquois were but a small fraction of the population up there, and the Oneidas and Tuscaroras fewer still (the rest of the Iroquois sided with the Brits, but the documentation suggests they were similarly armed).

Comes down to this; ain't saying the Indians were geniuses, but in the backwoods, a rifle would have the same appeal to them as it would to a Boone or Kenton... accuracy and above all... economy of shot and powder.

In those brief decades of the 1700's where they were still present in numbers in the back country before getting swamped by diseases and Whites, we know that Indian towns pretty much looked like Euro villages, so much cultural and technological transfer had occurred. Why is it so surprising they would adopt rifles too?

Braddock's men were picked off like chickens, and in that slow moving Minnisink Ford battle thread I got, Colonials were too.

Sorta like them Redcoats in front of Andy Jackson's lines at New Orleans decades later, for the same reason, marksmanship as carried out with rifles...

Birdwatcher

Just to flog the topic a bit more.

This here's my generic mid/late-mid 18th Century "fowler", about $1,400 as delivered....


.62 caliber as virtually all modern repro fowlers are (so that 20 gauge stuff works). 42" barrel, about 10 pounds. Just a reasonably good and somewhat accurate generic flinter smoothbore, appropriate to miltia or Tory. The Mossberg of its day.








There are good repros of trade guns from the Southeast available, just like the originals... long and slender, over five feet tall, 48" .62 barrel, just 7 pounds. I've seen one and as you might imagine, they are an absolute joy to handle. Because of the time required to make 'em, they start at about $2,000. If my fowler is a Mossberg 500, a Southeast trade gun is like one of your shotguns... top of the line.



Anyways, since I happen to have this guy's drawing on hand. Here's a sketch from the Rev. War, from a Hessian Officer on the side of the Brits...... Johanne Von Ewald, an excellent observer in that conflict who's journal is an invaluable source (he liked and admired his American opponents, and was blown away how citizen-soldiers took on the best that Europe had to offer and won).

In 1778, Von Ewald was present at the Battle of the Bronx, where a unit of 48 Stockbridge Indians (Mohicans) fighting on the American side, sadly misused as on that occasion as regular line infantry, were out-flanked and overrun by Tarleton's cavalry and Simcoe's Queen's Rangers (light infantry).

http://www.americanrevolution.org/ind3.html

From Col. Simcoe's own narrative we read:

The Stockbridge Indians, about sixty in number, excellent marksmen, had just joined Mr. Washington's army.




Von Ewald, crossing the battlefield after the fact came across their bodies, and was fascinated enough by their arms and accoutrements that he took the time to draw one....




That guy is carrying a bow and a rifle (and note the use of a sling, along with the pre-Viet Cong heavy linen pajamas, this being an image that knocks re-enactors on their ear ).

As an aside, the Stockbridges, composed mostly of remnants of various New England/New York Algonquin groups, were an acculturated Christian Indian community living where the present town of Stockbridge, Mass now stands (as another aside, it was their Christian Minister, Samuel Kirkland, that convinced the aforementioned Oneidas split with the league to go over to the Americans too). The loss of over 40 of the Stockbridge fighting-age men, virtually all of them, in service to the Americans was a blow from which the community never recovered.

Hardly anyone remembers them today.

Birdwatcher

Thanks Birdwatcher,

You saved us all the price of a book.

JM

WAIT! I ain't done yet....

Readers of "White Devil" and "War on the Run" from the list above may recall that Robert Rogers had recruited heavily from among the Stockbridge Indians to add to the ranks of his famous Rangers in the F&I war, twenty years earlier....

...but that ain't why I ain't done....

I would be remiss if I brought up Von Ewald's name without mentioning his ringing endorsement of his American foes, a gift to all of us still.

From his journals, in response to a stated contempt of the Rebels.....

http://www.americanrevolution.org/hessians/hess19.html

"He who has served against this nation, will be convinced of the contrary, and will not be able to speak of them with contempt."

Ewald relates, with great admiration, the gallant taking of Stony Point by the Americans, under Anthony Wayne, on the 16th Of July, 1779.

"Do not these men deserve to be admired? who, but a few years before, had been lawyers, doctors, ministers, or farmers, and who, in so short a time, made themselves excellent officers, putting to shame so many of our profession who have grown gray under arms, but who would have been in a frightful state of mind if they had been commissioned to carry out such a plan.

I shall perhaps be told that these men were endowed by nature with a great talent for war. This may be the case with one or another of them, but, on the whole, nature is not so extravagant with her favors. Allow me to say it, these people did not choose military service as a refuge, as the nobility generally does, nor as a house of correction for an illbred son who would not learn anything at the academies, as is often the case among the middle classes, but they chose this profession with the firm resolution of being zealous in every way, of serving their country usefully, and of pushing themselves forward by their merits.

I was sometimes astonished when American baggage fell into our hands during that war to see how every wretched knapsack, in which were only a few shirts and a pair of torn breeches, would be filled up with military books. For instance, the 'Instructions of the King of Prussia to his Generals,' Thielke's 'Field Engineer,' the partisans 'Jenny' and 'Grandmaison,' and other similar books, which had all been translated into English, came into my hands a hundred times through our soldiers.

This was a true indication that the officers of this army studied the art of war while in camp, which was not the case with the opponents of the Americans, whose portmanteaus were rather filled with bags of hair-powder, boxes of sweet-smelling pomatum, cards (instead of maps), and then often, on top of all, some novels or stage plays."


If ya read up on the Hessians in combat, when it came to war ya could sure tell they were the ancestors of the Wermacht. Von Ewald was a professional soldier all his life AND a Hessian, so coming from a guy like him, his endorsement really carries weight.

Thank you Johann

Birdwatcher