Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the second volume of the landmark American Revolution trilogy by the bestselling author of The British Are Coming, George Washington’s army fights on the knife edge between victory and defeat.
“This is great history . . . compulsively readable . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize–winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution—which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton—was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had barely escaped annihilation by the world’s most formidable fighting force.
Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king’s task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans.
Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and materiel he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans—even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, and Charleston, a winter of misery at Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.
Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson’s brilliant account of the lethal conflict between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a new perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on its citizens.
“This is great history . . . compulsively readable . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize–winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution—which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton—was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had barely escaped annihilation by the world’s most formidable fighting force.
Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king’s task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans.
Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and materiel he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans—even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, and Charleston, a winter of misery at Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.
Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson’s brilliant account of the lethal conflict between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a new perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on its citizens.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Rick Atkinson takes his place among the greatest of all historians. This superb second volume in his Revolution Trilogy is that rare narrative that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Familiar characters become dimensional and complicated, new ones burst to life vividly, and the battles and struggles that created our country now have clarity and meaning.”—Ken Burns
“This is great history. . . . We witness Washington mature as a commander; we come to understand why Arnold sells his allegiance; and we recognize King George’s quandary as his generals repeatedly fail to draw this ruinously expensive conflict to an end[JS1] . . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times
“Mr. Atkinson sustains dramatic tension in a detailed, comprehensive account of the Revolution’s pivotal middle years. . . . He deftly sketches personalities and incidents while stressing the uncertainty all those involved felt about the outcome.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Atkinson writes with tremendous verve and detail. The result is a book that infuses the events… of the war with striking vibrancy, essentially bringing the conflict to life again. . . . Regular readers of history will have already heard of many of the people Atkinson describes—but after finishing this book, they might feel like they have met them.”—The Washington Post
“[Atkinson] has the journalist’s stylistic flair but a stupendous appetite for research that would put many a gray-haired Ph.D. to shame. . . . The result, in The Fate of the Day, is a massive, and massively enjoyable, excursion into the embattled history of the American republic, its imperial British enemy, and its opportunistic ally, France.”—Allen C. Guelzo, The Washington Free Beacon
“[Atkinson] is vivifying the Revolutionary War in his mesmerizing histories The British Are Coming and The Fate of the Day. The latter, the second book in a planned trilogy . . . is being devoured by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.”—Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
“[Atkinson] provides amazing detail and masterful staging. You’re in the action, seeing the violence that bitterly divided neighbors and families and understanding how close-run the war was. . . . Two of Mr. Atkinson’s three volumes are out. . . . I can’t wait for the third.”—Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
“The Fate of the Day contains those intimate details of conflicts that provide the reader a keen sense of the chaos and terror with which eighteenth-century battles were conducted. . . . [A] compelling, clear narrative, this volume is worth reading with the same care as it was written.”—Journal of the American Revolution
“[A] riveting narrative. . . . Meticulously researched and marvelously told. . . . The Fate of The Day is a triumph of narrative history and cements Atkinson’s place among America’s finest popular historians.”—ARMY Magazine
“As ever with Atkinson, an exemplary work of narrative history.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Epic in scale but rich in detail, this captures the drama and world-historical significance of the revolution.”—Publishers Weekly
“[The Fate of the Day] is not only an entertaining story, but more importantly, a comprehensive addition to a well-studied period of history. For readers of American history, this is a must-have volume.”—Booklist
“This is great history. . . . We witness Washington mature as a commander; we come to understand why Arnold sells his allegiance; and we recognize King George’s quandary as his generals repeatedly fail to draw this ruinously expensive conflict to an end[JS1] . . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times
“Mr. Atkinson sustains dramatic tension in a detailed, comprehensive account of the Revolution’s pivotal middle years. . . . He deftly sketches personalities and incidents while stressing the uncertainty all those involved felt about the outcome.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Atkinson writes with tremendous verve and detail. The result is a book that infuses the events… of the war with striking vibrancy, essentially bringing the conflict to life again. . . . Regular readers of history will have already heard of many of the people Atkinson describes—but after finishing this book, they might feel like they have met them.”—The Washington Post
“[Atkinson] has the journalist’s stylistic flair but a stupendous appetite for research that would put many a gray-haired Ph.D. to shame. . . . The result, in The Fate of the Day, is a massive, and massively enjoyable, excursion into the embattled history of the American republic, its imperial British enemy, and its opportunistic ally, France.”—Allen C. Guelzo, The Washington Free Beacon
“[Atkinson] is vivifying the Revolutionary War in his mesmerizing histories The British Are Coming and The Fate of the Day. The latter, the second book in a planned trilogy . . . is being devoured by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.”—Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
“[Atkinson] provides amazing detail and masterful staging. You’re in the action, seeing the violence that bitterly divided neighbors and families and understanding how close-run the war was. . . . Two of Mr. Atkinson’s three volumes are out. . . . I can’t wait for the third.”—Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
“The Fate of the Day contains those intimate details of conflicts that provide the reader a keen sense of the chaos and terror with which eighteenth-century battles were conducted. . . . [A] compelling, clear narrative, this volume is worth reading with the same care as it was written.”—Journal of the American Revolution
“[A] riveting narrative. . . . Meticulously researched and marvelously told. . . . The Fate of The Day is a triumph of narrative history and cements Atkinson’s place among America’s finest popular historians.”—ARMY Magazine
“As ever with Atkinson, an exemplary work of narrative history.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Epic in scale but rich in detail, this captures the drama and world-historical significance of the revolution.”—Publishers Weekly
“[The Fate of the Day] is not only an entertaining story, but more importantly, a comprehensive addition to a well-studied period of history. For readers of American history, this is a must-have volume.”—Booklist
About the Author
Rick Atkinson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eight narrative histories about five American wars, including The Long Gray Line, the Liberation Trilogy (An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light), and The British Are Coming, the first volume of the Revolution Trilogy. He has won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes for history and journalism.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1.
The March of Annihilation
Fort Ticonderoga, New York, July–August 1777
A rattle of drums at four a.m. on July 1, 1777, roused the British encampment at Crown Point, on the western lip of Lake Champlain. Soldiers stumbled from their tents, shrugged on their uniform coats, and gobbled down a cold breakfast with the indifference of men who expected no better. For the past fortnight the invasion force of eight thousand troops had sailed and rowed south for a hundred miles, from the Richelieu River in Quebec to within fifteen miles of the American stronghold at Fort Ticonderoga. Through mischance and rebel defiance, many of these same redcoats had failed to capture the fortress eight months earlier, despite standing at the gates. Now the prize again lay within grasp, and this time they intended to win through. “We are to contend for the king and the constitution of Great Britain, to vindicate law and to relieve the oppressed,” orders issued the previous evening proclaimed. “This army must not retreat.”
By five a.m., the sun had crested the great shoulders of the Green Mountains to the east, gilding the craggy Adirondacks in the west. Platoon after platoon scuffed down to the shoreline to clamber aboard gunboats, longboats, and six-oared, flat-bottomed bateaux. Shouted orders carried across the lake, along with the creak of capstans and oarlocks. Soon the first vessels pulled away from the anchorage, to assemble mid-lake in battle formation. Army musicians caught the moment and struck up martial airs. “The music and drums of the different regiments were continually playing,” a Royal Artillery lieutenant wrote, “and contributed to make the scene and passage extremely pleasant.”
More than a hundred birch-bark canoes led the flotilla. Each carried twenty to thirty warriors, mostly Iroquois sporting nose rings, slitted earlobes, and feathers in tufted topknots, their eyelids and cheeks daubed with vermilion paint. Some wore knife sheaths made from lynx skins and, a British officer recorded, an “arse clout, or covering for the privities.”
Arrayed across the mile-wide lake behind the Indian vanguard came the main battle force, “the most complete and splendid regatta you can possibly conceive,” a witness reported: the three-masted frigate Royal George, built by shipwrights in Canada during the winter and carrying 26 guns, and smaller vessels named Inflexible, Carleton, Maria, and Royal Convert, as well as 44 gunboats, 23 longboats, 26 cutters, 260 bateaux, and a wallowing ninety-one-foot radeau, or raft, the Thunderer, ferrying barreled gunpowder and heavy cannons intended to blast Ticonderoga’s walls to rubble. A brig, a gundalow, and a sloop—Washington, Jersey, and Lee—had been captured in October from the rebel general turned commodore Benedict Arnold, whose gallant, forlorn rearguard fight in these very waters had helped delay the earlier British attack until winter forced the invaders back to Canada. All told, this squadron carried 133 naval guns to complement the army’s 130 field cannons, mortars, and howitzers, each barrel stamped with the king’s monogram or other symbols of possession. Storeships and lake transports continued to arrive at Crown Point from the north, laden with almost five thousand tons of salt pork, hard biscuits, and other rations, along with siege tools, ammunition, rum, cattle, and civilian camp followers, whose numbers officially included 225 women and 500 children, although some hyperbolists would claim that the combined figure actually approached two thousand.
“It looked,” wrote Corporal Roger Lamb of the 9th Regiment of Foot, “like some stupendous fairy scene of a dream.” By late afternoon, many troops had disembarked on either shore to join the advance regiments moving toward Ticonderoga, now just a few miles ahead. Bullfrogs croaked in the shallows, and white elderberry blossoms brightened the conifer thickets, “the birthplace of every biting insect,” one miserable chaplain wrote. Some men smeared cedar sap on their faces in a vain effort to repel mosquitoes and deerflies.
On the left, to the east, four thousand mercenaries plodded through the underbrush. Known collectively as Hessians, since most Germans hired by London to fight in America came from Hesse-Kassel, this contingent was largely from the small, impoverished duchy of Brunswick, whose ruling family had intermarried with the British royal family. Brunswick’s duke collected £7 a year for each rented soldier, plus a blood-money bounty for every man killed or captured and an equivalent stipend for every three wounded. The troops earned the same eight pence a day as their British comrades, minus deductions for food and uniforms. Most of the German troops had spent an agreeable winter in isolated bivouacs along the St. Lawrence and Richelieu Rivers, developing a taste for beaver tail, salted sturgeon, and maple sugar.
Jager scouts—professional hunters—led the column, distinctive in their green coats trimmed in crimson and black hats decorated with pompoms. Dragoons followed in leather breeches and woolen gaiters, dismounted for the moment but hopeful of finding American horses ahead. Armed with short carbines and three-foot broad-swords, many cultivated horizontal waxed mustaches and wore their hair in a queue down the back “like a Chinese mandarin,” an admirer wrote. Grenadiers, artillerymen, musicians, gunsmiths, servants, and sutlers filled out the procession, prodded forward by blue-coated officers wearing silver sashes and wielding canes or pointed spontoons. During the voyage down the lake, some men had stripped to the waist to bask in the warm sun and, a surgeon reported, “have been badly sunburned, large blisters developing on their skin.”
The Germans were led by Major General Friedrich Adolph Riedesel. Thirty-nine years old, with a moon face and a ramrod bearing, he had forsaken his law studies in Marburg to take up soldiering, soon demonstrating a hussar’s valor at Minden during the Seven Years’ War. Fluent in French and conversational English, Riedesel considered the opportunity to command in North America to be “sent by Providence.” He had sworn allegiance to George III, like each of his Brunswickers, and had predicted in a dispatch to his duke that “this campaign will finish the war.” Although British officers could be insufferably supercilious toward their German allies, he got on well with the redcoats, even if they stumbled over the pronunciation of his name, calling him “General Red Hazel.”
Those redcoats could now be seen across the lake, moving south in a snaking column parallel to the Germans. Brawny grenadiers, often used to lead assaults, had exchanged their tall bearskin hats for more practical felt caps trimmed in horse-hair. Each foot soldier carried a ten-pound musket, a sixteen-inch bayonet, a tin canteen, a linen haversack, and his own blanket—a battlefield luxury, since in peacetime five men typically shared two blankets. British infantrymen were among the finest soldiers in the world, but most of these troops were green; only the 47th Regiment of Foot had seen extensive combat, at Lexington and Bunker Hill, among other clashes. They were led nonetheless by an exceptional cadre of junior officers, thirty of whom would become generals, including eighteen destined to be full generals, the army’s highest rank. In addition, another six future general officers could be found among the twenty-two Royal Artillery officers in the column.
Squinting at both shorelines through his spyglass from the pitching deck of the Royal George, Lieutenant General John Burgoyne was as pleased with his invasion force as he was with himself. At fifty-four, he had endured a long and arduous climb to high command, and he intended to return to London to claim the laurels owed every victorious commander. Educated at Westminster School, where even mathematics was taught in Latin and boys were birched for the slightest transgression, he had joined the army at fifteen, earned a reputation as both a swordsman and a card sharp, then wrecked his career by eloping with Charlotte Stanley, the youngest daughter of a very angry earl. Effectively banished to France and forced to sell his commission, Burgoyne lived modestly with Charlotte on the Seine for seven years, growing vegetables, traveling the Continent, and making a living at whist and twenty-one.
At last all was forgiven, and a belated reconciliation brought the couple back to England. Burgoyne returned to duty as an aging dragoon captain, just in time to win fame at the cannon’s mouth in the Seven Years’ War, notably in Normandy and Brittany against the French, and on the Tagus River near Lisbon against the Spanish. The king of Portugal gave him a diamond ring in gratitude, and he emerged from the struggle as a British war hero.
Burgoyne’s ascent continued in peacetime. Elected to the House of Commons, he was a diligent, independent military reformer. His insights from an inspection tour of Continental armies impressed George III, as did his parliamentary investigation of East India Company corruption. He and Charlotte shuttled between fine houses in Lancashire and Surrey and on Hertford Street, in tony Mayfair, an easy stroll from the London gambling tables at Brooks’s club. An aspiring playwright, he also became a regular in the Green Room at Drury Lane Theater, where in 1774 the actor and impresario David Garrick directed Burgoyne’s The Maid of the Oaks, a triumphant success.
The March of Annihilation
Fort Ticonderoga, New York, July–August 1777
A rattle of drums at four a.m. on July 1, 1777, roused the British encampment at Crown Point, on the western lip of Lake Champlain. Soldiers stumbled from their tents, shrugged on their uniform coats, and gobbled down a cold breakfast with the indifference of men who expected no better. For the past fortnight the invasion force of eight thousand troops had sailed and rowed south for a hundred miles, from the Richelieu River in Quebec to within fifteen miles of the American stronghold at Fort Ticonderoga. Through mischance and rebel defiance, many of these same redcoats had failed to capture the fortress eight months earlier, despite standing at the gates. Now the prize again lay within grasp, and this time they intended to win through. “We are to contend for the king and the constitution of Great Britain, to vindicate law and to relieve the oppressed,” orders issued the previous evening proclaimed. “This army must not retreat.”
By five a.m., the sun had crested the great shoulders of the Green Mountains to the east, gilding the craggy Adirondacks in the west. Platoon after platoon scuffed down to the shoreline to clamber aboard gunboats, longboats, and six-oared, flat-bottomed bateaux. Shouted orders carried across the lake, along with the creak of capstans and oarlocks. Soon the first vessels pulled away from the anchorage, to assemble mid-lake in battle formation. Army musicians caught the moment and struck up martial airs. “The music and drums of the different regiments were continually playing,” a Royal Artillery lieutenant wrote, “and contributed to make the scene and passage extremely pleasant.”
More than a hundred birch-bark canoes led the flotilla. Each carried twenty to thirty warriors, mostly Iroquois sporting nose rings, slitted earlobes, and feathers in tufted topknots, their eyelids and cheeks daubed with vermilion paint. Some wore knife sheaths made from lynx skins and, a British officer recorded, an “arse clout, or covering for the privities.”
Arrayed across the mile-wide lake behind the Indian vanguard came the main battle force, “the most complete and splendid regatta you can possibly conceive,” a witness reported: the three-masted frigate Royal George, built by shipwrights in Canada during the winter and carrying 26 guns, and smaller vessels named Inflexible, Carleton, Maria, and Royal Convert, as well as 44 gunboats, 23 longboats, 26 cutters, 260 bateaux, and a wallowing ninety-one-foot radeau, or raft, the Thunderer, ferrying barreled gunpowder and heavy cannons intended to blast Ticonderoga’s walls to rubble. A brig, a gundalow, and a sloop—Washington, Jersey, and Lee—had been captured in October from the rebel general turned commodore Benedict Arnold, whose gallant, forlorn rearguard fight in these very waters had helped delay the earlier British attack until winter forced the invaders back to Canada. All told, this squadron carried 133 naval guns to complement the army’s 130 field cannons, mortars, and howitzers, each barrel stamped with the king’s monogram or other symbols of possession. Storeships and lake transports continued to arrive at Crown Point from the north, laden with almost five thousand tons of salt pork, hard biscuits, and other rations, along with siege tools, ammunition, rum, cattle, and civilian camp followers, whose numbers officially included 225 women and 500 children, although some hyperbolists would claim that the combined figure actually approached two thousand.
“It looked,” wrote Corporal Roger Lamb of the 9th Regiment of Foot, “like some stupendous fairy scene of a dream.” By late afternoon, many troops had disembarked on either shore to join the advance regiments moving toward Ticonderoga, now just a few miles ahead. Bullfrogs croaked in the shallows, and white elderberry blossoms brightened the conifer thickets, “the birthplace of every biting insect,” one miserable chaplain wrote. Some men smeared cedar sap on their faces in a vain effort to repel mosquitoes and deerflies.
On the left, to the east, four thousand mercenaries plodded through the underbrush. Known collectively as Hessians, since most Germans hired by London to fight in America came from Hesse-Kassel, this contingent was largely from the small, impoverished duchy of Brunswick, whose ruling family had intermarried with the British royal family. Brunswick’s duke collected £7 a year for each rented soldier, plus a blood-money bounty for every man killed or captured and an equivalent stipend for every three wounded. The troops earned the same eight pence a day as their British comrades, minus deductions for food and uniforms. Most of the German troops had spent an agreeable winter in isolated bivouacs along the St. Lawrence and Richelieu Rivers, developing a taste for beaver tail, salted sturgeon, and maple sugar.
Jager scouts—professional hunters—led the column, distinctive in their green coats trimmed in crimson and black hats decorated with pompoms. Dragoons followed in leather breeches and woolen gaiters, dismounted for the moment but hopeful of finding American horses ahead. Armed with short carbines and three-foot broad-swords, many cultivated horizontal waxed mustaches and wore their hair in a queue down the back “like a Chinese mandarin,” an admirer wrote. Grenadiers, artillerymen, musicians, gunsmiths, servants, and sutlers filled out the procession, prodded forward by blue-coated officers wearing silver sashes and wielding canes or pointed spontoons. During the voyage down the lake, some men had stripped to the waist to bask in the warm sun and, a surgeon reported, “have been badly sunburned, large blisters developing on their skin.”
The Germans were led by Major General Friedrich Adolph Riedesel. Thirty-nine years old, with a moon face and a ramrod bearing, he had forsaken his law studies in Marburg to take up soldiering, soon demonstrating a hussar’s valor at Minden during the Seven Years’ War. Fluent in French and conversational English, Riedesel considered the opportunity to command in North America to be “sent by Providence.” He had sworn allegiance to George III, like each of his Brunswickers, and had predicted in a dispatch to his duke that “this campaign will finish the war.” Although British officers could be insufferably supercilious toward their German allies, he got on well with the redcoats, even if they stumbled over the pronunciation of his name, calling him “General Red Hazel.”
Those redcoats could now be seen across the lake, moving south in a snaking column parallel to the Germans. Brawny grenadiers, often used to lead assaults, had exchanged their tall bearskin hats for more practical felt caps trimmed in horse-hair. Each foot soldier carried a ten-pound musket, a sixteen-inch bayonet, a tin canteen, a linen haversack, and his own blanket—a battlefield luxury, since in peacetime five men typically shared two blankets. British infantrymen were among the finest soldiers in the world, but most of these troops were green; only the 47th Regiment of Foot had seen extensive combat, at Lexington and Bunker Hill, among other clashes. They were led nonetheless by an exceptional cadre of junior officers, thirty of whom would become generals, including eighteen destined to be full generals, the army’s highest rank. In addition, another six future general officers could be found among the twenty-two Royal Artillery officers in the column.
Squinting at both shorelines through his spyglass from the pitching deck of the Royal George, Lieutenant General John Burgoyne was as pleased with his invasion force as he was with himself. At fifty-four, he had endured a long and arduous climb to high command, and he intended to return to London to claim the laurels owed every victorious commander. Educated at Westminster School, where even mathematics was taught in Latin and boys were birched for the slightest transgression, he had joined the army at fifteen, earned a reputation as both a swordsman and a card sharp, then wrecked his career by eloping with Charlotte Stanley, the youngest daughter of a very angry earl. Effectively banished to France and forced to sell his commission, Burgoyne lived modestly with Charlotte on the Seine for seven years, growing vegetables, traveling the Continent, and making a living at whist and twenty-one.
At last all was forgiven, and a belated reconciliation brought the couple back to England. Burgoyne returned to duty as an aging dragoon captain, just in time to win fame at the cannon’s mouth in the Seven Years’ War, notably in Normandy and Brittany against the French, and on the Tagus River near Lisbon against the Spanish. The king of Portugal gave him a diamond ring in gratitude, and he emerged from the struggle as a British war hero.
Burgoyne’s ascent continued in peacetime. Elected to the House of Commons, he was a diligent, independent military reformer. His insights from an inspection tour of Continental armies impressed George III, as did his parliamentary investigation of East India Company corruption. He and Charlotte shuttled between fine houses in Lancashire and Surrey and on Hertford Street, in tony Mayfair, an easy stroll from the London gambling tables at Brooks’s club. An aspiring playwright, he also became a regular in the Green Room at Drury Lane Theater, where in 1774 the actor and impresario David Garrick directed Burgoyne’s The Maid of the Oaks, a triumphant success.
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The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 (Revolution Trilogy, 2)
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At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.
Every product in the BOLO catalogue is sourced through our Verified Global Supply Network of verified sellers, authorized distributors or directly from the manufacturer.
Each product undergoes thorough inspection and verification at our consolidation and fulfilment centers to ensure it meets our strict authenticity and quality standards before being shipped and delivered to you.
If you ever have concerns regarding the authenticity of a product purchased from us, please contact Bolo Support. We will review your inquiry promptly and, if necessary, provide documentation verifying authenticity or offer a suitable resolution.
Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.
While we strive to display accurate information, variations in packaging, labeling, instructions, or formulation may occasionally occur due to regional differences or supplier updates. For detailed or manufacturer-specific information, please contact the brand directly or reach out to BOLO Support for assistance.
Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.
BOLO operates in accordance with the laws and regulations of Bahrain. Any items found to be restricted or prohibited for sale within the Bahrain will be cancelled prior to shipment. We take proactive measures to ensure that only products permitted for sale in Bahrain are listed on our website.
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Visit the Crown Store
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 (Revolution Trilogy, 2)
Product ID: U0593799186
Condition: New
Type: Hardcover
BHD1807
Price includes VAT & Import Duties
Availability: In Stock
Quantity:
|
Order today to get by 7-14 business days
Delivery fee of BHD 2. Free for orders above BHD 20.
Imported From: United States
At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.
Every product in the BOLO catalogue is sourced through our Verified Global Supply Network of verified sellers, authorized distributors or directly from the manufacturer.
Each product undergoes thorough inspection and verification at our consolidation and fulfilment centers to ensure it meets our strict authenticity and quality standards before being shipped and delivered to you.
If you ever have concerns regarding the authenticity of a product purchased from us, please contact Bolo Support. We will review your inquiry promptly and, if necessary, provide documentation verifying authenticity or offer a suitable resolution.
Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.
While we strive to display accurate information, variations in packaging, labeling, instructions, or formulation may occasionally occur due to regional differences or supplier updates. For detailed or manufacturer-specific information, please contact the brand directly or reach out to BOLO Support for assistance.
Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.
BOLO operates in accordance with the laws and regulations of Bahrain. Any items found to be restricted or prohibited for sale within the Bahrain will be cancelled prior to shipment. We take proactive measures to ensure that only products permitted for sale in Bahrain are listed on our website.
All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.
All orders are processed manually, and we make every effort to process them promptly once confirmed. Products cancelled due to the above reasons will be permanently removed from listings across the website.
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the second volume of the landmark American Revolution trilogy by the bestselling author of The British Are Coming, George Washington’s army fights on the knife edge between victory and defeat.
“This is great history . . . compulsively readable . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize–winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution—which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton—was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had barely escaped annihilation by the world’s most formidable fighting force.
Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king’s task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans.
Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and materiel he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans—even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, and Charleston, a winter of misery at Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.
Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson’s brilliant account of the lethal conflict between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a new perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on its citizens.
“This is great history . . . compulsively readable . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize–winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution—which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton—was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had barely escaped annihilation by the world’s most formidable fighting force.
Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king’s task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans.
Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and materiel he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans—even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, and Charleston, a winter of misery at Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom.
Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson’s brilliant account of the lethal conflict between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a new perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on its citizens.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Rick Atkinson takes his place among the greatest of all historians. This superb second volume in his Revolution Trilogy is that rare narrative that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Familiar characters become dimensional and complicated, new ones burst to life vividly, and the battles and struggles that created our country now have clarity and meaning.”—Ken Burns
“This is great history. . . . We witness Washington mature as a commander; we come to understand why Arnold sells his allegiance; and we recognize King George’s quandary as his generals repeatedly fail to draw this ruinously expensive conflict to an end[JS1] . . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times
“Mr. Atkinson sustains dramatic tension in a detailed, comprehensive account of the Revolution’s pivotal middle years. . . . He deftly sketches personalities and incidents while stressing the uncertainty all those involved felt about the outcome.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Atkinson writes with tremendous verve and detail. The result is a book that infuses the events… of the war with striking vibrancy, essentially bringing the conflict to life again. . . . Regular readers of history will have already heard of many of the people Atkinson describes—but after finishing this book, they might feel like they have met them.”—The Washington Post
“[Atkinson] has the journalist’s stylistic flair but a stupendous appetite for research that would put many a gray-haired Ph.D. to shame. . . . The result, in The Fate of the Day, is a massive, and massively enjoyable, excursion into the embattled history of the American republic, its imperial British enemy, and its opportunistic ally, France.”—Allen C. Guelzo, The Washington Free Beacon
“[Atkinson] is vivifying the Revolutionary War in his mesmerizing histories The British Are Coming and The Fate of the Day. The latter, the second book in a planned trilogy . . . is being devoured by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.”—Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
“[Atkinson] provides amazing detail and masterful staging. You’re in the action, seeing the violence that bitterly divided neighbors and families and understanding how close-run the war was. . . . Two of Mr. Atkinson’s three volumes are out. . . . I can’t wait for the third.”—Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
“The Fate of the Day contains those intimate details of conflicts that provide the reader a keen sense of the chaos and terror with which eighteenth-century battles were conducted. . . . [A] compelling, clear narrative, this volume is worth reading with the same care as it was written.”—Journal of the American Revolution
“[A] riveting narrative. . . . Meticulously researched and marvelously told. . . . The Fate of The Day is a triumph of narrative history and cements Atkinson’s place among America’s finest popular historians.”—ARMY Magazine
“As ever with Atkinson, an exemplary work of narrative history.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Epic in scale but rich in detail, this captures the drama and world-historical significance of the revolution.”—Publishers Weekly
“[The Fate of the Day] is not only an entertaining story, but more importantly, a comprehensive addition to a well-studied period of history. For readers of American history, this is a must-have volume.”—Booklist
“This is great history. . . . We witness Washington mature as a commander; we come to understand why Arnold sells his allegiance; and we recognize King George’s quandary as his generals repeatedly fail to draw this ruinously expensive conflict to an end[JS1] . . . . There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Atkinson.”—The New York Times
“Mr. Atkinson sustains dramatic tension in a detailed, comprehensive account of the Revolution’s pivotal middle years. . . . He deftly sketches personalities and incidents while stressing the uncertainty all those involved felt about the outcome.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Atkinson writes with tremendous verve and detail. The result is a book that infuses the events… of the war with striking vibrancy, essentially bringing the conflict to life again. . . . Regular readers of history will have already heard of many of the people Atkinson describes—but after finishing this book, they might feel like they have met them.”—The Washington Post
“[Atkinson] has the journalist’s stylistic flair but a stupendous appetite for research that would put many a gray-haired Ph.D. to shame. . . . The result, in The Fate of the Day, is a massive, and massively enjoyable, excursion into the embattled history of the American republic, its imperial British enemy, and its opportunistic ally, France.”—Allen C. Guelzo, The Washington Free Beacon
“[Atkinson] is vivifying the Revolutionary War in his mesmerizing histories The British Are Coming and The Fate of the Day. The latter, the second book in a planned trilogy . . . is being devoured by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.”—Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
“[Atkinson] provides amazing detail and masterful staging. You’re in the action, seeing the violence that bitterly divided neighbors and families and understanding how close-run the war was. . . . Two of Mr. Atkinson’s three volumes are out. . . . I can’t wait for the third.”—Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
“The Fate of the Day contains those intimate details of conflicts that provide the reader a keen sense of the chaos and terror with which eighteenth-century battles were conducted. . . . [A] compelling, clear narrative, this volume is worth reading with the same care as it was written.”—Journal of the American Revolution
“[A] riveting narrative. . . . Meticulously researched and marvelously told. . . . The Fate of The Day is a triumph of narrative history and cements Atkinson’s place among America’s finest popular historians.”—ARMY Magazine
“As ever with Atkinson, an exemplary work of narrative history.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Epic in scale but rich in detail, this captures the drama and world-historical significance of the revolution.”—Publishers Weekly
“[The Fate of the Day] is not only an entertaining story, but more importantly, a comprehensive addition to a well-studied period of history. For readers of American history, this is a must-have volume.”—Booklist
About the Author
Rick Atkinson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eight narrative histories about five American wars, including The Long Gray Line, the Liberation Trilogy (An Army at Dawn, The Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light), and The British Are Coming, the first volume of the Revolution Trilogy. He has won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes for history and journalism.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1.
The March of Annihilation
Fort Ticonderoga, New York, July–August 1777
A rattle of drums at four a.m. on July 1, 1777, roused the British encampment at Crown Point, on the western lip of Lake Champlain. Soldiers stumbled from their tents, shrugged on their uniform coats, and gobbled down a cold breakfast with the indifference of men who expected no better. For the past fortnight the invasion force of eight thousand troops had sailed and rowed south for a hundred miles, from the Richelieu River in Quebec to within fifteen miles of the American stronghold at Fort Ticonderoga. Through mischance and rebel defiance, many of these same redcoats had failed to capture the fortress eight months earlier, despite standing at the gates. Now the prize again lay within grasp, and this time they intended to win through. “We are to contend for the king and the constitution of Great Britain, to vindicate law and to relieve the oppressed,” orders issued the previous evening proclaimed. “This army must not retreat.”
By five a.m., the sun had crested the great shoulders of the Green Mountains to the east, gilding the craggy Adirondacks in the west. Platoon after platoon scuffed down to the shoreline to clamber aboard gunboats, longboats, and six-oared, flat-bottomed bateaux. Shouted orders carried across the lake, along with the creak of capstans and oarlocks. Soon the first vessels pulled away from the anchorage, to assemble mid-lake in battle formation. Army musicians caught the moment and struck up martial airs. “The music and drums of the different regiments were continually playing,” a Royal Artillery lieutenant wrote, “and contributed to make the scene and passage extremely pleasant.”
More than a hundred birch-bark canoes led the flotilla. Each carried twenty to thirty warriors, mostly Iroquois sporting nose rings, slitted earlobes, and feathers in tufted topknots, their eyelids and cheeks daubed with vermilion paint. Some wore knife sheaths made from lynx skins and, a British officer recorded, an “arse clout, or covering for the privities.”
Arrayed across the mile-wide lake behind the Indian vanguard came the main battle force, “the most complete and splendid regatta you can possibly conceive,” a witness reported: the three-masted frigate Royal George, built by shipwrights in Canada during the winter and carrying 26 guns, and smaller vessels named Inflexible, Carleton, Maria, and Royal Convert, as well as 44 gunboats, 23 longboats, 26 cutters, 260 bateaux, and a wallowing ninety-one-foot radeau, or raft, the Thunderer, ferrying barreled gunpowder and heavy cannons intended to blast Ticonderoga’s walls to rubble. A brig, a gundalow, and a sloop—Washington, Jersey, and Lee—had been captured in October from the rebel general turned commodore Benedict Arnold, whose gallant, forlorn rearguard fight in these very waters had helped delay the earlier British attack until winter forced the invaders back to Canada. All told, this squadron carried 133 naval guns to complement the army’s 130 field cannons, mortars, and howitzers, each barrel stamped with the king’s monogram or other symbols of possession. Storeships and lake transports continued to arrive at Crown Point from the north, laden with almost five thousand tons of salt pork, hard biscuits, and other rations, along with siege tools, ammunition, rum, cattle, and civilian camp followers, whose numbers officially included 225 women and 500 children, although some hyperbolists would claim that the combined figure actually approached two thousand.
“It looked,” wrote Corporal Roger Lamb of the 9th Regiment of Foot, “like some stupendous fairy scene of a dream.” By late afternoon, many troops had disembarked on either shore to join the advance regiments moving toward Ticonderoga, now just a few miles ahead. Bullfrogs croaked in the shallows, and white elderberry blossoms brightened the conifer thickets, “the birthplace of every biting insect,” one miserable chaplain wrote. Some men smeared cedar sap on their faces in a vain effort to repel mosquitoes and deerflies.
On the left, to the east, four thousand mercenaries plodded through the underbrush. Known collectively as Hessians, since most Germans hired by London to fight in America came from Hesse-Kassel, this contingent was largely from the small, impoverished duchy of Brunswick, whose ruling family had intermarried with the British royal family. Brunswick’s duke collected £7 a year for each rented soldier, plus a blood-money bounty for every man killed or captured and an equivalent stipend for every three wounded. The troops earned the same eight pence a day as their British comrades, minus deductions for food and uniforms. Most of the German troops had spent an agreeable winter in isolated bivouacs along the St. Lawrence and Richelieu Rivers, developing a taste for beaver tail, salted sturgeon, and maple sugar.
Jager scouts—professional hunters—led the column, distinctive in their green coats trimmed in crimson and black hats decorated with pompoms. Dragoons followed in leather breeches and woolen gaiters, dismounted for the moment but hopeful of finding American horses ahead. Armed with short carbines and three-foot broad-swords, many cultivated horizontal waxed mustaches and wore their hair in a queue down the back “like a Chinese mandarin,” an admirer wrote. Grenadiers, artillerymen, musicians, gunsmiths, servants, and sutlers filled out the procession, prodded forward by blue-coated officers wearing silver sashes and wielding canes or pointed spontoons. During the voyage down the lake, some men had stripped to the waist to bask in the warm sun and, a surgeon reported, “have been badly sunburned, large blisters developing on their skin.”
The Germans were led by Major General Friedrich Adolph Riedesel. Thirty-nine years old, with a moon face and a ramrod bearing, he had forsaken his law studies in Marburg to take up soldiering, soon demonstrating a hussar’s valor at Minden during the Seven Years’ War. Fluent in French and conversational English, Riedesel considered the opportunity to command in North America to be “sent by Providence.” He had sworn allegiance to George III, like each of his Brunswickers, and had predicted in a dispatch to his duke that “this campaign will finish the war.” Although British officers could be insufferably supercilious toward their German allies, he got on well with the redcoats, even if they stumbled over the pronunciation of his name, calling him “General Red Hazel.”
Those redcoats could now be seen across the lake, moving south in a snaking column parallel to the Germans. Brawny grenadiers, often used to lead assaults, had exchanged their tall bearskin hats for more practical felt caps trimmed in horse-hair. Each foot soldier carried a ten-pound musket, a sixteen-inch bayonet, a tin canteen, a linen haversack, and his own blanket—a battlefield luxury, since in peacetime five men typically shared two blankets. British infantrymen were among the finest soldiers in the world, but most of these troops were green; only the 47th Regiment of Foot had seen extensive combat, at Lexington and Bunker Hill, among other clashes. They were led nonetheless by an exceptional cadre of junior officers, thirty of whom would become generals, including eighteen destined to be full generals, the army’s highest rank. In addition, another six future general officers could be found among the twenty-two Royal Artillery officers in the column.
Squinting at both shorelines through his spyglass from the pitching deck of the Royal George, Lieutenant General John Burgoyne was as pleased with his invasion force as he was with himself. At fifty-four, he had endured a long and arduous climb to high command, and he intended to return to London to claim the laurels owed every victorious commander. Educated at Westminster School, where even mathematics was taught in Latin and boys were birched for the slightest transgression, he had joined the army at fifteen, earned a reputation as both a swordsman and a card sharp, then wrecked his career by eloping with Charlotte Stanley, the youngest daughter of a very angry earl. Effectively banished to France and forced to sell his commission, Burgoyne lived modestly with Charlotte on the Seine for seven years, growing vegetables, traveling the Continent, and making a living at whist and twenty-one.
At last all was forgiven, and a belated reconciliation brought the couple back to England. Burgoyne returned to duty as an aging dragoon captain, just in time to win fame at the cannon’s mouth in the Seven Years’ War, notably in Normandy and Brittany against the French, and on the Tagus River near Lisbon against the Spanish. The king of Portugal gave him a diamond ring in gratitude, and he emerged from the struggle as a British war hero.
Burgoyne’s ascent continued in peacetime. Elected to the House of Commons, he was a diligent, independent military reformer. His insights from an inspection tour of Continental armies impressed George III, as did his parliamentary investigation of East India Company corruption. He and Charlotte shuttled between fine houses in Lancashire and Surrey and on Hertford Street, in tony Mayfair, an easy stroll from the London gambling tables at Brooks’s club. An aspiring playwright, he also became a regular in the Green Room at Drury Lane Theater, where in 1774 the actor and impresario David Garrick directed Burgoyne’s The Maid of the Oaks, a triumphant success.
The March of Annihilation
Fort Ticonderoga, New York, July–August 1777
A rattle of drums at four a.m. on July 1, 1777, roused the British encampment at Crown Point, on the western lip of Lake Champlain. Soldiers stumbled from their tents, shrugged on their uniform coats, and gobbled down a cold breakfast with the indifference of men who expected no better. For the past fortnight the invasion force of eight thousand troops had sailed and rowed south for a hundred miles, from the Richelieu River in Quebec to within fifteen miles of the American stronghold at Fort Ticonderoga. Through mischance and rebel defiance, many of these same redcoats had failed to capture the fortress eight months earlier, despite standing at the gates. Now the prize again lay within grasp, and this time they intended to win through. “We are to contend for the king and the constitution of Great Britain, to vindicate law and to relieve the oppressed,” orders issued the previous evening proclaimed. “This army must not retreat.”
By five a.m., the sun had crested the great shoulders of the Green Mountains to the east, gilding the craggy Adirondacks in the west. Platoon after platoon scuffed down to the shoreline to clamber aboard gunboats, longboats, and six-oared, flat-bottomed bateaux. Shouted orders carried across the lake, along with the creak of capstans and oarlocks. Soon the first vessels pulled away from the anchorage, to assemble mid-lake in battle formation. Army musicians caught the moment and struck up martial airs. “The music and drums of the different regiments were continually playing,” a Royal Artillery lieutenant wrote, “and contributed to make the scene and passage extremely pleasant.”
More than a hundred birch-bark canoes led the flotilla. Each carried twenty to thirty warriors, mostly Iroquois sporting nose rings, slitted earlobes, and feathers in tufted topknots, their eyelids and cheeks daubed with vermilion paint. Some wore knife sheaths made from lynx skins and, a British officer recorded, an “arse clout, or covering for the privities.”
Arrayed across the mile-wide lake behind the Indian vanguard came the main battle force, “the most complete and splendid regatta you can possibly conceive,” a witness reported: the three-masted frigate Royal George, built by shipwrights in Canada during the winter and carrying 26 guns, and smaller vessels named Inflexible, Carleton, Maria, and Royal Convert, as well as 44 gunboats, 23 longboats, 26 cutters, 260 bateaux, and a wallowing ninety-one-foot radeau, or raft, the Thunderer, ferrying barreled gunpowder and heavy cannons intended to blast Ticonderoga’s walls to rubble. A brig, a gundalow, and a sloop—Washington, Jersey, and Lee—had been captured in October from the rebel general turned commodore Benedict Arnold, whose gallant, forlorn rearguard fight in these very waters had helped delay the earlier British attack until winter forced the invaders back to Canada. All told, this squadron carried 133 naval guns to complement the army’s 130 field cannons, mortars, and howitzers, each barrel stamped with the king’s monogram or other symbols of possession. Storeships and lake transports continued to arrive at Crown Point from the north, laden with almost five thousand tons of salt pork, hard biscuits, and other rations, along with siege tools, ammunition, rum, cattle, and civilian camp followers, whose numbers officially included 225 women and 500 children, although some hyperbolists would claim that the combined figure actually approached two thousand.
“It looked,” wrote Corporal Roger Lamb of the 9th Regiment of Foot, “like some stupendous fairy scene of a dream.” By late afternoon, many troops had disembarked on either shore to join the advance regiments moving toward Ticonderoga, now just a few miles ahead. Bullfrogs croaked in the shallows, and white elderberry blossoms brightened the conifer thickets, “the birthplace of every biting insect,” one miserable chaplain wrote. Some men smeared cedar sap on their faces in a vain effort to repel mosquitoes and deerflies.
On the left, to the east, four thousand mercenaries plodded through the underbrush. Known collectively as Hessians, since most Germans hired by London to fight in America came from Hesse-Kassel, this contingent was largely from the small, impoverished duchy of Brunswick, whose ruling family had intermarried with the British royal family. Brunswick’s duke collected £7 a year for each rented soldier, plus a blood-money bounty for every man killed or captured and an equivalent stipend for every three wounded. The troops earned the same eight pence a day as their British comrades, minus deductions for food and uniforms. Most of the German troops had spent an agreeable winter in isolated bivouacs along the St. Lawrence and Richelieu Rivers, developing a taste for beaver tail, salted sturgeon, and maple sugar.
Jager scouts—professional hunters—led the column, distinctive in their green coats trimmed in crimson and black hats decorated with pompoms. Dragoons followed in leather breeches and woolen gaiters, dismounted for the moment but hopeful of finding American horses ahead. Armed with short carbines and three-foot broad-swords, many cultivated horizontal waxed mustaches and wore their hair in a queue down the back “like a Chinese mandarin,” an admirer wrote. Grenadiers, artillerymen, musicians, gunsmiths, servants, and sutlers filled out the procession, prodded forward by blue-coated officers wearing silver sashes and wielding canes or pointed spontoons. During the voyage down the lake, some men had stripped to the waist to bask in the warm sun and, a surgeon reported, “have been badly sunburned, large blisters developing on their skin.”
The Germans were led by Major General Friedrich Adolph Riedesel. Thirty-nine years old, with a moon face and a ramrod bearing, he had forsaken his law studies in Marburg to take up soldiering, soon demonstrating a hussar’s valor at Minden during the Seven Years’ War. Fluent in French and conversational English, Riedesel considered the opportunity to command in North America to be “sent by Providence.” He had sworn allegiance to George III, like each of his Brunswickers, and had predicted in a dispatch to his duke that “this campaign will finish the war.” Although British officers could be insufferably supercilious toward their German allies, he got on well with the redcoats, even if they stumbled over the pronunciation of his name, calling him “General Red Hazel.”
Those redcoats could now be seen across the lake, moving south in a snaking column parallel to the Germans. Brawny grenadiers, often used to lead assaults, had exchanged their tall bearskin hats for more practical felt caps trimmed in horse-hair. Each foot soldier carried a ten-pound musket, a sixteen-inch bayonet, a tin canteen, a linen haversack, and his own blanket—a battlefield luxury, since in peacetime five men typically shared two blankets. British infantrymen were among the finest soldiers in the world, but most of these troops were green; only the 47th Regiment of Foot had seen extensive combat, at Lexington and Bunker Hill, among other clashes. They were led nonetheless by an exceptional cadre of junior officers, thirty of whom would become generals, including eighteen destined to be full generals, the army’s highest rank. In addition, another six future general officers could be found among the twenty-two Royal Artillery officers in the column.
Squinting at both shorelines through his spyglass from the pitching deck of the Royal George, Lieutenant General John Burgoyne was as pleased with his invasion force as he was with himself. At fifty-four, he had endured a long and arduous climb to high command, and he intended to return to London to claim the laurels owed every victorious commander. Educated at Westminster School, where even mathematics was taught in Latin and boys were birched for the slightest transgression, he had joined the army at fifteen, earned a reputation as both a swordsman and a card sharp, then wrecked his career by eloping with Charlotte Stanley, the youngest daughter of a very angry earl. Effectively banished to France and forced to sell his commission, Burgoyne lived modestly with Charlotte on the Seine for seven years, growing vegetables, traveling the Continent, and making a living at whist and twenty-one.
At last all was forgiven, and a belated reconciliation brought the couple back to England. Burgoyne returned to duty as an aging dragoon captain, just in time to win fame at the cannon’s mouth in the Seven Years’ War, notably in Normandy and Brittany against the French, and on the Tagus River near Lisbon against the Spanish. The king of Portugal gave him a diamond ring in gratitude, and he emerged from the struggle as a British war hero.
Burgoyne’s ascent continued in peacetime. Elected to the House of Commons, he was a diligent, independent military reformer. His insights from an inspection tour of Continental armies impressed George III, as did his parliamentary investigation of East India Company corruption. He and Charlotte shuttled between fine houses in Lancashire and Surrey and on Hertford Street, in tony Mayfair, an easy stroll from the London gambling tables at Brooks’s club. An aspiring playwright, he also became a regular in the Green Room at Drury Lane Theater, where in 1774 the actor and impresario David Garrick directed Burgoyne’s The Maid of the Oaks, a triumphant success.
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