Complain about this book about the American Revolutionary War here.

Monique

Thanks for the tip, havent heard of this book before.

I have been engaged to write a formal history of a backwater Virginia County for the Jamestown celebration in 2007, and in researching that book, and other research, I can confirm much of the commentary presented in your review.

"Patriot" officers often ended up with the land of those who were loyal to the crown, without much difficulty or expense.

Some on the board are no doubt familiar with the movie "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson about the War in the South. What the movie fails to present is that "Patriots" in the Carolinas and Virginia were hanging loyalists right and left.

In the district where I grew up, 95% of the population was loyal to the crown, and I attribute this to the fact that the "Patriot" leader was prone to hanging anyone who annoyed him. Thoroughly corrupt fellow but was considered a Hero of Kings Mountain. If he had supported the King, I feel confident that his neighbors would have fought for the other side.

Estimates of loyalties at the time approximate 1/3 for the "patriots", 1/3 for the crown and 1/3 didn't care one way or the other. In some districts these numbers are skewed radically to one side or another.

You mention a mutiny in New Jersey. It wasn't the only one, there were a couple in Virginia, which I have researched, and probably other places as well.

As for being a revisionist history I cannot say, not having read the book, but the traditional American account of the American Revolution often have little to do with the facts on the ground at the time. So, in my opinion the traditional American histories are actually revisionists, in that the revised the facts to support their political agendas.

The notion of taxation without representation is pretty well a myth. The British government was expending large sums of money defending America, and had asked for local contributions to defray the expenses, and most of the colonial legislatures declined--the Quaker controled legislature in Pennsylvania perhaps being the most notorious, but it was not alone, New York and the New England Colonies also declined to assist in the struggle against the French in the mid-18th century.

The notion that George III was a tyrant just won't wash. He was quite progressive in his political thinking, especially for the time, and was nearly as liberal as the American leaders.

 

Your point about no taxation without representation being 'pretty well a myth' is interesting. Yes, Britain was expending gobs of money financing troops that George III refused to bring home at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War to us Yankees ), and yes, they did ask the colonists for money to help defray expenses. And yes, the assemblies did decline to vote a levy.

What you fail to mention, however, is that the troops were largely useless. American Colonists were still slaughtered by some indian groups (granted, this went both ways, but my point stands--the British troops weren't fulfilling their nominal roles in the colonies). As expenses grew, the troops were drawn back towards the seaboard--the cities--causing further speculation as to just why they were there. To keep the colonists in line perhaps? These same soldiers competed with American dockworkers for jobs in their spare time.

So, in conclusion, it's not necessarily a myth. The British wanted the Americans to pay for a military police force that they neither wanted nor needed. An agitated reaction is only to be expected in a situation like that.

Few people have pointed out, by the way, that the entire problem quite possibly would have been solved if Parliament had just allowed the colonies to elect representatives and then promptly used their majority to ram a few taxes down their throats. It would have had the air of legitimacy, whether the colonists liked it or not.

 

Given that only 4% of the British population were eligible to vote at the time, the "taxation without representation" point was pretty much equally valid both sides of the Atlantic, which is odd, because it was the principle of "representation to pay for taxation" point that had led to the establishment of Parliament in the Late Middle Ages in the first place and then greatly strengthened its hand in and after the Civil Wars. The problem was that, having gained that degree of power to scrutinise and collect taxes, Parliament was not about to share that power with anyone else, be they colonists in America or the middle and lower classes in Britain; as a consequence, Parliament had become something of a cosy and corrupt club for the 'in-crowd'. So it was actually Parliament, not King George, which was responsible largely for the breach with North America. It was only in the 19th century, with increased taxation biting the middle classes to pay for the Napoleonic Wars, that the middle classes picked up on the "no taxation without representation" cause themselves in the UK and widened the franchise in 1832, 1867 and 1884; the 1832 Great Reform was in part also caused by the threat of a French-style Revolution hanging in the air and it was ironically George's son King William who was so scared of that prospect who forced the legislation through

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

I'd have been a loyalist.

 

About what?

*** as much as I dislike exposing my ignorance ***