Stephenson M. Patriot Battles. How the War of Independence Was Fought

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PATRIOT

BATTLES

How the War of Independence Was Fought

MICHAEL STEPHENSON

For my father,

Joseph Stephenson,

a soldier of the Second World War

List of Maps

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One: The Nuts and Bolts of War

“A Choaky Mouthful”: The American Soldier

The Militia 6

The Continentals 19

Lobsterbacks: The British Soldier 36

Britain’s German Auxiliaries 48

Loyalists 52

“Men of Character”:

The Officer Class 63

What Made Men Fight 79

viii

CONTENTS

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contents v

Feeding the Beast 101

The Things They Carried:

Weapons, Equipment, and Clothing 119

The Big Guns:

Artillery 154

The Sanguinary Business:

Wounds, Disease, and Medical Care 162

“Trulls and Doxies”:

Women in the Armies 177

Cuff and Salem, Dick and Jehu:

Blacks in the War 183

“The Proper Subjects of Our Resentment”:

Indians 190

Part Two: The Great Battles

~ The War in the North ~

Ambush:

Lexington and Concord, 19 April 1775 203

contents vi

“A Complication of Horror . . .”:

Bunker’s Hill, 17 June 1775 211

A Vaunting Ambition:

Quebec, 31 December 1775 222

“We Expect Bloody Work”:

Brooklyn, 22–29 August 1776 230

Fire and Ice:

Trenton I, 25–26 December 1776;

Trenton II, 30 December 1776;

and Princeton, 3 January 1777 251

The Philadelphia Campaign:

Brandywine, 11 September 1777;

Germantown, 4 October 1777;

and Monmouth Courthouse, 28 June 1778 267

The Saratoga Campaign:

Freeman’s Farm, 19 September 1777;

and Bemis Heights, 7 October 1777 288

~ The War in the South ~

The Laurels of Victory, the Willows of Defeat:

Camden, 16 August 1780 313

contents vii

The Hunters Hunted:

Kings Mountain, 7 October 1780;

and Cowpens, 17 January 1781 323

“Long, Obstinate, and Bloody”:

Guilford Courthouse, 15 March 1781 332

“Handsomely in a Pudding Bag”:

The Chesapeake Capes, 5–13 September 1781;

and Yorktown, 28 September–19 October 1781 341

Notes 355

Select Bibliography 385

Index 397

About the Author

Credits

Cover

About the Publisher

Lexington and Concord: The British Retreat, 19 April 1775 206–7

Bunker’s Hill, 17 June 1775 215

Quebec, 31 December 1775 226

Brooklyn, 22–29 August 1776 235

Trenton, 25–26 December 1776 257

Princeton, 3 January 1777 264

Brandywine, 11 September 1777 271

Germantown, 4 October 1777 278

Monmouth Courthouse, 28 June 1778 283

Freeman’s Farm, 19 September 1777 301

Bemis Heights, 7 October 1777 307

Camden, 16 August 1780 320

Cowpens, 17 January 1781 328

Guilford Courthouse, 15 March 1781 335

Chesapeake Capes, 5–13 September 1781 344

Yorktown, 28 September–19 October 1781 350

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MAPS

It was my great good fortune to have been commissioned to write this

book by one of the most experienced and revered editors of American

publishing: Hugh Van Dusen of HarperCollins. Throughout he has

been a model of kindness and constructive criticism. The associate editor,

Marie Estrada, was a paragon of care, courtesy, and professionalism;

and Vicki Haire, who copy-edited the manuscript, was wonderfully

diligent and hawkeyed. I hasten to add, however, that any errors which

may remain are, of course, entirely mine. Alex Hoyt has been a stalwart

adviser and occasionally has had to endure the bleatings an author will

invariably direct at his long-suffering agent.

Clay Smith, journeyman gunsmith at Colonial Williamsburg,

was enormously helpful in educating me about eighteenth-century

gunsmithing; and the ballistics expert Martin L. Fackler, M.D., an

eminent battlefield surgeon and a retired colonel in the U.S. Army’s

Medical Corps, helped me understand the nature of gunshot wounds.

I owe thanks to my friends Mike and Sue Rose of Casebourne Rose

Design Associates for producing the maps. Peter Johnson, a friend of

many years, kept me good company in tramping some of the major

battlefields, and my dear friend LuAnn Walther tracked down an

elusive (for me) Tolstoyan reference to explosive shells!

If it had not been for the truly heroic forbearance of my wife, Kathryn

Court, this book would not have been written, for its author would have

been found swinging from a beam in the barn—if we had had a barn.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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