Linda A. (skymama) reviewed on 5/29/2014 + 14 more book reviews

This beautiful book written fifty years ago is a novel that falls between the Continental Army's devastating retreat to Valley Forge and their fighting the British to a stand still at Monmouth some eight months later. The author brings in the elements of history and sets exquisitely created characters amongst the tensions of the Revolutionary War that was building a nation. Captain Allen MacLane led his company of Independents, mounted calvary that worked as the eyes and ears of the Continental Army, always searching out the redcoats. His two officers, Lieutenant Nicholas Burk, a card shark from Virginia, and Lieutenant Abijah Silsby, son of a minister and a student from Harvard, bring the story to life in a way that helps the modern mind understand that men and women have fought and loved for centuries. The emotions of love and war do not change. The War for these troops becomes long nights of patrols, ambushes and lack of sleep. MacLane tries not to think of his wife alone at home. Burk dreams of the lovely Widow Avery in Philadelphia and Silsby begins to notice the farmer's daughter. There are some scenes that are gut-wrenching, the torture of captured two British grenadiers who in battle are led by the blood-thirsty Tarellton - a unit that the Continentals hated above all else for the slaughter of unarmed, surrendered troops at Paoli. The story also brings in the British, Howe with his mistress, Clinton the brains of the British Army, a major of engineering that falls in love with Mrs. Avery and shows her that war includes good men on both sides. I could hardly put this fifty year-old book down. It shows a "human" General Washington in all his humble but strong leadership roles. I am so glad God gave us such a man for those times and men that were willing to sacrifice all for freedom. Would we do the same today? I am so glad I saved it from a second hand bookstore that burned to the ground with all its volumes soon after I purchased it. I will pass it around to anyone in my family who loves history and hope my grandchildren can learn more from this book than what they are being taught in a classroom.

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