A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783

¶ … Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character

The book by Charles Royster is certainly well thought out and well presented in terms of the sequence of the chapters, the illustrations, the informative Prologue and the tightly written narrative. Too often historical records of wars and contentious periods in American history contain far too much emotionally patriotic -- even jingoistic -- narrative. Royster knows how to tell a story well, even one that has been part of the history of America for 230 years or so; after all, whether the book is about history, or science, or philosophy, if the author does not excel at story-telling, the reader is left out in the cold. Royster keeps the reader interested and involved.

How did the Continental Army -- a rag-tag group of patriots that were out-manned, out-gunned, with less training than the enemy -- manage to defeat the mighty British army? This book offers a vast storehouse of information to answer that specific question. Royster does it without breathlessly pushing any particular point-of-view on the reader, although he does use religion as a theme.

Royster does have a point-of-view. And he expresses it throughout the book, but rather than the reader suffering from strong editorial whiplash, the viewpoint and theme Royster presents is quite digestible. For example, in his Prologue (Royster 1979, 10) the author is setting the stage for his storytelling of the actual combat. He writes that the British army called the colonial fighters "a chickenhearted race of farmers, dry goods dealers, and slave drivers" (Royster 1979, 10). And the British weren't the only ones to verbally malign the colonial fighters; they were called the "loyalists" and they called the revolutionary army "A vagabond Army of Ragamuffins, with Paper Pay, bad clothes and worse spirits" (Royster, 1979 10).

Undaunted by the taunting, the revolutionaries were confident because they were counting on God's plan for this young country, Royster explains on pages 13 and 14. Meanwhile as the war began the American troops believed they had "two strengths" to ensure their "superiority"; one was they trained utilizing basic fighting techniques without a lot of razzle-dazzle showmanship for the public; and the second strength was simply, as Royster writes on page 25, that Americans possessed "natural," or "native," or "innate" courage against the enemy.

A key and interesting portion of the book is when General George Washington arrived in Massachusetts to take control of the continental army. The discipline was outrageously loose and the men were in jeopardy because of poor sanitation (men would "ease themselves" -- have bowel movements -- where they happened to be in camp), because of the reckless firing of their muskets, because of homesickness and overall dearth of solid training (Royster, 1979 58-63). However, as Royster explains on pages 96-98, the Continental Army "…began to develop the character that it retained throughout the war" and moreover, in June 1776 the "Americans' skill and dedication in serving their guns surprised the British and gratified the revolutionaries" as the Continental Army crippled attacking British ships and kept those ships from landing.

Royster does an effective job of explaining how the revolutionaries managed to hold on and keep fighting against the larger British forces. In the hellish nightmare of war, "Liquor in moderation was thought to relieve fatigue," Royster explains (144). This was not a decision that the generals made -- allowing soldiers to drink alcohol during battles -- but rather it was fully endorsed by Congress. Those that haven't read Royster's book might not know that Congress "rewarded victory with rum" -- although perhaps elected officials didn't realize that liquor had its bad side; many soldiers "got drunk every day and men sold their clothing and equipment to buy liquor, which "aggravated mutiny as well as valor" (144).

Two themes beyond what have already been expressed are important to Royster's book. One is religion, which he uses as a subtle and not-so-subtle theme off and on; a total of 52 pages of this book relate to various aspects of God and religion, including all the passages from 152 to 177. That said, it is also fair to mention that the soldiers and families of soldiers in that era did indeed put a lot of faith in God. The other theme is George Washington's leadership and the lack of direct criticism he received, even when he did not perform up to his own standards. When General Washington's army failed to beat Howe a number of soldiers began questioning the competency of Washington (Royster, 1979 178-79). Other failures attributed to Washington (losing Long Island, losing a garrison at Fort Washington, along with other failed battles) resulted in "private, not published or spoken…" criticism.