Band of Giants

June 9, 2014
George Washington, Henry Knox, Nathanael Greene, and Anthony Wayne are names written indelibly into the history of the American Revolution, yet they all started out green, working their way into legend by learning and adapting on the battlefield. Journalist Kelly (Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics) opens this fast-paced military history in 1754 as the young Lt. Col. Washington, devoid of formal military training, prepares to confront the French over control of North America’s Western frontier. Following his account French and Indian War, Kelly’s fast-forwards to the volatile years of the 1770s when businessman Greene and bookseller Knox meet in Boston to discuss the colony’s rapidly deteriorating relationship with England. By early 1775, both men had taken up arms against the mother country. Knox would develop a genius for artillery and Greene would go on to command the Southern campaign. Kelly smoothly recounts the major and most familiar battles of the war, from Lexington and Concord to the incursions into Canada to Brandywine to Charleston. Kelly is stingy with attendant political and foreign-policy matters—hewing closely to all things military—and there are no fresh insights into either here, but the writing is lively, and he offers a serious reminder of the brutality of the American Revolution. Illus.

July 1, 2014
Journalist and historian Kelly chronicles the poorly trained but determined men who fought with George Washington and other commanders to free the North American continent from British rule in the late 18th century.In an oft-told but still inspiring saga, the author opens his popular history in 1754, as a young Washington was becoming seasoned in battles against French troops seeking to encroach on British territory. After that introduction, Kelly moves the action to 1774, as Washington commands a bunch of ragtag soon-to-be Americans against the British monarchy, which had lost favor due to high taxes, among many other transgressions. Kelly is fascinated by the details of specific battles, but he is well-aware that without finely wrought character sketches of those carrying out the fighting, military history can fall flat on the page. As a result, the author has carefully chosen his heroes and villains, using both primary and secondary sources to explain their paths to battle. A combination of psychobiography, lively prose and generous foreshadowing keeps the narrative moving from battle to battle, year after year, until the story ends in 1783. In the final chapter, Kelly looks back from the year 1824 at the remarkable victories of the revolutionaries; it was the 50th anniversary of the self-styled patriots' encounter with the well-equipped British musketeers at Lexington Green. "Then began a celebration," writes the author, "such as the nation had never seen: dinners, galas, speeches, salutes, parades, fireworks. At the Lafayette Ball...five thousand guests wandered through a fairyland dominated by thirty-foot-high transparencies showing Lafayette, Washington, and the marquis' French estate at La Grange." The hardships the patriots endured-lack of first-rate equipment, food, clothing and protection from severe weather, among other problems-were seared in the memories of the celebratory survivors and those who followed in the experiment of American democracy.A rousing account of bloody sacrifice.

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September 1, 2014

In this pithy volume, journalist (American Heritage; Invention & Technology) Kelly surveys the military history of the War of Independence, a battle in which the novice soldiers brought to bear "determination and perseverance...the Americans' most important resources." While the Revolutionary War is often viewed as secondary to major political events such as the drafting of President Thomas Jefferson's great Declaration of Independence, without the hard-fought, grinding victory, all the haughty rhetoric of freedom would have been to little benefit. Kelly's fast-paced work is packed with anecdotes of noteworthy generals including the duplicitous Benedict Arnold, the cunning Nathanael Greene, George Washington's chief of artillery Henry Knox, and the freethinking hero Ethan Allen; all of whom were making it up as they went along. VERDICT Kelly's brief overview of the conflict, while adding little to the scholarship, is useful for those unfamiliar with the military aspects of the revolution and is a highly engaging read. Readers looking for a more nuanced, scholarly treatment of the Revolutionary War should try George Athan Billias's George Washington's Generals and Opponents or John Shy's A People Numerous and Armed.--Brian Odom, Birmingham, AL

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