Forgotten Patriots

During the American Revolutionary War, the British let their rebellious prisoners starve, freeze, and die of "pestilential distempers." The details of the cruel treatment do not make for an uplifting story. Armed only with obscure names and unfamiliar circumstances, narrator Norman Dietz can do little to create anything like entertainment. Although he modulates his tone and tempo as much as possible to maintain a conversational delivery, the result still leaves him plodding through stodgy and colorless writing. Small stories of individual prisoners and colonists abound, and they punctuate the narrative with enough human interest to make one's effort to listen worthwhile. While the accounts of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge have earned seniority in U. S. history, FORGOTTEN PATRIOTS explores other, lesser-known, facts. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine