Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom

February 19, 2018
Former New York Times reporter Wren (The End of the Line) fleshes out a lesser-known aspect of the Revolutionary War in this engrossing account of the Green Mountain Boys militia and its complicated role in the struggle for independence. Wren relays his history through interwoven accounts of three main figures. The group’s original leader, Ethan Allen, had a mixed track record as a military commander and ended up endeavoring to make the independent republic of Vermont a British province, even after Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown effectively ended the American Revolution. It was his obscure cousin, Seth Warner, who shaped the Green Mountain Boys “into a disciplined force whose hit-and-run tactics honed in strategic retreats helped save a broken, diseased American army from annihilation.” The third member, Justus Sherwood, a friend of Allen and Warner’s, had initially joined with their efforts to defend Vermont homesteaders from New Yorkers who had filed court challenges to their rights to the properties they had settled and worked, and sought to eject the New Yorkers. Wren vividly brings to life characters and events, and this volume will appeal to fans of Nathaniel Philbrick’s popular histories.

April 1, 2018
A focused history of Ethan Allen (1738-1789) and his men, who faced "some of the harshest combat in the American Revolution" and "made their own rules to create an independent republic, called Vermont."In the mid-1700s, the area west of the Connecticut River was known as the New Hampshire Grants, so-called because that state's governor granted several million acres for settlement, reserving a healthy cut of the land for himself. In 1765, the governor of New York claimed the same land and ordered those who held the grants to pay a confirmation fee "or face eviction." Enter Allen and his followers, including Remember Baker and Seth Warner, who vowed to fight the "Yorkers" in a strategy of intimidation to drive them out. In 1773, Allen and his brothers formed a short-lived land company with leveraged land they didn't own to buy land they couldn't afford and to which New York said they weren't entitled. The beginnings of the Revolutionary War saw a drive to take Fort Ticonderoga, a vital link between Montreal and New York City. The successes of the Green Mountain Boys were miraculous given their drunken lack of discipline and Allen's reckless military calculations. Wren (Walking to Vermont: From Times Square into the Green Mountains, 2004, etc.), who has headed New York Times bureaus all over the world, explores the varied responses to the war; as he points out, many were happy to remain in the arms of Britain. Allen, taken as prisoner at Montreal and held for 32 months, earnestly worked with his brother Ira to that end. Even as Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrendered, the Allens secretly strove to secure acceptance as an independent colony of Britain at the same time Congress voted that they would not accept her statehood unless she acceded to New York's dismemberment of the Grants. The narrative is fluid and well-researched, but it may be too focused for general readers of American history.Will appeal to Revolutionary War buffs, mainly those interested in the back story of Vermont's early import in that war.

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April 15, 2018

There is no shortage of books about the America Revolution; to stand out, a work must reveal new insights effectively. Wren (Walking to Vermont) has just done that by superbly telling how the American Revolution played out within Vermont, both on the battlefield and on the home front. The author's narrative follows the Green Mountain Boys, a militia formed in the 1760s led by Ethan Allen (1737-89), later founder of the state of Vermont, and his brother Ira. While most of the narrative centers on Ethan, Wren gives adequate attention to Revolutionary War officer Seth Warner and Tom Chittenden, who became the first governor of Vermont. The author also explores the motivations of Loyalists such as Justus Sherwood and British military officer Frederick Haldimand. What is revealed is a story muddled with self-interest, reminiscent of Kathleen Duval's Independence Lost or Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's An Empire Divided. VERDICT Highly recommended for those seeking an excellent read about the nuances of the Revolution or Vermont's independent leanings.--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

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