{"product_id":"2940013866935","title":"WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES IN ARMS","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eII. BOSTON AND QUEBEC\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIII. INDEPENDENCE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIV. THE LOSS OF NEW YORK\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eV. THE LOSS OF PHILADELPHIA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVI. THE FIRST GREAT BRITISH DISASTER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVII. WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES AT VALLEY FORGE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVIII. THE ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE AND ITS RESULTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIX. THE WAR IN THE SOUTH\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eX. FRANCE TO THE RESCUE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eXI. YORKTOWN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES IN ARMS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMoving among the members of the second Continental Congress, which met\u003cbr\u003eat Philadelphia in May, 1775, was one, and but one, military figure.\u003cbr\u003eGeorge Washington alone attended the sittings in uniform. This colonel\u003cbr\u003efrom Virginia, now in his forty-fourth year, was a great landholder, an\u003cbr\u003eowner of slaves, an Anglican churchman, an aristocrat, everything that\u003cbr\u003estands in contrast with the type of a revolutionary radical. Yet from\u003cbr\u003ethe first he had been an outspoken and uncompromising champion of the\u003cbr\u003ecolonial cause. When the tax was imposed on tea he had abolished the use\u003cbr\u003eof tea in his own household and when war was imminent he had talked of\u003cbr\u003erecruiting a thousand men at his own expense and marching to Boston. His\u003cbr\u003esteady wearing of the uniform seemed, indeed, to show that he regarded\u003cbr\u003ethe issue as hardly less military than political.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe clash at Lexington, on the 19th of April, had made vivid the reality\u003cbr\u003eof war. Passions ran high. For years there had been tension, long\u003cbr\u003edisputes about buying British stamps to put on American legal papers,\u003cbr\u003eabout duties on glass and paint and paper and, above all, tea. Boston\u003cbr\u003ehad shown turbulent defiance, and to hold Boston down British soldiers\u003cbr\u003ehad been quartered on the inhabitants in the proportion of one soldier\u003cbr\u003efor five of the populace, a great and annoying burden. And now British\u003cbr\u003esoldiers had killed Americans who stood barring their way on Lexington\u003cbr\u003eGreen. Even calm Benjamin Franklin spoke later of the hands of British\u003cbr\u003eministers as \"red, wet, and dropping with blood.\" Americans never forgot\u003cbr\u003ethe fresh graves made on that day. There were, it is true, more British\u003cbr\u003ethan American graves, but the British were regarded as the aggressors.\u003cbr\u003eIf the rest of the colonies were to join in the struggle, they must have\u003cbr\u003ea common leader. Who should he be?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn June, while the Continental Congress faced this question at\u003cbr\u003ePhiladelphia, events at Boston made the need of a leader more urgent.\u003cbr\u003eBoston was besieged by American volunteers under the command of General\u003cbr\u003eArtemas Ward. The siege had lasted for two months, each side watching\u003cbr\u003ethe other at long range. General Gage, the British Commander, had the\u003cbr\u003esea open to him and a finely tempered army upon which he could rely. The\u003cbr\u003eopposite was true of his opponents. They were a motley host rather than\u003cbr\u003ean army. They had few guns and almost no powder. Idle waiting since\u003cbr\u003ethe fight at Lexington made untrained troops restless and anxious to go\u003cbr\u003ehome. Nothing holds an army together like real war, and shrewd officers\u003cbr\u003eknew that they must give the men some hard task to keep up their\u003cbr\u003efighting spirit. It was rumored that Gage was preparing an aggressive\u003cbr\u003emovement from Boston, which might mean pillage and massacre in the\u003cbr\u003esurrounding country, and it was decided to draw in closer to Boston to\u003cbr\u003egive Gage a diversion and prove the mettle of the patriot army. So, on\u003cbr\u003ethe evening of June 16, 1775, there was a stir of preparation in the\u003cbr\u003eAmerican camp at Cambridge, and late at night the men fell in near\u003cbr\u003eHarvard College.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcross the Charles River north from Boston, on a peninsula, lay the\u003cbr\u003evillage of Charlestown, and rising behind it was Breed's Hill, about\u003cbr\u003eseventy-four feet high, extending northeastward to the higher elevation\u003cbr\u003eof Bunker Hill. The peninsula could be reached from Cambridge only by a\u003cbr\u003enarrow neck of land easily swept by British floating batteries lying off\u003cbr\u003ethe shore. In the dark the American force of twelve hundred men under\u003cbr\u003eColonel Prescott marched to this neck of land and then advanced half a\u003cbr\u003emile southward to Breed's Hill. Prescott was an old campaigner of the\u003cbr\u003eSeven Years' War; he had six cannon, and his troops were commanded by\u003cbr\u003eexperienced officers. Israel Putnam was skillful in irregular frontier\u003cbr\u003efighting, and Nathanael Greene, destined to prove himself the best man\u003cbr\u003ein the American army next to Washington himself, could furnish sage\u003cbr\u003emilitary counsel derived from much thought and reading.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152695738608,"sku":"2940013866935","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013866935_p0.jpg?v=1763596347","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013866935","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}