REVOLUTIONARY WAR - NONFICTION
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett
Fischer 
This is the most enjoyable military history that I have read in recent years, and I was sorry to reach the end of the book. David Hackett Fischer is a gifted storyteller. He has mixed serious analysis and narrative with
outright good yarns (my favorite was in his chapter on the British army, where he describes the longest serving private, who retired from the Black Watch at 103 after 75 years of service to live with his children, who ranged in age from 9 to 83).
The British generals, Cornwallis and Howe are vividly described. Curiously, the one hardest to get much of a feel for was Washington himself. The first Trenton operation was straightforward enough,
"snatching up" Rall's unsupported brigade, but, after he was safely back across the Delaware, it is hard to understand how Washington came to the decision to
re-cross and engage Cornwallis in a set-piece battle, especially after the battles around New York had ended so badly (and the later Philadelphia campaign was to start badly, with Brandywine and Germantown). In the book, he was sort of pulled into
re-crossing by the success of the Pennsylvania militia further south. Had it not been for a sudden change in the weather allowing him to move artillery to Princeton, the
re-crossing would likely have been disastrous.
I particularly liked the choice of time frame in the book, which covered the whole time from the occupation of Staten Island (almost the only part of the 13 colonies occupied by the British at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, since they withdrew from Boston in April), through the battles around New York to the "Forage War" in New Jersey, with the British confined to a small portion of NJ near New York. As such it acts as a companion to "The Philadelphia Campaign" to cover the operations under Howe, the only British general who had a real chance to end the rebellion. (Clinton, his successor, had much reduced forces available due to the intervention by the French in the
Caribbean, and faced a much better organized American army.)
These are a couple of characters that I wish he had fleshed out a little more. British Maj. Gen. James Grant, who commanded the forward forces in New Jersey, had command a brigade in Forbes expedition in the French and Indian War (Washington commanded the other brigade) and had arrogantly disobeyed orders to dash forward to try to capture Fort Duquesne alone. His force was almost
annihilated, and the Indians put the heads of his highlanders on poles, draping their kilts around the base. The other is Maj. James Wilkinson, whom Fischer uses a lot as a source. He later rose to command (as Brig. Gen.) the US Army in the early 1800s, and acted as a spy for the Spanish at the same time, betraying Pike's western expedition. He was finally cashiered after a dismal performance in the War of 1812 and wrote his memoirs, telling all, from the safety of Mexico.
Review by James L. Gilbert, USVeterans.com 16 June 2004
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