1776

The success of those who marched alongside General George Washington during the year of the Declaration of Independence, when all hope for American independence would have been lost and the lofty goals of the document would have remained little more than words on paper, is the subject of this brilliant book by David McCullough.

1776 is a potent play created with exceptional narrative life, based on in-depth study in both American and British archives. It tells the tale of men of all shapes, sizes, and colors who served in the armed forces as well as farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, unaccounted-for individuals, and young boys who enlisted. It also tells the tale of the King's soldiers, the British leader William Howe, and his very disciplined redcoats, who fought with a gallantry that is too seldom recognized and treated their rebel enemies with disdain.

Washington is the focal point of the play, along with two young American patriots who initially knew nothing about war outside of what they had read in books: Quaker Nathaniel Green, a thirty-three-year-old general, and twenty-five-year-old bookseller Henry Knox, who had the absurd idea to transport Fort Ticonderoga's guns overland to Boston in the dead of winter.

However, Washington, the American commander in chief—who had never commanded an army in combat before—stands out the most. Another classic in American history writing is David McCullough's 1776, which he wrote as a companion piece to his well-known biography of John Adams.