Rise, and Fight Again: Perilous Times Along the Road to Independence

by Charles Bracelen Flood

Book Overview

An exciting account of Revolutionary campaigns as factual history. Tells us how Americans recovered from defeats and fought on to victory. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0396073565
• ISBN13: 9780396073567
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Dodd Mead
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

americans

This book follows americans through the american revolution, through defeat after defeat, and haveing the army just evaporate only to come back. this book tell,s of the human sacrafice and suffering, but through it all the ability to RISE and FIGHT AGAIN. I have read this book several times,my personal opinion every American should read and comprehend what this book has between its pages. RICHARD SMITH

Bringing History Alive

There seem to be two types of history. There's the official version, usually written by the victors; and there's the account of what really happened, to ordinary people in daily life. In "Rise, and Fight Again" Charles Bracelen Flood delivers four hundred pages of the latter, and does so in that rarefied way that lets history flow like a novel. His primary research centered on the diaries of regular soldiers and militia men, and so we come to know the names and thoughts of human beings lost to the pages of the official versions. This is consistently exciting and insightful writing. Flood ends his five-part book with Yorktown, as he had to. But the first four parts are not about victory, but crushing, debilitating defeats for the Continental Army, ranging from September of 1775 to June of 1780. Some of the defeats are governed by simple bad luck, despite the very best of human determination. Others find roots in hubris, stupidity and outright cowardice. Flood varnishes nothing for the sake of myth, the most notable being Paul Revere, probably the most endearing image of the American Revolution. His alarming ride at the start of conflict was to be his finest hour. His later service was stained by a lack of fortitude, likely desertion and, at Revere's own request, a court martial. So much of history concerns people who succeed because they didn't know what they were trying to do was impossible.Flood describes American fighting squads living on green peaches, shoeless in the winter, and in one case literally naked in crude winter quarters. In 1780 massive defeats in the south decimated all American forces below North Carolina. He notes state and federal treasuries spent dry, with no way to re-supply troops, much less pay them. It's not surprising, then, that towards the end of the war British generals were utterly astonished by an enemy that just didn't know when to quit. In many ways Flood's central point is that the revolution was not so much won by soldiers, as just by people who acted upon a visceral awareness that grew into full consciousness. The rebel forces were the Continental Army, by name and definition, but this was an army very often of women and children, of barely trained farmers, of legitimate soldiers with no uniforms. In 1775 European armies were very much based on aristocracy. An officer was granted a commission and promotion based far more on his pedigree and social rank than his battlefield valor, or his intellect. To whatever extent the Continental Army resembled its enemy (after all, many officers and soldiers, including George Wahington, had served in the British military), by the end of the war that resemblance had faded. Flood writes about an aristocratic German fighting for the British at Yorktown, who was furious that he had been defeated by "peasants, money-grubbing merchants and shopkeepers." Two hundred thirty years is a blink in geologic time, and only a very little span in human history, and yet in that time the

We fight, get beat, rise & fight again

One of my 3 favorite books on the American Revolution, "Rise & Fight Again" focuses on four disastrous American defeats --- the Battles of Quebec, Fort Washington, Penobscot, and Camden-- and in doing so, captures more of the desperate spirit of those times than generally comes through in accounts of American victories. The reader comes to appreciate how nearly we lost this war.Flood has laced his military history with the personal observations of folk who experienced the war first-hand-- Alexander Graydon, George Little, Otho Holland Williams, William Hutchings, among many others-- and the reader meets them not just as military characters, but as humans with interrupted lives, who keep re-emerging, sometimes with bewilderment, in the torrent of events. I found myself caring very much what happened to these people, and wanting to know more.Flood's style of narrative is strong & sharp-flavored, and his pictures vividly drawn: "Along the trail men were sitting in the snow, unable to stand. Some were coughing, many had extreme constipation, all were starving. Here and there was a man who had passed out on the march, pitching off the trail, lying facedown in the snow..."He breaks his chapters into vignettes, and the reader races along. It's hard to put it down once you start reading.While Flood employs a good deal of imagination in fleshing out the unknowable details of the stories, his bibliography and footnotes testify to this being a thoroughly researched book. He has quoted generously from letters and diaries, and provides several maps and a section of portraits. This is an excellent read for someone new to the history of the American Revolution, likely to give them an appetite to learn more, and is just as fine for the Rev War scholar.

Captivating!

A must read for every history buff. This book is so interesting, I could hardly put it down. During the first part of the book I had to keep reminding myself that they DID win the war, because the first part chronicles their losses. The second part gets so exciting it's breathtaking, they have all these victories. I highly recommend this!