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Long, Obstinate, and Bloody.
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I’ve been a fan of military history since I was an army officer in the 1970s. Military history is fascinating, dynamic, exciting—it deals with people on the edge of real-world circumstances making life-or-death decisions. Of all military history, the Revolutionary War in the South is my favorite. It has been blessed with the richest trove of intriguing stories. Southerners love a great tale, and the southern war has provided volumes of them. The Southern Campaign teemed with such larger-than-life characters as Banastre Tarleton, the British officer everyone loved to hate, as well as Francis Marion, the beloved Swamp Fox of legend. Anyone who enjoys a great story will love the lore of the southern war.
Who was Nathanael Greene? An excellent question, and one that has puzzled Americans since he took command of the southern army in 1780.
He was a man of intense contradictions. A lapsed Quaker from Rhode Island, his claim to fame had been as a staff officer to George Washington. Unused to command, he lost battles but conducted the most successful campaign in the war. How he did it is a tale for the ages, brilliantly brought to light in this book.
Golway covers the campaign’s strategy and battle tactics admirably, but there was much more. There are many legends of Greene. Lord Cornwallis, we are told, said Greene was as dangerous as Washington, and he never felt secure when camped near him.
My favorite story of Greene holds that when he arrived in Salisbury, North Carolina, in early 1781, exhausted and beaten, a local woman took pity on him and…
The overlooked Quaker from Rhode Island who won the American Revolution's crucial southern campaign and helped to set up the final victory of American independence at Yorktown
Nathanael Greene is a revolutionary hero who has been lost to history. Although places named in his honor dot city and country, few people know his quintessentially American story as a self-made, self-educated military genius who renounced his Quaker upbringing-horrifying his large family-to take up arms against the British. Untrained in military matters when he joined the Rhode Island militia in 1774, he quickly rose to become Washington's right-hand man and heir apparent.…
I’ve been a fan of military history since I was an army officer in the 1970s. Military history is fascinating, dynamic, exciting—it deals with people on the edge of real-world circumstances making life-or-death decisions. Of all military history, the Revolutionary War in the South is my favorite. It has been blessed with the richest trove of intriguing stories. Southerners love a great tale, and the southern war has provided volumes of them. The Southern Campaign teemed with such larger-than-life characters as Banastre Tarleton, the British officer everyone loved to hate, as well as Francis Marion, the beloved Swamp Fox of legend. Anyone who enjoys a great story will love the lore of the southern war.
My favorite part of writing the history of the Southern Campaign is cutting through the legends to find out what really happened. Southerners love stories, and the stories from the southern war have been told and retold, and in the process, legends have blossomed.
A great example is James Williams, a Whig militia leader from the backcountry who acquired the fervor of rebellion early in the war. He led his men heroically through many battles; nevertheless, he has gone down in history as the worst scoundrel of his time.
He was killed leading his regiment at the Battle of Kings Mountain, normally a hero’s death, but his chronicler hinted he was killed by Americans holding grudges. How much of this dishonor did he earn?
Graves delved deeply into the legends of this fascinating and complicated man to determine, once and for all, the real story of Williams.
Biography of Col. James Williams, highest ranking Patriot officer to die from wounds suffered at the Battle of Kings Mountain, October 7, 1780. The book is fully indexed with maps and source documents relating to one of the Revolutionary War's forgotten heroes.
I’ve been a fan of military history since I was an army officer in the 1970s. Military history is fascinating, dynamic, exciting—it deals with people on the edge of real-world circumstances making life-or-death decisions. Of all military history, the Revolutionary War in the South is my favorite. It has been blessed with the richest trove of intriguing stories. Southerners love a great tale, and the southern war has provided volumes of them. The Southern Campaign teemed with such larger-than-life characters as Banastre Tarleton, the British officer everyone loved to hate, as well as Francis Marion, the beloved Swamp Fox of legend. Anyone who enjoys a great story will love the lore of the southern war.
I can’t get enough of Tarleton. Hated and feared in America, he was a hero to the British, and remains a cherished forebear in the UK and Canada.
I read relentlessly on the debate over Tarleton, which continues to this day, unresolved, in stark black and white terms. This fact is most apparent in the debate over Buford’s Massacre.
On 29 May 1780, Tarleton utterly defeated Abraham Buford’s detachment of several hundred American soldiers at the Waxhaws, on the border between North and South Carolina. The carnage was extreme. Tarleton claimed Buford made serious tactical errors that laid his men open to the British cavalry. The Americans cried foul, insisting Tarleton cut down men surrendering their weapons and asking quarter. Who’s right?
This is another book after my own heart, looking to get through the legends to learn what really took place at the Waxhaws.
I’ve been a fan of military history since I was an army officer in the 1970s. Military history is fascinating, dynamic, exciting—it deals with people on the edge of real-world circumstances making life-or-death decisions. Of all military history, the Revolutionary War in the South is my favorite. It has been blessed with the richest trove of intriguing stories. Southerners love a great tale, and the southern war has provided volumes of them. The Southern Campaign teemed with such larger-than-life characters as Banastre Tarleton, the British officer everyone loved to hate, as well as Francis Marion, the beloved Swamp Fox of legend. Anyone who enjoys a great story will love the lore of the southern war.
It is more than the parade of facts, one after the other in a pedantic trail of austere prose. History should grab you and rivet your attention to a subject so personal and so meaningful you can’t look away. If you agree, this book has it all.
Borick looked in a very unpromising place, the British records of Americans captured in the surrender of Charleston in May 1780, and found gold. The book is the heart-wrenching story of thousands of Americans sentenced to years rotting in dank cellars, or, far worse, on murderous prison ships.
The British didn’t want them, hence the title, part of a plea from Charleston’s commander to the British government. The Americans decided not to swap them for the British soldiers captured at Saratoga. The trade, they decided, would benefit the British at a time the Americans needed a win.
Relieve Us of This Burthen is the first book-length study of Continental soldiers, officers, and militiamen held as prisoners of war by the British in the South during the American Revolution. Carl P. Borick focuses his study on the period 1780-82, when British forces most actively campaigned in the South. He gives a detailed examination of the various hardships of imprisonment and efforts to assist and exchange prisoners while also chronicling events and military policies that affected prisoners during and after captivity.
As have prisoners of any war, captives in the Revolution suffered both physical and mental adversities during their…
Although I’ve been an avid reader of histories and biographies all my life, I didn’t become passionate about the American Revolution until moving to South Carolina in 2013. That’s when I began to learn about the South’s rich American Revolution history and become fascinated with Nathanael Greene’s role in it. So far, this fascination has inspired me to write two histories on Nathanael Greene, and I hope to keep going. Today, we tend to think about the American Revolution in terms of its northern battles, but if you want to understand the war’s end game, you need understand what happened in the South. These books are a great place to start.
Anyone who wants to learn about the American Revolution in the South should start here.
Buchanan not only weaves a thrilling narrative of the events beginning with the British capture of Charleston and ending at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, he does it in a literary style, perfectly weaving primary accounts with his own insights and observations.
This book changed my life! Not only did it introduce me to events of the Race to the Dan, it convinced me to write my own version of it. Anyone who wants to compliment me as a writer of histories, please compare me to John Buchanan.
A brilliant account of the proud and ferocious American fighters who stood up to the British forces in savage battles crucial in deciding both the fate of the Carolina colonies and the outcome of the war.
""A tense, exciting historical account of a little known chapter of the Revolution, displaying history writing at its best.""--Kirkus Reviews
""His compelling narrative brings readers closer than ever before to the reality of Revolutionary warfare in the Carolinas.""--Raleigh News & Observer.
""Buchanan makes the subject come alive like few others I have seen."" --Dennis Conrad, Editor, The Nathanael Greene Papers.
Lori Benton is an award-winning, multi-published author of historical novels set during 18th century North America. Her literary passion is bringing little-known historical events to life through the eyes of those who lived it, particularly those set along the Appalachian frontier, where European and Native American cultural and world views collided. Her second published historical novel, The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn, is set against the backdrop of the State of Franklin conflict, in which a young woman and a frontiersman flee across the mountains of North Carolina to keep her free of an unwanted marriage, just as tensions over who is destined to govern the Overmountain settlers erupts into violence.
It’s been a decade since I wrote my novel that featured as a backdrop the conflict over North Carolina’s western (Overmountain) counties’ attempt to form the controversial State of Franklin, but I remember how helpful Barksdale’s book was in forming my understanding of the era, the place, and the people involved. If I didn’t, the copious highlights and notes I left in my copy of this book would be enough to jog my memory. This book was highly readable and rich in detail.
Amid the economic turmoil, Native American warfare, and political unrest following the Revolutionary War, the leadership of the Tennessee Valley declared their region independent from North Carolina and formed the state of Franklin. In The Lost State of Franklin: America's First Secession, Kevin T. Barksdale chronicles the rise and fall of the ill-fated Franklin statehood movement. Barksdale describes the dramatic four years in which the Franklinites crafted a backcountry bureaucracy, expanded their regional market economy, and nearly eradicated the southwestern frontier's Native American population, all with the goal of becoming America's fourteenth state. Although the Franklin statehood movement collapsed in…
As an American Southerner, I know things that can be the most nurturing ever, but there's always a cost—emotional, physical, or other. The landscape and nature are where I can always go when I feel heartbroken. And my heart is renewed. Always. Being in tandem with nature calls me. It might be time to look a little closer. If we don't, we might lose more habitat and humanity. This topic or theme haunts me every day. This won't be all I write about, and I hope to have at least another five decades to see more. How amazing to have a sense of history while looking to the future? That walkabout is such a blessing.
What can pain be when you are trying to be free? Who is safe from that when you are trying to be a compassionate person? This book will quell your questions. A girl with scares and scars. Do not be faint of heart on this one. And especially stay away from wells. Really. But also know there is that light that might free us all.
George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the wilds of the North Carolina mountains to build a life together in a rural logging town. But Serena Pemberton is unlike any woman this town has ever seen: overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes and even saving her husband in the wilderness. So when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she is determined that her intensely passionate marriage will not unravel. A course of events unfolds that will change the lives of everyone in their rural community and bring this riveting tale of love and revenge to its shocking reckoning.
I am Lynda Rees,The Murder Guru, multi-award-winning author of historical fiction, contemporary mystery, suspense, romance, middle-grade mysteries, and children’s fiction. I love all things historical, especially American history. I am part-Cherokee, a coal miner’s daughter born in the Appalachian Mountains, and I grew up in northern Kentucky when Newport prospered as a gambling, prostitution, and sin mecca under the Cleveland Mob. My fascination with history’s effect on today’s lives works its way into my written pages. Having traveled the world negotiating with heads of industry and foreign governments during a corporate career in marketing and global transportation, this workaholic adventurer has succumbed to my passion for writing.
I found this coming-of-age story a satisfying tale of evolving self-discovery in an unlikely situation and in a less-traveled setting. Thrilling twists and turns kept me enthralled from page one to the end. The setting was vivid and colorful, and I fell in love with the well-defined, colorful characters. I highly recommend it.
If you fell in love with 1960s North Carolina when reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Donna Everhart’s The Moonshiner’s Daughter will transport you right back. Everhart’s sensitive and expert storytelling will capture you in this Southern coming-of-age novel!
Set in North Carolina in 1960 and brimming with authenticity and grit, The Moonshiner’s Daughter evokes the singular life of sixteen-year-old Jessie Sasser, a young woman determined to escape her family’s past . . .
Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that…
I’ve devoted my academic career and personal life to the limits and possibilities of white liberal approaches to civil rights reform. Trained in U.S. history and published in American Jewish history, I look closely at how ethnic groups and religious minorities interact with their racial and gender status to create a sometimes-surprising perspective on both history and our current day. At times powerful and at other times powerless, Jews (and other white ethnics) navigate a complex course in civil rights advocacy.
By investigating what white liberal Greensboro meant with the word “civility” against what black activists meant by “civil rights,” Chafe dives deep into the limits of white liberalism, undermining the claim that civil rights could be achieved by following a slow, southern, and civil, approach.
Reveals how whites in Greensboro used the traditional Southern concept of civility as a means of keeping Black protest in check and how Black activists continually devised new ways of asserting their quest for freedom.
I’ve been fascinated with the extraordinary ever since I read Madeleine L ’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time in middle school.I was also enchanted by Dorothy’s trip from black-and-white Kansas into colorful Oz. I once heard Neil Gaiman mention the “hyperreality” of life, and I thought, Yes!That’s how I want to see the world—the magic everywhere.I voraciously read not only magical realism books but also fantasy. These stories heighten my awareness of the wonder in everything and in everyone, and they deepen the richness of the stories I tell and write.
Twenty-seven-year-old Josey is sure of three things: winter in her North Carolina hometown is her favorite season; she's a sorry excuse for a Southern belle; and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her hidden closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother's house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night . . . Until she finds her closet harboring none other than local waitress Della Lee Baker, a tough-talking, tender-hearted woman who is one part nemesis - and two parts fairy godmother .…