Books like Wilderness War on the Ohio — picked by fans

This superb book provides deep insights into the relationship between Indigenous peoples and encroaching European settlers and convincingly emphasizes that the striving of land developers, such as George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Patrick Henry, was a major cause of the American rebellion. He describes in detail the Native societies, their customs, interactions, and political alliances. The early chapters provide accounts of settlers of both sexes who were captured, adopted, nurtured, and trained by the Natives. In the case of the Girty brothers, their seizures led to their wartime careers as accomplished, multi-lingual interpreters and as fighting partisans in the British Indian Department. In addition to an amazing array of Native tribes, two companies of Butler’s Rangers operated out of Detroit assisted by the Girtys. 

This book features another extremely active British partisan of the mid-west war. Alexander McKee was of mixed blood, his mother Shawnee. He grew up in her people’s society and became a trader across the Ohio country. When war broke out, he was appointed a captain in the Detroit Indian Department and, over the ensuing years, campaigned throughout the Ohio region and Kentucky territory as a cultural mediator between the Natives and the British administration. Postwar, he settled in southern Ontario and became one of the settlement’s elite citizens with the rank of colonel in the Indian Department. Governor Carleton referred to him as “an old Servant universally spoken of for his merits.” In 1794, he was appointed deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs and inspector general for Upper and Lower Canada, positions he held until his death in 1799. 

Here is an excellent biography of another British partisan who operated in the American midwest. Elliott emigrated from Ulster in 1760 and served under Bouquet at Fort Pitt two years later. He took up the Indian trade in the Shawnee country, married a Shawnee, and earned their nation’s confidence. After much prevarication, he joined the British resistance to the rebellion in the spring of 1778 and became a significant officer in the Indian Department. In 1778, he attended Governor Hamilton’s expedition against rebel-held Vincennes, and in 1780, supported Captain Henry Bird’s invasion of Kentucky, and fought in the battle of Blue Licks in 1782. 

Elliott’s notable career continued long after the war. Incredibly, the old veteran served in a senior Indian Department role in the early days of the War of 1812.

Lofaro portrays the other side of the coin, describing the amazing career of an American legend – the restless, fearless Daniel Boone, who took the settlers’ side during the relentless expansion westwards onto Native lands. After a personal exploration of Kentucky territory, Boone raised a large body of settlers, guided them to the territory, and created a community guarded by forts he helped to construct. Boone took the lead in fighting the Natives who objected to the intrusion.

To the American mind, this man is the epitome of the American frontiersman and Lofaro’s book reveals all sides of his complex personality while describing the Revolutionary War conflict in the mid-west. Notably, Boone was not without sympathy for the Natives’ plight. Of course, he crossed paths with many British partisans and their Native allies who vigorously attacked the Kentucky settlements. (Appropriately, this book was published in Kentucky.)

Osprey books are often the best place to start when researching a new historical topic. While writing my novel, Many Sparrows, I relied on this slender volume more than any other. Richly illustrated, packed with maps, vivid without getting bogged down in detail… if you want to begin delving into the topic of Dunmore’s War (Point Pleasant being its single notable battle), this is the book for you.

I knew nothing about this fella going in! von Steuben accomplished so much–but how much of that was via lies, deceit, and disregard for those who didn't fit with his personal plan for success? He was a trailblazer for gay leaders but problematic just the same. This well-researched, well-paced tale moves along well, with fantastic illustrations and welcome input from the authors on how von Steuben's story affects and compares to their own lives as gay men.

Of all the books on my list, this is the one closest in subject to mine. 

Calloway tells the story of the first war fought by the United States after the American Revolution, but he tells it from the perspective of the Native coalition that fought it. It is a powerfully told story about how Native Americans understood the international politics in which they lived and then how they mustered the force to try to change those politics.

Unlike most writers on Native American warfare, Calloway understands logistics and how they shaped that war from both sides. This issue is also central to my book. 

When I wanted to start understanding the culture of the Continental Army, this was the first book I read. Cox shows that General Washington wanted a hierarchical army, modeled on the British system, with gentlemen to lead the way as officers. He got much of what he wanted. Officers were recruited differently, rewarded differently, and punished differently than enlisted men. They experienced illness and injury differently (they were much more likely to be cared for in a private home, not left to suffer in camp), and they even died differently, with their names recorded for posterity while ordinary soldiers rarely rated a personal mention. Still, soldiers pushed back, not always accepting their lowly status, a key source of tension in an army fighting for liberty.

So many books are written about the Big Men. But I prefer stories that give me a sense of daily life, from church bells to tomahawks. That’s why I loved the intricacy of Russell Shorto’s book, which looks at the fight for independence through the lens of six very different sorts of people: an Indigenous leader, an emancipated slave, a British officer, a humble shoemaker, an impoverished woman who began her life in luxury, and George Washington himself.

They all come alive on the page, but I found Venture Smith, a free Black man who settled in Connecticut, to be the most memorable. Smith earned his way into freedom, bought his wife and children out of slavery, made himself into a well-off man, and then even purchased a few slaves of his own.

This incredibly well-researched and powerfully written anthology does the one thing I always want to remind people: that women have always served and fought for our country. Women are usually invisible when it comes to military representation, especially in a historical sense. Either ignored or forgotten, our existence has continuously been minimalized. Bell and Crow’s anthology, with acute detail, tells stories of women who served from the birth of our nation up to modern day. In excerpts from diaries, letters, oral histories, published and unpublished memoirs, generations of women reveal why and how they chose to serve their country, often breaking the social norms, even to great personal peril. An excellent reference guide to get that one, random guy to shut up when he complains “women don’t belong in the military.”