American Rebellion Book 1 of the Revolution

Rise to Rebellion: A Novel of the American Revolution

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According to Shaara, Revere sees the two lanterns in the Christ Church tower after he had crossed the bay and realizes then that the British are using boats to reach Cambridge, not the land route through Boston Neck. Before leaving Boston, Revere had instructed the sexton of the church to display two lanterns, while he was crossing the bay, realizing that if he failed to get across, Colonel Conant would need to know how the British army was proceeding.

Finally, using one paragraph, Shaara has Revere ride off into the countyside, how far we are not told. He writes nothing about how Revere is challenged by British officers detailed to intercept express riders, how he evaded them, how he alerted Sam Adams and John Hancock in Lexington, how he rode toward Concord with William Dawes and met Dr.

Samuel Prescott, and how he was arrested by other detailed British officers while Prescott escaped. Shaara has Major John Pitcairn, whom he identifies as "Thomas Pitcairn," depict the redcoat advance to Lexington, the battle on the town common, the subsequent march to Concord, the exchange of musket fire at the North Bridge, and the entire march back to Charlestown.

Nobody else contributes information. It is as though Shaara did not feel it expedient to provide detail or he didn't know the detail.

He fills this void of information with generalizations. He provides nothing specific about the activities of Pitcairn's advance scouts, who intercept several militiamen sent out successively by Lexington Captain John Parker to locate the army's whereabouts. He does not mention that the six light infantry companies Pitcairn commands, in advance of the six grenadier companies that the expedition's leader, Colonel Francis Smith, controls, divides in half upon reaching the Lexington common, not according to Pitcairn's wishes; and it is the first light infantry company of the six that opens fire on the 50 some militiamen standing on the common.

Shaara has Pitcairn witnessing the fighting at the North Bridge even though Pitcairn never left the center of Concord. The famous incident of Pitcairn falling off his horse and having his holstered pistols, attached to his saddle, carried to the rebels by his horse, takes place no more than a mile east of Concord, one might conclude, in a field, not on the road at Fiske Hill, near Lexington.

The extensive use of redcoat flankers to attack militia companies hiding behind trees, barns, and stone walls seemingly did not occur. Shaara does write that Colonel Smith's forces were reinforced at Lexington by another army sent out of Boston by General Gage, but he doesn't mention its commander, Colonel Hugh Percy, who saved the combined forces from annihilation or having to surrender. He does not mention that the worst fighting of the entire day took place subsequently in Menotomy nor how Percy tricked his militia opponents into believing that he intended to cross the Great Bridge at Cambridge and that he sent his forces in the opposite direction, to Charlestown.

In one paragraph -- one paragraph -- Shaara narrates Percy's entire retreat, from Lexingto to Boston, neglecting to inform us that the retreat actually ended at Charlestown. I recognize it was not Shaara's intention to write a book about Lexington and Concord. However, this complex, momentous event did happen. It should have been an important part of the narration. That he glossed over, fudged, and generalized details in the two chapters he devoted to its telling caused me to wonder just how accurate his narration was in other parts of the book.

Shaara would have done better if he had written two novels to span the seven years: That would have afforded him a better opportunity to narrate important events with greater detail. Dec 28, Thomas rated it liked it. I found this book interesting but it read more like nonfiction with so much of the emphasis on the political machinations leading up to the American Revolution.

This made for an airy read, packed with ideas and events and the big names of the day, but not the flesh and blood experience of what it felt like to be alive at this moment in history. From the Boston Massacre through the s, it explores the lives and minds of some of the most prominent historical figures as tensions between England and the American colonies intensity resulting in rebellion and war. Even though both sides are explored, there is definitely a bias toward the American colonies, a given righteousness of the rebels. Honestly, I didn't expect any different from such a novel.

The writing style pulls the reader into the events and even thoughts and feelings of the historical figures. However, Shaara doesn't seem able to get away completely from idealizing the founding fathers. The writing is a bit stiff, restrained without the coarseness that is usually associated with reality. Sometimes I forgot I was reading a work of fiction instead of a really good historical nonfiction.

I think this may be the result in trying to tackle so many idealized American historical figures in an accurate manner i. The emotional connection with the characters was intermittent, sometimes I was able to connect like I did with Franklin and Washington, but other times no matter how much I tried, some characters seemed plastic such as John Adams. Despite this, it is still an amazing work of fiction and probably one of the best out there on the American Revolution, one that portrays it so accurately and yet in such an interesting manner.

It makes American history enthralling and accessible, there is no excuse that any American shouldn't at least know the basics presented in this book and this book is a brilliant way of obtaining it. Alas, Rise to Rebellion, a novel covering the events leading up to the revolutionary war, is not nearly as good. In order to cover the important events, Shaara goes from one leading character to another. Instead of getting us started with the action immediately in each scene, Shaara spends many paragraphs engaged in excruciating exposition.

Shaara also has every character philosophize, droning on in speech and in thought. I suspect this may be because Shaara felt intimidated because he was writing about the Founding Fathers, whom we have been taught to revere, and treated them with too much respect. I appreciate that covering the events leading to a war is a challenging basis for a novel, as it involves many characters, places, points of view, events, and can span several years. Herman Wouk did this well in The Winds of War.

The only chapters which I truly enjoyed were those with George Washington. Shaara is much better when he writes about military action. I do respect the research he did and I did learn a fair amount about the events leading to the revolutionary war.

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View all 3 comments. I picked up this book on my own for the chance to get a better look into the colonies and American revolution for my AP US history class and i must say i was pulled into the fictional prospective style of writing than i thought i would be. The books a great read and easy to understand giving both perspectives of English foot soldiers to American radicals. It contains a lot more information than you would think and conveniently places it all in a better to understand time sequence instead of just I picked up this book on my own for the chance to get a better look into the colonies and American revolution for my AP US history class and i must say i was pulled into the fictional prospective style of writing than i thought i would be.

It contains a lot more information than you would think and conveniently places it all in a better to understand time sequence instead of just memorizing the events. The book does a great job of keeping you in the building events of the revolution and portraying historical figures in new lights you probably would never have guessed and gives explicit details on their lives which can help give a better understanding for their course of actions.

While the book is still fiction that's for the purpose of keeping the dialog in a fluid state and being able to convey characters views to a higher understanding, but also keeps it to a close historical accuracy. Shaara like his father before him can make history a readable subject, and this book is evidence of that. In his own way he works into the historical situations and lifestyles of each type of individual, from urban American farmer to the poor Irish state of suppressed living.

I would recommend this book to anyone who would need a little more background into the countries beginning or to build a better understanding of the US war for independence or if you prefer a interesting novel it all works out. As the author notes, by definition this book is a novel.

As true as he tries to be in telling the story through the voices of the characters, in their own words and through their own experiences, the dialogue and thoughts must be read as fiction. For some, there might too much information, because the book does skirt the line between fiction and nonfiction, but that made it perfect for me. Wanting to know more about this particular period in history, I fell back onto my usual course, which is to read novels set during that time, and moving on to nonfiction later.

This book is like getting both at the same time, the ease of a novel with the preponderance of information of a nonfiction book. I learned a lot from this book. While the main story was familiar to me, there were lesser known occurrences, glossed over in school, that gave more depth and breadth to the events, and to the people who brought them about. Despite the fact that I own the book I decided to pick up the audiobook at the library to listen to while I work. The audio book is read by Victor Garber and he was great. He did a great job with the character voices, including British and American accents.

My only complaint about the audio book was that it was the abridged version! Apparently the unabridged version is I've always loved American History, especially the Revolutionary War time, so this book has been on my TBR pile for awhile now. Apparently the unabridged version is really hard to find even amazon didn't have it. So now I am going to have to read the book to get the parts I missed. I enjoyed this book much more than my failed attempt to read by David G McCullough back in high school.

This book was history as a story, which made it even better than the facts I learned in school. There were times where I really felt that I was right there, witnessing what happened especially the Boston Tea Party. It had all your major revolutionary events with some personal touches by the characters as well. I can't wait to pick up the sequel, The Glorious Cause. In a few weeks, I'm going to Boston and in preparation for the trip, I decided to read Rise to Rebellion.

I could not be happier that I did. This book was fantastic in a multitude of ways. It was a great overview of the beginning of the Revolution and told this incredible story through such eloquent language that parts almost moved me to tears. Though not fully Jeff Shaara's penmanship, the reading of the Declaration of Independence to Washington's soldiers had me thoroughly choked up.

Warren's chapter on Bunker Hill was also particularly moving, if you know the outcome. And there were many, many speeches and a plethora of internal dialogue that were affecting and articulate I've long found the American Revolution to be my niche and I would recommend this to anyone looking for more information that isn't just dryly worded facts in a nonfiction history book. Reading the events in this way truly made me feel like I was there.

All I can say is that this was fantastic and it has already cemented its place on my favorites shelf. What I most enjoyed about this book was the ease with which I could lay it down for extended periods and pick it up right where I left off, without any lag in interest. This is not always easy for me with standard fictional novels. The fact that this is a"novel," though absolutely historically-based, made it more stable in its connection to truth - i. I do however feel there were many more fascinating details about the day-to-day experiences of these important characters that were probably were left out for expediency's sake.

For example, after finishing the book I once again picked up David McCollough's and thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering numerous intriguing details about New York in the spring and summer of just after Washington's entry following his departure from Boston. Nonetheless, I fully intend to read book two, Shaara's The Glorious Cause and will likely begin it within the next day or two. Having never read any of Shaara's Civil War works, I was new to his writing but enjoyed this immensely and am currently reading the second part of the story, "Glorious Cause".

The book recounts the period of , from the Boston Massacre to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, as a well-executed novel, primarily from the perspectives of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, General Gage, and, much later in the book, George Washington. Drawn primarily from their own written words, Shaa Having never read any of Shaara's Civil War works, I was new to his writing but enjoyed this immensely and am currently reading the second part of the story, "Glorious Cause".

Drawn primarily from their own written words, Shaara seems to get a solid handle on the characters, but due to the narrative focus, some events are given enormous attention, while others are merely included after the fact. The book also succeeds in setting the tone of both sides of the conflict, but from a distinctly American vantage point, which works particularly well in novel format. Remember all the stuff you learned in grade school about the American Revolution? Hey - it was over 40 years ago.

The "Rise to Rebellion," and its successor, "The Glorious Cause," make the entire historical event come alive. Now, of course a lot of the dialog and many of the events in the book need to be taken with a bit of skepticism, because who knows what George Washington really said or thought? But like any good piece of fiction, you are able to suspend your disbelief to enjoy Remember all the stuff you learned in grade school about the American Revolution? But like any good piece of fiction, you are able to suspend your disbelief to enjoy the story, and still feel like you're getting a history lesson at the same time.

I live in New Jersey, and so much of the American Revolution took place here. When I read the book and can picture the towns, roads and even the geography as it's described, the story really comes to life. Rise to Rebellion made me a "historical fiction" fan. You're probably familiar with characters involved in the birth of the United States--the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, to name a few.

Jeff Shaara has taken the massive amount of research necessary to bring these characters to life. You can walk with them, look into their thoughts and see actual historical events unfold. I found my understanding of what really, finally got the colonists to think about independence expanded when I could take a peek into the actual liv You're probably familiar with characters involved in the birth of the United States--the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, to name a few. I found my understanding of what really, finally got the colonists to think about independence expanded when I could take a peek into the actual lives of people living at that time.

As the author admits, he has written a novel, but it is historically accurate, including quotes from the characters. The story is written from the viewpoints of several different colonists as well as some British. This is a great, enjoyable way to make history come to life. I would recommend this book to middle and high school students as well as adults.

This is a historical fiction book about essentially the 'rise to rebellion'. It starts with the Boston Massacre and ends with the Declaration of Independence. The new nation would be confined to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. The American delegation opened direct secret negotiations with London, cutting the French out. He now saw a chance to make the United States a valuable economic partner. It gained fishing rights off Canadian coasts, and agreed to allow British merchants and Loyalists to try to recover their property.

It was a highly favorable treaty for the United States, and deliberately so from the British point of view. Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable two-way trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, as indeed came to pass. Since the blockade was lifted and the old imperial restrictions were gone, American merchants were free to trade with any nation anywhere in the world, and their businesses flourished. The British largely abandoned the Indian allies living in the new nation.

They were not a party to this treaty and did not recognize it until they were defeated militarily by the United States. However, the British did promise to support the Indians. They sold them munitions and maintained forts in American territory until the Jay Treaty of Losing the war and the Thirteen Colonies was a shock to Britain. The war revealed the limitations of Britain's fiscal-military state when they discovered that they suddenly faced powerful enemies with no allies, and they were dependent on extended and vulnerable transatlantic lines of communication.

The defeat heightened dissension and escalated political antagonism to the King's ministers. Inside Parliament, the primary concern changed from fears of an over-mighty monarch to the issues of representation, parliamentary reform, and government retrenchment. Reformers sought to destroy what they saw as widespread institutional corruption. The result was a powerful crisis from to The peace in left France financially prostrate, while the British economy boomed thanks to the return of American business. The crisis ended after thanks to the King's shrewdness in outwitting Charles James Fox the leader of the Fox-North Coalition , and renewed confidence in the system engendered by the leadership of the new Prime Minister William Pitt.

Historians conclude that loss of the American colonies enabled Britain to deal with the French Revolution with more unity and better organization than would otherwise have been the case.

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Britain had a sophisticated financial system based on the wealth of thousands of landowners, who supported the government, together with banks and financiers in London. The British tax system collected about 12 percent of the GDP in taxes during the s. In sharp contrast, Congress and the American states had no end of difficulty financing the war.

The British made the situation much worse by imposing a tight blockade on every American port, which cut off almost all imports and exports. One partial solution was to rely on volunteer support from militiamen and donations from patriotic citizens. Indeed, the soldiers and officers were given land grants in to cover the wages that they had earned but had not been paid during the war. Not until did the national government have a strong leader in financial matters, when Robert Morris was named Superintendent of Finance of the United States. Morris used a French loan in to set up the private Bank of North America to finance the war.

Seeking greater efficiency, Morris reduced the civil list, saved money by using competitive bidding for contracts, tightened accounting procedures, and demanded the national government's full share of money and supplies from the confederated states. Congress used four main methods to cover the cost of the war, which cost about 66 million dollars in specie gold and silver. The first issue amounted to million dollars. This paper money would supposedly be redeemed for state taxes, but the holders were eventually paid off in at the rate of one cent on the dollar.

By , the paper money was "not worth a Continental", as people said. The skyrocketing inflation was a hardship on the few people who had fixed incomes—but 90 percent of the people were farmers, and were not directly affected by that inflation. Debtors benefited by paying off their debts with depreciated paper. The greatest burden was borne by the soldiers of the Continental Army, whose wages were usually in arrears and declined in value every month, weakening their morale and adding to the hardships of their families.

Beginning in , Congress repeatedly asked the states to provide money. But the states had no system of taxation either, and were little help. By , Congress was making requisitions for specific supplies of corn, beef, pork, and other necessities—an inefficient system that kept the army barely alive. Starting in , the Congress sought to raise money by loans from wealthy individuals, promising to redeem the bonds after the war.

The bonds were in fact redeemed in at face value, but the scheme raised little money because Americans had little specie, and many of the rich merchants were supporters of the Crown. Starting in , the French secretly supplied the Americans with money, gunpowder, and munitions in order to weaken its arch enemy Great Britain. When France officially entered the war in , the subsidies continued, and the French government, as well as bankers in Paris and Amsterdam, lent large sums to the American war effort.

These loans were repaid in full in the s. The war finally ended in and was followed by a period of prosperity. The national government was still operating under the Articles of Confederation and was able to settle the issue of the western territories, which were ceded by the states to Congress. American settlers moved rapidly into those areas, with Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee becoming states in the s.

However, the national government had no money to pay either the war debts owed to European nations and the private banks, or to pay Americans who had been given millions of dollars of promissory notes for supplies during the war. Nationalists led by Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and other veterans feared that the new nation was too fragile to withstand an international war, or even internal revolts such as the Shays' Rebellion of in Massachusetts. Calling themselves "Federalists," the nationalists convinced Congress to call the Philadelphia Convention in The amendments were ratified by the states in The national debt fell into three categories after the American Revolution.

There was general agreement to pay the foreign debts at full value. There were also other debts that consisted of promissory notes issued during the Revolutionary War to soldiers, merchants, and farmers who accepted these payments on the premise that the new Constitution would create a government that would pay these debts eventually. Everyone received face value for wartime certificates, so that the national honor would be sustained and the national credit established.

The population of the 13 Colonies was not homogeneous in their political views and attitudes. Loyalties and allegiances varied widely within regions and communities and even within families, and sometimes shifted during the course of the Revolution. The American Enlightenment was a critical precursor of the American Revolution. Collectively, the acceptance of these concepts by a growing number of American colonists began to foster an intellectual environment which would lead to a new sense of political and social identity.

John Locke 's — ideas on liberty influenced the political thinking behind the revolution, especially through his indirect influence on English writers such as John Trenchard , Thomas Gordon , and Benjamin Hoadly , whose political ideas in turn had a strong influence on the American revolutionaries. He argued that all humans were created equally free, and governments therefore needed the "consent of the governed. The theory of the " social contract " influenced the belief among many of the Founders that among the "natural rights" of man was the right of the people to overthrow their leaders , should those leaders betray the historic rights of Englishmen.

A central motivating force behind the overthrow of monarchy and aristocracy was the American embrace of a political ideology called "republicanism", [ citation needed ] which was dominant in the colonies by but of minor importance back in Great Britain. Britain seemed to threaten the established liberties that Americans enjoyed.

The colonists associated it with luxury, and especially with inherited aristocracy, which they condemned. Men had a civic duty to be prepared and willing to fight for the rights and liberties of their countrymen. John Adams wrote to Mercy Otis Warren in , agreeing with some classical Greek and Roman thinkers in that "Public Virtue cannot exist without private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.

And this public Passion must be Superior to all private Passions. Men must be ready, they must pride themselves, and be happy to sacrifice their private Pleasures, Passions, and Interests, nay their private Friendships and dearest connections, when they Stand in Competition with the Rights of society. For women, " republican motherhood " became the ideal, exemplified by Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren ; the first duty of the republican woman was to instill republican values in her children and to avoid luxury and ostentation.

Some republics had emerged throughout history, such as the Roman Republic of the ancient world, but none ever existed that was based on liberal principles. It was widely distributed and loaned, and often read aloud in taverns , contributing significantly to spreading the ideas of republicanism and liberalism together, bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Great Britain, and encouraging recruitment for the Continental Army.

Paine provided a new and widely accepted argument for independence by advocating a complete break with history. Common Sense is oriented to the future in a way that compels the reader to make an immediate choice. It offered a solution for Americans disgusted and alarmed at the threat of tyranny. Dissenting churches of the day Protestant, non-Church of England were the "school of democracy", in the words of Patricia Bonomi. Throughout the colonies, dissenting Protestant ministers Congregationalist , Baptist, and Presbyterian preached Revolutionary themes in their sermons, while most Church of England clergymen preached loyalty to the king, the titular head of the English state church.

The Declaration also referred to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" as justification for the Americans' separation from the British monarchy. Most eighteenth-century Americans believed that nature, the entire universe, was God's creation [] and he was "Nature's God". Everything, including man, was part of the "universal order of things", which began with God and was directed by his providence. Historian Bernard Bailyn argues that the evangelicalism of the era challenged traditional notions of natural hierarchy by preaching that the Bible teaches that all men are equal, so that the true value of a man lies in his moral behavior, not in his class.

Bailyn, on the other hand, denies that religion played such a critical role.

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution. In terms of class, Loyalists tended to have longstanding social and economic connections to British merchants and government; for instance, prominent merchants in major port cities such as New York, Boston and Charleston tended to be Loyalists, as did men involved with the fur trade along the northern frontier.

They often were linked to British families in England by marriage as well. By contrast, Patriots by number tended to be yeomen farmers , especially in the frontier areas of New York and the backcountry of Pennsylvania, Virginia and down the Appalachian mountains. Leaders of both the Patriots and the Loyalists were men of educated, propertied classes. The Patriots included many prominent men of the planter class from Virginia and South Carolina, for instance, who became leaders during the Revolution, and formed the new government at the national and state levels. To understand the opposing groups, historians have assessed evidence of their hearts and minds.

In the midth century, historian Leonard Woods Labaree identified eight characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative; opposite traits to those characteristic of the Patriots. They thought resistance to the Crown—which they insisted was the only legitimate government—was morally wrong, while the Patriots thought morality was on their side.

Loyalists were alienated when the Patriots resorted to violence, such as burning houses and tarring and feathering. Loyalists wanted to take a centrist position and resisted the Patriots' demand to declare their opposition to the Crown. Many Loyalists, especially merchants in the port cities, had maintained strong and long-standing relations with Britain often with business and family links to other parts of the British Empire.

Many Loyalists realized that independence was bound to come eventually, but they were fearful that revolution might lead to anarchy, tyranny or mob rule. In contrast, the prevailing attitude among Patriots, who made systematic efforts to use mob violence in a controlled manner, was a desire to seize the initiative. Historians in the early 20th century, such as J. Franklin Jameson , examined the class composition of the Patriot cause, looking for evidence of a class war inside the revolution. Ideological demands always came first: Most yeomen farmers, craftsmen, and small merchants joined the Patriot cause to demand more political equality.

They were especially successful in Pennsylvania but less so in New England, where John Adams attacked Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the "absurd democratical notions" it proposed. The war became a personal issue for the king , fueled by his growing belief that British leniency would be taken as weakness by the Americans.

The king also sincerely believed he was defending Britain's constitution against usurpers, rather than opposing patriots fighting for their natural rights. Those who fought for independence were called "Patriots", "Whigs", "Congress-men", or "Americans" during and after the war.

They included a full range of social and economic classes but were unanimous regarding the need to defend the rights of Americans and uphold the principles of republicanism in terms of rejecting monarchy and aristocracy, while emphasizing civic virtue on the part of the citizens. Newspapers were strongholds of patriotism although there were a few Loyalist papers and printed many pamphlets, announcements, patriotic letters, and pronouncements.

He concludes that such people held a sense of rights which the British were violating, rights that stressed local autonomy, fair dealing, and government by consent. They were highly sensitive to the issue of tyranny, which they saw manifested in the British response to the Boston Tea Party. The arrival in Boston of the British Army heightened their sense of violated rights, leading to rage and demands for revenge. They had faith that God was on their side.

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The Loyalists never controlled territory unless the British Army occupied it. They were typically older, less willing to break with old loyalties, and often connected to the Church of England; they included many established merchants with strong business connections throughout the Empire, as well as royal officials such as Thomas Hutchinson of Boston. Most died of disease, but Britain took the survivors to Canada as free men. The revolution could divide families, such as William Franklin , son of Benjamin Franklin and royal governor of the Province of New Jersey who remained loyal to the Crown throughout the war.

He and his father never spoke again. After the war, the great majority of the approximately , Loyalists remained in America and resumed normal lives. Some became prominent American leaders, such as Samuel Seabury. Approximately 62, Loyalists relocated to Canada; others moved to Britain 7, , Florida, or the West Indies 9, The exiles represented approximately two percent of the total population of the colonies.

A minority of uncertain size tried to stay neutral in the war. Most kept a low profile, but the Quakers were the most important group to speak out for neutrality, especially in Pennsylvania.

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The Quakers continued to do business with the British even after the war began, and they were accused of being supporters of British rule, "contrivers and authors of seditious publications" critical of the revolutionary cause. Women contributed to the American Revolution in many ways, and were involved on both sides. While formal Revolutionary politics did not include women, ordinary domestic behaviors became charged with political significance as Patriot women confronted a war that permeated all aspects of political, civil, and domestic life. They participated by boycotting British goods, spying on the British, following armies as they marched, washing, cooking, and tending for soldiers, delivering secret messages, and in a few cases like Deborah Samson , fighting disguised as men.

Also, Mercy Otis Warren held meetings in her house and cleverly attacked Loyalists with her creative plays and histories.

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They maintained their families during their husbands' absences and sometimes after their deaths. American women were integral to the success of the boycott of British goods, [] as the boycotted items were largely household items such as tea and cloth. Women had to return to knitting goods, and to spinning and weaving their own cloth — skills that had fallen into disuse. A crisis of political loyalties could disrupt the fabric of colonial America women's social worlds: A woman's loyalty to her husband, once a private commitment, could become a political act, especially for women in America committed to men who remained loyal to the King.

Legal divorce, usually rare, was granted to Patriot women whose husbands supported the King. In early , France set up a major program of aid to the Americans, and the Spanish secretly added funds. Each country spent one million "livres tournaises" to buy munitions. A dummy corporation run by Pierre Beaumarchais concealed their activities. American rebels obtained some munitions through the Dutch Republic as well as French and Spanish ports in the West Indies.

Spain did not officially recognize the U. He led an expedition of colonial troops to force the British out of Florida and keep open a vital conduit for supplies. Most American Indians rejected pleas that they remain neutral and instead supported the British Crown. The great majority of the , Indians east of the Mississippi distrusted the Colonists and supported the British cause, hoping to forestall continued colonial encroachment on their territories.

Most Indians did not participate directly in the war, except for warriors and bands associated with four of the Iroquois nations in New York and Pennsylvania which allied with the British. The British did have other allies, especially in the upper Midwest. They provided Indians with funding and weapons to attack American outposts. Some Indians tried to remain neutral, seeing little value in joining what they perceived to be a European conflict, and fearing reprisals from whichever side they opposed.

The British provided arms to Indians who were led by Loyalists in war parties to raid frontier settlements from the Carolinas to New York. In , Cherokee war parties attacked American Colonists all along the southern frontier of the uplands throughout the Washington District, North Carolina now Tennessee and the Kentucky wilderness area. The Chickamauga Cherokee under Dragging Canoe allied themselves closely with the British, and fought on for an additional decade after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

Joseph Brant of the powerful Mohawk nation , part of the Iroquois Confederacy based in New York, was the most prominent Indian leader against the Colonial forces. In and , he led Iroquois warriors and white Loyalists in multiple attacks on small frontier settlements in New York and Pennsylvania, killing many settlers and destroying villages, crops, and stores.

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In , the Colonists forced the hostile Indians out of upstate New York when Washington sent an army under John Sullivan which destroyed 40 empty Iroquois villages in central and western New York. The Battle of Newtown proved decisive as the Patriots had a advantage and ended significant resistance. Otherwise there was little combat. Sullivan systematically burned the villages and destroyed about , bushels of corn that composed the winter food supply.

Facing starvation and homeless for the winter, the Iroquois fled to Canada. The British resettled them in Ontario, providing land grants as compensation for some of their losses. At the peace conference following the war, the British ceded lands which they did not really control, and did not consult their Indian allies. They transferred control to the United States of all the land east of the Mississippi and north of Florida. Burned villages and crops, murdered chiefs, divided councils and civil wars, migrations, towns and forts choked with refugees, economic disruption, breaking of ancient traditions, losses in battle and to disease and hunger, betrayal to their enemies, all made the American Revolution one of the darkest periods in American Indian history.

The British did not give up their forts in the West until in what is now the eastern Midwest, stretching from Ohio to Wisconsin; they kept alive the dream of forming a satellite Indian nation there, which they called a Neutral Indian Zone. That goal was one of the causes of the War of Free blacks in the North and South fought on both sides of the Revolution, but most fought for the Patriots.

Gary Nash reports that there were about 9, black Patriots, counting the Continental Army and Navy, state militia units, privateers, wagoneers in the Army, servants to officers, and spies. Many black slaves sided with the Loyalists. Tens of thousands in the South used the turmoil of war to escape, and the southern plantation economies of South Carolina and Georgia especially were disrupted. During the Revolution, the British tried to turn slavery against the Americans. But England greatly feared the effects of any such move on its own West Indies , where Americans had already aroused alarm over a possible threat to incite slave insurrections.

The British elites also understood that an all-out attack on one form of property could easily lead to an assault on all boundaries of privilege and social order, as envisioned by radical religious sects in Britain's seventeenth-century civil wars. Davis underscored the British dilemma: American advocates of independence were commonly lampooned in Britain for what was termed their hypocritical calls for freedom, at the same time that many of their leaders were planters who held hundreds of slaves.

Samuel Johnson snapped, "how is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the [slave] drivers of the Negroes? Phyllis Wheatley was a black poet who popularized the image of Columbia to represent America. She came to public attention when her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in During the war, slaves escaped from New England and the mid-Atlantic area to British-occupied cities such as New York.

The effects of the war were more dramatic in the South. In Virginia, royal governor Lord Dunmore recruited black men into the British forces with the promise of freedom, protection for their families, and land grants. Tens of thousands of slaves escaped to British lines throughout the South, causing dramatic losses to slaveholders and disrupting cultivation and harvesting of crops. For instance, South Carolina was estimated to have lost about 25, slaves to flight, migration, or death—amounting to one third of its slave population. From to , the black proportion of the population mostly slaves in South Carolina dropped from British forces gave transportation to 10, slaves when they evacuated Savannah and Charleston , carrying through on their promise.

Others sailed with the British to England or were resettled as freedmen in the West Indies of the Caribbean. But slaves who were carried to the Caribbean under control of Loyalist masters generally remained slaves until British abolition in its colonies in More than 1, of the Black Loyalists of Nova Scotia later resettled in the British colony of Sierra Leone , where they became leaders of the Krio ethnic group of Freetown and the later national government.

Many of their descendants still live in Sierra Leone, as well as other African countries. Britain wanted to develop the frontier of Upper Canada on a British colonial model. Interpretations vary concerning the effect of the Revolution. Contemporaries of the period referred to it as "the revolution", [] [] although the war is sometimes known as the "American War of Independence" outside the United States, particularly in the United Kingdom. Historians such as Bernard Bailyn , Gordon Wood , and Edmund Morgan view the American Revolution as a unique and radical event that produced deep changes and had a profound effect on world affairs, such as an increasing belief in the principles of the Enlightenment.

These were demonstrated by a leadership and government that espoused protection of natural rights, and a system of laws chosen by the people. After the Revolution, genuinely democratic politics became possible in the former colonies. Concepts of liberty, individual rights, equality among men and hostility toward corruption became incorporated as core values of liberal republicanism. The greatest challenge to the old order in Europe was the challenge to inherited political power and the democratic idea that government rests on the consent of the governed. The example of the first successful revolution against a European empire, and the first successful establishment of a republican form of democratically elected government, provided a model for many other colonial peoples who realized that they too could break away and become self-governing nations with directly elected representative government.

The Dutch Republic, also at war with Britain, was the next country to sign a treaty with the United States, on October 8, The American Revolution was the first wave of the Atlantic Revolutions: Many British and Irish Whigs spoke in favor of the American cause. In Ireland, there was a profound impact; the Protestants who controlled Ireland were demanding more and more self-rule. Under the leadership of Henry Grattan , the so-called " Patriots " forced the reversal of mercantilist prohibitions against trade with other British colonies.

The King and his cabinet in London could not risk another rebellion on the American model, and made a series of concessions to the Patriot faction in Dublin. Armed Protestant volunteer units were set up to protect against an invasion from France. As in America, so too in Ireland the King no longer had a monopoly of lethal force. The Revolution, along with the Dutch Revolt end of the 16th century and the 17th century English Civil War , was among the examples of overthrowing an old regime for many Europeans who later were active during the era of the French Revolution, such as the Marquis de Lafayette.

States such as New Jersey and New York adopted gradual emancipation, which kept some people as slaves for more than two decades longer.

The democratic ideals of the Revolution inspired changes in the roles of women. The concept of republican motherhood was inspired by this period and reflects the importance of Republicanism as the dominant American ideology. It assumed that a successful republic rested upon the virtue of its citizens. Women were considered to have the essential role of instilling their children with values conducive to a healthy republic. During this period, the wife's relationship with her husband also became more liberal, as love and affection instead of obedience and subservience began to characterize the ideal marital relationship.

In addition, many women contributed to the war effort through fundraising and running family businesses in the absence of husbands. The traditional constraints gave way to more liberal conditions for women. Patriarchy faded as an ideal; young people had more freedom to choose their spouses and more often used birth control to regulate the size of their families. Society emphasized the role of mothers in child rearing, especially the patriotic goal of raising republican children rather than those locked into aristocratic value systems.

There was more permissiveness in child-rearing. Patriot women married to Loyalists who left the state could get a divorce and obtain control of the ex-husband's property. But, some women earned livelihoods as midwives and in other roles in the community, which were not originally recognized as significant by men.

Abigail Adams expressed to her husband, the president, the desire of women to have a place in the new republic: Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Once more breathing vigor and passion into the dusty annals of our nation's history, the author of the bestselling Civil War trilogy Gods and Generals; The Last Full Measure; Gone for Soldiers demonstrates an ever-growing level of literary competence in the first installment of his projected two-volume saga of the American Revolution.

Spanning the crucible years beginning with the Boston Massacre in March and continuing through the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July, 4, , the story is told from the perspective of a handful of characters well known from our history books. In London there's aging Philadelphian Benjamin Franklin, who has resided for a number of years abroad, an agent for home colony Pennsylvania and others. In New York, Gen. Thomas Gage is the ranking British officer on American soil.

This masterful dramatization of the fateful escalation of the rebellion following the Boston Massacre moves from the battles of at Lexington, Concord, Fort Ticonderoga, Bunker Hill and the siege of Boston, through the convening in of the Continental Congress and the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

July; on-sale June 12 Forecast: Ballantine is bringing out the big guns for this one: Copyright Cahners Business Information, Inc. The first of two projected novels on the American Revolution, Rebellion takes the reader from the Boston Massacre to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Shaara's Gone for Soldiers sympathies are evident on every page: These are not cardboard figures, however, but complicated human beings making difficult decisions in the midst of a crisis for which old wisdom holds no workable answers.

Ultimately, what raises this fine novel above jingoism is the author's ability to make our national myths sing and our country's history come to vibrant life. See all Editorial Reviews. Product details File Size: July 6, Sold by: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Read reviews that mention rise to rebellion american revolution jeff shaara john adams declaration of independence historical fiction revolutionary war george washington glorious cause ben franklin founding fathers benjamin franklin civil war thomas gage boston massacre events leading lexington and concord tea party bunker hill high school.

Showing of reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. This is the best historical fiction book I have read. Jeff Shaara has accurately portrayed the historical events in a story that every person who lives in this United States should read so they understand exactly how and why we became these United States! He takes the boring names, dates, and places out of history and makes them come alive in a real page-turning novel. If our history and government teachers would only give the why and how--the REAL details leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and, ultimately, The Revolutionary War--in an interesting way, maybe students would actually learn about the founding of this great country and the sacrifices that were made for it by many of our ancestors.

And, in turn, maybe they all would respect our country for what it was meant to be, and help protect it from becoming what we broke away from. Jeff has done this. This should be required reading in our schools. Mass Market Paperback Verified Purchase. I am a big fan of Jeff Shaara.

His books are the best historic fiction that I've read. He does a masterful job putting the reader into the lives of some of history's most pivotal characters and making you see their perspectives while also learning a lot of history. This book is one of his best and describes the beginnings of the American Revolution. I feel like I have a much better understanding of a topic that I was already knew well. His writing is clear and crisp, and he does a good job making complicated issues understandable.

This is outstanding for any history fan. The discipline of troops had begun to slip; men became frustrated by the hostility around them, the taunts and minor assaults, and when the officers were not close, many of the soldiers had begun to strike back. I've read many Shaara books, and Rise to Rebellion definitely meets the bar set by his others.

In typical Shaara fashion, he divides the book into chapters presenting the points of view of various central characters. General Thomas Gage and George Washington.

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