Washington and His Comrades in Arms: A Chronicle of the War of Independence

George MacKinnon WrongProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
369K words
Chapters
37

Tags

English Originals World HistoryMilitary Military StrategyWar of IndependencePortrait GalleryMilitary CommandersFounding FiguresModern China

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Washington and His Comrades in Arms: A Chronicle of the War of IndependenceAuthor: Wrong, George McKinnon, 1860-1948,Language: English, Class: E201: History: America: Revolution (1775-1783), Release Date: Jul 1, 2001

Editor's review

This chronicle of the American War of Independence by Canadian historian George McKinnon Wrong centers on Washington and his comrades in arms, weaving together military operations, political maneuvering, and character. Rather than simply listing battles, the author seeks to show how the Continental Army maintained its fighting capacity amid scarce resources and diverging colonial interests, and how Washington established his authority as commander through defeat and controversy. The portraits of fellow generals, Continental Congress delegates, and foreign volunteers show that independence was not the work of one man but of people of differing views adapting to one another in crisis. The style belongs to early twentieth-century popular history writing: clear and steady in pace, suitable as an introductory overview of the war. Readers may wish to consult maps and timelines to grasp the causal links between campaigns. Note that the book is old and some of its historical views differ from current scholarship; it is best read as a classic narrative rather than the latest academic conclusion.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the preface or introduction first to understand the book's scope and the author's standpoint, then proceed to the main text.
  2. While reading, consult a timeline of the War of Independence and a map of the East Coast, marking the main battle sites.
  3. After each chapter, summarize in two or three sentences the core dilemma Washington faced at that stage.
  4. Take brief notes on unfamiliar generals or place names to avoid confusion over the cast of characters.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37

FAQ

Is this a complete general history of the War of Independence? It is not an exhaustive general history but a chronicle centered on Washington and his comrades, focusing on military leadership and key campaigns, with relatively limited coverage of social, economic, and diplomatic background. Readers can treat it as one main thread into the war and supplement it with other general histories.
How difficult is the English, and what level of learner is it suitable for? The original is early twentieth-century popular historical English: sentences are long but logically clear, and obscure words are few. Readers with reading ability at CET-4 or above who are willing to look up a few historical proper nouns should read it smoothly; intermediate and advanced learners can also use it to build historical vocabulary.
As a public-domain e-book, what should readers keep in mind? This book comes from Project Gutenberg and is a public-domain electronic text, mainly in plain text, and may lack maps and illustrations. Readers are advised to have their own maps and timelines of the War of Independence at hand, and to compare some of its views with contemporary historical works, given the book's early date.

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About the author

George MacKinnon Wrong Author · Canadian · 1860–1948

George MacKinnon Wrong (1860–1948) was a Canadian historian and Anglican clergyman. He taught for many years at the University of Toronto, where he was the first professor of modern history, and he helped found the predecessor of the Canadian Historical Review as well as the Champlain Society. Wrong's research focused on the colonial period and the War of Independence in North America. His representative works, The Conquest of New France and Washington and His Comrades in Arms, trace war and political change through chronological narrative, while A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs examines a century of social change centred on a single estate. His writing emphasizes the orderly presentation of historical facts and institutional context, and he played a foundational role in the professionalization of Canadian history; his works remain important references for understanding the Anglo-French contest in North America.