Rick Atkinson brings history to life in vivid detail in this first book of a planned trilogy about the American Revolutionary War. Sergeants prodded the sick and lame who lingered by the roadside, but at least two soldiers fell behind and froze to death on the tableland that night.”
Whenever the march stalled momentarily, as night marches inevitably did, men fell asleep on their feet and had to be forcibly roused. As the road angled through dripping copses of hickory and black oak, soldiers draped handkerchiefs, greased rags, coat skirts, and blankets over their musket priming pans, to small effect. “The column stretched for more than a mile, first rising east from the river, then turning sharply south onto Bear Tavern Road. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of America’s creation drama. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who becomes one of America’s greatest battle captains Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves himself the nation’s wiliest diplomat George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost.įull of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1776–77, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force and struggle to avoid annihilation. In this new book, he tells the story of the first twenty-one months of America’s violent effort to forge a new nation. Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning An Army at Dawn and two other superb books about the Second World War has long been admired for his unparalleled ability to write deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative history. The war would last eight years, and though at least one in ten of the Americans who fought for independence would die for that cause, the prize was valuable beyond measure: freedom from oppression and the creation of a new republic. Less than two years later, Britain’s bright future turned dark: after a series of provocations, the king’s soldiers took up arms against his rebellious colonies in America. In June 1773, King George III attended a grand celebration of his reign over the greatest, richest empire since ancient Rome. It is difficult to imagine any reader putting this beguiling book down without a smile and a tear.’ New York Times ‘To say that Atkinson can tell a story is like saying Sinatra can sing … A powerful new voice has been added to the dialogue about origins as a people and a nation.
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