Customer Reviews

Nothing but Blood and Slaughter: The Revolutionary War in the Carolinas - Volume Three 1781

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As with his first two volumes, O'Kelley continues with chronological briefings of all skirmishes and battles in the Carolinas and Georgia, this volume covering the year 1781. Nearly all of the reports include the order of battle and commanders for both sides, with the outcome where known reported in terms of causualities (killed, wounded, captured and missing) as well as overall victor and significance of the fight.

The value of O'Kelley's book are the narrative reports of skirmishes and small encounters as well as the major battles of Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse. The narratives are concise, but usually with enough detail to get more than a flavor of the actions and personality of the leaders, particularly in the bloody clashes between Whig and Tory partisan bands, many of which gave no quarter as some clashes were more for revenge than for political or military gain. "Nothing but Blood and Slaughter" demonstrates that nowhere in the colonies was the fighting so extensive, so personal, so destructive as in the Carolinas.

All of the "Nothing but Blood and Slaughter" volumes are essential for any student of the American Revolutionary war and/or for students unconventional warfare.

O'Kelley is a retired Special Forces Master combat veteran and an avid participant in Revolutionary War recreations, and with those experiences provides an insight most historians miss. His research is extensive, with much of the incidents he reports about being ignored in the history books. He does an excellent job of separating myth from fact. For example, many believe the Revolutionary War ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Not so. O'Kelley is now working on a fourth volume, reporting on incidents of warefare in 1782 and beyond.

The only negatives are more of a nuisance rather than flaws in reporting. Volume III is riddled with typos and, as in Volumes I and II, he uses endnotes rather than footnotes, requiring the reader to constantly be thumbing back and fourth. However the end notes are extensive,often more enlightening, adding to the authenticity of O'Kelley's exceptional work.

Patrick O'Kelley seems to have covered every Revolutionary War Battle and Skirmish for 1781 for N.C. & S.C. in this book. He has done the same for 1771-1779, 1780 & 1782 in his other books. These are a must have for the Revolutionary War enthusiast or researcher. Most of the South Carolina Battles are in this book.

I fugured I would get the information I needed about a particular battle for some genealogy research I was doing, then donate this book to the genealogy department of my local library. But the book just kept drawing me in so that I now want to go read the first two volumnes. The library may have to get their own copy.