Customer Reviews

Peter's War: A New England Slave Boy and the American Revolution

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This book asserts that it will relate the story of Peter, a young man enslaved along the battle road between Lexington and Concord on that April day in 1775 when the British army marched by. Peter then served in the militia and Continental armies. This should be fascinating stuff, and indeed, parts of the book are very good.

But I would say that the book is marred by two problems. Most important, the book has no footnotes (odd--you would think Yale University Press could do better than that). Why doesn't it have them? Readability? Fear of scaring off general readers? Laziness? I suspect it is not any of these factors, but rather that the author makes a great many statements for which she cannot have any factual evidence for support. Peter, unfortunately, left no written records, and neither really did anyone he was intimate with. Even finding records from other soldiers in his units seems to have been impossible. So we are left with guess work.

Sometimes those guesses sound reasonable. At other times, they don't, at least to me. Worse, is when they make no sense, as when the author asserts that Peter would have hated Sundays--this when the author wants to write about racial segregation at Church--but on the next page writes that Sunday was the only day he could see his mother. The author really hasn't found enough here about Peter to justify a book by this title.

So what we have is the second problem--a misleading title. The book is more often simply a history of the general African American experience in the Revolutionary period. This is important stuff, and the book would be a fine introduction to that topic--especially if the reader takes the guess work with a large grain of salt--for those who don't mind reading about the basics of the battles of Lexington and Concord, and the war in New Jersey, and Yorktown. For me, I skimmed large parts, looking for the next scant mention of Peter and his family.

To be fair this book is first and foremost about the American Revolutionary War. I bought it because I thought I'd learn more about slaves in Massachusetts. If you want to read about the Revolutionary War and its effects on the people who lived in Lincoln and Lexington MA this is an interesting read. If what you really want is to read about slaves in Massachusetts you will get some information but not much. While the author discovered a few personal facts about Peter she found no written journals or diaries. Thus throughout the book she assumes Peter felt this or that; she doesn't really know. It is frustrating because you have no way to know what is fact and what she is conjecturing. If she wanted to tell Peter's story it would have been better, I think, to use the facts she did find and build out his life story, but label it historical fiction. Also, I was dismayed to find there were no chapter notes to give the reader information about where her information came from. She only included a general list of books she consulted. I bought this book hoping it would give me some insight into how I can learn more about the slaves in my home town. I was disappointed.

I realy enjoyed reading Peter's War. It gave a thoughtful and comprehensive view of the Black American experience during the Revolutionary War and the contribution made by African Americans. In addition it is an excellent and entertaing history of key battles of the Revoulution. I learned how people lived at the time and the sacrifices that ordinary people made in order for the revolution to succeed.

The Author has meticulously researched the material to give us a charming and accurate insight into racial relations at the time. I read the Book in two days and could not put it down.

This book explores the role of slaves during the Revolutionary War through the records of one particular slave boy in New England who fought with the Patriots. The written record of this individual is thin but his story is butressed by a lively, readable history of the War and the story of other slaves during the period-- those in the Southern colonies and those who chose to serve with the English. For me, this book filled in the blanks about what ordinary, flesh & blood African Americans were doing during this period in our history and how important freedom was to them.