Customer Reviews

The Revolutionary War in the Hackensack Valley: The Jersey Dutch and the Neutral Ground, 1775-1783

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Leiby's book draws on a range of primary sources and concentrates on the Hackensack River Valley in New Jersey (extending up to Rockland County, NY). Few modern books go into as much detail for this region as does Leiby. His documentation is sound and he uses it to construct a dramatic narrative of the Revolutionary period. Excellent also for genealogists. However, genealogists may sometimes be a little frustrated that Leiby chose the most archaic form of each surname rather than attempt to arbitrate the most "accurate" spelling.

One serious complaint, from the perspective of an historian, is that Leiby sometimes seems methodologically naive in his nearly uncritical support for the American side. He does not try to understand the Loyalists. Many of them were decent people, as demonstrated by books such as Philip Ranlet's The New York Loyalists. I think Leiby's book would have been much richer for it. Leiby is definitely worth reading.

This was a great book for learning about the events, the backdrop of religious civil war, and the loyalties of the inhabitants of Bergen County during the American Revolution. The book is well written and fairly thorough. It will be of interest to anyone who wants to know how the Revolution played out in one area for the entire duration of the war. More interesting since it was a hotly contested area where neighbors had a visceral hatred for each other.

The writer is unabashedly pro American, but so what? At least he's not veiling his biases as is the tendency of far too many historians.

I do wish that the maps were a)more readible, b) accompanied by modern maps for comparison -- I still can't find where Liberty Pole is/was.

Most people with even the most basic understanding of the founding of America and the conflicts this country went through know that Virginia was the main battleground for the American Civil War. The first large-scale engagement was fought in Manassas and Lee surrendered in Appomattox, and Virginia has done an excellent job with it's "Civil War Trails" highlighting this history.

Why then, is New Jersey not given the same attention for its role in the war? This book, a perfect companion to "Washington's Partizan War", gives a wonderful account of what seven years of war in northern New Jersey and southern New York was like.

Besides the British occupying New York City and several blockhouses across the river in New Jersey, this theater of the war was very different. The inhabitants were almost all Dutch, either remnants of New Netherlands or adopted by the culture, but of two very different view points on both religion and politics. A disagreement over governance of the Dutch Reformed Church in the 1760s spilled over into the Revolution, with lines being drawn between Tory and Whig, Loyalist and Rebel. Though the Carolina Backcountry gets most of the attention of the "civil war" aspect of the Revolution, what went on in New Jersey was on a larger scale and longer duration.

This book will not only tell you of the "Retreat Across the Jerseys", the battles of Paramus, Paulus Hook, Hackensack, Bull's Ferry, the Tappan Massacre, etc., but it is wonderfully documented with detailed footnotes, the mark of any good scholarly work. Any student of the area or the war will appreciate the leads this gives for in depth study on this topic.