What a remarkable book this is! At first I was a little put off by the style.......a lot of quick cutting from one thing to the next, with a lot of short, snappy paragraphs. But I adjusted to the style and settled down to really enjoy the historical quilt that Mr. Hallahan has put together. The style works because it really conveys the excitement of the times, and the confusion of the times as well! The author writes about Lexington and Concord but also of the events leading up to April 19th, 1775- and the aftermath. He starts off in Boston, telling you what the patriots and the British were up to. This takes up about the first one-third of the book. Then he moves southward, following the news as it spread through the colonies. We move through New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg and on to London. Along the way Mr. Hallahan provides wonderful, succinct descriptions of both the people and the places that are important to the narrative. The book provides almost an embarrassment of riches. You really get the feel of each place that is visited and in just a few paragraphs or a couple of pages you will feel that the author has truly captured the personality of whichever person he has chosen to zoom in on.
Let me get myself out of the picture for awhile and give you a few examples of how well Mr. Hallahan writes:
On John Adams's temper: "As he became more sure of himself and his philosophic view of the world, his temperament became more volcanic. In town meetings he often bellowed with fury at his opponents, hammering home his points by pounding his fist on his palm. He had become formidable. Frightening. He could not even read a book calmly. His 3,000 volume library bristles with his marginalia. 'Pitiful!', he scrawls. 'Thou Louse, Flea, Tic, Wasp or whatever Vermin thou art!'
The use and abuse of the press by the colonials (too bad they didn't teach us this stuff in school!): "The press distorted the news and also suppressed it at will. Significant events such as the vicious assault on customs inspectors by Sam Adams's mob were not reported...With a crowd of over 300 cheering, the inspectors were...pitched headlong into the harbor...the collector and the comptroller of customs (were) hauled through the streets with taunts and shoves and punches..."
A little gem of a description of General Nathaniel Greene: "During the war, while he was on military service, he had his ironworks converted into a cannon factory. His troops got used to seeing him halt a march, make a cup of tea, and, slipping a book out of his pocket, become totally lost in his reading. He was destined to become the most brilliant of all of Washington's generals."
John Hancock arriving in Philadelphia: "Clattering noisily through the streets of the city in his gilded carriage, he would ride preceded, flanked, and followed by a cadre of mounted horsemen. Restaurateurs would hate to see them coming for they were raucous, unsettling, quarrelsome, disturbing, and given to consuming great quantities of food and drink- especially drink. Then they would gallop off into the night without paying the bill."
Positively Dickensian in terms of plot and in terms of the fascinating, swirling cast of characters. You will finish this book wanting to read biographies of about 15-20 different people: John Adams, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Thomas Paine, Gen. Gage, King George III, and so on and so on........
A marvelous read.
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