Learn how and why pivotal events really happened | Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American...

Washington (and America) Triumphant | Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History) | David Hackett Fischer

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	• Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History) David Hackett Fischer Oxford University Press, USA, 2004 - 517 pages average customer review:based on 107 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Book is great--cover torn and taped

I have already read and enjoyed this book, and have given it as a gift several times. However, when I ordered a copy for my brother for his birthday, it arrived with a tear half-way up the jacket/cover in front. It must have been noticed at Amazon before shipping, since it was taped together. I didn't have time to shop for another, so had to give it to him as-was.

I am disappointed that the book was not gift-quality, which I definitely did expect for a new book. I have ordered used books through Amazon that arrived in better condition.

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Learn how and why pivotal events really happened

I found learning how and why this most pivotal event actually came to pass to be a most interesting and gripping read. Fantastic! Four hundred pages of text backed by another 200 of appendices, notes, primary sources and index. This is real history. The strengths and weaknesses of dozens of the principal players is woven into this historical narrative spanning about 12 crucial months (1776-7) during the American Revolution that defines this nation.

Washington (and America) Triumphant

There aren't many historians like David Hackett Fischer, widely respected by his judgmental, often captious peers in the academy, the recipient of some of the most prestigious awards in his field, and capable of taking serious scholarship mainstream and with commercial success. I was first introduced to Fisher in graduate school when we were required to read his landmark "Historians' Fallacies," a withering attack on shoddy historiography. He set a high bar for scholarship in that classic text, a benchmark he meets in his own work.

I read this book, one in a series on pivotal moments in US history, with a mix of curiosity and surprise. The topic was one that I was well familiar with and which has been covered many times before, including a relatively recent, quality account by Ralph Ketchum, "Winter Soldiers." I found "Washington's Crossing" to be stellar, forcefully and clearly written, certainly worthy of its many accolades, and superior to others, including Ketchum's.

Fischer accentuates several aspects of the campaign that resonated with me. First, he demonstrates the unparalleled reach and professionalism of the British armed forces, every bit as dominant globally in 1776 as the United States is today, capable of executing feats of logistics, maneuver, coordination and power projection that no other peer competitor could hope to match. Fischer describes the British landing on Long Island as a masterwork amphibious assault. The number and skill of the Royal Navy overawed American observers. The size of the British expeditionary force the largest the empire had ever sent abroad. The author also stresses the competence and often progressive outlook of the leading British general officers, especially the Howe brothers in charge of the Army and Navy, and the main figure in the New Jersey campaign, General Cornwallis, "a figure of greater gravitas than George Washington," he reminds us. The American rebels weren't just facing an indomitable, mindless war machine in 1776; they were facing some of the most experienced, thoughtful and daring military leaders in the world, who happened to be politically liberal and initially inclined toward reconciliation and moderation in their campaigns.

At first, the generals' moderation appeared to be working, many of the British policies taking on the familiar outline of contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine: generous offers of blanket amnesty; stressing the fair and honest treatment of locals; an ink spot strategy of gradually expanding the area of control; instituting new government structures manned by loyalists. Indeed, Fischer emphasizes the civil war and insurgency aspect of the struggle in 1776 much more than other accounts that I've read. Despite the best efforts of the Howes and Cornwallis, the British troops, and especially the Hessians, abused the local population, which led to an uprising, a "Jersey Awakening" of sorts, packs of militia marauding the countryside, sniping at patrols and ambushing convoys, tactics and counter tactics similar to the present day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Wherever red coats and brass caps appeared in the countryside, they were attacked."

The thing that surprised me about this book was Fischer's highly flattering appraisal of George Washington's generalship, particularly given the admonishments to hero worship he laid down in "Historian's Fallacies." After decades of being cut down to size like the apocryphal cherry tree of his youth, Fischer pumps Washington up to Olympian dimensions. He is described as a brilliant leader and strategist, who sought and retained the initiative beginning in late December 1776, drove a campaign of high tempo and speed that the vaunted British couldn't hope to match, despite all of their professionalism and efficiency, and succeeding in feats of battlefield concentration that Napoleon in his prime would be pressed to duplicate. Fisher suggests that Washington was a master of taking full advantage of opportunities, and ultimately he "improvised [a] way of war that became an American tradition."

Fischer is most glowing in his treatment of Washington's leadership style, especially his openness to new ideas, his fostering of debate, and his willingness to hear from a wide group of men in his frequent war counsels. Moreover, he eventually found his footing and welded a polyglot army of vastly different cultures into a fighting force capable of fighting toe-to-toe with Europe's best. "His method was beginning to work in this army of free spirits. It was uniting cantankerous Yankees, stubborn Pennsylvanians, autonomous Jerseymen, honor-bound Virginians, and independent backcountrymen in a common cause."

The end result were historic victories of the winter campaign in New Jersey, victories that turned the tide of the war, analogous to the Tet Offensive, Fisher argues (although I think that is stretching it). Literally, over the course of few weeks the entire character of the war changed. The Americans had confidence, which led to desperately new recruits, and they had found a way to meet and beat the British. The British and Hessians, on the other hand, had suddenly lost their nerve, more concerned about being attacked than attacking, a shift of historic importance. "The battles at Trenton and Princeton and the Forage War were not small symbolic victories, as many historians have regarded them," Fischer says. "The winter campaign inflicted severe damage on British and Hessian forces."

Finally, Fisher ends on a high note, or at least from my perspective. His conclusion is an unapologetic paean to the nobility and virtue of the Founding Fathers and our need to emulate their example. I was dumbstruck by his tone and his words, so out of character are they, unfortunately, for an established American historian. The final paragraph of the book is worth quoting in full.

"They set a high example, and we have much to learn from them. Much recent historical writing has served us ill in that respect. In the late twentieth century, too many scholars tried to make the American past into a record of crime and folly. Too many writers have told us that we are captives of our darker selves and helpless victims of our history. It isn't so, and never was. The story of Washington's Crossing tells us that Americans in an earlier generation were capable of acting in a higher spirit - and so are we."

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Making Pictures From Historical Facts!

As a lover of GW, this book is one of the best!
The detail presented makes one think the author was
there. Amazing the luck involved that helped this
country gain independence. A great read!

Just a fantastic history book

Mr. Fischer is a wonderful writer and storyteller. My esteem for George Washington was already very high, since I had previously read several books about him. With this book I am nearly left in awe by the man's physical courage, tirelessness, self-control, patience, restraint and wisdom. He must be one of the great political and military leaders (not commanders, leaders) of all time, anywhere. An amazing human being.

But much of the same can be said about the many tough-as-nails officers and soldiers that served with him (bloody footprints in the snow, can you imagine??). As a work of history the author makes a very compelling case for the New Jersey campaigns of the winter of 1776-77 as the turning point of the war.

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Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia. George Washington lost ninety percent of his army and was driven across the Delaware River. Panic and despair spread through the states. Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, Washington--and many other Americans--refused to let the Revolution die. Even as the British and Germans spread their troops across New Jersey, the people of the colony began to rise against them. George Washington saw his opportunity and seized it. On Christmas night, as a howling nor'easter struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the river and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men. A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a counterattack by Lord Cornwallis's best troops, then were almost trapped by the British force. Under cover of night, Washington's men stole behind the enemy and struck them again, defeating a brigade at Princeton. The British were badly shaken. In twelve weeks of winter fighting, their army suffered severe damage, their hold on New Jersey was broken, and their strategy was ruined. Fischer's richly textured narrative reveals the crucial role of contingency in these events. We see how the campaign unfolded in a sequence of difficult choices by many actors, from generals to civilians, on both sides. While British and German forces remained rigid and hierarchical, Americans evolved an open and flexible system that was fundamental to their success. At the same time, they developed an American ethic of warfare that John Adams called "the policy of humanity," and showed that moral victories could have powerful material effects. The startling success of Washington and his compatriots not only saved the faltering American Revolution, but helped to give it new meaning, in a pivotal moment for American history.

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