This Sunday I completed reading David McCullough's 1776. It is a wonderful book. Often in history it often assumed in retrospect that there was never any doubt of a particular outcome. However, that is often not the case. 229 years later it is easy to think that the United States independence was the natural outcome of the War for Independence. However in the dark days of 1776, and there were many dark days, we almost lost that war. The book deals almost entirely on George Washington and on the Continental Army's battles with the British. There is not much on the the Declaration of Independence. It is very clear that had Washington and his army lost the Declaration would have meant very little.
The book starts with the American siege of Boston. The British after Concord and Lexington were bottled up in Boston. The American Army could not get in and the British Army could not get out except by sea. Washington was given command of the army. Henry Knox, a former Boston book store owner, came up with idea of bringing the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York to Boston to help the American Army. Knox selected 58 mortars and cannon. Three of the mortars weighed a ton each and the 24 pound cannon more than 5000 pounds. Altogether he move 120,000 pounds of cannon and mortars in the dead of winter from Ticonderoga to Boston. (No Mac trucks and few roads ) The Americans then placed the cannon on Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston and forced the British to evacuate from Boston by sea. So far so good. However the British were expected to next attack New York City and Washington moved his "rag tag" army from Boston to New York (to be continued in part II)
