Posted on 07/04/2017 2:32:11 PM PDT by Eagles Field
I always savor the insight Freeper History Buffs offer, especially the spirited difference in opinion. The easy answers are Washington, Jefferson, the like. Who are the ones unsung, where the tide may not have turned without?
We used to have a trivia board game called “The Bicentennial Game.”
I’ll tell you a terrific set of reads.
Begin with “Killer Angels,” Jeff Shaara’s novel about Gettysburg. Even though fiction, it’s really solid.
THEN, read Newt Gingrich & Bill Forstchen’s “Gettysburg” and the two books that follow. These are counterfactual fiction ((if there is such thing) in which the South wins at Gettysburg. Terrific. I’ve re-read these a half-dozen times.
Many books on the American Revolution don’t even mention the fighting in Florida and Louisiana. And how many Americans know that the final battle of the war was fought at Cuddalore, India in 1783?
An amusing statement. Please note that England was the seagoing country at the time. France was and is a strong military factor on land. Frenchmen don’t stop an advance for their cuppa.
funny, because Crispus Attucks and the rest of that Boston crew he hung with were pretty much regarded by both sides as just a bunch of rowdy drunks who liked to taunt the Redcoats. IIRC John Adams defended the soldiers who fired on them.
I’d nominate my Virginia militia ancestor who commanded a blocking force across the York river at the Siege of Yorktown. His great contribution of preparing and waiting for the escape attempt that never came gets obscured by those glory hounds Washington, Lafayette, etc. Totally unfair.
Other than that I’ll have to go with the always overlooked Admiral de Grasse at the Battle of the Chesapeake, without whom Cornwallis would have escaped the trap at Yorktown and the British wouldn’t have given up.
I had Carroll ancestors at the Battle of Williamson’s Plantation, the first of the series of militia victories in South Carolina that led up to the big victories at Kings Mountain and Cowpens. It was a small battle but an important one, the patriot militia saw that they could defeat British troops.
Every little victory helped build momentum and was needed to boost morale.
I loved that too
The turret fight scene
The prince in green
All from memory
Yes, it was simple, but exciting.
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