I happened to catch some of Brit's show yesterday and he had David McCullough on talking about his book "1776". Wonderful history lesson. After the battle of Brooklyn and several other battles around that time, America had lost the revolutionary war. Lost it! Imagine what we would have become if CNN and the 24 hour news doomsayers had been around then! My god. Thank God for George Washington and those 3,000 men who stayed with him.
Esteemed historian David McCullough covers the military side of the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh perspective to the beginning of the American Revolution. It was a turbulent and confusing time. As British and American politicians struggled to reach a compromise, events on the ground escalated until war was inevitable. McCullough writes vividly about the dismal conditions that troops on both sides had to endure, including an unusually harsh winter, and the role that luck and the whims of the weather played in helping the colonial forces hold off the world's greatest army. He also effectively explores the importance of motivation and troop morale--a tie was as good as a win to the Americans, while anything short of overwhelming victory was disheartening to the British, who expected a swift end to the war. The redcoat retreat from Boston, for example, was particularly humiliating for the British, while the minor American victory at Trenton was magnified despite its limited strategic importance.Have we become as the British in 1776? Ready to cut and run with every minor setback? If you are a democrat, the answer is yes it seems.