The Indian wars of Pennsylvania an account of the Indian events, in Pennsylvania, of the French and Indian war, Pontiac's war, Lord Dunmore's war, the revolutionary war, and the Indian uprising from 1789 to 1795 tragedies of the Pennsylvania frontier.
Even as the 250th anniversary of its outbreak approaches, the Seven Years' War (otherwise known as the French and Indian War) is still not wholly understood. Most accounts tell the story as a military struggle between British and French forces, with shifting alliances of Indians, culminating in the British conquest of Canada. Scholarly and popular works alike, including James Fennimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, focus on the action in the Hudson River Valley and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Matthew C. Ward tells the compelling story of the war from the point of view of the region where it actually began, and whose people felt the devastating effects of war most keenly-the backcountry communities of Virginia and Pennsylvania. Previous wars in North America had been fought largely on the New England and New York frontiers. But on May 28, 1754, when a young George Washington commanded the first shot fired in western Pennsylvania, fighting spread for the first time to Virginia and Pennsylvania. Ward's original research reveals that on the eve of the Seven Years' War the communities of these colonies were isolated, economically weak, and culturally diverse. He shows in riveting detail how, despite the British empire's triumph, the war brought social chaos, sickness, hunger, punishment, and violence, to the backcountry, much of it at the hands of Indian warriors.Ward's fresh analysis reveals that Indian raids were not random skirmishes, but part of an organized strategy that included psychological warfare designed to make settlers flee Indian territories. It was the awesome effectiveness of this "guerilla" warfare, Ward argues, that led to the most enduring legacies of the war: Indian-hating and an armed population of colonial settlers, distrustful of the British empire that couldn't protect them. Understanding the horrors of the Seven Years' War as experienced in the backwoods thus provides unique insights into the origins of the American republic.
The bloodshed and hatred of frontier conflict at once made go-betweens obsolete and taught the harsh lesson of the woods: the final incompatibility of colonial and native dreams about the continent they shared. Long erased from history, the go-betweens of early America are recovered here in vivid detail.
Bringing together Custer, Sherman, Grant, and other fascinating military and political figures, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo, this “sweeping work of narrative history” (San Francisco Chronicle) is the fullest account to date of how the West was won—and lost. After the Civil War the Indian Wars would last more than three decades, permanently altering the physical and political landscape of America. Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the intertribal strife over whether to fight or make peace; explores the dreary, squalid lives of frontier soldiers and the imperatives of the Indian warrior culture; and describes the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies. In dramatically relating bloody and tragic events as varied as Wounded Knee, the Nez Perce War, the Sierra Madre campaign, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters, including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of officers, soldiers, and Indian agents, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud and the warriors they led. The Earth Is Weeping is a sweeping, definitive history of the battles and negotiations that destroyed the Indian way of life even as they paved the way for the emergence of the United States we know today.
The Indian World of George Washington offers a fresh portrait of the most revered American and the Native Americans whose story has been only partially told.
On July 9, 1755, British and colonial troops under the command of General Edward Braddock suffered a crushing defeat to French and Native American enemy forces in Ohio Country. Known as the Battle of the Monongahela, the loss altered the trajectory of the Seven Years' War in America, escalating the fighting and shifting the balance of power. An unprecedented rout of a modern and powerful British army by a predominantly Indian force, Monongahela shocked the colonial world--and also planted the first seeds of an independent American consciousness. The culmination of a failed attempt to capture Fort Duquesne from the French, Braddock's Defeat was a pivotal moment in American and world history. While the defeat is often blamed on blundering and arrogance on the part of General Braddock--who was wounded in battle and died the next day--David Preston's gripping new work argues that such a claim diminishes the victory that Indian and French forces won by their superior discipline and leadership. In fact, the French Canadian officer Captain Beaujeu had greater tactical skill, reconnaissance, and execution, and his Indian allies were the most effective and disciplined troops on the field. Preston also explores the long shadow cast by Braddock's Defeat over the 18th century and the American Revolution two decades later. The campaign had been an awakening to empire for many British Americans, spawning ideas of American identity and anticipating many of the political and social divisions that would erupt with the outbreak of the Revolution. Braddock's Defeat was the defining generational experience for many British and American officers, including Thomas Gage, Horatio Gates, and perhaps most significantly, George Washington. A rich battle history driven by a gripping narrative and an abundance of new evidence,Braddock's Defeat presents the fullest account yet of this defining moment in early American history.
The award–winning author of Brandywine examines a pivotal but overlooked battle of the American Revolution’s Philadelphia Campaign. Today, Germantown is a busy Philadelphia neighborhood. On October 4, 1777, it was a small village on the outskirts of the colonial capital—and the site of one of the American Revolution’s largest battles. Now Michael C. Harris sheds new light on this important action with a captivating historical study. After defeating Washington’s rebel army in the Battle of Brandywine, General Sir William Howe took Philadelphia. But Washington soon returned, launching a surprise attack on the British garrison at Germantown. The recapture of the colonial capital seemed within Washington’s grasp until poor decisions by the American high command led to a clear British victory. With original archival research and a deep knowledge of the terrain, Harris merges the strategic, political, and tactical history of this complex operation into a single compelling account. Complete with original maps, illustrations, and modern photos, and told largely through the words of those who fought there, Germantown is a major contribution to American Revolutionary studies.