The riveting untold story of the fight for the Hudson River Valley, the decisive campaign of the Revolutionary War. No part of the country was more contested during the American Revolution than New York City and its surroundings. Military leaders of the time—and generations of scholars since—believed that the Hudson River Valley was America’s geographic jugular, which, if cut, would quickly bleed the rebellion to death. In Revolution on the Hudson, prize-winning historian George C. Daughan makes the daring new argument that this strategy would never have worked, and that dogged pursuit of dominance over the Hudson ultimately cost Britain the war. This groundbreaking naval history offers a thrilling response to one of our most vexing historical questions: How could a fledgling nation have defeated the most powerful war machine of the era?
Offers nearly forty years of interdisciplinary scholarship on the Hudson River Valleys role in the American Revolution. The Hudson River Valley, which George Washington referred to as the Key to the Northern Country, played a central role in the American Revolution. From 1776 to 1780, with major battles fought at Saratoga, Fort Montgomery, and Stony Point, the region was a central battleground of the Revolution. In addition, it witnessed some of the most dramatic and memorable aspects of the war, such as Benedict Arnolds failed conspiracy at West Point, the burning of New Yorks capital at Kingston, and the more than six-hundred-mile march of Washington and the Continental Army and Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, and his French Expeditionary Corps to Yorktown, Virginia. Compiled from essays that appeared in the Hudson Valley Regional Review and the Hudson River Valley Review, published by the Hudson River Valley Institute, the book illustrates the richly textured history of this supremely important time and place.
The untold story of the fight for the Hudson River Valley, control of which, both the Americans and the British firmly believed, would determine the outcome of the Revolutionary War. No part of the country was more contested during the American Revolution than New York City, the Hudson River, and the surrounding counties. Political and military leaders on both sides viewed the Hudson River Valley as the American jugular, which, if cut, would quickly bleed the rebellion to death. So in 1776, King George III sent the largest amphibious force ever assembled to seize Manhattan and use it as a base from which to push up the Hudson River Valley for a grand rendezvous at Albany with an impressive army driving down from Canada. George Washington and every other patriot leader shared the king’s fixation with the Hudson. Generations of American and British historians have held the same view. In fact, one of the few things that scholars have agreed upon is that the British strategy, though disastrously executed, should have been swift and effective. Until now, no one has argued that this plan of action was lunacy from the beginning. Revolution on the Hudson makes the bold new argument that Britain’s attempt to cut off New England never would have worked, and that doggedly pursuing dominance of the Hudson ultimately cost the crown her colonies. It unpacks intricate military maneuvers on land and sea, introduces the personalities presiding over each side’s strategy, and reinterprets the vagaries of colonial politics to offer a thrilling response to one of our most vexing historical questions: How could a fledgling nation have defeated the most powerful war machine of the era? George C. Daughan—winner of the prestigious Samuel Eliot Morrison Award for Naval Literature—integrates the war’s naval elements with its political, military, economic, and social dimensions to create a major new study of the American Revolution. Revolution on the Hudson offers a much clearer understanding of our founding conflict, and how it transformed a rebellion that Britain should have crushed into a war they could never win.
During the American Revolution the Hudson River was not just a waterway. It was a lifeline, a vital artery on which the cause of liberty depended. Along its banks and in its waters, many would die for what they believed in. Neighbors would fight neighbors and a serene countryside would become a frightening place, where cowboys" and "skinners" crept through the dark landscape. It was the object at the center of America's most notorious treason. Benedict Arnold would try to sell the vital Hudson for his own gain. Both he and the British knew that if it fell the lifeline would be cut and the cause of liberty would drown in its cold grey waters. The struggles of the men, who defended it through harsh weather, lagging muster rolls, and ill-designed fortifications, could truly say that it was they who continued the cause and birthed a nation."
The Hudson River Valley in New York State has a wealth of Revolutionary War history. Rarely did an event take place along the Hudson that did not have broader implications for the entire American Revolutionary effort. Stretching from Manhattan Island nearly to Lake George, the Hudson was a main theater of war throughout much of the Revolutionary era. Had the British been successful in dominating it, the revolt of the mainland colonies might well have foundered. This monograph covers the highlights of the story. The narrative has been enriched with frequent glimpses of the variety of inhabitants whose lives were changed by the violence of that time. ¿Provides an admirable introduction to the people as well as the events.¿ Maps and drawings.
"The Battle for New York" tells the story of how the city became the pivot on which the American Revolution turned. The struggle for control of New York was by far the largest military venture of the Revolutionary War, involving almost every significant participant on both sides.
