1776 by David McCullough

Book Review by: Lloyd Sabin

One of the history lessons that I still remember from school is that historical events should never be considered inevitabilities. It is very easy to read a book, play a game, or watch a movie and come to the conclusion that the events portrayed were destined to happen. In reality, the majority of great historical events, from the struggle of 300 Spartans to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, were not pre-destined to occur the way they did by any means. History is chancy and accidental much more often than not. The story of the American Revolution is a great example.

The American Revolutionary War, in America anyway, is viewed by many as almost a mythological series of events. Americans as a whole generally have some grasp of the basic storyline and major personalities involved, but it is also commonly held that America’s independence from Great Britain was destined to happen…it just had to! In 1776, David McCullough makes the case very clear that at almost every turn, His Excellency George Washington and his hand-picked staff, including Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox, faced the most difficult struggles and the worst uncertainties.

Off the bat let me just admit that David McCullough is an idol of mine. He wrote one of my favorite books of all time, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, which I read about 10 years ago. McCullough has such command over his writing and puts such verve and energy into each passage, even a 500 page book like The Great Bridge seems to just glide by like a dream.  The same can be said about 1776.

McCullough breaks the book, and thus the year, down into three sections. Part I is concerned with the Siege of Boston, Part II details The Battle of Brooklyn and Washington’s escape with the Continental Army across the East River, and Part III is centered on the Americans’ struggle to survive in New Jersey, culminating in the desperately necessary, but tiny victory, at the Battle of Trenton in the last week of the year.

Each part is brimming with great imagery on the part of McCullough. Granted he is working with great material (in a historian’s mind anyway) but he can paint a mental picture of the Royal Navy working its way up the Hudson, or the desperate struggle for Fort Washington in upper Manhattan, that will stick with the reader for a long time. This comes from a reader who finds it often difficult to remember much of what he reads.

Also expertly portrayed by McCullough is Washington’s personality, his relationships with his staff and men, and the difficulties of recruitment, retention, logistics, and transport. It is very clear from 1776 that the year was the crucial one for the American cause, and any myth of American destiny to win the struggle is quickly proven wrong. So close to being snuffed out, the American Revolution was resuscitated by the sheer will of Washington himself to get the best from the people around him. And miraculously, he did, most of the time. McCullough rounds out 1776 with a few great stories of Washington’s disappointments (especially with Nathaniel Greene), as well as some great portrayals of Washington’s adversaries, including British Generals Howe and Cornwallis and the Hessian Colonel Rall, the officer in charge at Trenton when the Americans attacked. McCullough presents it all with authority and style and the book is never dull.

In fact, the interactions of all the characters involved, their personality quirks as well as their great achievements, is what makes 1776 worth reading. Of course Washington is at the center of the military struggle, but McCullough is not shy about portraying him as a person, not a god, as well as including some contemporary criticisms of Washington that most general readers may be surprised to see.

The majority of Americans of the colonial era viewed Washington with the highest esteem, no doubt, but this legendary image really solidified after the initial years of the struggle had passed. If even the tiniest little details of chance (like the weather in many instances) had turned out differently, the struggle could have ended that year. Washington may have found himself on a British prison ship, being held as a traitor and a criminal. And the revolution he had tried so desperately to keep alive would have amounted to nothing but a good try.

McCullough successfully shows how tenuous the success of the American Revolution really was, and that the men who fought it were not immensely confident superheroes. They were soldiers who knew they had a duty to perform and attempted, the best way they knew how, to achieve victory against the British. As Americans it is our good fortune that they succeeded, and as historians it is our good fortune that David McCullough chose this story to tell with 1776. Anyone with even a passing interest in American history will not be disappointed in the story he tells.

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