Product Description

In this highly acclaimed book, Charles Royster explores the mental processes and emotional crises that Americans faced in their first national war. He ranges imaginatively outside the traditional techniques of analytical historical exposition to build his portrait of how individuals and a populace at large faced the Revolution and its implications. The book was originally published by UNC Press in 1980.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172147 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-09
• Released on: 1996-08-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 463 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780807846063
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
Represents a quantum leap in our understanding of the Revolution.

Edmund S. Morgan, New Republic

It is a work of art. . . . No student of early American history should miss it.

Journal of Southern History

Customer Reviews

Lock, Stock, and Barrel
This is an excellent study of the Continental Army without which the Revolution would not have been won. Charles Royster is a first class historian and this is one of the best, if not the best, book he has written.

It is something of a social history and it gives a complete account of what the Continental army was like, its motivation, origins, and development, warts and all. I cannot think of another work that covers this topic as well as this one.

One of the most interesting facets of the book, though, is the appendix that covers statistics and the motivation of the Continentals. This gives a true and accurate picture of the Continentals and give them a human face. They weren't demigods, but soldiers who enlisted in an army that had a hard task ahead, and who sometimes failed, always endured, and finally won. In many ways it was the toughest, best army the US ever fielded. It definitely was the most enduring-no other American military force suffered from and finally overcame such an imposing set of obstacles. This book gives a much more accurate picture of the Continental Army than Charles Neimeter's American Goes To War. Charles Royster has a definite story to tell and he tells it with verve, panache, accuracy, and a definite empathy for his subject. This book is a definite must for any student of the American Revolution

What would it take for peaceable citizens to undertake a revolution against their government?
This is one of the key questions Charles Royster seeks to understand in this important analysis of the American Revolution. Following a chronological approach, Royster probes the ideology of revolution, the rise of an effective fighting force to conduct that revolution, and the control of that spirit of revolution. He concentrates on the intellectual issues that arose in the context of fighting the British Empire. He believes that the men in the Continental Army not only rebelled against the perception of British tyranny but also against the issue of militarism. Americans rushed to join the army in 1775 because of what he called a "rage militaire" that represented a disavowal of British colonical policies and rule. This reaction might have been virtuous and patriotic, but that emotion did not sustain the Continental Army over the long haul of difficult battles and hardships. So what did?

Royster asserts that the Continental Army both shaped and tested the ideals of the American Revolution. He notes that the vision of liberty and independence, freedom and eqality, and the desire to create a new promised land outside the authority of a staid Europe motivated the men of the army. Morale went up and down depending on their fortunes, but their faith in this vision remained. Royster's key point seems to be: "in the eyes of the revolutionaries, war put to the trial the military ardor and skill as well as the moral assumptions on which they based their hopes for American independence. To fail as defenders of ideals was to fail as Americans, to succeed was to give the victors, their country, and its liberty the prospect of immortality" (p. 3).

The Continental Army, in Royster's estimation, was both loved and hated. It was needed for victory, but the ideals of the nation were non-militaristic and in many instances overtly pacifistic. There was a constant questioning of the role of the army in American society, especially after victory had been achieved. In spite of this, Royster believes generally remained a positive force precisely because of its leadership, patriotism, and professionalism. At the same time, there was always a suspicion that the army would act to subvert individual liberty. The tension was palpable. While the Continental Army won the war and ensured the creation of the American nation, it's role was never valued in the way that veterans believed appropriate.

The most interesting part of this book is the sense that the Continental Army embodied a national character or idealism. Did such a thing exist in 1775, 1776, 1783? If it did, it is a notoriously slippery concept, as it remains to the present. Without question, "A Revolutionary People at War" is a provocative statement of the role of the army in American life at the time of the founding of the republic. It may represent an overstatement of idealism, but it is an interesting one.

Great read, well researched and presented
In A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, historian Charles Royster searches for and analyzes the "American character prevalent during the War for Independence." (vii) Royster finds that with regard to the Continental Army specifically and the Revolutionary populace in general, "allegiance to the `American'...side in the War for Independence was the prevailing sentiment" in the United States, and that this allegiance was based primarily on what he terms "a national character." (viii) throughout the course of this book then, Royster chronicles the revolutionary character of America's soldiers, and how it changed markedly as the war progressed. One of his central questions concerns the "ideals espoused during the revolution," and how the patriots' actions measured up to them. By 1783, Royster finds that the gap between ideals and reality was often significant. Eight years of war, it seems, "severely tested American's dedication to independence." (3)
Royster uses a prologue to define his terms with a useful essay on the idea character. The war would test Americans, especially those in their country's uniforms, and determine if they were worthy of victory. Eventual victory would of course demonstrate that revolutionary soldiers had the necessary virtue and selflessness to be deserving of such good fortune. Soldiers were keenly aware that the eyes of world were on them, and that their sacrifices would be remembered throughout the ages by countless generations of their descendents. Royster shows that Continental soldiers were inspired by religious beliefs, knowing that God was on their side. These men also employed the language of slavery to describe their predicament-if they failed, they argued, Britain would not only enslave them, but their children as well. Thus, these men in arms had a sacred duty: "the struggle for independence was the greatest test of the chosen people. In it they bore the weight of both their heritage and God's promise for the future." (9)
In 1775, Americans began the war with high ideals in a period Royster denotes as the "Rage Militaire." The Continental army went about preparing to defend America in a uniquely American way, reflective of the national character. Royster points to simplified drill manuals, short-term enlistments, soldiers in hunting shirts and civilian control of the military establishment as evidence that Americans would wage a war based upon their own terms, not simply by mimicking the British. Yet by the end of 1776, the "contrasts between the ideals of 1775 and the conduct of the war" were apparent, in the form of battlefield defeats and Continental army's "lack of discipline and decorum." (58) Numerous desertions, for example, showed that not all American soldiers lived up to the ideals of patriotic sacrifice in the face of adversity. In fact, "not only did the Continental Army fall short of Americans' ideal of an army," Royster notes, but recruiting difficulties created "a network of evasion and corruption that spread far into the populace." (63) He asserts as well that as the virtues of the soldiers were called into question after reverses, desertions, and abuses, many revolutionaries distanced themselves from the army, and denied that it embodied the cause of liberty exclusively.
By early 1777, the army was not seen by Americans as virtuous. Many civilians began to associate active military duty with a class of people-the young, unattached, "shiftless" types who were more logically suited to the ardors of Continental service. This attitude greatly curtailed recruiting of army battalions to full strength. High enlistment bounties designed to encourage men to join the ranks attest to the fact that the spirit of sacrifice so widespread in 1775 was much reduced by the beginning of the campaign of 1777, as did unscrupulous recruiting officers, uncooperative civilians and unruly men in the ranks. Americans, Royster finds, were reluctant to rely upon a standing army to secure their liberties. They wanted "the moral miracle of a quick victory that came from [the] virtuous ardor of a chose people." (151) Too often, however, the army's behavior both on and off the battlefield did not live up to the expectation of those to whom they were charged to defend.
By the latter stages of the war, as Royster demonstrates, the differences between the ideals of virtue and common practice were in sharp contrast. As evidence, he cites the "extensive trade with the enemy" (272) in some areas of the colonies; excessive profiteering by suppliers of war materiel; graft among officers and men; and "the widespread failure to enlist." (276) Royster is clear to point out that these actions did not signify a weakening of desire for victory and independence, but a weariness and desperation instead. The bitter, internecine fighting in the Carolinas and the lower Hudson Valley demonstrated not a slackening desire for independence, but how far patriots had drifted from the ideals of the early days of the struggle.
What Royster finds in the end is that despite the inability of most Americans in and out of uniform to live up to the virtuous ideals of 1775, by the end of the war it matter little. Americans remembered the war as they wanted to, one in which men fought for liberty and won through sacrifice and honorable means. "The popular interpretation of victory in the Revolutionary War," he finds, "restored the citizens to their original and vital stature as the pillars of America's future glory." (360) While some readers may find his assertion that "the founding generation had left the country's strength, virtue and liberty intact" (366) a bit hyperbolic and subject to alternative interpretations, nevertheless Royster's story is one of ideals, trials, hardships, perseverance and undeniable victory. A Revolutionary People at War is a well-written, expertly researched analysis about character. Like the men described in its pages, the book succeeds remarkably well.