What do you think?
Rate this book
Rise and Fight Again: The Life of Nathanael Greene
Next only to Continental army commander General George Washington, Nathanael Greene was the most important American general of the War for Independence. Self-taught but extraordinarily capable, Greene won few battles. But his campaign that won the South for the revolutionary cause was the most brilliant and daring of the entire war.
In RISE AND FIGHT AGAIN, award-winning military historian Spencer Tucker tells the story of Greene's rise from relative obscurity to military prominence at the tender age of thirty-two. He reveals Greene to have been a strict disciplinarian who insisted on rigorous training but was also deeply concerned for the welfare of his men. Tucker also shows that Greene was by nature a problem-solver who recognized talent and knew how to harness it effectively. Indeed, although Greene was the youngest general in his army, Washington assigned him the herculean task of serving as its quartermaster general. Greene proved so effective in this demanding assignment that in October 1780 he was given command of the Southern Department. Taking charge of a sharply depleted, dispirited force lacking all manner of military equipment and even clothing, Greene refused to be drawn into pitched battles save on favorable terms. He rebuilt the Southern army in less than a year and adopted daring tactics that defied conventional military wisdom but recaptured from British control most of the Carolinas and Georgia.
Greene has rarely been accorded his earned place in the history of the American founding, in part because of his early death in 1786, when he was just forty-three. But with Tucker's brief but masterful biography, Greene finally gets his due.
In RISE AND FIGHT AGAIN, award-winning military historian Spencer Tucker tells the story of Greene's rise from relative obscurity to military prominence at the tender age of thirty-two. He reveals Greene to have been a strict disciplinarian who insisted on rigorous training but was also deeply concerned for the welfare of his men. Tucker also shows that Greene was by nature a problem-solver who recognized talent and knew how to harness it effectively. Indeed, although Greene was the youngest general in his army, Washington assigned him the herculean task of serving as its quartermaster general. Greene proved so effective in this demanding assignment that in October 1780 he was given command of the Southern Department. Taking charge of a sharply depleted, dispirited force lacking all manner of military equipment and even clothing, Greene refused to be drawn into pitched battles save on favorable terms. He rebuilt the Southern army in less than a year and adopted daring tactics that defied conventional military wisdom but recaptured from British control most of the Carolinas and Georgia.
Greene has rarely been accorded his earned place in the history of the American founding, in part because of his early death in 1786, when he was just forty-three. But with Tucker's brief but masterful biography, Greene finally gets his due.
275 pages, Hardcover
First published April 6, 2009
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
May 3, 2020
This is the fifth book about the "forgotten Founders" that I have read of the series published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative (but not far Right) institution. Historian Spencer Tucker's brief study of Greene, focusing mostly on his military career during the American Revolution, is also closest to the traditional "history text" of the five books.
While many of the Founders -- and the Revolutionary War itself -- have assumed almost mythic status in the minds of Americans, it is also true that most of us, in fact, know relatively little about either. The idea behind this series of books -- written in a manner intended to make them accessible to as many readers as possible -- is to help reacquaint us with some of the lesser-known figures who also deserve to be remembered as Founders. This is a laudable goal!
Nathanael Greene might have been better remembered had he not died young (aged 44) shortly after the war's end. He deserves to be remembered as the struggle against Great Britain's greatest American general after George Washington, for it was he who fought against the British in the crucial Southern campaigns that took up most of the latter years of the war.
In those battles, the contending sides seldom numbered more than a few thousand each, unlike the more horrendous clashes -- and subsequent slaughter -- that became all too familiar beginning with the American Civil War less than 100 years later. Moreover, many of the battles initiated by the American side resembled what we now call "guerrilla warfare," as the often outnumbered -- and always less well trained -- Americans sought to avoid the head-on clash with the British regulars that usually resulted in British victories.
In recent years, some conservatives and moderates have waxed nostalgic about the Confederation of the United States -- the original national government under which the Revolutionary War was fought. But I think they forget what this book makes so powerfully evident: how that very weak arrangement -- in which the Congress had no power to tax, merely to "request" that individual states pay their fair share of the war burden, and in which all decisions were not final unless the thirteen states unanimously concurred -- constantly left the army and state militias underfunded, undersupplied, and woefully underfed. Greene, Washington, and the other American officers repeatedly pleaded with Congress for aid, but it was often late in coming and almost always less than what was requested.
Militias, likewise, are often remembered through a misty, but flawed, lens as valiant citizen-soldiers who always rose to the demands of the moment. In point of fact, after Lexington and Concord the militias were the weakest part of American forces. Like other commanders, Greene quickly learned that they were almost always the first to panic and break ranks, the least disciplined, and not always the best shots under fire. This is one of the reasons that even when the American forces outnumbered those of their foes, the fact that many of their troops were militiamen meant that their superior numbers nonetheless represented inferior strength.
The book is ably written, not at all dry, and revelatory of the conditions under which the American forces struggled to attain victory. Greene became known as the American commander who almost always cost the British successive "Pyrrhic victories," the kind of "win" which was too costly for the British to continually sustain.
In that war, the American side lost far more battles than they won -- that was as true for Washington as for Greene -- but their strategy was to drag the war out until the weight of British casualties and the doubt about eventual victory caused the people "back home" in England to decide it was just not worth it to continue any longer.
The French-American victory at Yorktown proved to be that turning point.
While many of the Founders -- and the Revolutionary War itself -- have assumed almost mythic status in the minds of Americans, it is also true that most of us, in fact, know relatively little about either. The idea behind this series of books -- written in a manner intended to make them accessible to as many readers as possible -- is to help reacquaint us with some of the lesser-known figures who also deserve to be remembered as Founders. This is a laudable goal!
Nathanael Greene might have been better remembered had he not died young (aged 44) shortly after the war's end. He deserves to be remembered as the struggle against Great Britain's greatest American general after George Washington, for it was he who fought against the British in the crucial Southern campaigns that took up most of the latter years of the war.
In those battles, the contending sides seldom numbered more than a few thousand each, unlike the more horrendous clashes -- and subsequent slaughter -- that became all too familiar beginning with the American Civil War less than 100 years later. Moreover, many of the battles initiated by the American side resembled what we now call "guerrilla warfare," as the often outnumbered -- and always less well trained -- Americans sought to avoid the head-on clash with the British regulars that usually resulted in British victories.
In recent years, some conservatives and moderates have waxed nostalgic about the Confederation of the United States -- the original national government under which the Revolutionary War was fought. But I think they forget what this book makes so powerfully evident: how that very weak arrangement -- in which the Congress had no power to tax, merely to "request" that individual states pay their fair share of the war burden, and in which all decisions were not final unless the thirteen states unanimously concurred -- constantly left the army and state militias underfunded, undersupplied, and woefully underfed. Greene, Washington, and the other American officers repeatedly pleaded with Congress for aid, but it was often late in coming and almost always less than what was requested.
Militias, likewise, are often remembered through a misty, but flawed, lens as valiant citizen-soldiers who always rose to the demands of the moment. In point of fact, after Lexington and Concord the militias were the weakest part of American forces. Like other commanders, Greene quickly learned that they were almost always the first to panic and break ranks, the least disciplined, and not always the best shots under fire. This is one of the reasons that even when the American forces outnumbered those of their foes, the fact that many of their troops were militiamen meant that their superior numbers nonetheless represented inferior strength.
The book is ably written, not at all dry, and revelatory of the conditions under which the American forces struggled to attain victory. Greene became known as the American commander who almost always cost the British successive "Pyrrhic victories," the kind of "win" which was too costly for the British to continually sustain.
In that war, the American side lost far more battles than they won -- that was as true for Washington as for Greene -- but their strategy was to drag the war out until the weight of British casualties and the doubt about eventual victory caused the people "back home" in England to decide it was just not worth it to continue any longer.
The French-American victory at Yorktown proved to be that turning point.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review