1776

by David McCullough

Seeing things as they were, and not as he would wish them to be, was one of his salient strengths.

that it always seemed strange to me that people who contend so much for civil and religious liberty should be so ready to deprive others of their natural liberty. . . .

Commanding the fire from Fort George was a nineteen-year-old captain of New York artillery, Alexander Hamilton, who had left King’s College to serve in the Cause.

In fact, the Americans of 1776 enjoyed a higher standard of living than any people in the world. Their material wealth was considerably less than it would become in time, still it was a great deal more than others had elsewhere. How people with so much, living on their own land, would ever choose to rebel against the ruler God had put over them and thereby bring down such devastation upon themselves was for the invaders incomprehensible.

Israel Putnam and several thousand of his troops had set off on a forced march up the post road, a route that would have taken them up the east side of the island and straight into the invading British army had Putnam not been convinced by a young aide, twenty-year-old Lieutenant Aaron Burr, to head north by less traveled roads along the Hudson.