Leigh Kimmel’s Reviews > The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 > Status Update

Dr. Franklin in France, and John Paul Jones. America's navy gets some serious ships, and its first great commander.

The Royal Navy's forces, and particularly new measures against shipworm, barnacles and other marine life. The wealth of the British Empire allowed the acquisition of enormous amounts of copper to clad ships' bottoms against fouling. And the construction of a ship that one day would become famous in the Napoleonic Wars.

The British occupation of Philadelphia. (The next several pages are plates of color images).

The coming of Baron von Steuben, who became the Continental Army's Inspector General, the man who taught marching and drill to a citizen army, and discovered he had to moderate his Prussian habits to a people accustomed to freedom. And Nathaniel Green becomes its Quartermaster General -- beginning a tradition of attention to logistics that has become characteristic of the US Armed Forces.

Valley Forge, as what had seemed to be a well-organized encampment proves to be more rickety than expected. Martha Washington does come visit, while her husband tries to pay at least some attention to what's going on at Mount Vernon.

The French queen's missive to her mother, that the king was doing his marital duty at last -- perhaps the conception of their first child, a daughter. Might Franklin's presence at the faro tables where she gambled have been lucky in a different way?

Franklin at Versailles, even as he is being reviled in London as the greatest of traitors. The securing of military aid, particularly naval escorts for Patriot merchant ships with supplies, is a major coup.

King George III as a very active monarch, not merely a symbol of unity for the UK. He took a considerable interest in the conduct of the war.

Now back across the Atlantic to London, where armchair generals are plotting how to subdue those rowdy colonials and put them back in their place, easy-peasy.

Valley Forge -- one of the few events of the War of Independence lying between the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence on one end, and the Battle of Yorktown on the other, which we actually learn enough about in school to have it stick to our memories.