Arthur S. Lefkowitz - Böcker

While history has immortalized George Washington, it has largely forgotten those who helped to propel him to greatness—the thirty-two men who served as his aides-de-camp during the Revolutionary War. Washington relied heavily on these men—among them a young Alexander Hamilton—for help in formulating policy and strategy. George Washington’s Indispensable Men details the fascinating and sometimes tragic lives of these aides, providing a new and refreshing look at the American Revolution.

The final meeting of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr took place on the banks of the Hudson in 1804. Their first was in August 1775 at the Continental Army camp outside Boston, during the early months of the Revolutionary War. Their wartime experiences shaped their lives and contributed to the fraying of the friendship that ended in the famous duel. Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr recounts the dramatic Revolutionary War service of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. The war helped turn Burr into an outsider: his early mentor and patron General Richard Montgomery died in battle, and Burr failed to secure a place on Washington’s staff, despite valorous service at New York in 1776, New Jersey in 1777, Valley Forge, and Monmouth in 1778. Ever ambitious, he would live the rest of his life on the fringes of greatness. Hamilton, thanks in large part to his relationship with Washington forged during the war, would enter the pantheon of the country’s Founding Fathers. Not only did he serve as Washington’s chief aide for four years, he served well at New York and Trenton, crossed the Delaware on Christmas night 1776, and commanded three battalions at Yorktown.The Revolutionary War remains an important source of the Hamilton-Burr conflict, and Lefkowitz explores their roles vividly and traces the war through their later careers and conflicts.

In late August 1776, a badly defeated Continental Army retreated from Long Island to Manhattan. By the end of September, George Washington’s inexperienced army had been forced out of New York into New Jersey and, by the end of the year, into Pennsylvania. During this dark night of the American Revolution—“the times that try men’s souls”—Washington began developing the strategy that would win the war. In this illuminating account, Arthur Lefkowitz reveals how George Washington turned defeat into victory.During his retreat across New Jersey, Washington reconceived the war: keep the army mobile, target small parts of the British Army, rely on surprise and deception, form guerrilla units, and avoid large-scale battles. This new strategy first bore fruit in the crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night 1776 and the attack on the British at Trenton and Princeton. From there, Washington took up winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, and moved into the mountains, an ideal position from which to check British movements toward Philadelphia or north up the Hudson. The British tried and failed several times to coax Washington into a decisive battle. Stymied, the British were forced to attack Philadelphia by sea, and they would not be able to seize Philadelphia in time to support the British invasion of upstate New York which ended in defeat at Saratoga.Lefkowitz relies on a lifetime of deep research on the Revolutionary War and close knowledge of New Jersey to tell this exciting, important story whose impact rippled throughout the rest of the war.

Winner of the 1998 Best Book on the Revolution published in 1998 by the Board of Governors of the American Revolution Round Table Named 1999 Honor Book by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.On the morning of November 20, 1776, General Charles Cornwallis overran patriot positions at Fort Lee, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. The attack threw George Washington's army into turmoil. Thus began an American retreat across the state, which ended only after the battered rebels crossed the Delaware river at Trenton on December 7. It was a three-week campaign that marked the most dramatic and desperate period of the War for Independence. In The Long Retreat, Arthur Lefkowitz has written the first book-length study of this critical campaign. He adds compelling new detail to the narrative, and offers the most comprehensive account in the literature of the American retreat to the Delaware and of the British pursuit. What emerges is a history misconceptions about the movements of the armies, the intentions of their leaders, and the choices available to rebel commanders and their British counterparts. Lefkowitz presents a patriot military pounded into desperate straights by the forces of the Crown, but in the end more resilient and wily than most previous scholarship has allowed. If brought low over November and December of 1776, Washington's battalions were still a force to reckon with as they pulled away from the advancing British. Despite serious losses in material and personnel, Washington managed to keep his units operational; and even while making mistakes, he sought to consolidate patriot regiments and longed for a chance to counterattack. The Christmas night riposte at Trenton, a dramatic reversal of fortune in any case, stemmed from measures the rebel Commander-in-Chief had initiated even as he completed his retrograde across New Jersey. How all of this came about emerges and crisp narrative of The Long Retreat. It is the definitive book on a crucial chapter in the history of American Arms.