The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown
About this book
With all the vitality and suspense of good fiction, Burke Davis talks the dramatic story of the campaign that ended America's fight for independence, based on hundreds of eye-witness accounts recorded in diaries, letters, journals, memoirs, and official records. The narrative is richly detailed, alive with vivid personalities.Washington is revealed as the French and his own troops saw him in moments of candor - now despairing, now raging, playing ball with his officers. The other principles are seen with equal intimacy: Papa Rochambeau, the gracious veteran where Washington was concerned, behaves towards his officers as in irritable and officious bear; Lafayette, a major general at 23 but mature beyond his years, shows himself uncertain about his capacities; Sir Henry Clinton, busy with his pretty mistress in New York and blind to the corruption of his staff, squabbles with Cornwallis while the Colonies are frittered away; and the proud, stubborn, short sighted Cornwallis, politically powerful, deals with London rather with Clinton.By turns humorous and tragic, always gripping, this brilliant account of the Yorktown action captures the spirit and sensations of the decisive months of our violent birth as a nation.