Washington's Immortals : the untold story of an elite regiment who changed the course of the Revolution

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Title:

Washington's Immortals : the untold story of an elite regiment who changed the course of the Revolution

Author:

O'Donnell, Patrick K., 1969- author.

ISBN:

9780802124593

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xiv, 463 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps, portraits ; 24 cm

General Note:

Published simultaneously in Canada.

Contents:

"Gentlemen of honour, family, and fortune" -- Smallwood's battalion and the birth of an army -- Girding for war -- America's first civil war -- The Otter -- The Armada -- Maryland goes to war -- The storm begins -- The Battle of Brooklyn -- Escape from Long Island -- Manhattan -- When twenty-five men held off an army -- Fort Washington -- The crisis -- Victory or death: The gamble at Trenton -- Princeton -- Brandywine -- Wayne's Affair -- Mud Island -- Valley Forge and Wilmington -- "A damned poltroon" -- Light infantry -- Despots -- The Gibraltar of America: The midnight storming of Stony Point -- Interlude -- The march south -- A "jalap" and a night march -- Camden -- "Lay their country waste with fire and sword" -- Washington's best general -- The ragtag army -- Hunting the hunter -- Cowpens -- "To follow Greene's army to the end of the world" -- "Saw 'em hollerin' and a snortin' and a drownin'" -- The race to the Dan -- Guilford Courthouse: "A complicated scene of horror and distress" -- Hobkirk's Hill -- Ninety six -- Eutaw Springs -- "Conquer or die": Yorktown -- The last battle -- "Omnia reliquit servare rempublicam."

Personal Subject:

Washington, George, 1732-1799.

Corporate Subject:

United States. Continental Army. Maryland Regiment, 1st (1777-1780)

Subject Term:

Long Island, Battle of, New York, N.Y., 1776.

Geographic Term:

Maryland -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Regimental histories.

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783.

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Regimental histories.

Summary:

In August 1776, little over a month after the Continental Congress had formally declared independence from Britain, the revolution was on the verge of a sudden and disastrous end. General George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered at the Battle of Brooklyn, and it looked like there was no escape. But thanks to a series of desperate rear guard attacks by a single regiment, famously known as the "Immortal 400," Washington was able to evacuate his men and the nascent Continental Army lived to fight another day. Today, only a modest, rusted and scarred metal sign near a dilapidated auto garage marks the mass grave where the bodies of the "Maryland Heroes" lie -- 256 men "who fell in the Battle of Brooklyn." In Washington's Immortals, historian Patrick K. O'Donnell brings to life the forgotten story of this remarkable band of brothers. Known as "gentlemen of honour, family, and fortune," they fought not just in Brooklyn, but in key battles including Trenton, Princeton, Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, and Yorktown, where their heroism changed the course of the war. Drawing on extensive original sources, from letters to diaries to pension applications, O'Donnell pieces together the stories of these brave men -- their friendships, loves, defeats, and triumphs. He explores their arms and tactics, their struggles with hostile loyalists and shortages of clothing and food, their development into an elite unit, and their dogged opponents, including British General Lord Cornwallis. And through the prism of this one group, O'Donnell tells the larger story of the Revolutionary War.

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	973.332 ODO	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

In August 1776, little over a month after the Continental Congress had formally declared independence from Britain, the revolution was on the verge of a sudden and disastrous end. General George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered at the Battle of Brooklyn, and it looked like there was no escape. But thanks to a series of desperate rear guard attacks by a single heroic regiment, famously known as the "Immortal 400," Washington was able to evacuate his men and the nascent Continental Army lived to fight another day.

Today, only a modest, rusted and scarred metal sign near a dilapidated auto garage marks the mass grave where the bodies of the "Maryland Heroes" lie--256 men "who fell in the Battle of Brooklyn." In Washington's Immortals , best-selling military historian Patrick K. O'Donnell brings to life the forgotten story of this remarkable band of brothers. Known as "gentlemen of honour, family, and fortune," they fought not just in Brooklyn, but in key battles including Trenton, Princeton, Camden, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, and Yorktown, where their heroism changed the course of the war.

Drawing on extensive original sources, from letters to diaries to pension applications, O'Donnell pieces together the stories of these brave men--their friendships, loves, defeats, and triumphs. He explores their arms and tactics, their struggles with hostile loyalists and shortages of clothing and food, their development into an elite unit, and their dogged opponents, including British General Lord Cornwallis. And through the prism of this one group, O'Donnell tells the larger story of the Revolutionary War. Washington's Immortals is gripping and inspiring boots-on-the-ground history, sure to appeal to a wide readership.

Author Notes

Patrick K. O'Donnell is a bestselling, critically acclaimed military historian and an expert on elite units. He is the author of ten books, including Beyond Valor , Dog Company , and First SEALs . He served as a combat historian in a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah and speaks often on espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks' award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers and for documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, Fox News, and Discovery.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Military historian O'Donnell (First SEALs) turns from his usual focus on WWII to examine the Revolutionary War, following the fortunes of a Maryland regiment of Washington's Army. The Marylanders played a key role in battles throughout the conflict, from the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn to the British defeat at the 1781 Battle of Yorktown. O'Donnell skillfully views the long-term strategies of the opposing generals in the context of the yearly ebb and flow of the war while conveying with immediacy the chaotic back-and-forth of individual battles. He also adeptly provides noteworthy thumbnails of both minor and major players, including American and British generals as well as ranking officers and the soldiers who shouldered the brunt of battle. Although O'Donnell writes from the American perspective, he objectively evaluates how the corps of both sides navigated the accouterments of war, injury, betrayal, reversals, and hardship, with credits given and criticisms made regardless of uniform. Surprisingly, O'Donnell manages to build a sense of drama as the war progresses, and though the writing can be stiff, readers with an interest in the Revolutionary period and military history generally will find this interesting and informative. Maps & illus. Agent: Andrew Zack, the Zack Company. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

O'Donnell (First SEALs: The Untold Story of the Forging of America's Most Elite Unit, 2014, etc.) deploys a fusillade of fact and fresh research in a Revolutionary War history rich in irony and event. A Band of Brothers-like account of the Maryland Immortals, the first elite unit of the Continental Army and one of the few to fight in both the North and South, the book is a thorough chronicle of the nine-year saga of citizen soldiers who fought valiantly but that history had all but forgotten. The author concludes that were it not for this core group's girding of the American Army and its efforts at critical junctures, the war likely would have been lost. He vividly describes a war marked by slaughter, brutality, incompetence, and extraordinary privation, as well as valor, restraint, resourcefulness, and endurance, putting paid to many oversimplified accounts of a complex struggle, especially with regard to the vicious battle between the Whigs and the Tories. O'Donnell also presents a well-delineated cast of unheralded Marylanders (Mordecai Gist, John Eager Howard, William Smallwood, Jack Steward, Otho Holland Williams, and Nathaniel Ramsey), the major American commanders (George Washington, Nathanael Greene, Daniel Morgan, et al.) and their British counterparts (Richard and William Howe, Cornwallis, Henry Clinton, and Banastre Tarleton). Although readers will admire O'Donnell's exhaustive research, skilled organization of the material, and the high readability of the writing, the multitude of armies, brigades, regiments, companies, and divisions, etc., whose exploits he relates can be difficult to keep straight. This is no less true of the differing aggregates of Maryland units that turned the tide in many a battle, not just the 400 men who saved the army from annihilation at the Battle of Brooklyn. With a firm grasp of tactics, strategy, and the sociopolitical landscape, O'Donnell captures the horror and absurdities of the war better than most, but the density of detail may render it more appealing to confirmed military buffs than general readers. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

This elite unit of Marylanders, whose vital service in the Continental Army O'Donnell (First SEALs) narrates, was not under direct command of Gen. George Washington for all of the Revolutionary War, as the title indicates. For the latter half of the conflict, the unit was stationed in the Southern theater under the command of Gen. Nathaniel Greene. The "Immortal 400," as the Maryland regiment came to be known, received its nom de guerre from the mission of "forlorn hope" it performed for Washington during the Battle of Brooklyn, when British forces threatened to capture Washington's forces in August 1776. Washington needed time to evacuate the Continental Army, and on his orders, the unit made a series of desperate charges that delayed the British and allowed Washington to escape; however, the regiment lost most of its soldiers. Between 1775 and 1783, this special group fought in every major engagement of the war, in both Northern and Southern theaters. They provided stability among inexperienced soldiers and performed many missions of forlorn hope. VERDICT Using primary sources from both sides of the Atlantic, O'Donnell effectively traces the story of Maryland's immortals, describing the battles authentically along with the precariousness of the American cause. This book will be of interest to both general readers and scholars interested in the military aspect of the American Revolution.-Glen Edward Taul, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Library Journal Review

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