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1776

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

Book contians the storeis of Washington and the continental army through the tumultuous year of 1776. It paints a bleak picture of an overmatched rebel army that where not up to the standards. Furthermore, if not for the stoic preserverance of George washington or the courage of some of his inexperienced but promising generals the world history would be quite different.

🎨 Impressions

How many people were sick in the army and not capable of fighting. How much luck and weather mattered. More congnizant of the role luck and providence played in history.

Review

The leadership wisdom to derive from Washington was probably seeing the truth of situations, and not giving in to wishful thinking. A lot of the thinking of the British was that they have "saved" the americans from the french in the 7 years war and therefore it was only fair that they contributed a little to the governmental chest.

✍️ My Top Quotes

  • Lord Chatham, the King of Prussia, nay, Alexander the Great, never gained more in one campaign than the noble lord has lost—he has lost a whole continent. - Note: This is about the King George V (I think)
  • I cannot consent to the bloody consequences of so silly a contest about so silly an object, conducted in the silliest manner that history or observation has ever furnished an instance of, and from which we are likely to derive nothing but poverty, disgrace, defeat, and ruin.
  • In truth, the situation was worse than they realized, and no one perceived this as clearly as Washington. Seeing things as they were, and not as he would wish them to be, was one of his salient strengths.
  • Much of the lead from the rest of the statue would later be, as reported, melted down for bullets “to assimilate with the brains of our infatuated adversaries.”
  • Remember officers and soldiers that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty. —General George Washington
  • To many of the English, such affluence as they saw on Long Island was proof that America had indeed grown rich at the expense of Great Britain.
  • To many of the English, such affluence as they saw on Long Island was proof that America had indeed grown rich at the expense of Great Britain. 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
  • To many of the English, such affluence as they saw on Long Island was proof that America had indeed grown rich at the expense of Great Britain. 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.
  • If a good bleeding can bring those Bible-faced Yankees to their senses, the fever of independency should soon abate.”
  • News of Lee’s capture spread in all directions as fast as the fastest horses could move. The British were jubilant. At Brunswick, where the prisoner was put under lock and key, Harcourt’s cavalrymen celebrated by getting Lee’s horse (Wilkinson’s horse) drunk, along with themselves, as a band played into the night.
  • Allegedly there had been some less-than-stellar behavior, which either Washington did not see or chose to ignore given the spirit of the moment. With the battle over, a number of soldiers reportedly broke into the Hessian rum supply and got roaring drunk.
  • By the time it ended, it had taken the lives of an estimated 25,000 Americans, or roughly 1 percent of the population. In percentage of lives lost, it was the most costly war in American history, except for the Civil War.