Books to read - maybe a Sticky

[dronning]

There were several books mentioned as good reads on the Revolution during my 1st Appleseed on Oct 1-2, 2011 (I scored a 220 got my Rifleman patch).  What I failed to do was write down the books mentioned.

I looked around the website and didn't find anything

So I am posting this in the hopes that we could start a list.

Dave

[dronning]

Wow, not one response 

[2 clicks low]

I guess everyone thought someone else would do it.   

Our basic book is "Paul Reverse's Ride" by David Hackett Fisher.

It is available at our store, Amazon and other fine book sellers. As I wasn't there, I don't know which others were mentioned, but this should get you started.

2cl

[George Hacker]

I guess everyone thought someone else would do it.   

Our basic book is "Paul Reverse's Ride" by David Hackett Fisher.

It is available at our store, Amazon and other fine book sellers. As I wasn't there, I don't know which others were mentioned, but this should get you started.

Ugh, I meant to follow up on this and it slipped through the cracks.  Fisher is a good place to start your research and it is also available for $9.99 for Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Reveres-Ride-ebook/dp/B003V8AFBW/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

- ShadowMan

[Kaylee]

The NPS folks at North Bridge also recommend Robert Gross' "The Minutemen and their World."

It talks a lot about Concord in the years leading up to the fight, and some through the war.
There's some good material there to mine along the lines of "we sure didn't all get along, but we knew a common cause when it came."

Bob at the last Chugiak Appleseed was talking about David MccCllough's "1776" as a good reference (I LOVE the edition with all the reprints of original documents packed in! I need to get one of those someday soon).


Not as directly related, but Fischer's other books are awesome as well for general early American context - "Albion's Seed" is far and away my favorite "who we are and how we got here" book, and "Liberty and Freedom" is an excellent extrapolation from the same research. That last has some GREAT sections on the flags we fly.

Stephen Halbrook's "The Founder's Second Amendment" is full of anecdotes from Boston in the years leading up to the fight, including Gage's arms confiscations of the citizens of Boston after the Concord Fight.

For original sources, it's worth reading Peter Oliver's "Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion, a Tory View." Written from the other side, it contains some second hand accounts of the Massachusetts colony leading up to the war, including the Big Day, as well as some from Bunker Hill if I recall correctly. (It's one of the sources Halbrook above draws on)

Richard Lacrosse's "The Frontier Rifleman" is more Atlantic/Southern backcountry than Concord "embattled farmers on the rude bridge" - but it also has a goodly number of anecdotes from the period when RIFLEMEN joined the fowler-packin' New Englanders.

Reading those stories keeps reminding me of that scene from The Patriot:
"These aren't the sort we need!"
"These are exactly the sort we need."



(My copy of that last went missing at the first Chugiak Appleseed - I think I loaned it out, but can't recall who I loaned it *to*, darn it! )


Again not directly related to the Appleseed story, but my personal favorite is Lyman Draper's "King's Mountain and it's Heroes."  Riflemen on both sides, that one. Dramatic - sometimes heartbreaking - story.


And of course for the cultural and political zeitgeist of the period - Locke's Second Treatise on Government, Montesqieu's The Spirit of the Laws, of course  the Federalist Papers (and the Anti-Federalist Papers!) ... I think Adams' Defense of the [ State ] Constitutions... is good to, as is Madison's Notes on the Constitution, though I'm ashamed to say I've not gotten through all those yet.

[AlarmList76]

Washington's Crossing by Fischer.  A great read of the events after April 19th.  The book goes a long way in explaining why NJ is so messed up.

[ItsanSKS]

A companion book to "Paul Revere's Ride" would be "Battle of April 19th" by Frank W. Coburn.  This book is available as a free .pdf download from google books:
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_battle_of_April_19_1775.html?id=bfBdYVaIIBcC

Another good book is "Memoirs of Maj. General William Heath" also available as free .pdf download:
http://www.archive.org/details/memoirsofmajorge00heatrich

Archive.org has a plethora of books on the revolutionary war, and clicking the following link will bring up a search of all available books on the subject, as told by personal naratives: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22United+States+--+History+Revolution%2C+1775-1783+Personal+narratives%22

[Johnnyappleseed]

Lots of good verified history in ----- The Founders' Second Amendment--(Origins of the Right to Bear Arms)  by Stephen P. Halbrook

Not all is AS applicable but some of it ties in well.

[nyrasgt]

Am sure that many of the following are listed in other areas of the forum, perhaps under history, but, in no particular order (and all are worthwhile to greater or lesser extent):
-The Minute Men:  The First Fight:  Myths and Realities of the American Revolution-John R. Galvin (retired Army General, Military Historian and teacher)
-Redcoats and Rebels:  the American Revolution through British Eyes - Christopher Hibbert
-April Morning - Howard Fast.  Novelization, a la "Johnny Tremain," of Lex/Concord fights, made into very mediocre and hard-to-find [I have VHS copy] movie w. Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn (fun to pick out the mistakes).
-Lexington and Concord:  the Beginning of the War of the American Revolution-Arthur B. Tourtellot
-Revolutionary Boston, Lexington, and Concord-"the Only Complete Visitors' Guide-Joseph L. Andrews, Jr., M.D., and contributors - good guide book to area
-Almost a Miracle:  the American Victory in the War of Independence-John Ferling
-Red Dawn at Lexington-Louis Birnbaum
-A People's History of the American Revolution:  How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence-Ray
Raphael
-The Day the American Revolution Began:  19 April, 1775 - William H. Hallahan

....and current read, "A Few Bloody Noses":  The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution-Robert Harvey, who states that the first offensive act actually took place on 14 December, 1774, when 400 militia attacked Fort William and Mary, at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbor, in a raging snowstorm.  They captured more than 100 barrels of gunpowder and 16 cannon from the 6 British soldiers defending the arsenal, wounding their captain and injuring another of the British troops.  Harvey further states that "however small-scale, this, not the later ambush at Lexington, was the first aggressive action in the war."

   Hope the mini-bibliography is of use; I usually bring a medium-sized Appleseed Library (fits in one plastic milk carton) to most events, be they weekend shoots or gun shows (and soon, to Libraryseeds), as a "read more about 19 April, 1775" display.

Excelsior,
madMark
nyrasgt

[SavageShootr]

Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution by A. J. Langguth is also very good