Masterful Analysis of the American Revolution

Army, Sep 2007 by Kingseed, Cole C

Masterful Analysis of the American Revolution Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence. John Ferling. Oxford University Press. 679 pages; maps; halftone illustrations; index; $29.95.

To Gen. George Washington, America's victory in the American Revolution was "little short of a standing miracle." In what is likely to become the finest single-volume treatise of the conflict in a generation, historian John Ferling seeks to explain "why America won the war, and why the British, despite their many advantages, lost it." The result is a literary tour deforce that encompasses the political, military and social dimensions of the War of Independence.

In Almost a Miracle Ferling brings impressive credentials to his study of the American Revolution. With more than 40 years of experience as a student of the conflict, he is the author of nine books on the war. He has also appeared in four television documentaries devoted to the revolution, and his book A Leap in the Dark won the prestigious Fraunces Tavern Book Award as the year's best book on the American War of Independence.

Ferling's willingness to challenge conventional interpretations of the war makes Almost a Miracle a riveting read. He convincingly argues that the United States came much closer to ending short of the great American victory than most readers realize. Ferling also sees more flaws and greater virtues in the figure of George Washington. His most controversial finding centers on the crucial importance of the war in the South in determining the outcome of the American Revolution. Ferling's analysis of the southern campaign leads the reader to a deeper appreciation of Gen. Nathanael Greene, who assumed command of the southern army in the wake of the disaster at Camden, S.C., in August 1780.

Almost a Miracle also examines the political landscape on both sides of the Atlantic. According to Ferling, the British government under Lord North led Great Britain into a faraway war without a plan for waging it. Not surprisingly, it took almost a year to develop a strategy aimed at strangulation of New England. The Second Continental Congress also vacillated between war aims before deciding on a war for reconciliation, not independence. Reconciliation, however, was to be on Congress' own terms, with a British confederation with diminished parliamentary authority. With no hope of compromise, it was little more than a pipe dream.

Ferling presents an intriguing portrait of George Washington. The American commander in chief certainly matured as the years passed. He outgrew the "anxious impulsiveness" that he sometimes displayed during the siege of Boston. Every subsequent step he took from 1776 on was the "result of meticulous planning." Perhaps his greatest attribute was his selection of superb subordinates, including Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene, the most capable American commander. It was Greene who recaptured the Carolinas and Georgia following his tactical defeat at Guilford Courthouse in March 1781. In Congress, John Adams admitted that Greene's 1781 Carolina campaign was as glorious for the American arms as Washington's capture of Cornwallis' army at Yorktown.

This is not to say that Washington's generalship was above reproach. A better strategist than a tactician, Washington never grew appreciably as a battlefield commander. His tactical limitations were exhibited at Brooklyn, N.Y., Germantown, Pa., and Monmouth, N.J. According to Ferling, Washington's greatest liability was his indecisiveness, which he displayed on numerous battlefields. Washington's shortcomings, however, were soon forgotten by contemporary critics in the aftermath of Yorktown.

Did the British lose or did the Americans win? Ferling says Great Britain did not fight the war in a vacuum, and the Americans deserve much credit for their victory. The American citizen-soldier and the militia were indispensable to the ultimate victory. In the final analysis, Britain's suppression of the American rebellion "was foiled in the fighting in the North between 1775 and 1778, but the American victory was won at last in the South in 1780-1781."

Ferling states that contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic were quick to ponder the mysteries of the war's outcome. Ferling's interpretation is provocative. He suggests that Great Britain faced an uphill fight in the War of Independence. Though the mother country enlisted more than 150,000 men to bear arms during the war, the majority of these soldiers were not dispatched to America. By war's end, only 35,000 troops were stationed in North America, less than 20 percent of the total number the Crown had under arms. That dispersal of forces, coupled with "a military that selected its highest officers on anything but experience and professional competence, was markedly defective."

Ferling is exceptionally critical of British general William Howe, who possessed the capacity to crush the Continental Army in the war's early years. Howe's conduct of the war in the aftermath of the Battle of Long Island in 1776 is difficult to comprehend, since he had strategic victory in his grasp before letting Washington escape to fight another day. Howe's refusal to coordinate his strategy with the other British armies doomed Britain's effort to win the war in 1777. Britain then turned to a southern strategy designed to reclaim those colonies that held the greatest economic importance to British interests.