Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America, September 11, 1777

Michael C. Harris

Mar 2014 · Savas Beatie

About this ebook

Winner of the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond Book Award—“An impressive interpretation of the battle” (Arthur S. Lefkowitz, author of Benedict Arnold’s Army).
 
Long overshadowed by the stunning American victory at Saratoga, the complex British campaign that defeated George Washington’s colonial army and led to the capture of the capital city of Philadelphia was one of the most important military events of the war. Michael C. Harris’s impressive Brandywine is the first full-length study of this pivotal engagement in many years.
 
Though the bitter fighting around Brandywine Creek drove the Americans from the field, their heroic defensive stand saved Washington’s army from destruction and proved that the nascent Continental foot soldiers could stand toe-to-toe with their foe. Although more combat would follow, Philadelphia fell to Gen. Sir William Howe’s British legions on September 26, 1777.
 
Harris’s Brandywine is the first complete study to merge the strategic, political, and tactical history of this complex operation and important set-piece battle into a single compelling account. More than a decade in the making, his sweeping prose relies almost exclusively upon original archival research and his personal knowledge of the terrain. Enhanced with original maps, illustrations, and modern photos, and told largely through the words of those who fought there, Brandywine will take its place as one of the most important military studies of the American Revolution ever written.
 
“Take[s] the reader into the fields and along the front-lines . . . A first-rate military history that has a deserving spot on any student’s bookshelf of the American Revolution.” —Emerging Revolutionary War Era

Ratings and reviews

For a little-remembered and poorly understood battle such as Brandywine, this book does an outstanding job of explaining what is known in a smoothly-flowing narrative while incorporating discussions of the historical basis for claims about events surrounding the battle. What is relegated to footnotes in other military history works is brought into the text in a lively and informative manner. We learn what is actually known from primary sources, what their motivations may have been to give the accounts they did, etc. All of which leads to a richer picture of the battle itself, with its subsequent mythology put in proper perspective.

Probably the best book on the Battle of the Brandywine. Very detailed and a great evolution of all the prior books on the Battle. Concise and well referenced.

Fun u too wine,spungeass all tale.

About the author

Michael C. Harris is a graduate of the University of Mary Washington and the American Military University. He has worked for the National Park Service in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Fort Mott State Park in New Jersey, and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission at the Brandywine Battlefield. He has conducted tours and staff rides of many east coast battlefields, and enjoys speaking with audiences about all things military, and especially the American Revolution and Civil War. Michael is certified in secondary education and currently teaches in the Philadelphia region. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Michelle and son Nathanael, after George Washington's most dependable subordinate, General Nathanael Greene. Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America, September 11, 1777 is his first book.