Road to Valley Forge :: essays research papers

The thoroughfare to Valley ForgeThe book that I choose to review was The track to Valley Forge, How Washington Built the Army that Won the Revolutionary War, written by John Buchanan. This is a book that covers the beginning of the revolutionary fight in America from the time that George Washington is selected as commander-in-chief of the troops, until his army enters spend quarters at Valley Forge. It encompasses the weather conditions that Washington and his army had to weather as well as the scrutiny that Washington always seemed to be under. The scrutiny came from people in congress who believed that the war was going to be quick and wanted a large, decisive battle fought. George Washington took hold of the revolutionary army on 2 July 1775. He took over at outside of Boston, before this his experience was limited to wilderness travel and goldbricking. His soldiering experiences had been mainly for his home state of Virginia. The first battle that was of significance in this book was the Battle of tenacious Island. At this battle Washington and the wax army are soundly defeated by General Sir William Howe and the British army. After this battle was fought Howe did not follow-up the victory with quick achievement as the Americans retreated. It could be said that if Howe and the British would continued the attack this rising could have been put down right away. This will not be the first time that Howe fails to do this, and it will lead to him being replaced posterior in the war Sir Henry Clinton. Even though his army was soundly defeated Washington is able to get his troops off of Long Island back to Manhattan in the middle of the night, this will also not be the last time that Washington is able to get his 2army out of harms way. The author briefly discusses the troubles at Kips utter and Fort Washington. The next subject that Buchanan goes into is Washingtons retreat by the state of New Jersey. The key part of this retreat is when Washing ton crosses the Potomac River he collects all boats from both shores of the river. He later uses them to cross the icy Potomac to come on the very important Battle of Trenton. The importance of this battle is that raised the morale of the soldiers. After this Howe decides to go into winter quarters.