"I believe few Officers either in America or Europe are held in so high a point of estimation as you are..." --Gen. Nathanael Greene to "Light Horse" Harry Lee January 27, 1782 The sentiment above, expressed by General Nathanael Greene, an officer whose military contributions to American independence are second only to General George Washington, captures the view of most Americans in 1782 regarding Light Horse Harry Lee. In early 1782, twenty-six year old Lieutenant Colonel Lee commanded a legion of mounted and dismounted dragoons that had just completed a spectacular year of military service in the South. Lee's efforts in 1781, in conjunction with General Greene and the American southern army, resulted in the British loss of most of South Carolina and Georgia. Over the course of 1781, Lee and his legion, often detached from Greene's army, helped screen Greene's desperate retreat to Virginia and then, a few weeks later, captured or destroyed numerous enemy outposts and detachments in South Carolina and Georgia. Lee and his legion played a crucial role in the bloody battles of Guilford Courthouse and Eutaw Springs and the sieges of Augusta and Ninety-Six. The extraordinary service of Lee and his men in 1781 capped what had already been five years of distinguished military service for Lee. He had reported to General Washington's army as a twenty year old cavalry captain in 1777 and quickly earned a reputation as a bold commander. Lee's daring exploits at Valley Forge, Powles Hook and Springfield, like his extraordinary service in the south, are all chronicled within this book. Readers will undoubtedly conclude that Lee made the right decision when he declined General Washington's invitation in 1778 to join his staff as an aide-de-camp with the assertion that, "I am wedded to my sword." Illustrations, maps, a bibliography and an index to names, places and subjects enhance the text.

Lady Aila Graham is destined for the convent until her brother's death leaves her an heiress and her father hastily arranges a marriage for her with a Highland warrior she's never met. Original.

A groundbreaking, important recovery of history; the overlooked story—fully explored—of the critical aspect of America’s Revolutionary War that was fought in the South, showing that the British surrender at Yorktown was the direct result of the southern campaign, and that the battles that emerged south of the Mason-Dixon line between loyalists to the Crown and patriots who fought for independence were, in fact, America’s first civil war. The famous battles that form the backbone of the story put forth of American independence—at Lexington and Concord, Brandywine, Germantown, Saratoga, and Monmouth—while crucial, did not lead to the surrender at Yorktown. It was in the three-plus years between Monmouth and Yorktown that the war was won. Alan Pell Crawford’s riveting new book,This Fierce People, tells the story of these missing three years, long ignored by historians, and of the fierce battles fought in the South that made up the central theater of military operations in the latter years of the Revolutionary War, upending the essential American myth that the War of Independence was fought primarily in the North. Weaving throughout the stories of the heroic men and women, largely unsung patriots—African Americans and whites, militiamen and “irregulars,” patriots and Tories, Americans, Frenchmen, Brits, and Hessians, Crawford reveals the misperceptions and contradictions of our accepted understanding of how our nation came to be, as well as the national narrative that America’s victory over the British lay solely with General George Washington and his troops.