The Glorious Cause

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789
Author: Robert Midlekauff 1982 664 pp
My rating: 3*
Started January 20 2009, Finished February 20 2009.

This book is the fourth volume of The Oxford History of the United States which I’ve read, and by far the least satisfying. While the others (Battle Cry of Freedom, What Hath God Wrought and Freedom From Fear) where characterized by a straightforward, succinct and fact-filled-I-have-to-restraint-myself-not-to-make-a-note-on-every-single-page style, The Glorious Cause was just the opposite: unlike the others, it could have been much shorter and I found its prose style, which seemed to slightly mimic the rhetoric of the period it described, generally long winded and confusing. Why I can unhesitatingly recommend the other three volumes as supremely informative, engrossing and authoritative histories, after I finished this one I felt like I hadn’t learned that much about the era.  One thing I did come away from the book with, in a lesson that reverberates today, was the notion that the British, hampered by long supplies lines and lack of local support, even from crown loyalists, lost the war despite winning most of the battles. 

What seems like a common complaint of mine: I didn’t like the maps.

Of interest to fans of the series: the book jacket contains the original publishing schedule for the OHOTUS indicating the series which still is missing several volumes should have been completed more than a decade ago and that several of the original authors have been replaced.

---

Chapter Three’s explanation of the sugar act is confusing.
The Connecticut charter which was issued in 1662 provided that the colony’s western boundary should be the Pacific Ocean. (104)

With army horses and wagons scarce, civilians-- merchants, drayers, and others -- hot to be relied on, and these men, in business for themselves, frequently had better paying uses for their transport. (414)

[During the march to Monmouth Court House] Their soldiers carried packs of at least sixty pounds, weight made especially difficult to bear by sandy roads, woolen uniforms, and cumbersome muskets. The Hessians, who wore even heavier clothing than the English, suffered the most, several dying of sunstroke along the way. (422)

A virtuous people, most Americans agreed, were a people who valued frugality, despised luxury, hated corruption, and preferred moderations and balance to extremes of any sort, especially in the orders of society. (651)