250th Book List

In anticipation of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence signing on July 4, 2026, the Vermont Department of Libraries offers a new book list featuring titles for all ages to explore and learn. Book list items are available in print and digitally to educators, school librarians, and students through the Vermont State Library, through interlibrary loan, and through the Palace Project app.

The list features a wide range of nonfiction, biography, and narrative nonfiction titles. Discover not only the people and the history, but the legacy and context of the events, including the American Revolution in Vermont. Explore history and help build strong Vermont communities for the future.

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Tricking the Tallyman: The Great Census Shenanigans of 1790
- By: Jacqueline Davies
- Are kids interested in learning about the very first American census? Probably not. Do young readers clamor for stories set in the very, very olden days of the late 18th century? Uh, not really. Okay, but do they like nutty cat-and-mouse trickery, wacky slapstick, and animals disguised as people? You bet! So let them have all that, and if they end up learning a thing or two about our country, its history, and the ways our government works, shhh . . . we won’t tell! Tricking the Tallyman accomplishes the tricky task of showing kids the way the 1790 census was tabulated (or tallied) and how the country’s new citizens came to understand (after much misunderstanding) how it worked to help them and the country.
Her Name was Mary Katharine: The Only Woman Whose Name Is on the Declaration of Independence
- By: Ella Schwartz
- Born in 1738, Mary Katharine Goddard came of age in colonial Connecticut as the burgeoning nation prepared for the American Revolution. As a businesswoman and a newspaper publisher, Goddard paved the way for influential Revolutionary media. Her remarkable accomplishments as a woman defied societal norms and set the stage for a free and open press. When the Continental Congress decreed that the Declaration of Independence be widely distributed, one person rose to the occasion and printed the document—boldly inserting her name at the bottom with a printing credit: Mary Katharine Goddard.
Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About The Women and Girls of the American Revolution
- By: Laurie Halse Anderson
- You’ve all heard about the great men who led and fought during the American Revolution; but did you know that the guys only make up part of the story? What about the women? The girls? Didn’t they play a part? Of course they did, and with page after page of superbly researched information and thoughtfully detailed illustrations, acclaimed novelist and picture-book author Laurie Halse Anderson and charismatic illustrator Matt Faulkner prove the case in this entertaining, informative, and long overdue homage to those independent dames!
The Worst of Friends: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the True Story of an American Feud
- By: Suzanne Tripp Jurmain
- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were good friends with very different personalities. But their differing views on how to run the newly created United States turned them into the worst of friends. They each became leaders of opposing political parties, and their rivalry followed them to the White House. Full of both history and humor, this is the story of two of America’s most well-known presidents and how they learned to put their political differences aside for the sake of friendship
Shh! We're Writing The Constitution
- By: Jean Fritz
- This factual gem, written with Jean Fritz's humorous touch, chronicles the hot summer of 1787 where fifty-five delegates, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison among them, from thirteen states huddled together in the strictest secrecy in Philadelphia to draw up the constitution of the United States that would unify their states while preserving their sovereignty.
Anna Strong: A Spy During the American Revolution
- By: Sarah Glenn Marsh
- Anna Smith Strong (1740–1812) was a fearless woman who acted as a spy for George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Recruited by Washington’s spymaster, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, she joined the Culper Ring, a group of American spies. General Washington placed a huge amount of trust in his spies, and Anna helped pass him important messages at a great risk to herself and her family.

The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery
- By: Steve Sheinkin
- An introduction to the life of Benedict Arnold that highlights not only the traitorous actions that made him legendary, but also his heroic involvement in the American Revolution.
Spitfire: A North Country Adventure
- By: Kate Messner
- Twelve-year-old Abigail Smith disguises herself as a boy, steals a leaky rowboat, and sets out to join the American fleet on Lake Champlain. She’ll risk her life to find her uncle — her only living relative and her only hope for a real home. Young Pascal De Angelis is on board an American ship, awaiting battle with the British when Abigail joins the crew. She introduces herself as Adam Smith and establishes herself as a worker and a loyal friend. Neither Abigail nor Pascal realizes just how close they are to one of the bloodiest battles the Champlain Valley will ever see. And neither can predict how those three days in October will change their lives forever.
A Spy Called James: The True Story Of James Lafayette, Revolutionary War Double Agent
- By: Anne Rockwell
- Told for the first time in picture book form is the true story of James Lafayette, a slave who spied for George Washington's army during the American Revolution. But while America celebrated its newfound freedom, James returned to slavery. His service hadn't qualified him for the release he'd been hoping for. For James the fight wasn't over; he'd already helped his country gain its freedom, now it was time to win his own.
Answering the Cry of Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution
- By: Gretchen Woelfle
- Even as American Patriots fought for independence from British rule during the Revolutionary War, oppressive conditions remained in place for the thousands of enslaved and free African Americans living in this country. But African Americans took up their own fight for freedom by joining the British and American armies; preaching, speaking out, and writing about the evils of slavery; and establishing settlements in Nova Scotia and Africa. The thirteen stories featured in this collection spotlight charismatic individuals who answered the cry for freedom, focusing on the choices they made and how they changed America both then and now.

My Brother Sam is Dead
- By: James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier
- Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the Revolution when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay neutral in a Tory town.
One Dead Spy (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #1)
- By: Nathan Hale
- Nathan Hale, who was an officer and spy for the American rebels during the Revolutionary War, shares his story, from his unlucky days at Yale to his later unlucky days as an officer, with a hangman and British officer.
Johnny Tremain
- By: Esther Forbes
- After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution.
Guts & Glory: The American Revolution
- By: Ben Thompson
- A fierce group of rebels who will never surrender. An empire with an army that has never known defeat. And a war that changed the world forever.
Guns for General Washington: A Story of the American Revolution
- By: Seymour Reit
- A tale of courage and bravery—the daring and dangerous trek that gave young America its first real victory, paving the way for the future of a great democratic nation. This exciting middle grade novel is the true story of Will Knox, a nineteen-year-old young man who transported 183 cannons from New York’s Fort Ticonderoga to Boston—in the dead of winter—to help George Washington win an important battle. Paul Revere's midnight ride...Washington crossing the Delaware...the winter crisis at Valley Forge... Some events in America's War for Independence are known to all. This book brings to history fans the story of another true episode, just as dramatic but not nearly as well known.
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
- By: Jean Lee Latham
- After finding a way to teach the ship's crew members to understand navigation, Nat, a self-taught mathematician and astronomer in eighteenth-century Salem, Massachusetts, writes down his explanations and compiles them into "The American Practical Navigator, " also known as the "Sailors' Bible.”

Chains
- By: Laurie Halse Anderson
- As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty belongs to whoever can provide her with freedom.
Spy Ring
- By: Sarah Beth Durst
- Two modern-day kids discover the truth about an American Revolutionary War–era female spy through a treasure-hunt adventure in their hometown of Setauket, New York.
Susanna's Midnight Ride: The Girl Who Won the Revolutionary War
- By: Libby Carty McNamee
- As the former Colonies struggle for freedom, the American Revolution is in the hands of a brave and resourceful teenage girl. At sixteen, Susanna Bolling is like America in rebellion; she craves independence. While her brothers are off fighting for the Patriots, she longs to do more than tedious household chores and attend spinning bees in sleepy City Point, Virginia. When British General Cornwallis invades her family’s Bollingbrook Plantation, she overhears his secret plan to defeat the Patriots. Much to her shock, she finds herself at the center of the war.

Abigail Adams: A Life
- By: Woody Holton
- Woody Holton (National Book Award finalist for Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution) reveals that American icon Abigail Adams was far wiser and wilier than previously known.
Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered
- By: James Kirby Martin
- This landmark biography stands as an invaluable antidote to the historical distortion surrounding the life of Benedict Arnold.
Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence
- By: Alan Gilbert
- Drawing upon recently discovered archival material, Gilbert traces the intense imperial and patriot rivalry over recruitment and emancipation that led both sides to depend on blacks. As well, he presents persuasive evidence that slavery could have been abolished during the Revolution itself if either side had fully pursued the military advantage of freeing slaves and pressing them into combat -as when Washington formed the all-black and Native American First Rhode Island Regiment and Lord Dunmore freed slaves and indentured servants to fight for the British. Gilbert's extensive research reveals that free blacks on both sides played a crucial and underappreciated role in the actual fighting.
Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England
- By: William Dillon Piersen
- This book is not so much a history of slavery in the Northeast as it is a historical study of the building of American culture. "The geographical scope of this study is nominally 'New England, ' but areas encompassing the present states of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire (excluding Rockingham County) receive scant attention because in the 1700s these areas lacked significant black populations
Ethan Allen: Frontier Rebel
- By: Charles A. Jellison
- Controversial then and now, the powerful, brawling, tempestuous Ethan Allen is generally conceded to have played a dominant role in the affairs of early Vermont and the American Republic. Allen was a man of many parts who, whether fighting the British, frustrating the Yorkers, or exploring the mysteries of God, and the Universe, invariably gave a good account of himself. This lively biography, based on sound but unobtrusive scholarship, examines and assesses that many-faceted career.
John Adams
- By: David McCullough
- In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history. This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble idea.
New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America
- By: Colin G Calloway
- Although many Americans consider the establishment of the colonies as the birth of this country, in fact early America existed long before the arrival of the Europeans. From coast to coast, Native Americans had created enduring cultures, and the subsequent European invasion remade much of the land and society. In New Worlds for All, Colin G. Calloway explores the unique and vibrant new cultures that Indians and Europeans forged together in early America.
Paul Revere and the World He Lived In
- By: Esther Forbes
- Recounts the life and times of Paul Revere of Massachusetts.
Paul Revere’s Ride
- By: David H Fisher
- Paul Revere's midnight ride looms as an almost mythical event in American history--yet it has been largely ignored by scholars and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. Now one of the foremost American historians offers the first serious look at the events of the night of April 18, 1775--what led up to it, what really happened, and what followed--uncovering a truth far more remarkable than the myths of tradition. In Paul Revere's Ride, David Hackett Fischer fashions an exciting narrative that offers deep insight into the outbreak of revolution and the emergence of the American republic. Paul Revere's Ride returns Paul Revere to center stage in these critical events, capturing both the drama and the underlying developments in a triumphant return to narrative history at its finest.
Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence
- By: Carol Berkin
- The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American. The author shows that women played a vital role throughout the struggle: we see women boycotting British goods in the years before independence, writing propaganda that radicalized their neighbors, raising funds for the army, and helping finance the fledgling government. We see how they managed farms, plantations, and businesses while their men went into battle, and how they served as nurses and cooks in the army camps; risked their lives carrying intelligence, participating in reconnaissance missions, or seeking personal freedom from slavery; served as spies, saboteurs, and warriors; and lived with the daily knowledge that their husbands could be hanged as traitors if the revolution did not succeed.
American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities
- By: Colin G. Calloway
- This study presents broad coverage of Indian experiences in the American Revolution rather than Indian participation as allies or enemies of contending parties. Colin Calloway focuses on eight Indian communities as he explores how the Revolution often translated into war among Indians and their own struggles for independence. Drawing on British, American, Canadian and Spanish records, Calloway shows how Native Americans pursued different strategies, endured a variety of experiences, but were bequeathed a common legacy as a result of the Revolution.
The Battle of Hubbardton: The American Rebels Stem the Tide
- By: John A. Williams
- Pamphlet commemorating the Battle of Hubbardton, an engagement in the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War.
The Battle of Hubbardton: The Rear Guard Action that Saved America
- By: Bruce M Venter
- British and German troops ran into stubborn rebel resistance at Hubbardton, Vermont on July 7, 1777. The day would ultimately turn the tide for the Patriot cause. After capturing Fort Ticonderoga, the British pursued a retreating Continental army. The American rear guard derailed the British general's plan for a quick march to Albany; the British suffered precious losses. The weakened British force ultimately surrendered at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, paving the way to American independence.
The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783
- By: Joseph Ellis
- For Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph J. Ellis, The Cause marks the culmination of a lifetime of engagement with the founding era, completing a trilogy of books that began with Founding Brothers. Here Ellis, countering popular histories that romanticize the “Spirit of ’76,” demonstrates through “evocative profiles of British loyalists, slaves, Native Americans and soldiers uncertain of what was being founded” (Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune) that the rebels fought not for a nation but under the mantle of “The Cause,” a mutable, conveniently ambiguous principle all but destined to give rise to the warring factions of later American history. Combining action-packed tales of North American military campaigns with characteristically trenchant insight, The Cause “deftly foreshadows all the issues that would complicate America’s trajectory” (Richard Stengel, New York Times Book Review), forcing us to finally reconsider the story we have long told ourselves about our origins?as a people, and as a nation.
The Rebel and the Tory
- By: Ethan Allen, Philip Skene, and the Dawn of Vermont, John J Duffy, H Nicholas Muller III, and Gary G. Shattuck
- Briefly, this work seeks to accomplish two things surrounding Vermont's creation years (those before the 1777 Declaration of Independence and Constitution and 1791 statehood) by: 1) introducing and exploring more fully the contributions made by two important individuals with direct connections to Ethan Allen (Hartford, Connecticut attorney Jared Ingersoll and British Army Major Philip Skene); and, 2) examining closely the time period between 1759 and 1775 when colonizing efforts were made by Skene (precipitated at the direction of Gen. Jeffrey Amherst), Allen, and others to turn the Hampshire Grants into North America's fourteenth British colony.
The Turning Point of the Revolution or Burgoyne in America (2 volumes)
- By: Hoffman Nickerson
- The Turning Point of the Revolution or Burgoyne in America is a historical book written by Nickerson and Hoffman. The book is a detailed account of the events that took place during the American Revolution, specifically during the Saratoga campaign of 1777. It focuses on the British General John Burgoyne and his ill-fated attempt to invade New York from Canada. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the military strategy and tactics employed by both the British and American forces during this campaign. It also sheds light on the political and social factors that contributed to the eventual victory of the American forces. The book is based on extensive research and contains numerous primary sources, including letters, diaries, and official documents. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of the American Revolution, military strategy, and tactics, and the role of politics and society in war.
Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom: Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys and the American Revolution
- By: Christopher Wren
- The story of Ethan Allen and the much-loved Green Mountain Boys of Vermont and their role in the American Revolution--the myth and the reality. In Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom, Wren overturns the myth of Ethan Allen as a legendary hero of the American Revolution and a patriotic son of Vermont and offers a different portrait of Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. They were ruffians who joined the rush for cheap land on the northern frontier of the colonies in the years before the American Revolution. Allen did not serve in the Continental Army but he raced Benedict Arnold for the famous seizure of Britain's Fort Ticonderoga. Allen and Arnold loathed each other. General George Washington, leery of Allen, refused to give him troops. In a botched attempt to capture Montreal against specific orders of the commanding American general, Allen was captured in 1775 and shipped to England to be hanged. Freed in 1778, he spent the rest of his time negotiating with the British but failing to bring Vermont back under British rule. Based on original archival research, this is a groundbreaking account of an important and little-known front of the Revolutionary War, of George Washington (and his good sense), and of a major American myth.
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- In Valiant Ambition, Nathaniel Philbrick tells a story of loyalty and personal integrity, evoking a Shakespearean tragedy that unfolds in the key relationship between George Washington and General Benedict Arnold during the American Revolution. This is a complex, controversial piece of history that paints a dramatic portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation.
1776
- By: David McCullough
- Chronicles the American Revolution during the year 1776, examining the leadership of George Washington and British commander William Howe and the experiences of American and British troop.
A Guide to The Battle of Bennington and The Bennington Monument
- By: Phil Holland
- This is the story of the Battle of Bennington and the iconic Monument that commemorates the Patriot victory on August 16, 1777. On that day American militiamen from New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, aided at a critical moment by the Green Mountain Continental Rangers, defeated a combined British, German, and Loyalist force and helped change the course of the Revolutionary War.
Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary
- By: Martha Brockenbrough
- Describes the life, career, and accomplishments of Alexander Hamilton, from his humble early life in the West Indies to his position of power in colonial America as a founding father.
Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence
- By: Jack Kelly
- Band of Giants brings to life the founders who fought for our independence in the Revolutionary War. Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin are known to all; men like Morgan, Greene, and Wayne are less familiar. Yet the dreams of the politicians and theorists only became real because fighting men were willing to take on the grim, risky, brutal work of war. We know Fort Knox, but what about Henry Knox, the burly Boston bookseller who took over the American artillery at the age of 25? Eighteen counties in the United States commemorate Richard Montgomery, but do we know that this revered martyr launched a full-scale invasion of Canada? The soldiers of the American Revolution were a diverse lot: merchants and mechanics, farmers and fishermen, paragons and drunkards. That these inexperienced warriors could take on and defeat the superpower of the day was one of the remarkable feats in world history.
Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles Along the Great Warpath That Made the American Way of War
- By: Eliot A. Cohen
- Redirecting our attention from the Civil War to the real conflict that consolidated the United States, Cohen describes how five groups-- the British, French, Americans, Canadians, and Indians--fought over the key to the North American continent: the corridor running from Albany to Montreal, known to Native Americans as the "Great Warpath." He explores how a distinctly American approach to war developed along these 200 miles, reintroducing characters we thought we knew--an admirable Benedict Arnold, a traitorous Ethan Allen, and a devious George Washington. A gripping read grounded in serious scholarship, Conquered into Liberty will enchant readers for decades to come.
Discovering Black Vermont
- By: Elise Guyette
- An impressive work of historical recovery, Discovering Black Vermont tells the story of three generations of free Black [people] trying to build a life and community in northern Vermont in the years following statehood.
Ethan Allen
- By: John Pell
- A biography of Ethan Allen, a patriot and politician of American Revolution.
Forgotten Americans: Footnote Figures Who Changed American History
- By: Willard Sterne Randall and Nancy Nahra
- Written by an honored biographer and an award-winning poet, this entertaining book shines a light on overlooked figures. Traditional histories have often neglected these people, for many reasons. Some were on the losing side of a conflict, such as Tecumeseh, who spent years trying to unite Indian nations against white settlers. Others worked behind the scenes, like Annie Turner Wittenmyer, who took charge of supplying Union hospitals in the West during the Civil War. And some we disregard because their actions now seem unsavory, as with the once-celebrated ”Indian-slayer” Tom Quick. From these fascinating threads, Will Randall and Nancy Nahra weave a rich tapestry of American life. In it we witness the power of religious revival and the lure of mass entertainment. We watch philosophical differences split the nation. We see the shift in Native American's lives from Teedyuscung, a Delaware murdered despite his conversion to Christianity, to Louis Sockalexis, the baseball prodigy. These lively stories also reveal little-known facets of the famous: Benjamin Franklin's disinherited son, Thomas Jefferson's secret politicking, and how Mary Todd Lincoln's confinement to a mental hospital became a public issue. From early settlements to the close of the nineteenth century, the brief biographies in Forgotten Americans engagingly fill out our knowledge of the nation's past.
Guns of Burgoyne
- By: Bruce Lancaster
- A young Hessian officer in the British army participates in the events leading to Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga.
Hurricane of Independence: The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution
- By: Tony Williams
- As September 1775 opened, a powerful hurricane was making its way across the Atlantic, one that would test the colonists' strength, resolve, and faith in the rebellion. Learn about the incredible moment when the forces of nature and the forces of history came together, and the courageous stories of sacrifice, survival, and strength amidst the fight for freedom.
Inventing Ethan Allen
- By: John J. Duffy and H. Nicholas Muller III
- Since 1969, Ethan Allen has been the subject of three biographical studies, all of which indulge in sustaining and revitalizing the image of Allen as a physically imposing Vermont yeoman, a defender of the rights of Americans, an eloquent military hero, and a master of many guises, from rough frontiersman to gentleman philosopher. Seeking the authentic Ethan Allen, the authors of this volume ask: How did that Ethan Allen secure his place in popular culture? As they observe, this spectacular persona leaves little room for a more accurate assessment of Allen as a self-interested land speculator, rebellious mob leader, inexperienced militia officer, and truth-challenged man who would steer Vermont into the British Empire. Drawing extensively from the correspondence in Ethan Allen and his Kin and a wide range of historical, political, and cultural sources, Duffy and Muller analyze the factors that led to Ethan Allen’s two-hundred-year-old status as the most famous figure in Vermont’s past.
Moses Robinson and The Founding of Vermont
- By: Robert A. Mello
- In this full-length biography, Moses Robinson and the Founding of Vermont, Superior Court judge, Robert A. Mello restores Moses Robinson to his rightful place as one of the most significant figures in the founding of Vermont. Robinson was a leader of the revolt against New York, one of Vermont's agents to Congress in charge of negotiating statehood, the architect of Vermont's legal system, and served as the state's first chief justice, governor for a year, and then as its first U.S. senator. This book invokes new thoughts about Vermont's complicated beginnings.
Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
- By: Danielle Allen
- Allen makes the case that we cannot have freedom as individuals without equality among us as a people. Evoking the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen describes the challenges faced by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston--the "Committee of Five" who had to write a document that reflected the aspirations of a restive population and forge an unprecedented social contract. Although the focus is usually on Jefferson, Allen restores credit not only to John Adams and Richard Henry Lee but also to clerk Timothy Matlack and printer Mary Katherine Goddard. Allen also restores the text of the Declaration itself. Its list of self-evident truths does not end with our individual right to the "pursuit of happiness" but with the collective right of the people to reform government so that it will "effect their Safety and Happiness." The sentence laying out the self-evident truths leads us from the individual to the community--from our individual rights to what we can achieve only together, as a community constituted by bonds of equality.
Rabble In Arms
- By: Kenneth Roberts
- Peter and Nathaniel Merrill, caught up in revolutionary sentiment, find themselves facing almost impossible odds when they join the Continental Army in 1777 under the leadership of General Benedict Arnold, to confront the British at Saratoga.
Race and Revolution
- By: Gary B. Nash
- The most profound crisis of conscience for white Americans at the end of the eighteenth century became their most tragic failure. Race and Revolution is a trenchant study of the revolutionary generation's early efforts to right the apparent contradiction of slavery and of their ultimate compromises that not only left the institution intact but provided it with the protection of a vastly strengthened government after 1788. Reversing the conventional view that blames slavery on the South's social and economic structures, Nash stresses the role of the northern states in the failure to abolish slavery. It was northern racism and hypocrisy as much as southern intransigence that buttressed "the peculiar institution." Nash also shows how economic and cultural factors intertwined to result not in an apparently judicious decision of the new American nation but rather its most significant lost opportunity. Race and Revolution describes the free black community's response to this failure of the revolution's promise, its vigorous and articulate pleas for justice, and the community's successes in building its own African-American institutions within the hostile environment of early nineteenth-century America. Included with the text of Race and Revolution are nineteen rare and crucial documents?letters, pamphlets, sermons, and speeches?which provide evidence for Nash's controversial and persuasive claims. From the words of Anthony Benezet and Luther Martin to those of Absalom Jones and Caesar Sarter, readers may judge the historical record for themselves.
Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier
- By: Michael A. Bellesile
- In this revisionary look at the eighteenth-century frontier, Michael A. Bellesiles shows us that more than a legendary Revolutionary War hero, Ethan Allen was the leader of a group of frontier subsistence farmers united in their opposition to New York elites and land speculators; the independence Allen and his followers fought for was as much from eastern elites as it was from the British crown. But what makes the story of the Green Mountain frontier so remarkable is that the settlers won. Revolutionary Outlaws is both a biography of Ethan Allen and a social history of the conflict between agrarian commoners and their wealthy adversaries. It explores the roots of popular political commitment to the patriot cause, the significance of rural crowd activity, the character of popular religious culture and dissent, and the origins and structures of an emerging democratic polity.
Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War
- By: Richard M. Ketchum
- Historian Richard M. Ketchum's Saratoga vividly details the turning point in America's Revolutionary War. In the summer of 1777 (twelve months after the Declaration of Independence) the British launched an invasion from Canada under General John Burgoyne. It was the campaign that was supposed to the rebellion, but it resulted in a series of battles that changed America's history and that of the world. Stirring narrative history, skillfully told through the perspective of those who fought in the campaign, Saratoga brings to life as never before the inspiring story of Americans who did their utmost in what seemed a lost cause, achieving what proved to be the crucial victory of the Revolution.
Strong Ground: Mount Independence and the American Revolution
- By: Donald H. Wickman
- A National Historic Landmark, Mount Independence on Lake Champlain in Orwell, Vermont, is the site of the largest military fortification in the north built specifically for the American Revolution. Over 18 eventful months, from July 1776 to November 1777, the soldiers stationed here shaped the outcome of America's war for independence.
The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787
- By: Gordon Wood
- Illuminates the concepts of the Constitution by studying the cultural situation of the colonists.
The Damndest Yankees: Ethan Allen & His Clan
- By: Edwin P. Hoyt
- An account of the Allen family of Colonial and Revolutionary Connecticut and Vermont, including Ethan, and of the local and more widely significant events in which they participated.
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- As part of the Oxford History of the United States series, this volume is a history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic. Beginning with the French and Indian War and continuing to the election of George Washington as first president, the author offers a panoramic history of the conflict between England and America, highlighting the drama and anguish of the colonial struggle for independence. Combining the political and the personal, he provides a compelling account of the key events that precipitated the war, from the Stamp Act to the Tea Act, tracing the gradual gathering of American resistance that culminated in the Boston Tea Party and "the shot heard 'round the world."
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
- By: Bernard Bailyn
- The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is a classic of American historical literature--required reading for understanding the Founders' ideas and their struggles to implement them. In the preface to this 50th anniversary edition, Bernard Bailyn isolates the Founders' profound concern with the uses and misuses of power.
The Iroquois in the American Revolution
- By: Barbara Graymont
- Examines the military and political aspects of the Iroquois' role in the American revolution and describes the impact of the Americans and British on the Indian culture.
The Minutemen and Their World
- By: Robert A. Gross
- On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. The "shot heard round the world" catapulted this sleepy New England town into the midst of revolutionary fervor, and Concord went on to become the intellectual capital of the new republic. The town--future home to Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne--soon came to symbolize devotion to liberty, intellectual freedom, and the stubborn integrity of rural life. In The Minutemen and Their World, Robert Gross has written a remarkably subtle and detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of this special place, and a compelling interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement.
The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, VOL 1 and VOL 2
- By: Benson J. Lossing
- The Pictorial Field Book Of The Revolution V1 is a historical book written by Benson J. Lossing. It is a comprehensive account of the American Revolution, with a focus on the military campaigns and battles that took place during this period. The book is filled with detailed illustrations and maps that help readers to visualize the events described in the text. The author provides a detailed analysis of the strategies and tactics used by both the American and British forces during the war, as well as the political and social factors that influenced the outcome of the conflict. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in American history, and it provides a fascinating insight into one of the most important periods in the country's development.
The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777-1810
- By: Harvey Amani Whitfield
- Vermonters have always been proud that their state was the first to outlaw slavery in its constitution—but is that what really happened? “The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont explodes this myth, demonstrating conclusively that the enslavement of people of color under various guises persisted in the state for another thirty years,” attests Joanne Pope Melish, Associate Professor of History, University of Kentucky. Harvey Amani Whitfield forces us to squarely consider the deepest questions about what freedom actually meant for African Americans in Vermont well into the nineteenth century.
The Reluctant Republic: Vermont 1724-1791
- By: Frederic F. Van de Water
- History of Vermont, as a republic separate from New York colony, as an independent state from the beginning of the United States. By the author of multiple historical fictions set in Vermont.
The Shaping of Vermont
- By: J. Kevin. Graffagnino
- The Shaping of Vermont is a compelling historical account that takes the reader through the state's transformation from wilderness to the Centennial. Written by J. Kevin Graffagnino and published by Vermont Heritage Press in 1983. With 180 pages, the book includes historical maps and descriptions of those maps dating from 1749-1877.
The Western Abenaki of Vermont, 1600-1800
- By: Colin G. Calloway
- Before European incursions began in the seventeenth century, the Western Abenaki Indians inhabited present-day Vermont and New Hampshire, particularly the Lake Champlain and Connecticut River valleys. This history of their coexistence and conflicts with whites on the northern New England frontier documents their survival as a people-recently at issue in the courts-and their wars and migrations, as far north as Quebec, during the first two centuries of white contacts. Written clearly and authoritatively, with sympathy for this long-neglected tribe, Colin G. Calloway's account of the Western Abenaki diaspora adds to the growing interest in remnant Indian groups of North America. This history of an Algonquian group on the periphery of the Iroquois Confederacy is also a major contribution to general Indian historiography and to studies of Indian white interactions, cultural persistence, and ethnic identity in North America.
Valcour: The 1776 Campaign that Saved the Cause of Liberty
- By: Jack Kelly
- During the summer of 1776, a British incursion from Canada loomed. In response, citizen soldiers of the newly independent nation mounted a heroic defense. Patriots constructed a small fleet of gunboats on Lake Champlain in northern New York and confronted the Royal Navy in a desperate three-day battle near Valcour Island. Their effort surprised the arrogant British and forced the enemy to call off their invasion. Jack Kelly's Valcour is a story of people. The northern campaign of 1776 was led by the underrated general Philip Schuyler (Hamilton's father-in-law), the ambitious former British officer Horatio Gates, and the notorious Benedict Arnold. An experienced sea captain, Arnold devised a brilliant strategy that confounded his slow-witted opponents. America’s independence hung in the balance during 1776. Patriots endured one defeat after another. But two events turned the tide: Washington’s bold attack on Trenton and the equally audacious fight at Valcour Island. Together, they stunned the enemy and helped preserve the cause of liberty.
War Over Walloomscoick: Land Use and Settlement Patterns on the Bennington Battlefield
- By: Philip Lord
- Walloomscoick, also spelled Walmscock, Wallamschock, Wallamsac, Wolmseec and Walmsook, is a Dutch word, signifying Walloom's Patent. The "War Over Walloomsac" refers to the Battle of Bennington, a pivotal fight during the American Revolutionary War that took place in Walloomsac, New York on August 16, 1777, where American militia forces led by General John Stark decisively defeated a British detachment under Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum, significantly hindering British General Burgoyne's campaign and bolstering American morale; this battle is often considered a turning point in the Northern campaign of the Revolutionary War.
Washington: A Life
- By: Ron Chernow
- In "Washington: a Life" celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation, dashing forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man, and revealing an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people.