250th Book List

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. Excellent for classroom use or to put in the hands of bright kids with a taste for the quirky and irreverent, young readers may enjoy this story so much they might not even notice how much they’ve learned!

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1194019&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

The Bear that Heard Crying

By: Natalie Kinsey-Warnock & Helen Kinsey

A fictionalized retelling of the true story of three-year-old Sarah Whitcher, who, in 1783, became lost in the woods of New Hampshire and was protected by a bear until her rescue four days later.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352609&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

The Arrow Over the Door

By: Joseph Bruchac

In the year 1777, a group of Quakers and a party of Native Americans have a memorable meeting.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352615&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352994&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352692&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352629&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352627&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352623&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. As you read these pages, you will agree that Colonel Knox's great adventure was a stirring, suspenseful, and important event in American history.

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.”

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352617&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity: Containing His Voyages & Travels 

By: Ethan Allen

A narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's captivity, from the time of his being taken by the British, near Montreal, on the 25th day of September, in the year 1775, to the time of his exchange, on the 6th day of May, 1778. Containing his voyages and travels, with the most remarkable occurrences respecting himself, and many other continental prisoners... particularly the destruction of the prisoners at New-York, by General Sir William Howe, in the years 1776 and 1777; interspersed with some political observations.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352691&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352694&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1353113&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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 Patriots and Loyalists contend that the struggle for emancipation was not only basic to the Revolution itself, but was a rousing force that would inspire freedom movements like the abolition societies of the North and the black loyalist pilgrimages for freedom in places such as Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1353106&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. ... the areas of greatest attention--Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts”

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1353134&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. Under Allen’s belligerent leadership the farmers of the New Hampshire Grants formed a militant guerilla band in 1770 known as the Green Mountain Boys to protect their holdings in lands that were the subject of disputes between New York and New Hampshire. Upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, the farmer-fighters turned with enthusiasm against the British. Under the official command of Benedict Arnold, but actually obeying only their boisterous leader, Allen, the little band took Fort Ticonderoga in a bold engagement. Allen’s unwise and unlucky attack on Montreal resulted in his capture by the British. Finally released three years later, he was commissioned a brevet Colonel by the Continental Congress. Professor Jellison examines with particular care Ethan Allen’s political activities following his return home, especially his “treasonous” dealings with the British, his vigorous support of the new self-declared Republic of Vermont, and his role in the continuing rivalries—into which Massachusetts and Connecticut had entered—over the New Hampshire Grants. After the close of the Revolution, Allen retired to his lands in Burlington to farm and to write. True to character even in his career s author, Allen produced a book that was the subject of many hot discussions: Reason the Only Oracle of Man, later called “Allen’s Bible.” Allen’s Life ended in 1789, but his legend continues to this day. The book contains a two-page map, extensive bibliographical notes for each chapter, and a complete index.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1147630&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352783&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America

By: Colin G Calloway

Overview: 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. The journey toward this hybrid society kept Europeans' and Indians' lives tightly entwined: living, working, worshiping, traveling, and trading together-as well as fearing, avoiding, despising, and killing one another. In some areas, settlers lived in Indian towns, eating Indian food. In the Mohawk Valley of New York, Europeans tattooed their faces; Indians drank tea. A unique American identity emerged. The second edition of New Worlds for All incorporates fifteen years of additional scholarship on Indian-European relations, such as the role of gender, Indian slavery, relationships with African Americans, and new understandings of frontier society

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1353128&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

Paul Revere and the World He Lived In

By: Esther Forbes

Recounts the life and times of Paul Revere of Massachusetts.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352996&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. Beginning in the years before the eruption of war, Fischer illuminates the figure of Paul Revere, a man far more complex than the simple artisan and messenger of tradition. Revere ranged widely through the complex world of Boston's revolutionary movement--from organizing local mechanics to mingling with the likes of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. When the fateful night arrived, more than sixty men and women joined him on his task of alarm--an operation Revere himself helped to organize and set in motion. Fischer recreates Revere's capture that night, showing how it had an important impact on the events that followed. He had an uncanny gift for being at the center of events, and the author follows him to Lexington Green--setting the stage for a fresh interpretation of the battle that began the war. Drawing on intensive new research, Fischer reveals a clash very different from both patriotic and iconoclastic myths. The local militia were elaborately organized and intelligently led, in a manner that had deep roots in New England. On the morning of April 19, they fought in fixed positions and close formation, twice breaking the British regulars. In the afternoon, the American officers switched tactics, forging a ring of fire around the retreating enemy which they maintained for several hours--an extraordinary feat of combat leadership. In the days that followed, Paul Revere led a new battle-- for public opinion--which proved even more decisive than the fighting itself.

When the alarm-riders of April 18 took to the streets, they did not cry, "the British are coming," for most of them still believed they were British. Within a day, many began to think differently. For George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, the news of Lexington was their revolutionary Rubicon. 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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352698&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. --From publisher's description.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352644&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=543427&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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 Octobery 17, 1777, paving the way to American independence.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352634&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352684&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. Each of these factors occurred in the context of efforts to right the turmoil caused by Benning Wentworth's land granting practices and which placed the many titles of settlers and proprietors into legal jeopardy. Title problems formed the basis for the 1770 and 1771 Ejectment Trials that introduced Ingersoll (already representing clients involved in title-related litigation south of the Grants dating to 1766), which then led directly to the formation of the Green Mountain Boys with Allen at their head. Following this, when the creation of courts in Charlotte County (1772) to possibly right the Ejectment Trials results did not appear feasible, the creation of a new colony that Skene would govern became the next focus of the Grants leaders. All was lost with the outbreak of war in 1775.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1354126&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1353120&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. A rare look at a corner of the Revolutionary War. 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. Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom is an important contribution to the history of the American Revolution. https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1184982&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1255730&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352981&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1354118&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352998&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

Arundel

By: Kenneth Roberts

A young innkeeper in Maine tells of the terrible journey made by Colonial Benedict Arnold and his soldiers through the wilderness to Quebec, many months before the Declaration of Independence, in a vain-attempt to dislodge the British.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352693&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. Most were ardent amateurs. Even George Washington, assigned to take over the army around Boston in 1775, consulted books on military tactics. Here, Jack Kelly vividly captures the fraught condition of the war?the bitterly divided populace, the lack of supplies, the repeated setbacks on the battlefield, and the appalling physical hardships. That these inexperienced warriors could take on and defeat the superpower of the day was one of the remarkable feats in world history.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352699&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352705&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1354117&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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

In 1779 a Philadelphia belle, Margaret Shippen, married a hero of the ongoing Revolution, General Benedict Arnold. Within months Peggy was sending coded messages to an old suitor from England, conveying Arnold's promise to defect. When their plot was discovered, the general fled. Peggy distracted George Washington with hysterics before following her husband. The British government eventually paid Peggy far more than Benedict Arnold ever received. A generation later, the Philadelphia neighborhood where Margaret Shippen had grown up was home to a businessman named James Forten. Due to his invention for rigging sails, Forten was rich enough to build large public halls and bankroll political causes. At the same time, this veteran of the Revolution was losing his political voice because he was black. Margaret Shippen Arnold and James Forten are just two of the fifteen fascinating but little-known lives told in Forgotten Americans. Weitten 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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1352984&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1353137&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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. Placing facts against myths, the authors reveal how Allen acquired and retained his iconic image, how the much-repeated legends composed after his death coincide with his life, why recollections of him are synonymous with the story of Vermont, and why some Vermonters still assign to Allen their own cherished and idealized values.

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.

https://vtdl.agverso.com/details?key=8202&agcn=1183514&cid=vtdl&lid=vtdl

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 book features a description of the eight-year-long war, with accounts of battles and campaigns, ranging from Bunker Hill and Washington's crossing of the Delaware to the brilliant victory at Hannah's Cowpens and the final triumph at Yorktown, paying particular attention to what made men fight in these bloody encounters. The book concludes with a look at the making of the Constitution in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and the struggle over ratification. Through it all, the author gives the reader a vivid sense of how the colonists saw these events and the importance they gave to them. Common soldiers and great generals, Sons of Liberty and African slaves, town committee-men and representatives in congress, all receive their due. And there are portraits of such figures as Sam and John Adams, James Otis, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and many others. This new edition has been revised and expanded, with fresh coverage of topics such as mob reactions to British measures before the War, military medicine, women's role in the Revolution, American Indians, the different kinds of war fought by the Americans and the British, and the ratification of the Constitution. The cause for which the colonists fought, liberty and independence, was glorious indeed. Here is a narrative of an event that changed the world, capturing the profound and passionate struggle to found a free nation.

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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.

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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.

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The Minutemen and Their World

By: Robert A. Gross

The Minutemen and Their World, first published in 1976, is reissued now in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a new Foreword by Alan Taylor and a new Afterword by the author. 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.

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The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution VOL 1

By: Benson J. Lossing

The Minutemen and Their World, first published in 1976, is reissued now in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a new Foreword by Alan Taylor and a new Afterword by the author. 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.

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The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, VOL 1

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. This Is A New Release Of The Original 1860 Edition.

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The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, VOL 2

By: Benson J. Lossing

The Pictorial Field Book Of The Revolution V2 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. This Is A New Release Of The Original 1860 Edition.

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Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution VOL 1 & 2

By: Benson J. Lossing

As my journey was among scenes and things hallowed to the feelings of every American, I felt a hope that a record of the pilgrimage, interwoven with that of the facts of past history, would attract the attention, and win to the perusal of the chronicles of our Revolution many who could not be otherwise decoyed into the apparently arid and flowerless domains of mere history. I accordingly determined to make the record of the tour to the important localities of the Revolution a leading feature in the work. Here another difficulty was encountered. So widely scattered are those localities, and so simultaneous were many of the events, that a connected narrative of the journey must necessarily break up the chronological unity of the history, and, at times, produce some confusion. To give incidents of the journey, and sketches and descriptions of the scenery and relics as they appear at present, in fragmentary notes, would deny to the work the charm of a book of travel, and thus almost wholly remove the prime object in view in giving such narrative. The apparently less objectionable course was chosen, and the history was broken into fragments, arranged, in the exhibition, in accordance with the order in which each locality was visited, the fragments individualized as much as possible, yet always maintaining a tie of visible relationship with the whole. The apparent difficulties in the way of the student which this plan suggests, are removed by the aid of a complete Analytical Index at the close of the work, while the narrative of the tour remains unbroken, except by the continually recurring appendices of history. How far this arrangement shall accomplish the desired result the candid judgment of the reader must determine.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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