so i’ve recently decided that if i do doctoral work (many, many years down the road) then i’m going to do it in early American studies. more specifically, i’ll probably do something in the study of Jonathan Edwards or in the early to mid 1700s. because of this, it should go without saying that i am very interested in our nation’s colonial history and its struggle for independence. it was these reasons that i decided to pick up a book that i had heard so much about lately, David McCullough’s 1776.

this book is the story of that fateful year and starts in October of 1775 as King George III rides in grand elegance and ceremony to speak at the opening session of Parliament. it is in this session where the two houses, Lords and Commons, are divided over a possible war with the House of Commons being strongly against it and the House of Lords showing such arrogance as to say they could march from one end of the American continent to the other and subdue all the lands with little more than 5,000 soldiers. as we all know, the British will decide to fight.

perhaps one of the most interesting things about this book is the amount of devoted attention it gives to the ordinary soldier on both sides of the conflict. of course there is a lot written on the major players like Washington, Hancock, etc. for the Americans and Howe, Cornwallis, etc. for the British, but a good deal more is to be learned about the ordinary soldiers and lesser officers than one would probably expect from a book about the early stages of the war. i think the person i found most impressive in the study of this book was General Nathanael Greene, who, besides Washington, would be the only soldier to take part in “the Glorious Cause” from its inception to its conclusion. Greene was a loyal devotee to Washington, to his country, and to his men and would come to know very hard times as well as times of great triumph over the course of the year. yet, though times were often tough, Greene would persevere courageously and be one of the leading players in the final battle of the War for Independence at Yorktown in 1783.

what i came away from this book with was a greater understanding and appreciation of the trials that the American forces had to go through in the first months of the war. after securing a great success at the Siege of Boston in the early months of the year, the army was then faced with disaster after disaster until they achieved relatively small victories (though the effects would be enormous) in the closing weeks of 1776 and early weeks of 1777. faced with desertions, traitors, disease, and extreme lack of supplies, it is no wonder that the British thought the American leadership to be nothing more than a bunch of blubbering fools. but devoted to their cause, steadfast in their resolve, and, according to their words, with a little help from “Providence”, the Americans would hold on to hope of freedom from under tyranny and would eventually win the day.

this book also made me really wonder whether the times that it seemed that God was intervening to help the Americans out would come to be a time of great blessing or a time of great judgment. no doubt the soldiers who were there would believe the events to be of the former, but after 200+ years since that time i’m not entirely convinced. having made intellectual gods out of such men as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Locke, men who would come to be opposed to the Gospel of Christ in favor of a kind of Deism, it really makes me wonder if Independence from Britain was such a great thing.

now i don’t have carefully thought out opinions on this, but it does get me thinking. i feel i should also say that i do love this country and am grateful for the men that have come before me and have fought for the freedoms that we all enjoy, as well as the men who continue to do so today either at home or abroad. but as i see the great moral decline over the last 200 years and everything going on in America today, i guess only time will tell if the perceived “acts of God” enjoyed by the Americans during the war would in fact be a blessing or a judgment.