The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington
Few events in American history have stirred the national imagination as much as the heroic stand of ragtag colonial militia against crack British regulars at the battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. But author Lockhart points out in this authoritative and engrossing book that some of our modern conceptions of that momentous event are dead wrong. The British troops that trudged up the hill on that hot June day were mostly raw recruits, not much better trained than their rebel counterparts. Military discipline failed them; heroic British officers could not get their men to follow orders. On the Yankee side, a similar lack of discipline, coupled with desertion and mistrust of authority, almost destroyed the colonial army.
Despite that, colonial heroes came forth; Prescott, Ward, Putnam, Stark, and others, men who sacrificed everything to hold the army together, not only in the heat of batlle, but until a Virginian by the name of George Washington could take command and begin transforming the brave but untrained colonials into an effective Continental fighting force. Reading more like a novel than a history book, this is a must read for anyone interested in the American Revolution.
