The Day the American Revolution Began: 19 April 1775 - Hardcover

Reminiscent of the best historical fiction, Hallahan's narrative examines the events leading up to the fateful day and profiles many players on both sides of the conflict. Some are little known, such as Mrs. Moulton, an elderly resident of Concord who insisted that Colonel Smith put out a fire his Redcoats had set; or Samuel Jarvis, who, with his wife and four children, was stripped naked, then tarred and feathered by a rebel mob because he was a Loyalist. Hallahan also treats us to behind-the-scenes glimpses of the more famous: John Hancock, having fled Lexington, sends back for a salmon he had inadvertently left behind ("Excitement always made him ravenous"); General Gage, looking across the masses of wounded men in his army camp at his American-born wife, suspects she was the spy who had revealed his military plans against Concord to the rebels.

Throughout the book, Hallahan remains remarkably balanced. The British were not all bullheaded tyrants (indeed, many were reluctant to go to war against their colonists), nor were the Americans all noble patriots. The excesses of Samuel Adams's mob--and his questionable political tactics--are discussed at length. Hallahan's extensive use of diaries, letters, broadsheets, and memoirs, as well as official accounts, lends his prose an immediacy lacking in many studies. Readers looking for an in-depth study of the battles of the American Revolution may be disappointed; only the actions at Lexington and Concord receive Hallahan's attention. But careful attention it is, and The Day the American Revolution Began is an engaging, entertaining, informative read. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney

But the day that started so well for the king's troops would end in catastrophe: seventy-three British soldiers dead, two hundred wounded, and the survivors chased back into Boston by the angry colonists. Drawing on diaries, letters, official documents, and memoirs, William H. Hallahan vividly captures the drama of those tense twenty-four hours and shows how they decided the fate of two nations.