War Without Mercy : Liberty or Death in the American Revolution

Drawing on vivid contemporary accounts, this is a fascinating exploration of how and why the Revolutionary War descended into a brutal existential struggle. This engrossing history of the Revolutionary War conclusively shows that those caught up in it believed they had nothing to lose by fighting without regard for the rules of so-called “civilized warfare.” The clarion call to arms “Liberty or Death” was far more than just rhetoric.At its grimmest level, it was a conflict in which military restraint was more the exception than the rule, a struggle in which combatants believed their very existence was in question.This led to an acceptance of violence against persons and property as preferable to a defeat equated with political, cultural, and even physical extinction.It was war with an expectation and acceptance of ferocity and brutality - anything to avoid defeat. A number of historians have previously concluded that United States’ founding struggle reached a level of ferocity few Amer