Killing England

The seventh installment in Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard's bestselling "Killing" series of narrative nonfiction chronicles the American Revolution from its roots in the French and Indian War through the birth of the United States. The authors trace the intertwined stories of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and King George III across three decades of conflict, diplomacy, and personal sacrifice.

The book opens on July 9, 1755, in the Ohio Country of North America, where a combined force of French Marines, Canadian militia, and Native American warriors ambushed a British and colonial column marching toward the French garrison of Fort Duquesne. Twenty-three-year-old George Washington, a Virginia militia volunteer serving as aide-de-camp to British general Edward Braddock, survived the catastrophic ambush unscathed despite having four musket balls pierce his clothing and two horses shot from under him. Forty-nine-year-old Benjamin Franklin, a Philadelphia postmaster, inventor, and scientist described as "patriotic for a nation that does not yet exist" (6), had personally procured the wagons and horses for the expedition and warned Braddock that forest ambush tactics could devastate a marching column, but the general dismissed him. The lopsided defeat, with over 500 British dead compared to roughly 30 French and Indian casualties, planted a seed among the surviving Virginians: the conviction that Americans no longer needed the British to fight their battles.

Twenty years later, on June 16, 1775, the Second Continental Congress met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia after war erupted in Massachusetts. Parliament had imposed a series of punitive taxes without granting colonists representation, and the Intolerable Acts of 1774 abolished the Massachusetts provincial government and closed the port of Boston. Franklin, now 70 and recently returned from 11 years in London, sat among the delegates. John Adams, believing a southern commander would unify the colonies, nominated Washington over the presumptive choice of John Hancock, the wealthy Massachusetts merchant presiding over the Congress. The vote was unanimous. Washington accepted, pledged to serve without pay, and departed for Boston. In London, 37-year-old King George III addressed Parliament in October 1775, announcing increased military forces and foreign assistance to crush the rebellion.

Washington's first months as commander proved frustrating. His army suffered desertions, freezing temperatures, and chronic shortages of gunpowder. On the night of March 4, 1776, he launched a bold plan to fortify Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor, hauling prebuilt fortifications and 59 captured cannon uphill in a single night. A stunned General William Howe negotiated an evacuation, and 8,000 redcoats sailed away on March 17.

In Philadelphia, the push for independence gained momentum. Thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia planter chosen for his writing ability, drafted the Declaration of Independence while Franklin and Adams offered suggestions. On July 2, 1776, Congress voted for independence after Pennsylvania's John Dickinson, unwilling to vote yes but recognizing that unanimity was essential, stayed home, and Caesar Rodney of Delaware, who had cancer, rode 80 miles through a thunderstorm to break his delegation's tie. The Declaration was formally signed on August 2, each signature an act of treason punishable by death.

The war then went badly. On August 22, the British landed 20,000 troops in Brooklyn, executing a brilliant flanking maneuver that devastated Washington's outnumbered force. Washington saved his army through an audacious overnight evacuation, ferrying 9,000 men across the East River in silence and fog, the last man to step onto the final boat. By December, the situation was catastrophic: the army had retreated across New Jersey, and enlistments expired January 1. On Christmas night, Washington led 2,400 men across the ice-choked Delaware River during a blinding storm and achieved total surprise against the Hessian garrison at Trenton, capturing 918 soldiers in 45 minutes with no American deaths. Days later, he slipped away from British general Charles Cornwallis overnight and captured Princeton. These victories rescued the rebellion and encouraged the French, who had been waiting for proof the Americans could fight.

Franklin, meanwhile, had crossed the Atlantic aboard the USS Reprisal, arriving in France in late 1776. His mission was to convince King Louis XVI to recognize American sovereignty and provide military aid. In Paris, the 70-year-old diplomat became a celebrity whose marten fur cap inspired a fashion craze. The turning point for the alliance came at Saratoga, New York, in late 1777. Benedict Arnold, a fearless officer who defied his cautious superior General Horatio Gates, led charges that halted British general John Burgoyne's advance from Canada. At the Second Battle of Saratoga on October 7, Arnold charged into battle despite having been relieved of command and led the decisive rout before a musket ball shattered his left leg. Burgoyne surrendered nearly 6,000 men. On February 6, 1778, Franklin signed the Treaty of Alliance with France, wearing the same velvet suit from his public humiliation before the British Privy Council four years earlier, deliberately saved for "a little revenge" (176).

The winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, brought the Continental Army to the brink of dissolution. Soldiers starved, a quarter lacked shoes, and hundreds died from disease. Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian officer recommended by Franklin, arrived and methodically overhauled the army's sanitation, drill, and discipline, transforming a demoralized force into a professional fighting machine. By June, the retrained army demonstrated its new capabilities at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey, fighting the British to a standstill.

Arnold's heroism gave way to treachery. Appointed military governor of Philadelphia, he plunged into corruption while courting 18-year-old Peggy Shippen, a Loyalist whose Tory sympathies fueled their joint scheme to sell military secrets to the British through intelligence officer Major John André. By September 1780, Arnold commanded the strategically vital fortress at West Point on the Hudson River and had deliberately weakened its defenses. André was captured carrying Arnold's documents, and Arnold fled to a British warship. Washington told the Marquis de Lafayette, his trusted young French volunteer officer, "Arnold has betrayed me. Whom can we trust now?" (254). André was tried and hanged for espionage.

The war's focus shifted south, where Charleston, South Carolina, fell in May 1780 in the largest American surrender of the war. Colonel Francis Marion led a small guerrilla band from the swamps, earning the nickname "Swamp Fox." Arnold, now a British general, raided Virginia, forcing Governor Jefferson to flee Richmond and later Monticello itself. Martha Jefferson died on September 6, 1782, after a long decline; Jefferson, devastated, honored her deathbed wish that he never remarry.

In August 1781, Washington secretly pivoted his army from New York toward Virginia after learning that a French fleet of 29 warships would sail to the Chesapeake Bay. The Siege of Yorktown began on September 28 as 19,000 French and American troops encircled Cornwallis's 7,000 defenders while the fleet sealed the trap by sea. A devastating bombardment of 3,600 rounds per day pounded the British positions. On October 14, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, Washington's former aide-de-camp, led a nighttime bayonet assault that captured a key redoubt in nine minutes. On October 19, some 8,000 British soldiers marched out to surrender.

King George III minimized Yorktown, but Parliament forced an end to the war. Franklin negotiated the Treaty of Paris with Adams and diplomat John Jay. On Valentine's Day, 1783, George III ordered a cessation of hostilities. Washington retook New York City on November 25, 1783, then resigned his commission before Congress on December 23, refusing to seize power: "Having finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of action" (311). He arrived home at Mount Vernon on Christmas Day.

The book closes with Washington's inauguration as the first president on April 30, 1789. A postscript traces the principals' fates: Washington died in 1799; Jefferson and Adams both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration; Franklin died in 1790; Hamilton was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804; and Arnold died penniless in London in 1801. An estimated 400,000 Americans served in the war, with approximately 36,000 dying from combat, disease, and captivity.