front cover of Taking Sides in Revolutionary New Jersey
Taking Sides in Revolutionary New Jersey
Caught in the Crossfire
Maxine N. Lurie
Rutgers University Press, 2022
The American Revolution in New Jersey lasted eight long years, during which many were caught in the middle of a vicious civil war. Residents living in an active war zone took stands that varied from “Loyalist” to “Patriot” to neutral and/or "trimmer" (those who changed sides for a variety of reasons). Men and women, Blacks and whites, Native Americans, and those from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, with different religious affiliations all found themselves in this difficult middle ground. When taking sides, sometimes family was important, sometimes religion, or political principles; the course of the war and location also mattered. Lurie analyzes the difficulties faced by prisoners of war, the refugees produced by the conflict, and those Loyalists who remained, left as exiles, or surprisingly later returned. Their stories are interesting, often dramatic, and include examples of those literally caught in the crossfire. They illustrate the ways in which this was an extremely difficult time and place to live. In the end more of the war was fought in New Jersey than elsewhere, resulting in the highest number of casualties, and a great deal of physical damage. The costs were high no matter what side individuals took. Taking Sides uses numerous brief biographies to illustrate the American Revolution’s complexity; it quotes from documents, pamphlets, diaries, letters, and poetry, a variety of sources to provide insight into the thoughts and reactions of those living through it all. It focuses on people rather than battles and provides perspective for the difficult choices we make in our own times.

Supplemental Instructor Resources for Taking Sides in Revolutionary New Jersey:
Questions (https://d3tto5i5w9ogdd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/19144155/Taking-Sides-Supplementary-Instructor-Resources-Questions.pdf)
Bibliography (https://d3tto5i5w9ogdd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/19144154/Taking-Sides-Supplementary-Instructor-Resources-Bibliography.pdf)
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This Destructive War
The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780-1782
John S. Pancake
University of Alabama Press, 1985

An exciting and accurate portrayal of the military action in the southern colonies that led to a new American nation.

A companion to Pancake’s study of the northern campaign, 1777: The Year of the Hangman, this volume deals with the American Revolution in the Carolinas. Together, the two books constitute a complete history of the Revolutionary War.

Pancake tells a gripping story of the southern campaign, the scene of a grim and deadly guerilla war. In the savage internecine struggle, Americans fought Americans with a fierceness that appalled even a veteran like General Nathanael Greene.

"Utilizing extensive manuscript collections, John Pancake explains not why the colonists won the War of Independence, but rather why the British lost. Yorktown, he argues, was not the result of a momentary oversight by the British navy, but the final consequence of the longstanding failure of British military and political leadership." So said the Journal of Southern History when This Destructive War was first published in 1985. The Florida Historical Quarterly further opined, "Pancake has given us a well-researched and beautifully—and tightly—written book."

General readers as well as scholars and students of the American Revolution will welcome anew this classic, definitive study of the campaign in the Carolinas.

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Timothy Pickering and the American Republic
Gerard H. Clarfield
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980
Timothy Pickering was an important figure in the early American republic. For more than fifty years, he was deeply entrenched in the political, military and diplomatic affairs of the young nation. He held important administrative posts during the Revolution, two cabinet posts, and served as a congressman, senator, and as a spokesman for the extremist element of New England's Federalists.  Clarfield presents the first comprehensive biography of Pickering, and a critical assessment of this controversial and often intractable man.
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Turtle
David Bushnell's Revolutionary Vessel
Roy R. Manstan
Westholme Publishing, 2010

The Remarkable History and Reconstruction of the First Operational Submarine
At the onset of the American Revolution, the British expected to quell the rebellion quickly with a show of overwhelming force. In an experiment in asymmetric warfare, David Bushnell created the first submarine vessel designed specifically “for the destruction of vessels of war.” On a quiet September night in 1776, sergeant Ezra Lee maneuvered Bushnell’s strange little craft out from Manhattan and into the midst of the greatest naval fleet ever assembled in the Americas. Lee’s goal was to sink the British flagship HMS Eagle by attaching a powerful explosive to its hull. Although the mission was unsuccessful, Bushnell’s concept of submarine warfare was considered by George Washington to have been “an effort of genius.”

David Bushnell was raised in the town of Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecticut River. More than two centuries later, another Turtle would be launched into the same river within sight of Bushnell’s first forays with his vessel during the summer of 1775. Under the direction of technical arts teacher Frederic J. Frese, students at Old Saybrook High School created a working replica of Bushnell’s submarine, facilitated through an education partnership with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island, where Roy R. Manstan was a mechanical engineer and Navy trained diver. With twenty-first century submariners at the helm, the Turtle replica was subjected to a series of operational tests at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut.

In Turtle: David Bushnell’s Revolutionary Vessel, the authors provide new insight into Bushnell’s “engine of devastation,” tracing the history of undersea warfare before Bushnell and the origin of the many innovations Bushnell understood would be necessary for conducting a covert submarine attack. The knowledge gained from testing the Turtle replica enabled the authors to speculate as to what America’s first submariner Ezra Lee experienced that September night and what may have caused the attack to fail.

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