23-05-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Fate of the Day' Review: The Revolution's Middle Age
The American Revolution defined the United States in an epic conflict that reached far beyond its shores. 'The Fate of the Day,' the second volume of Rick Atkinson's Revolution Trilogy, traces the war's growth from colonial revolt into a global stalemate that reflected both sides' refusal to flinch, showing how it affected ordinary people as well as examining the motives of the statesmen and soldiers who drove it. Varying his focus to capture compelling personalities and episodes along with the wider picture, Mr. Atkinson sustains dramatic tension in a detailed, comprehensive account of the Revolution's pivotal middle years.
He frames the book with two British victories, at New York's Fort Ticonderoga in 1777 and Charleston, S.C., three years later. Neither achieved lasting success. Gen. John Burgoyne's victory at Ticonderoga delivered Lake Champlain, but the campaign ended months later with his humiliating surrender at Saratoga. Gen. Henry Clinton captured American Army and naval squadrons at Charleston, leading him to think that 'the spirit of rebellion might be thoroughly subdued in the two Carolinas.' He was mistaken.
Throughout 1777, British campaigns sought to recover the momentum dented by Washington's Christmas 1776 attack over the Delaware. Burgoyne's success opened a path south toward the Hudson, but Gen. William Howe's decision to turn the main army at New York against Philadelphia rather than meeting Burgoyne at Albany divided what should have been a coordinated effort to isolate New England. According to Mr. Atkinson, the fault lay with a fatal lack of planning, exacerbated by quarrels among British generals with strong personalities. Howe's choices made little sense, especially when he approached Philadelphia via an extended voyage up the Chesapeake instead of more directly. He outfought Washington at Brandywine with a deft flanking maneuver helped by good intelligence but lacked the mobility to capitalize on his success by vigorously pursuing the enemy.
After the Brandywine defeat, Congress fled Philadelphia, crossing the Susquehanna River and stopping at York more than 100 miles away. In December Washington posted his Army at Valley Forge, hoping, among other things, to deny British forces easy support from Pennsylvania loyalists, whose numbers the British government consistently overestimated—Mr. Atkinson rightly calls loyalist aid 'a political chimera that distorted British military decisions for years.'
