This Fierce People By Alan Pell Crawford

A groundbreaking and essential recovery of history, fully exploring the overlooked story of the critical aspect of America’s Revolutionary War fought in the South. This examination shows that the British surrender at Yorktown was a direct result of the southern campaign, revealing that the battles south of the Mason-Dixon line between Crown loyalists and independence-seeking patriots were, in fact, America’s first civil war.

The famous battles that traditionally anchor the narrative of American independence—Lexington and Concord, Brandywine, Germantown, Saratoga, and Monmouth—were crucial but did not lead to the surrender at Yorktown.

It was during the three-plus years between Monmouth and Yorktown that the war was truly won.

Alan Pell Crawford’s riveting new book, "This Fierce People," uncovers the story of these neglected three years and the intense battles fought in the South, which constituted the central theater of military operations in the latter years of the Revolutionary War. This narrative challenges the core American myth that the War of Independence was primarily fought in the North.

Interwoven with stories of heroic and largely unsung patriots—African Americans and whites, militiamen and “irregulars,” patriots and Tories, Americans, Frenchmen, Brits, and Hessians—Crawford reveals the misperceptions and contradictions in our accepted understanding of how our nation came to be. He also challenges the national narrative that America’s victory over the British lay solely with General George Washington and his troops.