Resident Book Review of “The British Are Coming: The War for America…”

Resident Ken Weeden will review The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777, by Rick Atkinson [New York: Henry Holt, 2018] on Tuesday, September 16, 2025 at 7 PM in the Auditorium. This is his review for the September 2025 issue of The Sunburst.

 The British Are Coming, published in 2018, is the first of Rick Atkinson’s three-volume military history of the American Revolution. It covers the war from Lexington and Concord in April 1775 to Trenton and Princeton in January 1777.

We enjoy the early victories of 1775 and suffer the disastrous losses that follow. By November 1776, Washington’s half-clothed, ill-fed, poorly supplied

band of rebels was just hours away from total defeat and surrender. Still, in the bitterly cold early morning hours of Christmas 1776, Washington and his troops crossed the ice-packed Delaware River, capturing Trenton and taking the Hessian troops who occupied it, followed days later by another win in Princeton. By January 1777, the colonies had declared their independence to the world and demonstrated the military muscle to just possibly pull it off.

But this book is about far more than just battles. It’s a compelling narrative of the military leaders, both American and British, who constantly face shortages of food, clothing, equipment, and men. We visit alarmingly understaffed medical tents where apprentices could readily amputate an arm in 45 seconds. Smallpox and other diseases were rife. Death was everywhere, with soldiers buried in unmarked graves along the roads travelled by the troops. But we also read the letters of the regulars, many of them teenagers, writing home to their moms in London, Bristol, Boston, and Richmond, sharing riveting closeups of what eighteenth-century war was really like.

Ken Weeden is a former history teacher who later became active in national and international correctional education for youth and adults. For 25 years he directed workforce development for the Maryland Prison System. Ken is interested in history, world travel, and social justice, and has taught a number of ELLIC classes.