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The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution
Virginia Dejohn Anderson
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Description for The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution
Hardback. Num Pages: 288 pages, 12 hts. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 3JF; HBJK; HBLL; HBWF; JPSH. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 235 x 156. .
Two men from Connecticut, each embarked on a dangerous mission, slipped onto Long Island in September 1776. Only a few weeks earlier, British forces had routed the Continental Army and taken control of New York City. The future of the infant American republic, barely two months old, looked bleak. One of the men, a soldier disguised as a schoolmaster, made his way to the British fortifications on Manhattan and began furtively taking notes and making sketches to bring back to the beleaguered American general, George Washington. The second visitor had quite different plans. He had come to Long Island ... Read moreto accept a captain's commission in a loyalist regiment, an undertaking that obligated him to return to Connecticut and recruit more farmers to join the King's forces. As events turned out, neither man completed his mission. Instead, each met his death at the end of a hangman's rope, one executed as a spy for the American cause and the other as a traitor to it. In this book, Virginia Anderson traces the lives of these two men, Nathan Hale and Moses Dunbar, to explore how middle-class men made decisions on a daily basis amidst the uncertainties of war that determined not just their own fates but also the ways in which they have been remembered or forgotten in history. Hale uttered a line that has become famous ( I only regret, that I have but one life to lose for my country ) and, after being captured and executed as a spy by the British, and the Americans winning the war, has been memorialized as a martyr to the Revolutionary cause. His life is neatly contrasted with Dunbar, a Loyalist who was captured and sentenced to death by the Connecticut Assembly. This braided narrative, intertwining the lives of Hale and Dunbar, offers a poignant snapshot of the political loyalties men forge in momentous times, how their families shaped and reacted to those decisions, and how difficult it is to judge individuals' decisionmaking in wartime without the benefit of hindsight, when the outcome is dependent on complex factors. This book bridges great man biographies about the American Revolution and the bottom up social histories of common men, and the histories of patriots and loyalists. Its accessible style makes it appropriate for anyone interested in Revolutionary America. Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
Oxford University Press Inc
Place of Publication
New York, United States
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About Virginia Dejohn Anderson
Virginia DeJohn Anderson is Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is the author of New England's Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America, and American Journey: A History of the United States.
Reviews for The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution
Groundbreaking and relevant....Anderson's work is a microhistory of two individuals with a highly engaging biographical narrative that shows how social networks, circumstances, and localized concerns influenced loyalties and decisions....Highly engaging, eloquent, and convincing, the narrative at once further complicates and yet clarifies how the Revolution played out on a localized scale....Anderson presents sophisticated scholarship in an inviting manner and really ... Read moreopens up the world of Hale and Dunbar to the reader along with the crucial reminder that American independence was not a foregone conclusion and how easily things could have been different....A page turner.
Kelly Mielke, Journal of the American Revolution Anderson's well-researched and well-written dual biography deserves public acclaim....The Martyr and the Traitor would be an excellent addition to any early American history class.
Timothy C. Hemmis, H-War By examining the short lives and dramatic executions of two passionate young men on opposing sides, Virginia DeJohn Anderson illuminates the painful political decisions demanded by a complex revolution and the swirling fortunes of war. With careful research and in deft prose, Anderson brilliantly recovers the human drama and life-and-death stakes of the civil war that we call the American Revolution. - Alan Taylor, author of American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 The Martyr and The Traitor exemplifies Virginia Anderson's scholarly finesse and literary skill. The opening is simply stunning. It is not just the rich narration that gives the book power, but the elegance of its argument. Anderson reminds us that while it is easy to kill a man, it is impossible to control the lessons people might draw from such an act. - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of A Midwife's Tale A compelling story of revolutionary America unfolds in these pages, one that captures the lives of young men and women who came of age during these years of crisis by charting the fates of a famous rebel spy and a committed loyalist. - Christine Leigh Heyrman, author of American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the World of Islam In this engrossing dual biography of two young Connecticut men executed for treason by opposing sides in the revolutionary war, one the famous Nathan Hale and the other the obscure Moses Dunbar, Virginia Anderson brilliantly introduces modern readers to issues of loyalty and honor in the late eighteenth century. Which of her subjects, one might ask, was the martyr and which the traitor? Her narrative casts important new light on unfamiliar political uncertainties in revolutionary New England. - Mary Beth Norton, author of In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 Both Nathan Hale and Moses Dunbar were Connecticut Yankees. Both were hanged as spies. Following them to the gallows, Virginia Anderson gives us a powerful tale about the American Revolution's bitter, tragic conflicts. - Edward Countryman, Southern Methodist University No less than others, the American Revolution was not just a matter of declarations and high-mindedness, but a bitter internal conflict that tore apart individuals, families and their communities. Anderson's fine work exposes to view these often hidden realities. - Publishers Weekly The author asks readers to question their education concerning the Revolutionary War and its black-and-white rendering of patriots as good and loyalists as evil. In the process, Anderson successfully documents not only the injustices done to colonists by the British, but also the mistreatment of loyalists by the Whigs, a subject that is often overlooked... This book will be of great importance to readers interested in the legacy and memory of American conflicts. - Library Journal This is a tale of two men, two causes and two tragedies: two Connecticut farm boys who yearned for something better, two young men caught up in the fearsome tumult of revolution, two steadfast soldiers who refused to repent before they hanged. One is well-known: Nathan Hale, the American spy who regretted that he had but one life to lose for his country. The other is Moses Dunbar, a lowly Anglican Loyalist whom most of his countrymen wanted to forget... a moving coming-of-age (and end-of-life) story as well as a military history and a spy thriller.
The Wall Street Journal This dual biography of a famous patriot and a virtually unknown loyalist demonstrates the perplexing choices many Americans faced during the Revolution...Its real value (there is little available information on the men themselves) is the author's meticulous untangling of the social, educational, cultural, economic, and religious threads that eventually led people with similar backgrounds to choose opposite sides in the conflict. This engaging, lucid micro-study reminds readers that when history is written by the winners, much gets left out....Recommended.
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