While history has immortalized George Washington, it has largely forgotten those who helped to propel him to greatness—the thirty-two men who served as his aides-de-camp during the Revolutionary War. Washington relied heavily on these men—among them a young Alexander Hamilton—for help in formulating policy and strategy. George Washington’s Indispensable Men details the fascinating and sometimes tragic lives of these aides, providing a new and refreshing look at the American Revolution.

For readers of Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, the spellbinding history of the epic rivalry that shaped our republic: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and their competing visions for America. The decade of the 1790s has been called the “age of passion.” Fervor ran high as rival factions battled over the course of the new republic-each side convinced that the other's goals would betray the legacy of the Revolution so recently fought and so dearly won. All understood as well that what was at stake was not a moment's political advantage, but the future course of the American experiment in democracy. In this epochal debate, no two figures loomed larger than Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Both men were visionaries, but their visions of what the United States should be were diametrically opposed. Jefferson, a true revolutionary, believed passionately in individual liberty and a more egalitarian society, with a weak central government and greater powers for the states. Hamilton, a brilliant organizer and tactician, feared chaos and social disorder. He sought to build a powerful national government that could ensure the young nation's security and drive it toward economic greatness. Jefferson and Hamilton is the story of the fierce struggle-both public and, ultimately, bitterly personal-between these two titans. It ended only with the death of Hamilton in a pistol duel, felled by Aaron Burr, Jefferson's vice president. Their competing legacies, like the twin strands of DNA, continue to shape our country to this day. Their personalities, their passions, and their bold dreams for America leap from the page in this epic new work from one of our finest historians. From the award-winning author of Almost a Miracle and The Ascent of George Washington, this is the rare work of scholarship that offers us irresistible human drama even as it enriches our understanding of deep themes in our nation's history.

Ward relates how the enlisted men, who had a propensity for troublemaking and desertion, not only were victims of the double standard that existed between officers and regular troops but also lacked legal protection in the army. The enforcement of military justice afforded the accused with little due process support. Ward discusses the duties of the various personnel responsible for training and enforcing the standards of behavior, including duty officers, adjutants, brigade majors, inspectors, and sergeant majors. He includes the roles of life guards, camp guards, quarter guards, picket men, and safe guards, whose responsibilities ranged from escorting the commander in chief, intercepting spies and stragglers, and protecting farmers from marauding soldiers to searching for deserters, rounding up unauthorized personnel, and looking for delinquents in local towns and taverns.

Friday, December 19, 1777, dawned cold and windy. Fourteen thousand Continental Army soldiers tramped from dawn to dusk along the rutted Pennsylvania roads from Gulph Mills to Valley Forge, the site of their winter encampment. The soldiers' arrival was followed by the army's wagons and hundreds of camp women. Following the Drum tells the story of the forgotten women who spent the winter of 1777-78 with the Continental Army at Valley Forge--from those on society's lowest rungs to ladies on the upper echelons. Impoverished and clinging to the edge of survival, many camp women were soldiers' wives who worked as the army's washers, nurses, cooks, and seamstresses. Other women at the encampment were of higher status: they traveled with George Washington's entourage when the army headquarters shifted locations and served the general as valued cooks, laundresses, or housekeepers. There were also the ladies at Valley Forge who were not subject to the harsh conditions of camp life and came and went as they and their husbands, Washington's generals and military advisers, saw fit. Nancy K. Loane uses sources such as issued military orders, pension depositions after the war, soldiers' descriptions, and some of the women's own diary entries and letters to bring these women to life.

How George Washington survived so many close encounters with the Grim Reaper - in the wilderness frontier, on the battlefield, from serious illness, and in terrifying accidents - can be read only in the story of a steady succession of miracles. For the incredible fact that he survived all of these encounters (except of course the last) to live sixty-seven years is a consummation for which untold millions can be eternally grateful. For it was Washington who with the success of the Revolution and the leadership provided through two terms as President brought forth upon this continent an entirely new way of life. This society, governed as it now was by a spirited reverence for freedom and guaranteed by documents revolutionary in their principles, must have startled the Old World.

Extensively researched and superbly argued in Tucker’s compelling narrative, this in-depth examination of George Washington’s ‘military miracle’ at the Battle of Trenton unquestionably confirms the vital importance of that stunning victory.” —Jerry D. Morelock, PhD, editor in chief at Armchair General Like many historical events, the American Revolution is sometimes overlooked, ignored, or minimized by historians because of common shrouding in romantic myth or interference from stubborn stereotypes. Here historian Phillip Thomas Tucker provides an in-depth look at the events of the Battle of Trenton, weeding out fiction and legend and presenting new insights and analysis. Stories from many forgotten individuals of the war, including officers and soldiers from both sides, bring to life the Continental Army’s desperate circumstances and shocking victory. Myths that Tucker debunks include the Hessians’ slovenly drunkenness, Washington acting alone in creating the attack strategy, and Rall’s incompetence as a leader largely contributing to his troops’ defeat. By exploring the forgotten aspects of one of America’s most famous battles, revealing Trenton’s story proves to be even more fascinating. In the end, America’s founding was nothing short of miraculous, and no chapter of America’s story was more miraculous than Washington’s improbable success at the battle of Trenton, where America’s fate was decided to almost everyone’s amazement on a dark, snowy morning. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence "[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more valuable for its resilence.'" --The New Yorker Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere else on earth in the Korean peninsula's narrow DMZ. Cal Flyn, an investigative journalist, exceptional nature writer, and promising new literary voice visits the eeriest and most desolate places on Earth that due to war, disaster, disease, or economic decay, have been abandoned by humans. What she finds every time is an "island" of teeming new life: nature has rushed in to fill the void faster and more thoroughly than even the most hopeful projections of scientists. Islands of Abandonment is a tour through these new ecosystems, in all their glory, as sites of unexpected environmental significance, where the natural world has reasserted its wild power and promise. And while it doesn't let us off the hook for addressing environmental degradation and climate change, it is a case that hope is far from lost, and it is ultimately a story of redemption: the most polluted spots on Earth can be rehabilitated through ecological processes and, in fact, they already are.

This volume examines the political ideas behind the construction of the presidency in the U.S. Constitution, as well as how these ideas were implemented by the nation’s early presidents. The framers of the Constitution disagreed about the scope of the new executive role they were creating, and this volume reveals the ways the duties and power of the office developed contrary to many expectations. Here, leading scholars of the early republic examine principles from European thought and culture that were key to establishing the conceptual language and institutional parameters for the American executive office. Unpacking the debates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, these essays describe how the Constitution left room for the first presidents to set patterns of behavior and establish a range of duties to make the office functional within a governmental system of checks and balances. Contributors explore how these presidents understood their positions and fleshed out their full responsibilities according to the everyday operations required to succeed. As disputes continue to surround the limits of executive power today, this volume helps identify and explain the circumstances in which limits can be imposed on presidents who seem to dangerously exceed the constitutional parameters of their office. Political Thought and the Origins of the American Presidency demonstrates that this distinctive, time-tested role developed from a fraught, historically contingent, and contested process. Contributors: Claire Rydell Arcenas | Lindsay M. Chervinsky | François Furstenberg | Jonathan Gienapp | Daniel J. Hulsebosch | Ben Lowe | Max Skjönsberg | Eric Slauter | Caroline Winterer | Blair Worden | Rosemarie Zagarri A volume in the Alan B. and Charna Larkin Series on the American Presidency

Jean Ternant's life (1751-1833) spanned a period of enormous change in European life. Born when men were still subject to judicial torture, he lived to see the dawn of the railroad age. It was an era of political upheaval: the American Revolution, the "patriot" movement of the Dutch Republic, the Vonckist uprising in the Austrian Netherlands, the French Revolution, the Polish rebellion against Imperial Russia, the Greek war for independence and the struggle for independence in Spain's South American colonies all occurred during Ternant's lifetime. He was an active participant in four of them. The son of a French leather goods merchant, Jean Ternant nevertheless built a public service career in an aristocratic society based on birth and privilege, commanding a regiment in the French army before being appointed minister-plenipotentiary to the United States. His story of public service undertaken for private ends illustrates the value of education and social contacts as well as the importance of luck and circumstances.

In late August 1776, a badly defeated Continental Army retreated from Long Island to Manhattan. By early November, George Washington’s inexperienced army withdrew further into New Jersey and, by the end of the year, into Pennsylvania. During this dark night of the American Revolution—“the times that try men’s souls”—Washington began developing the strategy that would win the war. In this illuminating account, Arthur Lefkowitz reveals how George Washington turned defeat into victory. During his retreat across New Jersey, Washington reconceived the war: keep the army mobile, target isolated detachments of the British Army, rely on surprise and deception, form partisan units, and avoid large-scale battles. This new strategy first bore fruit in the crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night 1776 and the attack on the British at Trenton and Princeton. From there, Washington took up winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, and moved into the mountains, an ideal position from which to check British movements toward Philadelphia or north up the Hudson. The British tried and failed several times to coax Washington into a decisive battle. Stymied, the British were forced to attack Philadelphia by sea, and they would not be able to seize Philadelphia in time to support the British invasion of upstate New York which ended in defeat at Saratoga. Lefkowitz relies on a lifetime of deep research on the Revolutionary War and close knowledge of New Jersey to tell this exciting, important story whose impact rippled throughout the rest of the war.