Jim Stempel

Endorsement for The Enemy Harassed.

My newest endorsement for The Enemy Harassed comes from Ricardo Herrera, a professor of Military Science at the School of Advanced Military Studies, US Army Command and General Staff College. He is also the author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778. He writes:

 

Jim Stempel’s Enemy Harassed is the perfect introduction to the Forage War of 1777, the actions that followed the battles of Trenton and Princeton and helped drive the British Army back to New York. Gen. Sir William Howe’s army was overextended in New Jersey, and the Forage War drove home that point. British and Hessian troops dared not venture into the Jerseys except in strength. While Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army, ensconced behind the Watchung Mountains at Morristown, defied Howe’s army, moving Continentals and state’s militia turned New Jersey into a land of danger -Ricardo Herrera

Monocacy The Battle That Spared Washington

From an open plain near Frederick, Maryland, on July 8, 1864 General Lew Wallace took a long look through field glasses at the Blue Ridge off to his west. He spotted lazy clouds of dust tumbling down the Ridge in lengthening trails that day, only miles from where he stood. Through breaks in the trees, he’d noticed the sun glinting off what he took to be belt buckles, rifle bores, and cannons, sure signs of soldiers on the move. “There could no longer be room for doubt,” he later wrote, “what I saw were columns of infantry, with trains of artillery. They were good strong columns too, of thousands and thousands.”

Lew Wallace was commander of the Middle Department of the Federal Army, a region that extended from Baltimore west to the Monocacy River, just east of Frederick City. For days he had been receiving troubling reports at his office in Baltimore of a large-scale Confederate movement sweeping north up the Shenandoah Valley, inching closer by the day, destination unknown. He had first gotten wind of all this when railroad man, John Garrett – President of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad – appeared in his office on July 2. Seems Garrett had also been receiving disturbing reports from his agents – from Harper’s Ferry all the way out to Cumberland, Maryland – regarding excessive Confederate activity. Garrett wanted a firm promise from Wallace that his railroad bridge at Monocacy Junction near Frederick would be protected, should the Rebels succeed in getting that far.

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Review of "From Valley Forge to Monmouth: Six Transformative Months of the American Revolution" by James Holden-Rhodes

Review of From Valley to Forge to Monmouth: Six Transformative Months of the American Revolution

By:  James Holden-Rhodes

 

Great historians have the mental ability to conjure up a palette of rich colors with which to paint their story. The palette crafted by the best historians are a kaleidoscope that embrace a topic of great importance and interest, a superb sense of time and place, and, most importantly, the human element which always binds the other elements into a seamless whole.

Once again, Jim Stempel has painted a canvas that pulls the reader into an extremely important event in American History -- the Winter of 1777-1778. With superb research and supportive analysis, in From Valley Forge to Monmouth: Six Transformative Months of the American Revolution, Stempel has crafted another stellar work, often delving far deeper into events than previous historical accounts.

1777 had seen one disaster after another for the American cause, the only bright light being the British surrender at Saratoga. St. Clair had surrendered Fort Ticonderoga to the Redcoats, and British forces had landed at Head of Elk in Maryland, then proceeded to defeat the Continentals at the Battle of Brandywine. They then occupied Philadelphia, the American capital, and as the year waned, the British captured Fort Mifflin on the Delaware River.