Band of Giants Recalls Revolution's Heroes | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Mitch Kokai, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    RALEIGH     We will celebrate American independence again on July 4. It's a fitting date. It marks the 239th anniversary of the document that declared the original 13 American colonies free from the yoke of British control.

    But that date is somewhat misleading. Yes, the Continental Congress overseeing the American patriots' cause officially declared independence on July 4, 1776. On that same date, the rest of the world still considered the new American states to be rebellious colonial possessions of one of the great powers of Europe.

    True independence arrived years later, after five more years of war and another couple of years of treaty negotiations. To remind us about the people who performed the actual work of securing independence, journalist and historian Jack Kelly has written Band of Giants.

    Kelly's subtitle highlights his focus on "The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America's Independence." The book reminds us that most of the men responsible for defeating a battle-tested British army over the course of a long, drawn-out war entered the conflict with little or no conventional military experience.

    And they were young men, too. George Washington, at 43, served as somewhat of an elder statesman for what was otherwise "an affair of youth," in Kelly's words. "Nathanael Greene was thirty-two when it started, Anthony Wayne thirty, Henry Knox twenty-four, Alexander Hamilton twenty. They had fought with the intensity of youth. They had taken the risks that come easily to the young, had seen with the clarity of youth, had dreamed the dreams of youth. ... They were, as [the Marquis de] Lafayette had long ago marveled, 'a band of giants.'"

    Readers learn that Knox and Greene, two of the most important American generals, first developed their friendship while swapping stories in the confines of Knox's bookshop, "one of the most popular hangouts for Boston's smart set." Few could have predicted at the time that both men would excel in the military arts.

    Stories involving young patriot leaders prove intriguing, to be sure. More valuable to this reader, though, is Kelly's focus on critical figures whose accomplishments have attracted much less attention. Take, for example, an anecdote involving western North Carolina in September 1780, five years into the Revolutionary War.

    As British General Charles Cornwallis prepared to move his army north, he assigned Major Patrick Ferguson to lead a "body of loyalists." Their task: "skirt the Appalachians" and protect the army's flank. One of the Brits' primary concerns was so-called "over-mountain men," "mostly Scots-Irish, mostly poor, latecomers to America, forced to search for affordable homesteads in the remote uplands of the Appalachian Mountains."

    "Because of previous raids by cohorts of over-mountain men, Ferguson decided to shake his fist at the ignorant rebels who might threaten his force from the west," Kelly writes. "He sent a prisoner on parole with a message to those who thought the mountains would protect them. He ordered them to 'desist from their opposition to British arms' or he would 'march over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country to waste with fire and sword.' He hoped his words would cow the Whigs and encourage those still loyal to the king."

    "To the contrary, Ferguson's threat woke up the backcountry. Word spread. The settlers took the menace seriously." The "tall, muscular, reserved" Isaac Shelby, the "hard-drinking Huguenot" John Sevier, 6-foot-6 William Campbell, and "three-hundred-pound hunter, gambler, and fighter of Indians" Benjamin Cleveland gathered a combined force of 1,200 men together in eastern Tennessee to consider a response to Ferguson's provocation.

    "The decision did not take long," Kelly explains. "The next day they headed out, an army without tents or uniforms, without a hierarchy or a supply system. Armed with knives, tomahawks, and their deadly accurate rifles, they waded through snow over mountain passes and descended into the foothills of North Carolina."

    This was no typical late 18th-century military force. "They were, like the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont, fiercely independent," Kelly writes. "Their Presbyterian religion, overseen by elected elders, predisposed them to democracy. Like their Gaelic ancestors, they followed war chiefs whom they chose for their physical prowess rather than their education or social standing. Having long sparred with natives, they had learned the tricks of wilderness fighting. A British officer called them 'more savage than the Indians.'"

    Speaking of Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys, readers will learn about their exploits, too, along with the accomplishments of a fighting force of frontier Virginians led by "the Old Wagoner," Daniel Morgan.

    This Independence Day offers a chance to reflect on the valuable contributions of well-known founders such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, key players in the political decisions that led to the drafting and approval of the Declaration of Independence.

    Thanks to Jack Kelly and Band of Giants, we're also reminded that many others played critical roles in helping transform that declaration into the reality of American independence.