America’s Revolutionary War heroes caught in the spotlight of novelist, humorist, and playwright, Richard Bissell. Come back stage and find out more about the events of the war and our leaders as the whole show is, ahem, un-costumed. Wigs are tweaked, visages dusted off, and events, well, clarified. Aha! Dancing shoes on a founding father? Bungling officers, even more horribly bungled battles, recipes, newspaper headlines and many other various, and sometimes delightfully useless, bits of information sweep across the pages. Why were troops at Valley Forge anyway? Who hated whom? What would be on the menu at a dinner hosted by George Washington? Did firecake scorch your insides? Join the author as he visits Revolutionary War battle sites: “I went up to Ticonderoga last month to research the fort. I am a very meticulous historian as you may have gathered by now. I discovered that (a) the fort is a replica and (b) the admission fee is $2.00. I have still not seen Fort Ticonderoga, as I am also a meticulous tightwad.”
And there is a more serious side. Did you know that England employed German mercenaries? Oh, you did, did you. But did you know this? “King George rented 30,000 German souls, paying out £4,700,000. Of this number 12,000 never returned across the sea. 7000 were killed or turned up missing. 5000 deserted and went to Milwaukee.”
Written with great wit and academic authority (no rube, Mr. Bissell was a Harvard graduate), A New Light on1776 and All That is a terrific read.
