FROM THE ARCHIVES: NO TRIALS FOR THE PRISONERS? THE HORROR...:

The War of Independence Was Hell (Froma Harrop, 6/30/07, Real Clear Politics)

[T]he War of Independence was horrific, according to John Ferling, a leading historian of early America. It was a grinding conflict that rivaled, and in some ways exceeded, the Civil War in its toll on American fighters when looked at on a per-capita basis. Ferling chronicles the suffering in his new book, "Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence" (Oxford University Press).

"There's a sense that there was a great deal of gallantry," Ferling told me, "and the Revolution was a war unlike modern wars." Not so.

Ferling offers a gritty, boots-on-the-ground account of a war that subsequent generations had melted into a patriotic story suitable for children. The reality was that combatants on all sides committed atrocities and the body count turned ghastly.

One in four men who served in the Continental Army lost his life, a higher percentage death toll than in the Civil War, where one regular in five perished. In World War II, one in 40 American servicemen died.

Almost half the American rebels taken prisoner died, mainly from disease and malnutrition. The mortality rate among Union soldiers held at the infamous Andersonville POW camp in Georgia was a far lower 37 percent.

Ferling challenges other misconceptions about the period.

With attrition rates like that the Democrats would have surrendered on the 5th of July

[originally posted: 7/04/07]

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 3, 2008 11:05 PM