“Spies and Deserters,” by Martin R. Ganzglass, follows eighteen year old Will Stoner, a Lieutenant in General Henry Knox’s artillery regiment, and his friend, Private Adam Cooper, an African American in the Marblehead Mariners, from the bleak, disease ridden camp at Valley Forge through the cauldron of the summer heat of the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, to the bloody, vicious guerrilla war between Whig and Tory militias and irregulars in southern New Jersey. By drawing on diaries, original letters, military orders and broadsheets, “Spies and Deserters” creates an accurate picture of the everyday lives of ordinary soldiers, merchants and farmers, women, Whigs, Loyalists and Hessians, all caught up in the revolution. Thoroughly researched, this novel, and the others in the series, “Cannons for the Cause,” “Tories and Patriots,” and “Blood Upon the Snow,” are ideal as supplementary reading for students and teachers alike. Each novel contains End Notes with quotations from original sources as well as interpretations of events by well-known historians. There is also an extensive bibliography.
“Spies and Deserters,” by Martin R. Ganzglass, follows eighteen year old Will Stoner, a Lieutenant in General Henry Knox’s artillery regiment, and his friend, Private Adam Cooper, an African American in the Marblehead Mariners, from the bleak, disease ridden camp at Valley Forge through the cauldron of the summer heat of the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, to the bloody, vicious guerrilla war between Whig and Tory militias and irregulars in southern New Jersey. By drawing on diaries, original letters, military orders and broadsheets, “Spies and Deserters” creates an accurate picture of the everyday lives of ordinary soldiers, merchants and farmers, women, Whigs, Loyalists and Hessians, all caught up in the revolution. Thoroughly researched, this novel, and the others in the series, “Cannons for the Cause,” “Tories and Patriots,” and “Blood Upon the Snow,” are ideal as supplementary reading for students and teachers alike. Each novel contains End Notes with quotations from original sources as well as interpretations of events by well-known historians. There is also an extensive bibliography.