Our First Civil War

September 15, 2021
American loyalists get short shrift in many accounts of the American Revolution. Prolific historian Brands gives them a little more room on the stage. Brands, chair of the history department at the University of Texas and one of our most reliable chroniclers of popular American history, delivers an expert account narrated heavily through quotes from the writings of Washington, Franklin, and their contemporaries. The author's use of original documents lends the book a vivid, historically authentic flavor, though some readers may not thrill to pages of 18th-century prose. Almost everyone was loyal during the French and Indian War, when Washington became the Colonies' best-known military figure and Franklin, already a powerful force in Pennsylvania's government, led efforts to support British forces. Sent to England to look after Pennsylvania's affairs, Franklin emerged as the spokesman for American interests in the 1760s. He opposed the 1765 Stamp Act but, still loyal, accepted it when it became law. As a result, his Philadelphia house was nearly destroyed by angry mobs, a fate that befell Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. Franklin was as stunned as anyone by the violent reaction, and he worked diligently for repeal and continued, with diminishing success, to support the Colonies, returning to America in 1775, now a firm advocate of independence. Brands delivers a proficient account of the subsequent fighting and peace negotiation, focusing on Washington and Franklin. Regarding the loyalists on the American side, Benedict Arnold's story is old news; Hutchinson fled to England in 1774; and Joseph Galloway, a friend and colleague of Franklin's in Pennsylvania politics, served in the First Continental Congress, where he opposed independence, became a leading loyalist, and moved to Britain in 1778. Perhaps the most surprising figure was Franklin's son, William. Appointed Royal Governor of New Jersey, he remained stubbornly loyal even after his arrest and imprisonment for two years. His father never forgave him. A skillful traditional history of the American Revolution that pays more than the usual attention to its American opponents.

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Starred review from September 27, 2021
Historian Brands (The Zealot and the Emancipator) delivers a page-turning account of the “bitter fight” between Americans “who wanted nothing to do with independence” and those who rebelled against British rule before and during the Revolutionary War. Characterizing Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, who both achieved considerable success under the British regime, as “the unlikeliest of rebels,” Brands chronicles their military and diplomatic efforts to advance the British cause in the French and Indian War. Britain’s endeavors to recoup its war debts by taxing the colonists, the passage of the Intolerable Acts, and “a continued disregard for American rights” helped push Washington and Franklin to call for independence, according to Brands, while loyalists including Massachusetts politician Thomas Hutchinson and Franklin’s “illegitimate” son, New Jersey governor William Franklin, believed that the colonies were best served by remaining part of the British empire. Brands also profiles Grace Growden Galloway, who “discovered a certain freedom in having nothing more to lose” after her Loyalist husband fled Philadelphia and Patriots seized her house, and documents the experiences of enslaved Africans who fought on both sides of the war. Gripping prose and lucid explanations of the period’s complex politics make this an essential reconsideration of the Revolutionary era.

Starred review from November 1, 2021

On the eve of the American Revolution, well-placed men like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin opted to fight the British while others, like Franklin's son William, refused to do so and were soon called traitors for not having betrayed the crown. Says two-time Pulitzer finalist Brands, this clash between Patriots and Loyalists constituted our first civil war, with the loyalists batted aside as insignificant after the fighting. But they weren't.

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