{"id":4815,"date":"2005-12-04T15:14:35","date_gmt":"2005-12-04T15:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4815"},"modified":"2025-09-24T00:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:32:08","slug":"latest_read_the-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4815","title":{"rendered":"Latest Read &#8211; &#8220;The First Salute&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">I finished Barbara Tuchman\u2019s book on the American Revolution, <em>The First Salute<\/em>, a couple of days ago. It\u2019s not up there with her very best books (<em>The Guns of August<\/em>, <em>A Distant Mirror<\/em>), but I really enjoyed it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">The title refers to the \u201cfirst salute\u201d that the new American flag received. It was given to a ship flying the red and white stripes entering the harbor of St. Eustatius (controlled by the Dutch) in the West Indies, on November 16, 1776.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">This is not a standard history of the Revolution. The beginning of the book focuses on the West Indies, and she gives an extensive history of the Dutch and their history and involvement in Continental politics. And she ties this in with the Revolution. Also, there are several long biographies of key people who we don\u2019t often hear about in histories of the fight for Independence. Like the English Admiral Rodney. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">The last third of the book is about the build-up and final campaign, culminating in the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. To trap Cornwallis, a hundred things had to go just right for the allies (Colonies and the French) with no margin for error. Astonishingly, they did. And it helped that British leadership was inept.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">While the book\u2019s chronology is somewhat confusing, Tuchman\u2019s narration and writing are wonderful. A good book if you are looking for some of the overlooked aspects of the Revolution. I mean who knew that Admiral Rodney\u2019s prostate problem was a decisive element in allowing the French Admiral de Grasse to seal off Cornwallis at Yorktown? Who Knew?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\"><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I finished Barbara Tuchman\u2019s book on the American Revolution, The First Salute, a couple of days ago. It\u2019s not up there with her very best books (The Guns of August, A Distant Mirror), but I really enjoyed it. The title refers to the \u201cfirst salute\u201d that the new American flag received. It was given to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9858,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions\/9858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}