Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution in the Carolinas & Georgia
Every school child in America has heard the stories of Lexington & Concord, Bunker Hill and Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River. That’s due in large part to the fact that most history books were written by authors who lived in the northern colonies. But how many people know the first victory for the Patriot cause came at a little creek in North Carolina? Or that the truly decisive battles of the American Revolution were fought south of Virginia? In 1848, New Yorker Benson J. Lossing embarked on a two year trek that covered thousands of miles through the original thirteen states and Canada. His mission was to collect and preserve the stories of the men and women who had fought to make the United States a reality. His original work was published in 1850, consisting of two illustrated volumes comprising over 2,000 pages of first-hand history. In this book, we have excerpted the chapters that deal with the war in the Carolinas and Georgia. It was here that the battles which beat the British were fought. It was in the South that America stood up to an empire that spanned the globe and won. Benson J. Lossing tells the stories of the heroes and villains of the war from the accounts of the people who were there. If a Redcoat and an American stood on opposite banks of a stream and threw rocks at each other, it’s probably in his book. It includes illustrations of the people and places that played such a big role in our nation’s founding, but that too often have been lost to the passing of time. Lossing’s account of his travels also present a wonderful picture of the Carolinas and Georgia as they were in the decade before America’s next great crucible, the Civil War.
ABOUT THE EDITOR..
Jack E. Fryar, Jr. has authored or edited more than twenty volumes of North Carolina and Cape Fear history. His historical specialty is colonial North Carolina, particularly during the seventeenth century. Jack has served as a United States Marine, worked as a broadcaster, freelance magazine writer, sports announcer, and book designer. He holds a Masters degree in History and another Masters in Teaching, and currently teaches history in Wilmington, N.C.