I finished this book last week in preparation for a book club discussion on it. This was truly a wonderful book. I had never studied the Revolutionary War in any detail, and this book was a great start. It makes me wish David McCullough had written an entire history on the war.

The thing that was very apparent throughout the book was that the Hand of God was definitely with the colonists. I had never heard of the Siege of Boston before, and I almost cried when I read how the guns of Ticonderoga were brought over snowy roads to Boston just in the nick of time. It was astonishing to read how completely uninterested General Howe was about General Washington, and how that made such a difference at the time. Also astounding to me was how the British knew that the key to the outcome at Boston was possession of Dorchester Heights, and yet they did nothing. I loved how God came through in the very nick of time when it came time for the enlistments to expire, and a new army to enlist, and that the British had no idea what was happening, even when it ws going on under their very noses.

I was fascinated to read about the Scholar Phases of the men whose courage and fortitude shaped our country. I underlined the part that said, "It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required - learn virtually everything - by the close study of books, and [Nathanael Greene] was a prime example of such faith." As the author described Greene's path from simple farm boy to being put in full command of the Rhode Island regiments, and on to his place on Washington's staff, I kept thinking, "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass."

Even though I had heard of Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, and the subsequent attack on Trenton, I'd never really known what had happened. When I got to that part, I stayed up until 1:00 in the morning to read the final pages to find out what happened. When my husband asked what I was doing, all I could say was "Washington is crossing the Delaware!" as I went off to finish the book.

After I finished the book, I went back and read 1 Nephi 13:12-19 about Christopher Columbus discovering America, the subsequent emmigration of thousands of colonists looking for a place to worship freely, the Mother Gentiles sending out armies to subdue them, and how "[the colonists] were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations." Wow! I'd always known that, but now I have so much more understanding of how it happened.

Recently, President Hinckley was honored as the Citizen of the Century by Salt Lake area mayors and political leaders. David McCullough was the keynote speaker, and he "fretted that more and more Americans are historically illiterate and no longer write, or can think, the way John Adams and Abigail Adams did.

"'To write well is to think clearly. To write very well is to think very clearly,' McCullough said. 'And we don't do much thinking on paper any more.'"

This is absolutely right, and is the reason we do what we do.

If you want to read more, the link is http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695209545,00.html.

Now I want to read everything I can find on the Revolutionary War. What have you found to be most helpful in your studies of this period?