The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-1778. By Stephen R. Taaffe. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2003. Pp. vii, 336. $35.00.)
The Philadelphia campaign of 1777-1778 did not win the Revolutionary War. Nor did it lose the war. And that is the point. While General John Burgoyne slowly slogged his way through the woods of northern New York on his way to his humiliation at Saratoga, George Washington and William Howe delicately danced around each other with their Continental and British armies. They occasionally clashed in set-piece battles, but more often they remained clenched in a cotillion of maneuver and survival. Had Howe managed to smash and destroy Washington's army, the ball might well have been over; had Washington been able to cut off the British supply line and compel Howe to surrender, independence would have been won. But neither Howe nor Washington gained the advantage. Instead, the decisive action of these years was at Saratoga. That victory helped convince the French to join the war--an act that brought ultimate success to the American cause.
However, as Stephen R. Taaffe makes abundantly clear, the Philadelphia campaign was crucial to the war. The superior British army repeatedly won tactical victories that enabled them to occupy the American capital of Philadelphia during the winter of 1777-1778, yet the British failed to gain much ground strategically. Washington, on the other hand, was able to avoid disaster and further mold his army into a professional fighting force. The Continental army was a different beast after the winter at Valley Forge and fought the British to a draw at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778.
Taaffe's book is a wonderful window onto the war of maneuver that was so much a part of the Philadelphia campaign. Taaffe is at his best describing how armies moved into a battle. He also deftly manages to tell the story from both sides. Taaffe captures how the fog of war often confused the issue, while providing enough distance for us almost to see the lines forming as each army drew near each other.
Taaffe is less adept at answering how and why men fought in the Revolutionary War. For example, he argues that the American army did not collapse "primarily because of the soldiers' devotion to their cause" (152). He then launches into the importance of bounties in recruitment. Are readers to conclude that their "cause" was the bounty, or some unspoken patriotism? Similarly, Taaffe argues that the Revolution was the first "modern war" because of its political component and "the universality of its [America's] beliefs enabled the Revolution to transcend class, religion, region, and ethnicity to unite the majority" to resist the British (237). Taaffe then admits that loyalists and many black slaves opposed the war. How can readers reconcile "universality of beliefs" with the fact that some Americans opposed those beliefs? Had Taaffe addressed the confused and multiple reasons for fighting the war, something several historians have now examined, he would not only have written a compelling book about strategy and tactics, but also a significant contribution to our understanding of the American Revolution.
Paul A. Gilje
University of Oklahoma