New Jersey viewed some of the key moments and intense clashes during the Revolutionary War at places such as Monmouth, Princeton, and Trenton. Dunkerly concentrated his narrative on lesser known central New Jersey small battles such as Morris, Middlesex, Bergen, Passaic, Essex, Somerset, and Hudson Counties due to this part of the state seeing encampments, big battles, small attacks, guerrilla fighting, changes in strategy, campaigns, economic warfare. This area saw it all: from spies and espionage, to military encampments like Morristown and Middlebrook, to mutinies, raids, and full-blown engagements like Bound Brook, Short Hills, and Springfield. This volume is laid out chronological and are told as actions unfolded. The author details how the conflict went through numerous stages such as “occupation, a forage war, a partisan war, and civil war”.
The conflict approached New Jersey due to the 1776 British campaign to seize New York City. In between the Continental victory at Princeton and the loss of Philadelphia, each side went into winter quarters. The British overran the state, and the Americans suffered one unhappy catastrophe after another until fighting many small battles, while later winning the war. New Jerseyians took part in all fighting, often followed by their families. Neighborhoods were often destroyed with much misery to many. The British had their own catastrophes too. So did civilians caught in the middle. As the war continued, civilians became immersed in the fight, and a nasty civil war exploded, enduring until the conclusion of the struggle.
Unhappy Catastrophes: The American Revolution in Central New Jersey, 1776-1782 (Emerging Revolutionary War Series by Robert M. Dunkerly includes six chapters with a conclusion, suggested reading, six maps by cartographer Edward Alexander, and available footnotes. Dunkerly’s four appendices, written with three other historians, cover the First Reenactments, Unearthing Revolutionary New Jersey, An Archaeological Overview, Crossroads of the Revolutionary Revolution, and my favorite, Why Preserve Revolutionary War Battlefields. He examines the experiences of the Continental War and how that helped turn it into an effective fighting force. He brings to this most crucial time in the Revolutionary War the same well researched analysis that he has offered in his earlier works.
This is a compelling and important story, in a wonderfully written book. Readers will come away with a better understanding the challenging duties, hardships, and stubbornness that transformed the army of these common soldiers of different ethnicities and immigrant groups, with African Americans and Native Americans among them, into a capable fighting force which would ultimately win independence for the colonists. Dunkerly does an excellent job of explaining how the New Jersey and Washington’s army helped win the war, and why it still matters today. An important point that Dunkerly makes is an improved gratitude for unpreserved locations will see an upsurge and change to better action on their behalf.
Robert M. Dunkerly is an excellent historian, award-winning author, and speaker who is enthusiastically involved in historic protection and investigation. He works as a park ranger at Richmond National Battlefield Park. Among his books are three in the ECW Series: To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy; No Turning Back: A Guide to the 1864 Overland Campaign; and Embattled Capital: A Guide to Richmond During the Civil War. He also blogs for Emerging Civil War and Emerging Revolutionary War Era.
This is another excellent addition to the Emerging Revolutionary War Series and provide a fresh, new look at New jersey in a condensed, but still detailed format. This is an invaluable read, and highly recommended.
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