Between the Lines Banditti of the American Revolution

Subjects:

• Military Studies » Military History
• History » American History -- Colonial Era
• Military Studies » U.S. Armed Forces

Reviews:

• [F]ascinating reading....will appeal to general readers as well as to serious students of the Revolution. Recommended. All university libraries and general libraries with strong US history collections.
  —Choice April 2003
• [S]cholars of rebellions, invasions, guerilla warfare, and violent antisocial behavior will find it interesting and a useful guide to sources. This work may well stimulate more intensive studies of how extraordinary circumstances affect heretofore ordinary people in a particular time and place.
  —The Journal of Southern History February 2006
• Between the Lines offers readers a detailed description of the myriad illegal activities carried out by some of the American Revolution's most notorious, but also least documented, figures....[W]ard does an effective job of demonstrating the extent to which the American Revolution, like most wars, had an uncontrollable side.
  —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Fall 2002
• The story that Ward tells has an almost nightmarish, Kafkaesque quality to it...Ward's book adds another component to thisn story of the Revolution...[W]ard shows beyond all peradventure...Ward's work, a monument to diligent scholarship, good writing, and mature judgement, is an important book on the American Revolution. It joins a handful of others that are essential reading for anyone who wishes to learn about all aspects of the Revolutionary War. Ward has labored for many years in producing one good book after another without achieving all the rewards that should come from being an excellent historian. This volume ought to bring him the recognition he so abundantly deserves.
  —Military History of the West 2003
• Ward has collected a wealth of characters and sources that should provide material for Ph.D. dissertations for decades to come.
  —The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Winter 2004 Vol 82 Number 3
• The published scholarship on the Revolution lacked a study of the lawlessness of the times, and Ward fills much of the need.
  —Florida Historical Quarterly Fall/Winter 2003
• [B]etween the Lines is a splendid read, and Ward's ability to impose order upon a wide range of events that occurred along the "underside" of the war is most impressive. His sober, detailed analysis of important yet hitherto neglected banditti activity makes this book a must for any serious historian of the revolutionary conflict. And readers whose interests lay elsewhere should still enjoy Ward's exposure of so much defiance in a world of deference.
  —Georgia Historical Quarterly December 2003
• [o]ften fascinating and filled with useful detail.
  —Journal of American History April 2003
• [t]his study admirably depicts the savagery of the Revolution that was often brutal for soldiers and civilians alike.
  —The North Carolina Historical Review December 22, 2002
• Reading Between the Lines reminds one of the savage guerrilla warfare in Missouri during the American Civil War, when war and the breakdown of civilian authority allowed criminals to roam freely, and where soldiers became outlaws...This is an important and disturbing book, one of Harry Ward's best.
  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

• Endorsement From Edward Cashin
  Director, Center for the Study of Georgian History
  Augusta State University: Ward's book is a triumph of research into the obscure and neglected underside of the American Revolution. He has teased coherent stories out of an impressive array of scattered sources. There is grist here for dozens of movie plots.
• Endorsement From Holly A. Mayer
  Associate Professor
  Duquesne University: Using a wide variety of sources, personal and official, popular and academic, Ward delivers a fascinating, anecdotal study of an aspect of the Revolution that has often only been mentioned in passing in other works. He reveals that in the midst of this endeavor to make the law king, all too often lawlessness reigned. He paints an image of a wild, wild war, wherein "cowboys" were British rogues rustling cattle and "skinners" were patriot plunderers. Ward, in essence, shows how this war of liberation corrupted some people and, on the other hand, how some outlaws tried to pervert the war.

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Soldier-Straggler Plunderers
• Cowboys and Skinners
• Long Island Marauders
• New Jersey Refugees
• Highland Gangs
• James Moody
• Pine Robbers
• Doane Outlaws
• Chesapeake Picaroons
• Josiah Phillips
• Maroons
• Scopholites
• Daniel McGirth
• "A Perfect Desert"
• Epilogue
• Index