100 books like Wilderness War on the Ohio

This superb book provides deep insights into the relationship between Indigenous peoples and encroaching European settlers and convincingly emphasizes that the striving of land developers, such as George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Patrick Henry, was a major cause of the American rebellion. He describes in detail the Native societies, their customs, interactions, and political alliances. The early chapters provide accounts of settlers of both sexes who were captured, adopted, nurtured, and trained by the Natives. In the case of the Girty brothers, their seizures led to their wartime careers as accomplished, multi-lingual interpreters and as fighting partisans in the British Indian Department. In addition to an amazing array of Native tribes, two companies of Butler’s Rangers operated out of Detroit assisted by the Girtys. 

This book features another extremely active British partisan of the mid-west war. Alexander McKee was of mixed blood, his mother Shawnee. He grew up in her people’s society and became a trader across the Ohio country. When war broke out, he was appointed a captain in the Detroit Indian Department and, over the ensuing years, campaigned throughout the Ohio region and Kentucky territory as a cultural mediator between the Natives and the British administration. Postwar, he settled in southern Ontario and became one of the settlement’s elite citizens with the rank of colonel in the Indian Department. Governor Carleton referred to him as “an old Servant universally spoken of for his merits.” In 1794, he was appointed deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs and inspector general for Upper and Lower Canada, positions he held until his death in 1799. 

Here is an excellent biography of another British partisan who operated in the American midwest. Elliott emigrated from Ulster in 1760 and served under Bouquet at Fort Pitt two years later. He took up the Indian trade in the Shawnee country, married a Shawnee, and earned their nation’s confidence. After much prevarication, he joined the British resistance to the rebellion in the spring of 1778 and became a significant officer in the Indian Department. In 1778, he attended Governor Hamilton’s expedition against rebel-held Vincennes, and in 1780, supported Captain Henry Bird’s invasion of Kentucky, and fought in the battle of Blue Licks in 1782. 

Elliott’s notable career continued long after the war. Incredibly, the old veteran served in a senior Indian Department role in the early days of the War of 1812.

Lofaro portrays the other side of the coin, describing the amazing career of an American legend – the restless, fearless Daniel Boone, who took the settlers’ side during the relentless expansion westwards onto Native lands. After a personal exploration of Kentucky territory, Boone raised a large body of settlers, guided them to the territory, and created a community guarded by forts he helped to construct. Boone took the lead in fighting the Natives who objected to the intrusion.

To the American mind, this man is the epitome of the American frontiersman and Lofaro’s book reveals all sides of his complex personality while describing the Revolutionary War conflict in the mid-west. Notably, Boone was not without sympathy for the Natives’ plight. Of course, he crossed paths with many British partisans and their Native allies who vigorously attacked the Kentucky settlements. (Appropriately, this book was published in Kentucky.)

Osprey books are often the best place to start when researching a new historical topic. While writing my novel, Many Sparrows, I relied on this slender volume more than any other. Richly illustrated, packed with maps, vivid without getting bogged down in detail… if you want to begin delving into the topic of Dunmore’s War (Point Pleasant being its single notable battle), this is the book for you.

Mention “honor” in an 18th-century context, and most people think of dueling. Honor was about dueling, but it was also about much more. As Smith shows, a sense of honored suffused the 18th-century world. Different understandings of what honor meant helped propel the separation between Britain and its colonies. Smith takes the Founders' ideals seriously. Though they often fell short, knowing what they aimed for provides key insight into the mental universe they inhabited—and the legacy the left the new nation.

When I wanted to start understanding the culture of the Continental Army, this was the first book I read. Cox shows that General Washington wanted a hierarchical army, modeled on the British system, with gentlemen to lead the way as officers. He got much of what he wanted. Officers were recruited differently, rewarded differently, and punished differently than enlisted men. They experienced illness and injury differently (they were much more likely to be cared for in a private home, not left to suffer in camp), and they even died differently, with their names recorded for posterity while ordinary soldiers rarely rated a personal mention. Still, soldiers pushed back, not always accepting their lowly status, a key source of tension in an army fighting for liberty.

Most people learn in school about Paul Revere’s ride in 1775 to warn colonists that British soldiers were coming to attack them. But few learn about the 16-year-old girl who made a similar run to gather militia for a surprise attack. Sybil supposedly rode alone at night about 40 miles in pouring rain, ultimately gathering 400 men to battle the British soldiers. She rode farther than Paul Revere in worse weather, and didn’t get captured as he did. This ordinary teenager, Sybil, was able to complete an ordinary feat.

No book has done more to change my thinking about the American Revolution and Constitution.

It’s a tome, but if you want to understand the political philosophy of the American Revolution—from the Stamp Act to the ratification of the federal Constitution—then this is your book. Wood follows the evolution of and innovation in American political thought from the struggle for independence through the creation of a new nation.

In doing so, he makes the case for why the American Revolution was revolutionary and raises the possibility of seeing the Constitution as an act of counter-revolution.

I first read Minutemen and Their World in graduate school, and it shaped how I see the Revolution and history more generally—history is made by the decisions of ordinary people.

First published in 1976 and recently reissued, it focuses on the battles of Lexington and Concord, where the first shots of the Revolution were fired. Like Zabin’s Boston Massacre, it starts before the well-known events. The people of Concord were ordinary men and women with no intention to revolt against their empire. They were busy arguing about local matters such as whether to fire their preacher.

What I love about this book is how we see them gradually become revolutionaries, really against their will, humanizing the Revolution and helping us understand that it was not inevitable.