The subtitle of this book is “Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution”. The title makes the point that before the war, colonists considered themselves to be British. That is one reason they were upset when they felt their rights as British citizens were being slighted by those in charge back in England. The subtitle is accurate, because Brands not only writes about George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, but also Benedict Arnold, William Franklin, and Thomas Hutchinson, among others. His treatment of the loyalists, who patriots of course thought of as traitors, is evenhanded. The reader can understand what their motivations were, and why they acted as they did.
I have not (yet!) read biographies of most of the individuals profiled, and to be honest, I don’t know if separate biographies exist for some of the Loyalists. The book is roughly in chronological order, and moves back and forth between various loyalists and patriots. It is relatively long, but worth the effort. One thing this author mentions several times is that the colonists were not, at the beginning, eager to separate from England, and did not relish the prospect of having to fight to do so. Benjamin Franklin, who went to England to try to negotiate, long held out hope that war could be avoided. It is interesting to ponder what life would be like if the British government had agreed to give the colonists representation in Parliament, or if they had won the war.
While the sections on Washington and Franklin may be familiar, I actually found the sections on the Loyalists very interesting. We tend not to focus on these individuals, and maybe we should try to learn more about them. I of course had heard of Benedict Arnold, but I did not realize that Benjamin Franklin’s son William was the Royal Governor of New Jersey. Civil wars are known for splitting families, and even families of the famous and well-connected are not immune. We have all known how this war ended since we were old enough to hold a sparkler on the 4th of July, but the outcome was not foreordained, and in many ways, it is surprising that the side fighting against one of the major powers in the world at the time won. Most people probably expected things to go the other way.
If this was your family, how would you research them? Many of us spend a lot of time and effort to connect ourselves to Patriot ancestors. The DAR website, of course, is an excellent source for those who fought on the “rebellious” side of the war. The SAR has recently updated their website, and is also a good source for information on Patriots. Many Loyalists fled the colonies after the war. Some returned to England, some went to other English possessions. The Library and Archives of Canada website, https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/loyalists/Pages/introduction.aspx, has a number of connections for those researching Loyalist ancestors. Some even petitioned for land grants in Canada. The counter to the SAR and DAR would be the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada, at https://uelac.ca/, and they have a Loyalist Directory, which currently has over 15,000 entries.