Honorable Mention for the 2015 Book Award from the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond
In
November 1774, a pamphlet to the “People of America” was published in
Philadelphia and London. It forcefully articulated American rights and
liberties and argued that the Americans needed to declare their independence
from Britain. The author of this pamphlet was Charles Lee, a former British
army officer turned revolutionary, who was one of the earliest advocates for
American independence. Lee fought on and off the battlefield for expanded
democracy, freedom of conscience, individual liberties, human rights, and for
the formal education of women.
Renegade Revolutionary: The Life of
General Charles Lee is a vivid new portrait of one of the most complex and controversial of the
American revolutionaries. Lee’s erratic behavior and comportment, his capture
and more than one year imprisonment by the British, and his court martial after
the battle of Monmouth in 1778 have dominated his place in the historiography
of the American Revolution. This book retells the story of a man who had been
dismissed by contemporaries and by history. Few American revolutionaries shared
his radical political outlook, his cross-cultural experiences, his
cosmopolitanism, and his confidence that the American Revolution could be won
primarily by the militia (or irregulars) rather than a centralized regular
army. By studying Lee’s life, his political and military ideas, and his style
of leadership, we gain new insights into the way the American revolutionaries
fought and won their independence from Britain.
