War Without Mercy: Liberty or Death in the American Revolution

Drawing on vivid contemporary accounts, this is a fascinating exploration of how and why the Revolutionary War descended into a brutal existential struggle.

This engrossing history conclusively shows that those caught up in it believed they had nothing to lose by fighting without regard for the rules of so-called “civilized warfare.” The call to arms “Liberty or Death” was far more than just rhetoric. At its grimmest level, it was a conflict in which military restraint was more the exception than the rule, a struggle in which combatants believed their very existence was in question. This led to an acceptance of violence against persons and property as preferable to a defeat equated with political, cultural, and even physical extinction. It was war with an acceptance of ferocity and brutality – anything to avoid defeat.

A number of historians have previously concluded that the founding struggle reached a level of ferocity few Americans now associate with the movement for independence. However, these studies have described what happened, without looking in detail at why the conflict took such a violent a turn. Written by two esteemed historians, War Without Mercy does exactly that. Based on years of research and enlivened by primary sources, this is a fresh look at a period of history we thought we knew.