First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [0]
“[A] tightly woven narrative, ingeniously structured.… She concludes with a salute for all that America has achieved, and a deep sadness for all that it hasn’t.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“Nothing in a novel could be more thrilling than the moment in this glorious history when French soldiers arrive on a boat at Chester, Pa., in 1781, look on the dock and see a tall, familiar figure: George Washington.… It is only part of Tuchman’s genius that she can reconstitute such scenes with so much precision and passion.… [A]n exhilarating book about human greed, foolishness and courage.”
—People Magazine
“This is ‘drum-and-trumpet’ history at its best (in this case ‘jib-and-mainsail’ would be more apt).… [B]ecause she presents both telling detail and grand theory in unexpected ways and in splendid, sweeping prose, Barbara Tuchman’s works continue to dazzle.”
—Houston Post
“[F]resh, interesting.… The author’s keen sense of human nature and her considerable knowledge of 18th-century government and military tactics unlock the machinations and motivations behind the basic facts of the conflict.”
—The Pittsburgh Press
By Barbara W. Tuchman
BIBLE AND SWORD (1956)
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM (1958)
THE GUNS OF AUGUST (1962)
THE PROUD TOWER (1966)
STILWELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA (1971)
NOTES FROM CHINA (1972)
A DISTANT MIRROR (1978)
PRACTICING HISTORY (1981)
THE MARCH OF FOLLY (1984)
THE FIRST SALUTE (1988)
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1988 by Barbara W. Tuchman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Little, Brown and Company and to Curtis Brown Ltd. for permission to reprint excerpts from John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography by Samuel Eliot Morison. Copyright © 1959 by Samuel Eliot Morison. Copyright renewed by Emily Morison Beck. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company and Curtis Brown Ltd.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88–92862
eISBN: 978-0-307-79857-2
This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
v3.1
To my grandchildren, Jennifer, Nell, Oliver and Jordan, lights of the new generation.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Maps
Notice
I “Here the Sovereignty of the United States of America Was First Acknowledged”
II The Golden Rock
III Beggars of the Sea—The Dutch Ascendancy
IV “The Maddest Idea in the World”—An American Navy
V Buccaneer—The Baltimore Hero
VI The Dutch and the English: Another War
VII Enter Admiral Rodney
VIII The French Intervention
IX Low Point of the Revolution
X “A Successful Battle May Give Us America”
XI The Critical Moment
XII Last Chance—The Yorktown Campaign
Epilogue
Bibliography
Reference Notes
About the Author
Illustrations
(FOLLOWING this page)
1. Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney at forty-two, by Joshua Reynolds, 1761 (Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London)
2. St. Eustatius (Courtesy of Algemeen Rijks Archief)
3. Southeast view of New York Harbor (Courtesy of The New-York Historical Society, New York)
4. Sir Joseph Yorke, by Perroneau (Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London)
5. Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse at Yorktown (Courtesy of the New York Public Library—Prints Division)
6. Action between the Serapis and Bonhomme Richard (Courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, London)
7. The Battle of Cowpens, by Frederick Kemmelmeyer (Courtesy of The Yale University Gallery, Mabel Garvan Collection)
8. Sir Henry Clinton, 1787 (Courtesy of the R. W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana)
9. General Count de Rochambeau, by Charles Willson