<i>Jeb Stuart and the Confederate Defeat at Gettysburg</i> (review)

89 The battle had turned out nearly as Howe wished it to. He had once again bested Washington and the road to Philadelphia was now open, although the Continental army had again escaped destruction. Howe had been slow to pursue and Washington quick to run. Howe would march into Philadelphia on 26 September 1777 and occupy it until the following spring. Its fall hurt but did not cripple the patriot cause. Even in defeat, Washington sought an opportunity to turn the tables on Howe before the end of the campaign season. He would nearly do so at Germantown, the subject of the second volume in McGuire’s history of the campaign. The pros far outweigh the cons in this masterful work. McGuire’s writing flows easily. More impressive is the author’s command of source materials. A review of his bibliography and footnotes demonstrates that he has been to all of the major archival holdings in the United States as well as the United Kingdom. He has also employed the latest in secondary source materials. In terms of scope, this is no general’s history of a campaign. Whether general or private, farm girl or Luthern minister, McGuire has woven their views of the campaign together, using logically based assumptions to account for the discrepancies in the primary documents. If there are problems with the volume, they are not major. His maps are good but not great. Perhaps a better cartographer would be in order should this go to another edition. There are a few minor irritants in the printed copy not the least of which was the decision on the part of the publisher to use a capital I instead of a 1 in any numerical entries. This too should be corrected in a second edition. Taken as a totality, this is the best account of Brandywine that I know of in print.