Shipwrecked: Reflections of the Sole Survivor By Dennis Hale

Shipwrecked: Reflections of the Sole Survivor
By Dennis Hale
Copyright 2007

Neither Dennis Hale nor Daniel J. Morrell are household names. But to those who ply their trade in the Great Lakes shipping industry, both names are legendary. One died and one survived.

On the morning of November 28, 1966, Dennis Hale boarded the ore freighter, SS Daniel J. Morrell and sailed into history. That morning, the freighter departed Erie, PA, upbound for Minnesota to pick up a load of iron ore. Upbound with her was the SS Edward Y. Townsend.

That evening, the Morrell and the Townsend were caught in a storm. Running behind the Morrell, the Townsend sought shelter in the St. Claire River. The Morrell continued north to seek the lee of mainland Michigan in Thunder Bay.

Dennis Hale had finished his watch and was asleep in his bunk at about 2:00 AM when he heard a loud bang and the books fell from the bookshelf in his berth. Hale donned his skivvies and a pea coat and headed up on deck.

When he arrived, he noticed he could not see the ship’s stern. It was gone. The Morrell had broken in half in the storm. He and three fellow sailors gathered near a life raft, believing the boats had already been launched. They waited for the bow to sink. Before he disappeared, the Morrell’s master shouted to Hale and his colleagues that he did not have time to get a distress call out before power failed.

The ship’s bow sank and Hale was thrown from the life raft. He swam for it and his friends pulled him aboard. They thought they had sited a ship coming for them, but it was the Morrell’s aft section, still moving under power. They began to wait for rescue, believing the Townsend or another ship was in the area. The water temperature was 44 degrees. The air temperature was 36 degrees with wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour.

As night wore into day, the four men fought to stay on the raft as they went through troughs and peaks of waves up to 35 feet tall. One by one, Hale’s fellow sailors died of exposure. Finally, in the evening of November 29, Hale’s raft grounded itself about 100 yards from shore off the Michigan coast.

Hale struggled to stay alive as the last of his colleagues died. He fired signal flairs and listened for human activity on the beach. He heard none and nobody came looking for him. He slipped in and out of sleep and at one point, had an out of body experience that would later prove to be transformational for Hale.

Finally, on the afternoon of November 30, Dennis Hale was picked up by a Coast Guard helicopter dispatched to look for survivors from the Daniel J. Morrell. Hale was the only one found. He had been in the water for more than 36 hours.

Hale would spend more than a year recovering physically from the hypothermia and the frostbite. It would take almost a lifetime to recover from the mental anguish of surviving where his friends and colleagues had not.

After years of alcohol and drug abuse and failed marriages, Hale started speaking publicly about his ordeal. This he found much more therapeutic than visits to psychologists. In 2004, he accompanied divers and underwater photographers to the site of the Morrell’s bow where they filmed a documentary.

Dennis Hale would die of cancer five years after the publication of his autobiography. By all accounts, he died a happy and content man.

Between episodes of his harrowing ordeal of confronting the untender mercies of Lake Huron during the legendary gales of November, Hale tells of his life as a child. His mother died right after he was born. He went to live with an unloving aunt and sadistic cousin who moved Dennis from Ashtabula, Ohio to Los Angeles when he was in junior high.

From that point on, Dennis Hale was often in trouble. He ran away and hitchhiked back to Ohio. He then ran away and hitchhiked back to Los Angeles. When LA cops put him on a bus for Ohio, he got off and hitchhiked back to LA. Finally, as a young man, Hale found his chosen occupation as a watchman aboard the Daniel J. Morrell.

For a layman with not even a complete high school education, Hale writes quite well. We know this because the book lacks editorial polish. There are a few grammar errors and some syntax that makes one groan. While the manuscript probably saw the hand of an editor once, not a great deal of time was invested in it.

Hale tries to make his entire life story interesting, but it really isn’t. I do not mean to disparage the man. But nothing in his tale gives us a glimpse into life in 1950s northeastern Ohio or Los Angeles. There is nothing in his life that influenced his choice to become a sailor on the Great Lakes. It is simply a narrative tool to break up the meat of his story into smaller chunks.

Ultimately, Hale’s tale is inspiring. It is one of bravery, healing, and redemption mixed with not just a little bit of luck. Since I first heard the story of the Daniel J. Morrell almost 20 years ago, I’ve wanted to learn more about the ship’s loan survivor. It is a tale that rivals that of the legendary crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald in the lore of the Great Lakes.

Hale’s book is a compelling read. A little more editorial polish with perhaps some editorial coaching during the writing process would have made it better. Still, it was well worth the time and a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.

On Writing By Stephen King

On Writing
By Stephen King
Copyright 2000

The master of the craft of writing popular fiction writes a non-fiction “how-to” book that should be on every writer’s shelf. The book provides inspiration, instruction, and reinforcement to any person who’s ever had the desire to tell a story in writing.

The book opens with an autobiographical section. King seems to have little recollection of his childhood except for pain. He does discuss at length his frequent ear infections as a child and the painful process of having them drained. King’s small family – his father having abandoned him, his mother and brother when he was two years old – was nomadic, moving from Maine to Wisconsin and back to various parts of Maine through his childhood.

King wrote quite a bit as a child and as a teenager. He and his brother, Dave, published a newsletter called Dave’s Rag to which young Stephen submitted short stories. He worked as a sports reporter at a small Maine newspaper where he learned that essential lesson taught by Strunk and White, “Remove all unnecessary words.” A valuable lesson for any writer.

He learned that writing could be subversive when editing his high school newspaper. King confesses he was not an enthusiastic editor. But when he and his buddies cooked up a spoof newspaper called The Village Vomit, he got enthused and got in trouble. The newspaper made up funny stories about the high school faculty, calling them by their nicknames. The school administration was not amused.

King was inspired to publish, not by some great, inspiring work of fiction, but by a bad one written by an otherwise decent writer. Murray Leinster’s Asteroid Miners, King says, was an atrocious story laden with silly adverbs and poorly written. (King admonishes all aspiring writers to avoid using adverbs). He thought, if that story can get published, my stories can get published.

His first published story was I Was a Teenage Graverobber. From there, he’d go on to publish hundreds of pieces of short fiction.

He discusses going to college and meeting the love of his life, Tabitha Spruce King. The story of the early years of the King marriage is one he’s told a few times before. They were poor, barely getting by, with a few young mouths to feed. King worked in a laundry and as a school teacher. Tabitha worked at a Dunkin Donuts and they lived in a crappy little mobile home that sat up on a hill. In the evenings, King wrote in the small laundry room, balancing a desk and typewriter on his lap. In that little room, several King novels were born.

The most famous of those early novels was Carrie. The story of the manuscript that became Carrie is another oft told tale in King lore. He got frustrated with the novel and threw it in the trash. Tabitha saw it there and rescued it. She read it and thought it had potential. He slogged on with Tabitha helping him with the psychology of adolescent girls. Carrie White was an amalgamation of a girl he knew growing up and a girl he taught. Both were pitiful and the subject of ridicule and cruelty.

King sold Carrie for an advance of $5,000 which was a small fortune for the struggling King family. Later, the paperback rights were sold for $400,000 and King became a full time writer.

In this autobiographical section, King discusses, for the first time in depth, his problem with drugs and alcohol. He’d been a beer drinker since high school. Later, he picked up a cocaine habit and abused Xanax and other pills as well. He says he frequently wrote with toilet paper in his nose to staunch the bleeding from the cocaine use and was so heavily sedated during the writing of Cujo he has no memory of it. While he discusses his problem and the intervention Tabitha staged for him, he does not discuss his treatment for his addiction. All we know is that he’s clean today.

King moves on from his short autobiography into a section on how to write. He discusses tools in a writer’s toolbox such as vocabulary and grammar. He says one must have a place to write where he will not be disturbed. Most importantly, a writer must write, daily and read daily. A writer who does not read is not going to have the tools to write.

He talks about plotting and how he avoids it. He lets the story tell itself, equating it to an archeologist unearthing an already existing. The story already exists. The writer must bring it out. He says he plotted two novels – Rose Madder and Isnomnia – and admits that neither book is very good.

He really gets into the nuts and bolts of writing by admonishing writers to strike adverbs on rewrites. He constantly refers to Strunk and White and their admonition to strike all unnecessary words. He even provides a sample exercise with the opening section of the short story, 1408. He lets the reader read the unvarnished first draft. From there, we see his proofreading marks and he explains the explanation for each change.

He discusses audiences and editors. Every writer must write for an audience. His audience is Tabitha. It is she that he wants to impress and please. Every writer needs that person. Tabitha is unrelenting in her criticism as well as her encouragement. One has to believe that we would not know Stephen King were it not for Tabitha because King says, she’s always right in her criticisms. She certainly was in the case of Carrie.

After a thorough and informative course on how to write fiction from someone who does it better than most, King goes on to tell the story of how his career and his life were nearly taken from him in a tragic and scary accident in 1999.

Most people know the story. King was hit by an SUV while walking along a country road near his home. King tells the tale in excruciating detail, providing graphic descriptions of his injuries which were severe. The lower half of his body was mangled badly and his head was gashed badly. He had many surgeries to put his body back together and endured grueling physical therapy to rebuild his body.

The accident also hampered his writing. On Writing was the book he’d nearly completed when the accident happened. Sitting was an ordeal for him, causing him great pain. But he was determined to pick up the project and press forward. The words came excruciatingly slow and he feared that perhaps he would no longer be able to write. But, with Tabitha’s encouragement, he kept at it and managed to deliver On Writing to his publisher.

He winds up with a list of suggested books. He says they are books he’s read over the last couple years and that they inspired him, made him think, or just provided enjoyment.

Anybody who writes or wants to write should own this book and have it thoroughly highlighted. The autobiography is inspirational. Stephen King made it because he wrote and wrote daily. He inspires others with his writing to undertake the craft.

The how-to section is as instructive as any textbook. King says that some people just can’t write and no amount of training is going to make them writers. He adds that there are many people who have it in them to write and write well if they’ll practice the craft and dedicate themselves to it. The nuts and bolts advice are lessons King has learned from publishing more than 50 books and more than 100 short stories over the years. If you’re going to take advice, you should take it from someone who learned it the hard way and became successful.

On Writing is King’s finest non-fiction effort and one of his finest books in his body of work. I would challenge any person that practices the craft of writing at any level to read it and not be inspired, to not have learned something new about the craft, and not be thoroughly impressed with King’s awareness of how he does what he does.

On Writing and Strunk and White’s Elements of Style are two essential books for any writer.

Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss By Peter Criss

Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss
By Peter Criss
Copyright 2012

No band has aired more of their internal squabbles and dirty laundry in public than KISS. Gene Simmons has had a long running public feud with guitarist Ace Frehley. Simmons has not been kind to Peter Criss either.

Simmons and Frehley authored a somewhat milquetoast autobiographies airing their grievances, yet the pair were able to meet to discuss them. It’s safe to say that Peter Criss will not be meeting with Simmons to bury the hatchet after the release of his autobiography which is a no holds barred, graphic analysis of the band that was KISS.

Criss was born into an Italian/Irish family living in a poor section of Brooklyn. From the time of his birth, Criss was a momma’s boy – very much attached to his mother. That didn’t stop him from misbehaving and getting trouble as a youth.

Criss ran with some street gangs in Brooklyn and once stabbed a man in a gang fight. As a young musician, he was a regular performer at various mob operated night clubs. He started with drugs and booze at a young age.

Criss was in several bands as a youth, but none of them seemed to be going anywhere. Finally he posted an advertisement in Rolling Stone. Gene Simmons called him during a party and interviewed him. Simmons and bandmate Paul Stanley saw him perform at a Brooklyn night club. After hearing his raspy singing voice and incredible energy on drums, Simmons was confident the new group he and Stanley were putting together had found its drummer.

The rise of KISS has been well documented and Criss’ account does not differ from that of Gene or Ace. Criss says in those early days, all four of them were close friends with a common goal and a shared vision of how to get there. He says in the band’s early days, he was closer to Gene than any other member of the band, brought together by their love of sweet treats that they shared after concerts.

That close relationship would not last forever. In the band’s early days, Simmons and Stanely wrote almost all of Kiss’ material. Frehley contributed a couple songs to their second album, Hotter Than Hell. However, lacking confidence as a singer, he had Gene or Peter sing them. Criss did not contribute a song until the 1976 album, Destroyer.

Criss discusses life on the road with KISS. He initially roomed with Gene Simmons, but soon had to move out, preferring to room with Paul Stanley. He says Gene had absolutely horrible physical hygiene and was a slob. Simmons did not shower after concerts and usually reeked of body odor. He did not dry out his leather garments and the continually stunk.

Like Frehley, Criss concludes that Simmons had some serious issues when it came to sex. He says that Gene absolutely had to have sex after a concert and did not discriminate based on looks. If it had a vagina, Simmons would fuck it, Criss says. Criss does not hedge on his own lust for groupies, often entertaining several women a night despite the fact that he was the only married member of the band in those early days.

Criss says he’s often asked if Paul Stanley is bisexual. Criss does not answer the question definitively, but says that in KISS’ early days, Paul’s nickname was He/She for his rather androgynous behavior. Even Simmons, who was close friends with Paul, seemed to feel this way. Criss recalls a particular orgy after a Kiss show where there were several couples in the room with the band. Most were heterosexual, but there were gay couplings going on as well. Stanley had passed out drunk on a bed. He said that when Simmons saw that Paul was passed out, he interrupted his own coitus to get Paul out of the room. As Peter puts it, if one man had managed to stick his dick in Paul’s mouth, it would destroy the image of the band.

As he discusses the development of KISS as a stage entity, Peter says it was two gay men who made all the difference. Bill Aucoin, their original manager was gay and out to the band and his closest associates. Aucoin kept Kiss solvent in those early years by robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.

Criss gives most of the credit for KISS' extravagant stage shows to a man named Sean Delaney who worked hard with the band to coordinate their onstage antics, moves, and dances as well has having strong musical input. Criss is convinced that, had it not been for Sean Delaney, Kiss would have been just another hard rock band who liked to wear makeup.

Peter said he was immediately drawn to Ace Frehley and the two became very close friends early in the band’s existence. Like Peter, Ace was a party animal. He could consume vast quantities of beer and cocaine and remain conscious. Peter enjoyed partying with drugs more than any other member of the band and found a soul mate in Ace Frehley.

As KISS progressed and met with frustration because their studio albums were not selling, Gene and Paul became more controlling. They wouldn’t let him play the drums the way he wanted to. They would not let him sing the way he wanted to. Whenever he would introduce songs, they would nix them. When he did get a song past them, they would change it. More than anything else, it was these creative differences that led Peter Criss to become less engaged in the band and more engaged in partying.

He also claims that, when he would assert himself, Gene and Paul would remind him of how uneducated he was. They belittled his intelligence and sometimes subjected him to spelling tests just to torment him. Peter characterizes himself as the toughest and most emotional guy in the band. He admits to often threatening to quit if he did not get his way and sometimes threatening Paul and Gene with physical violence.

On one point, Simmons and Criss are in complete agreement: Bob Ezrin changed KISS dramatically and for the better. Simmons and Frehley both wrote of how dictatorial the domineering producer was in the studio when the band went in to make Destroyer. Simmons says the Ezrin rock and roll boot camp was just what Kiss needed and openly embraced it. Criss did not so openly embrace Ezrin at the time, but he says that Ezrin’s constant demand for perfection made him a better drummer and elevated his performance.

Criss affirms Simmons account of the recording of Destroyer where he claims that Ace Frehley performed on just a couple songs and that session guitarist Dick Wagner did most of the solos, including those on Flaming Youth and Sweet Pain.

While he does not put the blame directly at Ezrin’s feet, Peter claims that Ezrin played a major role in his addiction to cocaine. Ezrin used his abusive nature as the stick, but the carrot for Peter was cocaine. When Peter played well and did as Ezrin told him, Ezrin would supply Criss with large quantities of blow. He became an addict during the recording of Destroyer.

Despite his ongoing battles with Simmons and Stanley, the period during the release of the Alive! album and the recording and tour of the Destroyer album were great times for him. He was in groupie heaven. He was in drug heaven with plenty of money to throw around. He had wealth and fame and was living the life of a rock god. He also met the woman who would become his second wife.

Peter Criss provides many graphic details of his sex life in Makeup to Breakup including his wives. He says of his first wife, Lydia, that he loved her and she loved him. She supported him in those tough, early years. However, sex with Lydia was unsatisfying – especially after coming home after the dalliances with all of those groupies. In his second wife, Debra Jensen, he found someone who could meet and match his prodigious appetites for sex and drugs.

Criss dwells on his relationship and marriage to the Playboy Playmate and Coppertone Girl. He recollects that the attraction was purely sexual, which he concludes was a bad basis for a marriage. The two fought constantly, but enjoyed their mutual drug binges and what Criss characterizes as fantastic sex. When they broke up in the early 1990s, Criss laments that she spent so much of his money and was screwing their attorney. One can’t help but grin at the hypocrisy when he reads of Peter’s large cocaine purchases and liaisons with groupies on a nightly basis.

Peter battled Simmons and Stanley through most of his time in KISS, but the beginning of the end for him in the group came in 1978 when he had a car accident that delayed him getting underway with his solo album. Kiss’s 1977 tour of Europe was cut short because Criss’ rotator cuffs were giving him trouble from having played drums so long and hard over a long period of time. The car wreck not only set back his recovery, it injured him badly, leading to a long recovery.

The band had come up with the gimmick of having the four members release solo albums on the same day. The other three were already underway with writing and recording while Peter was on his back in the hospital. He says Paul Stanley stopped by one day, not to wish him well, but to tell him how badly he’d screwed up and possibly delayed the well choreographed release. Stanley said he had a message from Gene Simmons. Simmons would not deign to visit him and that he thought Peter was a major fuck up.

It was recovering from this accident that Peter Criss brought more woe upon himself. He was issued a prescription of Percocet for his pain. At first, he didn’t take them. One day, his friend, John Belushi was visiting him and told him that Percocet and champagne made for one hell of a buzz. Peter started abusing Percocet as well and was soon addicted to those as well as cocaine.

Criss recovered in time to record and release his 1978 solo album. The albums all bombed with only Ace Frehley achieving a top ten hit. All four albums together only sold as well as one KISS album.

When the bad prepared for their next album, Dynasty, it was their new producer, Vinnie Poncia – who had produced Peter Criss’ solo album – that told the band that Criss could not drum anymore. This is interesting because Peter does not mention this in his book at all and seems to hold Poncia in high regard.

Nonetheless, Peter was not resentful. He didn’t want to spend time in the studio with the other members of the band. His only appearance on the album is playing drums and singing on his own composition, Dirty Livin' which he said Stanley and Simmons changed and screwed up. He was replaced by Anton Fig on the rest of the album although Criss received credit for drums on the album sleeve

The 1979 Dynasty tour was a disaster. Ticket sales were horrible – despite the album having a top ten hit in I Was Made for Loving You. Peter says on this tour, Paul took delight in publicly humiliating him. On stage, Paul would, in front of the audience, instruct him to slow down or speed up tempos. After this public humiliation, Criss says he was done with the group. He even confesses to deliberately screwing up tempos to make his band mates look bad in retaliation.

Thus emerges the great controversy of KISS. Was Peter tossed out of the band or did he quit? Criss says he quit at the end of the Dynasty tour. Simmons, Stanley, and Frehley have all stated that he was tossed out because his skills had deteriorated so badly. Frehley claims to have voted against it, but was outnumbered two to one.

Kiss went on to record Unmasked while not announcing Criss’ departure. They did a video for the song, Shandi where Peter appeared. His likeness was used on the cover and he was given credits for playing drums although he did not play on the album.

Perhaps sensing that KISS was on the decline and the departure of a member would only do more harm, Simmons and Stanley invited him back to jam, just to see if he was still willing and able to play. Criss says he deliberately botched the session, forcing the others to get rid of him. One wonders. . .

His post KISS years were not a happy time for Peter Criss. He continued to struggle with cocaine, painkiller, and alcohol addiction. He tried to put together bands and record solo albums. The albums did not sell. Criss claims he was blackballed by the industry. Again, one wonders. . .

He was forced to take his band on the road to play a series of small dive bars and clubs. This stood in stark contrast to having played Madison Square Garden. The groupies were gone. The jets and expensive hotels were gone. Peter Criss fell into a major depression which he medicated with more drugs and booze.

Furthermore, his personal finances were a wreck. He learned that many of the tax shelters set up by KISS’ management were bogus and that he owed more than $1 million in back taxes. He didn’t have it. Between him and Debra, they had gone through is vast fortune. They downsized homes and sold off possessions. When they relocated to the West Coast, Debra began having an affair with their lawyer. Peter says several people tried to tell him about the affair, but he refused to believe them. He sensed the increasing emotional distance between the two and finally confronted her. She admitted to the affair and the two split.

Criss hit rock bottom in 1994. That’s where the book actually opens, with Peter Criss, alone in his Los Angeles apartment, with the barrel of a .357 magnum pressed to the roof of his mouth. It took a major earthquake at that very moment to dissuade Criss from the suicide solution. He eventually entered rehab to get his major drug problem under control and was forced to file bankruptcy.

Criss had a brief emotional reconciliation with his bandmates in 1995 when he appeared at a Kiss Konvention. He reached out to Paul Stanley, asking if he could bring his daughter to the convention so that she might learn about her father’s legacy. He said Simmons held him in a long embrace and welcomed him back. Stanley was also quite excited about Peter’s return. Criss says the sentimentality was faked. They were just happy to have him back because it would generate publicity and record sales.

Criss I quite cynical about the whole KISS reunion. He notes that KISS tours after he left were disasters, losing money. KISS was losing money and fans as they tried to become a hair band to keep pace in the 1980s. He’s certain the only reason they invited him back was to attract attention and make money. He performed Beth at that convention at the request of the band.

A reunion tour was soon in the offing after the original band performed on MTV’s Unplugged. The tour was an enormous success, but Criss was constantly unhappy. He was no longer an integral part of the band. He was an employee making $40,000 per show while Stanley and Simmons were pocketing millions from ticket sales and merchandising and retained complete creative control.

The insults would continue. When the band announced that the original would record their first studio album with the original lineup since 1979’s Dynasty, Simmons and Stanley asked Criss not to play, but claim that he did. Criss played drums on one song on the Psycho Circus album and sang one number. He said that, as he sang, Paul Stanley hovered over him, constantly stopping him to tell him how the part ought to be sung.

The final insult came when Ace Frehley confessed to Peter that he was making $10,000 more per show than Criss. This led to a rupture of a friendship that had endured for more than 20 years. Frehley and Criss no longer speak. Peter Criss appeared with the band one more time for KISS Symphony: Alive IV, then was gone for good.

After two failed marriages, Peter Criss finally found his soul mate in Gigi Criss. The two were married in 1998. The pair would battle cancer together. Both had breast cancer. Peter Criss kept the disease a secret for a long time before emerging as a spokesman for male breast cancer.

Before wrapping and saying everything is good in his life now, Criss addresses the infamous 1991 tabloid mess that started rumors that he was a homeless drunk living under a bridge. The controversy started with an article in the tabloid, The Star. Roseann and Tom Arnold read it. Being big fans, they set out to find the destitute drummer. A middle-aged groupie did find this “version” of Peter Criss and flew him to her home to stay. It turned out that the whole thing was bogus. The man claiming to be Peter Criss was not Peter Criss, but a mentally ill homeless man that bore a passing resemblance to the KISS drummer.

Criss agreed to appear on Phil Donahue with the imposter and the groupie who claimed to have had an affair with him in the 1980s. Criss was quite angry with the man and let it show. His ex-wives Lydia Criss and Debra Jensen called into the show to offer support.

Today, he and Gigi reside in New Jersey and he is all but retired from the music business.

Peter Criss’ account of the rise and fall of KISS makes Simmons’ and Frehley’s look quite vanilla. While Simmons bragged about his sexual exploits, he was not nearly as graphic as Criss. He is unabashed in describing the sex and drugs that surrounded the band. While Gene and Ace complained about each other in their respective biographies, Criss is much more personal and biting in his comments about his former bandmates. Despite this overt bitterness and anger toward Stanley and Simmons, there is an underlying affection for their early years together when it was them versus the world.

Criss’ autobiography rewrites several chapters of Kiss history and seems to be thoroughly honest, sincere, and emotional. Criss makes no bones about being a very emotional person with a hot temper and easily bruised feelings. That is reflected in the text of the book.

But there’s also an element of self-pity that does not reflect well on Peter Criss. Criss was a good, but not great drummer. His song writing skills were average and the material he recorded with KISS – with just a few exceptions – were usually the weakest material on their albums. Yet, he is quick to blame Stanley, Simmons, KISS management, the recording industry, his ex-wife and everybody around him for his musical failures.

I am a diehard KISS fan dating back to 1976 and quit following the band after the Dynasty album. I agree with Criss that the band went downhill after it lost its original lineup. It wasn’t that Criss was a better drummer than Eric Carr or Eric Singer. When Criss left, the chemistry of the band was destroyed with Stanley and Simmons calling all of the shots.

Aspiring musicians should read Peter Criss’ autobiography as a cautionary tale. KISS is not the only band to endure tensions over creativity and song writing credits. Most bands do. Great bands like The Who and Queen – two bands who battled internally constantly – keep it together by keeping their problems internal. Brian May of Queen and Roger Daltrey of The Who have both stated that that internal struggle, while being frustrating and painful, made their bands and their songs better. Stanley and Simmons, in their need to control KISS music, destroyed that internal tension that improves most bands.

Makeup to Breakup is an easy, entertaining read. The narrative is raw, unpolished, and reflects Peter Criss’ personality as a tough guy from Brooklyn. While Simmons’ book seems to try hard to write a palatable, glossed over history of KISS and Frehley’s book talks mostly about his drug and booze binges, Criss comes across as the most honest and forthright – and probably the truest account of what happened to him and the band he helped make The Hottest Band In the World.

No Regrets by Paul "Ace" Frehley

No Regrets
By Ace Frehley
Copyright 2011

Ace Frehley – a guitar god that defined the instrument for a generation of musicians lays out what he can remember of a mostly misspent life in this autobiographical account of being a member of the “hottest band in the world,” and his ultimate departure from KISS.

Paul Frehley was born into a middle class home in Bronx, NY. His father was an electrical engineer and his mother a homemaker. He had an older brother and sister who did well in school and went on to successful professions. Paul was the Frehley family black sheep.

He was a good student in his grade school days, but soon had to cope with the realities of life in the Bronx. It was either join a gang, or get beat up by gangs. The skinny kid joined a local gang called the Duckies and engaged in his share of petty crimes.

The Frehleys were a musical family and that gene got passed along to Paul. He discovered guitars and women about the same time when he was 13 years old. He learned about the two in much the same way – by trial and error. Ace proudly states that he knows nothing about music theory. He just knows how to play.

Ace also discovered drugs and alcohol in his early teen years. While hanging out with local musicians, he passed most of his time drinking and smoking pot. At that time, he was afraid of cocaine and other harder drugs. That would soon change.

He acquired the nickname Ace from his buddies for whom he was often able to arrange sexual liaisons. While most people still called him Paul (and he preferred that his close friends called him Paul), the moniker stuck.

Ace worked hard as a musician, joining as many bands as his schedule could accommodate just to make money and be seen in the New York music scene. He dropped out of high school just shy of earning a diploma, but his girlfriend talked him into going back and finishing his education. He proudly boasts that he has an IQ of 163.

While Ace worked daily at his craft, sometimes playing two gigs in one night just to make extra money, he wasn’t getting anywhere and was still living at home with his parents who did not share his dreams of rock stardom. That would change when he saw an advertisement in the Village Voice.

A local band wanted a lead guitarist with “flash and ability.” They claimed to have a deal for an album. Ace says he’d heard that line before, but was curious. His mother drove him to the audition, hauling his Marshall amps and Gibson Les Paul in the family truckster.

It’s an often told story that Ace showed up for the audition wearing two different shoes. The story is often told to show what a flake Ace was. He acknowledges that he was wearing one red sneaker and one orange sneaker. It was not purposeful. He was in a hurry and didn’t take his time to make sure he was wearing the right shoes.

At the audition, Ace began warming up while another guitarist was auditioning. Gene Simmons stopped the audition to tell Ace to knock it off. The members of Wicked Lester – Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, and Peter Criss – were not immediately impressed with young Paul Frehley.

When it came time to jam, their opinion changed. Ace showed off his chops with some of his own material before being asked to perform with the rest of the band. The song was Deuce. Ace learned the chord progression and laid down an impressive lead. The members of Wicked Lester politely thanked him and told him they would get back to him.

Ace was eventually invited to join the new band that would soon be changing its name. Although stories vary on who came up with the name, Gene Simmons credits Peter Criss with blurting it out during a car ride through New York City one afternoon.

The band began to play locally under the name KISS. Most of their gigs were lightly attended. That didn’t matter to the band. They played loud, hard, and were working out many of the stage gimmicks they would employ later. They soon caught the attention of television executive Bill Aucoin who desperately wanted to manage them, promising he’d get them a record deal within 30 days. Aucoin arranged for the band to record a five song demo with legendary producer Eddie Kramer. Frehley was thrilled to be working the producer who'd produced the legendary Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.

It took a bit longer than 30 days for Aucoin to land that recording contract, but he finally got the band signed to a new label called Casablanca. The band began recording their debut album over the course of three weeks.

The record did not do well in initial sales. Ace tells the story of how the band was talked into covering the Bobby Rydell song, Kissin’ Time to be used to sponsor “kissing contests” across the country. The band laid down the cover track and unanimously hated it. But when the album was rereleased prior to the release of the second KISS album, Kissin’Time was on it, much to the band’s chagrin.

Ace’s lone contribution to KISS’ first album was Cold Gin. Ace explains he wanted to write a drinking song and “Cold Beer” just didn’t work as a song title. Even though he was not a gin drinker, Cold Gin it was. Ace, lacking confidence in his own singing ability, turned the vocals over to Gene Simmons.

Before the end of 1974, the band was back in the studio working on a new album. This time, they recorded in Los Angeles which the band hated. The result was Hotter Than Hell. Musically, this may be the best KISS album. It certainly represents Ace Frehley’s best work with the band. Parasite is probably the best guitar riff Frehley ever conjured. In Strange Ways he plays what is by far his finest solo.

What hurts Hotter Than Hell is the poor quality of the recording. The drum sound is just atrocious!

It was in Los Angeles during the Hotter Than Hell sessions that Ace Frehley would have the first of his many alcohol induced car accidents. The accident delayed shooting the album’s cover art when the band was rushing to get new material to the market.

The band toured again, but could not generate album sales. They went back into the studio for the third time in less than two years and cranked out the Dressed to Kill album. Dressed to Kill had some solid tracks such as She, Rock and Roll all Nite, and Rock Bottom (with Ace Frehley performing a beautiful and lush intro on the acoustic guitar). But much of the music was pedestrian – the result of a band being forced to rush new material.

The release of Rock and Roll All Nite got the band some national exposure, but the song and the album failed to crack the Top 20. The members and management of KISS were feeling the pressure from Casablanca which was being kept afloat by Aucoin and owner Neil Bogart’s credit cards. They needed to break through with their next album or fold up the tent. Break through they would.

Reasoning that KISS was primarily a live band, the band decided to put out a live album to show audiences what KISS was all about. This was unconventional as live albums were usually put out by established bands and did not fare well in sales. They were usually double albums which meant higher prices. KISS was taking a huge risk.

They toured the Midwest through 1974 and 1975, each concert being recorded and the best of each song was incorporated into the album. Frehley admits what most music fans suspected. Alive! wasn’t entirely alive. Each song was retouched and redubbed in the studio to eliminate missed notes, bad drumming, and bad singing. Eddie Kramer, who had produced so many legendary albums, was called in to clean up the live performances and produce yet another legendary album. Alive! was released in September 1975.

Alive! was exactly what KISS needed. The album took off and the money rolled in. KISS was now a huge success. Ace Frehley began living the life of a wealthy rock star. He graduated from beer and weed to pills and cocaine. He bought a fleet of expensive cars. He hired an entourage and bought a mansion in Westchester County New York.

Alive! brought Frehley (and all the members of KISS) the fame and fortune they had worked so hard for. It was also the start of Ace Frehley’s disillusionment with KISS.

KISS’ management wanted to follow up on the success of Alive! with something extraordinary and different. So, they brought in production guru Bob Ezrin who had a stellar track record of producing albums for Alice Cooper and others. Right away, Frehley and Ezrin were at odds. Ezrin was a perfectionist and rather dictatorial in the studio. Simmons and Stanley would later claim Ezrin was precisely what KISS needed at that stage in their careers.

Frehley felt differently. As the recording of Destroyer progressed, Frehley absented himself regularly. Instead, he binged on drugs and booze. He admits that as much as he loves the guitar solo in Detroit Rock City, he didn’t write it. He wasn’t there to do the job.

Frehley complains that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were hypocrites about drug use. Their producer on Dressed to Kill, Neil Bogart, smoked joint after joint at the mixing board during the recording sessions. Bob Ezrin, according to Frehley was quite open about his cocaine use. Simmons and Stanley frequently complained about Frehley’s (and Peter Criss’) use of drugs, but tolerated it from others.

Destroyer took the band to whole new levels of success. While singles such as Detroit Rock City, Shout it Out Loud, and Flaming Youth didn’t do well, the B-side of Detroit Rock City contained a ballad called Beth that was a smash hit and won KISS a People’s Choice Award and propelled them into the mainstream of society.

As one reads past the recording of Destroyer, evidence of Frehley’s increased drug use is apparent as he seems to remember less and less about his song writing and recording and more and more about his drug and alcohol induced misadventures. He barely discusses the writing and recording of Rock and Roll Over and Love Gun. Rock and Roll Over, like Destroyer, contained no Frehley songs. Love Gun had one Frehley song – Shock Me.

Shock Me is a mix of thinly veiled metaphors borne of his nearly being electrocuted by a poorly grounded guitar. It also contains allusions to S & M which would (to the normal person) have no connection to a near death electrocution.

Shock Me marked Ace’s debut as a vocalist. For as much as they seem to clash in KISS, Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley seemed to have an artistic connection. It was Simmons that Frehley turned to to sing his songs. It was Simmons that convinced Frehley that he sang well enough to sing his own songs.

Frehley was quite excited by the prospect of recording his own solo album. Each member of KISS produced an album of their own songs independent of the rest of the band. They invited their own guest musicians and wrote their own material. Frehley's album sold the best of the four and generated the only hit from the four albums -- a cover of Hello's New York Groove.

Unlike Gene Simmons, Frehley is able to look back on the KISS movie, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park with some humor. Ace acknowledges the movie was badly scripted, badly acted, and badly produced. He hated acting and walked off the set more than once. Usually, he returned to his trailer to do drugs. One day, he left to take in more intellectual pursuits -- touring the King Tut exhibit. Despite his humor regarding the movie, he hated Simmons' and Stanley's new found obsession with commercialism. He just wanted to play rock and roll music, get stoned, and bang groupies.

By the time the band began working on the Dynasty album, Ace knew his days in Kiss were numbered. Peter Criss was voted out of the band, his skills on drums badly deteriorated by pain killer and alcohol abuse. Despite his disillusionment and ever escalating abuse of cocaine, valium, pain killers, narcotic cough syrup, and alcohol, Dynasty represented Frehley’s best work as part of KISS.

Frehley's rearranged cover of the Rolling Stones' 2000 Man is the best track on the album. Frehley also contributed Hard Times which talks about his time in The Duckies, and Save Your Love. Frehley despised the album’s lone hit track, I Was Made For Loving You because it was disco when KISS was supposed to be the very antithesis of disco.

Frehley has little to say about the recording and writing of Unmasked. When it came time to record Music from the Elder, Frehley had about all he could take. Bob Ezrin was back, using more cocaine than ever. The album was loosely based on a concept developed by Gene Simmons and Frehley hated the idea of doing a concept album. When it came to making decisions for the band, he was frequently outvoted by Simmons and Stanley. Frehley was seldom in the studio with the band and actually recorded the lead guitar parts on his own in his home studio.

Frehley also complained of the production that became a KISS concert. Ace just wanted to play rock and roll. Shows became increasingly choreographed, requiring him to be in certain places at certain times during the show. Ace says, that just wasn’t rock and roll as he understood it.

Ace decided to leave the band after Music from the Elder, although his likeness was used on the Creatures of the Night album that followed it.

What follows is mostly a chronicle of drunken, drug crazed misadventures. Ace being pursued by dozens of cops as he fled at high speed through Manhattan. Ace crashing this car or that car. What is disturbing is his tone which is almost braggadocio regarding these lawless acts. I know rock stars are prone to lawlessness, but a reasonable person shouldn’t brag about risking lives.

Frehley embarked on a number of solo projects -- most notably Frehley's Comets. While the music produced by Frehley's Comets was musically sound, it did not generate much in the way of excitement or sales.

Ace’s recollection of the reunion of KISS seems to be drawn from press releases and news clips. He relates very little on what was probably quite an emotional event for him. Everything that is in Ace’s book regarding this era seems to be drawn from press clips and others accounts.

Ace tells us he’s sober today and has been for five years other than one lapse in Las Vegas. His AA sponsor is one of the cops that arrested him in his flight through Manhattan.

Ace Frehley comes across as the very guy Gene Simmons describes. When I hear Simmons talk about Frehley, it’s with disgust. Not because he doesn’t like Ace or doesn’t respect Ace as a musician. He thinks Ace is lazy, unmotivated, and wasted a lot of his talent with alcohol and drugs. Yes, Simmons has always needed to loosen up a bit and can be an insufferable ass, but what he says about Ace is true based on Ace's own account of his life.

Ace did not say much about his relationship with other members of the band, which is disappointing. He was quite fond of Peter Criss personally and they did that “Bad Boys” tour together. But he doesn’t describe any of his personal interactions with Peter Criss. I was curious about how Frehley reacted when it was reported in a tabloid that Peter Criss was destitute and living under a bridge. Frehley had nothing to say about this.

He states that he believes Gene Simmons is a sex addict and that for Gene, rock and roll was not art, but just a means to riches and women. With that said, he has very few bad things to say about Simmons and points out that Gene saved him from drowning twice.

He has even less to say about Paul Stanley who always seemed, according to Gene, to be the peacemaker in the band.

Eric Carr, with whom Ace Frehley seems to have had a positive relationship, died at a young age of a congenital heart defect. Frehley does not mention his passing.

He says he loves Simmons, Stanley, and Criss because of all they went through together. He does not indicate whether or not he stays in touch with them. He did say on his book tour that he lunched with Simmons to give him a preview of the book as Simmons had done for him when Gene wrote his autobiography. He said they parted on good terms and are friends.

The first half of Ace Frehley’s book gives us a great deal of insight into his development as a musician and a person. It also gives us another perspective on the development of KISS. The second half of the book reads like Frehley quit working on it and let his ghost writers finish it from other sources. Much like his musical career, it seems that Ace started his autobiography with great insight, but allowed it to fizzle with lackluster disinterest.

The Final Days By Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

The Final Days
By Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
Copyright 1976

Woodward and Bernstein chronicle the last year of the Nixon administration as it crumbles slowly under the weight of disclosures of cover up and deception on the part of the president.


Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are out as Nixon’s top advisers. Stepping into the role of chief of staff is Gen. Al Haig. Stepping in as chief political adviser on all matters Watergate is Ron Ziegler, the president’s press secretary who will soon be elevated to communications chief.

The book opens with the president’s two lawyers, Len Garment and Fred Buzhardt traveling to Florida to tell Nixon he ought to resign. This takes place in late 1973, before the existence of the Oval Office taping system or the existence of tapes is revealed.

As Woodward and Bernstein described it, these two men said Nixon, in defending himself, had “laid time bombs,” with a series of lies. These lies would eventually be revealed as the Ervin Committee went about investigating and hearing testimony from former aides.

Alexander Butterfield, who worked in Nixon’s appointments office before being appointed head of the FAA disclosed the existence of the White House taping system. Immediately, the Senate Watergate Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and special prosecutor Leon Jaworski began demanding tapes.

Nixon and his lawyers fought hard against releasing the tapes. First they released redacted and altered transcripts, which reflected badly on the president who appeared to conspire with John Dean on March 21, 1973, to pay Howard Hunt’s hush money demands. Hoping to appease all parties, the president and his lawyers began releasing tapes a few at a time. But the release of some tapes just created demands for more.

Nixon and his lawyers encountered greater problems when a gap of 18 minutes and 15 seconds was found on one of the tapes. The gap seemed to be the result of two separate erasures. The first lasted approximately four minutes. The second lasted 14 minutes.

Ultimately, Nixon’s personal secretary, stood up to take the blame for the “accidental” erasure. Rosemary Woods claimed that she’d accidently hit the erase/record button when she paused to take a phone call and kept her foot on the dictabelt pedal. When someone demonstrated how the 56 year old Woods would have had to contorted herself, skepticism of Nixon’s veracity increased. The contortion became known as “The Rosemary Stretch.”

Much of the book details the negotiations of the lawyers with the special prosecutor and judge John Sirica over the tapes and testimony. Nixon’s lawyers were in constant legal jeopardy themselves because they would make claims before the grand jury and before judge Sirica based on lies told to them by Nixon.

To Woodward and Bernstein’s credit, they did not hype up or overplay the “drama” of the firing of special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. They described how the lawyers advised Nixon that he had the constitutional power to discharge any member of the executive branch. Nixon deliberated a great deal over this decision before he pulled the trigger. This is much contrary to the drama the media created by dubbing it the “Saturday Night Massacre,” and showing on live television the FBI agents sealing his office.

Nixon and his lawyers did not expect the strong public and congressional rebuke that came after Cox’s firing. That is because they are lawyers, unschooled in the ways of politics. Nixon should have known better. Haig, being a man of military with a clear chain of command, did not anticipate it either. Nixon was ill served by having Haig’s tin ear as his chief advisor.

It’s not stated by the authors, but it’s painfully clear that the Nixon White House chose to fight its primary battle on the legal battlefield. This was a horrible miscalculation because the tapes clearly demonstrated that Nixon had conspired with his aides. Some aides and friends suggested that Nixon make a full disclosure and apologize to the American people (the strategy that worked for Ronald Reagan in Iran/Contra and Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinksy case). Instead, the lawyers fought Nixon’s battle in Judge Sirica’s court.

Sirica is portrayed as an even handed, impartial dispenser of justice in The Final Days. In fact, Sirica routinely overstepped his bounds as a judge. He sentenced the Watergate burglars to many years in prison for a simple breaking and entering, despite the fact that the men had no prior criminal records and years of public service. His goal was to force their testimony against those who had given the orders. That is the prosecutor’s role, not the judge. Sirica was a glory hound, pure and simple.

Al Haig is also held up as a paragon of leadership in difficult final days of the Nixon administration. That is probably because he was the primary source for Woodward and Bernstein’s book. Haig was a leader. That much is true. But he was politically tone deaf. He failed to recognize pitfalls political veterans would have recognized. Watergate was a political matter. While criminal acts were committed, Nixon’s ultimate fate was determined by the politics of the situation.

Woodward and Bernstein routinely portray Nixon as drunk, distracted, and out of touch with reality. This flies in the face of all other published accounts of Nixon’s last days in the White House. Was he distracted? Sure. Watergate consumed Nixon’s time and caused him great distress. But, White House insiders and historian Stephen Ambrose have claimed that Nixon never lost control. He was always the man in charge. Ambrose asserts that Nixon’s drinking did increase during the Watergate battle, but was far from the disconnected drunk depicted by Woodward and Bernstein.

One can look to Al Haig for creating this perception. Haig’s character as a control freak and glory seeker would be publicly displayed many years later in the Reagan White House. Haig probably wanted to show how it was he who stepped up and led the nation while the president wallowed in self pity.

The authors also go out of their way to disparage the Nixon marriage. They claim the couple were distant and detached from each other. They also claim that Pat Nixon was going to divorce Nixon after the failed 1962 campaign for governor of California.

The Nixon marriage has fascinated historians and has been closely examined by scholars, primarily because Nixon gave the appearance of detachment. He did not hold hands with Pat in public. He rarely acknowledged her. Pat exacerbated this problem by appearing aloof from politics. She hated politics and hated being in the spotlight. Many historians have noted how distant the couple appeared, but none went as far as Woodward and Bernstein in saying the couple were completely emotionally detached and on the verge of divorce.

Nixon undid some of this damage in his memoir, In the Arena when he wrote about Pat, her courage, her love of her family, and how much she meant to him in those and other troubled times.

The final portion of the book deals with Nixon’s last struggles to stay in power. After each disclosure of tapes came more and more calls for his resignation, so he emphatically refused to turn over any more of the tapes. Leon Jaworski appealed directly to the Supreme Court to try to force the release of the tapes.

Meanwhile, the White House – actually Nixon himself – discovered a damning piece of evidence in one of the subpoenaed tapes. On June 23, 1972, He and Bob Haldeman sat in the Oval Office and discussed the Watergate break-in. Haldeman told Nixon that acting FBI Director, L. Patrick Gray wanted to work with the White House in containing the investigation, but his agents were finding evidence that was indicating others were involved. Haldeman then proposed a plan, recommended by John Mitchell and approved by John Dean. Nixon would tell CIA Director, Richard Helms, to call Gray and tell him that the break in was a CIA operation and the FBI should back off, lest they expose the operation.

It was a plausible plan. Several of the Watergate burglars were former CIA men with Cuban ties and ties to the aborted Operation Mongoose of the Eisenhower years. The burglary’s mastermind, E. Howard Hunt was an old CIA hand who trained operatives for Mongoose. The problem for both men was, they knew that the burglary was not a CIA operation.

It is very clear from the language on the tape that Nixon and Haldeman had no national security concerns on their mind as they discussed the plan. They wanted to halt the FBI investigation – thus, obstruct justice. Nixon asked Haldeman if John Mitchell knew of the plan. Haldeman told Nixon that Mitchell didn’t know the details, but he knew of the plan.

So on that day, less than a week after the burglary, Nixon sealed his fate. He had worked with Haldeman, Mitchell, and Dean to obstruct justice. The tape also refuted his claim that he had no knowledge of administration involvement in Watergate prior to John Dean’s disclosure of March 21, 1973.

Nixon at first thought the tape was fatal. Then he thought perhaps it could be managed. Others in the administration listened to the tape. The lawyers thought it was fatal. Haig thought it also fatal. Only Nixon’ most ardent supporters within the administration – Ron Ziegler, Pat Buchanan, and Tricia Nixon-Cox, thought that the situation could be managed.

The White House tried a damage control operation. They began alerting the president’s supporters in Congress that a new, damaging disclosure was on its way. They hoped that these men would find a way to salvage the Nixon presidency in the inevitable Senate trial. But nobody saw any hope. As they heard the information revealed, Nixon’s supporters in the House and Senate fell away, one by one.

Vice President Gerald Ford’s people had been secretly meeting with White House officials for more than a month to plan a transition. This was the most delicate political operation in U.S. history with stark constitutional ramifications. Ford had not been elected vice president, having been nominated by Nixon to take over from Spiro Agnew who resigned in his own scandal. Any inference that Ford was planning to take power might taint Ford. Ford feared (justly) that it would look like a coup by an unelected vice president.

Yet, wise men knew that Ford could not just jump in and start leading the nation without some groundwork being laid. Finally, in August, when it became clear that Nixon would have to resign or face impeachment, Jerry Ford began meeting with these men who had been planning the transition. Gerald Ford was finally accepting the reality that he, a congressman from Michigan, was soon going to be president of the United States.

Nixon lost badly in the Supreme Court with the court voting 8-0 (with Nixon appointee Renquist abstaining) demanding that Nixon turn over the tapes. For just a few moments, the White House considered defying the court. But the constitutional ramifications were just too dire. The president was not above the law and would comply. The tapes were turned over.

The June 23rd tape – or Smoking Gun Tape – had just the effect the White House feared. What support Nixon had collapsed. Friends that had supported him found out they’d been duped. His detractors had the sword with which to slay him. It was now not a question as to if the president would resign, but when.

Nixon struggled with the decision, but ultimately decided he could not survive a senate trial. He informed his family that he would resign. The moment of disclosure to his family was captured on film by the White House photographer at Nixon’s request. Nixon then informed Haig who informed the cabinet. Nixon would resign on August 9th. He would make a televised announcement on August 8.

Bob Haldeman, facing multiple felonies in relation to Watergate made an eleventh hour plea for a pardon. Haldeman suggested that Nixon pardon all involved in Watergate and offset the political fallout with a pardon of Vietnam draft dodgers. Perhaps with a sense of morality, or a mind’s eye on his place in history, Nixon refused all pardons – including of himself.

Woodward and Bernstein do a wonderful job of describing those tense moments in the Oval Office as Nixon prepared to announce his resignation. Just minutes before he was scheduled to go on air, he began to tear up. He composed himself and distracted himself by making small talk with the network photographers in the room. Just seconds before air, he put on his game face. When the light went on, he began speaking. “. . .therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in in this office at that time.”

A one sentence letter of resignation, addressed to secretary of state Kissinger was typed and Nixon signed it.

The next day, the Nixon family left the residence and came to the East Room where they bade farewell to the White House staff. There, Nixon spoke extemporaneously in a rambling, but heartfelt speech. He warned his friends and supporters to not hate those who hated them – that that hate would ultimately be their downfall. Apparently Nixon finally got the hard lessons of his own downfall.

The Nixon family was escorted to the Marine One helicopter by President Ford and his wife. Nixon shook Jerry Ford’s hand and said, “Good luck Mr. President.” Betty Ford simply said, “Have a nice trip, Dick.” With that, Nixon turned and gave his trademark V for Victory salute and boarded the plane. The somber new president and first lady walked slowly back to the White House.

The Final Days is an interesting chronicle of the inside workings of the White House during the last battles of Watergate. One wonders how much is entirely accurate because the men who gave their accounts knew they were framing their own places in history. Nixon would tell his story several years later.

That Bob Woodward hates Richard Nixon is undisputed. As the 40th anniversary of the break in approached, the Washington Post ran a story headlined, “Nixon was worse than we thought!” over Bob Woodward’s byline. The story then goes on to quote the Nixon tapes darkest moments.

Nixon was foolish to tape himself. That is certain. But how many of us would want to be defined by our darkest thoughts uttered? Bob Woodward works hard to assure that Nixon is defined in just that way.

Historian Stephen Ambrose sees Nixon much differently. Ambrose was not a Nixon supporter, having never voted for him. Like most of the country, he was outraged at Ford’s pardon of the former president. But Ambrose, like most Americans, has come to weigh Nixon’s achievements against Watergate and finds that there was much to be liked about Richard Nixon. His war on cancer, his efforts on behalf of workers and the environment, and his great international achievements. None of those things mean as much to Bob Woodward as his own aggrandizement. Ambrose was a scholar. Woodward is a reporter. I’ll go with the scholar.

The American Revolution: First Person Accounts by the Men Who Shaped Our Nation

The American Revolution: First Person Accounts by the Men Who Shaped Our Nation
Edited by T.J. Stiles
Copyright 1999

T.J. Stiles delves into the letters, essay, and diary entries of several of America’s founding fathers to ascertain and explain the development, first of the American identity, then the American War for Independence.

Introduction
Stiles opens by explaining how it was not specifically the Stamp Act that spurred Americans to revolt. He cites an oral history of one of the men who volunteered in George Washington’s army. He was untouched by the Stamp Act. He never paid a farthing because of it. Nor was the tea tax of importance to him. He didn’t drink it.

The war to him was about the Americans’ right to govern themselves. They had done so since their arrival in the New Land in 1620. They had defended themselves and expanded their territory by expending their own resources and blood. When the French-Indian War broke out and the British were forced to send troops to America to wage the war, Americans, who’d defended their homeland for more than a century were relegated to a subservient role as British officers took over command.

In the mind of the boy king, George III, the colonists owed Britain for the defense of their territory, thus Parliament passed and King George signed the Stamp Act. Colonists responded with riots and looting of British officials’ homes. When the British tried to stop the Americans from smuggling British goods into the colonies without paying duties, the colonists responded by trashing the customs houses.

Stiles then delves into an analysis of the war itself. It was not a guerilla warfare as is popularly believed. Most often, the colonists lined themselves up against the British in the tradition of the day. Americans employed guerilla tactics sparingly and almost exclusively in the southern theater.

Stiles notes that a comparison between the American Revolution and the Vietnam War is apt. The British were only able to secure major cities. They could not secure the countryside where Washington’s army foraged and lived off the land. While the British could score victories in the countryside, they did not have the manpower to hold the territory. Too vast was the land area and too few were the troops.

It finally dawned on Parliament and King George was forced to agree that the costs of waging war in America had far outweighed any benefit that would have been reaped from taxation. It was this realization and the capture of Cornwallis’ army at Yorktown that led the British to surrender and secure terms for peace.

The Stamp Act
Stiles draws on the writings of two major figures in shaping the philosophy of independence: Samuel Adams and John Adams. They were cousins, but could not have been more different. Sam Adams was a failed businessman, an embezzler, and a failure at all he’d attempted in life except the role of revolutionary. John Adams was a successful lawyer, a man of reason and sanity. They approached the fight against the Stamp Act from different perspectives.

In a letter to an American agent in London, Samuel Adams lays out the philosophical underpinnings of taxation without representation. Noting that Britain had enriched itself through its relationship with its American colonies, it had no right to tax Americans specifically and it had no right to tax it without its interests being represented in Parliament.

In his diary, legendary for its comprehensive detail, John Adams chronicles through second hand accounts the revolts against the Stamp Act and his own discussions with learned men of Massachusetts about the egregious nature of the Stamp Act. Revolution was not on Adams’ mind. He and his aristocratic friends hoped that the Stamp Act might be repealed so that peace and prosperity would be restored.

The Intolerable
The Stamp Act controversy came and went, but continued encroachments upon the sovereignty of the British colonies continued. Britain had already imposed a tax on the colonists’ tea. After an initial protest, they grudgingly paid it. But when a monopoly was granted to the financially ailing, but politically connected East India Company, the colonists revolted in the legendary Boston Tea Party when the Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, dumped tons of tea into Boston Harbor.

The Townshend Acts were a series of laws designed to increase direct influence of the Crown upon her subjects in the American colonies. It imposed duties and tariffs to pay the salaries of governors and judges hired by the British government to rule over the colonies. It forced colonists to quarter British troops in their homes, and created positions within the government to enforce trade regulations which the Americans had routinely skirted.

In a document drafted for the Sons of Liberty by Samuel Adams, we see a man transformed from a petitioner and protestor to an advocate for rebellion. In it, he describes the encroachments upon the liberties on the men of Massachusetts men and says that any man who abets these encroachments is an enemy of the state.

His cousin, John Adams, having defended the British soldiers accused of shooting colonists in the Boston Massacre is also becoming more radicalized as the Crown continues to tax Americans while not providing any representation in Parliament. John Adams’ verbiage is much less incendiary than his older cousin, but in his journal in the days leading up to the Boston Tea Party and the days after, he notes the “republican spirit among the people ,” and notes that they would never submit to tyrants. He applauds this spirit spreading to other colonies as the 13 individual colonies start to identify with a common cause.

This spirit of common cause was fueled by a letter from Samuel Adams entitled, “Letter from the town of Boston to the Colonies.” Adams reports that the laws and regulations for the town of Boston and the colony of Massachusetts have been changed by, “edict” of the Crown and that British General Thomas Gage has arrived in the city to take control of the rowdy Bostonians.

Stiles notes that these were startling acts to the people of Boston. When word reached the other colonies, they could not help but wonder what was in store for them. The tension continues to mount as the colonists try to reassert their former independence and King George and Parliament try to reign them in.

The Arguments
Stiles documents the meeting of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774 in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton – then a student at Kings College (which would become Columbia). In direct response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament enacted a series of laws aimed at restricting the colonies’ independence. These became known as the Intolerable Acts.

Boston Harbor was closed until the East India Company was compensated for the destroyed tea. A military government was established in Massachusetts. British officials were allowed to move the trial of any British officials brought before a Massachusetts court out of the colony, ostensibly to assure that they received a fair trial. The Quartering Acts required Massachusetts to provide suitable lodgings for troops.

From Adam’s prodigious journal, Stiles excerpts Adams’ travel notes as he journeys from Braintree, Mass. to Philadelphia, meeting with fellow delegates along the way to ascertain their opinions. Another section of his journal serves as meeting minutes where Adams notes that 12 of the 13 individual colonies have coalesced into a single entity with a single purpose, rallying around Massachusetts. Georgia sat out the debate.

Adams also observes the debate about voting and the how votes are weighed. The larger colonies of course want their votes to carry more weight. Smaller colonies want an equal say. This is the first debate that would be formative in the creation of the national bicameral legislature.

In The Summary View of the Rights of British North America, Jefferson eloquently lays out the colonies’ grievances against the crown. The colonies want to be left to manage their own affairs to their own benefit and to the benefit of the mother land. While not calling King George a tyrant, he compares the Intolerable Acts to tyranny. Jefferson makes clear the colonists are loyal British subjects who only want the redress of their grievances and the right of self governance under the Crown. The cry for independence would come later.

Alexander Hamilton was engaged in a rhetorical duel with an Anglican Priest, Thomas Seabury, over the colonists’ rights to form a Republican body to seek redress of their grievances and the legitimacy of those grievances. Hamilton, not as eloquent, but more succinct than Jefferson, lays out that justification in his pamphlet, Full Vindication. He makes the case that men are slaves unless they are ruled by others by their own consent. He argues that when men are governed without their consent, their only course is to seek redress from the government for their complaints.

To Arms
The pleas so eloquently expressed by Thomas Jefferson were met with scorn in Britain. King George and Lord North regarded the Continental Congress to be an illegal assembly that was a threat to British rule in the New World. As a result, military control of Massachusetts – specifically Boston – was tightened.

Many colonists now believed that while all it might not yet come to full blow revolt, armed resistance might be necessary. They began to stockpile weapons in Concord, Mass. Hearing of this, General Thomas Gage dispatched his troops to travel by water across Charlestown Bay to seize the weapons.

In a letter to Arthur Lee, Sam Adams dubs the men of Massachusetts ready to take up arms in defense of their state as Minute Men. He tells Lee that at the moment when military government was established in Massachusetts, their began a state of hostility between the colonies and Great Britain.

In discussing Adams’ letter to Lee, Stiles points out that American history has tended to romanticize these Minute Men as ragtag farmers and tradesmen who came together to defend their country. This is not entirely true. Many – if not most – of these men had military experience, knew military drill, and had been under fire by a hostile enemy. Gallant they were, but they were not the untrained citizen militia that we have come to believe they were.

In an essay called, Mission to Concord, British Ensign Jeremy Lister recalls the battles of those fateful first days of the American Revolution. At first, all went as planned. As history notes so well, Paul Revere did alert his countrymen to the arrival of the British. He also advised the British that armed insurrection would meet them as they neared Concord (as Sarah Palin correctly noted, much to the derision of the press). While the day started out well for the British, the first day of the war ended in near disaster.

Lister was part of that group that squared off against the British troops when they arrived in Lexington, Mass., on their way to Concord. History has often noted that no one knows who fired “The Shot Heard Round the World,” and Lister does not hazard a guess. He notes that shortly after the skirmish started, the Colonials turned tale and ran. While 27 of their number laid dead or wounded on the ground, just one British soldier was wounded.

When they arrived at Concord, they found they were outnumbered. The British soldiers under the command of Lister retreated at the sight of Colonials advancing as if to attack. While the British managed to destroy some of the weapons at Concord, they didn’t get to finish the job and made a hasty retreat from Concord, back toward Lexington.

They met resistance at the Concord Bridge and the two armies squared off. Four British soldiers were killed before they retreated. At the North Bridge, snipers laid in wait for them and started picking them off. From there, they returned their ship and crossed the bay back to Boston.

Stiles notes that another popular misconception of the Revolutionary War is that Americans routinely employed guerilla tactics to defeat the British. They did use snipers from time to time, but in every major engagement of the war, the armies met on the field in the tradition ranks. That popular misconception comes from the skirmish at the North Bridge.

General Gage sent dispatches to William Legge, British Secretary of the Colonies may have also contributed to this misconception. In his first dispatch, he tells Legge that “for the space of 15 miles, receiving fire from every hill, fence, house, barn, etc.,” were his troops. He tells the secretary that the citizenry is armed “with surprising expedition,” and planning an attack on Boston.

Three weeks after his April 22 dispatch, Gage’s alarm grows. He tells Legge that arms and men are flowing into the area from Connecticut and New Hampshire. Artillery is being massed around Boston and the civilians of Boston are fleeing into the countryside. Gage no longer took the Colonists’ resistance lightly. He was frightened.

Meanwhile in New Hampshire (in the part that is now Vermont), one member of that first continental congress was preparing an action of his own. Ethan Allen, a bellicose, but well read gentleman, assembled a legion of like minded men and prepared his own offensive. His plan was to take Fort Ticonderoga along the banks of Lake Champlain.

Allen notes that the entire fort fell with nary a shot fired. The lone sentry on duty aimed and fired at Allen’s men, but his gun misfired. He was captured and Allen’s men stormed the fort. They entered the barracks, captured the troops and the commander of the fort. Fort Ticonderoga and its cache of arms now belong to the colonists.

Stiles says the strategic location of Fort Ticonderoga, which along Lake Champlain controlled a bottleneck near the Hudson River which the British could use to transport troops into the country from Canada. But, he says, of greater importance were the canons and arms captured by Allen (and Benedict Arnold) which would be put to good use by Allen’s men and the Continental Army.

An Army, a Country
Through the writings of John Adams and British General Thomas Gage, Stiles documents the opening days of the Revolutionary War.

When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in spring of 1775, they were faced with a task that they had not expected. At the closing of the first congress, they decided to hold a second to respond to whatever response it was they received from King George to their grievances. Now, it was clear that they were going to lead a war of rebellion. That meant selecting a general, finding funding and equipment, and providing an army.

John Adams describes those deliberations in detail. Often, when people describe the discussion of our Founding Fathers, they act as if the men were of one mind. They were not. The debates and petty jealousies were heated. John Hancock longed to be named commander of the continental army. The delegates opted for George Washington. Hancock would later emerge in the dark days of the war as a Washington detractor. Adams does not deify his colleagues. He describes in detail (and as Stiles points out, with some of his own petty jealousies born of political events at the time of his writing) the squabbles and fights that occurred within those deliberations.

In his narrative, Stiles describes in great detail how the continentals constructed the redoubt on Breed’s Hill overlooking Charlestown. Gage wanted to clear the continentals of that high ground and landed his troops who mounted an all out assault. The fighting was bitter and hard in the fight that was dubbed the Battle of Bunker Hill. The continentals were eventually forced to abandon the redoubt because they were running low on ammunition. But before their departure, they exacted an heavy toll of casualties on the British and struck a hard blow at British morale.

General Gage reported to his bosses that the Americans were not disorganized, were not cowards who would run at the intimidating site of the Redcoats, and would fight hard for their country. Unfortunately for the British, his superiors, particularly the newly arrived “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne did not take him seriously. They attributed the British failures at Concord and at Breed’s Hill (if any victory can be counted as a failure) to Gage’s inept leadership.

Indepenence
It was clear to most that the colonies will not be able to pursue reconciliation with Great Britain and many argue that it would not be to their advantage. In showing the rush to embrace independence, Stiles excerpts letters from Samuel Adams to a friend, arguing that the colonies are independent because they can’t be dependent or allied with nation’s with whom they are at war.

In Common Sense, the radical and verbose Thomas Paine argues that America is better off without the monarchy for her enemies are not the enemies of America. America’s goods will sell just as well in other nations as they do in Great Britain, and that, should they reconcile, the colonies will always remain a junior member of the British empire, entirely dependent on the motherland for commerce and defense.

The last document excerpted is the Declaration of Independence. Stiles talks of how John Adams nominated the eloquent Thomas Jefferson to draft it, noting the success of his earlier writings. He describes how Jefferson deftly explains the colonies rationale behind seeking independence and then enumerates their grudges against the motherland. What is striking is the fact that, despite undergoing the tedious process of group editing by the congress, what emerged is a pointed document that is clear in its explanation and does not exaggerate the sins of the king against her subjects in America.

To the Brink
Those initial victories were quite a morale boost for the Continental Army, but soon the war would go completely awry and force George Washington to exercise leadership like few had done before or have since.

Stiles covers the battle for New York and how it all went wrong for the Continentals. He excerpts letters from George Washington to his brother and to the leadership of the Continental Congress describing how the attack on the British moving into New York was thwarted in Brooklyn Heights and the retreat to Harlem Heights. In these letters, Washington admits that his men were outfought in Brooklyn, but he expounds upon the “victory” at Harlem Heights. As Stiles points out, it was a victory, but only against some advance forces who’d ventured a little too far ahead of the army and found themselves outnumbered.

Losing the harbor in New York was a monumental defeat. Eventually, Washington and his army would retreat from New York to Pennsylvania where the British expected them to wait out the winter. They were demoralized and thoroughly defeated. In the midst of this dispirited atmosphere, writer and orator Thomas Paine penned The Crisis which opens with that great line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” It served to remind the Continentals why they were fighting and the glorious cause they were fighting for.

George Washington responded to defeat like all great leaders: he did something the enemy did not expect. The British, now in control of New York, landed thousands of ground troops, including the hated Hessians who were mercenary fighters. These Hessians were stationed in Trenton, NJ and were celebrating Christmas when Washington made his move.

No feat of the Revolutionary War is so storied as Washington’s army crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey. Through the night and wee hours of the morning, Washington and his troops rowed their boats across the ice choked river in the bitter cold. Washington landed his army on the New Jersey shore just after dawn – later than he’d hoped. His reasoning was the Hessians would still be asleep after their holiday revelry. His reasoning was sound.

After finding and silencing the lone sentry on duty, Washington’s men attacked the confused Hessians. It was a rout. Washington’s men captured, killed, or wounded more than 1,000 Hessian troops. General Washington wrote another letter to Congress, this one told of a real victory, of real valor, and of a major tactical victory. Not only was this victory important for morale, it served to silence Washington’s critics in Philadelphia and within his own ranks.

Philadelphia
Driven out of Boston, the British were not going to stay thwarted for long. Even with conflicting strategies being carried out by two highly independent generals, the British planned to take control of the major cities in the northern colonies. While Gen. Burgoyne waged war in upstate New York, Gen. William Howe decided to take the colonial capital of Philadelphia.

Marching his troops from Maryland, Howe encountered Washington’s army at Brandywine Creek. There, according to Stiles, Washington experienced his worst and most humiliating defeat. His army was spread too thin, trying to protect points along the creek where Howe and his army could ford. Just as they had at Brooklyn Heights, the British flanked Washington’s army and forced him into a humiliating retreat that ceded the creek to the British.

Stiles presents another chapter of Thomas Paine’s The Crisis to show the colonists’ reaction to their defeat. Paine was a propagandist, but he did not try to find a victory in what was a clear defeat. Instead, he tried to maintain the morale of his fellow soldiers and countrymen by pointing out that the Continental Army has but one enemy to defeat: Howe’s army. General Howe has an entire country of patriots to defeat. The odds, Paine concludes, dictate an eventual continental victory.

In his diary, John Adams is not so sure of the Continental Army, finding them to be a less than imposing military force. He discusses his night flight from Philadelphia as the Continental Congress evacuated from that city with the British en route.

Stiles returns to Paine who taunts Gen. Howe after Washington’s counter strike at the British in Germantown, PA. The Germantown battle was inconclusive, but put the British on notice that the Continentals would not stop to lick their wounds. They would press the cause. In this issue of The Crisis, Paine’s pointed remarks are directed at Gen. Howe, calling him passive and accused him of hiding among women and children. Paine knew these were not words that would be taken lightly by a man of Gen. Howe’s standing in British society.

Paine also lays out an encouraging message for his countrymen. The fall of Philadelphia is not of strategic importance, Paine claims. Howe has positioned himself badly, for “if he retreats from Philadelphia, he will be despised; if he stays he will be shut up and starved out.” As Paine saw it, Howe had to choose between to unpleasant courses of action.

For all his bluster of propaganda, Paine had a keen mind for analyzing the geopolitics of the war occurring in his country.

Saratoga
Stiles illustrates the early successes and ultimate failure of Gen. John Burgoyne’s campaign against the Continental Army in New York in 1777 through dispatches from Burgoyne himself and through letters written by Lt. Thomas Anbury of the British Army.

The campaign (which was in no way coordinated with Howe’s campaign in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, started out as an early success. Fort Ticonderoga fell with hardly a shot fired. Burgoyne reveled in his success and Lt. Anbury expressed his marvel at the fighting prowess of the Native American population.

As the Americans retreated further from the shores of Lake Champlain and into the interior, things started going badly for the British. The Indians, eager for action, slaughtered a family on their farm in upstate New York, rousing patriots and offending Tories who might have helped the army. There was also the “friction” as Stiles termed it that slowed the British Army. They carried too many supplies and brought along too many ancillary people such as wives, mistresses, and servants to move effectively through the wilderness.

Gen. Philip Schuyler and Gen. Arnold did not make it easy for the British to move. As they retreated, they destroyed bridges and infrastructure. They destroyed supplies that they could not carry so the British could not live off the spoils. Burgoyne’s failure in New York in 1777 was very much about the common war of attrition.

In the interior, the Minutemen made their presence felt again. As Burgoyne put it, they seemed to appear and disappear into the soil, picking at the slow moving British. Roused by the slaughter of civilians, the presence of Indians in their territory, and the Patriot cause, American militia bedeviled Burgoyne on his way to Ford Edward. They held off the British siege at Fort Stanwix and bedeviled the British troops who held Fort Ticonderoga.

Burgoyne pushed south toward Saratoga, hoping to take Albany before winter. In September 1777, the Battle of Saratoga started on Freeman’s Farm, an open field near Saratoga. Burgoyne eventually took the field and advanced toward Saratoga, but at a great cost of arms and men.

As Burgoyne kept up the push to take Saratoga, Asburey made a journal entry entitled, In the Redoubts. Asburey was positioned in one of the fortified British positions in the right side of Burgoyne’s three pronged assault on Saratoga. Asburey could sense that the tides had turned and the British were going to fail to take the city. He described the parade of wounded and dead that made their way from the field of battle to the safety of the redoubts and the demoralizing effect it had on the troops there.

Eventually, Burgoyne’s forces and supplies were exhausted. He was forced to leave the field for the safety of his fortifications. American sharpshooters made it their goal to pick off British officers (a practice the British regarded as entirely uncivilized), creating a major leadership vacuum in Burgoyne’s army. He was outnumbered due to heavy casualties. Eventually, he surrendered his entire force to Continental Gen. Horatio Gates at Saratoga. After the defeat, Burgoyne was recalled to Britain and never commanded again.

Stiles does not document it in primary resources, but he does discuss the friction between Gen. Benedict Arnold, who deserves most, if not all the credit for the American success at Saratoga – particularly at Freeman Farm. Arnold chafed under the command of Gates. Arnold was daring and wanted to press the attack on the British. Gates was more cautious. He wanted to mount a strong defense of Saratoga from fortified positions.

History shows it was Arnold’s leadership that carried the victory at Saratoga. Yet, Gates claimed all the credit for the victory in his dispatch to Congress. Gates was a rival of George Washington and was waiting in the wings to take command of the Continental Army with Washington’s next failure. Arnold was an ally of George Washington. It was in this rivalry that the seeds of Arnold’s betrayal of the American cause were sown.

War Comes to the South
According to Stiles, British General Henry Clinton decided to undertake a campaign in the American south because he had no other option for victory. The British’s effort in New York met with failure. His troops in New England were constantly harassed and could make little headway – especially with the brutal winter. Clinton decided to move into the Carolinas where he hoped to tap into what he thought was a large contingent of loyal Tories who would support his army.

He documents the initial British effort in the south to take Charleston, SC, which was a successful siege that resulted in the fall of the port city. Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton led that effort. He wrote his memoirs of the war and Stiles excerpts them and we see the war in the South which started out so successfully, fall to pieces for the British.

Tarleton was a cavalry man. The Continentals had not fought cavalry and were easily defeated by Tarleton’s mounted troops. However, those troops would make a grave error that would rouse the local population to new levels of hatred of the British.

Tarleton says that his mount was shot out from under him during the charge. He fell while his troops advanced. When they had defeated the continentals, the British troops mistakenly believed that the Continentals had killed their glorious leader. In retaliation, they executed approximately 100 POWs. In response, local militias picked at the British Army as they continued to advance.

Tarleton moved his troops north from the vanquished South Carolina into North Carolina. There, his troops easily defeating the Continentals at Camden under the inept field leadership of Horatio Gates. According to Stiles, this was the point when the Continental Congress determined that Gates was not the great field commander he made himself to be.

Stiles wraps up his excerpts from Tarleton’s memoirs by concluding that Gates was thoroughly discredited while British General Lord Charles Cornwallis reveled in the triumph of his subordinate Tarleton. Cornwallis believed the southern colonies were now permanently vanquished.

Greene’s War
Stiles uses the memoirs of Gen. Henry Lee and Tarleton to document the battles that took place in North Carolina following Cornwallis’ early victories. Lee provides blow by blow, movement by movement accounts of the Battle of Cowpens, King’s Mountain, and Guilford Court House which make for tedious reading.

The turning point for the continentals was at Cowpens. At that point, Cornwallis still outnumbered Gen. Nathaniel Greene’s forces. However, a brilliant ploy of faking a retreat and drawing the British into heavy fire cost the British dearly. Reinforced, Greene had the advantage of numbers at Guiford Court House and slaughtered many of the British troops before leaving the field.

Stiles points out that history records these battles as defeats for the Continental Army because they fled from the field. But Greene was simply employing Washington’s strategy of attrition. Greene had to preserve his army and his men while slowing the British advance and draw them forward. There stretched supply lines were easy picking for militia snipers and these Minutemen of the south made Cornwallis’ life miserable. Greene may have lost all the battles, but he won the war by simply killing more British soldiers than he lost among his own men. After brutalizing Cornwallis in North Carolina, Greene’s army headed north into Virginia. On his way was Gen. Washington’s army as they headed for the conclusive battle at Yorktown.

Tactical maps as visual aids would have been helpful in understanding this chapter better. Lee and Tarleton use many landmarks as reference points and it would have helped to have some sort of reference points to work with to better understand the tactics they employed.

Yorktown
It was at Yorktown that the decisive battle (actually, more of a siege) was fought. Stiles shows how the British generals in charge, Clinton and Cornwallis, could not agree or coordinate any sort of strategy to conquer the American south.

Through various documents produced by the two generals, we see each trying to absolve themselves of blame for the failure. Clinton could not understand why Cornwallis fled north after winning “victories” at Guilford Court House and Cowpens. Cornwallis was angry that Clinton had provided no support for his army who won the field in those two battles, but saw their numbers decimated.

Cornwallis fled from North Carolina to Yorktown, hoping the British fleet there would provide him support. Unfortunately, the fleet at Yorktown was not as strong as Cornwallis had hoped and what fleet was there was poorly led in battle.

Meanwhile, Continental generals Greene and Washington experienced a stroke of good luck. The French agreed to sail their fleet north toward Yorktown and keep it there for a limited time. Stiles provides a letter from Washington detailing how he planned to move his army south, quickly, while maintaining supply lines. He begged the French for just two more weeks to allow him to get there to reinforce Greene and capture Cornwallis’ army. The French granted the extension.

Captain James Duncan of the Continental Army provides a daily account of the siege of Yorktown where the British made a last stand. Duncan’s diary reveals that, for a last stand, very little fighting actually occurred on land. The battle was decided at sea where the French navy was simply better coordinated than the British navy which had commanded the seas for generations.

Victory
Stiles concludes his exploration of the American Revolution through primary documents by excerpting the journal of John Adams as the colonial delegates in Paris hammered out a peace accord with the British.

The primary issues were fishing rights off of Nova Scotia (valued by the Americans), the property rights of British loyalists living in America, and of course, territorial boundaries.

The Americans won on the issue of territorial boundaries. They acknowledged Spain’s claim to West Florida (now the state of Florida) and won navigation rights on the Mississippi River. The French got Canada.

Even before the Constitution, the republican principles of American governance shown as Benjamin Franklin, Adams, and the other American delegates refused to acknowledge the rights of property for Tories. That, they stated, would be left to the individual states to decide. The Continental Congress could not bargain away that right.

Stiles also includes Washington’s Farewell Address to his troops. It reveals that Washington was not romantic about war (most military men are not). He thanks God for his providence in bringing his army through the war to victory and acknowledges the help of his generals and other subordinates. Not a man of flowery prose was George Washington.

Stiles’ book relies too heavily on two few resources. Granted, John Adams was a prolific writer and chronicler of daily events. His journal provides invaluable insight into the political struggle to bring about independence. But others perceived events differently than Adams and John Adams was a man known to sometimes have a singular perception of events. Certainly other sources such as letters of participants in the first and second continental congresses could have been drawn upon to illustrate the debates within those legendary bodies.

The documenting of troop movements in the south was dry and boring. Letters from soldiers, both British and American, that described battles from the perspective of the grunt, or camp life, or some human aspect of the war would have better served Stiles.