| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 132.2

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| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 132.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Reviews

The Philadelphia Campaign. Vol. 2, Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge. By Thomas J. McGuire. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2007. x, 392 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.)

Thomas J. McGuire has completed his impressive examination of Washington's army and the 1777 Philadelphia campaign with his second volume, Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge. McGuire resumes his narrative with the British capture of Philadelphia in September and traces Washington's and Howe's army movements and their decision-making processes throughout the closing months of the year. Utilizing extensive collections of contemporary sources, he argues that despite suffering hard-fought defeats at Germantown and along the Delaware River, the Continental army experienced a rejuvenation of morale and spirit, which buoyed the men's hopes throughout their encampment at Valley Forge and taught them valuable lessons of war. Many Continental soldiers, for example, now recognized the plausibility, if not possibility, of offensive military success and became aware of the militia's inadequacies. Thus, the author insists, the origins of the more professional army that emerged in the spring of 1778 lay not in the harsh winter along the Schuylkill but with the hasty evacuation of the colonial capital.

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