An impressive work on several levels.  It's an excellent history of Washington's first year as commander of the Continental army.  It also provides insights into the conduct of the war and the morale that provided the ultimate success.  Along the way, Fischer shows much of what we 'know' about this period is incorrect.  Amazing at this point that there can be so much new information available [The diaries of Hessian Colonel Eward, e.g., only became available in English in 1979]

The early chapters are devoted to Washington's challenge in bringing a true motley crew of independent regiments together as a continental army.  He describes vastly different concepts of such basic values as liberty: 

One backcountry company came from Culpeper County, in western Virginia on the east slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They called themselves the Culpeper Minutemen and mustered three hundred men with bucktails in their hats and tomahawks or scalp­ing knives in their belts…

Part of their "savage-looking equipments" may have been their flag. A sketch of it by a historian in the mid-nineteenth century shows the dark image of a timber rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike, and the words "Don't Tread on Me." The same symbol was adopted at the same time by the backcountry militia of Westmoreland County in Pennsylvania and by other western units. Here was another idea of liberty, different from the collective consciousness of New En­gland towns, and the liberty-as-hierarchy among the Fairfax men, and liberty for Americans among the Marblehead mariners. The backsettlers spoke of liberty in the first person singular: "Don't Tread on Me."

When the backcountry regiments joined the Continental army outside Boston, they made much trouble for George Washington. He wrote that "some of them especially from Pennsylvania, know no more of a Rifle than my horse." They were difficult men to lead. The social attitudes of a Fairfax gentleman did not sit well with them, and they were utterly defiant of discipline and order. Washington grew angry with them that he ordered some to be tried for mutiny and threat­ened them with capital punishment. The backcountrymen responded by coming close to a full-blown insurrection."

Their manner that was true to the founding principles of Pennsylvania and to an idea of liberty that was inscribed on the Great Quaker Bell of Liberty in 1751. It bore a verse from Leviticus: "Proclaim Liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." This was an idea of liberty as reciprocal rights that belonged to all the people, a thought very different from the exclusive rights of New England towns, or the hierarchical rights of Virginia, or the individual au­tonomy of the backsettlers. George Washington was dubious about the Associators. Their version of liberty was more radical in thought and act than any other unit's in the army. But these men were de­voted to the American cause and willing to fight in its defense. Later they would prove themselves to be excellent troops, and they would playa major part in campaigns that followed.

A historiography at the back of the book is a standalone essay on the process of historical description and analysis, showing how over 200 years of study have processed historical fact to produce narrative with varying intentions.

A perhaps unintended effect is Fischer's description of William Howe's campaign to pacify the colonies, focusing on bringing New Jersey back into the British fold.  His descriptions of the local insurgencies that opposed Howe are eerily familiar to today's dispatches from Iraq. The actual offenses are different, but the refusal of officers to stop outrages, sparks an insurgency: 

gathered by county justices and clergymen such as Alexander McWhorter in Newark and John Witherspoon at Princeton. They documented an epidemic of rape in New Jersey by British soldiers: "Three women were most horribly ravished by them, one of them an old woman nearly seventy years of age, whom they abused in a manner beyond description, another of them was a woman consid­erably advanced in her pregnancy, and the third was a young girl." Others described gang rapes not only by private soldiers but by officers: "British officers, four or five, sometimes more, sometimes less in a gang, went about the town by night entering into houses and openly inquiring for women."

Americans were shocked by the number of cases, by their scale,and by the involvement of British officers. The Pennsylvania Coun­cil of Safety reported another such an incident near Woodbridge, New Jersey: A "gentleman in that part of the country was alarmed by the cries and shrieks of a most lovely daughter; he found an officer, a British officer in the act of ravishing her, he instantly put him to death; two other officers rushed in with their fusees, and fired two balls into the father," who was severely wounded.

 Howe insisted that these reports were nothing but Ameri­can propaganda, and that" one case only as reported to him and that in this instance the victim refused to prosecute." Junior officers in his army knew better. Captain John Peebles, commander of a grena­dier company of the Royal Highland Regiment, wrote sadly in his diary on Christmas Eve 1776, "In orders a man condemned to suffer death for a Rape, but pardon'd at the intercession of the injured party;

the second instance, tho' there have been other shocking abuses of that nature that have not come to public notice. The story of the poor old man and his daughter in Long Island was very bad indeed, hard is the fate of many who suffer indiscriminately in a civil war. "

The continuing occupation, with insufficent troops to complete its mission, then feeds further action on both sides:

As acts of violence by occupying troops increased, the people of New Jersey took up their weapons and began to fight back. Small bands of armed men ambushed mounted British couriers on the road. They killed a British officer and his servant, attacked foraging parties in the countryside, and shot at Hessian sentries. Captain Friedrich von Miinchausen wrote on December 14,1776, "It is now very unsafe for us to travel in Jersey. The rascal peasants meet our men alone or in small unarmed groups. They have their rifles hid­den in the bushes, or ditches, and the like. When they believe they are sure of success and they see one or several men belonging to our army, they shoot them in the head, then quickly hide their rifles and pretend they know nothing." 

Others shared Mott's experience. The result was a spontaneous rising of the Hunterdon men. Mott himself recruited men who were ready to take up arms against the British and Hessians. Other lead­ers did the same. Colonel David Chambers of the Hunterdon mili­tia led a band in Amwell Township east of Coryell's Ferry. These men did not go into the town of Trenton or attack its outposts, but when Hessian Jagers or British dragoons or small foraging parties left the town and went up the Delaware Valley along the River Road, or northwest toward Flemington and Lambertville, or north toward Princeton, the Jerseymen attacked. Colonel RaIl began to lose men every day, and the strength of the militia increased. On December 16, Colonel Chambers sent prisoners across the river to George Washington: two Regulars, and one "Malitious Active Tory" who had "assembled and spirited the negroes against us." On December 17, a patrol of British dragoons went upriver toward Pennington and McConkey's Ferry. They were intercepted by the Hunterdon men, and one dragoon was" deadly wounded." On December 18, another dragoon was killed on the road to Maidenhead by a party that was reported to be more than a hundred strong. On December 19, three grenadiers in the Lossberg regiment were captured while out forag­ing. On December 20, RaIl sent a patrol of Jagers and dragoons four miles upriver to Howell's Ferry, where they met 150 Hunterdon men commanded by Captain John Anderson; the Americans came off second best and lost three or four men.22

The Jerseymen forced RaIl to send dispatches to Princeton with an escort of a hundred men, which some British commanders thought absurd. But the growing scale of attacks by the Hunterdon militia supported his judgment. RaIl was rapidly losing control of the countryside, even to the outskirts of Trenton. He could not pa­rol up the river even to Howell's Ferry, four miles upstream, without losing men. McConkey's Ferry ten miles distant was beyond his reach. The Hessian commander could identify the American leaders by name, and he could defeat the Hunterdon militia in a stand­up fight, but he could not stop them from striking again and again, and vanishing into country that they knew so well. In all of this the Jersey men went far beyond instructions from Washington. This Hunterdon Rising was an autonomous event, by angry men against a hated oppressor. 

While Philemon Dickinson and the Hunterdon men were taking control of the countryside upriver from Trenton, another American officer began to attack from a different direction. ...Grenadier Reuber called the raiders with darkened faces "black Negroes and yellow dogs." He added, "We had to watch out. . . . They crossed the Delaware to our side, set some houses on fire, and then retreated. Again everything was quiet. . . but we had to watch out. "

The American rebels kept up constant pressure on the isolated Hessian garrison. The description of the constant stress on the troops could be taken directly from reports of US Marines in Iraq: 

“The Hessian garrison suffered few casualties in these repeated raids from the river, but they lost sleep and confidence and their morale was badly shaken. Rumors of impending attacks multiplied. On December 20 or 21, Reuber remembered that "the inhabitants of the town circulated a rumor that the rebels wanted to surprise us. We did not have any idea of such a thing, and thought the rebels were unable to do so." But their colonel took no chances. Reuber wrote, "Early in the morning Commander Rall selected a strong force from his brigade, also a cannon, and we must march in two divisions, along the Delaware, to see about the Americans attempt­ing to cross the Delaware for an aggression. There was no sign of it, and we marched to near Frankfort, which was situated on the other side of the Delaware.. There we could see Americans. Rall stopped us and we joined with the other divisions and returned to Trenton. All was quiet again. " 

 “… He explained to Donop, "I have not made any redoubts or any kind of fortifications because I have the enemy in all directions." For security the guns were kept in the center of town. Reuber wrote that every soldier was ordered to sleep "fully dressed like he was on watch. The officers and sergeants must enforce this order." 

Even the desperate but unanswered calls from commanders on the ground sound eerily like the pleas for more troops in Iraq that were ignored by Rumsfeld et al: 

“Rall called for help. He sent many messages asking for assis­tance from Donop below Bordentown, General Leslie in Princeton, and Major General Grant at Brunswick. Rall reported that his Tren­ton garrison was exhausted, the town was indefensible, and attacks were increasing. Only one senior officer took Rall's worries very seri­ously: In Princeton, Alexander Leslie, an excellent officer, moved quickly. As early as December 18 he wrote to Rall, "I've ordered the first Light Infantry to be at Trenton tomorrow at 10 o'clock and I take the 2d Light Infantry and 300 Men of the 2d brigade to Maidenhead to be in the way if needed. "31 Leslie also sent troops on December 21. Reuber recalled, "Saturday afternoon before Christmas came three English regiments from Princeton to Trenton for reinforcement and when they came to town and Major Rall settled them, they were or­dered to turn around and march back to Princeton. "

Fischer ably brings the narrative to a close: 

In the winter campaign of 1776-77, Washington and the Continental army found a solution that had many elements. Part of it was flexibility and opportunism in high degree. Throughout the Revolution George Washington's strategic purposes were constant: to win independence by maintaining American resolve to continue the war, by preserving an American army in being, and by raising the cost of the war to the enemy. Washington was always fixed on these strategic ends but flexible in operational means. No single label describes his military operations, though many have been suggested. The diversity of operations in the winter campaign was the first clear example of a style that persisted through the war. He was quick to modify his plans with changing circumstances and adapted more easily than his opponents. Washington was a man of steadfast principle but also a military opportunist. Many American leaders would follow that example: Greene and Morgan, Lee and Jackson, Grant and Sherman, Eisenhower and Bradley, Nimitz and Patton, Schwarzkopf and Franks.     

Another element in this American approach to war-fightingw_a new way of controlling initiative and tempo in war. After many defeats around New York, American leaders learned the urgent importance of seizing the initiative and holding it. George Washington and his lieutenants did more than merely surprise the Hessian garrison at Trenton on the morning after Christmas. They improvised a series of surprises through a period of twelve weeks By that method they seized the initiative from their opponents ant kept it in their hands for that period. Washington made it a formal principle in the army, when he ordered his generals to drive the campaign and not "be drove."

Initiative was largely about the control of time in campaigning. English historian George Otto Trevelyan wrote that George Wash. ington succeeded at Trenton and Princeton because he "caught the occasion by the forelock."9 In New Jersey, American leaders learned to make time itself into a weapon. They did it by controlling the tempo and rhythm of the campaign. Day after day through the win­ter campaign, the Americans called the tune and set the beat. By that method, they retained the initiative for many weeks and kept British commanders off balance. The material and moral impact was very great, especially when a small force was able to control the tempo of war against a stronger enemy. Events happened at a time and place of their choosing. From all this another American tradi­tion developed. It appeared in the Civil War, in both theaters in World War II, and in discussions of tempo by Pentagon,planners in _ the twenty-first century.  

The central figure was George Washington himself. In the winter campaign of 1776-77, he developed a system of intelligence that became part of his new way of war. Washington personally re­cruited secret agents, with orders to report to him alone, and em­ployed Nathaniel Sackett, of the New York Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies, to construct an entire network in New York with agents male and female, of every rank and station. It is impossible to know the full extent of Washington's intelligence op­erations, for he cloaked them in secrecy, but beyond doubt he was very active in this work.

Washington also asked Continental generals and militia com­manders to gather their own intelligence, and even to run their own agents. Many did so, and civilian leaders such as Robert Morris also maintained their own sources. Washington encouraged some degree of separation between these networks for tighter security and broader sources, but he insisted that his officers report promptly what they learned. His attitudes toward intelligence-gathering were different from those of leaders in closed societies, who sought to monopolize intelligence and prohibited efforts they did not con­trol. Washington was comfortable with an open system, in which others were not only permitted but actively encouraged to have a high degree of autonomy. This free and open system of informa­tion-gathering engaged the efforts of many people, produced mul­tiple sources, and got better results than closed systems. It was another reason why free societies often have more effective intelli­gence systems than closed societies. 

All of these elements came together in the winter campaign of 1776-77: boldness and prudence, flexibility and opportunism, ini­tiative and tempo, speed and concentration, force multipliers, and intelligence. They defined a new way of war that would continue to appear through the Revolution and in many American wars.

Of special interest are the over 40 pages of appendices with detailed orders of battle, weather records, and other information that will be of use to military modelers and gamers.

Finally, unlike so many histories, the maps are excellent - specifically designed to illuminate the text.