Conquered into Liberty

Two Centuries of Battles along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War

Eliot A. Cohen

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2011
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451627336
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

Americans often think of the Civil War as the conflict that consolidated the United States, including its military values and practices. But there was another, earlier, and more protracted struggle between “North” and “South,” beginning in the 1600s and lasting for more than two centuries, that shaped American geopolitics and military culture. Here, Eliot A. Cohen explains how the American way of war emerged from a lengthy struggle with an unlikely enemy: Canada.

In Conquered into Liberty, Cohen describes how five peoples—the British, French, Americans, Canadians, and Indians—fought over the key to the North American continent: the corridor running from Albany to Montreal dominated by the Champlain valley and known to Native Americans as the “Great Warpath.” He reveals how conflict along these two hundred miles of lake, river, and woodland shaped the country’s military values, practices, and institutions.

Through a vivid narration of a series of fights— woodland skirmishes and massacres, bloody frontal assaults and fleet actions, rear-guard battles and shadowy covert actions—Cohen explores how a distinctively American approach to war developed along the Great Warpath. He weaves together tactics and strategy, battle narratives, and statecraft, introducing readers to such fascinating but little-known figures as Justus Sherwood, loyalist spy; Jeduthan Baldwin, self-taught engineer; and La Corne St. Luc, ruthless partisan leader. And he reintroduces characters we thought we knew—an admirable Benedict Arnold, a traitorous Ethan Allen, and a devious George Washington. A gripping read grounded in serious scholarship, Conquered into Liberty will enchant and inform readers for decades to come.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Description
• Author Bio
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Dramatis Personae
• Author’s Note
• Prologue The Great Warpath
• Chapter One: The Schenectady Raid, 1690
• Chapter Two: Fort William Henry, 1757
• Chapter Three: The Battle on Snowshoes, 1758
• Chapter Four: Fort Carillon, 1758
• Chapter Five: St. Johns, 1775
• Chapter Six: Valcour Island, 1776
• Chapter Seven: Hubbardton, 1777
• Chapter Eight: Phantom Campaigns, 1778–83
• Chapter Nine: Plattsburgh, 1814
• Chapter Ten: Rumors of War, 1815–71
• Legacies
• Abbreviations Used in Notes
• Notes
• For Further Exploration
• Acknowledgments
• Map Sources
• Index
• About the Author
• Footnotes