I read a David McCullough book "1776 ". The intended audience is people who are interested in the United States historical events that had major influence on today's state of the country. Thus, the intended audience is wide. This book tells the story of the extreme challenges General Washington faced trying to get rag-tag army together in 1776. It also describes the sacrifices early countrymen had to make. 1776 is mainly a military history tracing the tragic events of the year in which the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The struggle in the New York or in New Jersey theater would designates the fate of New York City (the most strategically important urban center in the fledgling nation). Much of the book focuses on Commander-in-Chief General George Washington. He sometimes unnecessarily risked his army's destruction attempting to match wits with more competent and experienced British generals. Somehow Washington managed to hold the American army together, despite a string of defeats and disasters in that fateful year. .
David McCulloch's 1776 teaches an important lesson for Americans today: the importance of persistence despite the odds. The "belittle " army took on the world's superpower and ushered in the Age of Revolution. So that spread the message of freedom and forever changing the world. But throughout most of the bleak year of 1776 nothing so grand or precious seemed even remotely possible to the dispirited colonials, both soldiers and civilians.
At least as important or even more important were the sacrifices and hardships of the men in the ranks, who were caught in a losing struggle as of mid-December 1776. The American Revolution was most of all a people's war. Without the stoic determination of the ordinary soldiers(lambasted contemptuously as "rabble " and "country people " by the British, upper class Loyalists, and even fellow American patriots) the revolution would have failed.