McCullough reminds readers of Washington's background: "Like other planters of the Tidewater, Washington embraced a life very like that of the English gentry. English by ancestry, he was, in dress, manner, and his favorite pastimes, as close to being an English country gentleman as was possible for an American of his day, and intentionally." That Washington would risk so much to take command of what appeared to be no more than a "rabble in arms" speaks to his deep commitment to the American cause.
Greene, according to McCullough, was an unlikely candidate as a general: he was a Quaker, had a limp, and had never been in a battle. He was just thirty-three years old. Although he had little formal schooling, he educated himself through reading. His correspondence is rich with description of Washington, the war, and the meaning of life. Some of McCullough's most memorable passages in 1776 are from Greene's pen. Likewise, Greene's friend Knox, a well-known Boston bookseller, had a damaged hand, a Loyalist wife, and no experience as a soldier. Yet Knox proved to be one of the most ingenious and intrepid among Washington's force, bringing cannons from the captured Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York across many miles and in terrible weather to the battle at Boston. McCullough is not content to focus solely on the Americans, however. He writes evenhandedly about the British generals Howe, Henry Clinton, John Burgoyne, and Charles Cornwallis. Howe had served under General James Wolfe, who called him "the best officer in the King's service." As commander of the British troops in Boston, he showed great courage. As McCullough writes, "At Bunker Hill, assuring his troops he would not ask them 'to go a step further than where I go myself,' he had marched in the front line.After one blinding volley during the third assault, he had been the only man in the front line still standing.