Book Review: To Try Men's Souls by New Gingrich & Forstchen

Published: 2004

Series Chronology: George Washington #1

Genre: Historical Fiction, War

Kitch’s Rating: 7/10

Former politician Newt Gingrich has teamed with author William R. Forstchen – who, Goodreads tells me, has authored plenty of military-type novels – to breathe new and interesting life into the famous Battle of Trenton, which was the brainchild of General George Washington.

The background to the battle could not have been better set out if it were a Hollywood script. After some early successes against the British, Washington’s army was battered and again and again, giving up Fort Lee, decimated on Long Island and Brooklyn Heights, forced to abandon New York City to the British, fleeing into the New Jersey countryside to escape the pursuing British Army redcoats. They narrowly escaped total annihilation by putting the Delaware River between themselves and their enemies.

In what must have at the time seemed like utter madness, Washington formulated a plan that saw his feeble army – many of whom were without shoes, had not eaten in days and were wearing nothing but rags – cross back over the Delaware and attack Trenton, New Jersey in the early morning hours the day after Christmas.

Washington needed a victory. On New Year’s Day, hundreds of his men would be free to leave, their terms of enlistment over, and the general wanted to strike a victory in order that some of those men would remain. It was a bold plan, given the adverse weather likely, and the fact that the Hessians, German mercenaries fighting for Great Britain, were the best troops in the world at the time, and brutal, too. They had slaughtered many of Washington’s own men at an earlier battle, and were thoroughly feared by the American rebels.

The password for the night was, ominously, “victory or death,” and when the storm to end all storms blew in, delaying the crossing of Washington’s men, and then delaying their long, cold and wet march on Trenton, the latter rather than the former would probably have happened had all things been equal.

Yet, the Americans were blessed with something approaching divine intervention. As bad as the storm was – it delayed their arrival in Trenton by many hours, from pre-dawn to post-dawn – it also helped keep the Hessians in their beds, thinking, apparently, that no one would be foolish enough to launch an attack in such weather. They were out-thought, and Washington’s meagre forces won a major victory, with minimal loss of life.

Where Gingrich and Forstchen really excel is bringing to life Washington, a man who, understandably, was besieged with all sorts of self-doubt. His army had been beaten to a pulp, there were mass desertions, Congress were apparently in favour of a different commanding general, and the other two parts of the army that were supposed to aid in the attack Trenton had left them high and dry. His men were struck down with all manner of sickness, and the weather was horrible.

The best parts of the book are focused on Washington, and the mammoth task of trying to keep everything and everyone together. The authors have done a great job of getting into the man’s mind as he worked through so many problems. His relief at the end is palpable, and his concern for those who march under his command cannot be questioned. He’s been brilliantly characterised here.

The other two major characters are the liberty-loving Englishman Thomas Paine, from whose pro-American paper the title of the novel was derived, and Jonathan Van Dorn, a private in the Continental Army, who also happens to be a native of Trenton, New Jersey. His family still lives there, including one brother who deserted from the Army earlier in the war, and another who, it is later revealed is a British loyalist.

Van Dorn’s story makes sense because he is a key part of Washington’s march and attack on Trenton, and it allows a more personal look at the men on the front line and the deplorable conditions that they endured than the Washington narrative, simply because men like Van Dorn did not have the luxury of a warm house from which to plan strategy.

Paine’s storyline was done in flashbacks, and whilst some of Washington’s flashbacks added to the story, the book could’ve been 80-90 pages shorter without including Paine. The way he was depicted at times bordered on comical. The way he came to write his famous papers is interesting, but maybe best left for a separate novel.

All in all, though, a strong Revolutionary War debut from Gingrich and Forstchen. There are two further books in the series – one about Valley Forge and the other about the Siege of Yorktown, which brought about the end of the war and American independence. I can’t wait to read both.