[ Previous ] [ Next ]

[published by Little, Brown and Company; 1953]

This is another typical Lancaster adventure, with all the strengths and weaknesses thereof. It's straightforward fun, but completely simplistic in terms of reducing the whole Revolutionary War to a confrontation between the black hats and the white hats. (Let me give you a hint. Ban Tarleton doesn't get a white hat.) The overall sweep of historical events is reasonably intact, but the details have been shifted around helter-skelter to suit the story.

Our hero is a Continental artillery officer whose adventures take him from the office of Benjamin Franklin in Paris to blockade running and privateering on the high seas to the siege of Yorktown. Most of the book takes place in Paris or at sea, with only the final section touching down in Virginia in time for the siege at Yorktown.

Tarleton makes a brief appearance during the Yorktown section of the story, just long enough to stage a version of his legendary skirmish with the Duc de Lauzun. He's played in the usual strange Lancaster style. He's tall, elegant and nasty, and he wears the red uniform of the 17th Light Dragoons rather than the Legion's green. (Lancaster really must have previewed The Patriot in his crystal ball.)