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[published by G.P. Putnam's Sons; 1960]

Enough Good Men follows the lives of a half-dozen people from the Philadelphia area through the decade leading up to the outbreak of the Revolution. The cast ranges from a young, American-born, British-educated lawyer who looks upon Pennsylvania as the ultimate backwater but is drawn into the rebel army by his radical Whig politics, to a teenaged indentured girl who was brought to Philadelphia from deep in the western wilderness, to a rich Philadelphia merchant whose political allegiance follows the compass of profit.

The book is well researched and well written, stuffed full of details about the time period it portrays, but it is definitely an "idea" book. For all its large cast, the story isn't really about the people, it's about the events which shape their lives: civil unrest that pits neighbor against neighbor, the abstract philosophical ideals of "liberty" and the grim realities of the war that sweeps over them. Although it isn't a big novel, it has an "epic" feel to it because it covers so much time and so many changes. Since I read books for the people more than the plot, this makes it a somewhat dull read for me, but that's simply a matter of personal taste.

As Tarleton trivia, it gets a mention only in the cause of completism. One segment of the story takes place in Philadelphia during the winter of the British occupation, and various historical figures, including Banastre and John André, make token appearances as set dressing. The half-dozen mentions of them are historically accurate -- or at least plausible -- but uninteresting.