"The Battle of Brooklyn 1776" Topic

I am about 40 pages into this book by John J. Gallagher, and honestly, I have found so many factual errors I am having trouble reading on in case the rest of this book is as flawed as the opening.

I was curious if others here had read the work and if so, what they thought. Please, if you have read it and have to ask what the errors are, then perhaps you are not the best person to answer with an opinion. But for those of you that caught the significant errors, I would like your opinion if you finished it.

Of note, in talking with a friend this evening, he said he cast the book aside when the author made such a mess of Washington's F&I experiences.

Sooo… informed comments?

How does a publisher make sure that the historical information found in the book it is going to publish is accurate?

It seems like a major time consuming task.

This thread is quite worrying in its implications.

Most established publishers have fact checkers and references to make sure they don't publish a piece of utter drivel. Of course, this may not apply to the "vanity" type publishers.

I doubt you will get many responses with your, "if you're too stupid to figure out the inaccuracies then don't bother" tone…

Perhaps you should note the inaccuracies as what you describe as inaccurate may just be a different interpretation.

Don't tell me… let me guess. The publisher is… OSprtey right? Do I get a prize?

So the publisher has no obligation to ensure a historical book is in fact… correct? Really?

SON – I am trying to head off the "what is wrong with it" and instead perhaps hear from someone knowledgable who can tell me that in spite of some of the early details, the book is okay – or not. Have you read the book?

And yes, I am trying to get to people who have read it, not comment on editorial policy (this is an history book), or asking me what is wrong with it. Sooo, has anyone out there read this book?

From Publishers Weekly

Gallagher, a Brooklyn-based forensic historian, here addresses an important subject. Brooklyn, once known as Long Island, constituted one of the American Revolution's first, largest and most neglected actions. His thesis-that the battle's style reflected the Revolution's nature as "democratic warfare," freed from conventional restrictions-is provocative. However, Gallagher undermines his case by dawdling in the effort to establish background information for the battle and armies; his account of real warfare is anticlimactic. Moreover, informed readers will wince at his factual errors: the British army, for example, possessed no green-coated rifle regiment in 1776.

It was the Hessian fallschirmjaegers that turned me off.

I hate when that happens. :-)

But, it does explain why they won.

John: Is that FOW does AWI? Don't give them any ideas.

historygamer: I have the book, but have not read it. In your opinion, is the OOB in the back of the book accurate?

I haven't gotten that far, but the historical myths and just plain wrong things were a jaw dropper. But, that may not mean the rest of the book is wrong.

The author got Washington's facts in the F&I all wrong, then he said British genadiers wore busbys (????) as the bearskins would absorb some of the consussion of the grenade. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I flipped through the first few pages and see that he compares American tactics to be those of tribes of neanderthals…

I did read it and I vaguely remember there were some things he wrote which made me scratch my head. I didn't buy into the democratic warfare thesis.

I just put it down. After so many obvious errors, I keep checking the cover to see if it was a historical fiction novel. LOL!

I would not recommend this book, and the reference to European feudalism suggests the guy has little or no idea about the period generally.

The orders-of-battle in the back are confused and erratic; I can't comment on the American one, but the British one has numerous errors, largely based around the inability to understand the difference between the Colonel of a regiment and the Lt Col commanding the battalion in the field, and the common mistake of using the 1782 (or in some cases more modern) county titles for the regiments.

It's some years since I read it, but I do recall thinking that this man was in no way an AWI expert (or even amateur enthusiast), but rather someone who had stumbled across a battle he thought he might know enough about to justify a book simply because it happened near where he lived. It also struck me as one of those books that needed a "weird angle" to make it controversial, hence the democratic warfare schtick (Logusz's book on the Saratoga campaign "With Musket and Tomahawk" is another – bizarrely rambling on at the start about how 1777 saw the advent of environmentalism, women's rights, and racial equality in the US).

Gallagher's stuff on the British Army is drivel, but such detailed drivel that you do wonder exactly what he must have read in order to get some of the weird ideas he expounds. Possibly he is half-remembering high school lectures and trusting a fading memory far too much (which would be rather odd, and certainly unforgiveable, for someone whose background is listed as "formerly a member of US Military Intelligence"). To be fair, very few US authors – bar Col John Elting and the crop of modern re-enactors such as Hagist, Tatum etc – understand the workings of the British Army, and most seem to just rehash simplistic stereotypes (just as I suspect many "generalist" British historians would do about "patriotic farmers") and half-understood theories of others.

For those who have access to it, Boatner's "Encyclopedia of the American Revolution" has a good account of the Long Island / Brooklyn campaign.

Yeah, it just seems a mess, and the reviews above seem to confirm it isn't worth wasting further time on.

He references the British wearing red to impress their enemies, be more easily seen through the smoke of battle, and to ….. (grrrr) hide the blood if hit. It gets worse.

He references that the Americans used Kentucky and PA long rifles, and that they had iron ramrods (not the wooden ones they all had).

I could go on with the errors (like the ranks firing individually), but what it the point after the above reviews? I had hoped perhaps he just got those details wrong, but I guess not.

Hey, any comments on "George Washington's Great Gamble" by James Nelson, or "This Destrcutive War, The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780-1782" by John Pancake?

I'm guessing that you didn't like Nelson and Pancake books either.

Just glanced through them. They look promising, just asking. :-)

Believe me, I don't like wasting money more than anyone else. I had hoped the book above might overcome some of its glaring mistakes, but based on others, apparently it did not.

I remember picking up a Keegan book and him talking about Braddock's defeat in a chapter, and he stated that the French saw the British coming from a long way off as they saw the glint from the grenadier's hat plates – which completely ignored the fact those grenadiers were in cloth mitre caps.

As hard as it is for me to believe, but apparently many authors just make stuff up. And we end up wasting money finding that out – or reading it and believing it – which is more disturbing, at least to me. :-(

I once read a book on Waterloo that I thought was great, till a more learned Napoleonic friend pointed out that book was largely made up. :-(

>I once read a book on Waterloo that I thought was great, >till a more learned Napoleonic friend pointed out that book >was largely made up. :-(

Ah, the dread "Hamilton-Williams." I was initially as taken in as many others…very sad, considering. But unfortunately it's a trend in history nowadays to "interpret" (that is, invent) facts if they support one's thesis, whatever it may be.

I'll second the reference to Boatner. For a dictionary, that was one I've just about read cover-to-cover.

Just picked up Hagist's book that takes a look at nine redcoats during the period. Very good and well-researched.

I think I got the Gallagher book at a used book store a few years ago and quickly got rid of it after reading some of the weirder stuff he had in there (I seem to recall something about riflemen having to stand on tree stumps to load as the rifles were too long..:/

Yeah, I think he does mention looking for a rock to help with loading the rifle. Maybe one fell on his head. How on earth do publishers/editors just look the other way while such drivle is pumped out? I bought the book on good faith. Shame on me. Guess I won't buy anything without having read some reviews first.

>How on earth do publishers/editors just look the other way >while such drivle is pumped out?

The sad fact is that some editors are no more informed than the general public (I stress some--there are obviously others that do pay attention).

I know of people who have had factual information challenged by publishers who are basically unaware that they are way off base. It "doesn't sound right" to them.

If they have a pre-existing bias for the worst of AWI mythology, they are unlikely to do anything about it.

On a related note, are there any BG scenarios for the Battle of Brooklyn?

I believe there is one. First scenario book, first scenario IIRC.

I flipped through the first few pages and see that he compares American tactics to be those of tribes of neanderthals…

He means their table manners :)

>I believe there is one. First scenario book, first >scenario IIRC.

I have Chatterton's Hill in one of the scenario books--is that the one? I think that was part of White Plains.

Then again, it'd be interesting to see how you'd model Brooklyn. Flank attack scenario (with what ifs) and the diversionary/holding attack scenario. Sort of like Brandywine is handled now.

There's a "Haarlem Heights" scenario in the third AWI scenario book published by Caliver (i.e. the latest one, which doesn't describe itself as a BG set of scenarios).

Hmm, don't have the third one. Will have to give that a look.

I need that one too. More to buy. :-(