1776 (book): Difference between revisions
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* [[The Alcoholic]]: Rum was a common drink on both sides, to the point of being doled as actual military rations,<ref>Which actually made sense, alcohol was used to steady the nerves and for other medical reasons</ref>. Actual instances of excessive drinking were severely discouraged and punished.
* [[Asshole Victim]]: While the soldiers largely tried to treat each other with dignity despite being on opposite sides in formal engagements, loyalist and patriot civilians considered each other this.
* [[Bamboo Technology]]: The seizure of Dorchestor Heights was achieved via clever use of this trope. The colonial army prefabricated somewhat flimsy barricades that they filled in with hay bales and earth filled barrels to give the appearance of being sturdier than they actually were. It sufficed to fool the British, who immediately decided [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|Dorchestor Heights wasn't worth the effort to assault.]]
* [[Badass]]: Both sides had theirs, though the usual lionizing given the colonists is quite downplayed in this work.
** [[Badass Bookworm]]: Henry Knox, a former bookstore owner who was one of Washington's best generals when it came to artillery. His own CMOA was successfully pulling off the overland transport of nearly 100,000 plus pounds of cannons from Fort Ticonderoga all the way to Boston, despite the distance, weight, and lots of icy weather.
** Handicapped Badass: Both Henry Knox and Nathaniel Greene. The former had lost two fingers when his fowling piece had blown up on him a few years back, but this didn't affect his ability to command. Greene had a limp in one leg, but he refused to let it slow him down.
* [[Brilliant But Lazy]]: William Howe, who was far from stupid or cowardly, but prone to dawdling, which was to Washington's advantage more than once.
* [[Crazy Awesome]]: Some Hessians rolled a cannon in the streets of Trenton right in front of some of Washington's troops to fire it at them. Those troops ''ran right into the line of fire'' to prevent the Hessians from being able to actually fire it in time, took down the Hessians while they were still trying to figure out a Plan B, then turned the cannon around and fired it into the other Hessian reinforcements.
* [[Disc One Final Boss]]: Colonel Johann Rall of the Hessian forces at Trenton, who, due to a combination of good fortune on Washington's part and a few understandable mistakes on Rall's proved a [[Breather Boss]] in practice, thus ending the last major battle of the year and thus the first year of the whole war as an American Victory.
* [[Fat Bastard]]: James Grant, a morbidly obese Scot who hated the colonies and the rebels equally. Regardless, he had some [[Pet the Dog]] moments, including showing humanity to prisoners of war who were starving.
* [[Gasshole]]: One of the side effects of the poor sanitary conditions would be frequent outbreaks of dysentery.
* [[Geo Effects]]: Both sides could be crippled by weather conditions. The British and Hessians found heavy rain to be crippling because it
* [[General Failure]]: George Washington sensibly admitted up front to the Continental Congress he might turn out this way, but would do his best anyway. In actual practice he did make a lot of mistakes, but wasn't so much so he fell squarely into this trope.
* [[Get a Hold of Yourself Man]]: In a somewhat apocryphal account, [[George Washington]] did this to break up a riot by his own troops by rushing into the fray, grabbing two of the biggest rioters, and chewing them out, whereupon the rest immediately dispersed.
* [[Holy Shit Quotient]]: Reached when the British knew Dorchester Heights outside of Boston were the key to defending the city but they didn't think the rebels could do so without a ton of advance warning and lots of efforts they needed months for. Cue utter horrified amazement when the revolutionaries pulled it off in under a week and had full siege works already set up, without getting caught long beforehand.
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* [[Improvised Weapon]]: Washington ordered barrels be used to reinforce fortifications on hills, having them filled with earth so they could also be rolled into the enemy as backup weapons.
* [[Jerkass]]: Charles Lee to the point of nigh treason when he wrote ways to defeat Washington to Howe when he got captured, simply because he hated the man.
** [[Jerkass Has a Point]]: Prior, when sent to reinforce New York from British attack, he immediately and sensibly realized it couldn't be held indefinitely, but if they played their cards right they could make the British pay dearly in their attempt to seize it.
* [[Kill It With Fire]]: A tactic employed by both sides on occasion, though they generally had to refrain most of the time because both sides either wanted to avoid burning down potential garrisons for their own use or cause civilian casualties.
* [[The Neidermeyer]]: Charles Lee was this for the Americans, to the point his eventual capture due to a [[What an Idiot!|moment of utter stupidity]] was actually a relief to General Washington, who was tired of hinging his hopes of reinforcements on him. It didn't help he was also a vainglorious jackass with such obvious lust for Washington's own job to the point he went out of his way just to screw things up for the man.
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