1776 (book)

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1776 is a historical novel about the events in year 1776 of the American Revolutionary War. Written in the prose format of a fictional novel by David McCullough, it nonetheless is a nonfictional work that goes over the military and political events of that year in context to the conflict at the time in the American colonies.

Tropes used in 1776 (book) include:

• The Alcoholic: Rum was a common drink on both sides, to the point of being doled as actual military rations,. 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 make marches terribly slow, especially when the rain turn overland routes into mud. Ice was a crippler for the colonists because it made transport of heavy cannon and other war material hazardous.
• 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 a 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.
• Humble Hero: George Washington, obviously. One of his generals, Israel "Old Put" Putnam fit even more so, being a general yet willing to take his meals at the mess like an ordinary soldier and rough it out like the lowest private, which he was beloved by his men for.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• Patriotic Fervor: Contrary to a lot of the more simplified histories of the period, the trope was revealed to have been greatly subdued on both sides. The British weren't all that fired up to retake the colonies for patriotism as they were for asserting their dominion and saving face politically. The revolutionaries were largely composed of very human people, and many were Only in It For the Money as much as the Hessian mercenaries employed by the British.
• Sociopathic Soldier: The Hessians were accused of this by both colonial and British detractors. The actual truth of the matter is that, while they were rather callous since they were being paid instead of serving out of loyalty, they were really no better or worse as a group than any other armed force.
• Storming the Castle: Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold did this in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, only finding out later they overestimated the force strength of the British garrison.
• Wake Up Call Boss: The British dismissed the rebels all the way up until Bunker Hill. Even though in strict military terms they won, the cost was so high it was a Pyrrhic Victory in a morale sense for the British, who realized they weren't going to be able to swat the rebels like flies like they thought.
• Villainous Breakdown: Bunker Hill caused a minor one to happen to the British commanders, William Howe especially, who were more than a little horrified at the sheer number of bloody corpses of their own forces that were the cost of victory. Another more prominent one happened when Washington pulled off his raid on Trenton, which caused the British to be flabbergasted at how easily a large Hessian force had been bested so easily.
• Zerg Rush: The British loved this trope, knowing they had the troops for it, though this backfired hard on them at Bunker Hill, where they won, but lost far more troops than they wanted to.