Tories and Patriots continues the saga of Private Will Stoner of the Massachusetts Artillery as the British fleet arrives in New York harbor in the summer of 1776. Under fire for the first time, Will barely escapes the disastrous defeat of the American Army at the Battle of Brooklyn. Fighting alongside the Marblehead Mariners, Will and his gun crew inflict heavy losses on the Hessians at the Battle of Pelham Bay, and then retreat the length of the New Jersey, hotly pursued by the advancing British Army. New Jersey itself is a colony of divided loyalties. Will’s brother, John, with the British Light Dragoons finds opportunities to enrich himself while helping local Tories settle scores with their Rebel neighbors. Tories and Patriots, is also a story told from the viewpoint of Will’s friend, Adam Cooper, a free African American and a Private with the Marblehead Mariners who bridles at the hypocrisy of slave owning patriots fighting for their liberty from England while Britain offers freedom to slaves who join the Tory cause; a Hessian soldier, Private Georg Engelhard who uses his bayonet without any mercy against Rebel riflemen and seeks to make his fortune in booty and plunder and return to Hesse a rich man; and Peter Bant, a young New Jersey rifleman who witnesses a horrible crime and seeks only revenge against the hated Redcoats. It is a novel of hunger and hardship, courage and cowardice, young love and loneliness in the fateful fall and winter of 1776 when the very survival of the cause of independence hung in the balance. Tories and Patriots, is a thoroughly researched and historically accurate novel of the American Revolution. The author has included End Notes citing historical sources and quotes from correspondence by participants in the actual events described. These enable the reader to learn more about this crucial time in our history and to recognize the human side of the men and women of that period as distinguished from the myths which have arisen over the years. Tories and Patriots is a sequel to the acclaimed first novel, Cannons for the Cause. Although each novel stands on its own, readers may want to become acquainted with Will Stoner, Nat Holmes, Adam Cooper, Samuel Hadley and others when they first become friends and compatriots in Cannons for the Cause. The third novel in the series, Blood Upon the Snow, will be published in early 2016.
