War Without Mercy: Liberty or Death in the American Revolution

Historians Lender and Martin (231 Days) argue in this potent study that the American Revolution was an existential war of total annihilation. The authors dig deep into firsthand accounts to reveal a “catalogue of horrors”—atrocities perpetrated by patriots, loyalists, redcoats, and Native American allies on both sides. Lender and Martin contend that this resort to fighting “without mercy” came from the combatants’ fear of obliteration at the hands of the enemy. Surveying the conflicts’ various theaters, the authors measure incidents of savagery against the era’s notions of jus in bello, or “fighting justly.” (A fascinating tangent is the authors’ excavation of the origins of jus in bello among Enlightenment-era lawyers and jurists.) They find that it was the West—the largest theater of war, encompassing “the farthest backcountries” of the colonies—that saw the most merciless and unrestricted warfare: countless brutal raids and counterraids that included torture, execution, rape, pillaging, and property destruction. But the authors also spotlight incidents in the other, less lawless theaters that still seemed to signify a goal of total annihilation, such as Benedict Arnold’s turncoat raid on the rebel haven of New London, Conn., wherein he set fire to the town, an uncharacteristic move for a British army officer at the time. Detailed and persuasive, it’s a unique recasting of the Revolution as a dark and murderous conflict. (Oct.)