War Without Mercy

At its grimmest level, it was a conflict in which military restraint was more the exception than the rule, a struggle in which combatants believed their very existence was in question. This led to an acceptance of violence against persons and property as preferable to a defeat equated with political, cultural, and even physical extinction. It was war with an expectation and acceptance of ferocity and brutality – anything to avoid defeat. A number of historians have previously concluded that United States' founding struggle reached a level of ferocity few Americans now associate with the movement for independence. However, these studies have described what happened, without looking in detail at why the conflict took such a violent a turn. Written by two esteemed Revolutionary War historians, War Without Mercy does exactly that. Based on years of research and enlivened by little known primary sources, this is an intriguing and fresh look at a period of history we thought we knew.