Rustic Warriors

When the British were stung by the success of the American “citizen soldiers” at Lexington and Concord, several complained that the Americans fought like Indians and did not know how to conduct a proper European battle. In his engaging study of warfare in New England during the century before 1775, Steven C. Eames confirms this British view. But he also does much more. Starting from John Shy's 1963 (but still current) “A New Look at Colonial Militia” (William and Mary Quarterly, April 1963, pp. 175–85), Eames has written not a “quantitative analysis of colonial soldiers” but rather “a social history concentrating on the impact of war and military life on the New England provincial soldier” (p. xii). Eames is wise to take this tack, for a full history of New England during this period must include a study of war as a fundamental part of daily life. Exempting King Philip's War (1675–1676) from his study as more of an internal New England struggle, he focuses on the period 1689–1748, a time of four wars that engulfed New England, New France, and their native peoples

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