"During the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling sixty tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some three hundred miles south and east over frozen, often-treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first...

Settlers needed protection from the start of the colonial period. This was provided first by citizen militias and finally by the professional soldiers of the Continental army.

Discusses the training, organization, diversity, fighting and survival skills, daily routine, diseases, fears, and morale of the first army of the United States.