Revolutionary Snipers

From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Indispensables and The Unvanquished,
the dramatic untold story of the Continental Army's first soldiers and
special operators, whose marksmanship and irregular warfare altered the
outcomes of crucial battles and turned the tide of the Revolutionary War

In Revolutionary Snipers, acclaimed military historian Patrick K. O’Donnell vividly brings
to life for the first time the exploits of Washington’s finest frontier com mandos, whose
legendary deadeye shooting offered the Continental Army an evolving and unconventional
tactical advantage in the War of Independence. Snipers such as Daniel Morgan,
Timothy Murphy, and Samuel Brady were rugged frontiersmen armed with long rifles, a
path-breaking American technology that allowed them to attack from a significant distance. 

The snipers, the very first members of the Continental Army, quickly struck terror
among British troops besieged in Boston in the summer of 1775 by picking off targets.
However, their success was checkered by mutiny, an epic journey through the Maine wilderness,
and heart-wrenching failure at the gates of Quebec. O’Donnell follows unforgettable
characters, including a white slave to a rifle-wielding female camp follower, in a
riveting Band of Brothers–style narrative. Despite the setbacks, Washington and his officers
perceived a new approach to waging war could emerge from the combined arms of pairing
sniper groups with traditional units. The riflemen played vital roles in many pivotal
battles—from protecting Washington’s army during its retreat from Manhattan, when
some 25 snipers repelled an amphibious landing of hundreds of British soldiers at Throggs
Neck, to energizing the momentum-shifting battles at Saratoga and later, in the South, at
King’s Mountain and Cowpens. 

Unearthing unpublished letters, diaries, and other participant documents, O’Donnell
puts readers dramatically in the moment as riflemen prevented a British charge at Trenton
that could have ended the war, employed irregular warfare to counter enemy attempts to
re-supply during the critical yet obscure “Forage War” in spring 1777, and contested large
swaths of the frontier, at times disguised as Native Americans. 

Placing the riflemen front and center throughout the war, Revolutionary Snipers illuminates
an unknown aspect of the conflict and is an important addition to our understanding
of how the Revolution was won and of an emerging new way of war.