Includes bibliographical references (pages 621-821) and index.

Prologue: France, February-April 1777 -- The march of annihilation : Fort Ticonderoga, New York, July-August 1777 -- This cursed, cut-up land : New York, July 1777 -- Fellows willing to go to Heaven : Little Neshaminy Creek, Pennsylvania, August 1777 -- Thine arrows stick fast in me : Oriskany, New York, and Bennington, Vermont, August 1777 -- A barbarous business in a barbarous country : Brandywine, Pennsylvania, September 1777 -- These are dreadful times : Philadelphia and Paoli, Pennsylvania, September 1777 -- Born under a fiery planet : Germantown, Pennsylvania, October 1777 -- To risk all upon one rash stroke : Saratoga, New York, September 1777 -- How art thou fallen : Saratoga, New York, October 1777 -- The elements in flames : Philadelphia, October-December 1777 -- The King's War : London, November 1777-February 1778 -- Blessed be he that expects nothing : Paris, December 1777-March 1778 -- The vortex of small fortunes : Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, January-June 1778 -- I would rather lose the crown : London and Portsmouth, England, April-June 1778 -- The French flag in all its glory : Paris and the English Channel, February-July 1778 -- Flying from a shadow : Monmouth Court House, New Jersey, June 1778 -- Fortune is a fickle jade : New York and Newport, Rhode Island, July-August 1778 -- A star and a stripe from the rebel flag : New York and Savannah, Georgia, October 1778-February 1779 -- The uncertainty of human prospects : Philadelphia, December 1778-February 1779 -- A Summons to Queens House : London, January-July 1779 -- I detest that sort of war : Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Stony Point, New York, March-July 1779 -- The valley of bones : The American Frontier, June-September 1779 -- Everything is now at stake : British Home Waters, July-September 1779 -- The greatest event that has happened : Savannah, Georgia, September-October 1779 -- Eternity is nearer every day : Morristown, New Jersey, December 1779-February 1780 -- She stoops to conquer : Charleston, South Carolina, February-June 1780 -- Epilogue: Britain and America, 1780.

"The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution--which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton--was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had barely escaped annihilation by the world's most formidable fighting force. Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king's task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans. Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. Stationed in Paris, Benjamin Franklin woos the French; in Pennsylvania, George Washington pleads with Congress to deliver the money, men, and materiel he needs to continue the fight. In New York, General William Howe, the commander of the greatest army the British have ever sent overseas, plans a new campaign against the Americans--even as he is no longer certain that he can win this searing, bloody war. The months and years that follow bring epic battles at Brandywine, Saratoga, Monmouth, and Charleston, a winter of misery at Valley Forge, and yet more appeals for sacrifice by every American committed to the struggle for freedom."--