Skulking in the Woods: Irregular Warfare in Pennsylvania During the Seven Paperback – 19 May 2015

Enjoyable read but haven’t finished yet.Easy to put down and resume where you left off.

Whilst the content is good, I find it overpriced for a university dissertation. It only stretches to the number of pages it has because they are double spaced.

I did enjoy this book somewhat and must admit I learned some things from it. I really liked the way the author got beyond the usual stereotypes about regular troops and their comparisons with irregular troops. The author seems to have joined the recent trend to re-evaluate Braddock’s defeat, a refreshing new view. He concludes that the British forces could have won handily if order and control had been maintained, and resources used correctly. He also points out that Braddock didn’t just blunder through the woods but instead maintained excellent march discipline and flank protection. The French and Indian delaying parties returned without success, complaining they couldn’t get close to the column.The account of Bushy Run was well done, if too briefly. But it did display an excellent example of regular infantry decisively defeating a large force of Indians in their own element.On the other hand I didn’t care for the limited scope of the book, being limited to action in Pennsylvania. There was no mention of units such as Roger’s Rangers, Gorham’s Rangers or the 80th Light Infantry. There was a brief mention of the Royal American Regiment but no explanation of who they were. The apparently obligatory unqualified praise of the Indian warrior gets old. The Natives had many military weaknesses which are never mentioned, except their strong aversion to hard core combat. Like many other authors, this one tries to explain that away on the grounds that Indians fled when possible after receiving even moderate casualties because their lives were too valuable to lose! I don’t know what supposedly makes their lives more valuable than those of white people, but I know that anyone who ever fled from combat or dodged the draft could say the same thing. Another assertion I find unacceptable was the author’s comments that the Indians were much stronger than the Europeans. Not likely. Indian warriors did no hard labor, while most whites worked 12-16 hour days of hard labor. The author apparently isn’t familiar with manual work and how it strengthens the worker.The book also is quite expensive for it’s size. But the author seems to have done a lot of research so I’ll reluctantly give it four stars.

What a great topic… and the author really missed the mark. I expected a book describing Indian & frontier tactics… but there was almost nothing like that contained in this book. Not even a mention of colonial rangers and their well documented tactics used against the French and Indians. This book lacks sufficient research and struggles to stay on topic. Im sad to say this book was a waste of time to read. I hope the author conducts more research and revises the book.