Zeb Larson reviews Rebels #2…
While Seth Abbott patrols the New England forests with his militia, his new bride Mercy holds down the home front. But whatever honeymoon period the growing American Revolution affords them is cut short when Seth and Ezekiel go on a daring nighttime raid determined to deny the British access down the Hudson River.
In this second issue, we get a closer look at Ethan Allen’s war with the British. This issue is an excellent read, balancing the considerable history at play while developing both Mercy and Seth’s characters. I will not be discussing any spoilers in this issue, so read on without concern.
When the book opens, Ethan’s men are raiding a British encampment to steal Crown documents. Seth is splitting his time between working with Ethan and living with Mercy, who is toiling to make their little homestead work. Ethan has bigger plans than just driving the New Yorkers out, though: he wants to join up with the other colonies to drive the British out, and Seth has bought into this plan as well. Ethan has determined that the British want to build a new fort on Lake Champlain near the Hudson River, which would isolate his men and cement their control of the region. Ezekiel and Seth are sent to stop them, which will be more difficult than either man expects.
The sequence involving Mercy and her day-to-day life is a powerful one despite the absence of any dialogue. It really highlights so many of the difficulties that women in this period would have faced. On the one hand, there would have been a lot of loneliness, except for those nagging fears about what might have been about there in the woods. Then there would have been so much hard work to do that at least the opportunities for boredom were few and far between. The routine was a hardscrabble one, but there were few alternatives open to people. One really feels for Mercy in this situation: when Seth tells her that he wants to fight, there isn’t much of a discussion, only her weary disapproval.
As a history person, I feel the need to clarify just why a fort would be so threatening to Ethan Allen’s men. Forts, especially those built out of stone, were extraordinarily difficult to take without artillery. Sieges were rarely an option without supply lines to feed the besiegers, which was simply not an option for militiamen. In a time without developed roads, transporting artillery by land was nigh-on impossible without thousands of men and horses, clearly not an option for militiamen. Water transport was the best way to move men and weapons, and by placing a fort on the Narrows, the British could occupy a position that would be effectively impregnable while bottling up the men in New Hampshire and Vermont.
One of the things that makes this book interesting is the attempt by Brian Wood to bring regionalism back into American history. In the spring of 1775, the Green Mountain Boys were already fighting their war against both the British and New York. The world was a lot smaller, and people didn’t yet think of themselves as Americans per se, except for a few radicals like Samuel Adams in Boston. When Ethan talks about working with the Virginians or Carolinians, the sense of shared identity is rudimentary at best. Uniting helps all of them to solve a common problem, but he’s not exactly articulating a coherent American identity. They’re rebels, first and foremost. If they all work together, they can off the British, and then the men of New Hampshire can be allowed to go their own way. Likewise, Mercy doesn’t see any particular reason to work with those colonists because as far as she’s concerned, they have nothing in common.
Brian Wood has thus far done a good job of diving into the minds of his protagonists, which is not a simple task. People from 200 years can at times seem very similar to 21st century Americans, and at other moments they can seem profoundly alien. Yet balanced alongside all of this history is a book with enjoyable action sequences, well illustrated by Andrea Mutti. This is a book motivated by a love of history and country, but it keeps human beings firmly in the narrative as well.
Zeb Larson
https://youtu.be/8HTiU_hrLms?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published May 12, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
