Ford Evening Book Talk: Revolutionary Snipers

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 commandos, 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Unearthing unpublished letters, diaries, and other participant documents, O’Donnell puts readers dramatically in the moment as riflemen prevented a British charge at Trenton that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 resupply 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.