To Try Men’s Souls: A Novel of George
Washington and the Fight for American
Freedom
By Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen
(Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 345 Pages,
$26.99)
I did not know until I took this book up that political polymath
Newt Gingrich, in addition to his full schedule of public policy
participation and his omnipresence on cable chat shows, also was a
principal in a factory operation that churns out what is popularly
known as “alternative history.”
Sometimes known as “what-if history,” alternative history likes
to change significant details in a well-known event and then
speculate on how the outcome would have been changed — what if
Pickett’s division had not charged at Gettysburg; that
sort of thing. It’s all good fun and does no real harm; but given
how hard it is to tell a straight historical tale one wonders about
the lasting value of such enterprises.
Nevertheless, Gingrich, with North Carolina college historian
William R. Forstchen and a staff of researchers, has had a good run
with two series of such histories: one a two-book look at the
events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the other a
three-volume “re-envisioning” (the publisher’s description) of the
Civil War.
To Try Men’s Souls is the first attempt by the
Gingrich-Forstchen brand at straight fiction, but at first reading
it seems to bear very little on either George Washington the man or
the broader story
of the American War of Independence. Washington the man is scarcely
more than a statue with anxiety issues and the ambivalence of the
American population — part patriot, part loyalist, part
-indifferent — is touched on only in passing. It turns out that
the cover illustration (Emanuel Leutze’s iconic Washington
Crossing the Delaware) tells us better than the title what the
book is all about: the dramatic surprise attack on the Hessians
camped in Trenton, New Jersey, on Christmas Day, 1777.
To their credit, Gingrich and Forstchen advise readers that if
they want a serious account of Washington’s crucial victory they
would be better advised to read either David Hackett Fischer’s
Washington’s Crossing or Joseph Ellis’s His
Excellency: George Washington. But the authors add they were
initially inspired to write their novel after seeing the truly
splendid film on Washington at Valley Forge at the newly
opened Mount Vernon visitors’ center. They are on sure grounds
here, for the new center is well worth exploring even if you have
been there in years past. And the film portrayal (which actually
simulates snow falling on the audience) with its special effects is
worth the tour all by itself.
And suddenly I understood what Gingrich and Forstchen were up
to: they were producing what used to be called a “Henty Boy’s Own”
adventure. George A. Henty was a 19th-century British journalist
and novelist who penned 122 adventure yarns that featured young men
of sterling character who played vital roles in great historical
events. He also produced a rash of short stories that appeared in
two popular newspapers aimed at impressionable boys: The Boy’s
Own Paper and Union Jack.
Like the Horatio Alger genre of the same turn-of-the-century
period, Henty’s stories were based on solid factual dramatic
histories but featured brave, resourceful, honest lads with plenty
of “pluck” who played pivotal roles in helping legendary figures
win the day. The books were equally popular in the United States
and throughout the British Empire for generations. No less figures
than Winston Churchill and John Foster Dulles credited Henty’s
brave boys (girls played an occasional, usually supporting, role)
with being early inspirations.
I confess that I devoured an older uncle’s stash of Henty titles
including, if memory serves, In the Heart of the Rockies; With
Lee in Virginia; Friends Though Divided: A Tale of the Civil
War; and perhaps on point, True to the Old Flag: A Tale of
the American War of Independence. Not surprising, it turns out
Forstchen got his start as a history writer at that staple of
American lad-literature, Boys’ Life magazine.
SO WHAT WE HAVE HERE is 21st-century Henty, purple prose, plucky
lads, and all. Our hero, it should not surprise, is not Washington,
who serves as the great figure who needs our hero’s heroic help.
Rather it is Private Jonathan van Dorn, who with his chum (such
sidekicks are obligatory) Peter Wellsley is a New Jersey militiaman
who serves as the crucial guide to lead the desperate Patriot
troops through the fierce winter night to reach Trenton in time to
surprise the somnolent Hessian garrison.
The requisite tension is provided by a mix of historical fact
and creative drama. Both young men are ashamed at the
less-than-staunch performance of the New Jersey troops in earlier
battles; indeed many had accepted British offers of amnesty and had
deserted. Young van Dorn is further conflicted because he worries
about going into his hometown of Trenton, where his family is
divided in its loyalties. Moreover, he has a debilitating lung
infection that threatens his very life and he should by rights stay
in his miserable hovel in Valley Forge along with roughly 2,000
other sick and malnourished soldiers. But does he malinger when
General Washington needs him most? Silly question.
If you have a preteen boy around who likes history stories, this
might be a worthwhile investment. But there is not much here for a
serious consumer of Revolutionary War history. The book focuses
solely on the daring attack on Trenton on December 26 but pays no
attention at all to the equally significant and daring “Nine Days
Wonder” campaign that followed which saw Washington outmaneuver
Lord Cornwallis at Trenton later and then defeat yet another
British force at Princeton, a campaign that in its dramatic
entirety was far more crucial than the Trenton victory alone in
changing the course of the war.
In passing it does have to be noted that in the authors’
attempts to inject fictional drama to their story they commit some
solecisms that jar the reader. One howler, for example, is the
portrayal of the Hessian colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall playing
checkers with a Mr. Potts, the name of the patriot farmer whose
house at Valley Forge was Washington’s home and headquarters. By
all accounts Rall, who spoke no English and despised Americans
generally, was dead drunk at that critical moment while the
Americans were trudging toward Trenton.
Henty would not have made such a mistake.
