In 1777, aiming to crush the American rebellion and win for himself a lasting fame, British General John Burgoyne sets out from Canada with a massive army. Losing the help of his Indian allies and slowed by the nearly impassable terrain, the flamboyant Burgoyne finds himself locked in the battle of his life at a place called Saratoga. There, under the heroic leadership of General Benedict Arnold, the rustic American force claims an unlikely victory, and a turning point is reached in the American Revolution. Filled with heart-pounding action and true stories of intrigue, bravery, and patriotism, Volume 4 of Prelude to Glory captures the high adventure of America's quest for independence, a struggle that would have surely failed except for the hand of Providence.

October 19, 1781: The great guns at Yorktown fell silent, British General Cornwallis surrendered, and England conceded the war. For one euphoric moment a shout of jubilation rolled forth in America - and then harsh reality gripped the country. America was thirteen separate countries, each with its own money, political organization, culture, and history. Congress was essentially powerless. Border tariffs sprang up between states, with cannons to enforce them. Quarrels over control of the great rivers brought states to the brink of war. Banks lacked gold and silver to support their paper currency; bankruptcies raged. The military was paid with unenforceable written promises, and destitute soldiers marched on to Philadelphia, demanding their wages. Finally, in 1786, still unpaid, the soldiers revolted, closing down many New England courthouses to stop the bankruptcy courts from seizing their farms. Shooting erupted; Americans killed Americans. The impending storm was threatening...

The surrender of British General Charles Cornwallis and his entire army to the United States at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781, stunned the world. The thirteen-foundling United States had won their impossible revolution. They could not know that their victory was but a shifting from a war with musket and cannon to one with tariffs and border disputes. With the country sinking into bankruptcy, the leaders in the thirteen states agreed: Come together, or America is doomed. May, 1787, fifty-five desperate men met in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. For more than four months they sweated in a sealed room and harangued and debated and compromised. The Constitution they produced established a government like none since the dawn of time, and changed the world forever. A More Perfect Union tells the story of that government's creation.

The Americans had stunned the world by winning their independence from the mightiest military power on earth and creating a startling new constitution that vested ultimate power in the common man. No one had anticipated that, by the 1790s, the giants of the world — England, France, Spain, and Russia — would again be caught up in war, with the United States trapped in the middle. British Canada to the north, hostile American Indians to the west, Spain and pirates to the south, and British ships in the Atlantic all loomed menacingly on the new country's horizon. Too soon, the Americans had to stand and fight or accept the role of a weakling in the family of nations. When President James Madison declared war against England in June 1812, the British had 600 warships and over 200,000 men in uniform, while America had 16 warships and only 12,000 men at arms. This historical novel reads like a modern David and Goliath story.

In epic style, the new historical fiction series Prelude to Glory chronicles the miraculous events that gave birth to a new nation. In Our Sacred Honor, the first volume in the series, master storyteller Ron Carter presents the early events of the Revolutionary War through the eyes of common people. We meet the heroes, but we see them through the eyes and hearts of the soldiers and the sailors, men and women, who came out of the shops, fields, and forests and paid the price. No human mind could ever have created a plot so diverse, so intensely gripping, so inspiring as the story of the American Revolution. Through fictional as well as real-life characters, Prelude to Glory powerfully depicts that dramatic story.

The summer of 1777 proves to be a difficult and discouraging time for General George Washington and his poorly equipped and undisciplined Continental Army. Campaigning along the eastern seaboard, they are pitted against General William Howe and his superbly trained and better provisioned British forces. The inspired Americans make a good showing at the battles of Brandywine Creek and Germantown, but in the end they absorb two disappointing defeats. The atrocities suffered by the Americans in the "Paoli Massacre" and the political machinations of the ambitious American officers Horatio Gates and Thomas Conway set the stage for the darkest hour of the entire Revolution—the heartbreaking story of Valley Forge. Suffering from disease, hunkered down in crude huts and struggling to survive the bitter winter weather, the downtrodden American soldiers lack everything needed to sustain life, especially food. In a letter addressed to Congress, General Washington decries the...

In this sixth volume of his acclaimed Prelude to Glory series, author Ron Carter has crafted another compelling chapter in his depiction of the Revolutionary War. Readers will be interested to learn the fates of beloved fictional characters-Brigitte Dunson and her British captain Richard Buchanan, Eli Stroud and Mary Flint, and childhood sweethearts Matthew Dunson and Kathleen Thorpe. Through their stories and others, Carter brings to vivid life the legendary places, people, and battles that were part of America's quest for liberty and independence.

By the end of 1776, the Continental army is faced with the overwhelming truth that they are losing the Revolution. The British have pummeled them with a series of bloody battles that have shattered the American army and have forced them into a desperate retreat. Now, the American camp crouches helplessly on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River as the British move more than three thousand Hessian soldiers into position. Only the black waters of the Delaware River prevent a total ruin. Only a desperate plan promises a chance of success. This third volume in the Prelude to Glory series, To Decide Our Destiny, focuses on General George Washington as he makes the hard decision to command his struggling and beaten army once more before the soldiers' enlistments expire at the end of the year. In a torrential blizzard on Christmas Day, Washington and his army cross the Delaware River and march into history. Throughout the battles of Trenton and Princeton, the discouraged...

"These are the times that try men's souls," writes journalist Thomas Paine at the end of 1776, a dark time in America's struggle for freedom. As the dramatic events depicted in volume 2 of the monumental Prelude to Glory series show, the high price of liberty for which the colonists fought would include great sacrifice and endurance—even in the face of apparent defeat. Focusing primarily on events between June and December 1776, this installment in the series follows Billy Weems (friend of Matthew Dunson from volume 1) to the battlefields in the New York area, where General George Washington commands the Continental army. Early on, Billy meets and befriends Eli Stroud, a white man raised by Iroquois Indians, who lends his unusual talents to the Revolutionary cause. But as events unfold, the Americans' situation looks more and more bleak. A series of engagements with the enemy leaves the colonial soldiers pummeled and staggering, driven to disastrous retreat again and...