- In August and September of 1776, New York City was the locus of the Revolution and the place where the Americans nearly lost the war. Russell Shorto, who wrote the definitive book on the Dutch in Manhattan, The Island at the Center of the World, recounts these events and provides a terrific virtual tour of the city in When New York City Was a (Literal) Battlefield (The New York Times, 19-Nov-2017)
When New York City Was a (Literal) Battlefield
No man ever loved Massachusetts with greater intensity than did [Massachusetts Royal Governor] Thomas Hutchinson. He had written her history, fought for her boundaries, re-established her currency, seen to it that her courts and judicial system were kept to a high standard. He had honestly believed in the centralization of power, and that the centre should be in London. The side which won did not, and yet their grandchildren (two of Paul Revere’s among them) were to be dying within a century for the centralization of power in the Federal Government. Hutchinson lost everything by backing the wrong system at the wrong time.... Yet if the other side had won, Thomas Hutchinson would undoubtedly be regarded as one of our great patriots.
Paul Revere & The World He Lived In (1942)