The story of the American Revolution is the story of a people at war with themselves and each other. Caught up in what Thomas Paine called the American crisis, American colonists made decisions that often had nothing to do with the fight for independence from England or the loyalty to king and country.
No Small Thing follows the men and women as they chart a path toward an uncertain future, from the sloops of Breeds Hill where rebel and regular engaged in a bloody test of wills, to a desperate gamble launched across the frozen Delaware River on Christmas day, 1776.
For Anthony Carter, a young blacksmith’s apprentice from Framingham, Massachusetts, the call to arms on the morning of April 19, 1775 was a chance to set aside his childhood and take his place among the men of his community as an equal.
The opportunity afforded Captain Anton de Chevalier by the French foreign minister to return to the Americas and report on the condition of the American army besieging the British at Boston is seized upon for reasons that are very personal.
Wounded during the assault on Breeds Hill, Lieutenant James Keating, an officer in the 23rd Regiment of Foot, finds the experience of war far different than what he had thought it would be.
Ian McPherson, a Scot who first saw battle in 1745 following the banner of Prince Charles Stuart, finds he has little choice but to fight to defend the new life he and his Irish born wife have made for themselves along the frontier of colonial Virginia.
