Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution (virtual)

In Rebels at Sea, Eric Jay Dolin contends that privateers were in fact critical to the American victory in the Revolution. At a time when the young Continental Navy numbered no more than about sixty vessels all told, privateers rushed to fill the gaps. Dolin shows that privateersmen greatly contributed to the war’s success: diverting critical British resources to protecting their shipping, playing a key role in bringing France into the war on the side of the United States, providing much-needed supplies at home, and bolstering the new nation’s confidence that it might actually defeat the most powerful military force in the world. Creating an entirely new pantheon of Revolutionary heroes, Dolin reclaims such forgotten privateersmen as Captain Jonathan Haraden and Offin Boardman, putting their exploits, and sacrifices, at the very center of the conflict.