This book is a story within a story. It tells the account of Captain Benjamin Church, a leader of the English Colonists during the year-long war between the Englishmen and the Wampanoag Indians from 1675-1676. He was influential in the Colonial period and helped to win the war for the English. I wanted to avoid writing a straight history piece for a number of reasons. One, is that even though this is a long-forgotten war, there are plenty of books out there that detail the events of the war. I wanted to come up with another way to tell the story. So I made it a story within a story.
The information about Church is accurate according to his book and other written accounts of the time. The only times I went outside of the historical accounts of Church is the dispute between he and the magistrates and his explanation of his actions to his wife, Alice. I expounded on what it might have been like given his independent attitude and the situation of the times. But he would have been a hero to the men of 1776, so he makes the perfect example of a fighting man to use as an example to others.
Church had to learn a different way of war, than what the English were used to. Their opponents, (the Indians) were guerrilla fighters, whereas they were used to open field fighting. In 1776, the Colonists who had learned to become Indian fighters, now had to relearn how to fight in the open field and defeat a stronger army in the field. The soldiers of the American Revolution had to be open to a new way of thinking again. The story is about opening up these people to new ways of thinking.
I hope you find this an entertaining account of this period in history.
The story-teller Joshua Temple is a fictious character. He is the conduit through which I tell account of Captain Benjamin. I try to keep a balance between his control of the storyroom/classroom and his pupils who include the men of the barracks as well as the drummer boys.