Book excerpt: The thirteen colonies may have declared their freedom on July 4, 1776, but the Continental Army had to fight the British for more than six years to win the war of independence. Understanding the flow of battles and the strategy behind the campaigns is essential to making sense of the greater political issues that shaped the new nation. Decisive Battles of the American Revolution remains the best concise history of the war's military action. First published in 1962, historian Joseph B. Mitchell's acclaimed account covers all the battles, sieges, and campaigns from Lexington to the final victory at Yorktown. In clear language, Mitchell describes the progress of the war, analyzes the military tactics of both sides, and brings the reader to the actual scenes of fighting by the use of maps that show the disposition of troops, movement of armies, and the strategy devised by the commanders. These maps, based on modern road maps and newly updated for this edition, not only depict individual battles but also reveal the course of the war simultaneously in the North and the South so that the student of military tactics or the visitor to the battlefields can understand more clearly exactly what happened at a particular engagement. In addition to the updated maps, this new edition now contains current information about American Revolution battlefields and historic sites open to the public. For historians, for the tourist of battlefields, for the reader concerned with the stirring events that led to independence, Decisive Battles of the American Revolution is the indispensable guide to understanding how the Continental Army defeated the forces of a mighty world power.