Military Loyalists of the American Revolution: Officers and Regiments, 1775-1783, by Walter T. Dornfest
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Pp. viii,516. Append., notes., biblio., index. $125.00 paper. ISBN: 0786448156.
Although the proportion is likely
exaggerated, it has traditionally been believed that about a third of
the people of the Thirteen Colonies during the Revolutionary War were
“Tories”. But while Loyalists gave enormous support to the Crown during
the war, they have not been the subject of much serious study.
In Military Loyalists of the American Revolution
Prof. Dornfest (emeritus, CUNY Staten I) gives us a detailed work that
is both biographical dictionary of literally thousands of officers who
served in Loyalist units during the Revolutionary War, and an impressive
catalog of hundreds of such units. Officer entries include rank,
service, and unit, plus a reference, and many also have years of birth
and death, background details, anecdotal items, and so forth. Entries
for the units are similar, but first divided into Loyalist units
organized by the Crown and those organized by local volunteers, the
latter on a colony-by-colony basis. Coverage includes the Thirteen
Colonies, outlying districts such as the Ohio Country and the Indian
territories, and even the “other” colonies, Canada, the Floridas, the
West Indies, and elsewhere.
This makes Military Loyalists of the American Revolution both unusual and invaluable for anyone working on the American Revolution.
