The Martyr and the Traitor: Moses Dunbar, Nathan Hale, and the American Revolution

In this microhistory, Anderson (Creatures of Empire), professor of history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, illustrates the unforgiving nature of the civil conflict that occurred within the larger context of the Revolutionary War. Her narrative takes place mostly in the small farming communities of 18th-century Connecticut. Anderson’s central figures may have been of different classes—Hale was a member of the local gentry; Dunbar came from a poor family—but they were both similarly fated to become ensnared by their chosen commitments in the Revolutionary War. Hale, an American patriot captured by the British, was hanged as a spy and later celebrated. Dunbar, an Anglican in a Congregational town, took up with the Loyalists, suffered a similar fate to Hale’s at the hands of vengeful Americans, and was forgotten. Anderson relates their stories in parallel, and the intricacies of gentlemanly and agricultural New England life shine in her telling. Alternately tragic and inspiring, the book elucidates the complexities and perils present in every revolution. No less than others, the American Revolution was not just a matter of declarations and high-mindedness, but a bitter internal conflict that tore apart individuals, families, and their communities. Anderson’s fine work exposes to view these often hidden realities. (June)