As the British soldiers marched from the streets of Yorktown, Virginia on October 17, 1781, their heads hung and their colors remained cased. They marched toward the officers representing General George Washington’s Continental Army where their arms, and pride, was to be surrendered. Each soldier wondered how the increasingly victorious and mighty British Army could possibly be sent into ignoble defeat by their very own colonies. Since that day, scholars, military leaders, and historians have studied the victory of a relatively unprofessional army over their far superior foes. The latest installment in this 234 year debate is the center of a lecture and discussion led by Professor Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy in the 4th edition of the First Annual Discussions on Military History Roundtables at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC). Dr. O’Shaughnessy is joined by a panel including Dr. James Scudieri, Senior Historian at the USAHEC, and Dr. Gregory Urwin, Professor of History at Temple University.

The roundtable discussion centers on the arguments made by O’Shaughnessy in his latest book, The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the Revolutionary War and the Fate of the Empire. The book follows the careers and decisions of the primary leaders during the war, from King George III himself to the generals on the front line. How could the British, who captured every major American city throughout the war, lose to the colonial forces? O’Shaughnessy weaves a narrative of political turmoil in London undermining the war effort and the fearsome desperation of the American fighters to outline how each of the primary British actors in this martial saga failed to maintain the holdings of the British Empire.

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