Walter Edgar's Journal: Revolutionary roads

Walter Edgar's Journal

The hardened frontiersmen Patrick Ferguson challenged - portrayed here on a marker at Kings Mountain National Military Park - proved more than he could handle.(Bob Thompson / Courtesy of the author)

Bob Thompson wanted to walk the battlefields of the American Revolution – maybe not all, but a lot of them. Why? Bob’s a retired journalist and had decided awhile back that seeing the places where historical figures walked helped him tell the best story.

In his book, Revolutionary Roads: Searching for the War That Made America Independent...and All the Places It Could Have Gone Terribly Wrong (2022, Hachette), he takes readers along, walking history-shaping battlefields from Georgia to Quebec; and hanging out with passionate lovers of revolutionary.

In this episode of Walter Edgar’s Journal, Bob talks about one of his favorite battles in New England (Saratoga) and then explores some of the decisive battles that decided the outcome of the Revolution – battles that took place in the Carolinas. And he spotlights how the outcome a major South Carolina battle may have hinged on a tiny, fraught tipping point – a misunderstood order that could have altered the course of the war.