Rabble in Arms follows
up on Arundel, the first of
Kenneth Roberts’s historical novels about the American Revolution. Like
Arundel, Rabble in Arms has a
narrator from Arundel (later Kennebunkport), Maine, who volunteers to
fight for American freedom from England. Though narrator Peter Merrill
is the presumed protagonist, the hero is still-loyal Benedict Arnold.
If it weren’t for Arnold, Roberts contends, we’d have lost to the
superior English forces.
Rabble in Arms tells the story
of the Northern Campaign, whose success kept New England from being
severed from the rest of the colonies. The climactic Battle of
Saratoga, won through Arnold’s heroics, comes near the end of a long
book that is eye-opening for those brought up on tales of patriots.
Many of the so-called heroes cared more about their fortunes than the
country’s, the Congress was inept, and politicians were promoted above
able commanders. The fighting men were ill trained, ill disciplined,
and poorly supplied.
As in Arundel, Roberts
places his fictional characters into real events. Readers of the first
novel will recognize Steven Nason, Cap Huff, Marie de Sabrevois, and
Natalis and will enjoy new character Doc Means, a crusty, iconoclastic
doctor. It’s too bad Roberts couldn’t find a way to get Phoebe Nason
from Arundel, Steven’s wife,
into the story more. She’s more interesting that the conventional Ellen
Phipps, Peter’s love interest.
At the end of the book Roberts devotes a chapter to Peter’s defense of
Benedict Arnold, written years after the main action. His argument is
that Arnold could foresee the chaos into which an uncontrolled Congress
was plunging the country, destroying what the Revolutionary soldiers
had fought for, and so Arnold “sought to give everything to England
until we had regained our strength.” The interesting, if far-fetched,
premise is worth getting historians’ takes on. Historical fiction that
persuades readers to learn more history has done its job well.
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