Friday, March 18, 2011• Reception: 5:30 p.m. • Program: 6:00 p.m
Thomas B. Allen is the author of numerous history books, including George Washington, Spymaster and Remember Valley Forge. Allen is a contributor to Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, Military History Quarterly, Naval History, the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, and other publications. He was named by the U.S. Naval Institute as 2004 Naval History Author of the Year “for the sustained high quality of his literary contributions to Naval History magazine.” A surprising, insightful narrative, TORIES unearths little known information about Loyalists. New York City and Philadelphia were Tory strongholds throughout the Revolution; at times, Georgia and the Carolinas had more trained and armed Tories than British Redcoats; Lord Dunmore, a Virginia royal governor, offered freedom to any slave that joined the British fight, creating thousands of black Loyalists; Scottish Highlanders, though onetime foes of the British, fought for the crown in exchange for land grants; and William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, led a brutal Tory guerrilla force that terrorized New Jersey.
