General David Wooster

Book excerpt: David Wooster, Revolutionary War General, though woefully understudied, was one of the most influential figures in Colonial Connecticut. A study of his life is a study of the major events that shaped New England. The growth of his military leadership from the 1740s until his death in 1777, was coupled with active civic responsibility and entrepreneurial spirit. While raising a family in New Haven, Wooster sought active involvement in colonial politics and, at the same time, supported and encouraged New Haven's growing influence as a major port city. Tremendously devoted to the ideas of liberty, freedom, equality and the rights to property, David Wooster epitomized the 18th century American republican cause--a cause for which he sacrificed everything to defend and help secure. At the point in life when most people reached the age of retirement, as well as the ease of old age, Wooster, sixty-five years old at the outset of the Revolutionary War, once more donned the uniform of his home colony of Connecticut, and led troops in the field of battle. He had everything to lose, and nothing but liberty and freedom to gain. To him, however, these were more than ample reasons. This first biography of the influential figure is exhaustively researched from primary sources, covering Wooster's entire life and entire military and civic careers.