The Monmouth Manifesto

Book excerpt: 1782---George Washington “I demand the guilty—Cap Lippicott” “that villain Moody” The American Revolution is America’s first Civil War. “Loyalists’—those in the American colonies loyal to the British Crown and the colonial governments—see the self-styled “Patriots” as traitorous Rebels. Communities, even families, are split into two hostile warring camps. “The Monmouth Manifesto” takes you into this seldom-seen Loyalist world in a novel based on true historical characters and events. Two New Jersey farmers—Richard Lippincott, a modest Quaker, and James Moody, an alpha Anglican—become unlikely friends in a Loyalist regiment in the British Army and see all kinds of action against the Rebels, from pitched battles and guerrilla warfare to highjackings and kidnappings. And there are Reprisals, like extrajudicial hangings of both Loyalists and, fatefully, Patriots. Their daring deeds in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia draw the wrath of General George Washington, whose famous stoic calm is shattered by his explosive anger, which leads to one of his worst decisions and an international incident—the Asgill Affair—that embarrasses his ally, the King of France himself. Their loved ones suffer too, as Lippincott and Moody come to pay the price for their courage on the wrong side of historyˆ—loss of their farms, broken homes, brutal prison confinements, a murder trial and the prospect of refugeedom.