Alonzo Chappel's 1874 lithograph
of the Battle of Eutaw Springs

Major General Nathanael Greene, Rhode Island-born, Quaker-bred commander of the Southern

Continental Army, conducts an arduous campaign to reduce a series of British posts in South Carolina

during the fateful summer of 1781, while, in Virginia, Private James Johnson, Scottish immigrant and 

runaway indentured servant, serves as a Continental infantryman in the maneuvering of Lafayette’s

army against Cornwallis. Johnson, recruited into the dragoon service, travels South and joins Greene’s

army in time for the battle of Eutaw Springs,   one of the bloodiest actions of the war for the

numbers engaged. The contrasting

perspectives of Greene and Johnson give the

reader a vivid understanding of the War of the

Revolution, both from the command level and

through the eyes of the ordinary soldier.


The novel probes our nation’s earliest history with a post-911 sensibility. What values animated those who
founded the United States?  Are we the unworthy inheritors
of their noble legacy? Or are we - and were they - merely human; and is it the purpose of history to put our humanity constantly to the test?
 


R E V I E W S
New Review by Isabel Zuber in the Winston-Salem Journal  (8/10/2008)

Review by Rob Neufeld in the Asheville Citizen-Times.  (6/29/2008)

Audio clips of Rob's interview with Charles on The Read on WNC website.

Deirdre Parker Smith's Opinion Column in SalisburyPost.com.  (7/11/2008)

"Revolutionary Novel More than Meets the Mind" Smoky Mountain Sentinel  (7/2/2008)

Brief review in the Rapid River. (page 20)

NC Poet Laureate, Kathryn Stripling Byer's blog comments.

Excerpt and Interview on the NC Arts Council Books Page.

Dr. Dennis Conrad of the Naval Historical Center in Washington, DC, past editor of the
The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, read the book in manuscript and has called it
“a spell-binding story, beautifully written, that teaches more about the how, why, and who of the
Revolutionary War in the South than histories devoted to the topic.”

Seabrook Wilkinson, Literary Correspondent, The Charleston Mercury writes,  “Charles Price’s masterful novel Nor the Battle to the Strong…[is] the most compelling portrait of Nathanael Greene I have read [and] will doubtless win many admirers for this great man whose courageous persistence ensured that the South would be part of the new America.”
                       
Ron Rash, author of One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, The World Made Straight and the forthcoming Serena, one of the South’s most distinguished novelists, short story writers and poets, has said of Price’s book, “Charles Price has fused extensive research and a born storyteller’s talent to create a compelling novel of a too-long-neglected aspect of Southern, and American, history.  Nor the Battle to the Strong is an impressive addition to Price’s already considerable literary achievement.”

John Buchanan, author of The Road to Guilford Courthouse, acknowledged as the definitive modern account of the campaign that won Revolution in the South, has written of Nor the Battle to the Strong, “Charles Price’s new novel is a rare combination of the novelist’s and historian’s art, a brilliant recreation of a distant past and containing by far keener insights than any writer before him into that complex soldier, Nathanael Greene.”

Robert Morgan, author of Brave Enemies: a Novel of the American Revolution said, "The crucial story of the battles of the American Revolution in the South, and of General Nathanael Greene's role in them, has almost been passed over by historians, Hollywood, and the popular imagination. But no campaign, no single figure, is more significant in the narrative of eventual victory at Yorktown, and the birth of the Republic. We are indebted to Charles F. Price for telling that story memorably and with authority in Nor the Battle to the Strong. This is a thrilling, inspiring, and enlightening book."
 

©2007 Charles F. Price. All rights reserved.