William Washington, American Light Dragoon: A Continental Cavalry Leader in the War of Independence by Daniel Murphy (review)

What drives a cavalryman toward the enemy’s ranks at the head of a hurtling column, sword raised and horse spurred forward? Daniel Murphy’s useful biography of Lieutenant Colonel William Washington turns on the question of what secures success or defeat. The book achieves its twofold purpose, explaining how eighteenth-century cavalry worked and showing how Washington’s battlefield endeavors shaped the course of the Revolutionary War.

Washington, a cousin of commander in chief George Washington, served throughout the long war, providing Murphy with an opportunity to tell the military story of the Revolution through one officer’s exploits. After a brief description of William Washington’s youth as a second son of the Virginia elite, Murphy turns to his military career. Murphy gives special attention to Washington’s early infantry experiences in the battles at Harlem Heights and Trenton, and then devotes the majority of the book to Washington’s leadership role in the Carolinas with the Continental Light Dragoons, covering Washington’s role in the siege of Charleston, the striking victory at Cowpens, Nathanael Greene’s so-called race to the Dan, and Britain’s pyrrhic victories at Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk’s Hill, and Eutaw Springs. The shallow politics and personal infighting of the Continental officer corps are also well treated; Murphy’s presentation of Washington’s wrangling in 1780 with his semicompetent counterpart Anthony White is particularly revealing of the Revolutionaries’ uneven competence and professionalism. Murphy also briefly addresses Washington’s prosperous postwar career as a rice planter and politician in South Carolina.

Murphy, a veteran of the film industry and adviser to the National Park Service, has a filmmaker’s eye for scene, landscape, and movement. His extensive experience as a Revolutionary War cavalry reenactor brings to life his descriptions and explanations of battles. Particular strengths of this book are Murphy’s explanations of the cavalry’s physical experiences, the mechanics of their weapons, and the logic of their tactics. In his hands, a simple fact—that cavalry kept their swords fairly dull lest they cut themselves or their mounts—conveys great explanatory import. He also uses his extensive reading of early modern European military manuals to frame his chapters with quotations on cavalry from the likes of Frederick the Great. Ten insightful maps buttress the battle descriptions. Murphy has read across the archival sources, but his narrative also rests heavily (and admittedly) on Stephen E. Haller’s William Washington: Cavalryman of the Revolution (Bowie, Md., 2001). Murphy’s treatment of Washington pairs usefully with Jim Piecuch and John Beakes’s biography “Light Horse Harry” Lee in the War of Independence (Charleston, S.C., 2013).

In contrast to American general Henry Lee and British general Banastre Tarleton, William Washington did not create a self-aggrandizing paper trail through his correspondence or a postwar memoir. This is the great challenge facing Murphy as a biographer, and the scarcity of sources does limit the breadth of Murphy’s analysis. He makes some gestures toward broader cultural, psychological, and political questions, but like his historical subject, Murphy’s heart is with the action of the battlefield. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of military history and the Revolution, and it offers meaningful insights into the lived experience of the war.