This book was one of my first forays into Historical Fiction, so I'm going to start with a big grain of salt and say that this really might not be the best genre of literature for me.

Let me spare everyone the first 100 or 150 pages:
It's Christmas on 1776, and it is cold Cold COLD, wet Wet WET, and the army is miserable Miserable MISERABLE. Did I mention it was cold, wet, and miserable? Oh, and it was cold, wet, and miserable. The soldiers were mostly barefoot, hungry, and frozen. But they are sustained by the writings of Tom Paine. Flashback to various times in the last month: Tom Paine is there, cold wet and miserable, with the army. And he's a drunk. And it's cold, and most of the army doesn't have warm or dry clothes, coats, shoes, etc. Many of the "Sunshine Patriots" ran off, deserting the army for the warmth of home.

Okay -- after that part (and did I mention it was cold wet and miserable?) -- the book is pretty interesting. It does a fine job of putting a human face on very difficult attack, at least in the character of Jonathan Van Dorn. Frozen and sick, but still going because he *really believes* in the cause of freedom.

Washington is shown with doubts, with longing for home, and with determination to not show doubt, fear, or lack of confidence. His leadership his shown to be strong, as is his ethic and respect for the men working with him towards liberty.

Paine is suffering from his alcohol abuse, but has a strong spirit (no pun intended), and overcomes his pain and drunkeness to embolden the continentals. His words were as bold a weapon as any musket.

It's a good book. Reduce the first 150 pages to 25 or so, and it could be a great book.

Gingrich and Forstchen took a moment of history that every schoolchild should know - Washington crossing the Delaware, and made it real.

We all know the basic facts. George Washington, Thomas Paine, etc. There will be no spoilers; we all know how it ends.

What is really neat about this book is the author's use of an 'everyman,' a young revolutionary soldier, Jonathan Van Dorn. We meet and get to know and like this young man. We follow him through the physical, emotional, and spiritual tribulations that were that winter campaign. He puts a human face on the suffering of the soldiers in that conflict. His family includes a brother who fights for the British, parents who are collaborators, and a brother who deserts the revolutionary army and joins the enemy.

Washington is portrayed as a very human person, one acutely aware of the responsibilities of his command and struggling to live up to everyone's expectations. Humanizing Washington does not diminish him. I think that understanding his struggles and stress increase my appreciation of just what an incredible man he was.

The real revelation to me was learning about Thomas Paine. Like everybody else, I'd read small parts of Common Sense and The American Crisis in my HS History books. I knew some of the words and some of the turns of Phrase that made Paine so important. I really knew very little about the man. The authors portray him as a deeply flawed man, but ultimately one who lives up to his responsibilities.

The end of the book is sad, but I really liked it.

(Once again, full disclosure: Newt Gingrich's elder daughter, Kathy Lubbers, is a longtime friend of mine.)

After two successful series of historical fiction set in the Civil War and World War II, Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen have turned to the American Revolution, focusing on a period of less than 24 hours that almost certainly saved the country.

"To Try Men's Souls" takes us to the Battle of Trenton, in which Washington's army crossed the Delaware River and, as every American schoolchild is taught, surprised and defeated the Hessians as they slept off a Christmas feast in 1776.

Gingrich and Forstchen fill in the historical context through three primary characters: George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army; Thomas Paine, the fiery essayist; and Jonathan Van Dorn, a private in Washington's army who has family in Trenton.

Because Gingrich and Forstchen aren't exploring alternative historical outcomes, as they did with their World War II series, they face a certain challenge: how to maintain suspense and interest when the reader already knows, or thinks he does, how it all turns out.

But history answers the challenge for them: even as it happens, the Patriots' maneuvering to attack faces difficulty after difficulty, delay upon delay, ice chunks in the river, ravines that must be forded with heavy cannon. All the while, as they march for miles, the same thick snowfall, sleet and gale-force winds they are counting on to keep their movements hidden from the enemy hinders their advance, soaks them through and freezes the men, many literally shoeless, to the bone. Washington's plan calls for his army to catch the Hessians asleep in their beds, but the delays threaten to bring them to Trenton in broad daylight to face a fearsome, forewarned and ruthless enemy.

During that advance, we learn in flashback that the spirit of revolution that swept the colonies after the Declaration of Independence in July has been battered by a series of military disasters in New York, capped by the execution of Patriot prisoners by the Hessians and a long, ignominious retreat west through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, a retreat so hasty that the army had to abandon most of its equipment. Many of those who had embraced the independence movement under the blazing summer sun had come to accommodations with the British, and their Hessian hirelings, by Christmas. Among them, we learn, are the family of Private Van Dorn.

Washington desperately needs a military victory to inspire his army, more than a thousand of whom left him when their enlistments expired on Dec. 1 and many more of whose enlistments will expire Dec. 31, to stay in the fight even though he cannot pay them, supply them or even feed them. He needs it to convince the Continental Congress that the revolution must continue and that the army must be paid and supplied. And he needs it to convince his countrymen that freedom from Britain isn't just a fantasy. His leadership - his sheer force of will - is the only thing that makes the assault even thinkable.

And his countrymen need Thomas Paine's prose to inspire them, to buck them up under the harshest and most unpropitious circumstances. Yet Paine himself is nearly as ragtag and desperate as the worst-off of Washington's foot soldiers as, while the battle approaches, he pens the words that will be recited centuries later: "These are the times that try men's souls ..."

These three storylines converge as the Patriots converge on Trenton, where a magnificently detailed account of the battle caps the action.

The story makes real, and horrific, the suffering of men most of us know only from the idealized painting that adorns the book's cover. It also makes clear how close Washington came to defeat in this battle - a defeat which almost certainly would have ended the Revolution. And the conclusion offers not just confirmation of our history and values, but also a grim satisfaction for each of the three main characters.

Gingrich and Forstchen have spun an engaging and suspenseful yarn about an episode in our history of which all Americans can be proud.