The best histories are the stories of specific people and why they did what they did. In my writing, I strive to revive the stories of several people that many historians might only include as flavoring in their writings rather than a main course. Names like Isaac Frye, Ezekiel Goodale, William Adrian Hawkins, and Will Burton
Does your book provide any new contributions to our understanding of history? In Honor and Valor, I divide the contributions to historical understanding into two categories:
Do the math: In the Battle of Freeman's Farm, the Americans fired upwards of 60,000 bullets and maybe 1,000 found an enemy soldier. The British fired about the same number and only hit half as many Americans.
Here's a great article, following up on the intersection of Joseph Gray's narrative and the Van Veghton family's accounts of the New Hampshire Continental troops assisting in the evacuation of Schaghticoke, NY in August of 1777. I am re-writing that part of Book 2 in Duty in the Cause of Liberty for the third time…
Got to love the Internet for providing the basis to connect the threads of history! See my comment proposing the connecting the thread at the end.
Duty in the Cause of Liberty 