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Financier of the American Revolution
Simon & Schuster
November 2010
On Sale: November 2, 2010
640 pages
ISBN: 1416570918
EAN: 9781416570912
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History
In this biography, the acclaimed author of Sons of
Providence, winner of the 2007 George Wash- ington Book
Prize, recovers an immensely important part of the founding
drama of the country in the story of Robert Morris, the man
who financed Washington’s armies and the American Revolution. Morris started life in the colonies as an apprentice in a
counting house. By the time of the Revolution he was a rich
man, a commercial and social leader in Philadelphia. He
organized a clandestine trading network to arm the American
rebels, joined the Second Continental Congress, and financed
George Washington’s two crucial victories—Valley Forge and
the culminating battle at Yorktown that defeated Cornwallis
and ended the war. The leader of a faction that included Benjamin Franklin,
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Washington, Morris
ran the executive branches of the revolutionary government
for years. He was a man of prodigious energy and adroit
management skills and was the most successful businessman on
the continent. He laid the foundation for public credit and
free capital markets that helped make America a global
economic leader. But he incurred powerful enemies who
considered his wealth and influence a danger to public
"virtue" in a democratic society. After public service, he gambled on land speculations that
went bad, and landed in debtors prison, where George
Washington, his loyal friend, visited him. This once wealthy and powerful man ended his life in modest
circumstances, but Rappleye restores his place as a patriot
and an immensely important founding father.
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