All the Brave Fellows (Isaac Biddlecomb)

One of today's most gifted historical novelists, James L. Nelson writes breathtaking descriptions of the sea and the age of fighting sail when sailors became warriors and warriors became legends. Now Nelson, "the American counterpart to Patrick O'Brian" (David Brink), takes us into the heart of the Revolutionary War, as the British seize the capital of revolutionary America, Philadelphia, and General George Washington yields ground to the superior British force but refuses to give in.

It is the Year of the Hangman, 1777, and Captain Isaac Biddlecomb, with his wife and newborn son aboard, drives the Continental brig of war Charlemagne as she races along the New Jersey coast. Bound away for Philadelphia, Biddlecomb has orders to take command of the newly built, twenty-eight-gun frigate Falmouth and get her to sea before she is taken by General Howe's invading army.

Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to Biddlecomb, the entire British fleet under the command of Richard "Black Dick" Howe stands between him and the capital city. Locked in battle on a lee shore, Biddlecomb is forced to run his beloved Charlemagne ashore -- only to come face-to-face with his enemy, Lt. John Smeaton, a man to whom he owes a debt of blood.

Meanwhile, the Falmouth is in mortal peril. Washington has yielded Philadelphia to the British, and Howe's troops are pouring into the city, threatening to capture the new frigate and use her against the very people who built her. Only master shipwright Malachi Foote and a ragtag band of deserters from the Continental Army still stand between the ship and the British forces. Biddlecomb and company, sailing whatever craft they can procure, run the gauntlet of the Battle of Delaware through the British and American lines, making for Philadelphia, as Biddlecomb carries his bloody feud with Smeaton to its ultimate conclusion.

A novel of nonstop adventure on both sea and land, All The Brave Fellows plunges us into the fledgling United States' darkest hour, when freedom was the prize for which Americans were dying.