Each Hath a Hand: The American Revolution at Dawn, 1775

At what point does one risk a family’s peace for a cause with an uncertain future? John Latham returned home from one war with a quiet determination to place his family before all else. A decade later, in 1775, London’s actions against the American colonies threatens the peace. His wife, Katherine, an émigré from Ireland, sees the presence of the British soldiers as leading to only one possible outcome, war. Margaret Gage, the wife of British General Thomas Gage, seeks to support her husband even as he plans to quell the growing of opposition in Massachusetts with a military expedition to the villages of Lexington and Concord. All will clash with the unyielding forces of history as events present them with decisions once unimaginable at the dawn of the American Revolution.

In 1775, before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Boston was a large town by colonial American standards, but more like an island prison to the 6,700 British soldiers and marines garrisoned there since the Boston Tea Party ion 1773.  London had sent the additional troops to quell the growing rebellious tendencies of Massachusetts.  Surrounded on three sides by Boston Harbor and living amidst many residents who resented their presence, discontent and anger toward the colonials grew among the soldiers.  The upcoming secret expedition planned by their commander, General Thomas Gage, would unleash the anger of the unsettled soldiers and be met by the momentous opposition of thousands of townspeople summoned to action by Dr. Joseph Warren through Paul Revere, Williams Dawes, Samual Prescott and the fictional John Latham of our story.

In Peter Abair's book, Each Hath a Hand, John Latham, accompanied by his best friend and young son, will journey into Boston from their village of Acton with no idea that the clash between the old and new worlds would begin before the next morning's dawn.  They would travel the same roads upon which the British soldiers would soon venture from Boston, on their way to Lexington and Concord.  The journeys of all would take them to situations unimagined.  It would be up to Katherine Latham to begin her own journey - one to save her family and its future.  It is the dawn of the American Revolution, and this novel places you in the middle of the action.