phillipthomastuckerphd-blog

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The Alamo San Antonio, TX

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Phillip Thomas Tucker's Alexander Hamilton's Revolution

Phillip Thomas Tucker, PhD, is an award winning author of more than 40 books on a wide variety of aspects of the American experience. He has published a number of books about America's most iconic historical figures, including Alexander Hamilton. In 2017, Phillip Thomas Tucker's Alexander Hamilton's Revolution: His Vital Role as Washington's Chief of Staff was released by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, New York. This ground-breaking book was chosen as a selection of the History Book Club, and presented a host of new insights into Hamilton's remarkable life. As a young man, Alexander Hamilton believed that a field command would be the way to the military glory that he so desperately wanted. Hamilton became a commissioned captain of artillery through the State of New York in March of 1776, but he did not receive the opportunity to lead infantry in battle until 1781. However, he led his battery with distinction in numerous engagements during the New York Campaign of 1776 and at the battles of Trenton and Princeton in New Jersey. General George Washington gave Hamilton the command of a light infantry battalion that arrived at Yorktown, Virginia, in the summer of 1781. In mid-October during siege operations when the army of General Charles Cornwallis was trapped inside the defenses of Yorktown, General Washington found his advance blocked by two British defensive bastions known as Redoubts 9 and 10. Hamilton's light infantry battalion was assigned to the task of capturing Redoubt 10. Although command of the attack had initially been assigned to Lt. Col. De Gimat, Hamilton argued with strong conviction that his seniority and experience warranted his assignment to the command. Washington relented, and Lt. Col. Hamilton took charge of the attack that he was determined to lead in person. As the French troops assigned to Redoubt 9 signaled the start of the attack, Hamilton and his troops charged Redoubt 10, pushing forward across open ground in the darkness of the October night, despite British artillery fire. Another surge of American forces, led by Hamilton's best friend John Laurens, struck the rear of the redoubt. There was no counterattack. Although Hamilton lost only nine men in capturing the strategic redoubt, he set up the American forces to push forward with the all-important siege, which ended with the surrender of British General Cornwallis several weeks later--a major turning point in not only the American Revolution, but also in world history.

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Cathy Williams - the First African-American Woman in the US Military

Historian Phillip Thomas Tucker, PhD, an award-winning author of more than 40 books, presents insightful new perspectives and finds unique areas of the American historical narrative. Tucker's Cathy Williams: From Slave to Buffalo Soldier tells the story of the first African-American woman to enlist and serve in the American military. This is the first book to tell the full story of Cathy Williams' remarkable life. Fifteen years later, Dr. Tucker's America's First Female Buffalo Soldier, A New Look at the Life of Cathy Williams in History and Memory provided more details about her amazing story based on new research. On November 15, 1866, Cathy Williams enlisted in the American armed forces (an excellent Buffalo Soldier regiment, the 38th United States Infantry) under the assumed name of William Cathay, pretending to be a man for the duration of her enlistment. Williams' career in the military lasted about two years, and including a campaign against the fierce Apache of New Mexico. As a Buffalo Soldier who served for nearly two years during the Indian Wars, Private William Cathay mostly performed basic garrison duties at various forts in the West, but records do not indicate that she participated in combat. However, she did do well in the military, despite an occasional illness and was often hospitalized. For the rest of her life, Cathy was very proud of the fact that she was "a good soldier," who performed her duties well and as required. For a variety of valid reasons, she wanted to end her military service to America. During her last hospitalization in the fall of 1868, she allowed the staff physician at a fort in New Mexico to discover that she was a woman, at which point she was honorably discharged from the military. Despite her poor health and honorable discharge, Williams was never allowed to receive a pension or disability payment from the military, even after she developed diabetes and lost her toes. After living for decades in the West after her military service across the West, she paid a high personal price for faithfully serving America for nearly two years on the western frontier.

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Phillip Thomas Tucker's Exodus from the Alamo - a New Look

As a widely-respected American historian and PhD, Phillip Thomas Tucker provides bold new looks at American history from fresh perspectives that often fade into obscurity and have been long forgotten. Phillip Thomas Tucker's ground-breaking book, Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth, was a selection of military and history book clubs. This important book garnered excellent reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, including the London Times. Tucker is one of America's most prolific authors of ground-breaking works about American history. He has written more than 40 books on a wide variety of historical subjects, including dynamic women, such as Cathy Williams, Anne Bonny, and Emily D. West, who were ahead of their time. The Alamo is often romanticized in the most basic and simplistic terms as the last stand of heroic fighters for Texan independence, but the truth, as examined by Dr. Tucker, is far from it. Most Alamo defenders fought of land and slavery, because these two factors were the keys to personal success in an untamed land. Even more, the fabled last stand was much less glorious than traditionally presented in books and films. Mexican forces attacked well before dawn, catching the defenders asleep, and leading to a disorganized and inadequate defense that cost many lives. Some defenders, such as Captain Dickinson, bravely held out as long as possible before ultimately being defeated, while quite a few others simply tried to escape what was far more of a slaughter than a glorious battle as long portrayed. Most of the fighting, according to the rare sources, including Mexican primary accounts and period newspapers, discovered and consulted by Dr. Tucker, took place between the escapees and Mexican cavalry on the plains nearby outside the Alamo's walls. Evidence indicates that the funeral pyres were in two distinct locations, corresponding to two major sets of escaping forces who wisely fled the Alamo, which had become a deathtrap, in the hope of surviving to fight another day.

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Phillip Thomas Tucker's Ground-Breaking Gettysburg Books

Recognized by leading Civil War experts and the New York Times Book Review for his ground-breaking work entitled Pickett's Charge, A New Look at Gettysburg's Final Attack, Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D., has continued his well-known penchant for presenting “New Look” historical narratives centered on both famous and little known American personages and iconic events. He has especially focused on turning point moments in American history to illuminate forgotten aspects of important chapters of America's saga. Dr. Tucker is the author of more than 40 books in various fields of American history. He has concentrated on providing important new perspectives about the Civil War, especially the Battle of Gettysburg because it was the most decisive battle of the Civil War. The ground-breaking books of this award-winning author have been regularly featured as selections with the History Book Club and the Military Book Club. Few modern historians have broken more new historical ground in multiple fields of study than Tucker, who earned three degrees in American history, including a Ph.D. He has excelled in producing ground-breaking "New Look" books which have presented fresh and insightful views of some of the most dramatic events in American history. Tucker has also focused on the stories of remarkable women, such as Cathy Williams, Anne Bonny, and Emily D. West, whose life stories have been overlooked and ignored for generations. Among Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D.’s Civil War-focused books is Storming Little Round Top: The 15th Alabama and Their Fight for the High Ground, July 2, 1863 (Da Capo Press). Taking place on the decisive afternoon of July 2, 1863 at the southern end of the line at Gettysburg, the fight for the strategic high ground of Little Round Top was memorably portrayed in the movie Gettysburg and is famous for a stalwart defense by Union soldiers that has been detailed in numerous written accounts, including letters and diaries. As reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly and other leading publications, Storming Little Round Top resolves some of the longest running controversies associated with the crucial battle of Gettysburg. New evidence uncovered by Dr. Tucker have revealed a host of new insights and fresh views about the 15th Alabama Regiment’s efforts to take the famous rocky hill during this crucial turning point of this famous battle. This ground-breaking book examines the background of the little researched Alabama soldiers and explores little-known aspects such as their Chattahoochee River homeland. It serves as a vivid and important companion piece to Dr. Tucker’s recently published work The Irish at Gettysburg (History Press). The author's The Irish at Gettysburg is the first book to have ever focused entirely on the important role of the Irish on both sides during the largest battle ever fought on the North American continent--a truly landmark study and important contribution in the field of Civil War, Gettysburg, and Irish history.

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Phillip Thomas Tucker's "Anne Bonny, The Infamous Female Pirate"

Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D., writes extensively about key players and their important contributions to history that often go overlooked and have remained hidden for hundreds of years. He is the author of more than 40 ground-breaking books on a wide variety of subjects in multiple fields of American history. The author has emerged today as America's leading "New Look" historian because of his many highly original historical narratives, including best sellers, award-winners, and History Book Club selections, that have made lasting contributions. Tucker earned three degrees in history, including a Ph.D. from St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri. He then served for decades as a professional historian for the Department of Defense, mostly in Washington, D.C. Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D., recently published the first scholarly biography of notorious female pirate Anne Bonny, who was a remarkable woman well ahead of her time. Tucker's revealing book has painted a comprehensive picture of Bonny as a human being, rather than the romanticized yet ultra-violent portrait of the pirate seen in popular media. He hones in on her early life and the ways in which the institutions of the era shaped the course o her remarkable life and trajectory. While popular portrayals of Bonny always focus on her ruthlessness and almost mythical reputation, many neglect to mention the keen intelligence and resourcefulness of the legendary female pirate. Bonny disguised herself as a man for much of her career in piracy, and managed to keep that secret safe during even extended Caribbean pirate ventures. She also demonstrated a strong understanding of British common law when she and Mary Read, another pirate of the crew of Captain John "Calico Jack" Rackham, were sentenced to death by a court in Jamaica, as she knew that the two of them could not be executed while pregnant. Bonny's savvy served her well at sea, and contributed much to the durability of her legend that comes vividly to life in this ground-breaking book.

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Alexander Hamilton's Early Military Career

A prolific and ground-breaking American historian who has written more than 40 books, Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D., focuses his writing on iconic turning point moments and hidden aspects of American history. Tucker has written extensively about important historical subjects from the American Revolution to the Second World War, including about Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. "Alexander Hamilton's Revolution, His Vital Role as Washington's Chief of Staff" is one of the author's most recent books. Dr. Tucker has emerged as America's leading "New Look" historian by presenting a large number of highly original historical narratives of distinction. While Hamilton is best known for his brilliant work in establishing the American banking system, this remarkable founding father considered his wartime service during the Revolutionary War to be the proudest time in his life. In 1776, Hamilton served as an artillery captain in New York. His time as an artillery captain proved difficult and challenging, with New York providing little in the way of financial or logistical support. He distinguished himself, however. Under General Washington's leadership, he established Fort Bunker Hill in April, and was instrumental later in the year at the Battle of White Plains as well as the key turning point of the war at Trenton, New Jersey. Dr. Tucker has revealed the amazing story of Washington's crossing and the battle of Trenton in his 2014 book, "George Washington's Surprise Attack, A New Look at the Battle That Decided the Fate of America." The following year, Washington chose Hamilton as his aide-de-camp, relaying the general's orders. While he excelled in this role, he chafed at the lack of recognition afforded to him. After an argument with Washington, Hamilton resigned from his staff in 1781. He went on to lead a major attack during the Battle of Yorktown, earning a promotion to colonel and cementing himself in the military history of the early United States.