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Drums Along the Mohawk
The seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Drums along the Mohawk reminds us not only that Edmonds’s masterpiece is the best historical novel about Upstate New York since James Fenimore Cooper but also that it was number one on the best-seller list until overtaken by Gone With the Wind.
This is the story of the forgotten pioneers of the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. Here Gilbert Martin and his young wife struggled and lived and hoped. Combating hardships almost too great to endure, they helped give to America a legend that still stirs the heart. In the midst of love and hate, life and death, danger and disaster, they stuck to the acres that were theirs and fought a war without ever quite understanding it. Drums along the Mohawk has been an American classic since its original publication in 1936. This Syracuse University Press edition reproduces the book in its entirety.
This is the story of the forgotten pioneers of the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. Here Gilbert Martin and his young wife struggled and lived and hoped. Combating hardships almost too great to endure, they helped give to America a legend that still stirs the heart. In the midst of love and hate, life and death, danger and disaster, they stuck to the acres that were theirs and fought a war without ever quite understanding it. Drums along the Mohawk has been an American classic since its original publication in 1936. This Syracuse University Press edition reproduces the book in its entirety.
592 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
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1692 people want to read
About the author
Walter D. Edmonds
73 books28 followersWalter Dumaux Edmonds has been a National Book Award winner and recipient of the Newbery Medal. He is the author of Bert Breen’s Barn, The Boyds of Black River, In the Hands of the Senecas, Mostly Canallers, Rome Haul, Time to Go House, and most recently the autobiographical Tales My Father Never Told, all available from Syracuse University Press.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 163 reviews
May 13, 2023
“They saw a shape at the far edge of the burning, running towards them through the smoke. Then one of the trees along the creek caught fire, making a torch that for a moment seemed to take all blue out of the sky and turn it black. The suction of the flame drew off the smoke, and all of them saw the Indian, stripped to the waist, trotting towards them…”
- Walter D. Edmonds, Drums Along the Mohawk
Drums Along the Mohawk was originally published all the way back in 1936, and – to be completely honest – you can tell. Walter D. Edmonds’s demi-classic of the American frontier has a distinct, old-fashioned feel. It’s the kind of book you’d expect to find on your grandpa’s bookshelf, covered in a fine layer of dust and fly carcasses. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s where I came across my 1939 reprint hardcover copy, which has yellowed pages, a cracked spine, and smells like the Second World War is just around the corner.
Set in New York’s Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War, Drums Along the Mohawk tells a fictionalized version of a real-life struggle between American settlers, their Loyalist opponents, and the Indians who are trying their best to play the game of empires, even as their land is whittled away.
As settings go, this is a pretty darn good one: a valley filled not only with trees, and fields, and wild game, but moral complications, twisted loyalties, and hard decisions, the stage to a vicious struggle that combined the savagery of a guerilla war with the intimacy of a civil war.
***
The first thing that should be said about Drums Along the Mohawk is that it’s an episodic novel, generally uninterested in a conventional plot. This isn’t a book in which all the storylines converge, or that builds to a singular climax.
Instead, Edmonds attempts a faithful recreation of events in the Mohawk Valley during the Revolution. As such, the big story moments are dictated by the historical record, including the Battle of Oriskany, the Cherry Valley Massacre, and frontiersman Adam Helmer’s legendary, Pheidippides-like run after the destruction of Andrustown. Peopling this tale is a who’s who of late-eighteenth century New York history, including the aforementioned Helmer, General Nicholas Herkimer, and George Weaver. Edmonds claims to have meticulously researched this tale, an endeavor that must have encompassed numerous hours in small-town libraries and courthouses, scouring militia rolls, land deeds, diaries, and manuscripts.
Inserted into this relatively-true-to-life framework are our two main characters, the fictional newlyweds Gilbert and Magdelana (Lana) Martin. Together, they venture into this cauldron with wide eyes and virtually no idea what they are getting into. Gil has a farm, and a cabin, and the early-American ambition of lording over an agricultural empire.
This land, of course, is hotly contested, and Drums Along the Mohawk falls into a pattern wherein the Iroquois – including the Mohawk, who lent their name to the valley – attack settlements and burn cabins while the settlers run for the nearest stockade. When the raid is over, the settlers go out to their smoking ruins to start over.
It is a process that repeats itself several times.
***
It is a testament to Edmonds’s serious interest in the Mohawk Valley that he is very careful with his fictionalizations. The real characters, for the most part, do exactly what the historical record said they did. Whether or not the historical record is correct – or whether Edmonds read the record properly – is a matter I’ll touch on below.
As to Gil and Lana, they exist to bring us into this past world, to serve as our proxies and guides. To that end, they do not alter or move events, but mostly witness them. They’re like time travelers who understand the butterfly effect. For those who worship fidelity in historical fiction, this is great. On the other hand, it really constricts the storytelling, which feels rigid and preordained. It also makes Gil and Lana rather uninteresting.
***
Rather than one big arc, Drums Along the Mohawk creates a lot of miniature ones, featuring different combinations of people drawn from its large cast of characters. Some of these sequences are better than others.
For instance, after Gil’s cabin is burned, he and Lana go to live in a big stone house with the widow, Mrs. McKlennar. She is a brassy, sassy old woman straight out of Steel Magnolias. The Martins stay at the McKlennar house has all the makings of a 1980s sitcom, which is to say, less than riveting.
Much better is Edmonds’s retelling of the saga of John Wolff, a farmer who is suspected of being a Loyalist spy and then sent to the Newgate Prison, where convicts were held in the Simsbury Mine. Wolff’s experiences, as narrated by Edmonds, are simply harrowing.
***
In terms of writing style, Edmonds is a describer. He does a great job showing what ordinary life was like for 18th century pioneers: the cooking, the cleaning, the clearing of brush, the plowing of fields. This is the great advantage of historical fiction over historical nonfiction: the ability to use imagination to fill the gaps between what we know and don't know, thereby creating a more-complete tapestry. This isn’t just about what happened, but about how it felt.
The prose is direct and unadorned, with dialogue best described as Hollywood-colloquial, but including action set pieces – especially the ambush at Oriskany – that are top notch.
***
Upon its release, Drums Along the Mohawk was a bestseller. In fact, for a couple of years, it climbed as high as second place, behind Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.
This provides the perfect pivot point to discuss an issue plaguing any book written eighty-seven years ago: its datedness.
Having studied New York in the Revolutionary era, I can say that Edmonds presents fifty-percent of an accurate story. It is established fact that settlers – including noncombatants – were killed by the Mohawk and Seneca; that captives were taken; that houses were burned and crops destroyed. Undoubtedly, if you were an American farmer, you’d probably be pretty terrified at the prospect of a sudden assault on your cabin, originating out of the tree-line. Edmonds gets that right.
What he fails to show – and what he doesn’t even attempt, really – is to describe the contextual reasons for these events. The Indians, for the most part, are a faceless menace skulking in the woods. There is no diversity of viewpoint, or any of the texture you’d find in a modern novel. The Iroquois are not given any motivation, any reasoning, any sympathy. There are no scenes describing the fear a young Mohawk boy or girl would’ve felt when the colonial militia or Continental Regulars showed up at dawn to burn their village.
The Iroquois were fierce warriors, to be sure. They were also competently led, marvelously organized, and extremely cognizant of the fact that they were about to lose everything, and the only chance they had was a devil’s alliance with Great Britain, the lesser of two white evils. You don’t get any sense of that here.
Unlike Gone with the Wind, which consciously created enduring racist tropes, Edmonds mostly avoids outright ugliness. He even has a friendly Oneida character named Blue Back. Yet a close reading reveals some troubling interpretations.
In particular, during his recounting of the infamous Cherry Valley Massacre, Edmonds has the hated and reviled Tory Ranger Walter Butler heroically trying to stop his Indian allies from slaughtering helpless colonists. However, the weight of the evidence – and the judgment of most historians – is that Butler did no such thing. Instead of playing the savior, he’s the one who instigated the killing. Edmonds’s attempt to heroize Butler is especially odd given the well-documented hatred that contemporary Americans had for the man.
So why’d he do it? Well, perhaps it’s because the white soldier trying to control his Indian allies is a familiar image from the frontier, harkening back to General Marquis de Montcalm trying to save the garrison of Fort William Henry. It’s a theme that reinforces a racialist demarcation between “civilized” and “savage” warfare.
***
Edmonds once wrote a children’s book called The Matchlock Gun. Published in 1942, this gorgeously illustrated volume tells the dubious story of a young boy killing his first Indians. It won the Newberry Medal. In the 1980s, it was available for order from Troll, the mail-order “book club” whose ubiquitous newsprint fliers were passed out in schools. That’s how I got my copy. No one even blinked when I read it on the bus on the way home.
Obviously, sensitivities have mostly changed for the better. We have sharper recognition of past injustices, both actual and historiographical. We can open a book like Drums Along the Mohawk and see something that is deeply felt from one perspective, but completely ignorant of others that have as much – if not more – validity.
To me, this is a great book. I’ve read it a couple times now: once as a credulous kid; again as a more questioning adult. It’s a more-refined version of a nineteenth century dime novel, full of high-stakes collisions and acts of daring, all in celebration of a mythical American self-reliance. But it should be read with awareness of its glaring faults, its elisions, its faintly ridiculous portrayal of noble citizen-soldiers, and its rotting foundation of half-truths.
- Walter D. Edmonds, Drums Along the Mohawk
Drums Along the Mohawk was originally published all the way back in 1936, and – to be completely honest – you can tell. Walter D. Edmonds’s demi-classic of the American frontier has a distinct, old-fashioned feel. It’s the kind of book you’d expect to find on your grandpa’s bookshelf, covered in a fine layer of dust and fly carcasses. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s where I came across my 1939 reprint hardcover copy, which has yellowed pages, a cracked spine, and smells like the Second World War is just around the corner.
Set in New York’s Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War, Drums Along the Mohawk tells a fictionalized version of a real-life struggle between American settlers, their Loyalist opponents, and the Indians who are trying their best to play the game of empires, even as their land is whittled away.
As settings go, this is a pretty darn good one: a valley filled not only with trees, and fields, and wild game, but moral complications, twisted loyalties, and hard decisions, the stage to a vicious struggle that combined the savagery of a guerilla war with the intimacy of a civil war.
***
The first thing that should be said about Drums Along the Mohawk is that it’s an episodic novel, generally uninterested in a conventional plot. This isn’t a book in which all the storylines converge, or that builds to a singular climax.
Instead, Edmonds attempts a faithful recreation of events in the Mohawk Valley during the Revolution. As such, the big story moments are dictated by the historical record, including the Battle of Oriskany, the Cherry Valley Massacre, and frontiersman Adam Helmer’s legendary, Pheidippides-like run after the destruction of Andrustown. Peopling this tale is a who’s who of late-eighteenth century New York history, including the aforementioned Helmer, General Nicholas Herkimer, and George Weaver. Edmonds claims to have meticulously researched this tale, an endeavor that must have encompassed numerous hours in small-town libraries and courthouses, scouring militia rolls, land deeds, diaries, and manuscripts.
Inserted into this relatively-true-to-life framework are our two main characters, the fictional newlyweds Gilbert and Magdelana (Lana) Martin. Together, they venture into this cauldron with wide eyes and virtually no idea what they are getting into. Gil has a farm, and a cabin, and the early-American ambition of lording over an agricultural empire.
This land, of course, is hotly contested, and Drums Along the Mohawk falls into a pattern wherein the Iroquois – including the Mohawk, who lent their name to the valley – attack settlements and burn cabins while the settlers run for the nearest stockade. When the raid is over, the settlers go out to their smoking ruins to start over.
It is a process that repeats itself several times.
***
It is a testament to Edmonds’s serious interest in the Mohawk Valley that he is very careful with his fictionalizations. The real characters, for the most part, do exactly what the historical record said they did. Whether or not the historical record is correct – or whether Edmonds read the record properly – is a matter I’ll touch on below.
As to Gil and Lana, they exist to bring us into this past world, to serve as our proxies and guides. To that end, they do not alter or move events, but mostly witness them. They’re like time travelers who understand the butterfly effect. For those who worship fidelity in historical fiction, this is great. On the other hand, it really constricts the storytelling, which feels rigid and preordained. It also makes Gil and Lana rather uninteresting.
***
Rather than one big arc, Drums Along the Mohawk creates a lot of miniature ones, featuring different combinations of people drawn from its large cast of characters. Some of these sequences are better than others.
For instance, after Gil’s cabin is burned, he and Lana go to live in a big stone house with the widow, Mrs. McKlennar. She is a brassy, sassy old woman straight out of Steel Magnolias. The Martins stay at the McKlennar house has all the makings of a 1980s sitcom, which is to say, less than riveting.
Much better is Edmonds’s retelling of the saga of John Wolff, a farmer who is suspected of being a Loyalist spy and then sent to the Newgate Prison, where convicts were held in the Simsbury Mine. Wolff’s experiences, as narrated by Edmonds, are simply harrowing.
***
In terms of writing style, Edmonds is a describer. He does a great job showing what ordinary life was like for 18th century pioneers: the cooking, the cleaning, the clearing of brush, the plowing of fields. This is the great advantage of historical fiction over historical nonfiction: the ability to use imagination to fill the gaps between what we know and don't know, thereby creating a more-complete tapestry. This isn’t just about what happened, but about how it felt.
The prose is direct and unadorned, with dialogue best described as Hollywood-colloquial, but including action set pieces – especially the ambush at Oriskany – that are top notch.
***
Upon its release, Drums Along the Mohawk was a bestseller. In fact, for a couple of years, it climbed as high as second place, behind Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.
This provides the perfect pivot point to discuss an issue plaguing any book written eighty-seven years ago: its datedness.
Having studied New York in the Revolutionary era, I can say that Edmonds presents fifty-percent of an accurate story. It is established fact that settlers – including noncombatants – were killed by the Mohawk and Seneca; that captives were taken; that houses were burned and crops destroyed. Undoubtedly, if you were an American farmer, you’d probably be pretty terrified at the prospect of a sudden assault on your cabin, originating out of the tree-line. Edmonds gets that right.
What he fails to show – and what he doesn’t even attempt, really – is to describe the contextual reasons for these events. The Indians, for the most part, are a faceless menace skulking in the woods. There is no diversity of viewpoint, or any of the texture you’d find in a modern novel. The Iroquois are not given any motivation, any reasoning, any sympathy. There are no scenes describing the fear a young Mohawk boy or girl would’ve felt when the colonial militia or Continental Regulars showed up at dawn to burn their village.
The Iroquois were fierce warriors, to be sure. They were also competently led, marvelously organized, and extremely cognizant of the fact that they were about to lose everything, and the only chance they had was a devil’s alliance with Great Britain, the lesser of two white evils. You don’t get any sense of that here.
Unlike Gone with the Wind, which consciously created enduring racist tropes, Edmonds mostly avoids outright ugliness. He even has a friendly Oneida character named Blue Back. Yet a close reading reveals some troubling interpretations.
In particular, during his recounting of the infamous Cherry Valley Massacre, Edmonds has the hated and reviled Tory Ranger Walter Butler heroically trying to stop his Indian allies from slaughtering helpless colonists. However, the weight of the evidence – and the judgment of most historians – is that Butler did no such thing. Instead of playing the savior, he’s the one who instigated the killing. Edmonds’s attempt to heroize Butler is especially odd given the well-documented hatred that contemporary Americans had for the man.
So why’d he do it? Well, perhaps it’s because the white soldier trying to control his Indian allies is a familiar image from the frontier, harkening back to General Marquis de Montcalm trying to save the garrison of Fort William Henry. It’s a theme that reinforces a racialist demarcation between “civilized” and “savage” warfare.
***
Edmonds once wrote a children’s book called The Matchlock Gun. Published in 1942, this gorgeously illustrated volume tells the dubious story of a young boy killing his first Indians. It won the Newberry Medal. In the 1980s, it was available for order from Troll, the mail-order “book club” whose ubiquitous newsprint fliers were passed out in schools. That’s how I got my copy. No one even blinked when I read it on the bus on the way home.
Obviously, sensitivities have mostly changed for the better. We have sharper recognition of past injustices, both actual and historiographical. We can open a book like Drums Along the Mohawk and see something that is deeply felt from one perspective, but completely ignorant of others that have as much – if not more – validity.
To me, this is a great book. I’ve read it a couple times now: once as a credulous kid; again as a more questioning adult. It’s a more-refined version of a nineteenth century dime novel, full of high-stakes collisions and acts of daring, all in celebration of a mythical American self-reliance. But it should be read with awareness of its glaring faults, its elisions, its faintly ridiculous portrayal of noble citizen-soldiers, and its rotting foundation of half-truths.
December 6, 2020
Note, Dec. 6, 2020: I just edited this to insert an accidentally-omitted comma.
Written in a solidly Realist style, this novel was part of the vanguard of the introduction of the Realist school to the historical fiction genre; as late as the early 1900s, Realist writers and critics such as Frank Norris (who roundly condemned Sarah Orne Jewett as a traitor to the movement for writing a novel set during the Revolutionary War) were still dogmatically committed to the view that the present was the only proper setting for serious literature. It also reflects a strong new current of interest, in the American historical fiction of this era (written in the shadow of rising European totalitarianism and perceived threats to democracy), in the period of the American founding --the Revolutionary War origins of our democratic and constitutional tradition.
New Yorker Edmonds provides a panoramic description of the effects of the Revolution on the lives of the people of the state's central Mohawk Valley --both white and red, and both Patriot and Tory. (Tories were proportionately more numerous in New York than elsewhere --it's the only state that furnished more soldiers for the British than the American army-- Edmonds' treatment reflects this, and doesn't demonize them, though his sympathies and focus are with the Patriots.) The Martins of the above description are important characters, but not the only ones; the stories of quite a few characters are interwoven here with almost equal attention. Edmond's style is readable and direct, the plot held my interest (it was a fascinating way to learn about history, especially the really vivid description of the crucial battle of Oriskany, which thwarted British Gen. St. Leger's advance on Albany) and I came to care for the more important characters --which gave their sometimes tragic fates a strong emotional impact (still remembered after forty years!).
Written in a solidly Realist style, this novel was part of the vanguard of the introduction of the Realist school to the historical fiction genre; as late as the early 1900s, Realist writers and critics such as Frank Norris (who roundly condemned Sarah Orne Jewett as a traitor to the movement for writing a novel set during the Revolutionary War) were still dogmatically committed to the view that the present was the only proper setting for serious literature. It also reflects a strong new current of interest, in the American historical fiction of this era (written in the shadow of rising European totalitarianism and perceived threats to democracy), in the period of the American founding --the Revolutionary War origins of our democratic and constitutional tradition.
New Yorker Edmonds provides a panoramic description of the effects of the Revolution on the lives of the people of the state's central Mohawk Valley --both white and red, and both Patriot and Tory. (Tories were proportionately more numerous in New York than elsewhere --it's the only state that furnished more soldiers for the British than the American army-- Edmonds' treatment reflects this, and doesn't demonize them, though his sympathies and focus are with the Patriots.) The Martins of the above description are important characters, but not the only ones; the stories of quite a few characters are interwoven here with almost equal attention. Edmond's style is readable and direct, the plot held my interest (it was a fascinating way to learn about history, especially the really vivid description of the crucial battle of Oriskany, which thwarted British Gen. St. Leger's advance on Albany) and I came to care for the more important characters --which gave their sometimes tragic fates a strong emotional impact (still remembered after forty years!).
November 18, 2007
This should be required reading for New York state grammar or high school students the year they study the Revolutionary War. It follows a young couple and their community throughout the war period. The battles, betrayals, babies born and lost, farms and houses burned, people and animals slaughtered, solders killed and captured, daring raids, prisoners of war, native friends and foes, are portrayed in a clear prose style. The stories of historical and fictional characters weave together. I finished it wanting to know more about the time period.
July 25, 2011
This is great old-school story-telling and great historical fiction. There's so much going on. You certainly get caught up with the characters, most of them not fictionalized but real historical people, as are most of the events in the book. But it's the whole world-view that I found so powerful. The frontier of early America not the West, as it would later be and forever remain in our national imagination, but upstate New York. That was a revelation. And what the Revolutionary War was like fought on that frontier, with bloody terrifying skirmishes between settler-farmers and British irregulars and their Indian allies. And how the war often pitted neighbor against neighbor. We think of that with the American Civil War, but the Revolutionary War did that too, with often terrible and tragic personal consequences.
March 22, 2015
Nearly 80 years old, this classic is still enjoyable. I didn't feel it was dated. but for the heavy dialect of the black servant, Daisy, and the Tonto-like laconic talk of Blue Back, the Indian scout. It's the story of a farmer and his wife and their community in the Mohawk Valley in upstate New York in the 18th century. We experience the hardscrabble life of these characters and a feel for the American Revolution as fought in this area, along with Indian attacks and destruction. Very readable, I read it in a short time. The main characters and their friends were well-rounded, but any "famous names", e.g., Benedict Arnold before his defection were just that--names. Nicholas Herkimer did come alive though. Mrs. McKlennar, the feisty old woman who befriends Gil and Lana after their farm is burned down, is unforgettable. The New York Times called her an "Amazon." This novel is a "must-read" for anyone wanting to get more of an understanding of the American Revolution, especially in Upper New York State, considered the frontier at that time. Very good portrayals of Oriskany, the Cherry Valley Massacre, Andrustown.
August 29, 2010
An amazing experience that can be enhanced with reading Forgotten
Allies about the role of the Oneidas in the Battle of Oriskany.
The familiar movie with Henry Fonda does not match the fine book in style or substance.
I have read several articles about the Battle of Oriskany and the author is amazingly accurate with the exception of not giving ample credit to the Oneidas for their bravery and sacrafice.
Allies about the role of the Oneidas in the Battle of Oriskany.
The familiar movie with Henry Fonda does not match the fine book in style or substance.
I have read several articles about the Battle of Oriskany and the author is amazingly accurate with the exception of not giving ample credit to the Oneidas for their bravery and sacrafice.
February 6, 2022
A vivid picture of the difficult life endured by settlers in western New York during the Revolutionary War. In the past when I thought of the revolutionary war, it would be of the fighting in the eastern part of the new country. After reading this book I will think of those brave souls that risked all they had—even life to carve out a bit of land to farm. If I ever knew, I forgot that the British recruited the Indians to fight and burn the houses of settlers and gave a bounty for scalps. The portrayal of the militia gave me a better idea of how it worked. And as today there was complaints about the Continental Congress. This well-researched book was published in 1936 and became a best seller.
February 9, 2025
Been meaning to read a Walter Edmonds book for many years, since I married a Western-New Yorker and travel there frequently. I loved the Matchlock Gun as a kid and was so excited to find out that Edmonds wrote extensively beyond that. This book over-delivered for me. I made the mistake of reading it at bedtime, which meant that I had a lot of late nights, not being able to put it down! The historical perspective is fascinating and complex, the characters engaging, the writing beautiful, story-telling is gripping, and the setting (which I think was also a character) held personal interest for me. Excited for more Edmonds!
February 13, 2023
A pair of newlyweds head out to the New York wilderness to start a new life together, but with the Revolutionary War comes trouble and hardship. Plus, Indians.
Yeah, not my cuppa, I suppose. Just not...interesting enough? Which is too bad because it really could have been.
Yeah, not my cuppa, I suppose. Just not...interesting enough? Which is too bad because it really could have been.
May 26, 2019
Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds is an American classic first published around 1936 and long ago made into a movie. It follows the story of newlyweds Gilbert and Lana Martin during the timeframe of the American Revolutionary War as they embark on their life together to a property in the wilderness where Gil had property. Basically he owned acreage and planned to farm it. There were many farms at that tim clustered around a small fort for area protection. Lana was initially happy to get there until, as a city girl, she realized how isolated they were. But soon she became resigned to life in the wilderness and was happy working with Gil as they cleared land, planted crops, and civilizing their environment. All was well until the indian tribes, with the encouragement and support of the British, began raiding and destroying the farms in the area in an attempt to drive out the settlers who all headed to the nearby fort for safety. This novel does a great job to give you the feel of how the early settlers struggled for survival on the fringes of American society and dealt with the heartache of seeing everything you had worked for and built burned out and destroyed as a backdrop for the American Revolution. It also shows what the American spirit and character based on individualism and independence is all about. If you are a fan of the revolutionary period and the determination of the early settlers to spread civilization, you need to have this classic on your list.
October 3, 2017
What can I say; I love old-timey shit. This book is pretty awesome because it explores how confusing and contentious the Revolutionary War times must have been. It's really a challenge to the "inevitability of history" and it includes the inner lives of women and men. I never thought before about how early settlers must have been real human beings, who liked some people, and not others, who didn't know what they were talking about regarding Native Americans, and who weren't necessarily too excited about fighting the British and making a new nation here. There's a chilly woman in the story named Mrs. DeMuth. I nominate her as the fictional character most similar to my former sister-in-law. Fuck you, Cindy
July 17, 2018
Interesting story of the time, but clearly dated in treatment of women and people of color
I enjoyed the history and many of the characters, especially as someone who lives in Upstate New York. It was hard to tell if the misogyny and racism, though, were representations consistent with the historical period portrayed, or a product of the author’s time period of the 1930s.
I enjoyed the history and many of the characters, especially as someone who lives in Upstate New York. It was hard to tell if the misogyny and racism, though, were representations consistent with the historical period portrayed, or a product of the author’s time period of the 1930s.
September 12, 2008
I read this when I was in Middle School.
I have seen the film w/Jimmy Stewart in it.
I liked Kitty's review and I feel that she did a great job covering all areas.
I have seen the film w/Jimmy Stewart in it.
I liked Kitty's review and I feel that she did a great job covering all areas.
November 13, 2023
I picked this up for various reasons beyond the fact that it was an attractive vintage edition. I was interested to read the source material for John Ford's movie of the same title and because I learned a few years ago from my mother's genealogy efforts that several of my ancestors were apparently in the Mohawk Valley during this period.
This edition extends to almost 600 pages covering the years 1775 to 1783, essentially the whole war of the American Revolution. The Mohawk Valley and its small communities were essentially the front lines in the frontier war fought between the American Colonists and the British and their Loyalist colonists with both sides aided by different Native American tribes in the region.
John Ford compiled his movie story from several but not all elements of the novel and in the process consolidated characters and narrative elements, building up and focusing most of his version on the newly married Gil Martin and his bride Lana (Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert) who seem slightly happier in the movie than they appeared to me at the end of the novel (though they still seemed relatively content).
Those difference between the novel and the movie did help me sustain interest in this quite long but easily read novel with its nice clean prose. My curiousity about my family's experiences during this period also supported my continuing interest. I also appreciated the references to the various Native American individuals and their clan and tribal situations after recently reading several nonfiction studies of the indigenous populations of North America. The novel came across as a reasonably accurate presentation of the history of the Valley during these years as well as an entertaining read.
This edition extends to almost 600 pages covering the years 1775 to 1783, essentially the whole war of the American Revolution. The Mohawk Valley and its small communities were essentially the front lines in the frontier war fought between the American Colonists and the British and their Loyalist colonists with both sides aided by different Native American tribes in the region.
John Ford compiled his movie story from several but not all elements of the novel and in the process consolidated characters and narrative elements, building up and focusing most of his version on the newly married Gil Martin and his bride Lana (Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert) who seem slightly happier in the movie than they appeared to me at the end of the novel (though they still seemed relatively content).
Those difference between the novel and the movie did help me sustain interest in this quite long but easily read novel with its nice clean prose. My curiousity about my family's experiences during this period also supported my continuing interest. I also appreciated the references to the various Native American individuals and their clan and tribal situations after recently reading several nonfiction studies of the indigenous populations of North America. The novel came across as a reasonably accurate presentation of the history of the Valley during these years as well as an entertaining read.
June 18, 2025
Stellar writing, historical accuracy (as best achieved in the 1930’s), and an incredible point of view of regular folks in irregular times. The structure reminded me of Dickens, such as in Bleak House, where chapters (published serially) created vignettes with different moods. This book included ones that were light-hearted, tragic, riveting, etc. Some of the chapters were particularly tightly written and could be standalone short stories.
Edmonds includes plenty of complexity, where men loot to seem strong to each other, scalps are taken by all sides, battles (there are only two here) are confused, and the weather is often ornery. Neighbors turn on neighbors. People demanding freedom are only too happy to have slaves. People smell bad. And people help each other through tough times and build community as best they can.
I read this as a follow-on to Alan Taylor’s American Revolutions and it turned out to be the perfect companion. Taylor’s history includes an abundance of detail that is brought to life in this novel. In fact, I couldn’t help wondering whether Taylor read it, and if so, how much it informed or influenced him. Perhaps they used some of the same sources or perhaps these bits are commonly known and I’m just ignorant. After all, I did avoid this subject until now except for the unreliable glossy condensed takes presented in a crappy small town school.
Edmonds includes plenty of complexity, where men loot to seem strong to each other, scalps are taken by all sides, battles (there are only two here) are confused, and the weather is often ornery. Neighbors turn on neighbors. People demanding freedom are only too happy to have slaves. People smell bad. And people help each other through tough times and build community as best they can.
I read this as a follow-on to Alan Taylor’s American Revolutions and it turned out to be the perfect companion. Taylor’s history includes an abundance of detail that is brought to life in this novel. In fact, I couldn’t help wondering whether Taylor read it, and if so, how much it informed or influenced him. Perhaps they used some of the same sources or perhaps these bits are commonly known and I’m just ignorant. After all, I did avoid this subject until now except for the unreliable glossy condensed takes presented in a crappy small town school.
February 25, 2022
One star for being possibly the most matter-of-factly racist, sexist, and derisive-of-the-intellectually-disabled thing I’ve ever read.
I kept listening for the history, as I now live in the area where it takes place. The book made the Revolutionary War immediate and terrifying in a way that it never was growing up in the Midwest. Edmonds could certainly tell a story, but do be aware that a lot in this novel has aged very, very poorly.
I kept listening for the history, as I now live in the area where it takes place. The book made the Revolutionary War immediate and terrifying in a way that it never was growing up in the Midwest. Edmonds could certainly tell a story, but do be aware that a lot in this novel has aged very, very poorly.
April 23, 2017
This a a good historical novel about the struggles of our early settlers.
January 28, 2024
Great account of an interesting time in western mass / New York. Life was hard and beautiful. Resilience was so necessary!!
November 9, 2016
Drums Along the Mohawk is a historical fiction novel about settlers in western New York during the Revolutionary war. The two most predominant characters, Gil and Lana Martin, are newlyweds who are, at the beginning of the book, going to live on Gil's new land. As they travel, Lana hears frightening rumors about Indians and the war in the area. They then arrive at Gil's land, where the isolation and emptiness of the home and the surrounding land make Lana uncomfortable. However, she begins to feel better as she moves furniture into the cabin, especially her prized peacock's feather.
They live pretty simply from then on, as Gil continues to work the land and Lana gets antiquated with their neighbors. Then comes muster day, when the militia comes together for inspection. Only today, the presence of two Indians in front of the local store, run by Gil's neighbor John Wolff, prompts the militia to go and investigate the store and the area, leading to the arrest of Wolff, who was known to be a loyalist, for treason.
Soon after, Lana is introduced to Gil's friend, an old native american named Blue Black who later warns Gil and his fellow settlers that a raiding party is headed their way. Outnumbered and unprepared, the homesteaders have no choice but to ride away as their cabins and fields are burned.
What follows is several years of uncertainty, as the forts housing almost all those living in the area is attacked, as they build their lives back up only to have it destroyed again, and fight a series of battles, for their homes and lives. They make new friends who grow, die, and stand by them, and do all they can to survive.
I thought that this was a very good book. I liked how the author made it very interesting without sacrificing believably. One thing I didn't like, though, was that the book seemed to have many biases that affected the story.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Revolutionary War.
They live pretty simply from then on, as Gil continues to work the land and Lana gets antiquated with their neighbors. Then comes muster day, when the militia comes together for inspection. Only today, the presence of two Indians in front of the local store, run by Gil's neighbor John Wolff, prompts the militia to go and investigate the store and the area, leading to the arrest of Wolff, who was known to be a loyalist, for treason.
Soon after, Lana is introduced to Gil's friend, an old native american named Blue Black who later warns Gil and his fellow settlers that a raiding party is headed their way. Outnumbered and unprepared, the homesteaders have no choice but to ride away as their cabins and fields are burned.
What follows is several years of uncertainty, as the forts housing almost all those living in the area is attacked, as they build their lives back up only to have it destroyed again, and fight a series of battles, for their homes and lives. They make new friends who grow, die, and stand by them, and do all they can to survive.
I thought that this was a very good book. I liked how the author made it very interesting without sacrificing believably. One thing I didn't like, though, was that the book seemed to have many biases that affected the story.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Revolutionary War.
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May 14, 2016Gil and Lana Martin, newly married move to Gil's farm in upstate new York. One day when they are trying to log the land for crop use, Gil's native-american friend Blue Back came to warn them about a group of Seneca Indians and king's people that are destroying everything in their path. The families near deer-field, where Gil and Lane live, pack up their movable belongings and move to a fort that the minutemen use for a shelter. On the journey, Lana loses the baby that she had been carrying for the past couple weeks. When they get to the fort, they are restless and have no source of income, Gil looks to the captain of the militia for support. The captain finds him a job working for a widow on her farm and in her fields, and Lana will help her with sewing and house chores. In return the widow pays them a yearly wage for their help and provides them with a home and food. Lana who had recently been struggling with the loss of her baby, starts to liven up again and her and Gil decide to have another baby. After the baby is born, they stay with Mrs. McKlennar for a while longer and then decide to try to start their life again and build their own home near the Mohawk Valley. Gil continues to fight in the war and though there are rough times when they are unsure of their safety, they eventually develop their lives in the Mohawk Valley and they live a happy life with their two sons.
One thing I liked about this book was that the battle scenes were very descriptive and they really made the story more adventurous. However, one thing I didn't like about this book was that some it was sometimes hard to follow, especially because their are at least three people named John and they are all talked about frequently in the story. If I had to suggest this book to a certain group of people I would suggest it to anyone who is interested in reading stories about the Revolutionary War and how life was back then.
One thing I liked about this book was that the battle scenes were very descriptive and they really made the story more adventurous. However, one thing I didn't like about this book was that some it was sometimes hard to follow, especially because their are at least three people named John and they are all talked about frequently in the story. If I had to suggest this book to a certain group of people I would suggest it to anyone who is interested in reading stories about the Revolutionary War and how life was back then.
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May 16, 2016Gil and Lana are the main characters throughout the whole book. There are many very important sub characters, but they play the biggest roles throughout the whole book. The book starts with telling about Gil and Lana and how Gil saved her from a fire while she was drying seeds. It then goes on to talk about how they moved west together and settled their own little cabin. Shortly after they settle, they are pushed out of their home by invaders, as the story takes place during the revolutionary war, and are forced to travel and settle down in a settlement for the winter. They then move on from their to another fort, and settle down on a farm house with Mrs. Mcklennar, and the war yet again confronts Gil as he is called to duty. Then later in the story the British army attacks the fort and burns down all the nearby houses leaving the people starving throughout the winter. This conflict between the British and the people in the fort continues on basically through the end of the book, and is the main conflict of the whole entire book.
I enjoyed some parts in this book, such as the war scenes, due to the descriptiveness, it made you feel like you were actually there experiencing the battle first hand. I also enjoyed the westernly feel of the book, even though it was before that time frame, and during the revolutionary war, I was able to connect many parts of the book to western books that I have read in the past. I did not like some things about this book though, for example it went on and on for a hundred pages or so just describing the lifestyle of the people, and their activities throughout the day that became very boring for me to read about, and very hard to follow.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the revolutionary war, or any young adult reader.
I enjoyed some parts in this book, such as the war scenes, due to the descriptiveness, it made you feel like you were actually there experiencing the battle first hand. I also enjoyed the westernly feel of the book, even though it was before that time frame, and during the revolutionary war, I was able to connect many parts of the book to western books that I have read in the past. I did not like some things about this book though, for example it went on and on for a hundred pages or so just describing the lifestyle of the people, and their activities throughout the day that became very boring for me to read about, and very hard to follow.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the revolutionary war, or any young adult reader.
August 11, 2018
This book tells the story of the American Revolution as experienced by the settlers along the New York State frontier - then more or less between what's now Syracuse to the west and, at a guess, what the map shows at Fort Herkimer to the east, near the Mohawk.
Drums appear, not as a sign of the indigenous people but as a warning of war and a call to battle.
Edmonds, born in the area, presents a somewhat cynical view of the Revolution - a war between the New Englanders and Great Britain. It gave me a better understanding of what "militia" meant when the Constitution was written - and of how little respect the Colonial Army, engaged in the famous Revolutionary War battles near the Atlantic, had for the settlers.
It's also a not particularly kind portrayal of the Iroquois peoples, but it's respectful. It depicts how essential they were to the British. Most of the characters in the novel are historic figures; the fictional characters depict the long, long battle between the people on the frontier and their allies against the British and most of the Iroquois people. Edmonds also gives a glimpse of the practice of slavery in these settlements in the late 1700s.
It's a problematic novel, given the vanquishing of the First Peoples that's so integral to the existence of the United States. But it's also engaging and, if you have any interest at all in New York State's history, it's a must-read as well as a good read.
Drums appear, not as a sign of the indigenous people but as a warning of war and a call to battle.
Edmonds, born in the area, presents a somewhat cynical view of the Revolution - a war between the New Englanders and Great Britain. It gave me a better understanding of what "militia" meant when the Constitution was written - and of how little respect the Colonial Army, engaged in the famous Revolutionary War battles near the Atlantic, had for the settlers.
It's also a not particularly kind portrayal of the Iroquois peoples, but it's respectful. It depicts how essential they were to the British. Most of the characters in the novel are historic figures; the fictional characters depict the long, long battle between the people on the frontier and their allies against the British and most of the Iroquois people. Edmonds also gives a glimpse of the practice of slavery in these settlements in the late 1700s.
It's a problematic novel, given the vanquishing of the First Peoples that's so integral to the existence of the United States. But it's also engaging and, if you have any interest at all in New York State's history, it's a must-read as well as a good read.
July 28, 2012
Whenever I go back to a book the second time, or when I go back to read a book again after seeing the movie, I know that somewhere in the experience of reading or watching there must be a kernel of truth, a hook or a moment that has great meaning to me. This book should have great meaning to anyone living in upstate NY, for it is our history that is relived here.
Syracuse, where I now live, was still Indian territory and Herkimer was the western frontier of the colonies at the time of the revolutionary war. The British were using the natives to fight the colonists and the colonists were using guerrilla tactics to fight the stuffy and regimented British army. I remember a scene, a race to warn the colonists that reinforcements were needed - a cross country marathon where the scout is chased by 4 war painted natives with tomahawks through the woods. If the Indians win, there will be no reinforcements and the settlement may be overrun. If the scout wins, there is hope for the Americans to survive another fight.
Whatever the outcome, which I won't reveal, though we know the ultimate outcome, life on the frontier in 1776 and the politics of loyalists and revolutionaries is worth reading about in today's world of Tea Party Patriots and the Arab spring. Which side would you be on if your home was at risk?
Syracuse, where I now live, was still Indian territory and Herkimer was the western frontier of the colonies at the time of the revolutionary war. The British were using the natives to fight the colonists and the colonists were using guerrilla tactics to fight the stuffy and regimented British army. I remember a scene, a race to warn the colonists that reinforcements were needed - a cross country marathon where the scout is chased by 4 war painted natives with tomahawks through the woods. If the Indians win, there will be no reinforcements and the settlement may be overrun. If the scout wins, there is hope for the Americans to survive another fight.
Whatever the outcome, which I won't reveal, though we know the ultimate outcome, life on the frontier in 1776 and the politics of loyalists and revolutionaries is worth reading about in today's world of Tea Party Patriots and the Arab spring. Which side would you be on if your home was at risk?
August 6, 2016
For the most part, I really enjoyed this historical novel of the Revolutionary War period. The area came alive for me, being an Upstate New Yorker, as I recognized places we had toured. The description of the battle at Oriskany is factual and tragic; our family has visited both Oriskany Battlefield and Fort Stanwix.
The reader is caught up with Magdalena's story as she marries, works alongside her husband Gil in clearing and planting land, only to see it destroyed by the British and Senecas. The courage of the pioneers during this era is incredible, illustrated by their hardships and stoic perseverance. I loved the chapter of Adam Helmer's run as he outdistances his Indian pursuers to warn those at the settlement to flee to the fort.
What I did not enjoy as much were the frank and realistic portrayals of battle scenes and the victims of the Indian uprisings, and also the treatment especially of a servant girl, Nancy. However the author did give the other side with the story of John Wolff and his unfair trial and imprisonment. This author did not 'sugarcoat' what life was like on the frontier and there are attitudes that were, sadly, common during this time period. The harsh life perhaps was a contributing factor, but if anything, this novel not only depicts the complexity of history but also the dark motivations of the human heart.
The reader is caught up with Magdalena's story as she marries, works alongside her husband Gil in clearing and planting land, only to see it destroyed by the British and Senecas. The courage of the pioneers during this era is incredible, illustrated by their hardships and stoic perseverance. I loved the chapter of Adam Helmer's run as he outdistances his Indian pursuers to warn those at the settlement to flee to the fort.
What I did not enjoy as much were the frank and realistic portrayals of battle scenes and the victims of the Indian uprisings, and also the treatment especially of a servant girl, Nancy. However the author did give the other side with the story of John Wolff and his unfair trial and imprisonment. This author did not 'sugarcoat' what life was like on the frontier and there are attitudes that were, sadly, common during this time period. The harsh life perhaps was a contributing factor, but if anything, this novel not only depicts the complexity of history but also the dark motivations of the human heart.
May 11, 2016
The Book Drums Along The Mohawk is about settlers in New York in Mohawk valley. It takes place during the revolutionary war, the late 1700's. The author mainly focuses on two people, Lana and Gil. Gil and Lana marry in the beginning, and they move to Gil's cabin. At first Lana is skeptical, but after she meets the neighbors and lives in the house for a while, she feels as if she belongs there. After a while the Indian revolt and burn down houses, towns, killing and scalping all that get in the way. This forces all to abandon there houses, and live in or near a fort. Lana and Gil move in with Mrs. McKleaner. They live there for a long time, until the Indians get to close for comfort, they finally move into a fort.
This book was really a great read. I really like the action that the Indians gave, the action from war. I also liked how the author really made me feel as if I were there with them, in the hard times and the good. I would suggest this book to anyone. Especially if that person likes action and suspense.
There really isn't one thing that I didn't like about the book. It was one of the best books that I read in a long time.
This book was really a great read. I really like the action that the Indians gave, the action from war. I also liked how the author really made me feel as if I were there with them, in the hard times and the good. I would suggest this book to anyone. Especially if that person likes action and suspense.
There really isn't one thing that I didn't like about the book. It was one of the best books that I read in a long time.
December 11, 2024
In 1936 when this book was first published, I can understand why it was so popular. Unfortunately, I didn't love it as I had hoped because it was very repetitious in terms of the plight of the pioneers as well as the Native Americans. Also, keeping track of who was on which side was confusing with the Settlers, British, French, Seneca, Mohawk, and other tribes all fighting, burning homesteads and crops, and scalping women and children. The benefit of this book is its popularity on a historical topic that is important for Americans in particular, to understand and appreciate. Lives were fraught with peril endlessly and yet the survivors became many of our ancestors who laid the foundation that we benefit from today. The bonding of disparate European Settlers was enlightening as were some of the positive relationships built with the Native tribes. I am very familiar with the Mohawk Valley and am grateful for this author capturing a little known history in a realistic storyline.
September 9, 2021
This book has long held a place on my top 20 list, and reading it a second time did nothing to change that perspective. It's a wonderful story of how life can spin out of control before you know it and it's set in one of my favorite time periods--the Revolutionary War. The setting is more particularly update New York, an area that has long fascinated me. The story is chock full of heroes and antiheroes and it takes you from hope to despair and back again. These are characters you feel for and a few you abhor. Still, one of the best reads ever in my book.
June 24, 2015
Decent, though too long, tale of warfare along the New York frontier during the American Revolution. As much a story of conquering the woods as it is of raids and counter raids. Characters are a bit flat. Reads like a book written in 1936; that is to say somewhat sanitized, and not a timeless work. Still, the setting and story of young farmers trying to eke a living out of the receding wilderness makes it a worthwhile read. It does clearly show that, in some parts of the country, the Revolution was more of a civil war than anything else.
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August 16, 2015Excellent. Since I now live in the Mohawk Valley and all the place names are familiar to me, this book really came alive. Edmonds packs in the history and develops his characters as well. I now scan the woods for Indians. Seriously, the valley has not changed all that much. It's still largely farmed, population is scarce(compared to shoreline Connecticut)and the family names are still the same. Only weeks ago, the Palatine Church re-enacted the wedding of Gil and Lana Martin, not unusual for an area that, although economically poor, continues to celebrate its rich history.
February 2, 2019
Combining historical facts and actual persons with fiction and fictional characters, Walter D. Edmonds did an exemplary job of re creating the atmosphere of life in upstate New York during the American Revolution. It is not a "nice" story, it is gritty and often violent, and the author certainly pulls no punches. At times the narrative becomes very leisurely, as Edmonds describes the details of everyday living in the Mohawk Valley of the 18th Century, but, even through these quiet passages, the story remains compelling.
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