McCullough takes the reader on the extraordinary journey of Henry Knox, the Boston book seller who set off in mid-winter to bring back the heavy British artillery that had been left at Fort Ticonderoga. This is narrative history at its best that brings to life an extraordinary period, and a vast array of extraordinary characters on both sides of the conflict. This is not "military" history, though it contains many battles, nor "biography", though it illuminates the lives of many men and women, but quite history well told.