Noble Undertaking

Beginning as a convention of delegates groping for an honorable way to mend ties with Great Britain, the Continental Congress developed into an assembly saddled with the task of ushering in a new nation while managing a war. This book examines the crises that bombarded Congress over those eventful years and explains how this collection of mostly well-off men with much to lose came to lead a rebellion.

Wasting hours, days, weeks, in debates that went nowhere, delegates squabbled, complained, compromised, acted courageously one day, foolishly the next. The account follows Congress as delegates fled Philadelphia, in the face of a British threat, to set up shop in Baltimore and later York, Pennsylvania. Documents and letter enable the reader to eavesdrop on the thoughts of delegates as they raged at the British, moaned about their colleagues, cheered morsels of happy news, and sent off pleas for someone—anyone—to come take their place. For many, serving in Congress meant mostly drudgery, frustration, and anxiety, all while far from home.

Yet this feeble government succeeded. Without a constitution, it kept the fragile union together. Without taxing authority, it financed the war and maintained an army in the field. Its diplomatic team, despite treachery and ineptitude, engineered a critical alliance. In 1778, as Congress returned to Philadelphia from York, the war was far from over. Indeed, it was not even half over. But the path to an honorable peace was in view. Congress, for all its many flaws, astonished the world by bringing forth a new republic and setting it on course for a promising destiny.