F. van Wyck Mason (1901–1978)

Valley Forge! The very words have come to be a symbol of the heroism of the makers of America. For Valley Forge that winter of 1777-78 was a testing ground for Washington's troops and for the thousands of friends and relatives left at home.

"The Winter at Valley Forge" is a memorable account of that ordeal and the heroic men whose loyalty to their country held them united. Twice in the Fall of 1777 these men had been defeated by the British. Then Washington had led them back to Valley Forge show more to wait out the winter. It was a long battle against cruel cold and snow, against the pangs of starvation, against crippling frostbite and killing disease, against the bitter discouragement and hopelessness that gnawed at every man.

But every day there were scouts who would risk their lives to bring back a little food to their comrades. More and more volunteers came in to join the troops. When Washington went among his men, they dropped their complaining and cheered their leader with real affection. By spring it was clear that they had met the test of Valley Forge and were stronger and better unified than before.

In recounting the events of that fateful winter, F. Van Wyck Mason stirs in every reader a new pride in this landmark of America. show less

This is an exciting espionage adventure in the long-running Colonel North series. The earliest North adventures were more detective stories than anything else, but here North is in pure superspy mode and it fits him. Assigned to get the formula for a deadly gas from a defecting scientist, North's plane goes down over the Mediterranean before he can get to the meeting. But somebody claiming to be Hugh North shows up for the contact who appears to be playing against the Americans and the show more Russians. Upon arriving in Tangiers, the real North is immediately thrown into prison and cannot convince anyone of authority that he's the real thing. It's well done and puts North in the ranks of some of the great spies of fiction. show less

Mason was a competent fiction novelist of the inter-war period, and did produce a number of tales set in the early days of the American War of ndependence. Tim Bennet, an honest privateersman falls in with Desire Harmony, pregnant due to her consorting with a British Officer. The American Navy is organized as an iimortant historical background to this romantic and gory tale. The matter of slavery is shown as the brutality it was.

When the Civil War ended, many Confederate soldiers returned to their homes and found them reduced to blackened ruins. Often, their families had been murdered or had disappeared.

After Appomattox, Col. Rodney Tilt and the men of the Eleventh Virginia decide to to home together as a unit.

They pass deserters, bushwackers and union cavalry units. Then, when outside Lynchburg, they see a northern patrol rush into the city and begin shooting surrendered Confederate soldiers. One man escapes and show more tells them that Lincoln has been assassinated and the Union Cavalry is searching the roads looking for payback.

Along the road they are joined by Margaret Forsythe, Meg, who tells them that some horsemen found that her family was sympathetic to the union and killed her two younger brothers and made off with her mother and sister.

Later, the unit is ambushed and many of their unit are killed. Some other members make out on their own and the few remaining arrive at Col. Tilt's home in time to see it being attacked by outlaw rebels. They drive them off and start the long road of rebuilding their holdings.

The characterization was not well done and the reader never got into Rodney Tilt's thoughts enought to find sympathy. Another central character changes his personality during the course of the novel and this change also was insonsistent.

As for a picture of the South, after the Civil War, it gave a good description and was enjoyable. show less