April Morning Fiction to Reality

Author’s Note: This piece is to tell how the book April Morning, is both real to history and just as much contains fake events.

Though the great novel April Morning contains true events from the time period of the Revolutionary War, the book contains even more events that is not accurate to real history. This novel is very entertaining but is not a book that you would want to look for in a history report.

Two men were but a vital importance to the American victory of the Revolutionary War. They rallied troops and helped in signing the Declaration of Independence. The names of these two men were John Hancock and Samuel Adams. One of the many reasons why this book has similarities to what really happened is for the presence of Samuel and John. Being in town they did an event in the book that they did in real life is visit many cities and towns to ensure they were with the Americans and warned them if any British forces were upon them. British soldiers marching to Concord was also just as real, in fact it started the famous battle of Lexington and Concord. The British sent a huge army on to the city of Concord to eliminate the opposing militia and their supplies, and silence them from insulting the British.

In the book and as in the war, ordinary townsmen and farmers would fight professional British soldiers. Young and old men and boys who may not know anything about war, fighting, or properly loading and firing a flint lock musket. These men fought against sophisticated imperial British soldiers who had been trained to kill any man that they had been ordered to kill or vanquish. Although inexperienced, the brave men and boys in April Morning were willing to fight anyone.

Although there many similarities, the book also had many differences from the Revolutionary War. The American forces were made up of men and boys and young boys at that. The youngest recorded person to fight was seventeen, but Adam, the main character is fifteen and three months. Usually parents of that time would send children of that age home to look after other family members, making the book an abstract version of the war. Another difference is that no town had a law that you could “birch” or hit your child with a stick. Though now thought to be inhumane, back then it would be considered acceptable discipline. However, it wouldn't have been acceptable enough to bring to court and be made a law for there were no laws about how to raise your children.

Lastly, in the field of battle no sane leader would send one hundred untrained farmers against one thousand trained soldiers. As in the book one hundred militia men, including the main character Adam, attempt to protect their town from the one thousand to two thousand man British army. In real battle it would be proven to be suicide to fight and be so heavily out numbered and out gunned as I said before in the second paragraph.

April Morning is a book that was never true, but had events and people based in facts from the Revolutionary War. For instance, Samuel Adams and John Hancock were real people and were mentioned in the book.