For sheer guts, the Redcoats' behaviour at Bunker Hill, Saratoga and other bloody encounters has rarely been surpassed. The Americans won, but only just, and then thanks to foreign intervention and a small number of dedicated and valiant patriots who were continually let down by their own people. Robin May's splendid work looks at the British Army that fought in the American Revolution from 1775 to1783. It details the soldiers who faced the difficulties of campaigning in America along with the gross inefficiency and corruption at home which, along with their generals' often blundering conduct, were as deadly enemies as the Americans.

Robin May was born in 1929. An actor for many years. he became a writer and journalist specialising in theatre and opera, and also the American West. His collaboration with Gerry Embleton in the 1970s produced two of the most successful books in the Men-at-Arms series – British Army in North America 1775–83 and Men-At-Arms 48: Wolfe’s Army. A prolific writer for the rest of his career, Robin May died in 1996.