The Switzers by Carol Williams. Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Co./Publishers, 1981 Ed.'s note: I swore (to myself) that we would not review historical fiction, but every now and then something comes along that makes it worthwhile. Kaliher's review brings up some points about premodern life, and its tempo that need to be remembered by wargamers and military history enthusiasts whose blinders sometimes get focused on the present). The Switzers is one of those books published by a small press and overlooked and soon out of print. The book chronicles the life of Swiss immigrants in South Carolina during the early 1700's. Williams' research enhances this basic story of hardships faced by immigrants in a new world as they leave the relative safety of first Europe and secondly the port of Charleston. As a student of history I enjoy battles, the skeleton outline of different periods of history, movements of people, wars and religious turmoil. I felt I knew about the settlement of the North American continent until I picked this book up, and began following them from a verdant valley in Switzerland to a hundred miles inland from the Carolina coast. Williams has plastered flesh and blood, sweat, tears, odors and heartbreak over the basic facts of history. Immigrants came to North America for a variety of reasons. Most of us think we know what those reasons -- certainly religious freedom was a principal motivation. Williams clarifies those motivations and mixes them with the lack of employment and/or land available to men born without the luck to be the eldest son. The divisions in Europe are clearly brought to life, from taxes on those wanting to leave; to the dangers of crossing one petty principality after another in an effort to reach a port. If one managed to avoid being shanghaied into one army or another and reached a port then economically surviving at the port became important, as the immigrants had to avoid con men preying on strangers while they waited for a lull in the naval warfare between England or France or found a ship with a captain brave enough to sail while the war raged. Williams makes other points every bit as important on the social mileu these people were in. Indians, she points out were low down on the priority of lists of things to fear. Fevers ranked at the top of the list. And the fevers that killed, did far more than spread death. The loss of the educated settlers led to the loss of education among their offspring, ensured the taking of second and third husbands in marriage. Williams clearly brings home the all effects of fevers and disease on the settlers and the unmendable breaking with Europe with one poignant incident. The family she traces knows they may have a male relative somewhere in South Carolina. They know when he was a boy fevers killed his parents and siblings in Savannah. They know his name but not what became of him. After arriving in the New World they find the boy. He is among the first of the Americans -- his parents tongue is alien to him and he is the first of what Benjamin Franklin called the new nationality -- coarser, less refined and educated, more violent and self-reliant. The Switzers also provides a realistic look at the wars with the Cherokee nation, how an incident here and there would eventually blow up until unrelenting warfare was waged. The author explains how the British deployed troops to aid the immigrants, how the immigrants formed their own companies, how the government in Charleston supported these forays. Again, the skeleton of history we know is improved on as Williams mixes the physical reality of situations so they are clearly understood. How many modern researchers really understand that both Indian and white settlers based their fighting on planting seasons? This fundamental difference in time changes the tempo of the past to something not proceeding by days or weeks, but to a pattern of seasonal variations. Understanding this is one key to appreciating what generals of the not too distant past perceived. Wild" Bill Kaliher is an inveterate Confederate sympathizer and VD investigator. Back to Cry Havoc #3 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com