Jeff O’Connor, a Revolutionary War re-enactor and trustee of the Schoharie County Historical Society, wrote this 40,000-word booklet about the 1777 Battle of the Flockey as a commemorative item to be sold at the re-enactment of the battle. It is now available at the Old Stone Fort Museum gift shop and by using an order form included in this issue of the REVIEW.

The battle, which occurred in the town of Fulton south of Middleburgh, was the first of several fought in Schoharie County during the revolution. More important, the battle was won by what is said to be the United States Army’s first cavalry charge.    O’Connor did an immense amount of research on the battle, consulting primary as well as secondary sources, and the book is well documented. He uses quite a bit from the questionable Jeptha Simms’s 1847 History of Schoharie County and Border Wars, perhaps too much.

Simms is a problem for all who write about the revolution in Schoharie County. He interviewed descendants of participants who readily offered tales of ancestor heroism. But he also had access to the minutes of the Committee of Safety and other papers that are no longer available. O’Connor uses participants’ pension affidavits and other extant records, and other secondary sources, to write this detailed account of the battle.

Readers who are unfamiliar with Revolutionary War history may find the book difficult to follow, for O’Connor assumes a fair knowledge of terminology and concepts, such as Committee of Safety. He also provides a wealth of factual details and reasonable conclusion which overburden the book in places: It is not at all as easy to read as was the 8,500-word series on the same battle that he wrote for the Society’s web site this summer.

Thunder acquits itself well as a research article. Design and graphics provide an aura of amateurism and a din of wrong words and weak grammar thunders loudly for professional editing: “a governor actually beholding to his electors” (page 3), and “having said his peace” (page 21) are prime examples. Chapter II end notes 8 through 13 are missing, five paragraphs are repeated and the citation method is inconsistent. It is a shame that the Society produced in house what could, should and would otherwise have been a truly first-class book.