Most impressive is the extent and depth of the author s research in primary and secondary sources. With extraordinary vividness Sword recounts the battles and the life in the American and Indian encampments quoting from diaries letters and statements by American officers and soldiers as well as the accounts of their enemies such as Little Turtle of the Miamis Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Joseph Brant of the Iroquois. Nor does Sword neglect the activities and life-ways of Britain s traders agents and haughty commandants.