Sometimes a war's greatest heroes are its survivors, those who manage to forge new lives despite the tragedy they have experienced. History books usually do not describe how a nine-year-old Massachusetts boy might have felt when his friend was killed in the Boston Massacre or what went through the mind of a teenage Quaker girl when her family fled Philadelphia. Children like these found themselves on the edge of the fray-both in combat and in the throes of daily life-helping, or simply enduring, as best their interrupted youths allowed. Their behind-the-scenes stories illustrate what it was really like for children during the Revolutionary War.

Meet Frances Slocum, a five-year-old girl captured and raised by Native Americans; James Fortune, a free African American who at the age of fifteen enlisted on a government-commissioned ship; and Deborah Samson, who, at twenty, dressed in men's clothes and joined the Continental army.

Learn the inspiring stories of American children who displayed courage, devotion, and wisdom during the colonies' fight for freedom.