Trying Men's Souls: The Campaign for New York, August-October 1776 2026

Following the British defeat at Bunker Hill and their evacuation of Boston Harbor, the American colonies essentially held all the land of the former colonies. However, the American invasion of Canada ended in humiliating defeat and King George III won enough support from hardliners in the Parliament to raise a massive army and fleet that the British monarch hoped would bring the rebellion to an end and the colonists to heel. A month after the colonies declared their independence, in August 1776, a British fleet of over 30 warships and 400 transports carrying over 32,000 men arrived in New York harbor. Opposing them was the largest American army ever assembled of 23,000 men under the command of General George Washington. What ensued was the largest campaign of the Revolutionary War, one that could have either restored the monarchy’s rule to the thirteen British colonies or allowed the “Great Experiment” of democracy in America to grow.

Trying Men's Souls is a moderate complexity level simulation wargame on the campaign for New York. Players are cast in the roles of Generals Washington and Howe as they command their forces in the battles to take control of the American colonies’ largest city and port. Can you do as well or better?

—description from the publisher