Prologue : the storm of revolution - Tempest brewing - Impending doom on the Outer Banks - First strike : the hurricane of independence roars ashore - Norfolk : an attack on both sides - Tobacco and gunpowder - Landon Carter : diarist and planter-philosopher of the Northern Neck - The streets of Annapolis - Lightning and enlightenment - The colonies unite in Philadelphia against British tyranny - The radical, the President, and the general in Philadelphia - Striking the Second Continental Congress - The heroic collegian : Hamilton in New York - Whither the hurricane of independence? - War erupts - General Washington and his patriotic citizen-soldiers battle the British and the weather - Fishing for cod during the summer in Newfoundland - The hurricane - Epilogue : the providential American victory.