- Well, here we are again,
welcome back to Mount Vernon. My name is Doug Bradburn,
I'm the President and CEO of George Washington's Mount Vernon and it's been my delight to
have these live opportunities to talk about our mission here and about the story of George Washington. As last Wednesday we were in our museum this is what we call our
education center here at Mount Vernon. It focuses on the life
of George Washington. Really a grand sense of his
biography and why he matters and how he impacted
the age that he live in and why his legacy still
matters to us today. Last time we were looking at his youth, a youth that you'll remember
we said is oftentimes in wrapped in romance,
it's wrapped in myths, it's hard to get at because
it's the period where it's the least documented, but
it really is an interesting period to understand George Washington in the context of the 18th century. But of course, he's most known to Americans and perhaps
to folks around the world as a great military commander. The general who led the Americans through the American War for Independence through eight long years of war and his identity as a
warrior is a crucial one. We think about who was George Washington? How did he think of himself in his time? And why does it matter today? Now, George Washington
as a military commander, is still studied regularly in
the great military disciplines in this country at West
point, the Naval Academy as well as the War
College, because Washington is a fundamental figure
in the establishment of an American tradition
of leadership in arms. He was the first officer
of the American Army. The United States army dates
its own birth to his service and the congress's appointment of him to taking over the army, which we'll talk about a little bit. And so that story is
important to thinking about the cultures and traditions
that are a part of American military power and
military leadership today. George Washington also though
was a man of the 18th century, He lived in a very different world with different assumptions about how Warfare should be
conducted and what was needed and some of that I hope
will come out as well what was different about
the way an 18th century officer might organize
troops versus today as well. So let's get into it. I wanna start really in
where I left off last week, which is the French and Indian War. So George Washington's military education was through the process of fighting in the French and Indian war. He had no experience when he
was leading men into battle, he had no experience organizing
men or creating a camp or building a supply train or any of that. And so he learned a lot
of the basics in the field through long surface in
the French and Indian War and also by many mistakes he had a skirmish that turned into a nasty assassination as
the French considerate it and then he lost one of his early commands at the Battle of Fort Necessity where in the French and Indian War, he had the Virginia Regiment
and some other troops surrounded by British with
no native American allies and ultimately had to surrender
his post in that moment. But yet he survived to
go onto great things in the French and Indian War. And he would go on to become known as a very respected officer and a respect to colonial officer, particularly by Virginians,
but also by colonials throughout North America. In part, this had to do with his exploits at the Battle of the Monica Hill. What's often called Braddock's Defeat, General Edward Braddock, the great British well he wasn't great in fact,
he was a fairly inexperienced, but long-serving British
commander who was sent to attack Fort Duquesne in 1755 and George Washington served
as a volunteer on his staff. At this point, Washington
had resigned his commission in the Virginia Regiment, but Braddock in asking
around for informed locals, Braddock, in fact had
this great war meeting with a number of royal
governors in Alexandria in Carlisle house,
Alexandria in John Carlisle was related to George
Washington through marriage and so Washington's
brother, you'll remember married into the Fairfax family, John Carlisle was also
married to a daughter of William Fairfax and so
George Washington was very much on the radar of people in Alexandria when Braddock was looking
for some expertise and he agreed to volunteer,
Braddock agreed to have him. And it served Braddock's army ultimately because George Washington was
able to help lead the retreat after Braddock's army
was caught by an ambush of well-prepared native Americans at some of their French allies, this is mostly a native American victory and one of the worst
defeats in British history. Braddock's whole Army's decimated really and Washington is able to
help guide this retreat through chaos, only a few miles away from the Forks of the Ohio
River which was their goal. And George Washington, after that, comes back and finds
Virginia in a position where it's completely undefended. One of the things that Braddock's army did when they marched out West
is they built a big road. They carved out a road, an army road to make it easier for Braddock
to bring his army out there. But once they were defeated, essentially that road became
a highway for native Americans to come rushing back into
the Virginia frontier and spread out and assault
the Virginian settlers in the Shenandoah Valley and
so without any protection the colony of Virginia
begged George Washington to come back into service to become the head of the
Virginia Regiment again. And he ultimately
reluctantly did come back in to be the Colonel of Virginia Regiment with a new plan,
essentially a strategic plan that was intended to
just defend the frontier. And Virginia set a series of forts and Washington found himself in an incredibly challenging position for the next few years,
which was a defensive one where he only had about a thousand men, sometimes upwards he supposed
to have about 2000 men, but it never really was that many across multiple forts
in the Shenandoah Valley intended to cover 400 miles,
essentially a frontier. And of course, native
Americans aren't stupid, they're not just gonna attack the forts where the troops are,
they'd go around those and they attack the settlements and they would carry away captives and they would steal goods and
basically make civilian life miserable and dangerous on that frontier keep the whole colony on edge. And Washington was in a
very difficult position of having to defend this frontier. But one of the things he did
learn throughout that period, was how to command men, how to train men, how to fight in what
at that time was called the Indian Style in the woods,
using light infantry tactics learning how to track
native American groups and obviously learning a lot about supply and morale and motivation. In fact, some of the early
essences of George Washington the leader we see
developing in this period, so for instance, there's an
episode at one of the forts that Washington's in charge of where he had been away
for awhile and comes back and there had been drunken
carousing by some of the officers at this fort and Washington
has to go through the process of court martial
where the officers will convene and they will try the other
officers for misbehavior and he has to exercise punishment. And after that, he writes an address to the Virginia Regiment,
officers of Virginia Regiment, which basically says that
it takes more than the title to make the officer. And that he will make it his duty to serve with the utmost respect to
the rules of comportment and training, but he will also expect that of the others as well. And he also said that he
will punish with severity, but at the same time he
looks forward to a rewarding the merit of the best, of the brave and the most meritorious. And that notion of, it takes more than the
title to make an officer, and then he was going to reward merit but punish poor behavior, it was a key to understanding
Washington's sense of what leadership means
in that environment. And he puts an emphasis
on training and on reading and in fact, he lists a number of books that officers should read
and you're gonna see this throughout his own experience
as a military leader. The importance of training,
importance of reading. So the other thing about
the French and Indian War I do wanna bring up, before we get into the American Revolutionary
War more generally, is that George Washington
really becomes alienated from the British world for the first time during his experience of
the French and Indian war. He trained the Virginia Regiment
over these three long years of bloody campaigns as he called them, and made them into a very highly regarded professional regiment,
they aren't a militia unit, they are an established military
unit at the colony wide, at the province level, but they aren't what's called the regular
British establishment. So they're not part of
the British army per se, they're provincial regiment. And so what that means is
George Washington's commission as a colonel is not effective
when he's around an officer who has a king's commission, a king's commissioned
at the level of captain is supposed to be able to have authority over provincial colonels, which of course George Washington is
seen as a huge insult, an insult to his rank and his honor and so there's constant concern that these provincials are serving, are gonna end up serving
alongside regular troops and then all their
officers would be degraded in the face of these British regulars. And so Washington was trying
to get his own commission and in fact, his whole regiment put on a British establishment recognition which would equalize his own status within the British army more generally, the British imperial forces collectively. But would also do the same for
all of his fellow officers, he had about 60 to 70 officers
in the Virginia Regiment. Now this comes to a
head a couple of times, throughout the course of
the French and Indian War and he fails to get this recognition, although it becomes quite close. But he thinks the great
opportunity has emerged with the appointment of a new
British commander in chief at about 1756 through seven,
which is the Earl of Loudoun, John Campbell the Earl of Loudoun is made the new Commander in
Chief of all the British forces in North America. And John Campbell is a Scotsman
and he's also a nobleman, he's the Earl of Loudoun and he's appointed Commander
in Chief, but he's also appointed the Royal Governor of Virginia, which is really important because the Royal Governor
of Virginia obviously represents the throne, the
crown in the Virginia colony. Now Virginia is mostly
run by what are called lieutenant governors, so
we have a royal governor in Virginia and then he
appoints a lieutenant governor, that lieutenant governor
actually goes and lives in Williamsburg and runs the colony on behalf of the actual
governor who most of the time is that absentee governor,
he stays in Scotland or he stays in England
collecting his salary for being at the royal governor, but not actually doing anything. In this case, all of a sudden, the royal governor of Virginia,
the real royal governor, the big cheese, is coming to the colonies, he's also the commander in
chief of all the forces. So here's George Washington thinking, "Well, this is perfect for me "because I am the Colonel
of the Virginia Regiment, "so I have that connection
to this royal governor, "plus I'm obviously serving in this war, "so I have that connection
to the commander chief plus "I've got all this experience
in fighting in this war." And he has an idea, a strategic
idea that he wants to bring to his superiors, he wants
to go on the offensive. He can't defend the frontier of Virginia over 400 miles with 2000 men, but he knows that if they could
take the Forks of the Ohio, where the French had built
Fort Duquesne at this point, that Fort Duquesne is
really the launching point of native American raids
really from everywhere, southward and into Pennsylvania
from the Forks of Ohio, 'cause it's a place where native Americans are coming actually from
Canada and from further West and from all over, coming
down to Fort Duquesne, getting supply and being
able to then launch raids into the frontier of Pennsylvania,
Virginia, North Carolina and even further South. And so if you could take Fort Duquense, you can cut off that whole
region's ability to sustain native warfare on the frontier. Washington knows this. Fort Duquesne is the hive
that they have to destroy. And he knows that the
only way to really stop the raiding then is to
take over that fort, seize the Forks of the Ohio. So he wants to go on a mission, he what he wants to convince the new Commander in Chief, Lord Loudoun to make this assault on the Ohio. And so what does he do? He takes he writes a very
flattering letter to Lord Loudoun. He names his new Fort after
Loudoun, Fort Loudoun. He writes a flattering letter about the greatest of generals
and the greatest of men, we're so delighted you're now in charge, I look forward to my
chance to meeting you. He actually goes to
Philadelphia, where Loudoun is, and tries to set up a meeting. And Loudoun of course he's the Commander in
Chief of the British Army, this is like some random colonel trying to talk to the head
of the joint chiefs of staff with an idea about what
they should be doing. That typically is not the way that the sorts of decisions are made. And so Washington has put on ice and here he is cooling his jets for two weeks in Philadelphia trying to get the
attention of Lord Loudoun. He's finally allowed him to see him and what does Loudoun do? Loudoun not only says, "I have no interest "in hearing your ideas, young man." Washington's only 24 at the time remember, from Loudoun's point of view,
very little experience in arms and he's a provincial to
begin with which means he doesn't know anything about warfare from the perspective of a European. But not only that, not
only are they not gonna go on the offensive, but
Washington's Virginia Blues, this regiment that he's
trained over these years that he's so proud of,
he's gonna have to lose some of his men and
those are gonna be sent to South Carolina. And so Washington
emerges from this meeting completely humiliated and angry and writes what I call
the Smoking Gun letter that he writes to the
Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, who he's
been working with for years. And complaints to Dinwiddie, he says, "I cannot conceive that Americans "only because they're not British "will be denied the rights
of British subjects." So essentially he saying, "How can we are treated
equally with the British?" And he goes on to point out
that there is no other regiment in his majesty service that have served three bloody campaigns
without recognition. And that idea that Americans
are lesser than the British comes through very
powerfully in an angry way. And I think this is the crucial moment, if anyone was to ask, "Why does George Washington
ultimately become a rebel "against the King who he had served "in the French and Indian war?" This experience with Lord Loudoun, is one of those moments
you can point to and say, "There's poor George Washington
being treated like a dog "and he's never gonna forget it." And so ultimately, of course
the French and Indian War, Washington does participate in, one other thing about Loudoun
and I'll say, which I like to give you a sense of the
character of John Campbell, the Earl of Loudoun, Benjamin Franklin, who was in Philadelphia at the time, the said of Lord Loudoun
that he's like St. George on the Tavern side, always on horseback but never going anywhere. So you get the sense of this man who played at being a great soldier but never really did much. And in fact he did. Ultimately, George Washington
does get to participate in a successful march on Fort Duquesne, he goes with the Forbes Campaign 1758. In that campaign, he believes
he has a major impact on helping to lay out the line of march 'cause he has experienced with
this sort of wood fighting. He also, although doesn't get
what he wanted from Forbes, which is he wanted Forbes
to take the same route that Braddock did, what's
called the Virginia Route. But Forbes took a longer but flatter route through Pennsylvania and
ultimately had the same success. The French left the fort
before the British arrived, so they arrived in an empty
fort, were able to secure it and that success basically ended the French and Indian War in the South. I mean, it was correct,
once you took Duquesne, the French had no way to project power, basically South of the great
lakes in any kind of force. So when that was over, George Washington resigned his commission it was clear that his ambition in military was not gonna be in the British Army and resigned his commission,
marries Martha Washington and embarks on his next
career as a Virginia planter. And so it's really interesting
to see that as connected, that he is turning his
back on a military career that has been denied him essentially as his interpretation through
the idiocy of the British and now he's really going to
become that Virginia planter that he never had been. And to do that, he brings Martha
Washington to Mount Vernon and the next phase of his life begins. Okay. So, let's go fast forward to under the American Revolutionary War, and why don't I take a question
as a way to get into it, as a way to think about
George Washington as a soldier in the American Revolution. - [Man] Doug so Wodazgazem
would like to know Washington was one of
history's greatest generals, Who were his mentors and
how did he learn strategy and war tactics? - Question is about Washington as considering the fact that he
is one of the greatest generals certainly in American history,
and I will submit that he is, and we can argue about that and why we have to think
of him in that way. But so who were his mentors in arms? How did he learn? So a couple of interesting things here, George Washington obviously
learned by doing here. And one of the incredible
things you see about him is that he will fail or he
will blunder and make mistakes, but he clearly learns from his experiences in the French and Indian War and also in the American revolutions we'll talk about as well. But he was also a great reader of all the military books of the age. He clearly learned a lot from Braddock and the officers that surrounded Braddock, including people like Thomas Gate to who he later will face off
against in the Boston theater, but also he ran all the latest treatises, he particularly started
focusing on what was sort of fatigue war tracks, light
infantry, guerrilla war, we might call it today, that was emerging in some of the literature
of the 18th century. But in the 18th century the European mind of
warfare was fairly stuck in a tendency that had basically existed for almost hundred years. The technology hadn't really changed much. I mean, the British were using a musket that was basically like the musket that when they were using in 1705 or that Marlboro was using
in the wars around the 1710s, the Brown Best Musket
which the British used. And these were you would mass firepower in groups of ranks of infantry and the goal was to
outmaneuver, out number the other teams infantry
on the other side. And it was very static in the way that they were thinking about tactics and the approach to war
fighting at the time. So Washington is learning
from this European tradition through their manuals,
which emphasize drill, which emphasize lines of men with muskets who would march close together and shoot basically at point blank range until the other side were weakened, then they would be charged by the bayonet. This was how European
battles have been fought for almost a hundred years after the evolution of the
bayonet onto the musket, which got rid of Pikeman essentially and cavalry was used
in minimal ways as well in these major 18th
century European battles. So Washington could learn
about that tendency of warfare but he also learned, I think
from the ancients as well interestingly he read Julius Caesar, when he was during the
French and Indian War. And Caesar, he commentaries on goal, which Washington was reading
while he was actually defending the British frontier, Caesar
is defending the Roman frontier and Caesar's talking about the challenges of defeating an enemy, in
this case the German tribes that fought in a different way than the Romans had been fighting. And so in a sense, Washington is learning from these treatises and tracks. The great military figures
in the 18th century world. You have the ancients like Fabius who was able to defeat
Hannibal, you've got Caesar, you've got the modern Gustav's
Adolphus in the 30 years war, you've got Maurice of Nassau,
you have William of Orange, you have Eugene of the
Savoy, Prince Eugene, you've got Fredrick the Great. In Washington style, Frederick the Great is the living greatest general of the age and Frederick the Great is the epitome of what the highest level of
what tactics and approached by the middle of the 18th century. The Prussian army that
Frederick controlled heavy infantry that were very well trained would bring firepower to bear
emphasis on highly trained, expensive permanent armies
that you would not use very often and hopefully not
many of them wouldn't die because they were so expensive
to train and maintain over the period. And so 18th century warfare
tended to be focused on siege craft and Europe was dotted
with fortresses and castles that controlled all the different rivers and so fortresses are really,
when you think about strategic battles and fighting in Europe, they're thinking about
seizing rivers and fortresses 'cause these armies move extremely slowly. Their supply lines can only
be a couple of days away at most, they could carry a
tremendous amount of fodder and food and horses in fact, one military historian
described 18th century armies as sort of they're shackled
by their supply lines. So imagine a giant man
walking with shackles on, these armies move very slowly. And in fact, most battles
that we think about in the 18th century are great sieges rather than big set pieces. You're gonna see a major change in this in the 19th century with Napoleon. But the American
Revolution is really fought as probably it's odd that you
have this revolutionary war as far to the time of really these older sensibilities about
what warfare looked like in the 18th century. So Washington is schooled
up in that tradition through reading, through
certainly these generals he served in the French and Indian War,
but then also as we'll see through the American Revolution, he evolves in his own
thinking and understands how to command at a high level. The real challenge that he's gonna face in the American Revolution is, he's never commanded
anything more than 2000 men. That's a brigade level, that's tiny compared to being the
commander in chief of an army and even though he often
doesn't have that many men directly under him, we'll see
like in the New York theater at the fight over New York at
the very beginning of the war when Washington commands about 25000 men, spread across different areas, he makes some fundamental mistakes about how to arrange that army which probably has as much to
do with his own inexperience in command at that level as anything else. How about another question? - [Man] Sure. MJ wants to know, what kind of reputation did Washington have among
the soldiers versus at home? - The question is a
reputation of Washington amongst the soldiers versus
toward beyond the soldiery. There's also kind of a
implicit question there. What was his reputation like to the enemy and to the other side? And this aspect of his reputation is really important to recognize. He was ultimately beloved
by the soldiers in fact, a lot of his political
power within the army, the fact that he never lost his command, how to do with the fact
that there was a huge core of not everyday soldiers,
but also the officer core that loved Washington and
believed that he could do no wrong. And this came through
experience of working with him. He was as a leader very
much a great listener, welcoming other points of view, promoting men of great talent, he had a great eye for talent. when it came to the regular soldiers, he was there, he stayed with the army in a way that generals in
the 18th century did not do. So he's at Valley Forge in the winter. He's at Morris Town
through two brutal winters. He's there with the troops,
he never takes a furlough. He spends every day with the
army and even those three days that he comes to Mount Vernon, he's coming to Mount Vernon to prepare for the arrival of the army. He's not going on a vacation. So they say that 90% of
doing a job is showing up, Washington showed up and
that it has an impact. And the other thing he
did when he was there, he wasn't like the kind of general, it wasn't an Omar Bradley,
he wasn't soldier Jenny, he's not going around shaking hands and trying to be one of the guys, but he's doing what's expected of him. So he's not trying to
go into people's tents and sort of be one of the guys in the middle of their adversity, he's trying to find them food, he's trying to find them
clothing, he's writing letters, he's getting the local
authorities mobilized to support the forging of this army. So he's actively seen as
trying to make life better for the army and he's
not the one they blame when they don't have shoes or
clothes or gunpowder or guns, they blame the Continental Congress, they blame their states,
they blame the politicians who clearly are either
corrupt or incompetent but here is Washington doing his damnedest to make sure we got what we need. So Washington is very
popular amongst the soldiers and much of that spreads into
the American people as well. There's a reason he's the
most trusted man in America by the end of the war. It isn't just the soldiers, it's the stories they tell
about him when they go home. Because these soldiers don't
serve for the most of the war they serve for short periods and then they go back to being a farmer. The stories of George Washington are spread by word of mouth. In fact, it's likely that
everybody knew somebody who could claim to have
served with George Washington or whose father or
brother or uncle or cousin had served or seen him or
talked about seeing him. It's really a remarkable thing. I do wanna mention his
reputation amongst his opponents. The British made some critical mistakes at the very beginning of the
American Revolutionary War by underestimating the Americans. And I say the Americans, I
mean all the patriot army, the idea that colonials could ever fight, I mean in 1775, even Thomas Gage who's married to an American
and has served in America his whole career, will
basically say of New Englanders they'll be bold in counsel, but they won't show any stomach in battle. They don't have the guts to do it. They like to talk a lot, but they really don't know how to fight and they're not gonna be
able to stick this thing up. They extend that for too long thinking about the Americans in that way really have no respect at all
for their ability as soldiers. And part of this is there's
good reason for that, because the European Army
has to train infantry for two to five years before
they can expect to stand in a line, taking fire, changing fire and then winning a set piece battle. The colonials have never
been able to do that, they've never done that and they don't have
bayonets on their rifles and they might snipe
it officers from trees, but that's no way to win a battle. And so the British have good reason to think that they have the advantage, but what they didn't bargain for, was the fact that the Americans
had tremendous leadership in George Washington was flexible that it was able to train up
troops that had other resources that they could draw on that the British would struggle with. And ultimately, George
Washington is seen in Europe as one of the greatest
captains of the age, one of the great generals
in world history. So particularly after he
turns the tide of battle at the end of 1776 by crossing
the Delaware in those 10 days in which he not only crosses the Delaware, defeats the Hessians, he
maneuvers around a larger army, wins the battle of Princeton and forces because of the way he sets
up his troops afterward, he forces the British to
lose all of New Jersey. It's considered by Frederick the Great, the greatest military figure in Europe as some of the finest
10 days of generalship that he has ever seen in history. And so in all the courts in Europe, the name of George Washington
all of a sudden becomes this reputation of great
generalship to be studied and to be admired probably
fairly romantic terms, but that attitude spreads also amongst the British generalship
over time, that Washington is not just some American bungler, that he's actually a very challenging foe to bring, to fight and to defeat certainly in any kind of definitive way. That's a great question. - [Man] So Doug, Getty would like to know how often did Washington
get home to his wife during the war years? - Well Washington didn't
get home to Mount Vernon really at all during the
war years as I mentioned, but in fact, home often came to him. George Washington had
very close enslaved man, William Lee his in slave valid, who served with him throughout the war, this is something Washington knew obviously from his world at Mount Vernon, had been his personal manservant. They'd been in the hunts
together in Virginia and now they were together in war. So that familiarity was
certainly part of Washington's day to day life in the camp. But also Martha Washington obviously, she came to him every year during the war. She came through great
hardship across terrible roads, through danger, put herself in danger to come to the winter
camps and bring supplies. She also mobilized women's
support for the war making cartridges, making
clothing, raising money and really was a crucial part
of Washington's experience of the war during the winter time when all he had was cares and stress. Could he make this army
survive another winter? Could he make sure they're training so they could be alert and active when the winter entered and the British? Do we often have to head to react to we're gonna go on their campaign. And Martha was there to calm his mood and make him into really a
better man and a better leader. In fact, the officers in
Washington's experience would often celebrate when
Martha arrived in camp because it would make him a
little easier to deal with, a little less angry,
a little less wound up 'cause he tended to be a control freak and trying to have his hand in everything and I think Martha leaven
his personality quite a bit. That's a good question, what do we got? - [Man] Norman would like to know, I heard that it was Hugh Mercers's idea to cross the Delaware to
surprise the Hessians. Any truth to that? - Question was about Hugh
Mercer, whether it was his idea to cross the Delaware. There's actually a lot of different people who can claim it to be their idea, including George Washington himself. Really, so let's set
the stage a little bit. So what's happening here
is, George Washington and probably his only
major strategic blunder of the whole war, is in
the New York theater. So the British are sending
an expeditionary force to destroy this rebellion. And George Washington is set up under the guidance of Charles Lee, one of the commanders
that he puts in place of the defense of New York, George Washington is command
of about 25000 troops in Manhattan and on Long Island. And what he does, and it's incredibly strategically important
for a lot of reasons. The Hudson River is crucial because you can't let the
British control the Hudson. New York is a very important port. It is dominated by a lot of loyalists so it's important to sort of
keep control of that area, the Continental Congress
wants George Washington to defend New York. And so Washington is there. Now it's also untenable
as we know from hindsight, New York is an Island and it's surrounded by navigable waterways
for hundreds of miles and George Washington has no navy. So an amphibious assault can outflank anyone on New York at any
time, particularly given the ability of the
American Army at that time to move rapidly and effectively. And so George Washington
stations all of his troops on either Manhattan and Long Island, so it's a huge strategic blunder because, General Howe commands the invasion could simply have landed
on Manhattan Island and outflank George Washington
and destroyed the whole army it's hard to see how
Washington could have escaped if at all, but fortunately
Howe was not that enterprising of a commander and so he
fought him first on Long Island and then fought him on Manhattan Island and allowed Washington
ultimately escape destruction. And in fact, it's a
series of losses obviously in Long Island, the Battle of Long Island, Washington loses, but he does
have a successful retreat and they don't ultimately
lose the core of their army, he loses a series of battles
in Manhattan in skirmishes, although they do hold
ground at crucial moments in that fight and Washington
is gonna learn a lot in these losses. He's gonna learn the value of maneuver, because he sets up in Manhattan
in numerous strong positions and Howe just outflanks him every time. So the value of maneuver. He understands the value of training. His troops cannot move
effectively on the battlefield, he needs to train them to
function as a proper infantry unit that can move without becoming chaotic, that can move and fight,
that can not only hold ground and entrench, but can fight
effectively on a battlefield without losing sense
of order and panicking. And he also learns the
value of Naval power in that Battle of Manhattan. So these are three crucial
things that he's gonna need to ultimately triumph
in the revolutionary war that he's allowed to learn
in the series of losses in this blunder. All right, so let's get
to the main point though. So his army ultimately
does escape from Manhattan, although he loses 3000
men at Fort Washington. And that loss is really the big loss because now Howe actually has something to claim victory about,
because seizing New York, which is a town of 20000 people we think of New York City is
this incredible metropolis, New York City is a port in North America, it's not in charge of anything
outside of its immediate inter-land, it's an important
place and a valuable place but in European eyes, for Howe to say, "I fought all these battles "and I've won this Fort of New York." I mean, it's not exactly a
great victory without capturing a big chunk of George Washington's army, which he was able to
do at Fort Washington. So it's a huge blow to
morale, to the cause and a great celebration for
British arms in that campaign. So Washington is escaping
from Howe through New Jersey, retreating back towards Philadelphia and being chased by the
British across New Jersey and his army is disappearing. Men are leaving, their
enlistments are coming up at the end of the year
anyway, they've been beaten, they're tired, they don't have any food. The army ultimately dwindles down to 3000. So think about that, from 24000 to 3000, this army just sort of
melts away like the snow. And Washington is late
or is early as November, late November of 1775,
is trying to, I'm sorry, late November 1776, dates matter, in 1775 he was still in Boston. In 1776, he starts thinking
about the need to counteract the news of the loss of Fort Washington that fell at the end of November. And so with that loss, Washington knew he needed something to
change the narrative of the spike and a counter
attack of some kind. He starts looking for opportunities, and that's ultimately what is
presented to him with Trent. The British are essentially,
have chased the colonials all the way across the Delaware
River so all of New Jersey almost and they're going
into winter quarters with this extended posts
throughout the state. Their behavior was terrible in New Jersey, there's plunder, there's rape on, there's destruction of property,
you have one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence has abjured his signature and declared
loyalty to the crown, it's a huge propaganda challenge. But the militia starts
rising in New Jersey, Washington is being fed intelligence about the possibility of an attack. And that leads to the incredible decision to cross the Delaware and
turn the tide of the war, which Washington did in 10 days, He turns the tide of
the war and transforms the narrative. Of course General Mercer dies
at the battle of Princeton. And Mercer is bayoneted to death by troops who might've believed and we do think there's good sense to believe that he was General
Washington at the time. Mercer is well dressed
in a colonial uniform. He's fighting, he refuses to
surrender and he's bayoneted and of course, most of
the other American troops are fairly poorly dressed,
pretty bedraggled ragtag army. And so Mercer would've stood
out in a really grand way and that made people think that this was possibly Washington. So anyway, that's a good question about whether Mercer could get credit. I don't think you could say
it was Mercer's idea alone, there were others, General Cadwalader, it was in Pennsylvania,
Washington himself, his staff. I mean, there was a lot of people who we're looking for an opportunity. - [Man] So sticking with the crossing, Matthew would like to know,
what type of watercraft did Washington and the army
used across the Delaware? - Well the crossing of the Delaware, we think of it oftentimes
with this beautiful painting by Emanuel Leutze from the 1850s, who was a German immigrant who painted this
extraordinary history painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You could see it online on our webpage, you can see it on the Mets webpage and you can imagine it, you remember it. It's Washington crossing the
Delaware where he's standing, I don't remember how
he's standing exactly, but he's standing looking forward, behind him is this massive
river clogged with ice, which is much larger
than the actual Delaware. And then he's in this boat of course, which just being rode by
all these different people, some of whom are intended to
represent real people like James Monroe, who was in the crossing and got wounded actually. But also others who are
meant to be indicative of the diversity of America. There's a woman in there,
there is an African American member of the Marble Head Regiment. There is a Scotsman by
just dress you can tell. And so Lloyd's painting
an interesting story about America's greatness in the 1850s, emphasizing immigrants and diversity and Washington's leadership
and really creating a great historical memory
and interpretation, but it's not really what
actually happened, right? So the is about, how did Washington actually cross the Delaware? It would have been in very
different style boats, flat boats and what are
called Durham boats are often they're much, they're shallow draft boats that were used for carting
things along the river, but it actually was a mishmash
of lots of different craft. The Americans have been collecting
all the craft they could from all over the Delaware River making sure the British
couldn't get them for one thing and sort of bringing them together. So it's every kind of
craft you can imagine, but mostly these flat cargo boats essentially that were used. And so, Washington likely
would have been seeded in a different fashion. There's a good painting
by Cusstlers painting, is it Cusstler Matt? Nestler, Cusstler, anyway, that you could see
online the Cusstler painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, which shows what it might've looked like. And again, we have that in
our Winter Patriots movie, you can see a representation
of that in the snow. But it was a remarkable
crossing nonetheless, it took many hours longer
than Washington and hoped, it almost led to disaster,
but he had his luck with him that night. Question. - [Man] So Doug there's a
question, was there ever a time during the war that Washington's
life was in grave danger or that he faced being
maybe being captured? - Was there ever a time during the war where Washington's life
was in grave danger? The answer is yes. There were many at least two or three really well documented moments
in which people were afraid that Washington was
taking risks with his body in the face of enemy gunfire that was not considered to be smart, given that he was the indispensable
man, believe to be that. One was in the Battles in Manhattan, where he was so upset at
the retreat of the Americans that he started basically
wanting to assault their lines himself and throw himself
into a bodily danger there and was held back and
cried, "Are these the men "with which I am to defend America?" That's the line that's quoted
in the Hamilton Musical that great song which in
fact is one of the great artistic renderings of the
chaos and the intensity of those series of losses
where they're moving rapidly and they're fighting and they're dying and they're actively engaged. The other one is the Battle of Princeton, is famously were Washington
gets within 30 yards of the British line where
Mahood, the Colonel Mahood who's a very experienced British officer who goes into battle on
horseback with spaniels leaping around him in very much in this tradition of gentleman like showing their nonchalance
in the face of enemy fire, that's the British model that
Mahood is projecting there. And they're much more
disciplined in their defeating this Pennsylvania militia under Cadwalader and Washington comes himself on horseback and rallies the troops, rally to me boys that are just a few of them
and we will have them presently or something like that. And there's a story told about
one officer closes his eyes 'cause he can't bear to see
Washington being shot dead which he assumes has to happen because Washington is
basically right out there in between the lines who
are firing back and forth but yet ultimately it carries the day. And the other time in the
revolutionary war that I know of, or that I think about, there's
perhaps one at Monmouth, but I don't think he's
within danger of battle close arms at that point, but at Yorktown, he also is known for getting
up on top of the trenches that are surrounding
Yorktown, with this spy glass observing the battle
and while there's shells landing around him and bullets
whizzing through the air and lots of times officers
are asking him to come away, general come away and he
will say something like, "You can retire to the back if you like "I feel perfectly fine." That sort of thing as well. So Washington led from the
front when it was necessary and put himself out there
of course, we know famously at the terrible defeat of Braddock in the French and Indian War, he had multiple bullet holes
in his coat and threw his hat and a number of horses shot from under him during that battle but
yet was unscratched. So interestingly, George
Washington was never wounded throughout his many years
of war and conflict. - [Man] Doug, we've got a
multi-part question from William. He'd like to know what
happened to General Lee, was he captured or dessert to the British and they also liked to know why did Washington let Arnold live and why was General Gates
even allowed command? - So these are three
questions I don't know if I can do them all justice, but let's start with the first one which was a question about Charles Lee. Was he captured or did he
deserve to the British. Charles Lee is a really interesting figure in American history and
not well known today, certainly outside of people who study the American Revolutionary year out. He was British, but he was
also an adopted Virginian. He was not related to
the Virginia Lee family that we think of, he's
an English born man. He serves in the French and Indian War. He also serves in Europe at
the Court of European Princes as a military expert. He probably has a lot
more military experience than George Washington
and he has a huge grudge towards the British. He thought he was treated poorly by them, he thought he wasn't promoted properly and he's also a very
eccentric, eccentric guy. I mean he's known to also basically have no friends but his dogs. He's got 20 dogs, he's a bachelor, although he has a native American wife and he has a native American
name called Boiling Water, will give you some sense
of what his personality might be like, quick to rage, but also probably quite a genius when it came to military affairs and Washington depends on him
and the Congress love him, John Adams in particular
thinks that he's very important to the Americans and they really
want him to help Washington because he knows a lot
about siege warfare, he knows the European style of fighting and he's given a high
command very early on. He is essential in the
defense of Charleston in the early phase of the war
when it successfully defeats a British invasion, although
they later will be conquered. He also is again, put in charge
of the defense of New York and does what everybody considers
to be a pretty capable job with very little resources
in a short order. But Charles Lee also has a very different, and I would say, revolutionary notion of what the American strategy
should be in the war. He thinks it's a waste of time
to try to fight the British in a traditional European manner. George Washington always
argues that the Americans need to have a proper
army, that is trained and able to fight in the European way. Partly he sees this as
the clear way to contain the British and to fight
the British properly, but also it's political. If they have a real army, they could be considered a real country. Like the Europeans will give
them that kind of respect. Whereas Charles Lee very
early on is emphasizing the importance of what we would call today guerrilla warfare or bringing
the war into the countryside of the army melting
away into the mountains and letting the British just sort of alone and the Americans fighting
it out in this way. And also kind of a
revolutionary idea about how this should be the
Republican way of fighting in a Republic. And so Charles Lee is an
interesting character. There's a great essay by John Shy, one of the great military historians and historians really of war in society, which contrasts Washington and Charles Lee and their visions for warfare. Anyway, so Charles Lee in
the flight across New Jersey, does a couple of things which
are highly questionable. It's clear that he's writing that Washington is not
capable of managing this war. Washington has lost New
York, Lee is not responding to George Washington's
inquiries very aggressively. And ultimately, when Lee
finally does start to bring his troops and try to meet
up with Washington's troops in New Jersey, he's very careless. He ends up getting himself captured at a crossroads by the British. Tries to sneak out of
the house and ultimately ends up as a prisoner of war. Now there are many historians, there's much confusion about this and there's still more to be known. Lee, it looks like participates
basically with the British in helping them while he's captured think about the weaknesses
of the American Army. What we might consider to
be a traitorous behavior. Now this is something that
comes to light much later. But Lee ultimately is
exchanged and he's exchanged, and he comes back into
the American officer Corps in an important role in
1778, when George Washington is trying to figure out
a way to take advantage of the British abandonment
of Philadelphia. So the British, remember they
took Philadelphia in 1777, they abandoned it after the French come in on the side of the Americans because now the theater
of war has changed. It isn't just these 13 colonies, the British have to think about
their West Indian colonies, their Indian possessions,
their African posts. They have to think about the world because the French and
them are gonna fight on a much bigger scale. And so it's seen as
foolish just to hold on to the Town of Philadelphia, which doesn't really do much for them. And so that army is gonna
march from Philadelphia to New York and in 1778. And George Washington wants
to take advantage of this by harassing the very
least harassing that army at best finding a perfect
location to attack with this now better trained army. 'Cause now he has an
army that's been training at Valley Forge with
General Steuben, et cetera. And so what happens? So the British are
marching back to New York, Charles Lee is put in charge
of a big section of the army. Washington wanted to put
Lafayette in charge of that wing, but he had pressure to
put Lee in that position, Lee claimed he could not serve
if he was put in a position where he wasn't in command
of this, after he had opposed the idea of attacking the
British the whole time. So Lee never agreed with
that, but then he begs to be in charge of the actual army and of course, Lee bungles it. When the Battle of Monmouth
Courthouse begins to happen, Lee is in charge and Washington
interprets Lee's behavior as being, shall we say timid
and not aggressive enough, that Lee is not pressing in advantage and Lee is retiring in
the face of the enemy when Washington believes he
should be holding his ground or assaulting. And so Washington dismisses
him on the battlefield and there's later a very
public court-martial. And in that court-martial,
Lee's reputation is destroyed, although he's not ultimately convicted. And that's the end of Charles
Lee as a significant figure in the American Revolutionary Story. So I don't think there's
any evidence to say that he goes over to the
British, he is captured, but while he's in British hands, I think it is highly questionable
what his behavior is. I think he thinks at that
moment, which most people did, that the American cause will lost. It's the same moment
that Washington's army has dwindled to 3000 people. It's right before they
cross into the Delaware. So Lee is most likely
looking for a escape patch at that point and probably later regrets. Good question, oh it was a
three parter this question. The second one was about,
who is it about Gates? - [Man] It's why did Wash6ington
allow Arnold to live? - Why did Washington allow
Benedict Arnold to live? Well, first off, he didn't
capture Benedict Arnold, he would have executed Benedict
Arnold if he could've gotten his hands on him, that is
probably a thing that kept him up at night and enraged, because Arnold had not only been a trusted commander, one of the great operational
battlefield generals in the American revolution
and a hero to boot, a hero in Canada and the Canada campaign, the loss of Valcour Island,
but an incredible loss that slows down the British essential at the battle of Saratoga and trusted by George Washington. In fact, George Washington wrote to him when his favorite quotes from Keto after one of Arnold's
successes in which he says, "Tis not in mortals to command success, "but you've done better
Arnold, you've deserved it." I mean, he loved Arnold. He knew Arnold was one
of the great generals. Arnold was impatient and Arnold
really disliked the French and Arnold of course, ultimately
betrays in a hideous way the American cause. This is one thing to
go over to the British, but he did it in such a way as to try to get George
Washington captured, to try to get West Point captured, which was a very important
fortress controlling the Hudson. And then, not only does
he go over to the British, but he becomes a British general
and attacks the Chesapeake, attacks Virginia and attacks
it in a devastating manner with these raids. And so Arnold is notorious and Washington would
have liked nothing better than to string him up by the
neck as a trader to America if he could've gotten his hands on him. So, that's why he let Arnold
live, because he never got him. And of course, Arnold ultimately goes on to live a very despised
life in Britain as well. - [Man] And so the last
question of that is, why was General Gates
even allow to command? - Why was general Gates
even allowed to command? Well, I mean Grainy Gates as
he was known by the troops, had his supporters, he
had a lot of supporters, he was an eminent figure and had the support of many in congress ultimately has the great success
at the Battle of Saratoga. And there were many who thought
that Gates would be a better commander in chief, I
mean it was a small number who made these sort of rumblings because, people were upset that
Washington couldn't win the Battle of Germantown,
although a lot of troops considered it a great success
'cause they'd actually surprised the British and scared them into staying in Philadelphia. Of course, that was after the
great victory of Saratoga, so Washington's achievements
by the untrained eye, look diminished in the face of Gates. Washington is pressured
to put Gates in command and he ultimately puts him in
charge of the Southern army and Gates makes a complete hash of it. I think there's some statement about Gates after the loss of the Battle
of Cowpens, I believe, the Cowpens or anyway, it's
about Guilford Courthouse, it's a battle in the
South and Gate's loses and he basically doesn't
stop for a hundred miles in his retreat. And so someone mentioned
the only thing Gates won in the South was a horse
race or something like that. Anyway, so Nathaniel Green is put in place and we know how that goes. Green famously would lose
all the time but as he said, we get a lose, we regroup
and we fight again. And he understood that the British army was disintegrating and they
couldn't replace their army, so any costly victory
was as good as a defeat to Cornwallis in that campaign. So why would he put Gates in charge? Because there was political pressure for Gates to be in charge, but once Gates showed
that he was incompetent, he never again would have
an important command. So those are three very good questions and yeah, so let's get another. - [Man] So Joy would like to know, were Washington and Hamilton
as close as they were in the musical? - Joy asked the question about how close were Washington and Hamilton, were they as close as
they were in the musical? The musical is wonderful,
I love the musical. It's a beautiful piece of art, but it is a Shakespeare history, right? It's like a Shakespeare's
great history plays. Henry the fifth, the Battle of Ashencore. It captures a lot of
the spirit of the story, but it does it in a way that of course has to take all kinds of
liberties with the actual truth. Now, George Washington's relationship with Alexander Hamilton in the
American Revolutionary War, has been a subject of great biographies, Chernow's biography of
course is wonderful, as well as Forest McDonalds
biography before that of Hamilton, which I think is as good on the financial work of Hamilton as anything written about Hamilton. But, there's a lot of
romance placed upon Hamilton in the revolutionary war. He was an aid to George Washington, George Washington had 25 aids
through the course of the war. He was a very important aid and Washington recognized
his mind and his genius and Hamilton, of course had
his close group of friends, but he wasn't indispensable
to George Washington by any stretch of the
imagination and he is responsible for winning the American Revolution, which is really what you might think by watching the Hamilton play. So George Washington's
relationship with Hamilton was interesting and it
was testy clearly as well, because Washington lost
his temper with Hamilton and Hamilton being a very
prideful man, basically resigned. Washington tried to apologize,
Hamilton refused the apology, and went back in a huff and left the army. And Hamilton really had to
beg Washington to let him back to be a part of the Yorktown Campaign. There was no sense of like, "I gotta have my right hand man back." That's ridiculous. George Washington was gonna win Yorktown, whether Hamilton stayed in New York or whether Hamilton was on
the dark side of the moon. So, that said, Hamilton
clearly has to be recognized as a man of great valor
and as a hero of the war and the fact that he did lead
that assault on the readout in the Yorktown Campaign, he was given that command by Lafayette, not by George Washington. Lafayette commanded the
American army of that, wait a thing to remember about Lafayette, sometimes people forget and
maybe we'll talk about it, but Lafayette was an American Officer who happened to be French. He was not a French officer and employee of King Louis The 16th, the
French army was led by Roshambo and had its own officer Corps. Lafayette was an American officer that's what makes it
really unique in the story. Now like Von Steuben
was a German Prussian, but he was an American officer. And then there's the French
army, which is over here. So Lafayette's in charge
of the American wing at the Battle of Yorktown. And then there's a whole French wing at the Battle of Yorktown as well and it's Lafayette that
gives Hamilton the command to attack the readout in
the Battle of Yorktown. But clearly Washington's
relationship with Hamilton is very close and he trusts him and he corresponds with him in the 1780s and ultimately becomes his
first secretary of the treasury and I think that it's in that period where you really would say,
Hamilton and Washington become crucially inseparable in the way that they are working
together to assure the success of the American experiment. It's through that cabinet period, I think. And historians tend to project that back onto the American Revolutionary War in which Hamilton is
obviously not in that position of authority and leadership,
but is rather a trusted aid to George Washington. - [Man] So Doug, there's
time have one more question. - What, time for one more question? This hour haLs flown
by, I talked too much. - [Man] Lucas age 10, would like not know, how old was general
Washington when he resigned his position to start his new phase? - How old was George Washington when he resigned his commission? Thank you Lucas for asking this question because this is one of the
really important things to know about George
Washington the soldier. Is that George Washington at the end of the American
Revolutionary War, resigned his commission and
went back into civilian life. Throughout the war, he had
deferred to civilian authority, although he was given more and more power by the Continental Congress, almost unlimited dictatorial
power where the army was ultimately through the war and there were even some that
wanted him to become a king or imagine there's a
possibility that he might become the permanent lord protector
of the United States. Like Oliver Cromwell did at the end of the English civil war. But George Washington promised
to give back his commission at the beginning of the war
and he followed through. The British after the
successful treaty in 1783, finally leave New York in November of 1783 and by December 23rd, 22nd, George Washington has
resigned his commission into the hands of the Continental Congress for which all his authority flow. Completing this incredible act to assure that America would
be a government of laws and not a government of men. A Republic, not a monarchy. A place that believed in liberty, not a place that would be dictated by a benevolent dictator or a tiered. Washington is crucial and this made his worldwide reputation. So the question was how old
was he when he did that? And so in 1783, so he'6s born in 1732, so who can do the math? He's 51 years old when he does that. So he's a little over 50, he
became the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army,
when he's 42 years old. So he's a 42 year old man, he ends up resigning when he's 51. It's really quite extraordinary. There's a lot to know
about George Washington the military leader. It's a crucial part of
the story of his evolution as a great leader, it's a
crucial part of the story of our American military history as well. And Washington is not infallible, but he is a tremendous political general, he's a great strategic general ultimately. And I would argue he's
not as bad as a tactician, as many historians like to say. They say things like, "Well he wasn't a very good tactician." And they'll point to some blunders at Long Island and
Germantown branding one, some issues that can be
certainly identified. But in the context of 18th century and the options that he had
with his troops at the moment, he's as good as any out there
in that mode of fighting. And he beats everybody that
the British sent at him, he ultimately wins the
war which by the way, is how you measure a great generalship, it's who wins the last battle, not who wins the first battle. It'll tell you the nature of combat because there's a lot of luck and a lot of things that
people can't control once people start pulling guns out and shooting at each other. And on the strategic level, George Washington understood fundamentally the different phases of that
war that they went through. There's different things that the Americans were striving to do before they declared independence. There's different things
that they were doing in between declaring independence and when the French came in. Once the French came in,
he has a different way to think about what is
gonna happen in the war and what Americans need to do. And after Yorktown, is
a whole different way of thinking about what
is his important role. And Washington showed a
tremendous flexibility in strategic thinking and
the way that it was executed and that needs to be emphasized. Flexibility in military leadership is as important as any other quality and Washington had it in spades. And so there's probably
no other American general that was as good a
political general as him, Eisenhower's probably the closest match given the theater of war
that he had to manage on a much grander scale, but
also the political challenges of different nations and alliances and different levels of
government from the local to the state to the ad
hoc to the national, to the international, George
Washington and Eisenhower share that sort of
grand strategy challenge that certainly Washington
mastered effectively and would use that to go on to become the first president of the United States and certainly the model for presidents for years and years to come. So thank you so much for the time we've spent together today. I look forward to answering
more of your questions offline, keep sending 'em in. And remember there's lots of
resources on mountvernon.org that you can enjoy. If you're a student at home
who are interested in this, you can really go into the rabbit hole from articles in our digital encyclopedia to maps to interactive maps to movies, to the actual primary
documents and also interviews with some of the great
historians of this period much better than I am, who've actually written in depth about it. I think if Steven Bromwell's
great gentleman warrior, and I think of the great now
deceased, General Palmer, who you can find some of his
work on our webpage as well, is a fascinating place to look. I would also recommend
you like these videos, subscribe to our newsfeeds,
let everybody else know, together we can be inspired by our past and think about the country
we wanna be as we get through a current crisis we are in today. We can do great things when
we work together as Americans and as Americans being good in the world and I think this is a crisis
which we will ultimately tell great stories about the way
Americans came together, we have valued heroes came
in and fought this disease in the front lines, our
incredible doctors and nurses and medical people and the folks who are in the grocery stores
who are out there working. Thank you all so much for your work. I look forward to welcoming
you back to Mount Vernon on the better side of this. So thanks again. Bye bye.
