American History Hit - Jefferson & the Revolutionary War

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Thomas Jefferson has had no issue being remembered in American History. Ask anyone, this man was fundamental to Independence. But did he fight in the Revolutionary war itself?Don is joined by Michael Hattem, author of 'The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History'; 'Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution'; and 'The Declaration of Independence: A Concise History', which will be published in November 2026.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Tim Arstall. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. In the dusky light just before sunrise, the insistent hooves of a single horse are heard charging uphill. It is June 4, 1781, and horse and rider have been traveling 40 miles through the Virginia night,

barely avoiding British cavalry on their way to Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson. Upon arrival, the rider, a 26-year-old American named Jack Jewett, dismounts out of breath, and warns Jefferson. The British are coming. But Jefferson, who just had finished his term as the second governor of Virginia, appears remarkably calm. Dispatching his family ahead to a neighboring farm, he offers Juette a glass of fine Madeira wine and steps outside with his telescope to assess how much time he has left. Juette will ride on that day, alerting many others in the Virginia legislature of the imminent threat. Another young Virginian, Lieutenant Christopher Hudson, a neighbor of Monticello, arrives later only to find Mr. Jewell.

Jefferson's still at home, calmly stashing important papers and belongings into his saddlebags. But this time, Jefferson mounts his horse and heads off into the woods he knows so well, leaving his home behind. The British arrive on his doorstep. Hello and welcome to another episode of American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman. We drop episodes twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. Thanks for joining us. Unlike James Wilson, the founding father, we discussed just a few episodes ago, Thomas Jefferson has had no trouble being remembered as instrumental in the building of our nation, and for good reason, of course.

But interestingly, Jefferson never actively served in the revolution that followed that founding. Quite famously, in fact, when once faced with a threat of approaching British forces, Jefferson mounted up and took flight, a choice that would dog him for years afterwards. But does that make Thomas Jefferson any less of a factor in the victory to come? He may be no George Washington, huddling with his choice, troops at Valley Forge, but really who is? What did Thomas Jefferson bring to the table in the revolutionary struggle that followed? What was his role in the founding of the nation, beyond his fabled words? To find out, I'm joined by Michael Haddam, a returning guest to this podcast. He is a leading

historian of an American Revolution and author of The Memory of 76, the Revolution in American History, a finalist for the 2025 George Washington Prize, and past and prologue, politics and memory in the American Revolution. His most recent book, Declaration of Independence, a concise history will be released in just a few months. Michael, good to have you back on the pod. Always glad to be back. You know, I had to catch myself. When we asked the question, what did Jefferson do during the revolution? My knee jerk was, hello, France. But then I remember Jefferson goes to France after the war. It was Franklin who was in France, not Jefferson. Generally, Americans are vague on this, right? Yeah, Jefferson, it's interesting, because

he, unlike many founders, has no real military career to speak of, right? In our popular memory, he plays this important role in independence, and then he plays an important role after the war, like you mentioned, in France and then later as Secretary of State and President. But there is this sort of missing middle period, the sort of lost years of Thomas Jefferson, right, that encompass the war. The musical Hamilton, where the revolution has been taught since 2015, when Hamilton wraps, we almost died in the trench

while you were getting off high with the French. That's really actually incorrect, isn't it? That is incorrect. Because as you mentioned, Jefferson did not go to France until after the war. And just before that, he served in the Confederation Congress for a couple of years,

for a little over a year. So yeah, that's one of several, let's say, less than entirely accurate lyrics and the Hamilton musical. Well, it's theater. What do you want? Yeah.

And this isn't a gotcha. We don't, I don't mean this. He is a profoundly important figure, obviously, who served the nation in many different ways, to mention had a big part in creating it. John Adams never fights in the war. And of course, Benjamin Franklin was too old, but he does craft the alliance with France that saves the war. Jefferson spent the years elsewhere, and it's interesting to understand this.

So for a quick chronology, just as a reminder to folks, Revolution, obviously, begins around 1775. The war runs from 1775 to 83. Battles of Lexington conquered until the Treaty of Paris. Declaration of Independence, 1776. Cornwallis surrendering 1783. It's not until 1789. The new U.S. government is finalized and the U.S. Constitution takes effect.

That's why 250 didn't end with the Fourth of July, folks. 250 goes another 13 years until 239. I've been screaming this from my soapbox for years. Jefferson is born April 13th, 1743. He is 32 when Lexington and Concord happened, grown man, but compared to Washington, who was in his 40s, he's a young guy, Adams 39. It's Hamilton, who's the outlier among these guys. He's in his 20s.

Jefferson was never a soldier, though, was he? Even before the revolution? No, it really was not in his makeup whatsoever to have any kind of military inclinations. That was a significant difference between him and Hamilton, of course, because Hamilton sought out the revolution for the purpose of achieving military glory for himself, right? But Jefferson was a more intellectual kind of person. And, you know, he made his contributions to the revolution, not through the military, but he made very important, of course, intellectual contributions, political contributions, diplomatic contributions, and then governmental. contributions as a vice president and president. I think of him as a political intellectual.

Yeah. And you got to have those if you're going to have a revolution for sure. To be fair, he served as a colonel in the Albemar County militia in Virginia, starting around 1770 before the revolution. But his duties even there were administrative. He kept muster rolls, collected fines, organized supply replacements, rather than any kind of battlefield fighting. He also gave John Adams somebody to argue with, didn't he?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And Adams was very much in that, in that vein, also a very intellectual person. But the difference maybe between Adams and Jefferson is that in the Continental Congress in 75 and 76, you know, Adams does play a leading role on many committees related to the Army in terms of, you know, securing funding and materials and things like that. And Jefferson never did any of that, really. I think if we're going anywhere with this conversation, it is to find that strange essence of Jefferson in the American consciousness, which eventually plays out in a very profound way, perhaps more later on in the Democratic Republicanism, I guess, that party that comes to pass because of him. But in the meantime, we're sort of setting up those building blocks on the way there. How did he get involved in the revolutionary struggle to begin with? When is he drawn into that? I mean, Jefferson takes his seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769. The imperial crisis is already well underway at that point. And he would have been, you know, in his early 20s when the seven years of war ended and the Stamp Act and those early years of the crisis. So he would have lived through the crisis, you know, as a young adult studying. So he's enmeshed in that sort of intellectually, but he's not a political figure yet.

And that doesn't really begin until 1769 when he enters the House of Burgesses. But again, as a new member of the House of Burgesses, which was a very sort of hierarchical body, he doesn't just, you know, arrive one day and start playing a major role, you know, though he does propose some interesting things, including a manumission law, which went nowhere. But it's really, you know, in 1774, as the first Continental Congress is called Jebrisbury. writes a pamphlet called the summary view of the rights of British America, which was basically he was making a case to the Virginia delegates to the convention to, you know, to, to, to, really support not independence, but continued resistance. And that pamphlet got noticed, not least in the Congress in Philadelphia. And that's one of the things that leads to his having a role on a number of committees in 75 and 75.

when he eventually goes to the Congress as a delegate having to do with all kinds of writing responsibilities. It's even a broader question, like one that has always confused me. We understand how the revolution really takes root up there in New England and all the way down to Philadelphia, you know, that northeast experience where people are close enough to talk to each other, you know, but then you got Virginia way down there, which is, you know, in the business of selling stuff. You know, they're doing tobacco. They're making money and they have a whole institution going on about that. And it's interesting to me. me that they would be receptive to these ideas that were really the conflict that was brewing up there

for the New Englanders. Yeah, there's a interesting historical aspect to that because Virginia was sort of the most infamous royalist colony in the 17th century, right? But a big part of it has to do with that the fact that they were selling stuff as planters dealing with British merchants. You know, a lot of that business was conducted through credit and debt, right? And many of these southern planters were in sort of cash poor situations, right? And many, you know, many owed lots of debts to British merchants and credit houses. And so historians have typically attributed that as one of the factors in leading to support in Virginia amongst the elite. On the other hand, you know, amongst like non-elites and small farmers, there have been lots of arguments recently by historians about the role of slave uprisings in causing non-alite small farmers in Virginia to support independence if we think about Lord Dunmore's proclamation in 1775 and that kind of thing.

Was Jefferson an original thinker as the politics shapes itself towards revolution? Or was he kind of somebody who synthesized and adopted other. people's ideas. Yeah. In a lot of ways, he was a master synthesis. I mean, the summary view pamphlet is probably the best summary of all of the arguments that the colonists had been making over the previous, you know, seven, eight years against these British reforms. So it's not, he doesn't make an original argument there, but it's, it's his ability to synthesize a variety of ideas and then express them in a way that is convincing and understandable. We can talk about that same question for the Declaration, but I think it's essentially, you know, the same case.

Jefferson is immersed in Enlightenment thought, right? And, you know, for Americans, there's a big debate amongst historians, has been for decades, you know, about what was Americans' contribution to the Enlightenment? And the sort of standard line has been that the Americans, part, participated in the alignment, but not by creating new ideas, but by being one of the few places that actually put those ideas into practice. Right. And synthesizing those ideas is part of the process of being able to put them into practice. Yes. I often find myself in conversations with friends and family who make the America as an exceptional nation kind of argument about itself, which,

you know, is a beautiful idea. But in fact, what is most beautiful about this country and about these founding fathers is that they were taking so much from the rest of the world and bringing it to a place with incredible resources, a stage where all this could play out. And that explains so much about the American identity and the experience of this nation for 250 years, never mind Thomas Jefferson, who is curious enough at a time when it's difficult to be that curious about European ideas. Are you going to get enough information, you know, and then build it all into a broader argument that becomes a revolution. I mean, it's extraordinary what they do with the ideas.

Yeah, I mean, that's part of why, you know, the American cause and Jefferson himself was so celebrated in France, right? It's because the Americans were seen as, you know, as putting into practice a lot of these ideas that came from the French in laymen. And then also some from the English. Well, in Scotland. You know, recently in an episode, we talked about Scotland. as being this major bastion of enlightenment thinking. Absolutely. And a lot of New England comes, a lot of New England thought comes from that.

In 1775, Jefferson is a delegate to the second Continental Congress. He's sent by Virginia. Remind me what the primary function of the second Continental Congress was. So the Second Continental Congress was contingent because when the first one ended, the idea was, this is in the fall of 74. The idea was, if this is not resolved by the spring, then we will have another convention. And of course, it was not basically as soon as the delegates started arriving in Philadelphia in the spring, Lexington and Concord happens.

And, you know, and essentially war has begun. Military hostility has begun. That was not foreseen. The idea was they were going to come back and they were going to renew their efforts to reconcile with Great Britain. But it's hard to reconcile and profess your loyalty to the, you know, to the United States. to the crown when continental troops are attacking the king's soldiers, right? And so the second Continental Congress ended up having to be something very different

from what it was initially planned to be. It becomes a de facto national government, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is in some sense that is created by the Continental Association that is passed by the first Continental Congress at the end in the fall of 1774, but especially once military hostility breaks out, they all of a sudden become, they have to become an administrative body in a way that they never had before. And those, that's the kind of duties that I was talking about, you know, Adams taking up very much in the Congress, but Jefferson was never, you know, a great administrator.

Yes, exactly. How did he act in Congress? You know, he was so famously diffident and remote. Was he that way at Independence Hall? Yeah, very much so. He was, you know, Jefferson, admittedly, was not an orator, was not a great speaker. He did not, you know, relish or seek out opportunities to speak in front of crowds, and that includes in the Congress. You know, he made his contribution and his views known through his committee work and the documents that he was asked to draft, eventually culminating with the declaration. His political identity, everything, really, is about defeating tyranny. That's so important. much of what his nerve endings are about. How much is he watching his fellow members in suspicion,

isn't he? Yeah. I mean, Jefferson is one of the more radical, you know, members of the Congress. And we talked about the Virginia delegation, you know, so was Richard Henry Lee for that matter. So Virginia had some of the most radical delegates outside of New England. What do you mean by radical? Radical in the sense of, you know, their willingness to criticize just parliament, but the British crown, and their willingness to eventually to be able to get to the point of wanting to seek independence. I mean, Adams in 75, Jefferson, even in 75, you know, they're already contemplating independence, but it's not a thing that can be discussed on the floor of the Congress yet, right? And popular sentiment is just starting to move in that

direction. But in their minds, in Adams and Jefferson's mind, you know, I think they came to the Congress understanding that independence was a real possibility, even though most delegates absolutely did not come to the Congress thinking that. Interesting. If the second Continental Congress really manages the war, Jefferson isn't really a part of that, though, isn't it? He's not in the trenches of day-to-day operations. He's not interested, which is so ironic. Yeah. So like I said, you know, he does his work by writing primarily. He writes a number of documents besides the Declaration of Independence. And then he leaves the Congress after, you know, in the fall of 1776 and goes back to Virginia. And that's really it for his time in the Congress.

He, you know, he served in the Second Continental Congress and then returned home. He always, all the time that he was in Philadelphia, he really rude the fact that he was not back home because the Virginia Constitution is being drafted and he wants to play a hand in that. He wants to play a role in that. And he deeply regretted that he missed out on being able to do that and instead had to just settle for writing the Declaration of Independence, right? Interesting. Well, let me talk about that a little bit. It's conception and its writings. I mean, these are famous stories, but I want to review, how did he become that author? Why was he the one? I mean, he's the one, firstly because of his reputation as a writer, right? Also, because of his reputation as radical, but not an Adam's

kind of radical, not the loud kind of alienating radical, right? He was quiet, but it was known that he was a strong supporter of independence. So the fact that the Congress believed, and I think rightly so, that it would be alienating to appoint a New Englander to write the declaration, right, because they had been so at the center of all of each development in the crisis, and especially the military developments. And the idea was that Virginia, Virginia being the largest and wealthiest colony, you know, really had to not just play a forward role in the movement for independence, but that it should be a Virginian that writes that document.

Interesting. There is, of course, a five-man committee that joins up on June 11, 1776. That's comprised of Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston. And then Jefferson, probably at his most comfortable moment, in a little apartment by himself, upstairs on Marcus Street, drafts this text. We did such an interesting episode on James Wilson and his thinking. Was Jefferson a big fan of his? Because a lot of that language of Wilson's documents previously found their way into Jefferson's text.

That's true. Wilson also had a sort of... How do I put it? He had some royalist tendencies, let's say. And so he still had much more affection for the monarchy than Jefferson did. But Jefferson did have a lot of respect for Wilson. And his relationship with delegates in the Congress, we actually don't have a lot on that. Besides, you know, say the most obvious, like Adams and Franklin and in Washington, who he exchanged many, many letters with.

But, yeah, we don't have a lot. And because, not just because Jefferson didn't write a lot about them, but they didn't write about him either because he wasn't up, you know, speaking and grant standing. And so he didn't get mentioned a lot in a lot of letters back home from other delegates. Michael, bottom line, Thomas Jefferson was a Virginian. What did that mean in the scheme of America at the time? Yeah, it's, you know, it's hard to, to imagine it now. But colonists in the 18th century, especially before independence and then still, still even after, thought of their colony as their country, right? So if yes, a delegate to the Conno, Congress, especially like Jefferson, you know, what country are you from?

he would say Virginia, you know, Virginia is my country. And so he was deeply Virginia. And he was deeply enmeshed in, you know, the social, economic, and political life's that colony, you know, that really shaped him as a young man and then well into adulthood. So he strongly identified with Virginia. And it's a good reminder of the fact that the 13 colonies and then new states coming together and starting to think of themselves as part of a shared polity is a really important development. And it was a process that occurred over time. It didn't

happen, you know, at the moment that the declaration was passed by the Congress or signed. Yeah. No, the idea was they stayed apart. That was what ironically was going to make this country so unified is that everybody could leave each other alone. And I mean, it was one of, That was one of the factors that many in the British ministry were sort of banking on. They were saying, look, these colonists from different colonies, they don't get along. There's no way they could ever unite against us, right? And of course, the colonists, the American colonists, proved them wrong. So many of these figures of the American Revolution go on to become the leaders of the nation, obviously.

Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Mason, these folks down there. And they become the Federalist Party, you know, which is so interesting that Thomas Jefferson turns away from those folks that he cooked up this nation with, didn't he? Yeah. I mean, Jefferson, as much as he was a Virginian, he was just as deeply a Republican, right? And what republicanism meant for Jefferson was it meant independent citizens, right, who were free of being able to be coerced by others. And that's how you become a virtuous. Republican citizen, right? When you have independent means, and that's why he was such a supporter of small farmers and a sort of agrarian approach to the future of the nation. And a lot of what he did in Virginia when he went back and served in the House there until he became governor, you know, was to propose a number of really important bills that were meant to further those Republican ideals. So, for example, you know, he proposes these bills to eliminate Entail and primogeniture, which was basically laws stipulating that when the head of a family died, their property had to be transferred in its entirety.

It could not be broken up and that it had to go to the oldest male heir. Mm-hmm. Right. And by that process, which had been the case in Virginia for, you know, a century or more, that allowed these big plantation. to avoid being broken up and to get bigger and bigger. And that threatened the small farmer the bigger these plantations got. And so he proposed the law that would change that. He also proposed the bill for establishing religious freedom, right, in the 1780s in Virginia,

which would eventually be passed after the fact. And he proposed a bill for essentially a system of public schooling in Virginia. So, you know, he was just as much as he was a Virginian, he was a republicanism. And he saw, you know, education and the widespread ownership of land and religious freedom as fundamental to his Republican vision. I want to talk about what Jefferson did during the war. He was elected governor by Virginia General Assembly. It wasn't a popular vote in those days. In 1779, he becomes the second governor of Virginia. How was he instrumental in the war from that perspective? Or was he as governor? I mean, Virginia was not a site of much military activity, certainly up until that point. And so, you know, Patrick Henry was the first governor of the state. And, you know, he really didn't have any anything militarily to do. Jefferson was a wartime governor, which meant, you know, doing administrative stuff in terms of making sure that the local county militias are in order and ready to be. be, you know, activated if need be and basically carrying on, you know, correspondence with other

governors related to the war especially. So, you know, he basically becomes an administrator as governor until, until the war finds him. Right. And finds Virginia. I would think that Thomas Jefferson would think of the governorship of a state as the highest office in the land. Yeah. Yeah. He did not, obviously, in all his later years of writing, you know, when he would list his, you know, achievements or things like that, his governorship, he never mentions it, right? And part of that is because of a few incidents with really important incident, which we'll talk about. But just generally, you know, you're right. And that's because for Jefferson and for many of the founders, especially of his persuasion, the real action and the real power was in the

legislature was not in the executive branch because new state governors were not especially powerful because the new state constitutions limited what the executive could do based on their experiences of overzealous royal governors, you know, before the revolution. Sure. He, the ideal is a weak executive, too much power in the central government and, uh, you allow for a new tyrant to, to rise. However, ironically, of course, when he becomes president, he ends up in situations that require a lot of federal power and oversight, which is just, you know, it all backfires on him in some ways. He also obviously had a concern about standing army. He didn't want to be the guy, that royal governor, like you're talking about, who had all,

you know, effectively created their own armies in those days. Was he good at raising militias? I mean, he didn't really have to do that much of it. I mean, the militia workers was really, militias were county-level institutions. And so his work related to the militias, would have been more, you know, just sort of general oversight. The real work of making sure that they were armed and ready really happened on the ground in the counties. But those militias did have to be called out eventually in 1781.

Right. And he writes, it's in Jefferson's hand, go and take them out of their beds singly and without noise, Jefferson wrote. If they were not found the first time Jefferson continued, go again and again so that they may ever be able to remain quiet at home. This is an interesting thing about this guy because this is a man who is so in his brain as we are characterizing him. But his interest in governance and civics in general pulls him out of that brain into the work of people. And that inevitably creates the need for control and management, which all steers into the very direction he doesn't believe is best for the America to go. You know, and then you kind of have this sort of general flow in the psychology of Thomas Jefferson right there. Yeah.

I mean, he was not a people person. That much is clear. Though, you know, he had a small number of close friends in Virginia, largely family members or extended family members. Strangely enough, during his time in France as the minister in the 1780s, he was far more social. it seems than he ever was in Virginia. And, you know, part of that, I think, was that he ran with an especially intellectual and political crowd in France that shared a lot of his Republican sentiments, of course. But so, yeah, so interestingly, we talk about him being, you know, sort of, you know, arch virginian, but he's never more of a people person than when he leaves Virginia for France. Well, he's pulled out of himself. That's my read on the guy.

Let's talk about the event we've already referred to. June 1781, it's known as Jack Jewett's Ride in popular folklore. Former Virginia Governor Jefferson at the time, former, flees Monticello just after his term is aspired and the British troops are approaching his home. That's kind of the backdrop for what is this Paul Revere's ride type of legend. Explain it in more detail to us. Benedict Arnold is part of this, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. So this is after, obviously, his plans to. sell out West Point and his defection to the British. And of course, Arnold, after defecting, fought with just as much intensity and ferocity against the Americans as he had against the British. One of the real first military forays into Virginia involved Arnold, who is a general in the,

in the British Army, invading, basically, the city of Richmond. And that's because Jefferson had previously moved the capital of Virginia from William's. to Richmond. And so this was a British attack on the capital. And Jefferson, you know, eventually had to flee, flee the attack and then took up residence. Eventually went back and took up residence at Monticello, along with the state, many members of the state legislature. And when General Cornwallis launches a mission directly to Monticello to try to capture Jefferson, and the governor and many of the legislatures. Right.

The idea generally is to basically arrest members of the Virginia legislature, to sort decapitate the government there and therefore take over the land and so forth. Jack Jewett. Who is Jack Jewett, exactly? Jack Jewett is a, you know, a small farmer. He's a member of a county militia, of the state militia, actually. And Cornwallis sends his sort of most notorious opposite. Bannister Tarleton, who was known for his wanton cruelty, sends him out on this mission to Monticello to Seas Jefferson and the members of the legislature.

And Jewett gets wind of the mission and essentially does the sort of Paul Revere ride of Virginia. He rides 40 miles to Monticello ahead of Tarleton and his unit to Warren Jefferson and the members of the legislature who were at Monticello. And so his ride is much less known than Revere's, but in some sense, you know, was just as important. If we stopped to think about a counterfactual about what would have been different if Jefferson had been captured by the British, it's one thing when the British would capture officers, military officers, it was, you know, there were niceties of war. And military officers were captured were often released on their own recognizance, right? They were not held like ordinary soldiers. But this would have been different. Jefferson was not a military figure.

He was the governor of Virginia. He was also notorious as the author of the Declaration of Independence. You know, would the British have brought him back to England for trial, for treason, right? And if that had happened, it's interesting to think about, you know, what is the rest of the revolution and the early national period look like without a Thomas Jefferson? It's almost impossible to imagine. It's one of the miracles of the revolution, honestly, that they never captured Washington or Jefferson or Adams. Any of these guys could have been snapped up. They weren't exactly under high security in those days.

Yeah, he rides there. And as the story goes, Jefferson sends his family onwards in a carriage to a neighboring farm. he takes his time. Juette is not actually successful in getting him to move on or escape. It's later on that another militia man comes along. And that's when Jefferson's finally motivated to get on a horse and march off into the woods. And that's the legend that comes down or that's the story that comes down later on and becomes very politically useful for his enemies, isn't it? I mean, in some sense, it's also useful for Jefferson, right?

Because there is fallout from this. There's political fallout. from this event, right? Jefferson fleeing, especially fleeing his home from Tarleton and his regiments, you know, it was not a good look, let's say, right, for Jefferson. The idea of him, you know, fleeing from the British was used by people who were not the biggest fans of Thomas Jefferson. But in some sense, you know, the narrative of the story in which he didn't leave right away, He sat down and had bread. He sent his wife away and then he sits down and have breakfast, you know.

I think this sort of maybe, you know, maybe helped him a little bit. But it was a real scandal in Virginia politics, the fact that he had fleed like this. Looking back on it, I get the, you know, the optics of it to use a 20th century term. But what was he supposed to do? I know. Like willingly. He seems pretty brave to me. Surrender himself.

Yeah. He's called the coward of Carter's Mountain, which is the woods he escaped through. South Carolina Congressman William Lotton Smith says Jefferson deserves no credit because he fled in times of danger and without risk of personal convenience. All this is politics. You can sort of tell even down the lines. I mean, you know, it costs him. It ends up costing him because he's not, he's not reelected as governor after that incident. I don't think that he was very distraught about not being reelected as governor.

But the fact that he wasn't reelected was very much a sort of referendum on his behavior in that moment. He goes to France in 1784. This is after, obviously, we've won the revolution. He takes over his U.S. minister in France, 1785. This allows for him skipping the constitutional convention, which is the other irony of Thomas Jefferson. I mean, I'm sure he's involved by letters and so forth, but he's not there in person. And that is the Hamilton indictment. He was in touch a lot with Madison and so forth. And he played a very important part in negotiating commercial ties with. with France in those days, right up until the French Revolution breaks out. A lot of the heavy lifting had been done by Franklin by the time that Jefferson got there. So like you said, like there were commercial agreements to be done with ministers from various European countries. But most of what he, you know, most of what he did while he was there really seems to be, you know, socializing and also playing a role in the emerging revolutionary politics in France. He's steeped in that for sure. This is a man who would have been very comfortable sitting inside his house, inside his brain, inside

his work. But circumstances beyond his control pull him out. This seems to have been his course in life. I'm totally reducing things down to the simplest thing here. And in terms of America, he ends up in France, which creates in him, this is his first time over there, this picture of the world and the understandings of the complexities of Europe, at least, and where America will sit. in the midst of all of that.

He loved Europe. Yeah, of course. You know, and, and he, I mean, he, he loves so many things about it. And interestingly, upon his return, he would write letters to younger family members or just to other people, where he would strongly recommend against young Americans going on like a grand tour of Europe, you know, which had been so, something of a thing, more for British elites than American elites. But it's just funny because Jefferson enjoyed it so much that he actually thought it could end up being dangerous for other Americans, perhaps without the intellectual sophistication and political sophistication that he had. Yeah. I mean, in my mind, Jefferson never pretended to be anything he wasn't. And I admire that in any personality.

I mean, I'm disregarding the screaming double standards of his life. His personality is so unique. And to see that personality infuse itself into the American governance is a remarkable thing when you consider, you know, it's really from one man or a few men that that comes through. It's certainly articulated by Thomas Jefferson. Any closing thoughts of your own that way? Yeah, I mean, that's really a process that occurs after the war, right? I mean, it begins with the Declaration of Independence, for sure, of course. But, you know, it's a process that comes after the war because he does find himself enmeshed in, you know, once he comes home from France. And he's named Secretary of State in the first Washington administration and engages in this political struggle with Alexander Hamilton, who's the Secretary of the Treasury.

He finds himself enmeshed in the emergence of party politics in the United States. And part of the reason for that is that both Hamilton and Jefferson and what would become Democratic Republicans and Federalists, you know, had very different visions of what the future nation should be, what it should look like, right? For Jefferson, he wanted an agrarian nation made up of independent small farmers, you know, who prioritized individual independence and also prioritized the connection with Revolutionary France. Whereas federalists like Hamilton, you know, wanted to become more like Britain. They wanted to develop manufacturing. They wanted to develop national debt like Britain had. And they wanted to, you know, basically more emulate Britain. But they have these very different visions of the nation going forward.

And, you know, Jefferson's, even though it's interesting, if you, you know, if you think about it in the short term, Jefferson very much wins out. Right. Because by the end of Jefferson's second term as president, the federalist party is a. essentially defunct, right? But long-term, Hamilton very much wins out economically. But yet, even though Hamilton wins out in that way long-term, Jefferson still wins out intellectually long-term. Nobody thinks of Alexander Hamilton as a major thinker of, you know, American identity, right? So even though Hamilton's system, you know, economic system wins out, Jefferson's intellectual system for the nation is what goes on to define what we think of it, what we think it means to be

an American. Well, and certainly in 250, we are celebrating his words resonating forth. Michael Haddam is a leading light of the American Revolution two 50 years on. Author of several books on the subject mentioned at the top of the show. I'll repeat them now. The Memory of 76, the Revolution in American History, and past and prologue. Politics and Memory in the American Revolution. Keep a close eye out for his newest book due out in November.

the Declaration of Independence, a concise history. Boy, we need that. Or just keep listening to this podcast, because if the past experience is a guide, he will eventually return here. And that is good. Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you, Don. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Thanks so much.