The Eric Metaxas Show - #171 - Nathaniel Philbrick

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

A Socrates in the City conversation with Nathaniel Philbrick.

Hey there, folks. As you may know or may not know, I am this week in Oxford, England. I don't look like I'm in Oxford, England, because as I say this to you, I'm actually not in Oxford, England. I'm still in New York recording this, telling you that when you hear me say this, I will be in Oxford, England. I say that by faith. Should the Lord Terry, I will be in Oxford, England, and evidently, I'm there right now, even though I'm in New York. But the reason I'm telling you this is because this week we're going to be airing on this program right now, Socrates and the City programs that we've done in the past. So this week, while I'm in Oxford, England, I'm going to be interviewing John O'Lennox and a lot of these intellectual heavy hitters that I love to talk to. But

I have done 13 episodes for Socrates in the city on the American Revolution to go along with my book on the American Revolution. If you want more on the American Revolution, perhaps you've already read my book, or perhaps you need to have your appetite whetted to read my book. And as I say over and over, I don't care if you read the book, but it wouldn't kill you to buy two or three copies, okay?

And do it at Amazon. But I did a lot of wonderful interviews about the revolution with the authors, most of them authors of books that I used in my research on the American Revolution. So this week, we're going to be playing some of those for you. We've got one of those coming up right now. If you don't know all the work that I do with Socrates in the city, and if you listen to this program, maybe you don't, go to Socratesin the city.com, go to our YouTube page, subscribe to the YouTube page, and definitely sign up for the newsletter for Socrates and the city.com. We've got so much going on.

We're starting book clubs all over the country. We've started book clubs all over the country. Is there one in your town? Would you like to start one? Socrates in the city.com. Make your inquiries there. And right now, we return to our regular programming.

Welcome to Socrates in the city. We're in the city of almost Boston. We're in Lexington, Massachusetts. This is part of our revolutionary series to celebrate the 250th super centennial year. And we've been having wonderful conversations. but I have to say I'm particularly excited about the conversation I hope to have right now with Nathaniel Philbrick, who is my guest. He's the author of so many books. I don't know where to start. He's a New York Times best-selling author. His books on American history have earned some of the country's most prestigious literary honors. And I just want to say as a fellow author, I'm not at all bitter. His 2000, not at all.

His 2000 book in the Heart of the Sea won the National Book Award for Nonfiction became the basis of the Ron Howard film Splash. His incredible, that's really. He's written so many books, my goodness, books on the Mayflower. today we're talking about really three of the books that he's written, a glorious trilogy on the American Revolution. Those books, which I have here, are Bunker Hill, a Siege, a City, A Sege, a Revolution. Sorry, George Washington, Benedict Donald, and the fate of the American Revolution,

which the title is valiant ambition. And then in the hurricane's eye, the genius of George Washington and the victory at Yorktown. Nathaniel, once again, welcome. Just really thrilled to have you. It's great to be here. I often say this, but I really mean it as much as I do right now. I don't know where to start, particularly because we do want to talk about the revolution.

I want to probably focus mostly on George Washington. you have done something really wonderful in writing these three very readable books about the American Revolution. So why don't I start with how it is that you found yourself writing three books on the American Revolution? Well, it kind of happened by accident. I live on Nantucket Island. And when I was thinking about writing what would become Bunker Hill, Nantucket had 15 thousand people. And when I was a kid, my favorite book growing up was Johnny Tremaine. Esther Forbes, you know, a great Disney movie. And we moved to Boston. My wife and I, and we had a small child, and I was at home with Jenny. And we were in the North End. And I was

pushing her stroller through the crooked streets of the North End up to Cops Hill. And I was thinking, you know, what was Boston like at the time of Johnny Tremay? And so I started going to the Boston Public Library on Sundays and, you know, realizing that Boston today bears very little resemblance to what it was then. It was Boston was a 1.1 square mile island with hills of mountainous proportions with 15,000 people on them. And my books tend to be about communities of people. people under enormous stress, whether it's the crew of a whale ship that's just been rammed

by a whale, 102 pilgrims on their way to a coast about which they know nothing. And I thought, what would it be like to live in a community similar to the one I was in, an island community with 15,000 people? You don't know everyone, but you recognize just about everyone. I mean, it's very intimate kind of life. What would it be like to write about the... city of Johnny Tremaine undergoing the enormous upheaval of a revolution. And so that led me to writing what would become Bunker Hill.

What year roughly was it that you got the first idea? Yeah, this would have been about 2000, no, 1989, was when I first started thinking about things. But it wouldn't be until 2010 that I began. But you were living in Boston in 1986. Yes. So was I. I'm pretty sure I remember you pushing that stroller.

Right, right. You know, people don't have to believe me, but I know what I know. But it's extraordinary to think suddenly, as we were saying earlier, how long ago that is, suddenly, suddenly 40 years ago. So that's the idea that you got. Now, when you refer to Boston as an island, I have to ask you, it was, I'm under the impression that it was a peninsula. a peninsula with a narrow itthmus. I really just wanted to work the word itthmus into the conversation. Well, it was called the neck. So it was a, and at spring high tide, it would actually be underwater that connected Boston to Roxbury. It's now Washington Street.

Okay, see, I didn't know that. And so this is the thing. I learned things from you, from reading your books and now from talking to you. But I do know that if people would approach it and it was low tide and they could walk across, they would say, it must be my lucky day. And that's where the term itthmus came from. I really apologize. We may edit that out, but please don't. Please don't. So dumb. Well, keep going because I honestly didn't know this. This is extraordinary. So I start writing Bunker Hill, and the climax was the battle. But I was absolutely blown away when this figure named George Washington appeared a few weeks later.

You know, the battle was over. And, you know, I had grown up thinking, well, the father of our country, what could be more boring than a guy who is the father of your country? I mean, it's kind of the way it was for me with the pilgrims. I grew up thinking the pilgrims were people with funny hats and what did they really have? have to do with the history of this country. And I was proven totally wrong with that. And boy, this was not the Washington you see on the $1 bill. You know, this was Washington still in his 40s.

His hair is reddish brown. He is not yet the state strategic thinker that he will become. He is an aggressive leader who wants to end this thing and isn't happy at all with the New Englanders he's found. These are not, this is, he's not in Virginia anymore, you know, a hierarchical society where people know their place. This is New England where there is the wonderful institution of the town meeting. We still have one on Nantucket, where it's democracy at its bare-knuckle best.

You know, you have an idea, a proposition before the assembled and you fight it out, and somehow you come to a decision. And so when Washington ordered, you know, the militiamen that were now provincial army that would ultimately become the basis of the continental army, he'd give an order and they say, whoa, wait a minute, let us discuss this and see if we think it's a good idea. And if it is, we'd be happy to do. That's, I mean, that is so fascinating. I was myself astounded by that idea that Washington, he's 42 years old, he shows up, and he might as well be on the moon. It's as different from Virginia, the stratified life in Virginia, as can be imagined. And this idea that it's so egalitarian up here that they would dare, I guess Baron von Schuven says something about that,

right, when he gives his orders that, you know, here you have to explain why. Yes. And I can imagine this didn't go well with Washington. No, it didn't. And, you know, some of his remarks went public. The New Englanders were not happy. And then you see Washington beginning to realize, wait, you know, this is going to be complicated. Everything's not like Virginia. People don't, you know, these were 13 independent polities at this point. I mean, they really were not a country yet. And this would be part of what Washington would accomplish. And so Washington was this aggressive leader that was unrecognizable to me who would go before his counsel of war and say, we have to, you know, how are we going to hold these people together for any length of time?

We need to end it here. We need to attack the British who were dug into Boston, which would have been suicidal because the Americans didn't have the gunpowder. But he still wanted to. He still wanted to. He had a chip on his shoulder. During the seven years war, you know, he had wanted desperately to be a British, you know, officer, and he never was offered that. And so he was, you know, a combination of personal ambition and I think real concern that, you know, this is such a disorganized mob. How could, you know, we hold this together for any length of time beyond Boston? Let's end it here.

But, and ultimately, he would prevail after a siege. when Henry Knox, his brilliant young artillery officer, and by the way, the one thing Washington proved at the very beginning was he was an incredible judge of talent. You know, all the artillery officers he had inherited were older, conservative. He says, nope, I see this young bookseller. The only thing he knows about the military is from the books he would sell to friends like Nathaniel Green. this guy has potential and it would be Knox who would make the trip in the

dead of winter to Fort Ticonderoga, load a couple of cannons onto sleds pulled by oxen and horses placed, they would actually go down the frozen Hudson River. In Albany one of the cannons would go through the ice, they'd get it back up and for the rest of the war it would be known the cannon would be called the Albany. and he then the hard part was going over the Berkshire Mountains, and they would deliver them to Framingham, and then a few of those cannons would end up on Dorchester Heights, and the British would have to serve.

Well, this story so captivated me. I write about it in my book, and two days ago, we devoted an hour to that with William Hazel Grove, who wrote a book on the magnificent accomplishment of Henry. It's just one of the greatest feet in military history it's amazing and I'm glad I'm glad you brought it up but Washington I guess I still want to you to help to answer what was it that because you're a writer and I'm a writer and I'm fascinated with this idea that

so you said okay I want to write a book about Boston and Bunker Hill but you've written three books on the revolution was that something that occurred to you while you're telling the story of Bunker Hill? It was Washington. I said, by the end of it, I said, I have to find out what happens. You know, how is Washington going to be capable of winning this thing? It was, you know, I write all my books, not because I'm an expert on the topic, but because I haven't read the book I would like to read about how this unfolded. And so I decided I needed to follow this through.

And so set about to write the next two books with Washington really as the focus. The second book would pair him with Benedict Darnold in Valiant Ambition. But it seemed like the evolution of Washington was something that is central to why we are a country. And I needed to figure out how did this happen? How could one individual have the ability to evolve? Because that's hard. Most of us are who we are. And we spend the rest of our lives blaming the world for not conforming to what we think it should be.

Washington, from the beginning, realized he needed to adjust his behaviors to succeed. You know, as a kid, he's, you know, there he is the rules of civility. He had an anger management issue. Yeah. As a kid. He was a hothead. Yeah. And he was getting himself into trouble.

And he realized that. And that takes a lot of introspection and a powerful personality to say, okay. You know, he wouldn't indulge his personality of the point where let me find out who the real me is. I think Washington, it was, I need to adapt to achieve what I want to achieve. When we look at the headlines coming out of Iran and Israel right now, the fog of war is real. It's hard to know whom to trust. That same feeling of confusion often hits home when you're trying to navigate Medicare. There are so many bad actors in this space looking to capitalize on confusion rather than provide clarity.

That's exactly why I am proud to partner with Chapter. Chapter acts as a trusted advocate, helping you cut through the noise to understand your Medicare options. Unlike most agents who only show you a few plans, Chapter looks at every plan nationwide. They're completely unbiased and focus on what's best for you, not the insurance companies. If you're turning 65 or just have questions about your current coverage, give them a call at 571-421-1253. 571, 421, 1,253. It's free, it's quick, and it's the kind of honest guidance we need more of today. Call chapter and get the peace of mind you need. That's beautifully said, and he really was, it takes tremendous humility to say that I'm willing to change

and then to dedicate oneself actually to change in which he does. And you're right, he does that early on. It's an extraordinary thing that he, uh, that he, sets himself to do it and then actually does it and then is humble enough throughout the years to be adapting to circumstances. I'm reminded of when he shows up in Cambridge, in Boston, he wrinkles his nose at the idea of black soldiers. And by the time, months later, he's inviting the black poet, Phyllis Wheatley to join him at his Cambridge headquarters and you think, wow. Well, yeah, for a slave owner from Virginia, you know, who prior to the war was kind of the

epitome of a plantation owner to undergo, begin to undergo, you know, that's the thing about the revolution. It was chaotic, but it was a tremendously creative time, you know, And it's a society. It's red hot in terms of what's happening. People are making it up as they go along. And it's the people who emerge in this tremendously challenging environment are ones that are up to the task of what Washington was, self-reflection of change.

And what's interesting about Washington, he had humility. He had patience, tremendous patience. But he also had this overweening ambition. He was swinging for the absolute fences. He wanted to be remembered forever. Yeah. You know, his audience was posterity.

It wasn't the people around him. It was going to be people in the future times. And that, I mean, to have that, that is ambition of the grandest scale. But it requires someone to realize, okay, if I'm going to. to do that. Sometimes I have to do something that's not popular. Sometimes I have to do something that's against my own personal instincts. And it also requires someone who can see the bigger picture, not let, you know, the needling stuff that we all deal with overwhelm his appreciation for what has to happen in the long term. It reminds me of the Greek New Testament word for meekness.

meekness is a bad English word for it, but it's strength, great strength bridled. Like you think of a powerful horse, but bridled. And that, when I think of Washington, tremendous passion, strength, and ambition, as you say. But he had the great wisdom and ultimately a kind of faith to say, I will submit that to something. Even in his dealings with Congress, at some point we can talk about Benedict Arnold, but the way Washington was willing to submit to the strictures of civilian authority. He might have said, I know better. His character really is at the center of everything. And it's kind of funny to me that they pick him. and I guess it becomes impossible to imagine the revolution without him.

No, it is. And I think why he flourished was he had all of the attributes we talk about. And one of the things, he wasn't the greatest military mind. He wasn't. You know, constantly you see him, particularly in the first years, making really, you know, coming up with battle plans that are impossible, making impulsive decisions, you know, just at the wrong moment, you know, these kinds of things. But where his real talent lay was, A, he knew to talk to Nathaniel Green, who always gave him the best advice, you know, and that was to go, you know,

rather than go out there and knock them out, we're going to play rope-a-dope. We're kind of a war of posts where we're going to, you know, let it happen. We don't want to risk losing everything. And, you know, and that angered Congress because Congress thought, well, your military, you have, you should be attacking and it killed him because it was against his own instincts. But this is when you see Washington's, I think, true genius is political. Because, like you said, he realized, you know, for this experiment in a republic to work, he, there needed to be a government of the people. And they needed to be in charge.

And they, you know, and Congress has always been dysfunctional. And it was dysfunctional then. And it just must have, you know, they weighed in and determined who should be a major general. When they don't, you know, it's all politics. And it's undermining his authority. It's just the worst thing. But, you know, he never says, you know, you're a bunch of idiots. He, you know, I'm sure he was saying that privately.

But he knew how to, you know, when his other generals would try to, you know, maneuver around him and pander to Congress, he would play that game very expertly. I think with a skill that he didn't necessarily have when it came to, you know, on the battlefield strategy. Well, that's what's so fascinating is that it's not like Congress really knew when they paid. him how valuable his character and virtue would be ultimately, or maybe some of them did, but you can see why Charles Lee and Horatio Gates are constantly gunning for his job behind the scenes. And I shudder to think what would have happened, you know, if Charles Lee would have been in charge or Horatio Gates. He was a man of honor and principle. It's,

It's sort of breathtaking. There are moments where I just, I marvel at it. Well, you know, and he's, I won't say he's lucky, but, you know, one of the young officers to emerge who arrives just out of, you know, almost parachutes in is Lafayette. You know, Lafayette. I mean, this, you know, this is, he's one of the richest people in France. He, you know, and he wants to, he wants to be, you know, achieve glory on the battlefield. He comes over, you know, I've been to Lafayette, they call it Lafayette's castle.

It's just outside Paris, was actually owned by his wife, and it's where he lived in the, you know, the final decades. And there, it's a very, it's an informal Lafayette museum, and there is his copy, his French, English dictionary. Could fit in his pocket. And what's extraordinary about Lafayette, he didn't know English when he arrived. Within months, he is writing the most articulate letters, you know, to him. And one of them is in that terrible Winter Valley Forge where, you know, it's just, it's not going well on any front.

There's all the Congress is gunning for him, you know, the Caratio Gates, you know, everyone's gunning for him. And, you know, it's really bad. and Lafayette, you know, who's brand new to things, writes this extraordinary letter, you know, saying, I have hitched my star to you. You know, you were, you know, words to that effect. And for Washington, you know, this is the kid he has never had.

You know, this is the son, you know, this is exactly, it fulfills, I think, a deep yearning in him. But it's also someone who, where he also says in that, same extraordinary letter, he said, there's no one else who could do this. He now knows all the other possible suspects. And he says, they're not. You can just, and you look back, you know, they've all got issues. I mean, every, all of them, everybody does. Washington was the one who had the agravitas, the humility, and the ambition and skill to pull it off. And it's a lot. It's a

extraordinary. I think that's the moment, I'm not sure, but I think that's the moment when Horatio Gates foolishly tries to drag Lafayette to his side. And Lafayette's like, I don't think so. And he writes, that's when he writes that letter to Washington. And that's part of Washington's magic is that he inspires love and respect in these figures. I mean, Henry Knox, you get the impression that he did what he did, partially wanting to impress this man that he loved and respected. Absolutely. And Knox is interesting because, you know, Knox is there at some critical ventures. Early on just before the Battle of Long Island or Brooklyn Heights, you know, it doesn't go well. But the British are trying to, you know, negotiate with Washington, you know, but they're not willing to acknowledge him, you know, all this.

Well, not willing to acknowledge him as General Washington, the head of this new country. Right, right. So not, you know, but they, you know, are still trying, you know, they're trying to undermine him all this. And so they send a fairly minor officer in to try to talk to him. And the thing about Washington was, which we haven't really talked about, was his charisma, his physical presence. I mean, you know, we've all been in the presence of charismatic people. But I think Washington would blow everyone out. away. I mean, there was a presence about him. You know, he was over six feet at a time when people were rarely over five, ten. You know, he just had that look. And what Knox describes is, you know, this officer comes in and, you know, I'm paraphrasing here, but Knox says, you know, I think he's writing to Nathaniel Green was his good friend saying, you know, this officer in the presence of his Excellency was overwhelmed by, you know, this almost otherworldly... Yeah, he says almost supernatural.

Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and that, you know, that's a power to have, you know, if, you know, you have that and, you know, you can use something like that in a very tactical way. And, you know, Washington loved the theater. He loved going to the, and he, you know, he was not an orator by any means, but he had had a sense of drama and he knew when, you know, don't talk too much, but when it, you know, when it was good time to say something, he knew exactly when to do that.

Part of actually, I mean, it reminds me that it's as though he knew, and I guess on some level, at least on some level, he knew, he was playing a role in history. He was at least playing a role in this drama of the revolution. He was aware of himself as playing a role. And I don't mean that, and I don't think he would have seen it as on any level false or acting or hypocritical, precisely the opposite, that he had to rise to play the role that he's been given by history. And he was really keenly aware of that. Oh, yes, and the classics were so important to all of them.

And, you know, his phrase that you see over and over again used by Washington and and his officers is, you know, we may not win, but we should act as if we deserved it. You're assuming a role, a role that is, you know, come down from the ancient, you know, Greeks, you know, these are time-tested approaches to life. and it's not bad to shape your conduct, you know, in ways that have earned the respect of people throughout the centuries. And, you know, it's a willingness to see beyond your own specific needs and time that you don't see much anymore. Well, you certainly don't, and we've been living in an era when whatever that is, is instantly portrayed as hypocrisy or something, but it goes all the way back to, you know, Rousseau and the Byronic hero, this idea that I'm going to express myself and who I am innately, which is this kind of strange subjectivity, the triumph of subjectivity, and this is the opportunity. and this is the opposite of that.

Absolutely, yeah. It's classical versus romantic. Yes. And yeah, and, you know, I think, you know, we're today or, you know, ever since romanticism, the idea of indulging who we are, you know, finding out who we are, you know, is, you know, is kind of what you're supposed to do when, you know, someone like Washington was saying, wait a minute, you know, yes, we're all tempestuous emotional people. You know, the challenge is to direct those energies in a way that isn't just necessarily about what we want, but what is for a greater good.

Which brings us to the subject of that figure known as Benedict Arnold, who in many ways was exactly the opposite dramatically. So there's a comic aspect to it almost, in a way, how different when you think of Washington bridling his passions and

Arnold wanting to ride his passions to glory in a way. And yet, I mean, Arnold, Washington regarded Arnold as one of his best generals before things.

Well, obviously, to some extent, he really was. He was. My mother, when I grew, my mother was a contrarian and when I was growing up. No, she wasn't. Hey, she smoked a corn cob pipe. When she lit up, you know, if we went out to a restaurant on a Friday evening, it was very embarrassing to my brother and I when she, anyways, but her, one of her here, was Benedict Arnold. And why?

Why? Because he had been wronged and he had been, and she was a contrarian and she knew that, you know, growing up, you know, if you're an evil person or, you know, you're a Benedict Arnold. Yeah. And so she enjoyed looking at that. And I, you know, and after writing valiant ambition, you know, I have to admit mom was right to a certain degree.

Well, that's the whole, in writing my book, I really had to struggle with this because I thought, I mean, it's at least extremely fascinating to look at this figure named Benedict Darnold, because if he had been killed at Saratoga, which he says, I wish the bullet had gone through my heart, and so do I. It really is amazing how great he was. And I think that speaks to this issue of the temptation, if you're great, to know that you're great, to think that you're great, to think that you deserve to be seen as great.

He really was outrageously gifted and grievously wronged by Congress and others. So initially, I think most people have, you have a sympathy. Oh, my goodness, the way they've treated him. Yeah. No, and it is human nature. He was not only overlooked for promotion. He was terribly physically injured. repeatedly in the same leg, which ultimately ended up two inches shorter. And this was someone who was

probably the most gifted athlete short of Washington in the American officer corps. He was, you know, his physicality was part of who he was. And he was handsome and passionate. And, you know, And Washington was those things too, but as we've discussed earlier, you know, he had an essential humility and ability to rein in those passions. And that's where you see Arnold being pushed, pushed, pushed toward a precipice. And, you know, one of the great what-ifs I found in looking, you know, examining all of this was, you know, one of Arnold's great. great performances is on the Lake Champlain, where he is an admiral over what was known as the Mosquito Fleet, basically big rowboats

with guns and sails on them. And he somehow miraculously fights the British to a draw and makes them decide, maybe we don't need to take Fort Ticonderoga in 1776. Let's wait till the next year. This huge, huge victory. that basically saved the American cause because the British had taken New York and were on their way to take control of the Hudson. And, you know, he does this. He's really good at it.

And at one point, you know, where he's getting frustrated by being overlooked by Congress, he says, you know, I'd like to be in the Navy. Right. And he, you know, he brings this up. And I think that's the great what if, because a naval officer, you know, a John Paul Jones figure, is his own, can be his own passionate, tyrannical self on a ship and win great glory and victory and can also win money because, you know, if you take, and that would have fed his passions. But no, that wasn't his fate. And I think what, because of that, you see one of the most fascinating of a personality as it's being dissected through, you know, the, I mean, that's the thing.

We forget how long the revolution was. I mean, this is years, eight years this is going on. And it's physically taxing. It's with Arnold, you know, it's sort of like that Monty Python character where, you know, one legs goes off and I'm not dead yet. And, but he hangs in there. and you know, you see him begin to think he is bigger than the cause he's fighting. This is why I find it just so. It's just extremely fascinating.

And it's why I wrote as much as I did about him because you're trying to make sense of it. And what it really boils down to, if you're solving for X, Washington has the ability to swallow his pride when he has to. Arnold does not. No, never. And that's the fatal downfall of Benedict Arnold. It is the fatal downfall. And it just would lead him to these behaviors where, you know, there's this court martial in Morristown, New Jersey, in the midst of the worst winter America has probably ever suffered.

You know, four feet of snow outside and drifts twice that. And, you know, he is before his fellow officers being tried for various misdemeanors while he was military. governor of Philadelphia. And, you know, he's, some of his best friends are there. And he is just lying to them, you know, through, not even his teeth. He's just letting it go, you know, here I am, hurt and all of this stuff. He's been, you know, sending, uh, uh, coded letters to the British revealing, you know, the secrets that will, you know, imperil everyone. there and he is just this wronged and dignite truth seeker. At least that's the part he's playing. And there you go. I mean, we're all playing roles in life. Who do you choose? Do you go,

you know, are you Satan? Do you play that role? I mean, or, or, you know, and watching, you know, and so you watch the seductive power of evil, really. I mean, you know, I'm a, spiritual guy too and you can't help but feel those you know the the the the the swirling forces of good versus evil you know you know hanging over things while he you know gives this performance it's it's so dramatic that in in in the chapter in one of the chapters in my book I quote the you know Satan's speech in Paradise Lost it's that yeah it's that close that you just think there's, I don't know, you know,

as you're casting about for how to describe this, you turn to Milton Satan, you know, it's like, and, but that happened gradually, that's what's so fascinating as you watch these characters evolve and we look at Washington through the course of the war, he changes, but for Arnold, it seems to have happened in Philadelphia. That's where somebody, it wasn't you, another author,

talks about his bitterness curdled into settled malice, I think was the phrase. And you realize, yeah, it happened in Philadelphia. He became, something happened fatally to him. Yeah. Well, you know, and he, there he decided he was going to make some money on the side. So he's doing all sorts of crooked business deals. And he, you know, what Philadelphia is, you know, it's a civil war going to going on within the revolution in Philadelphia, where Philadelphia is, you know, the radical

left and the radical right is happening in Philadelphia. And Arnold embraces the royalists, basically, and, you know, has fancy carriages and all of that. Well, just to forgive me for interrupting, but to set the stage, I mean, so, yeah, so he's horribly injured at Saratoga. So Washington, in a crazy, moment, because you wonder what was Washington. Washington in some ways must have been a terrible judge of people on some level to pick Arnold to be the military governor, whatever it was of Philadelphia at this time, because he was the least qualified on planet Earth for the job. And Arnold, what's interesting to me is that Arnold doesn't care about appearances. His attitude is,

I got it coming, I've suffered for my country, so I'm going to live large. and I'm going to make some money. And technically it was legal, technically. But Washington cared about appearance. Yes. And Washington was the exact opposite. Washington would go out of his way to do the right thing so that everybody sees him doing the right thing.

Arnold didn't care. And so he destroys himself by living large, I guess. Yeah, and we have to talk about on both sides, Washington and Arnold, you know, who they're married to. You know, Washington is married to Martha, who makes the point of going to every winter quarters, you know, is there. It's just too bad we don't have the letters they wrote. Oh, gosh. Because, I mean, they...

Because she burned them. She burned them. Yeah. Probably at his request. Yeah. You know, if you're going for posterity, you don't want the letters around. But, and then Arnold, you know, whose wife tragically dies, while first wife, dies while he's at Taekondaroga. He's got three kids. His sister, Hannah, keeps the family

together. But it's while he's in Philadelphia that he meets 18-year-old Peggy Shippen, beautiful daughter of a suspected loyalist who, you know, had, had she and her sisters had paled around with the British officers during the occupation of Philadelphia, particularly won John Andre. And, you know, so Arnold is at that moment and they get married. And I don't think she was... You don't think she was a good influence. I don't think she was providing the emotional support that Martha was providing. I think it was a very different kind of situation. Who we're spending our lives with has a huge influence on how we think. And that's the fascinating thing about the American Revolution. You know, we have, people have their official roles as, you know, a military officer as a

congressman or whatever. But, you know, they were, these were people with families and personal lives that were so tested by this never ending, you know, war that, you know, that those personal sides inevitably bled into all of it. Martha Washington, I discovered, was a woman of tremendous Christian faith. I hadn't realized that. And Peggy Shippin was like, you know, the ultimate party girl. But nobody forced Benedict Arnold to marry her, of course.

But it is fascinating how that plays its role in what happens with him. Well, so I guess Washington, I find it. almost funny and charming in a way that Washington was so surprised by Arnold's betrayal. Yeah, I mean, well, it's, yes, because you, well, you know, and this is where historians have an unfair advantage. You know, we know where it's headed. And, and when, so when you look, you look at, you know, all the signs are there, you know, as, as you're looking at the evidence, you, you see what's going on, and you just say, Washington, why don't you see this coming? But, you know, Washington here, you know, the French are now part of the war. He's going up to Connecticut to meet with Rochambeau

when all of this is happening. This is a big deal. I mean, you know, it's an ally that will either save or not America. This is all going on. And yes, he's got, you know, Arnold's now, He's now the commandant at the fortress at West Point. And things are going on. But it's a bludgeon to Washington when he learns. Although, I mean, to be fair to Washington, I think almost nobody really saw who Arnold was. He somehow, I think it would have been very difficult

to see who he was. Only Ethan Allen seems to have seen it. There's a quote. I quote Ethan Allen, I guess he was testifying against Arnold already in Philadelphia during the court marshal, and he goes on about... Yeah, and Ethan Allen was no... He was a piece of work to... Right. Yeah. But... Yes, he was. Yeah, yeah. No, and you know what... You're absolutely right in saying how hard it was to see this coming. Because, you know, Arnold's own AIDS, you know, they're with him every day. They're seeing as, you know, no one could be closer to him.

And, you know, it was immediately suspected after his treachery was revealed that they were somehow in on this. There's absolutely no evidence that they were, you know, and one of them would actually go on to become the mayor of New York. I mean, you know, there was, you know, absolutely no, they were fooled. Absolutely fooled. And so, yes, so Washington, you know, there are the signs, but, you know, and then there is that time where he, you know, Hamilton gives him the evidence. Oh. You know, there they are at Arnold's quarters there as commandant at West Point and Washington

is there with Lafayette. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. I mean, here he is with, you know, the officer's most close to him and he turns to And he says, whom can we trust now? I mean, can you imagine that feeling? Right. It's almost unbelievable. And right upstairs is Peggy Shippen.

Right. Who is losing her mind and then acting even crazier than. Yeah. That's a scene, boy. It's like it's a scene. It's like it was made up. But that's it. I mean, suddenly Washington, you know, I mean, one of the great, a great leader

supervises his staff but also gives them room to do their thing. I mean, you can't have someone hovering all the time. And Washington was very good at that. But of course, then there's the evidence of Arnold. And, you know, but there he is. There you begin to think, well, we're fighting the British, but are we really fighting ourselves? Well, there's a moment that it's really heartbreaking,

to me is where I think Washington, like many people, felt bad for Arnold. He knew that Arnold had been wronged, but he also felt that Arnold had behaved, you know, very poorly in Philadelphia, and so he has to be officially reprimanded. Congress demands that Washington, in his orders, reprimand, you know, and you can imagine Washington was not happy about having to do that, but he does it. But then he wants to make it up to him. Yeah. And you see Washington thinking, well, okay, we're going to put this past us now, and I'm going to give you a plum job. And he offers Arnold the second in command of the entire army. It's this dream, not Charles Lee, not Horatio Gates.

He gives it to Arnold. He says, I want to make you, to make all this up to you, I want to offer you, you're going to be my second in command. And what I find just almost unbelievable is that you can imagine, now I'm not sure, but I would imagine that at that moment Arnold had gone too far to the other side so he could not accept that. No. But you can imagine that it must have just ripped him apart. Oh, absolutely. To be offered this. The corrosive effects of his sin were eating away at him, I think.

You know, it's like Washington say, yeah, we need a reset here, and here's this great gift. This is everything you want. I mean, you can ride in a horse now, you know, you're going to be, you know. And it, and he, there must have been a part of him saying, I'm too far now. I can't, I can't pull out. Yeah, the money is, I can just touch the money. The British are going to give me. I'll get it any minute.

All I need to do is get West Point. And then how bizarre it would have been to Washington. when he refused this, you know, I'm giving you the job that you've deserved and wanted and here it is. And he says, no, thanks, I want West Point in Washington. I mean, if ever there was a moment Washington and should just sniff something.

Yeah, yeah, that would have been it. Yeah, yeah. Hey, but retrospect, yeah. Right. And it's that whole betrayal of Arnold's betrayal is the scene, you know, if you're familiar at all with the Hudson River Valley, I mean, you know,

This is the land of the headless horsemen. It's extraordinary that there is this kind of gothic. Yeah, it's a wild country. Wild country, just, you know, almost within sight of Manhattan. You know, there it all happens, and there's a ship called the vulture. That delivers Andre, and he and Arnold meet at night in what's known today as, you know, you know, it's a grove of trees where, you know, betrayal grow. And it's, you know, all of this, it's extraordinary landscape.

It's chilling. It's really a chilling story. And then, you know, and then when, you know, and Andre can't go back on the vulture because it gets fired upon and retreats. And so now he must make his way back down the other bank of the Hudson through, you know, a forest worthy of Dorothy approaching Oz, you know, just with, you know, scary stuff, and he gets taken and it all unravels. And, you know, and this is where the American Revolution is, you know, it's our genesis. It's, it is, you know, it's biblical in all sorts of ways.

as far as, you know, the how it's set up, the characters. It just, it's so foundational that, you know, it's the reverberations of it. And particularly Arnold's betrayal is just, I think, such an important part of who we would become as a country. Because in a way we needed an Arnold to provide, you know, because we were rebelling against our mother country. And then to have Arnold betray us. turns the focus in a different way. I mean, there's so much.

I guess I'm thinking, too, of how Arnold betrays Andre. I mean, he lures, he takes advantage. Andre, of course, himself, very ambitious. And he can just smell

a knighthood or something. If he pulls this off, man, he's the man. And so he's tempted to do the three things that Sir Henry Clinton tells him whatever you do on this dangerous mission, don't do this, this or this. He does all three.

And Arnold takes advantage of him in a way by luring him off the... I wonder if there was a jealousy on Arnold's point. You know, given Andre's previous interactions with Peggy, I don't know, because it's a little bizarre how preemptorily he,

Arnold says you're on your own here, just go do this. And it would, in a way, they kind of deserved each other. And, you know, it's, it is really the stuff of a foundational myth that is America. I want to go to Rochambeau, but before that, there's a line in one of your books that I borrow, or quote in my book where you talk about the difference between the death, the hanging of the spy major Andre and the hanging of the spy Nathan Hale, to whom I devote a chapter, the great hero, Nathan Hale, whom Ken Burns devotes 12 seconds to in his 12-hour series. It's kind of strange. But Nathan Hale, such a great figure, and you compare, yours is the only,

comparison of the two, but I thought it really interesting. Do you remember roughly what you said about? I know, I know, I know. Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, the, you know, it's, it's, I mean, for me, Nathan Hale, you know, stands up and says, you know, I have one life to give to my country. And, um, Andre, you get a different point, point of view. Andre, he's, he's trying to weasel out of this the whole time. He's playing Washington's officers, particularly Hamilton, beautifully, saying, Arnold betrayed me, I am the wronged one here, where, you know, the evidence is very large that, you know, this, and also if you look at Andre's backstory, he was involved in some of the worst massacres of unjustified massacres of American soldiers.

Was he at Paoli? I don't remember. Yeah, yeah, he was. Really? I tried to get that. Wow. And he applauds it in one of his letters. And then there was a group of American soldiers that were, you know, basically executed in a barn that he was dealt with. Anyway, so it, I mean, it's, it's a, yeah, he behaves very differently from Nathan A.

Well, what you say in your book that I borrow with attribution, is that Nathan Hale publicly cared about his country and said so, that I want to die for my country. Whereas Andre was worried about his reputation, you know, please let it be noted that I go, you know, to the gallows with dignity or honor or something like that. So he was more concerned with his reputation than with the cause, because, of course, what cause was there? I think many of us think of, oh, the French, it was so great. They helped us. And it's like, yes, that there's a truth to that. They did.

But they weren't particularly selfless or wonderful. I mean, you know, they come on board in 1778, and it's three long years before Yorktown. And they weren't as cooperative as George Washington and others had hoped they might be. So maybe you can say a word about that. I mean, that, you know, there is a tendency, I think, in our history to, you know, say what great buds, Washington and Rochambeau were. And it all worked out great at Yorktown. But previous to that, the French had their own agenda. And it was their country first.

And what they really wanted to do was bring down England a notch. And what happened to America was, okay, you know, but they were not passionately concerned about it. And when it came to, you know, the year of Yorktown, it was looking really bad for the American cause. Things, it looked as if the American people had basically given up. I mean, you know, they weren't willing to, they hadn't been willing to pay the British taxes. They weren't willing to pay the taxes. The spirit of 1776 was gone. Far in the rearview mirror.

Right. And the French were very well aware of this. And they were fearful that America was just going. to fall apart. And so Rochambeau is given orders that if it does that, you know, DeGrasse's Navy will arrive. And instead of attacking, you know, the British as they would, they're going to rescue you from Newport and get you out of there. But don't tell, and don't tell Washington or anything about that. And so it put it in a difficult situation where Rochambeau. Rochambeau wasn't telling Washington what he was hearing.

But pray tell. Who did tell Washington what Rochambeau was saying in French? Yes. Well, there's Lafayette around. And he's also, I mean, you know, the whole thing, it came down to this. And I think a few of us realize how importance that our independence was won by the French Navy. I mean, the French were absolutely essential. us winning this thing.

Yes. And Washington knew this. As soon as the French were involved, he said, the way we can win this is by gaining naval superiority. The British have had it. They can move their soldiers up and down our coast, you know, in a blink of an eye, relatively speaking. And until we can do that, you know, until, you know, something like that happens, until we

can establish, you know, naval superiority locally and then come in with an army and win it there, we're not going to be able to win this. He sees that's the future. And it would take, as you said, three years to do that through a variety of often random factors. And so Washington is just in this position of saying, please, you know, when is your Navy that is down in the Caribbean defending the sugar islands because the British, you know, that's, more money was to be made in the Caribbean at that time than, you know, one of those Caribbean islands was more worth more to Britain or France than all 13 colonies. I mean, there was just so much money in sugar that that was the primary, you know, as soon if France came in, that's where all the action was, naval. And so Washington

was in this desperate, you know, please, please, you know, get this Navy up and help me. And, you know, And then he's, you know, a few months before Yorktown, he reads that de Gras, this great, you know, the fleet has arrived, but it's still in the Caribbean. But Rochambeau hasn't told him any of it. Well, part of it, one of the things that you helped me to understand, and I put it in my book, is that this moment where, you know, the French are convinced that the Americans aren't going to win and we don't want to go down with them and so at

some point I can't remember the provenance of the treaty or the what they who's talking to whom but there's this idea that you know let's call it a draw the British you get Georgia

the Carolinas Virginia whatever and well you know it's like musical chairs let's just stop and whoever has what you're frozen in place okay and Washington knows that well if that happens the sacred cause is over because it's only a matter of time I mean if we don't win the whole thing eventually the British will take it back and it's over and Rochambeau's translator tells Washington what Rochambeau is saying yeah because Rochambeau's translator realizes that Washington is being wronged in this. What an amazingly brave thing for Rochambeau's

translator to tell Washington. No, it is. Yes. And when Washington, but you know, once again, Washington, you know, if Washington allowed his impulses to take over, he could have blown up and blown this thing sky high, you know. How dare you and all that? He doesn't. He's playing. He's playing this long game. And, you know, and he's, he's, you know, he has a plan. He wants the fleet to attack New York and get it over in New York. Yeah, he's begging. This is one of these funny stories. I mean, he's begging Rochambe, or, you know, not really begging, but he clearly wants the fleet to, he has this idea in his head that we need to take New York back. The loss of New York was his great downfall in the beginning. It would have been such,

poetic justice to take New York at the end. But he also had another point, even if you don't attack New York, at least pick up our army, which was all in the New York area, and sail it down to the Chesapeake rather than us marching. Marching, 500 miles. 500 miles and the heat of summer. And by this point, and in great tribute to Washington, you know, he had such trouble with his New Englanders the beginning. the backbone of the Continental Army are New Englanders. They are the ones that he has come to depend on. And this is the extraordinary metamorphosis that has occurred over the last six years,

where Washington has built a professional army, and these, many of them are immigrants, but he's put it all together. It's there, and they haven't been paid. They've been abused in all sorts of ways, but somehow they pull it off and make that march to meet up with de Gras and try to spring a trap on Cornwallis at Yorktown. There's so much there. You write about it beautifully.

The idea that Washington, even he's hoping that the French fleet will show up, that they'll come to New York. And what's so fascinating is in that era, because you can't communicate very easily, having to guess what's going to happen in a few weeks and where do I make my move, where do I move my arm. And at some point, I'm forgetting the details, but at some point, everybody realizes, okay, boom, we're going south. We're going to Virginia. And so he has to do, he does some bamboozling moves around New York to fool Clinton. that, you know, where he's going and then suddenly, he's gone. Well, yeah, and one of the, yeah, I mean, it's brilliant how they get, you know,

how they bamboozle Clinton, but then one of the great scenes for my, in my estimation of, that is so, I think, indicative of the tensions Washington's experiencing. Because, you know, as you said, the community, there's no communicate, you know, we have cell phones, we know, you know, everything. There's, he has no clue. He doesn't even know if the French are, have, are on their way. Right.

He's just, they're just going for it based on a letter from de Gras that's, you know, months old. Right. And then they have just gone, his army is going through the city of Philadelphia. He's on his way to Elkton, Maryland at the head of the Chesapeake, to oversee the next phase when he gets a message. Yeah, the French are taking ships down, but his army is. Right, he's walking. He's walking. And the message is DeGros and his fleet has arrived in the Chesapeake.

It's all coming together. Washington turns his horse around. He knows that Rochambeau and his staff are on a boat doing a harbor tour of the Delaware and are about to arrive in Chester, Pennsylvania. He rides to the dock in Chester. There's now a gambling casino there, but rides to the dock. and Rochambeau, one of his officers, sees someone on the dock,

and they're jumping up and down and waving their arm. Yeah, a tall guy. A tall guy. Jumping up and down. And he's got something in his head. And they say, who could that be? I don't know.

Could it be Washington? No, it's George Washington. He is so excited. You know, he's jumping up and down. They come. DeGras comes over. Now, Washington was not a hugger. But he gave DeGras a hug and said, the fleet has arrived.

And then it becomes a true race. Now we have to spring the trap before. But you never see Washington show his emotions. I mean, I shouldn't say never, but almost never. He cannot contain his joy when he realizes they're on their way. This is close to, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is him. And then, I mean, just imagine it, too.

The war has gone on for six years. He hasn't been home in six years. He has not been home. Instead of going home like most of his officers, he stays in his winter quarters and Martha visits him. He's been renovating Mount Vernon over those six years in abstentia. And he hasn't seen, you know, all the Mount Vernon we know today. But it's been happening.

Can you imagine he arrives? Well, lucky for him, Yorktown, Mount Vernon is on the way to Yorktown. Yeah, he didn't go out of his way. It's right on the way. He pulls in and sees this place. And then Rochambe arrives. They spread out the maps on the kitchen, on the dining room table. Can you imagine the, you know, the emotions that that,

That must have just been roiling through him. And then on they go. Yeah, and he rides like a zillion miles a day to get from wherever he is down to Mount Vernon. Something crazy. Way ahead. He gets ahead so he can have some time by himself. Yeah. Okay, so well, this brings us to Yorktown.

It is really funny that we know how it ends. But I guess, well, to be fair, already in Philadelphia, people are celebrating. I mean, before everything you've just described, because they kind of have a sense that it's coming together. But we still don't know that it comes together until it comes together. But Washington,

he betrays his emotions. I guess he writes a letter to Lafayette, who's already down at Yorktown, something like, you know, sort of a funny line about, you know, keeping your eye on Cornwallis. Cornwallis that he doesn't get too much food or something. But the point is that he feels the freedom to joke in a letter,

which tells you that he feels confident, I guess. Yeah, I mean, six years building towards this. But it's still in the balance, because just as he's approaching Yorktown, he gets another letter saying a British fleet has appeared outside the entrance to the Chesapeake. DeGrasse's fleet has sailed out to meet them. We don't know what happened.

Now, up until this time, when the British and French met at sea, the British almost always won. If the British had defeated de Gras here, they would have sailed into the Chesapeake, picked up Cornwallis's army, and sailed off. and we would have you know it the war would not have ended and on and on it would go yeah but the French won and in one of the you know few naval victories that they had in that thing and we owe the fact that victory depended on that and I think it's an overlooked fact of the progress of this revolution well we always act like everything

ends at Yorktown, which in some ways it does, but in some ways it doesn't. I mean, it's funny to think that Washington has to go to Newburgh and hang around and deal with all that nonsense forever. It's like he never got a chance to rest, really. No, you know, throughout these three books, I kept wanting him to have that moment, you know, saying, yes, you know, yes. But always it was denied him. After the victory at Yorktown, he learns that his stepson Jackie has contracted camp fever.

He dies. So he and Martha are in mourning, you know, after that. He goes, he's in Newburgh with his officers and his good old pal Horatio Gates is once again attempting a coup, saying, hey, we haven't been paid. Let's march on Congress demand at gunpoint that they pay us. this would have been the military coup that would have destroyed everything. He talks them out of it. And he does it with a piece of theater. You know, these people are really angry.

One of the only officers that's still in his camp is Henry Knox, who's there to watch all this. And by this point, you know, he's now in his 50s. You know, he can't, you know, he can't read letters the way you see. He's had a pair of reading glasses made, but no one's seen him with them. And he's delivering the speech. The officers are still angry. And then he says, but wait, here's a letter from one of the congressman that is sympathetic.

Let me read it. And so he starts to look, but he can't read. He says, I have not only gone gray for my country. I apparently have also gone blind. and he puts on those glasses, and this sign of frailty from someone who has been so strong for these six years breaks down all of those officers, and they weep, and they real, and Washington wins it. That's his sense of theater wins the day there. And I think in many ways that might be one of his greatest victories, because, and this is also where to get back to Arnold.

Just think if Arnold was still an officer, he was just the kind of guy who could have said, yeah, let's march on those bastards in Philadelphia. Well, with a sense of, I mean, they weren't wrong. No, they weren't wrong. But that's what's so fascinating to me about the character of Washington is that anybody else could have easily sided with Arnold in his sense of grievance. Anybody else could have sided with Horatio Gates and the officers who hadn't been paid.

It made perfect sense unless you were that magnificent character like a Washington who's so rare in the world to make the right decision when everyone else would make that wrong decision and feel justified in making it. And it's so risky.

I mean, just think if he thought, whoa, if these guys do win and it goes, you know, it could have, it would have been chaos. It would have been the coup that would have destroyed everything, but he prevailed. And once again, he was indispensable. I guess that's what makes me think, and we'll have to end because of time. But Washington's character, part of it is his faith, in several senses of the word faith, in what is right prevailing, that if I do the right thing,

somehow we will prevail. And you see that over and over, he had that sense of destiny or that, that he had faith somehow that if I do the right thing, things will work out. I mean, there are many examples of that, and he comments on it, but you see it over and over again

that he seems convinced that that's his job is to do the right thing. And does. And he does. And, you know, it's one of those, you know, he, he saw a path and he did everything he could to make that happen. You know, he was the agency that made it happen. And so on one side, you say, well, boy, you know, he placed his bets in the right direction, but he was the one making it happen. He wasn't,

it wasn't a bet for him. It was what he was on this earth to do. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, There are very few people in life and very few situations in life where you see this kind of tenacity, patience, humility, and strength of character allowed to prevail. It's absolutely extraordinary. I want to thank you for writing about him and these things, not just at great length, but in a way that it really is delightfully readable. and I want to thank you. Please join me in thanking Nathaniel Philberg for being my guest today. Thank you so much.