Six battles to talk about how important and significant war has been in our history and who fights our battles. Alternately research to ask the questions when is it worth going to war . Benjamin franklin said there was never a good war or a bad piece he said that in 1783. I am not sure that i agree with that but the trick is when is a good war . Talk about the militia i cowrote to a biography and to you deal with how you could not order militia around the way you could regular shall when dash soldiers. This causes that giant incident where arnold is to announce in the newspapers because youre not supposed to give orders to the militia. This is a narrative that we tend to learn about the schoolbook history of the of revolution they drop their plows. That was true with lexington and concord. George washington feared to rely upon the militia and a broker in staff. So whats the difference is here because i am sure what is an army . But militia were the men who are responsible to their states but the economy had to provide them militia mostly required to defend their home town in the south if there was a specific duty for slave rebellion. And the is militiamen were only enrolled for nine months or three months or six months and this is why in 1776 thomas payne writes a very famous essay called a crisis called the summer soldier he was talking about the militiamen. This summer soldiers would come when we didnt have to harvest crops but then they go back. This is why they needed a professional Standing Army. So there was a real discrepancy between the militia covered by the state and governors and not of farmers terror off but immigrants german and irish even though he resisted and would not in a list of blacks in he first took over the army. But the france joined and so they joined. For those who served and fought and won the revolution from dash heroic minutemen myth created after the war cemetery was great fear of a Standing Army. The people i can see a real hadnt won decennial adams and Thomas Jefferson feared a Standing Army they often ended with a strong man to march into takeover going back to julius caesar. And associated with those who had Nothing Better to you do and the soldiers through the dregs of society it was a negative image and that is important because it is reflected in how they took care of the american soldiers. After monday to close and feed his troops he writes a letter from valley forge to say as the manservant that is slave named william lee was basically naked. Washington did on stage is set for that same discomfort but that is a different story. So fast forward bedded and iris society that shared sacrifice from 04 to another major conflicts that the idea of iraq especially hiring cancer halliburton but it also changes the way of the public use. With this book the Hidden History of america at war i want to write and tell the story over 230 or 2 1 4 years of who had fought our battles so the armies that fought for us to see the u. S. Troops going off but the story that i tell so that was a battle that began that was a grisly and crusoe moment. But two of them were dismembered and hung from a bridge. So what they did not realize was those four men were not soldiers by a private security contractors working for a company that is now much better known in 2004 known as blackwater that name is no longer in existence and it has been sold. So the ideas that these four men to talk about americans being brutalized and blackhawk down, it is a very different situation. To be under equipped is not properly staffed they did not speak to the marines outside of fallujah at that point of course, it is already was in the year after rehab a Mission Accomplished moment. So put that into context it is supposed to be a war in which major combat is over according to the president. And then to go into suppress what is now becoming an insurgency in fallujah. It in the first chapter about yorktown with cold steel or a fixed bayonet in one thing that has not changed that is an irony of sorts but it is a brutal fight and the casualties are mounting going from washington as they complete their mission. And bin to finish the job it is the intersection between of military affairs and Political Affairs so as a president ial race was going on from political history and that is also one of those lessons. Also one of the threats that sometimes the reasons are suspect says the great example of that that set of the spanishamerican war, you give the endorsement a wonderful book how William Randolph hearst and Teddy Roosevelt sent america into the war if they wanted to or not. I read the book and they could not stop thinking about the invasion of iraq and other instances where there is intelligence are some people want to take as pretext at the time is it is not mind that look the battleship for the spanish but now it is thought the problem was they put the ammunition to close to the boilers to read that is what the navy determined maybe 70 years later. A little too late to undo the war. And that is enclosing the barn door. But some people seem to know it because then thomass book to talk about and have girl who took his battleship to create more separation between the munitions he thought maybe that was the cause . Rabil just point out with a lot of different battles this says a chronological sequence and the war of were talking about is one of the most obscure to Many Americans although it seems all of the of wars are faded into a black hole of American History. In this spanishamerican war is a moment in history that we become a global power almost by accident or by design. But just to go back to refresh your recollection there was a war of state held in cuba as well as many other positions around the world of what was the once great is global empire and included the philippines. Certainly when William Mckinley very reluctantly took the nation into war a Civil War Veteran had seen how horrible the civil war was and was provoked that pushed yellow journalism to ramp up in what they did not realize where the philippines were but they were a spanish possession and the Theodore Roosevelt who was in charge because the real secretary was on vacation orders admiral dewey in hong kong to steam for manila bay because he knows the war is coming in this will be the moment that ameritech can seize a crucial piece of territory in the middle of the pacific ocean. S of war. Very often we dont think about this. And mckinley certainly had no plan to make the philippines an american possession, but he later did. And that created a war, a conflict that was larger, actually, than the fighting in cuba over, with spain over cuba, and more protracted. And, actually, the story i tell is set in the philippines of a massacre of a Small Company of men who are getting ready to celebrate or commemorate the death of William Mckinley by assassination which puts Theodore Roosevelt the hero of the spanishamerican war into the white house. Its a fascinating story on so many levels, but Theodore Roosevelt is certainly the central character. And i want to reiterate how important the people are in this. These are stories where were certainly talking about policy and all that, but this is really stories about people whether its the men who were around George Washington at yorktown, the men, young boys who go to the philippines or Theodore Roosevelt as a real force of nature in american poll the ticks. Its politics. Its really the people that are driving these stories. Yeah, ill second that as far as, i mean, the title, the Hidden History, i think, is appropriate because you do mention people who ive never heard of before who were, you know, people who were right there at the, where the battle was happening. I wanted to ask you another thing about this. You also sometimes go to obscure places like in the philippines which is not you know, if you were telling a general history, im not sure thats the first place youd go to if you wanted to explain the spanishamerican war. But its a very smart place that you end up, and you can and everything kind of comes from that. I really like the way the book goes through the specific and then kind of broadens out and tells kind of the big picture but doesnt lose the small picture as well. Well, the point of it was try the point of it was trying to focus on an extraordinary moment, at dramatic moment of usually one that our schoolbooks do weed out but allows us to speak about much larger issues and the question here was the massacre of a group of american soldiers by filipinos which created complete outrage in this country just the way i call them pearl harbor moments. We have had many of them in our history. When something disastrous happens in the nation really comes together. This was a pearl harbor moment in 1901 and the chapter is called the water cure and significance and the reason i call that the water cure and focused on this moment in the spanishamerican war is that this incident really leads to a horrific series of events in which atrocities are committed by american soldiers, gets filipinos and a method called the water cure was used by americans against filipinos, an method on which a prisoner was basically laid down on the floor and water was forced down his stomach and tell he was willing to confess anything they wanted him to confess to. Obviously while i was writing that waterboarding was very much in the news and so the notion that questions of atrocities and torture were being addressed in 1901 in the spanishamerican war was certainly something i was not really familiar with and this wasnt a matter of doing some historical secret documents. This was actually a Senate Hearing was held about these issues. Blame howard taft the future president was a civilian governor of the philippines. He had to testify in congress about the socalled water cure so i think its incredibly instructive to see that this is a story that could have been torn from todays headlines that was happening 100 years ago and thats really the point of studying history in the first place, that we learned something from it but if we dont know the history we simply cant learn from it paid. Thats exactly right and i think the truth telling about there were american atrocities in the philippines and i grew up learning that the United States has liberated philippine nose and given them them therefore to matter world war ii which is true but its not the whole truth. Clearly the americans try to suppress an Independence Movement in the philippines at that time with rhetoric explaining that they couldnt selfgovern themselves and americas goal was to christianize them like to point out was ridiculous considering the spanish had been there for centuries. In many filipinos were very devout Roman Catholics as well but this is an interesting small point that mckinley says he actually had a dream and he tells us to a group of evangelicals it have come to the white house. Evangelicals in the white house in 1900 and he tells them he had a dream truly a divine dream in which he was told to take over the philippines in part to christianize them which must have, as a surprise to the pope. [laughter] there were quite a few Roman Catholic churches spread around the philippines at that point but its also a reflection of the deep anticatholic mood in this country at that time and certainly much older story. Catholics in the 19th century in particular for all the talk that we have about the christian nation where the dreaded feared evil religious minority that is threatening to take over the country and this wasnt a small group of people. This was being preached from many of the most both in the country. There was a belief that catholics were coming to america in large numbers specifically Irish Catholics to take over the country and turn it over to the pope and build a new vatican in cincinnati at all places. [laughter] i never quite figure out why cincinnati was this catholics new vatican targets own. When al smith ran for president there was Campaign Literature against the building of the subway in new york and they said there was going to be a slow boil then although it had vatican. We laugh at it now but it was truly a part of the political dna of america at the time. The Famous Campaign slogan against al smith who was a Roman Catholic himself was rome, romanism and ruined. The rome that he was opposed to prohibition and catholicism was ruined because he would obviously do things like raise taxes. Bad elements of anticatholicism is certainly a big piece of the story and the spanishamerican war and partly untold story, part of the Hidden History as i like to call it and the wonderful part of all of this i think is that when you hear these stories some of them can obviously make us angry. Some of them can make a cynical but there are so much more interesting than the path that we are told is very young children. I really enjoyed what he wrote about the africanamerican soldiers in various battles and one of the things that is really interesting was most of the time they were discriminated against and were not given to there was an attempt to diminish their bravery but they were sent down to cuba for the spanishamerican war and they were called indians. They were considered immune because of course youre going to be immune to all tropical diseases just because they were from africa. Thats right and that was actually a belief. These were the famous Buffalo Soldiers that i described in their transition from the u. S. Troops the uscto the civil war and they are featured in the Second Chapter the book which is about the siege of petersburg in which the u. S. Troops performed valiantly and after the war many of those troops were sent to the southwest to fight the indians and it was there that the native americans partly out of respect for their ferocity of the africanamerican soldier cavalrymen in the southwest called them Buffalo Soldiers certainly because of their hair appearing like buffalo skin but also the fact that the buffalo was sacred to them and they felt a kinship of sorts with these african soldiers because of their bravery. They have enormous respect for them but when the spanishamerican war begins at the turnofthecentury bear brought specifically to fighting cuba because they were thought to be immune from tropical diseases as slaves were much earlier in American History because they came from africa. The presumption was that they would be immune or less likely to catch tropical diseases and of course utter nonsense. To this theme of africanamericans in this military history it begins certainly with the first chapter because as i mentioned one soldier in Washingtons Army was a black man and not depicted routinely in the patriotic paintings we see but more to the point this is the one im sure they didnt tell you in school, the first thing washington did was after the battle was over and it was written into the surrender document was make sure he recovered the property being held at the british garrison and everyone understood that property meant about 5000 escaped africanamerican slaves who had joined the british in hopes of winning their freedom. I know they didnt tell me that one when i was in school but this included 17 people from washingtons own plantation who left six months before with the british captain who sail to mt. Vernon and said come to with me if they want to be free and they didnt they included yorktown. Washington made sure all of them were returned to slavery and this is of course the great contradiction of the American Revolution and one of the threats in this book is how important slavery and the Race Relations were not only in the military but all of American History and we certainly have to understand that today if we would want to understand some of the very serious issues we are facing every week it seems around the country. A kind of drives me crazy when you hear people say the Founding Fathers worked really hard to free the slaves went four for the 51st president on slaves. Indeed they did, five of the first seven, 10 of the first 15 so not what we talk about. You also quote another fine story by tom clements. I was talking to him about this and he dismisses that is what he calls presentism with this idea that you shouldnt judge people people from the past on presentday standards but i do think that there is something to judging people on the basic human standards. Slavery was just plain wrong and there were plenty of people alive than he knew it to. Of course in washington himself knew it and as men thate chapters named for were probably, theyre all in their mid 20s. They were very, very close friends. They had been with washington through all of the defeats and disasters and disappointments. But these three were probably the most outspoken proponents of putting black soldiers in uniform. Jack Lawrence John lawrence was a lieutenant colonel. Hes there in yorktown that night. Hes fixed his bayonet. He was the son of Henry Lawrence, the president of congress. And Henry Lawrence had made his fortune trading slaves, shipping slaves to america, as many as 8,000 is the estimate ive read. Lawr lawrence was sent to england and europe as a young man to be educated, not completely caught up with the ideals of enlightenment and came back a complete abolitionist rights to his father i dont want to slaves. I think we should he has actually given the privilege and the assignment by congress to go down to South Carolina of all places which is where hes from to recruit and offer 3000 mensa. Its slaves. The legislature of South Carolina politely but not so politely said no thanks to that idea. But this is part of the story and washington as i said realized the conflict. He writes in 1776 there is no man who wants more than i to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery. While he says that he doesnt really do too much to bring it about and i think yes presentism is a real thing that i think you can judge washington by his own standards of what he thought was moral. The same thing with jefferson. They knew this was a contradiction to their ideals. They knew it was an affront to talk about liberty and equality and justice and key people in chains. They both perhaps foolishly optimistic alitos slavery would end at america and on that they were tragically wrong. I think we could take some questions if possible. Does anyone want to step up their and throw something at mr. Davis . Not literally. Just some ideas. Thank you very much. One question with respect to the revolutionary war the idea of the british quartering homes for soldiers was that in any way a violation of the magna carta of principles laid out in the magna carta . A greater scholar of the magna carta then i would have to answer that question quite frankly. Of course it is established in a bill of rights. The third amendment to quartering activists oppose but im not really sure as it goes back to the magna carta. I think its down in washington right now so maybe we should go down and check. A question in general was king george violating the magna carta in any way to provide justification for the revolution . I dont think the man were fomenting the rebellion and raising arms and up in arms were really too concerned about the magna carta. They certainly thought their british Constitutional Rights are being cut short but i think its certainly more about ultimately about who was going to have power over this enormous place called america and it wasnt even about a few folks in parliament, that old no taxes without representation was a great but it wasnt very meaningful. Im not deliberately dodging your question but i am because i dont think that the magna carta was really the driving force for the men of the revolutionary generation. Some people thought they were undertaxed compared to the people back in england. Of course see mel johnson to ask in 1775 how was it we hear they laud as the yelps for liberty from niekros question we dont have an answer to. I feel misrepresented and away we said quote we became a global power and quote during the spanishamerican war. Consequently i do not identify with power. Im a pacifist. Do you have a question . My question is this. Do you think that 9 11 is part of the history of war considering that the crime family plant explosives ken do want to talk about 9 11 what it means . I certainly discussed it at length in this book and i havent another books. Im not a believer to be honest with a lot of the socalled 9 11 conspiracy theories. Im sure there is Hidden History and im sure there are answers yet to be determined but i wait for them all more full accounting before that and to the first comment. I certainly did say we meaning the United States and perhaps more correctly i should say the spanishamerican war marks a moment with United States of america becomes a global power. There were many people at that time who would agree that this wasnt it good idea chief among them perhaps mark twain who wrote angrily in this part of the antiand peerless movement prayed he wanted to create a new American Flag in which the stars work changed to a skull and cross bones. That was mark twains suggestion for an American Flag in 1911. Thank you. Thank you. Next question. I had a couple of comments is one, and one question. The comment was i saw a Television Series called liberty i think it was angrily learned about the American Revolution. They described the second half of the revolution as in the south and there was an episode where this sense of the slaves to die basically that was kind of a caveat on what you mentioned. Well, thank you and they mentioned Thomas Fleming and liberty was written by Thomas Fleming and this turn into pbs series. What youre talking about is what i cover in this chapter in your exactly right the africanamericans who sought freedom with the british in 1781 at the invitation of the british , many of them were dying rapidly because of disease and starvation in yorktown in general cornwall is the british Commander Forces many of them out of the town and the descriptions which i include in this story of the dead and dying africanamericans who have been worse to yorktown is part of the scene in this. Needless to say they were victims either way you look at it. They were either going to be victimized by the british or sure they were going to be returned to slavery by George Washington. Right. Another part i remember from that theory was that there was terrorism the way the british used southern poverty types to be terrorists in the south to discourage people from fighting the british. Im not sure exactly what you mean by terrorism. The whole campaign of the british in the Southern States definitely took a different tenor and tone and in part i relate back to this question of slavery. A lot of the people in the Southern States and other historians besides myself have written extensively about this were really sitting on the fence about independence and revolution until the british makes this announcement first in 1775 and again in 1781 that slaves of patriots not slaves of loyalist slaves of the patriots would defer a end to the then lot of the southern slaveholders become more vociferous in their decision to join on the liberty cause that of the war and the fighting in general and the Southern Theater there was much more vicious and many more instances of what we would call atrocities on both sides that have been true earlier in the war in the northern states. I dont dont know if thats a terrorism you are referring to but the most notorious british soldier at the time was a man named turlington who is famously known for not allowing soldiers to surrender and giving them quarter. I remember the example was the plantation women, he cut off there and had them hanging in the plantation homes. Or certain accounts of that and i include one of a woman who was a loyalist who was assaulted in her home and not to take away from your question but does is certainly a theme that is carried on in this book which is how we think about war talking about armies but there are almost always civilians caught between two warring armies. It certainly was true in petersburg which Second Chapter of his look and more gruesomely in berlin which is another chapter in the book that we havent even touched on it for the women of berlin were braved massively by the invading soviet red army which was in recognition for but the germans had done to the russian soldier so this is part of war that we have to realize and talk about and understand when we have this thing called war and if we sanitize it and purify too much it becomes way too easy to get into it. Your book does a great job of telling the truth and making us really understand what war is in reality and the book is the Hidden History of america at war like kenneth c. Davis, really worth your time and i learned a lot from it. Well, i hope so. Thank you. [applause] thank you once again to Kenneth Davis and mark jakob and think you will be for that attending. Mr. Davis will be signing books right outside in the lobby. Ut ie at the freedomfest last month. His book comes out next week. Host glenn beck, it is about islam, why do you open with Thomas Jefferson in the library of congress . Jefferson changed my life. He wrote a letter to his nephew peter car and peter was 13 or 15, i dont know remember, somewhere in that area. His mother had died and his father was about to die. His father went to thomas and said thomas will you oversee the ed ed education of my son when i pass on and he said sure. Peter comes of age and writes this beautiful letter in mathematics learn this, when it comes to literature never read a book from outside of the native tone because you will lose too much. The last one is religion and with he said above religion stick reasons in her seat and question with boldness even the very existence of god for there to be a god he would rather have questions over blindfolded fear. That changed by life. That coupled for the fact Thomas Jefferson fought the 1st war against islam in the office. He had the barbary pirates. He was trying to understand what they want. He owns one of the first copies in enlish of the koran. He was a scholar and Read Everything in native tongue when he could. He tried to be as fair as he could. And he read the entire koran. This is a good place to start is his example but we should all read the koran. Dont take this from me. We have in the book all of our notes and flip notes. Dont take it from me. This is what we have found. We have gone to the original sources. It is not my opinion. You further that investigation yourself but ask honest questions not trying to prove and question the existence of god while you are doing it. Host jefferson sighted islam from a why virginia shouldnt have an official religion. Guest yes, and at the same time he was projecting a religion like islam. Saying the attitude and the difference between islam and islamist and that is important. One who believes i know great reformers of islam that want to believe that their religion is peaceful and want