he started his military career as a pfc and has worked his way up through the ranks and has a an incredible perspective and he'll share a little bit of his. personal experience and how that's sort of launched. interest in this question of military discipline in the american american style of military discipline that rose out of the experience of the continental army now lieutenant colonel scully is certainly no stranger to the museum. he's a regular presence down here. up until the present unpleasantness with coronavirus we were accustomed to regular visits from sean and his cadets. history department coming down to visit the museum to kind of use it as a live learning laboratory. they came down when in january of 2018. we unveiled our exhibition among his troops, washington's war tent in newly discovered watercolor. and actually we're it was wonderful to be able to show those cadets and original watercolor a panoramic painting of west point painted in the summer of 1782 by air charles law fault. he also unveiled special app kind of virtual view of west point in the era of revolutionary war here at the museum on our one year anniversary. so sean's talked this evening is based on his book and i'm just going to show it to you here contest for liberty military leadership in the continental army or recognize the image of the painting for those of you who have visited the museum. you've seen the large version of kudar's painting of washington and rochambeau and the french officers at yorktown in 1781. now we encourage you throughout the evening if you have questions to use the chat function, and send those along and we'll try to get to as many of those as we can at the at the end of the evening. and also there's a special interactive feature this evening that lieutenant colonel skull is going to tee you up for you're going to want to use this you'll actually be doing some voting along the way and providing some interaction. so without further ado, please join me in a warm welcome for lieutenant colonel shawnigan. he take it away. okay, sorry about that. we've tested this a couple of times and i'm still going to make some mistakes. so i've apologize for that everybody get evening and thank you to the museum of the american revolution to scott to hannah to everyone who works at the museum friend my inviting me to be the the first one to do this. seminar or webinar with everybody this year. so i want to start. by talking about how i got to this topic this topic on military leadership in the american revolution and it actually starts when i was a private first class back in 1997. i entered the army in 1995 and in 1997, i was in albania. and my job was to train soldiers from former warsaw pact countries who were interested in joining native. and one of the things that i noticed was that their officers acted very differently from ours. and the the story that i like to tell that that seems to epitomize this difference. is that in the american army the officers eat last? the soldiers eat first and we eat by rank of by order of the most junior officer. to the most senior or sorry the most junior soldier to the most senior officer. and when i noticed when i was in those mountains in albania, was that the officers from these other countries acted completely differently they ate first. they believe that they by virtue of their rank by virtue of their status that they should eat first and their soldiers seem to agree with this. and at the time i just thought that made them bad leaders. i didn't think anything else about it. i was very convinced that the american way of doing things was the way to do things and but it always stuck with me. i always thought about it. and then i was doing my graduate work at the university of massachusetts in amherst. and i started studying military leadership in the seven years war in new england, and i realized that the british army seemed to think that the new england officers were terrible officers. and i was trying to figure out why that was the case when in fact some of those new england regiments seem to do pretty well particularly when they were on their own. and then i went to mosula rack in 2009 as a military advisor when i was a major as a military advisor and a supervisor of iraqi soldiers iraqi police. and and kurdish peshmerga and what i found out was that i couldn't leave those soldiers in the same way that i led american soldiers. that if i allowed them to eat before me or if i open the door for them and allowed them to walk into the building for me. they didn't view that as a sign of respect. they viewed it as a weakness. as if i wasn't willing to take my rightful place as the leader of the group. and and this really began my my thoughts about about leadership about what did what? what is leadership? it's it's a it's a term that a lot of people don't necessarily want to define though the united states army. does define it it defines it as providing purpose direction and motivation? but those terms seem to me to be american terms. they they didn't seem to fit the other that i had seen. at the same time i was moving into the study of the american revolution and i did want to study the continental army and so i began to look at leadership in the continental army and tried to understand that and to start i decided that i needed to figure out a way to define leadership. that would allow me to avoid any cultural traps if you would, you know, it's historians. we don't want to bring our own present into the past and try to judge the past that way and so what i what i decided was that leadership is a cultural negotiation of authority. it it that negotiation is dependent upon the culture within which it's being being had. and this negotiation is between the leaders and the lead to determine how both decisions and their method of execution are reached. um now in in other studies of the continental army and of in the continental army leadership is usually understood in to other ways and so to get started with that discussion. i'm going to go ahead and share my screen. and now you should see me much smaller, which is i think appropriate and you should see the the painting that we all know here up on the screen. you know. leadership is usually understood in one of two ways by historians. first they will focus on strategic and tactical decisions and they'll have arguments about whether or not washington was a was a good leader in his strategy of avoiding a major defeat or whether the british should have won. the war could have won the war. um, or they'll look at tactical decisions. for example a german town should should washington have made the decision to split his forces and four columns given the lack of training and the conditions at the time. the other the other focus would be on honor. there's quite a few works that look at honor and they usually focus on washington attempting to create an officer a gentleman officer core and it the tendency there for the soldiery for look at soldiers over the course of the war is that they become men of lower social status. and then increased durations of enlistment and harsher punishments led to the continental army looking more like the british. the problems from my perspective on both of these approaches. is that the first approach gives us no sense that soldiers played much of a part in the outcome of the war. and the second approach denies as a sense that there was much of a relationship between officers and soldiers instead. we get a sense that each group developed identity separate from one another and didn't seem to really engage with one another in any real way. what my investigation determined instead was that there was a rich military tradition in the colonies prior to the war and that greatly influenced the development of the continental army during the revolution. these traditions pitted washington's expectations against the traditions of new england and we'll get into that in more detail here in just a minute. and given the fluidity of its development during a time of war leadership in the army was largely a factor of negotiations between officers and soldiers that created something new. something different and this was because the soldiers in the continental army had more agency. then we might expect. and this forced officers to understand something that we might actually assume today. and that is that if you want to lead soldiers here, you must first convince them to follow. here okay. so tonight what i'm going to do is lead you through an investigation of how leadership worked in four main topics. we're going to talk about recruiting. we're going to talk about recruiting because that'll help us understand. where did these soldiers and officers come from and how did their traditions influence the way they viewed leadership? and we're going to talk about discipline and by discipline. i mean the enforcement of military laws in other words the use of coercion in many ways to get soldiers to do what they were supposed to do or to punish them for failing to do so. the third topic will be on training. and the way i view training is the attempt to get the soldiers to commit themselves to the processes of the army to the tactical necessities of war and to the ideology of the revolution and then fourth we're going to talk a little bit about how all of this came together in a very tense period of time towards the end of the war. but to get started i'd like for us to play a little bit of a game. all right, and so what you're going to see here now on your screen? is www.menti.com and if you'll put that into your smartphone into your tablet some other device that you probably have next to you besides your computer. if you go to that website and you put the code in there that you see at the top five nine nine one zero six nine. it will bring you to this screen here on your phone and i would ask that you take a moment and answer this question. what is the most important characteristic of a good leader and i'll give you a minute or two to answer and we'll see what happens. right now as we see the the answers coming in here the way this word cloud works for those of you who haven't seen one of these before is that the larger the word the more frequently that word has been used by the people that are participating. i don't want to influence anybody's decisions here. so i'm just going to give it a little bit more time. okay. so i'm sure more answers will be coming in as we move forward, but let's take a look at some of the words that are the largest here. right now notice that empathy. is central so this would mean that this is probably the the trait that has is the most popular among the people with us tonight and it's interesting that we would pick empathy right and the reason that i think that that's interesting is because for a good leader. to be a good leader if we believe that the most important characteristic is empathy then what we're saying is is that the most important thing that a leader needs to do is think about the people that he or she leads. and that fits very well with our culture that makes sense in a democracy in a republic where the power comes from below from the people and is granted to those in charge. right because we then expect that those people will then show their empathy for us and that will make us want to follow them. but what if we came from a society that had very different values what if we came say from 18th century england when a class system was very much in effect when people weren't known as citizens, but instead they were known as subjects subjects of the king. now admittedly by the 18th century. we have a lot of wig philosophers who are saying no power is coming up from the people but in but if we could put ourselves in a position where we think about what if we thought power came from the top down would empathy be something that we would expect? would we expect necessarily somebody in a different class to lead by example as is one of the other more common words here? and so i want you to think about. these words remember these and see if perhaps what we don't start to see in the continental army. in the 18th century during the american revolution if we don't start to see that in fact these same characteristics are the characteristics that they thought were important for them to be good leaders during the war. so i'll go to the next slide. okay. now i mentioned that there was a rich colonial tradition of military service that influence the development of the continental army. and the strongest of those military traditions came from new england. and in particular it came from the colony of massachusetts. in each of the colonial wars fought in the 18th century, massachusetts raised a provincial army comprised of voluntarily enlisted soldiers who enlisted for a single campaign season. and the officers were selected based on their ability to enlist those men. so what that matt was those would be officers? had to show either in their towns or in their counties that they were good leaders or leaders, that could be trusted. and if so, those men would be willing to enlist with them and that would determine the rank if they didn't have that trust. they couldn't enlist those men. they wouldn't be given that right. and military punishments in massachusetts and throughout colonial new england were relatively light for the day. in fact, they were amazingly like for the most infractions of military law could only be punished by a maximum of 39 lashes of the whip. now that sounds terrible to us today. but in fact that's a biblical limitation that these congregationalist new englanders to decide upon because in the bible it says that only a beast could be whipped 40 times. so 39 was the maximum. you're gonna see that it comparison to the british army. that's that's quite quite a low number. and there were very few crimes that were death penalties capital crimes and even if you were convicted of that the governor of massachusetts had to approve your death sentence and the governor of massachusetts was elected by the colony not appointed by the crown. as an example of this right? we see here a picture of the battle of lake george. it was fought in 1755 and in this battle colonel of frame williams is killed in an ambush. he's the commander of regiment on a hampshire county massachusetts the county seat being northampton. after the battle because of frame williams was killed the general in charge. he was from new york needed to determine who would be the next commander the regiment. and instead of picking seth pomeroy, who is the lieutenant colonel of that regiment. he picked timothy ruggles. who was the most senior of the massachusetts officers at that location on lake george and as soon as he did so the soldiers of the regiment told him that's fine. you violated our enlistments were going home. and general ends of why what are you talking about? they said we didn't enlist under colonel ruggles. we enlisted under colonel palmeroy, and if we don't get colonel palmeroying way in command we're going home. and this set up a flurry of communications from northampton and in fact seth pomeroy was appointed the colonel. so the soldiers had a very clear agency to determine who was going to be their leader. now further south in the colony of virginia during the seven years where you have a very different very different development military tradition in the south was much less. it was much less robust. and militias were usually focused on domestic policing particular. they were worried about slavery volt. during the seven years war virginia had to create a new provincial system and they did so based on the british model. which made sense because their society was much more class-based. there was a planter class that had most of the land and most of the wealth. there was a smaller middle class that were free yeoman farmers who wish to enter into the planter class and then you had a base of poor white who did not own any property who were there and often seen as a problem in the colony and so the model that virginia came up with was gentleman officers and lower class men who were forced into service. the military laws that virginia selected look just like the british articles of war they can give last counts as high as 500 per infraction. and after a rough start for the first two years of that war the virginia regiment actually started to do well when the british government agreed to reimburse the virginia house of burgesses for the soldiers that they were paying for and so they went from trying to draft poor landless men into pain for these men, but they remained very much a class based. organization with very harsh punishments now in this painting here you see washington at the battle of monica halo. now washington is actually the officer in the blue and red at the canon pointing his sword washington became very famous in this battle because while the british general general edward bradig dies here washington is credited with saving what's left of the british and american forces there and getting them back into virginia safely from the forks of the ohio near presenting pittsburgh. what washington learned from his time during the seven years' war was that the british model was the right model that the british model was a successful way to command armies and discipline soldiers. now fast forward to 1775 after april of 1775 boston is surrounded by a new england army all of the soldiers that surround boston during this period of time come from, massachusetts, connecticut, new hampshire, rhode island. it's not until later in the year that soldiers show up from pennsylvania and a few from virginia. and during this period of time they seem to be doing. all right, they kept the british bottled up in boston though this painting here obviously famous painting shows the tragedy of the death of joseph warren at at the battle and while the british claimed victory at the battle of bunker hill in june of 1775. sir henry clinton was very famous for saying that if the british had a few more victim one more victory like this, they would surely lose the war. it was so costly to the british army. and when i ask you a question and let's see, who knows the answer here. who commanded the continental army at the battle of bunker hill? it looks like israel putnam and way in prescott are winning. wait until we get to about 50 and then we'll all start up again. okay. so it looks like the majority of us say israel putnam and then it's way in prescott, and then artemis war and george washington. well, it's kind of a trick question. but israel putnam is the wrong answer he was there and he was back on bunker hill a guiding the soldiers towards the front as best he could and trying to get as many reinforcements for prescott for william prescott as he could. but actually at the battle william prescott is in charge of the of the command in the redout, but in fact both artemis ward and george washington overall commanded the army artemis ward commanded the army in in reality on the ground, but just three days earlier the continental congress had actually declared the united armies of the colonies as the continental army and placed george, washington in charge. but why was artemis ward in charge before washington arrived? he was in charge because he was the senior officer from massachusetts in massachusetts was seen as the most important of the colonies represented in the forces surrounding boston for several different reasons, one of one of which i've already talked about which is their strong military tradition from the past. but during this period of time artemis ward is doing everything he can to try to create a unified army, but the reality is is that each regiment that was there was a regiment raised by a colonel at the behest of his colony. the man had enlisted to serve under that kernel and under his lieutenant colonel and under his company commanders and his lieutenant his non-commissioned officers. and these officers and soldiers they're very closely linked to one another they're from the same towns. they're from the same counties and their officers are serving because the soldiers have agreed that they should be in charge. and when washington shows up on july 2nd of 1775. he sees something that he can't believe he's very unhappy the soldiers have too much power to decide the terms of their service the officers had to agree to those terms because all of the soldiers had to be realisted by december at the end of december in 1776. so the soldiers have all the power washington wants to take much of that power away and he has a plan he has a program for doing this he wants to get enlistments for the duration so that when soldiers enlist they can't use their real enlistment as a way to negotiate any more autonomy within the army he wants to select the officers himself based on merit and honor this way he can get the men that he believes and should be leading and he can take that decision away from the soldiers. he wants to increase punishment to mirror the british this way he if he's got a bunch of undisciplined soldiers. he can punish them and coerce them into doing what it is that those they need to do to win. annie wants to integrate the regiments. so that we have new hampshire soldier serving with virginia soldiers serving with south carolina soldiers both so that he can unite everybody as americans. but also so that he can separate the officers and the men one from the other. right, but when he holds a counsel of war in october 1775 and following a congressional visit that same month. he's forced to reenlist his entire army under new england terms. so soldiers refused to enlist for longer than a year or under officers. they do not choose. and his articles of war are going to be the massachusetts articles with few capital crimes and that famously low lash limit of 39. additionally he's not going to be able to pay them as little as he'd like new york was paying their soldiers five dollars a month a massachusetts was paying six dollars and a third and the entire army is now going to get paid for the private soldiers six dollars and a third. and this is the army that washington goes to war with in 1776. this is the army that he marches to new york with in the spring of 76. and though the regiments have the nomenclature of continental regiments. they are in fact state regiments all of them pretty much look exactly like they looked in december of 1775. but with major defeats in new york and new jersey in that year along with other significant disciplinary problems, which we can talk about in the q&a if you wish. washington is able to convince congress to give him more authority in shaping the leadership in the continental army. it's going to be formed in 1777. enlistments for 1777 are now going to be for three years or for the duration of the war. and the articles of war the military law of the continental army is going to be rewritten to mirror the british with more capital crimes and lash limits will be raised to a hundred. now that's that's not as bad as the british but it's still going to be significantly higher. what he's not going to be able to do he's not going to get to choose his officers congress will retain that power and the regiments are going to be remain aligned by their states. and so this is when we get the formation of state lines and you you may have heard of these massachusetts line to pennsylvania state line. right so what does the composition of the army look like under this new rule that you have to enlist for three years of the duration of the war? you know given what we've learned which state on average. do you think supply the most soldiers in the continental arm? all right seems to be a close run run between massachusetts and pennsylvania. that would actually make sense, right? okay, then let me show you what we look like by 1780. okay. so for the vast majority of the war if not for the entirety of the war. it is massachusetts by far that is the state that provides the most soldiers throughout the war you can see in 1778 1779 1780. not only is massachusetts the largest provider of soldiers. in the war but between massachusetts, connecticut and new england fully two-thirds of the continental army is from new england. now, why does this matter? so for that while the second establishment of the continental army will be overly represent all of the new states the majority come from new england and these soldiers particularly in the massachusetts line will continue to retain much of their ability to negotiate who will lead them and how they are and how as they are all voluntarily enlisted into their regiments. there is no draft in, massachusetts. and they're going to be able to voluntarily enlist in the regiments of their choosing now connecticut will do something a little different. they're not going to draft their soldiers. they're going to do something called classic which is a method that places more social pressure on the young men of towns to enlist rather than have their older brothers fathers or even grandfathers have to enlist when when that when they're quotas are called. but they usually get a pretty sizable financial inducement to make that decision. now in virginia, they there will be a draft they will be forced to draft men and those men will often times resist and usually that meant that most of them were placed into service for little as eight months. now, what does this mean for leadership? so during this period of time of 77 78 79 80 officers who remain in service often climb the ranks by gaining experience in leading. but they do not necessarily gain any real rank in society, right all of their all of their gains are within the continental army. and their positions increasingly become ones of merit divorced from enlistment because they're not going back home and enlisting men. soldiers especially a strong core who enlisted for three years or the duration lose the ability to influence leadership through enlistments, but they become attached to their officers who lead them. well while becoming increasingly influenced by the ideology of the revolution the washington famously is constantly invoking the ideology of the revolution to get his soldiers to continue to fight despite the odds. so we've seen what recruiting has done right? it's created a the majority new england army though. it's influenced by participation from maryland, delaware, pennsylvania, virginia and other areas, and we've seen that the officers and the men are having some similar experiences, but then also some very different experiences. so how were these soldiers led well one one way that they could be led is through the use of disciplinary action right through coercion. so, let's take a look at how discipline played out in the continental or as i've said before in the first 18 months authority to use coercion to enforce discipline is is incredibly limited. which besides these small lash limits most of the crimes were punished really through fines imprisonment or dismissal from the army but starting at the end of 1776 authority to enforce discipline using coercion is strengthened. and these last limits being raised to 100 and more capital crimes being included is a part of that program now here. are four capital crimes. these are four crimes. they could have led to you being executed take a moment to decide in what order you think they should be placed depending on how often you think they occurred or they were adjudicated. this will take a minute or two. but as you work through this you'll see a little scrolling area for you to answer for each one and just place them in the order. okay, it seemed to have a fight for second between desertion to the enemy and theft that's gone down to four. exertion is remaining number one. you feel like i'm watching a very slow horse race here. see who's going to win. all right. desertion to the enemy is strongly becoming second now. all right. i think everybody did pretty well here to start with you're absolutely correct desertion would be the number one crime theft actually was second and then desertion to the enemy and then mutiny now, let me go ahead and show you some numbers here that i think you might find interesting. all right, so the blue bar. is the number of quartz marshall that were held for each of these capital crimes? and so you will see that by far desertion is the number one capital crime that has tried throughout the war with over 800 and in fact desertion will be the number one crime period across all 3,265 ports marshal that we know of right now that were held in the army. theft is number two. deserting the enemy and their mutiny but the orange bar is the one that's interesting because that is the number of those cases that resulted in a death penalty. and then next to it the silver bar is the number of those cases which were pardoned. fully a third of those capital crimes that resulted in a penalty of death were commuted. and something else to notice look at how few soldiers were actually executed for desertion compared to the number of soldiers that were accused of it. and then take a look at desertion to the enemy and you'll see that they relationship the ratio is much different. but remember that desertion is one thing but desertion when combined with trees in is something completely different. right so officers appear reluctant to enforce the law to its fullest extent for several reasons including the fact that at times they agreed with their certain their soldiers grievances if you really think about desertion and mutiny, those are reactions those are forms of resistance, right soldiers are either deserting or mutiny because they believe they're not being treated fairly not because they want to overturn the revolution. right and in fact in some cases the officers agreed with their soldiers and were flummoxed about what to do take the case of general john stark who had 1778 while he's on the northern frontier writes to washington and says my officers are my soldiers are threatening to mutiny, but they haven't been paid. they haven't been fed and i can't clothe them. so, how can i blame them? right furthermore soldiers would sometimes show their anger at what they viewed as officer overreach in regards to coercion take the example of a case of a cavalry soldier who was hanged for desertion in front of his regiment. but then after he died the officer and the hangman attempted to take his boots from his dead body something that they were allowed to do the hangman was allowed to keep him, but the soldiers were so upset and what they saw that they began helping the two with stones and drove them away from the body insisting that this soldier be treated with respect. now one last little question here about discipline take a look at this desertion was a very serious problem for the continental army rate your agreement with that statement. okay, it seems that for the most part we agree. right almost strongly agree. that desertion was a problem a serious problem for the continental army. but let me show you this. now the blue bar are the number of men in each of the state lines many of whom we've talked about tonight that were enrolled on the muster for those datelines in morristown during a very terrible terrible winter of 79 and 80. and the orange bar are the number of those soldiers that are listed as having deserted. the silver bar are those who are gone, but they're gone because they're sick. in fact desertion was not as big of a problem as we would think. the soldiers for the most part stayed despite the fact that they weren't being paid despite the fact that they couldn't get enough food despite the fact that they weren't being clothed and while unit cohesion and attachment to their other fellow soldiers is certainly important remember that if you desert you're not just deserting your unit. you're deserting your buddies. i think it's also important that we recognize the strength of good leadership here by those officers in the face of starvation and exposure. right. so so it appears that coercion was not the way to go here during the continental army. if we think back now, let's take a look at training. so if we think back to the events prior to valley forge, it's easy to see why washington actually, does it focus on training and instead he focuses much more on discipline and coercion for a few years, right? he's surrounding boston until march of 1776. he's fighting in, new york, new jersey, pennsylvania through the winter of 1777. and so valley forge is his first opportunity to really focus on train. and the result of that focus what is known as the blue book or the regulations for the order and discipline of troops of the united states established a standard for the manual of arms for the evolutions and for other actions taken by the army on campaign and what you're looking at here is a fold-out from the book from the regulations that shows what a good encampment should look like now the soldiers called this the prussian drill in honor of its author the baron von steuben and historians tend to focus on this part of the regulations. this is the majority of it. that i'm most fascinated by the last 14 pages. because the last 14 pages are the description of what good leadership looks like at every rank starting with the regimental commander instructions are laid out for every position. here you see a quote for the regimental commander and i'll read it to you very quickly. it says there's no fatigue the soldiers go through that. the officers should not share and on all occasions. they should set them the example of patients and perseverance. or take this one for the company commander who's first object should be to gain the love of his men by treating them with kindness in humanity inquiring into their complaints and seeing them redressed. and it goes on it goes for lieutenants it goes for the first sergeant for the non-commissioned office officers and it even tells the private soldier what he should do in all cases the autonomy and well-being of the private soldiers paramount. even the non-commissioned officers are taught to instill discipline through mentorship. not through force. and along with this manual washington and his officers begin to demand that all the leaders in the army lead by example recognizing that their rank will not suffice at one point washington tells his officers that they should carry their packs while on campaign not put them on wagons and colonel walter stewart from pennsylvania forces his company commanders to go to the hospital to see their six soldiers something these captains do not want to do because the soldiers are sick largely with smallpox. so what we're seeing here by 1778. is a new agreement that officers will have to gain their soldiers willingness to follow they cannot and will not be forced to do so. but what if what if this is not enough? right. so now what you're looking at again is a blow up of some graphs that you've seen before and these are the numbers of soldiers and what you should notice is the huge drop off in numbers for almost every every state line except for connecticut in 1781. and why is that that's because there are three year enlistments are up. and now the soldiers get a chance to vote with their feet with their willingness to reenlist and largely most of them want to go home. and in fact by may of 1780 a mutiny has already started to brew after that terrible winter that we just talked about in the connecticut line. and the connecticut line two regiments begin to mutiny and it threatens to drag for connecticut regiments and four pennsylvania regiments into the mutiny against their officers. now that the connecticut regiment that starts it is the eight. but while they say that they're talking about starvation and they're talking about lack of of warmth and pay clothing and pay. really their problem is their lack of leadership in the in the regiment. in the eighth, connecticut all three of their main field grade officers had been replaced over the last three years and they were now being commanded by an officer by a colonel who came from outside of the regiment who didn't know them and they didn't know and when they were asked by colonel walter stewart why they had why they had mutiny. they said because our officers don't care about us. and when walter stewart promised to take their grievances to their leadership, they all went back to their bears because in fact mutiny in the continental army unlike in the navy is really a labor strike their causes are always a result of perceived failures of congress to fulfill their contractual obligations in terms of pay food and clothing, but it's and it and they temporarily remove officer authority to show how upset they are. now this should have been a warning to the rest of the army because in january of 1781 both the pennsylvania state line and then the new jersey state line mutiny as well. these are much more famous mutinies that occur. and in fact when it happens washington is forced. to execute the leaders of the new jersey line using new jersey soldiers. an officers often or sorry historians often look at these mutinies and try to figure out okay. what happened? well they should have been asking what didn't happen. what didn't happen. was that the massachusetts state line did not mutiny in fact, the massachusetts state line had the same problems, but unlike in pennsylvania in the pennsylvania state line where their assembly had failed to tell them that they're paying was being rectified. it just hadn't happened yet or in the new jersey state line where they were going from three regiments down to one and the non-commissioned officers were upset that they were losing their favorite commanders. in the massachusetts line general william heath and colonel rufus putnam chief among the officers went to the general court of massachusetts and said we have a problem. and you need to come talk to these soldiers or they're not going to reenlist and in fact, the general court came out. spoke to everyone and then made the decision to rectify some of their arrears in pay to give them more blankets more food and they passed a law to take care of their families that forced the towns to actually provide food for the women and children that were in the towns that had been left behind so i would argue that in fact these mutinies were not inevitable they could have been avoided or at least they may not have gotten as large as they did. if only those other two state lines have been led in such a way as a soldiers believe that they were still being carried. okay, so i'm about to go over. so i just want to say in conclusion that in terms of leadership. everybody was changed by their experience over those eight years of war for independence washington never received or was able to create the army that he said out to lead. his officers were never the gentleman officers. he wanted separated by a class class consciousness that gave them a sense that they ought to lead by virtue of their rank. nor did the colonial new england tradition prevail? starting in 1777 soldiers lost their ability to choose their officers by virtue of enlistment and they were forced to accept harsher punishments. should they resist actions they would view as unfair or as violations of their enlistment contracts, but still there autonomy is individuals. with rights was recognized and they insisted that says that this was so and the officers agree. and the result of that was a negotiated form of leadership. that was uniquely american the permaniated most of the army across all the state lines, and i think laid the foundation for the way the us army is led today. so that concludes my my talk. i hope everybody enjoyed that and scott. i'll turn it back to you. sure. well happy that happy to the screen with you. sean i think we're together now virtually together. okay, that's fantastic. yeah, so we'll probably take about 15 minutes or so and get to a couple questions. thanks to those of you who threw some questions in i'm gonna use my prerogative as the person in front of the camera to actually ask the first one just because of the slide that you ended on of course is trumbull's painting showing washington resigning his commission to congress in december of 1783. and you know one of the most i think poignant moments in our washington war tent film here at the museum comes toward the end of the film where we're reflecting on that moment of 17. three the end of the revolution the end of the revolutionary war and we we remind our viewers of an incredible letter that washington writes. to the new york provincial council in 1775. so as he's as he's marching to take command at boston but is not arrived there yet missing out on bunker hill as you pointed out but when the provincial council congratulates him on his appointment, but also there's this, you know paraphrase their language, but basically reminds washington that once their liberties are restored. they're hoping that he will return. back to his status as a civilian echoing a little bit of concern from their reading of history, of course, and of course washington's great reply and that great line when we took up the soldier. we did not lay aside the citizen. and i'm just curious of course this this this is a subject very much in our minds as americans right now as we await the results of the election and what's going to happen in january and that that american tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, but my question is actually what element what element do you think the sort of what role did officers play in trying to educate and convey and reinforce the ideology of the american revolution because you know, obviously if you're a british soldier, it was pretty clear where the lines of authority went and when you were saluting something what you were saluting and where you fit in to that great chain of being but they're kind of making up something new here and trying to do it in the midst of you know, this great invasion. so i'm just curious. what role that played in this this sort of evolution of military leadership? well scott, that was a great question. so it it really depended on the officer so for for washington, for example, washington's general orders or replete with the rhetoric of the revolution even as he says that he's going to shoot somebody for cowardice if they retreat right his during his general orders before the battle of long island. he he talks about how important it is that the soldier stand up for liberty with a capital l that they understand that they're defending not only their rights, but the rights of their countrymen that um, you know that they have to do everything they can to not fall into slavery under the tyranny of the british and then in the same breath he says, but if you do run away you will be shot and so, you know, i mean so but washington continues this rhetoric throughout and those general orders were red they had to be read daily. so if you were with him you were getting a large dose of this. if you go to to a even to very junior level go to a captain so joseph bloomfield who becomes the staff judge advocate of the army, right? he when he's a captain. he's under-reliance dayton in the new jersey line and he is very much imbued with this belief in revolutionary rhetoric and he is using it to lead his soldiers. he has this wonderful memoir of his time up in out west and he talks about it at one point. he's in control not only of his own company but of another provincial kind of state company that has come in and he's trying to figure out how he's gonna lead these guys and he he doesn't want to punish them. he threatens to to whip to lash men, but then he doesn't do it. he pulls back he talks to them about what the revolution is all about. he one of the soldiers dies and they they all look the man all love him because he holds this funeral for this soldier as if the soldier was as important as an officer. he's doing all this stuff to show that that they're equal in so many ways and then, you know, then you have officers that are is interested in being that way, but then you read soldiers diaries and they don't like those officers. it's very clear joseph one. martin's not a big fan of his company command, you know, so i mean it it varies. yeah, fabulous. well from the head, i guess let's go to the physicality. we have a great question from actually a new revolution society member mark schutzman. thanks mark for being a revolution society member and he asks he observes, you know a lot has been made of washington's physical stature and presence as a key quality of his leadership. this has been probably so commonly referred to from all his biographers actually a recent biography for alexis cove has has dubbed of these historians who've written this the thigh man of dad history. um, and and, you know called into question. you know, what it what's the significance of that kind of physicality? in as an element in washington's leadership, and i'm curious. what's your what's your take on the thigh men? well, i think they may have you know, they probably focused on parts of the documents that i didn't know. so so while i was interested in what washington had to say i had to be right and what it was that he wanted to do. i was much more interested in how junior officers were leading at the regimental level and how the soldiers viewed those officers because those are the ones that they were in contact with most most of the time the when you read the soldiers memoirs, i mean, they'll say they saw washington they'll talk about, you know, maybe a time where they they saw washington walk by and they felt the sense of all at the fact that he did so but most of the time i was really focusing on you know, what did joseph paul martin think about his company commander or what? did you know? what agreement think about being in the regiment and when he had to stand out in the cold stamping his feet and convinced one officer to give him some rum so he wouldn't keep the general away. correct. i mean these were the things that i was that i was focused feeling so i'll probably have to do some more study. yeah. no, i'm curious because of course, you know, washington famously in his orders right before the march into valley forge, you know promises that he'll share in the hardships and partake of every inconvenience. um, and i i'm just curious if you saw that sort of resonating in of course, you read martin and one of the things that always strikes me about just about martin is how not present officers are in the sort of you know most of his anecdotes and descriptions of service. i just was curious, you know does a does a when we go back to the word if there was a word cloud of 1781. let's say, you know from the rank and file. would would endurance hardiness, you know sharing in those hardships, you know, do you think those what that would have popped up? well, absolutely. no, i i know that would have popped up because because you can you can see it when they complain, you know, most of time when they complain they complain because they slept out in the rain while their officers left under a roof. or they believe that their officers are getting to eat when they're not getting a chance to eat if you read one of the things that may benedict arnold so popular when he went through maine to get to quebec was that he did what they thought he should do which was take the rations divide them evenly and then let everybody pick who was gonna get what right and so so yes, i mean, sometimes it's hard because you're looking for you know something that maybe isn't there they're not going to mention something they take for granted, but you definitely can tell particularly in the negative, you know, and soldiers like to complain, you know, when i was a private in the airborne infantry, give me a steak. i'd probably complain about how it was cooked. you know, so um so finding the complaints often was the easier way to go about it and then finding the officers that could sue those complaints or get the office or get these soldiers to do what they needed to do. despite the harsh harshness of of their experience. so we've had a couple of people william forrester. um, i saw someone else pop a question in related to was john gibralski both sort of asking about what washington's relationship with like the british military style, you know, the question of did was there something about british leadership that led to loss in the revolutionary war or to what was sort of washington's john asks, you know, just washington. anyway, try to lead differently from what the british did knowing. what he did about british ways having served in the french and indian war, you know to what degree is the influenced, you know to emulate versus to diverge from i guess would be of course and then does that do you see that as playing a role in the military outcome of what conflict? well, i think it i think it plays a role. i'll answer the last part first. i think it plays a role in that. um washington's development of how to lead these american soldiers means that the army doesn't dissipate in the face of a defunct currency a defunct supply system or nice distance supply system. really the most part despite the hard work of many of those men including green to fix it. um, and and despite any, you know, real support from the civilians that in the areas that they're at because there's so much tension when they're there taking food from people that live there and and all that. so there's a lot of tension um, i don't think that the british were bad leaders. i think the british leadership was leading the british army the way british soldiers expected to be led based on the society that they came from. what i see in washington is i see an evolution if you look at washington's demands in october of 1775 and then again in february 1776 where he's like, i've got to have these things i've got to be able to control my soldiers the way the british control it and then you go to 1782. right in 1783. we're now rather than demanding that he have more power more authority to coerce them into staying in the army until the british signed the peace treaty and they leave instead. he's put he's put them on a training regiment to keep them busy. he's going around and and saying how great they are and how good they look and yeah, i know you don't have hats but besides that you guys were looking fantastic and oh by the way, we're gonna create an award and those of you who have shown gallantry in the enlisted ranks. we're gonna we're gonna let you act like your officers, right? and for those of you who didn't get a chance to necessarily get get that we're going to recognize your loyalty and your service every three years. you're in the army notice every three years right you enlisted more than once every three years. we're gonna give you a service right and that's going to come with he's recognizing what they did. um, and so that's a very different washington in my mind. than the washington who arrived in boston in july of 1775. so is great. yeah. yeah, and actually just just to add to that for william the question about british leadership. what immediately springs to mind is andrew shaughnessy's the the men who lost america is really the book you want to read which really explores, uh, sort of a similar take on on the british military leadership and it's just absolutely, absolutely fabulous, and so are good friend chuck downs observes that washington really new details about locations far outside of virginia. and so he's curious about sort of what did officers know about the geography of different colonies. you know, how we're military operations shaped by was there kind of evolution over time in terms of you know, mastery of surveying and geography why i think there were enough men who had who were serving in senior levels in the continental army who had served in the seven years war. i think that's the first the first thing that's important to recognize right so they this is why i think the hudson river features so centrally to their strategic thoughts because that's what they knew. that's where they had fought they had fought up and down that river that water corridor between quebec and new york. and so they're very focused on it because that's what they know if you think about say for example colonel rufus putnam, he's a private in the early part of the seven years war and then he's just sergeant. he almost gets to be a lieutenant gets cheated out of that position, right? he's been up and down that area. that's why he gets to become the chief engineer. despite what he wants at the very beginning of the war of the revolution. so there's a lot of knowledge of that area up in there and then you have men like benedict arnold or some others who's who they're merchants. they they may be we're captains on ships. right one of the most storied regiments in the army is joseph glovers. marble headers, right and these these people know trade, but they also know the coastline they know the big cities. so yeah, there's a lot of knowledge there in that regard. usually, it's the french and the british who suffer from a lack of knowledge, you know particularly in the chesapeake without the pilots their navies have a very difficult time. so so yeah, there's there's quite a bit of knowledge in that regard. yeah, and i point to and i know you you knew the among his troops exhibition very well for those of you interested in the subject of geography and knowledge if you go to the website actually amrev museum.org scroll to the bottom. there's a you'll see right there very easily found some of the museums publications that includes a catalog of our exhibition among his troops washington's wartend in a newly discovered watercolor and that that beautiful hardbound catalog of the exhibition includes a lot of exploration of the department of the geographer the work that was done of surveying map making and includes two full size reproductions of the law font watercolors of west point and verplanx point. i'm i'm hoping i'll see a framed one of the west point behind you the next time you're here speaking with sean. there's a question from steven kyer who asks are were there any situations where an officer was executed for a crime in the country. this is an excellent question. yeah, so in fact the answer in the continental army is no now there was a british officer that was executed for espionage. that's john andre very famously major john andre who's executed for being a spy because when he met with benedict arnold to to sell the plans to west point, you know, october of 1880 he's caught by some militiamen from new york and he's not in his uniform and therefore he's hanged as a spot and washington of course does one benedict arnold's return to him he offers to trade john andre back to the british for benedict arnold and i believe benedict arnold would have been executed for what he did. um, but but no and in all of the court martials that i've seen officers were not subject to physical punishment. they were not you could not whip an officer. you could not, you know, you couldn't execute an officer unless it was a very high level of treason that had been perpetrated instead you dismissed them. you often get so within for me and the reason for that was because an officer was supposed to have honor that honor the loss of it was supposed to be worse than death and they would then publish in the local newspapers that this officer had been charged with infamy and that was going to then affect their social status for the rest of their lives. so no they they were not. um a follow-up question from chuck downs about von steuben, which i think is really a great question, um talking about how washington was initially so focused on punishment on enlistment terms kind of locking men in but notes that in the blue book in that section that you highlighted the relationships between the officers and they listed men seem to be more more generous. and does that do you think reflect a change in washington's sort of you know perspective is there is there m is there influence from von steuben that's showing here. yeah. i you know, i i admit that i need to do a little bit more study to understand on soybean better. um, but i will say that that i think it absolutely shows that washington is very least accepting. um that he needs to acknowledge the autonomy of the soldiers that are there and and that in order to keep them he needs to do this, you know the same time. the language is very 18th century. there's a lot of paternalism in the language right soldiers should be loved by or you should love their officers, right? they're all their officers should should treat them with kindness in humility almost as if their fathers of these young men that are serving right? there's there is some of that but not to the extent that you would expect to see from say a prussian officer, but of course, we know that von steuben's past is a little clouded to some degree, right? i mean, we're not i'm not positive of all of what he did before. he he joined the continental army and like i said, i need to learn more there. um, yes, i think that's washington absolutely saying, hey look we we need to recognize that these soldiers have to be led through training and through trust much more so than they do through coercion. so another question, um, this comes from stanley weinstein is interest in the different types of conflict, of course, it's very striking. there's you know set piece open field battles. there's irregular warfare. he's interested in what the most important characteristic leader might if it might vary depending upon the type of you know, perhaps the type of unit whether it's light infantry or you know, regular infantry and and the sort of type of conflict that was taking place. yeah. i i think that's absolutely possible, you know again as i define leadership, right? it's a negotiation of authority about how decisions are made and then how they're enacted um, and those decisions change with missions, right and with types of units, um, and with the types of cultures that they've come from or perhaps the type of culture that they you're creating because of what that unit does right so if if you're dealing a group of soldiers dealing with low intensity conflict versus more conventional warfare. does that then change how you need to address them? how you need to make those decisions what your relationship is with them? sure. i think it does but at the at the base at the foundation of it, i think that that foundation is determined more by the society that created that army the society that created those officers and those soldiers and how they view one another in general is just people that that largely determines how those negotiations fantastic. yeah, well, maybe i'll throw a final question in here. i want to keep keep us at least close to our promised runtime here. so i'd love to bring it sort of back to the classroom and your work with the cadets and the the young men and women who you know soon after they leave you will be leading other men and women in dangerous situations, and you just have some reflections on how how the cadets, you know, sort of think about you know feel connected to this tradition as you're teaching about the revolution. you have an incredible classroom, of course that i think you had mentioned you can walk down to a revolutionary war fortifications, you know for a little classroom stroll and open air covid-19 free learning. so anything you just like say about that sort of connection between past present and future would you so, you know the mission at the academy is you know that that we educate training inspire leaders of character for service to the nation? and and that mission statement is itself very much a product of the american the development of the american military the american army over the last almost 250 years and so having a conversation with cadets about where all that started and and how we think about where where that started in what legacy that left moving forward into the conflicts of the 19th century and then into the 20th century is a real privilege for me we at the academy now have every every plea every freshman their first semester here. they take a course on the history of the american army and they start with the continental army and the america revolution. we don't have time to go all the way back to the columbia tradition. we start with the american revolution in the continental army and they they talk about leadership. they talk about what it means to be a good officer. they talk about what it means to be a good strategist and tactician and all all of that and it all starts there. and so it's a real privilege to study the kind of history that i study and then get the opportunity to talk to these amazing young men and women about the profession that they're entering into and the very important legacy that is given to them that starts in in june of 1775. fantastic. well lieutenant colonel shutting in peace kelly. we are grateful to you for your service on this particularly on this veteran's day week. this was just a wonderful talk our first interactive read the revolution lecture, by the way, i absolutely loved it. this is a tool that we are definitely going to look into using for our virtual field trips. for instance. i can or i can already see our educators getting really excited about using everybody else enjoyed it. it's absolutely also works on in live live lectures. i've used it with cadets where i had 1200 of them in an auditory actually. oh, fantastic. well all of you who are with us tonight, you're gonna get you'll have a little survey monkey that will pop up to give us some feedback on the program tonight. please give us that feedback. that's how that's how we get better check out upcoming events future read the revolution programs. we will send you all a recording of this evening's program that you can share widely. so that will be coming down the line, please. enjoy veterans day weekend. be safe out there and we look forward to seeing you all again very soon. thanks, sean. thank you thank you hannah. thanks everybody at the museum. in washington dc ruthless fanatic violence erupted in the halls of congress three men and a woman believed to be members of the puerto rican nationalist gang that in november 1950 attempted the assassination of president truman opened fire from the visitor's gallery. the house of representatives i have congressman were hit ben f jensen of iowa clifford davis of tennessee kenneth roberts of alabama george h. felon of maryland and albert bentley of michigan who was seriously injured. observers noted the attack came as the enter american conference opened in venezuela. and it suggested the motive may have been to arouse anti united states feeling and latin america through an act of apparently blind violence carefully calculated to inflame relations with her neighbors. estimates of the numbers of shots fired range from 15 to 30 and each bullet hole found as a grim reminder to those who were present of the terrible surprise attack. the gang seized by a shark bystanders as they entered their guns was held at police headquarters as a widespread search was launched for others. who shared in the plot to irving forests raphael miranda, mrs. lolita lebron andre cordero the gunwilders and to their accomplices goes the evil distinction of having perpetrated a criminal outrage almost unique in america's history. what and violence that shocked and stirred the nation? weeknights this month. we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3 monday night an american history tv real america series richard m. nixon. the new president is a 1968 film produced for international audiences by the us information agency. focusing primarily on president-elect nixon's life story and released prior to his inauguration. the film was distributed in many languages overseas, but by law could not be shown in the united states for at least 12 years. it's now part of the national archives motion picture collections. watch monday beginning at 8pm eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. you're watching american history tv every weekend on c-span 3 explore our nation's past american history tv on c-span 3 created by america's cable television companies and today we're brought to you by these television companies who provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. next on the presidency paul sparrow looks at the personal and political partnership between franklin and eleanor roosevelt that captivated the nation and transformed how the federal government interacted with the american public. mr. sparrow director of the franklin d roosevelt presidential library and museum in hyde park, new york shares roosevelt home movies that give a behind-the-scenes look at the couple the national archives foundation provided the video then in about an hour we hear from historian betty boyd caroli who talks about the nation's first ladies. our featured speaker. today is paul sparrow. paul wouldn't have a job today and frankly neither would i if it wasn't for franklin roosevelt who created the national archives by signing legislation in 1934. he subsequently opened up his presidential library while he was still in office. this is a feat that is not matched today by our current presidents paul is the director of the franklin roosevelt