[inaudible conversations] good evening, everyone. Thank you all for being here. Im the president of mount vernon we are delighted for this installment and i begin by thanking the Ford Motor Company for their partnership. Theyve done a great job including this book talk. Im pleasei am pleased to welcor nathaniel. Its his third time. Whenever i do that im struck by the true renaissance man. They have an m. A. Where he was a fellow and an all american sailor asailor at the universite worked as an editor and several books including the passionate sailor, second when and if the parody. He is the author of mayflower as well as the book many of you know won the National Book award for fiction in 2010 if one a New York Times best seller and its been adapted into a tv series and is being adapted in the experience film posters last stand. The good news this evening is the moment in the american revolution. And in the revolution that he spoke about they won the 2013 new england book award for nonfiction and the distinguished book award in the society and my former employer that ben affleck may direct, not saying he will stawellbut stay tuned on that. He has written for vanity fair, the New York Times book review, the wall street journal, the la times and the boston globe. Hes appeared on the today show, dateline, pbs american experience, cspan. We are here this evening to film the lecture. Like another great historian, Nathaniel Philbrick is from pittsburgh and he credits his u. S. History teacher for recognizing his nascent talent and encouraging him to write. So, part of the reason we welcome here this evening to discuss the latest book which was released today and copies are available for signing after the lecture, joined washington, Benedict Arnold and the revolution so join me in welcoming nathaniel. [applause] thank you. Its great to be here in mount vernon. This is such a special place if you are researching and writing and a little sidebar. This explains the parody. To be here in mount vernon after writing this book it begins with a huge armada of british warships and transports to arise in the new york harbor more than 400 ships and 40,000 sailors and soldiers thats more in philadelphia its the largest urban center and its an amazing force that arrives at your doorstep. Washington had been there at the siege of boston which i write about in my earlier book but this is different. Washington never led the big battle he would test his talent and it was after finishing bunker hill. I was so fascinated with washington and he is not a statue he was in his 40s, red hair and a careful pragmatist. He was wired to be aggressive in boston. Time and time again the council of the war would say its too risky. He wanted that bold stroke to try to finish the war because he realized this was america was hardly a country at all. It is now supposedly independent but it was being held together. They didnt have enough armaments or gun power or all these things and now its completely different, hes up against it and it wouldnt go well for him in new york. He would be forced to retreat from the high ground in brooklyn across the east river to new york and eventually forced to retreat into the harlem heights. This gave the british a hold on the base of the hudson river. My book is set on the water because of the hudson river it was part of what i called a quarter of water. If you took the hudson river to the south end of the river expands the Lake Champlain within 300 miles to the north you had a quarter of water that went all the way to canada. We drive around with the multilane highway and see the fort positioned and wonder what is the strategic importance . You cannot transport people from the provisions of any kind of speed or regularity unless it is by water. It would cost new england from the rest of the state so absolutely critical that america can maintain some control of this or the war would be over. The british had to hold o a hols quarter of water. Then the evacuating from new york there was one group of soldiers that stood between the british and the taking of Lake Champlain to the north and that was Benedict Arnold. My interest goes way back and began with my mother when i was growing up in the 60s my mother was a renegade and smoked a pipe as a teenager it was tough in a restaurant when mom would light up after dinner. [laughter] even if she knew they didnt want to hear it and one of her heroes was Benedict Arnold. Now i kind of dismissed that in my teenage years afte but after finishing bunker hill i realized i wanted to get at a part of the war of independence that i knew relatively little about. I write books not because im an expert because i do. But because i do. But the subject. I knew there was a story that i havent really learned in high school. My u. S. History teacher was a wonderful woman and ignited my interest. We grew up thinking of the revolution as banding together to defeat british tyranny and we think of the battles of stepping stones to the inevitable victory at yorktown. The fact of the matter is the revolution went on for eight long years. Instead of this seemingly relentless course to victory if stagnateitstagnated after the fm into it if things wound down. Congress was highly suspicious of the military because in every previous revolution in which the republic was the end result they coopted the government and the dictator or the empero emperor d take over and they were rightly concerned about the militaries of the Continental Congress was controlled over washington and i think that we think of him as being the one who is controlling this but in fact he had to return to congress and i hate to say that the Dysfunctional Congress is nothing new and washington had to deal with this. So, one of the things that happened was instead of fighting the british, we began to fight among ourselves. In the Hudson River Valley to the north of the british occupied new york, the Long Island Sound and coastal new jersey, it evolved into this fight. The former neighbor going after neighbor. And it just was something that was horrible to live through and afterwards, people didnt want to remember it in those terms. So i wanted to get at this but how to find a way to dramatize it or find the personality to get at what i felt was the dark side of the revolution that i hadnt appreciated it was Benedict Arnold because i grew up thinking too because Benedict Arnold, my gosh that was the worst possible thing you could be. Like many figures come hes become a caricature. Just the worst thing on earth that the fact of the matter is he was our best general. And washington respected in for this. He had an aggressive temperament but in Benedict Arnold i think that he sold a kindre hes botht to a certain extent. It was crushing the responsibility of command. He could have been on the battlefield winning the kind of the victories Benedict Arnold was cracking up. He has been a merchant man that has a small fleet of ships up the coast to the st. Lawrence river in quebec and montreal. He said that we need to go to the southern end of Lake Champlain. Its the key to maintaining control so it turns out washington assigns him while washington is in the ninemonth siege he sends Benedict Arnold on a crazy overland expedition to try to get to quebec because the british had been unaware they had very small forces and montreal and quebec. If we can take the two cities early before the reinforcements arrived we would be in a much better position. Answer, montgomery is set up and takes montreal. They are up the river, not down. Its getting very cold. The river is a virtual tour current and up north there is nothing up there if there is a street named. Its an inevitable story on its own. The amazing feat would be known which he was a hero and he would storm quebec and by that point he would be killed in the early going and Benedict Arnold would be badly injured when a bullet ricocheted off his left leg and it wouldnt succeed, but its still an amazing feat. He would eventually be reassigned in montreal and be a vital element in leaving the retreat from canada back to Lake Champlain. Chapter two takes us 360 miles east of new york to Lake Champlain to the Canadian Border where its Benedict Arnold with a fleet of about 50 vessels, many of them surrounding the southern end of Lake Champlain, galleys and gondolas psr platforms and he is put this together in record time in charge of the Northern Army at fort ticonderoga, and the british now have new york and there is the british general down the Lake Champlain that have three ships and thousands of soldiers they have more than 20 gunboats and if they ar theyl headed in that direction. Its so cool that they can see snow in the mountains. They are up there all alone did he goes back and forth 100 miles down the Lake Champlain its their only connection to fort ticonderoga. He knows it is going to be a northern sea breeze down Lake Champlain. He comes up with a brilliant plan and i didnt know Benedict Arnold was a mariner. This was a wonderful surprise to me and what made it even more special is guess where i learned how to sail, Lake Champlain. [laughter] and little did i know i was on the other side of the lake. It contained a little area inside and. Its inside the bay to push back and say here we are. The british would then have to sail against to attack the small fleet. The british ship is an Awesome Force of camp sail against the wind. It would work beautifully with the huge armada they would sail down and turn around saying we got him. We are between him and his escape route with the mosquito fleet. What would unfold is just a tremendous sea battle. Arnold lined up his vessels across the entrance. I was with my wife circling it in with the museum of history they have one of the vessels in philadelphia you can go down and see it is amazing. It was all filed out and so they were all lined up in the center of the line and they waited for them and sure enough, even the scooters have a hard time making it up and they could get close enough so they would line u up d they would just start wailing on one another. He then took a shot at the general carltons flagship. It was eight hours of going at it individually night would come and he fought them to a draw. His fleet was a mess. Many died but it was a miracle. They would create the line bel below. They have a counsel with his officers and the only way is to go around the top. Arnold had a charisma to him and thathat is both inspiring and infuriating. We are going to sneak through them with enough of a gap so if we go one after another we are going to get through. They would go by with a light in the stern that could only be seen from behind. One after another they went out. Carlton awoke the next morning with faulk on the lake and it took a while to find out there was no american fleet. Lets go after him without telling everyone he i hes leavg and had to come back. If theyd switched t they had se south against the wind it became a battle chasing him to get the fleet back to ticonderoga. Its not always reliable so the fleet was completely calm as the [wind blowing] comes down and the british are coming after him so that great big british ship and the two schooners were leading the way. He basically says keep on going. Although he tried to make one more stand at a place thats known but his fleet sort of evaporated around and so he decided to make it kind of sta stand. So there is arnold surrounded by the three british vessels fighting for hours. He knows this is it and the wind changes to the east. They make it to shore and pull the vessels up onto the galley. He orders his men are found and they refuse to wear the flag. He orders them to blow up ships because theres gunpowder. Hes done the order. The british are approaching. He notices one has been left and they insist everybody gets off and it blows up. Its interesting the only account we had was from a british surgeon who saw a body fly in the air. This was years later an account with the sound written by a vermonter that lived in the house right on that code. When he was looking for a penchant he gave an account of what he saw and when he found out one of his men had been killed, he threatened to run through the officer that have been responsible for getting them off an and they didnt leae until they. The soldier and then they escaped down to fort ticondero ticonderoga. They came in at 4 a. M. And write to general schuyler was th who e head of the Northern Army. No one has had more escapes so here we are. My book begins with washington at the lowest stage. Hes destined to be the one person that can hold this country together and he is at his loveliest. Hes destined to become the man that attempts to tear the country apart and he is a true hero. You could argue that through this action, by the way the british after all this its like they were hit by a tornado. What happened after although this . They made their way to fort ticonderoga and realized its getting late and they decide we are not going to do it this year we will wait on for next year and that would set up a year later and it was arnold got achieved if so thats where the book begins. And i followed them through this. The next we see washingtons great comeback. Its just an amazing feat that there is another side to it. This book is about loyalty and betrayal and patriotism. These are the issues people were wrestling with. How much does your country over you and how much do you own your country . Washington going into crossing the delaware would be that magnificent turn around. Hed lost three quarters of his army. This was a desperate gamble, and whats amazing to me is how many of his officers he couldnt depend on. He comes down from fort ticonderoga and washington expects dates to help them out here from fort ticonderoga but he explains that he is ill and cant help. He needs to go to philadelphia. By this time knocking on the door of the Continental Congress has led to baltimore. Somehow he decides he is ill but that doesnt go all the way to baltimore or congress. Its clear to washington that if this expedition into new jersey doesnt go well, he will be perfectly poised to be the next one in line and even before this in november his general whos been at his side throughout the battle of long island and was therefore part of the siege of boston he has begun to lose confidence in him and washington learns this when he opens the letter from charles lee. Basically the second highest command ranking officer in the American Army who is now on the american side and washington can see that the general has reached out to charles lee so that if this doesnt go well with you should do is reform a new army. He is talking at this lowest moment to someone else about washingtons inability to make up his mind. He reads this letter and what i think for me is the first indication of his incredible political skills because he was okay on the battlefield but it was as a position where his aggression and his cold ruthlessness could come to the floor he would send it saying this was addressed to you and i open all correspondence to you but i realize this is a different nature and thats all he says. [laughter] keenly than in the emptiness and he knows that he is angered and thats the thing about washington. He could control his passions but that doesnt mean he was not passionate. He copied the more than 100 rules of civility as an disorder contain himself. He maintained an ascendancy over those passions and they were still there. Thats why washington was able to hang out there for so long. He doesnt confront him directly if he becomes despondent instead of becoming a team player washington is coming up with this plan for trenton and there are several accounts hes talking about how the cause is pretty much lost. Even according to the one account if he should hear the trenton didnt go very well, so all of this is happening around washington by the way, charles lee, the secondhighest ranking officesecond highest rankingofft this time by the british and so there we are. Washington pulls it off and do you think that congress would be ecstatic. But you see people like john adams, particularly the congressman from new england who are the one that are the real radicals that push for the revolution and are very fearful of the military coopting this revolution. He talks about the dangers of one man becoming, taking on the status so they are concerned about washington and one of the things that they decide to do is you think that washington as military commander would be able to choose his Major General that he depends the most. Not so. Remember this is a republic. Washington understood this and with respect to this throughout the revolution even though its driving him crazy. And this is an incredible patience he has said they decided each state should have two Major Generals. Connecticut where Benedict Arnold has become already has to Major Generals so this means the officers ranking below are elevated past him where the highest ranking general who is just achieved a miracle on Lake Champlain is overlooked for promotion. People would see that he is fair skinned but this is outrageous and it horrified washington. The letter he would write about this initially i heard this is the situation. I cant believe its true but if it is i will do everything for you that i can. He would try but this began the problem with the Continental Congress and he had a point. Others, for example john stark from New Hampshire you know what he did come he quit and went to New Hampshire and would raise his own state army. Arnold could have done the math but he hung in there and in typical Fashion Companies and new haven kind of upset by all this. Hes now 30 and met a 16yearold girl in boston. Hes written the most purple letter youve ever read and turned him down flat. Its not looking good and he hears that a governor at british occupied in new york is leading the raid on danbury connecticut its like the raid on concorde will start the revolution so they go where west point is today and offload a huge amount of stores. Arnold hears about this, goes on his horse and by the time the british are leaving them dan barry, they are in connecticut where they know the british have to go through. Hes created a click on one side and farmhouse on the other. They have created a barricade and they are there so the british come out to them to hold their ground and retreat. Hes riding his horse up and down the line as the british are approaching but they have no appetite for a talking head on. His first dictate by nine musket balls and finally the force is killed and it collapses on top of arnold is pinned to the ground as the british are approaching leading the way i as he noted the playlist with the bayonet extended. He says you are a prisoner. He takes the pistol out of the saddle and shoots and says not yet. Hes able to extricate himself and vanishes into the nearby swamp. Thats arnold. The next day he would do it again. When the word reached the congress that arnold had just done this they begin to think maybe we should have made arnold the Major General. [laughter] it did wrangle him but they did however give him a new horse which shows you politicians can somehow missed the mark. Arnold fought brilliantly and it would come to a crescendo in the saratoga where Horatio Gates who hadnt been his friend prior, they were friends as a rifle and a the battle i was kind of a misnomer. After the first, they basically fight the british to draw and inflict huge casualties to come down that water corridor and he ends up getting dismissed from the army. He sticks about the next battle although he has no official standing hes out there and according to some accounts he then leaves a dangerous charge towards the end of the battle in the line of fire through the enemies dont does the vendor to surrender hits him in the same lag as the one in quebec and the horses killed and collapses on top of him and Henry Dearborn who had been with him is that his side and says argue hurt are you hurt and he says ive bee been shot in te leg i wish it had gone through my heart. So that is the turning point. And i dont have time to go into too many details about that. You will have to read the book. [laughter] but thats begins his dissent. He would end up in philadelphia as a military governor. This is a horrible injury. This would just rob him and he would get into all sorts of trouble with none other than joseph reed was now the head of basically the state legislature who would pursue him in a virtual political witchhunt. While the british had previously occupied one of her was major john andre who became the head of the british spy network and the rest with the history when arnold decided it was time for him to turn over west point it wouldnt be successful. Eventually be joined by peggy and the british accepted him that he was a traitor and traders on either side are tainted and the irony of the story i would like to finish. I would like to read a paragraph or two from my epilogue. The irony of this is in the first year of the war they had done more than any other american. But they would be as a traitor where you could argue he served in the most important fashion because this was a galvanizing moment. Americans were forced to realize in 1780 by this Time Congress hardly had a pulse. The Continental Army was barely alive and the french ally in which was made possible had done nothing to win the war and it was all falling to pieces. It was a true wakeup call to the American People that this war was theirs to lose and i will finish the epilogue. The United States had been created through an act of disloyalty no matter how eloquently they had attempted to justify their rebellion. The residual guilt of the hovered over and arnold changed all that by threatening to destroy the newly created republic fracas on the trail. He gave the nation of traders the greatest of gifts in the creation. Of th the hero alone wasnt sufficient enough to bring them together. Now they had the despised villain and they knew what they were fighting for and against. They could finally move and start to focus on the process by which the colonies could become the nation. As arnold had demonstrated the real enemy wasnt Great Britain but they decided to cut their fellow citizens commitment to one another whether it was the willingness to promote the states interests at the expense of what was best for the country as a whole where the decision to sell the loyalty to the highest ever the greatest danger came from selfserving opportunism masquerading as petrie to some. At this stage they had to destroy the existing framework and the government and the Continental Congress was far from perfect but it offered a start to what could one day be a great nation by turning he had alerted the American People to how close they had come to betraying the revolution by putting their own interests ahead of the countries. Already the name Benedict Arnold was becoming a byword for the most hateful of crimes. Treason against the people in the United States. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. This time for questions i will try to answer. You probably havent had time to read the book yet. Please refer a microphone. In doing your research to what extent did he rely on the manuscripts and original records and where did you find most of these . When it comes to the story, there are documents everywhere. But for me the cornerstone of this was the Henry Clinton papers, the commander of the army at the time of the treason and his correspondence is on the campus at the university of michigan and this is an absolute treasure trove. It came into their possession i think in the 1930s and its fascinating. It has a correspondence between arnold and the major john andre and up until those papers coming to light today received wisdom of her husbands treason because he was at her bedside and went into this hysterical float that seemed to be fairly well staged for her husbands benefit. He thought she was innocent as a way im that was hardly the case. She was actively involved and was actually when arnold have to move and travel from philadelphia in the months prior to the treason, she was the conduit. Its amazing when you can hold the coded letter to the british and then theres also in my book you can see the british have been translated so these kind of things are absolutely important. Another source that has been published several times but in many ways my story is a shakespearean tragedy. When something was happening of historical importance, she was there. [laughter] it is incredible. There she is he had known him since before the revolution in connecticut back then the was the smaller population and he never liked him but there he is. On the banks of the hudson days before his treason and he sees him on a horse going up the various roads. So those sources were very important. I am curious, first, thank you so much i cannot wait to read the book but i wonder if you can talk more about the deficit that the United States really was as a result of the lack of votes or the resources and time to build anything i will little curious about that. I sneaked ahead maritime stuff into all of my books. [laughter] even the battle of little big horn. [laughter] it begins on a river boat. [laughter] this book particularly for me was so much fun and the hudson river working his way up and down the river on the barge and then when it comes to philadelphia on the Delaware River water is important there in martin said the british take philadelphia but they cannot get their ships there because they have to go by a series of ports the americans have built appropriately named mud island it is just a pile of mud at the consulate water was everything in the british navy controlled the coast than bad is why that internal waterway was the one important and when it came to the battle of long, washington never really had a chance because the british had command and could move the armys with the ultimate speed there was nothing you could do to fight to force that had control of the waterways. So that was part of my Research Process to go to these places. I Love Research trips nothing but i enjoy more and to i would get someone who would take me on the navigation of both manhattan and Staten Island for a guy lived in manhattan three years with my two grownup children and brooklyn but not until i was out there of the of water and realizing what it was. To be at there as you approached the hudson it is pretty wild. It is hard to believe there is the city to the south. Water was a big part of this and that speaks to the genius of George Washington because he was a plantation owner but why is it called mount vernon . Because his brother who served in the british navy who was a natural admiral he named mount vernon for the french admiral so put that in your pipe and smoke it. [laughter] so i tend to use the maritime everywhere be tens in the 18th Century Water would determine what was strategically important in this country. You mentioned he saw part of himself as a young per soldier and can you comment ha ha on washingtons attitude of the trader incident and the issued orders subsequently he was captured then he would be executed . Get quickly became personal for George Washington. He is such a rock pripet no wonder he had dentures he was breaking hickory nuts with his teeth he was operating under those assumptions but yet controlling was amazing. This was something he cannot help to take personal, a mans career he would be respected and fostered he along with everybody else had no clue and washington is that arnolds headquarters when he learns of all of this. En he turns to lafayette. And says simply whom can be trusted now . Can you and imagined . In the wake of this everyone around him is going crazy he would say cannot get him not of my head. There really mess with whole sense of who they were if this could happen this is fundamentally scary stuff. And by this time the french general had arrived and prior to his learning of this comet was the first meeting and fundamentally important. He had to put on the best face and writes a an incredible letter to the french counterpart where there is none of that passion. He says it is amazing we have gone this far but it has not yet happened things like this is what happened in the revolution that said he turned his attention to Benedict Arnold. He got his calvary officer to find an officer to infiltrate the british and they had to take him alive to see that he received justice and his job in december within months was to ingratiate himself with arnold and he did exactly that. He had it all planned. He knew every night around midnight would walk around his property and come back so he was waiting for him even pushing open the gate and taken to a of boat across the shore where he would get justice and on that very day Hillary Clinton orders arnold to head south. To go to virginia and that did not happen. I will go into detail but arnold once again with 5 billion me. Jeffers said would be forced to free monticello and then there was none other than lafayette. But that is my next book. [laughter] the battle of princeton . That is fascinating because it is confusing because washington famously crosses the delaware and there is in incredible turnaround he takes his army back to pennsylvania than the decision is made to beecher back to new jersey washington is now occupying in houston argue that he had the chance of the battle of long island to destroy Washingtons Army. They had very positive feelings of the colonys and died in the arms of putnam and the Massachusetts Legislature had voted monday for a memorial for the Westminster Abbey and they never forgot that. These were two brothers one was the admiral in their hope was not to destroy Washingtons Army but to reach the point where the americans were forced to negotiate and that would be better for the reconciliation. But that message with an whole scheme selfie cents down cornwallis like what Benedict Arnold had done it is very interesting on either side of the of river through trenton and into the delaware why should the british said wave after wave of soldiers over there very narrow bridge by canon but the American Army is in a very tight spot because there is no where to hide. Cornwallis says we will get them in the morning. So with some help, he agreed even though was of very personal he hoped to mount because some were held down on horseback and with some other input decided to speak out to do the end run that is the great victory of princeton that would just add to have the added effect to carry the british out of that portion of new jersey or philadelphia state. Last one. Could you go over a little bit how Benedict Arledge was exposed . It is wonderful cloaking a dagger stuff. Arnold and audrey had this correspondence. They need to have a facetoface before they go through with this operation and they had all set up the british admiral rodney has arrived from new york they had warships and soldiers all set to go. But god trade needs to have a facetoface with arnold. So they do that literally a midnight meeting on the western baying of the hudson. The escape vessel that they were to take back down to new york appropriately named vulture. [laughter] you cannot make this up. It is fired upon by an officer upon his own initiative, much to arnolds sugar in it is forced down the river. Now andre has to find another way back. Ultimately he would go with the young lawyer to accompanied the young lawyer across of perry to the Eastern Shore of long island to westchester. I was talking about how bad it got during the revolution but this was the neutral ground. Neighbor fighting neighbor. The british kings were called cowboys going back and forth most people had
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