To the evenings event with robert ross bottom presenting his new book sudden courage we are pleased to have cspan book tv today here abplease know you will be recorded and please wait a moment for the microphone to come to you before asking a question. We have a great lineup over the next couple of months which includes National Book Award Finalist alan lightman, Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power and New York Times bestselling novelist alice hoffman. For more details and information on these and many Upcoming Events please visit the Events Calendar harvard. Com events and sign up for weekly email newsletter. After tonights q a will have a book signing at this table. The client will form toward the left and book around the corner because theres a lot of you. We have a couple copies of his previous book for sale to register and a lot of copies of his new book which she will have to fight for the register as well. I like to take a moment to say thanks for buying books here at the harva
So today we are going to focus on the Continental Army and we are situating this very much in the broad history of war and the military. The Continental Army in a lot of ways is different from other armies that have preceded it largely because it is one that is very much based on ideals and certain concepts and beliefs rather than your traditional army. So what is the Continental Army. Where is it . Anyone . America. Okay. Continental army based in america. It will become the First United States Army but before it is the u. S. Army, it is the army of america, yes. But what element of america . Certainly part of the American Revolution. This typically the united colonies. So, when does the Continental Army begin . It is not necessarily with the start of the revolution but we are going to pick up our story at the beginning of the war. Couple classes ago we were talking about the french and indian war. And the french and indian war was a world war that fundamentally altered several differ
And british forces. This is just over an hour. When we last met, you all declared independence. So that means we have to go to war. And so in order to do that, we need to refer to our troops, train them, drill them, arm them, all those sorts of good things. Before we do that, i want to talk just briefly about military history in general. Were going to set aside our political history for now. Next couple of weeks, its military history all full go. So heres the thing. Theres certain challenges that folks who study military history are going to encounter. Like what . What are things you can see them have problems running into . History being written by the witnesses. Yeah. I like to change it up and say to the winners goy to history because what they end up doing is they are the ones who are going to tell the story. Unless youre doing the civil war. But this is the way it usually works. So you usually get their perspective. Were going to see that a lot in this war where youve got a lot of
Captioning performed by vitac certainly a part of the American Revolution, specifically yeah, the united colonies. So when does the Continental Army begin . Its not necessarily with the start of the revolution, but we are going to pick up their story at the beginning of the war. So a couple classes ago we were talking about the french and indian war and the french and indian war was a world war that fundamentally altered several different nations, but primarily france, removed from the north american continent, britain and the british colonies. Many americans had fought alongside british soldiers and british officers during the war. Anyone recall what were some of the things that transpired when the two groups interacted . I mean, the british, they looked down on the colonies. Okay. So in a lot of ways the british are looking down on the coal nists for a number of reasons and that was having to do with tactics, having to do with a lack of formal military training, some of it had to do
And the character that he developed over a lifetime, and if you think about what weve done for the duration of this course, weve brought him into the story intermittently throughout. Whether its talking about individual battles or whether its talking about how he organized men or how he kept men he recruited men to get them to maintain or stay in the service. And one of the things i try to get across whenever im talking about washington is that washington is a bit of an inenia to a modern audience. Why . Because we really dont know who he was, what he was, how he looked. I mean, when i show you these images here, these images are of three of our noteworthy president s. Every ten years or so about 700 political scientists and historians across the country, they rank our president s. Now, who knows how our current president is going to rank. But nonetheless, whenever those rankings come out, generally these three guys here rank at the top. Sometimes it will be lincoln. Sometimes it will