Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
This Fierce People: American Revolution in the South, 1778-1781, with Alan Pell Crawford
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In his new book This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America’s Revolutionary War in the South, Alan Pell Crawford brings to life the three years between Monmouth and Yorktown. A brutal war in the South—a true civil war—set the stage for the victory at Yorktown, and here, Crawford argues, the War for Independence was won. What happened between 1778 and 1781 as the war shifted to the southern theater? Who were the “unsung patriots” that inevitably set the stage for Yorktown? The distinguished journalist and author Alan Pell Crawford joins to discuss This Fierce People and his research on the Revolution in the South.
WEBVTT
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Hello, everyone,
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and welcome to the Revolution Two-Fifty
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podcast.
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I'm Bob Allison.
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I co-chair Rev Two-Fifty.
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We're a consortium of groups in
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Massachusetts planning commemorations of
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American independence.
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And our guest today is Alan Pell Crawford,
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who is a
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prolific writer of exciting books of
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history.
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Twilight at Monticello is on Jefferson's
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later years.
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Unwise Passions tells the amazing story of
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Anne Cary Randolph Morris.
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And his latest book is This Fierce People,
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The Untold Story of America's
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Revolutionary War in the South.
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So Alan,
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thank you so much for joining us.
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It's a pleasure and an honor.
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And the war in the South is really
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the bloodiest and in many ways in the
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biggest part of the Revolutionary War.
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And I guess the big question always is,
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how come it is the untold story?
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I mean,
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how is it that we've overlooked this?
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Excuse me,
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there are a number of possible
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explanations for that.
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There's no definitive
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There's no definitive explanation,
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but there are a number of them that
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kind of work together, it seems to me.
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First,
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I think the earliest histories of the
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American Revolution were embodied in
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biographies of George Washington.
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And so that's one.
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reason that we learned that the story is
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told in the way it is and has
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been now for generations.
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That's part of it.
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Second,
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I believe the earliest histories of the
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war were written from historians in
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probably New York and Massachusetts,
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Boston.
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So there's that.
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And when I use the word bias,
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I'm not using that in a
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critical way, right,
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merely have explaining way,
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there is a certain bias involved in that
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that's totally human people see what's
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relevant and important in the world in
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terms of their own surroundings and their
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own stories and their own backgrounds and
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all of that.
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And so that so that there's going to
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be a
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a bias toward what happens in your
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backyard.
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And that's perfectly acceptable and would
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be unusual if that weren't the case.
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So the things that are happening in
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Massachusetts or Pennsylvania are going to
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seem more important to people there than
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they might be to somebody in Charleston.
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I think another explanation in our own
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time is that the characters,
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the players in the war in the South
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were often slaveholders.
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And that's,
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we're going through a time right now when
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that makes people very uncomfortable.
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And so,
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There's less of a desire to explore all
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of that.
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And major figures, not just in the war,
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but in the American government at that
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time,
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including Jefferson and Washington and
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others.
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This is not a good time for Thomas
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Jefferson in our culture.
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I'm sorry, what did you say?
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No, you know, Joe Ellis, the historian,
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has said that over the long span of
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American history,
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anyone who has bet against Thomas
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Jefferson has lost.
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That's a very good point.
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Yes, that's not a good bet.
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Right now, the money's not on Jefferson.
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No.
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Probably, you know,
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as we work our way through sociocultural,
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difficulties and controversies.
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It will be appreciated again.
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You mentioned a lot of really
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extraordinary characters who are part of
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this story in your book.
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People like Nathaniel Green,
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Daniel Morgan, Francis Marion.
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Really interesting stories about these
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characters.
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I wonder what really struck you about
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these individuals as you were doing your
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work?
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Well, I think that
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Part of this, my desire to do this,
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probably on some level that I didn't,
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I only think might be the case after
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the fact, was when I was a boy,
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I used to watch the Walt Disney's on
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Sunday nights, and he had a swamp fox.
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Right.
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Episodes.
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And that was, uh, Leslie Nielsen.
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Yeah.
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And his sidekick was played by Buddy
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Ebsen.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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And, uh,
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Leslie Nielsen didn't do many more heroic
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roles.
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No, no.
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So I probably, you know,
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I would see them riding their horses
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through the swamps and all of that kind
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of thing.
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And, uh,
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That probably was very exciting to me as
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an eight year old or whatever it was.
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And so, but then,
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so I probably had this in the back
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of my mind somehow.
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Then,
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I don't know how personal you want me
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to get here,
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but for a number of years,
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my wife and I lived in Alexandria,
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Virginia.
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We were married at Christ Church.
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which is the church where George
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Washington attended and where Robert E.
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Lee was a parishioner.
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And for a while then we lived down
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the road, not far from Mount Vernon.
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So naturally you get interested in George
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Washington and his story.
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So I got more, you know,
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I began to read a great deal of
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Washington, I suppose,
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and the revolutionary war.
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And as I did,
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something was amiss in the entire story
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because you've got Washington dominating
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everything.
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Everything is seen in the shadow of this
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great man.
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And, um,
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Then there's this gap of about three years
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in the history of the period in which
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you go from this exciting war in the
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North with the Declaration of Independence
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and Bunker Hill and the Boston Tea Party
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and all of this, and suddenly Yorktown.
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And this whole time,
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George Washington is in the North.
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All these things are going on.
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It's like three and a half years passed
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between the last battle in the north and
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the surrender at Yorktown.
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And in fact,
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I'm trying to remember the British
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admiral.
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Was it de Grasse?
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It was the French.
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What did I say?
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British?
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I meant the French.
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Yeah, de Grasse.
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So he's...
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He's got ships in the Caribbean and they
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come up and they blockade,
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they prevent the British ships from coming
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into Virginia.
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And at one point,
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de Grasse contacts Washington.
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He emailed him, I believe.
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And he said,
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I'm not going to keep my ships down
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here forever.
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If you're coming down here,
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you better come now.
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And that's when Washington and Rochambeau
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arrived.
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come down, Washington, I think,
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stops at Mount Vernon on the way,
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crosses the Potomac,
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makes his way down to Yorktown.
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And that's when the siege of Yorktown
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begins and the surrender occurs.
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So it was fascinating to me even that
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Washington had to be told, get down here.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And then go ahead.
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No, go on.
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You go on, Alan.
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Well, you know,
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so there's this Washington,
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it seems to me,
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had this idea that there would be some
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kind of cataclysmic determinative battle.
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In New Jersey and New York,
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where the British are in New York,
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and there's going to be a battle,
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and it's going to be this grand,
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almost like European thing that will
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determine who wins the war.
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Right.
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And this is not happening.
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There's a standoff.
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And I think at this point,
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the British decide...
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They see this as a standoff.
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We're not making any real progress here.
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Let's move the theater of action to the
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South,
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to Charleston and Savannah and all of
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that.
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And that's when this second part of the
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war begins.
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Right, right.
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And it was...
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Once you begin to, I thought,
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what am I missing here?
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And the more I delved into that,
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and here's where I think my journalistic
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orientation takes over rather than,
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I never considered myself a historian.
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I'm in awe of the people that,
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you know,
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the death of Gordon Wood was a horrible
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thing last week.
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And Ellis is remarkably still working.
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And there are those kind of figures.
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I've never put myself in that league.
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But I think with a journalistic
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background, I thought, oh,
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here's a great story.
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And there's not only a great story in
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itself.
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There are great stories and great
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characters.
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And you mentioned some of them.
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And I mentioned Leslie Nielsen.
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Yeah, yeah.
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But there's Daniel Morgan, and Green,
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and even the, I even liked Tarleton.
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Yeah, he's an interesting character, yeah.
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Yeah, he's a compelling character,
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and he's the, he's always,
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we're supposed to hate him, you know?
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He's like the man you've,
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that he's the man you hate to love.
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And so all of these people are engaged
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in this and they're on some level,
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maybe if I knew more about the war
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in the North, I would feel differently,
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but I find them more compelling than some
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of the,
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I think that those who fought in the
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North.
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And so for that, I wanted to,
00:11:59.514 --> 00:12:01.894
once I began to explore these things,
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I thought, this is just great stuff.
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And it needs to be written.
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And people need to know this.
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And it's fun.
00:12:10.278 --> 00:12:10.778
I mean,
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I know it's not fun if you're bleeding
00:12:12.759 --> 00:12:13.720
on the battlefield.
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or your family that gets the terrible
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news.
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I don't mean it fun in that way.
00:12:19.677 --> 00:12:21.057
I mean that as a writer.
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This is rich material that is,
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I couldn't say no.
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Right, right.
00:12:30.376 --> 00:12:32.197
We're talking with Alan Pell Crawford,
00:12:32.238 --> 00:12:34.278
whose new book is This Fierce People,
00:12:34.318 --> 00:12:36.061
The Untold Story of America's
00:12:36.140 --> 00:12:38.261
Revolutionary War in the South.
00:12:39.163 --> 00:12:40.302
And again,
00:12:40.322 --> 00:12:43.485
that idea of the bloodiness of it is
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something you can't escape in this period.
00:12:46.106 --> 00:12:48.249
I mean,
00:12:48.269 --> 00:12:51.230
someone refers to the savage fury of these
00:12:51.291 --> 00:12:54.013
people and pursuing each other like beasts
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of prey.
00:12:55.375 --> 00:12:56.936
And it's something Nathaniel Green
00:12:56.995 --> 00:12:57.556
comments.
00:12:57.876 --> 00:12:59.278
He is shocked when he gets here and
00:12:59.298 --> 00:13:01.399
just discovers the utter brutality of
00:13:01.438 --> 00:13:03.100
things in the Carolinas.
00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:06.663
Yeah, he writes to Washington, I believe,
00:13:06.764 --> 00:13:08.445
and to Hamilton, I think.
00:13:09.125 --> 00:13:09.566
And he says,
00:13:09.586 --> 00:13:11.187
you just wouldn't believe what's going on
00:13:11.226 --> 00:13:11.748
down here.
00:13:12.128 --> 00:13:13.469
This is beyond my...
00:13:15.980 --> 00:13:18.282
And there's a number of interesting things
00:13:18.322 --> 00:13:22.163
to emerge from that dynamic or to be
00:13:24.523 --> 00:13:26.583
kind of distilled from it.
00:13:30.163 --> 00:13:30.684
Again,
00:13:33.044 --> 00:13:34.365
maybe I'm not giving the war in the
00:13:34.405 --> 00:13:36.806
North enough credit because I don't know
00:13:36.846 --> 00:13:37.365
it as well,
00:13:37.426 --> 00:13:39.966
but the farther West you get,
00:13:40.706 --> 00:13:43.528
in the Carolinas and Virginia,
00:13:44.229 --> 00:13:48.471
the less there is orderly government and
00:13:48.633 --> 00:13:54.616
police forces in action and things become,
00:13:55.158 --> 00:13:56.798
they break down and they become very
00:13:57.860 --> 00:13:59.380
violent in some cases.
00:13:59.640 --> 00:13:59.782
And
00:14:01.427 --> 00:14:03.368
You've got neighbors who are fighting each
00:14:03.447 --> 00:14:05.629
other, taking different sides.
00:14:05.668 --> 00:14:07.950
Some are loyalists, and some are what we,
00:14:08.149 --> 00:14:08.429
I think,
00:14:09.529 --> 00:14:11.850
anachronistically refer to as patriots.
00:14:11.990 --> 00:14:13.250
I don't really like that term.
00:14:14.691 --> 00:14:15.811
They would have probably thought of
00:14:15.870 --> 00:14:16.971
themselves as Whigs,
00:14:18.491 --> 00:14:20.493
and then they're the loyalists or Tories.
00:14:20.773 --> 00:14:21.893
So they're clashing,
00:14:21.932 --> 00:14:26.313
and it gets very violent out
00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:27.600
that way.
00:14:27.860 --> 00:14:30.221
And, you know,
00:14:30.282 --> 00:14:32.224
Washington's I think why one of the great
00:14:32.323 --> 00:14:35.765
moments in the book or in the story,
00:14:35.806 --> 00:14:36.767
let me put it that way,
00:14:37.447 --> 00:14:41.750
is when Green reports back to Washington,
00:14:41.769 --> 00:14:45.331
Green replaces Horatio Gates,
00:14:45.371 --> 00:14:48.794
who was annihilated at Camden and fled the
00:14:48.835 --> 00:14:51.576
battlefield and needed to be and so
00:14:51.636 --> 00:14:53.937
Washington puts Nathaniel Green in charge.
00:14:54.778 --> 00:14:54.958
And the
00:14:55.833 --> 00:14:57.235
Commander in Chief of the Southern
00:14:57.254 --> 00:14:58.274
Department in the war.
00:14:58.674 --> 00:15:01.356
And Greene gets down there and reports
00:15:02.356 --> 00:15:07.039
back to Washington how chaotic, violent,
00:15:08.539 --> 00:15:10.861
disorderly the whole situation is.
00:15:11.822 --> 00:15:14.582
And I think what I was saying was
00:15:14.602 --> 00:15:16.583
the great moment in the book for me
00:15:17.144 --> 00:15:19.265
is when Washington writes back to Greene
00:15:20.706 --> 00:15:21.226
and he says,
00:15:22.929 --> 00:15:25.650
I don't know what's going on down there.
00:15:26.410 --> 00:15:26.691
He says,
00:15:26.750 --> 00:15:28.270
I don't know the disposition of our
00:15:28.311 --> 00:15:28.691
troops.
00:15:28.831 --> 00:15:30.751
I don't know the strength of the enemy.
00:15:32.292 --> 00:15:32.871
And he says,
00:15:36.773 --> 00:15:39.192
you're gonna have to figure this out for
00:15:39.212 --> 00:15:39.734
yourself.
00:15:41.053 --> 00:15:42.854
And I think this is what a wonderful
00:15:42.913 --> 00:15:44.875
moment because he's,
00:15:47.794 --> 00:15:49.235
what is the word I'm looking for?
00:15:49.296 --> 00:15:50.836
He's delegating authority.
00:15:52.162 --> 00:15:54.743
The idea that Washington is the supreme
00:15:54.783 --> 00:15:56.764
commander who's dictating everything that
00:15:56.804 --> 00:16:00.447
goes on in the war is just false.
00:16:01.647 --> 00:16:06.149
And you see over the course of the
00:16:06.190 --> 00:16:08.931
war something very interesting also with
00:16:08.990 --> 00:16:09.552
Washington.
00:16:10.371 --> 00:16:11.692
He begins with...
00:16:12.923 --> 00:16:16.905
saying for officers in the American army,
00:16:17.506 --> 00:16:17.927
he wants,
00:16:19.008 --> 00:16:20.288
I can't remember the exact wording,
00:16:20.347 --> 00:16:21.869
something to the effect that he wants men
00:16:21.908 --> 00:16:26.272
of honor and property and standing in the
00:16:26.312 --> 00:16:26.912
community.
00:16:27.432 --> 00:16:29.693
And he's describing people of his own
00:16:29.754 --> 00:16:33.495
social set who have big plantations and
00:16:33.596 --> 00:16:36.998
they are justices of the peace or
00:16:37.357 --> 00:16:37.698
whatever.
00:16:38.538 --> 00:16:41.942
and respected by the lesser beings in the
00:16:41.981 --> 00:16:43.623
community, looked up to.
00:16:43.982 --> 00:16:45.144
Those are the people he wants.
00:16:45.264 --> 00:16:47.846
I think he appoints Philip Schuyler to a
00:16:47.886 --> 00:16:51.929
position and is disappointed in the
00:16:51.990 --> 00:16:52.529
results.
00:16:53.311 --> 00:16:54.591
And over time,
00:16:56.894 --> 00:17:00.756
Washington's idea of leadership
00:17:02.107 --> 00:17:02.227
Right.
00:17:04.510 --> 00:17:06.854
And he sees men like Daniel Morgan,
00:17:06.894 --> 00:17:09.497
who drove wagons.
00:17:09.777 --> 00:17:10.478
Right.
00:17:11.638 --> 00:17:12.881
Who comes from New Jersey.
00:17:13.121 --> 00:17:13.300
You know,
00:17:13.340 --> 00:17:16.003
I was doing a podcast recently and I
00:17:16.044 --> 00:17:16.945
said he was from...
00:17:18.722 --> 00:17:19.042
I don't know,
00:17:19.123 --> 00:17:20.743
Rhode Island or Pennsylvania or something,
00:17:20.804 --> 00:17:24.164
which was the standard biography.
00:17:24.664 --> 00:17:27.185
And I was corrected by somebody who said,
00:17:27.205 --> 00:17:29.365
no, we claim him here in New Jersey.
00:17:30.846 --> 00:17:32.067
So he comes down.
00:17:32.547 --> 00:17:34.147
He's uneducated.
00:17:35.307 --> 00:17:36.508
He's poor.
00:17:38.169 --> 00:17:42.650
He drives wagons for other planters and
00:17:42.829 --> 00:17:46.652
comes down the great wagon trail,
00:17:46.731 --> 00:17:47.251
I think it's called.
00:17:48.371 --> 00:17:52.974
And fights and battles and comes to the
00:17:52.994 --> 00:17:54.415
attention of George Washington.
00:17:55.215 --> 00:17:58.798
And Washington recognizes ability here
00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:05.663
that violates or subverts everything he
00:18:06.104 --> 00:18:08.986
has started the war believing about the
00:18:09.026 --> 00:18:12.169
kind of, about what leadership is.
00:18:12.189 --> 00:18:12.429
Right.
00:18:13.071 --> 00:18:14.573
there's a great moment you were talking
00:18:14.613 --> 00:18:17.938
about the um savagery of the war and
00:18:17.978 --> 00:18:23.785
this at one point washington's he says you
00:18:23.805 --> 00:18:27.589
know we should create a special unit
00:18:28.643 --> 00:18:32.084
for Morgan and they would dress them like
00:18:32.983 --> 00:18:36.164
American Indians and give them scalping
00:18:36.224 --> 00:18:38.185
knives.
00:18:38.605 --> 00:18:40.526
There would be like five hundred of these
00:18:40.586 --> 00:18:43.086
men and they wouldn't have the regular
00:18:43.126 --> 00:18:45.228
duties that a soldier had in camp.
00:18:45.959 --> 00:18:46.358
And he says,
00:18:46.398 --> 00:18:48.020
wouldn't it be great if they go into
00:18:48.080 --> 00:18:52.003
battle screaming and yelling like the
00:18:52.183 --> 00:18:53.424
Indians do?
00:18:53.924 --> 00:18:54.925
Which is, again,
00:18:55.026 --> 00:18:56.928
it's a total violation of everything
00:18:56.988 --> 00:18:58.249
Washington thinks.
00:18:58.269 --> 00:19:02.192
And nothing much came of that.
00:19:02.471 --> 00:19:06.335
Morgan did fight in battles and led troops
00:19:06.394 --> 00:19:07.275
and all of that.
00:19:07.316 --> 00:19:10.438
But this idea of this special core of,
00:19:11.679 --> 00:19:12.579
it's fascinating.
00:19:12.940 --> 00:19:15.142
And it's relevant in the sense that
00:19:16.097 --> 00:19:18.019
A lot of the fighting in the South
00:19:19.378 --> 00:19:23.099
was what we would call guerrilla warfare.
00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:23.700
Right.
00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:25.320
Yeah.
00:19:25.401 --> 00:19:26.361
Yeah.
00:19:26.381 --> 00:19:26.580
Yeah.
00:19:26.601 --> 00:19:28.421
And Gates and other American commanders,
00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:29.942
we're talking with Alan Crawford,
00:19:29.981 --> 00:19:31.882
whose new book is This Fierce People,
00:19:31.902 --> 00:19:33.363
The Untold Story of America's
00:19:33.423 --> 00:19:35.222
Revolutionary War in the South.
00:19:35.282 --> 00:19:37.824
And Green's predecessor, Gates,
00:19:37.864 --> 00:19:40.505
really had not wanted to rely on people
00:19:40.585 --> 00:19:40.904
like
00:19:42.006 --> 00:19:45.147
Marion, Pickens, Sumter, the irregulars,
00:19:45.248 --> 00:19:48.150
but Green sees that real necessity for
00:19:48.170 --> 00:19:48.269
them.
00:19:48.289 --> 00:19:51.893
He and Marion get along very well in
00:19:52.292 --> 00:19:53.314
cooperating,
00:19:53.354 --> 00:19:55.434
and he sees that they're indispensable to
00:19:55.454 --> 00:19:55.596
this.
00:19:55.635 --> 00:19:55.715
Yeah.
00:19:58.258 --> 00:20:03.560
You know, I have a cousin in Lexington,
00:20:03.602 --> 00:20:05.803
Kentucky, who writes Civil War histories,
00:20:07.064 --> 00:20:07.964
and he's a
00:20:08.859 --> 00:20:10.540
expert on military things.
00:20:10.580 --> 00:20:12.622
And I called him once and I said,
00:20:13.461 --> 00:20:14.281
you know,
00:20:14.301 --> 00:20:15.982
I'm looking at these battles and these
00:20:16.042 --> 00:20:17.222
battlefield maps,
00:20:17.384 --> 00:20:18.884
which I think are a disaster,
00:20:18.923 --> 00:20:20.684
most of them.
00:20:20.724 --> 00:20:22.826
Because they're trying to show things
00:20:22.865 --> 00:20:24.205
happening over time.
00:20:25.846 --> 00:20:27.048
And then you've got arrows.
00:20:27.827 --> 00:20:29.648
They make no sense, but to me.
00:20:30.368 --> 00:20:32.329
And I said, I can't even figure out,
00:20:32.450 --> 00:20:34.371
okay, if you're taking a battle like,
00:20:34.931 --> 00:20:36.611
I don't know, Leno's Ferry or something.
00:20:36.631 --> 00:20:37.852
Is that the name of it?
00:20:38.604 --> 00:20:42.192
And I said,
00:20:42.372 --> 00:20:45.258
there seems to be regulars fighting in the
00:20:45.298 --> 00:20:46.420
Continental Army there.
00:20:46.941 --> 00:20:48.683
There are members of state militias.
00:20:49.720 --> 00:20:54.084
Then there are people like Marion who have
00:20:54.684 --> 00:20:58.347
a quasi-official connection to the armies.
00:20:58.748 --> 00:21:01.230
And then you've got militia from other
00:21:01.290 --> 00:21:04.093
states coming in and all the numbers of
00:21:04.133 --> 00:21:05.534
these units and all of that.
00:21:05.574 --> 00:21:07.796
And I said to my cousin, I said,
00:21:07.955 --> 00:21:09.076
I can't figure this out.
00:21:10.038 --> 00:21:11.779
He said, don't worry about it.
00:21:13.336 --> 00:21:15.657
The reader doesn't care about the number.
00:21:16.118 --> 00:21:16.358
Okay,
00:21:16.398 --> 00:21:20.282
this was Militia Seventeen from this
00:21:20.343 --> 00:21:20.784
county.
00:21:21.364 --> 00:21:21.625
He says,
00:21:21.664 --> 00:21:23.145
the reader doesn't care about that.
00:21:23.185 --> 00:21:25.347
You can't sort that out anyway.
00:21:26.209 --> 00:21:26.650
And so,
00:21:28.090 --> 00:21:29.833
but that's the nature of the war in
00:21:29.853 --> 00:21:34.538
the South is you've got the Continental
00:21:34.617 --> 00:21:35.618
Army under control.
00:21:36.403 --> 00:21:37.202
under Greene,
00:21:37.804 --> 00:21:38.963
and then you've got militias,
00:21:39.144 --> 00:21:40.463
and you've got irregulars,
00:21:40.644 --> 00:21:42.244
and you've got people just showing up.
00:21:42.625 --> 00:21:44.326
The Battle of Kings Mountain,
00:21:44.405 --> 00:21:46.807
which was October,
00:21:46.846 --> 00:21:53.269
is a wonderful example of that.
00:21:55.170 --> 00:21:57.190
The loyalist troops,
00:21:57.230 --> 00:22:00.510
there's only one non-American in this
00:22:00.570 --> 00:22:00.932
battle.
00:22:02.332 --> 00:22:03.652
And that's Patrick Ferguson,
00:22:03.692 --> 00:22:04.512
who's leading the
00:22:05.770 --> 00:22:06.510
loyalists.
00:22:07.050 --> 00:22:09.172
And they take this position on Kings
00:22:09.211 --> 00:22:11.711
Mountain, which is hard to figure out.
00:22:11.771 --> 00:22:12.653
I've been there.
00:22:12.673 --> 00:22:14.532
It's fascinating to go to.
00:22:15.032 --> 00:22:17.374
It's just below the North Carolina,
00:22:17.413 --> 00:22:18.413
South Carolina border.
00:22:19.294 --> 00:22:22.875
And they take a position on the mountain,
00:22:23.775 --> 00:22:25.655
which was probably not the best idea.
00:22:28.276 --> 00:22:30.856
And they are surrounded by
00:22:33.567 --> 00:22:35.549
What we would call, as I said,
00:22:35.569 --> 00:22:39.473
I think, you know, not good,
00:22:39.634 --> 00:22:40.375
call them patriots.
00:22:40.395 --> 00:22:40.576
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:41.957 --> 00:22:44.200
These supporters of independence,
00:22:44.780 --> 00:22:46.163
what's so fascinating,
00:22:47.263 --> 00:22:49.205
they weren't part of any army.
00:22:49.406 --> 00:22:49.586
Right.
00:22:50.151 --> 00:22:52.451
They are from the west of the
00:22:52.491 --> 00:22:52.771
Appalachians.
00:22:52.791 --> 00:22:55.133
Right, they're the over-the-mountain men.
00:22:55.393 --> 00:22:56.873
Over-mountain, the over-mountain men.
00:22:56.992 --> 00:22:57.153
Yeah,
00:22:57.252 --> 00:23:00.013
and they come from Tennessee and what we
00:23:00.054 --> 00:23:01.013
would, Kentucky,
00:23:01.034 --> 00:23:02.375
I don't know when they were admitted as
00:23:02.414 --> 00:23:02.734
states.
00:23:03.154 --> 00:23:08.457
But they come across the mountains and
00:23:08.497 --> 00:23:11.837
they surround King's Mountain,
00:23:12.958 --> 00:23:14.137
annihilate the troops,
00:23:14.278 --> 00:23:15.618
and kill Patrick Ferguson.
00:23:15.739 --> 00:23:16.298
And as I said,
00:23:16.338 --> 00:23:17.939
those are Americans fighting other
00:23:17.979 --> 00:23:18.420
Americans.
00:23:18.859 --> 00:23:19.400
Right, right.
00:23:20.951 --> 00:23:22.612
There's a great moment in that, too,
00:23:22.632 --> 00:23:26.532
when the American, one of the commanders,
00:23:26.573 --> 00:23:27.813
and I can't remember the name,
00:23:29.692 --> 00:23:32.753
tells the soldiers under his command,
00:23:32.773 --> 00:23:33.153
he says,
00:23:33.595 --> 00:23:36.234
I can't tell you what you're supposed to
00:23:36.295 --> 00:23:39.556
do when the fighting starts.
00:23:39.596 --> 00:23:40.616
But I can show you.
00:23:41.217 --> 00:23:43.656
So just watch what I do.
00:23:43.977 --> 00:23:47.298
And they just send them out on all
00:23:47.357 --> 00:23:47.818
sides,
00:23:48.078 --> 00:23:49.239
annihilate the
00:23:50.292 --> 00:23:52.398
loyalists kill Ferguson,
00:23:52.499 --> 00:23:53.402
he's buried up there.
00:23:53.883 --> 00:23:56.329
And then they go back down the mountain,
00:23:56.611 --> 00:23:57.513
and they go back home.
00:23:57.807 --> 00:23:58.807
Right, yeah.
00:23:58.826 --> 00:23:59.288
That's it?
00:23:59.347 --> 00:24:00.768
Yeah.
00:24:00.887 --> 00:24:01.548
That's great.
00:24:01.567 --> 00:24:02.888
Yeah.
00:24:02.969 --> 00:24:04.689
I think that was Benjamin Cleveland who
00:24:04.709 --> 00:24:04.888
says,
00:24:04.929 --> 00:24:06.730
every man must consider himself an
00:24:06.789 --> 00:24:07.269
officer.
00:24:07.630 --> 00:24:08.270
Exactly.
00:24:08.671 --> 00:24:09.111
Yeah.
00:24:09.211 --> 00:24:11.172
And that's kind of, that echoes,
00:24:11.211 --> 00:24:13.271
that's a very American idea, I think.
00:24:13.311 --> 00:24:13.692
It is.
00:24:13.792 --> 00:24:16.512
And it echoes what Washington says to
00:24:16.573 --> 00:24:17.054
Green.
00:24:17.634 --> 00:24:17.913
Right.
00:24:18.114 --> 00:24:18.913
Is it Cleveland?
00:24:18.953 --> 00:24:19.875
Is that who you said?
00:24:20.095 --> 00:24:20.855
I think that's what you said.
00:24:20.875 --> 00:24:26.457
Cleveland is essentially telling his men,
00:24:27.594 --> 00:24:29.013
what Washington told Greene.
00:24:30.355 --> 00:24:33.736
And this, over time, this works.
00:24:34.096 --> 00:24:34.715
And, you know,
00:24:34.776 --> 00:24:36.876
you see little reenactments of the
00:24:36.916 --> 00:24:40.097
American Revolution that always take the
00:24:40.157 --> 00:24:41.919
same form and they always annoy me.
00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:45.420
And I think it's unfair to the British.
00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:49.421
They will show Americans behind a little
00:24:49.461 --> 00:24:50.260
stone wall,
00:24:50.902 --> 00:24:52.761
firing their flintlocks or whatever they
00:24:52.821 --> 00:24:52.981
are.
00:24:53.362 --> 00:24:54.262
And here are...
00:24:55.830 --> 00:24:59.593
vast numbers of redcoats marching in
00:24:59.972 --> 00:25:01.593
order, and then they just get wiped out.
00:25:01.633 --> 00:25:03.834
Well, this is not fair to the British.
00:25:06.895 --> 00:25:07.756
And you know,
00:25:08.736 --> 00:25:10.957
one thing I got to do researching this
00:25:11.017 --> 00:25:13.198
book was spend time at the Boston
00:25:13.258 --> 00:25:13.919
Athenaeum,
00:25:14.878 --> 00:25:17.400
which has all of George Washington's
00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:19.421
books, his own library.
00:25:20.340 --> 00:25:24.022
And I went through those.
00:25:25.441 --> 00:25:28.041
not methodically, but usefully.
00:25:28.201 --> 00:25:30.422
And there were a couple of books written
00:25:30.461 --> 00:25:32.682
by British military tacticians.
00:25:34.182 --> 00:25:37.584
And one of the books, and maybe both,
00:25:37.604 --> 00:25:38.703
I can't remember exactly,
00:25:39.344 --> 00:25:44.164
describes how British redcoats are
00:25:44.204 --> 00:25:45.005
supposed to fight.
00:25:46.265 --> 00:25:48.246
And there's one thing they refer to as
00:25:48.365 --> 00:25:48.925
treeing.
00:25:50.717 --> 00:25:53.278
And treeing, there are two soldiers.
00:25:54.038 --> 00:25:55.358
They get behind a tree.
00:25:56.519 --> 00:25:58.140
One steps out and fires.
00:25:59.421 --> 00:26:01.102
The other, meanwhile, is reloading.
00:26:01.942 --> 00:26:03.583
And he turns going in and out.
00:26:03.903 --> 00:26:07.904
They're not marching in flanks of
00:26:09.125 --> 00:26:09.905
suicidal...
00:26:11.490 --> 00:26:13.512
and officers leading them into the
00:26:13.553 --> 00:26:13.973
slaughter.
00:26:14.074 --> 00:26:15.095
It's not that way.
00:26:15.275 --> 00:26:18.377
They have a familiarity with this kind of
00:26:18.438 --> 00:26:19.098
warfare.
00:26:20.119 --> 00:26:21.582
The Americans do it better.
00:26:23.022 --> 00:26:26.406
And I think that we can talk about
00:26:26.467 --> 00:26:28.008
this whenever you want to, but the...
00:26:30.676 --> 00:26:31.957
What was it called?
00:26:31.977 --> 00:26:33.157
The Race to the Dan.
00:26:33.577 --> 00:26:34.478
Yes, yes.
00:26:35.098 --> 00:26:40.280
It's an example where Greene violates all
00:26:40.320 --> 00:26:46.403
the rules of educated warfare.
00:26:46.702 --> 00:26:48.683
And I can't remember exactly when this
00:26:48.743 --> 00:26:49.663
happens, but...
00:26:51.538 --> 00:26:55.902
Yeah, it's in, I think it's in,
00:26:55.922 --> 00:27:00.045
I think it's in, I think it's in,
00:27:00.085 --> 00:27:07.669
I think it's in, I think it's in,
00:27:07.769 --> 00:27:10.471
I think it's in, I think it's in,
00:27:10.490 --> 00:27:12.071
I think it's in, I think it's in,
00:27:12.332 --> 00:27:15.595
I think it's in, I think it's in,
00:27:16.355 --> 00:27:19.257
I think it's in, I think it's in,
00:27:19.336 --> 00:27:20.258
I think it's in, I think it's in,
00:27:23.657 --> 00:27:25.018
You've read this since I have.
00:27:26.558 --> 00:27:31.461
So what happens is Green divides his army,
00:27:32.662 --> 00:27:34.123
which you're not supposed to do.
00:27:35.923 --> 00:27:37.644
And I can't remember who he puts in
00:27:37.684 --> 00:27:39.445
charge of the, I can picture him,
00:27:39.465 --> 00:27:40.465
but I can't remember his name,
00:27:41.007 --> 00:27:42.707
the western flank of this army.
00:27:43.948 --> 00:27:47.630
And they're to go west and north.
00:27:49.351 --> 00:27:51.373
And meanwhile, of course,
00:27:51.413 --> 00:27:53.914
the British supply depots are on the
00:27:53.954 --> 00:27:54.355
coast.
00:27:56.115 --> 00:27:56.936
Not those depots,
00:27:56.977 --> 00:27:58.557
but that's where they're going to be
00:27:58.617 --> 00:27:59.318
resupplied.
00:27:59.378 --> 00:28:01.420
The ships can come in in Charleston and
00:28:02.221 --> 00:28:05.363
Savannah and these places and unload and
00:28:05.544 --> 00:28:09.405
men and material to supply the British
00:28:09.547 --> 00:28:09.826
army.
00:28:10.646 --> 00:28:16.551
What Green does is he methodically
00:28:17.741 --> 00:28:20.262
leads the army, the American army,
00:28:21.222 --> 00:28:22.443
away from the coast.
00:28:25.065 --> 00:28:26.384
And yes,
00:28:26.424 --> 00:28:28.766
the British have depots on the rivers.
00:28:28.786 --> 00:28:29.226
I mean,
00:28:29.546 --> 00:28:31.346
one of the differences geographically in
00:28:31.406 --> 00:28:32.027
the battles,
00:28:32.106 --> 00:28:33.367
in the war in the North and the
00:28:33.428 --> 00:28:36.489
South is that how many rivers, boy,
00:28:36.729 --> 00:28:37.528
you can use,
00:28:37.588 --> 00:28:40.430
but also can impede your movement in the
00:28:40.470 --> 00:28:40.829
South.
00:28:41.130 --> 00:28:45.791
So he moves his army in two flanks
00:28:47.664 --> 00:28:49.826
farther and farther from the coast.
00:28:50.905 --> 00:28:53.286
And the farther and the British under
00:28:53.326 --> 00:28:56.307
Cornwallis follow him dutifully.
00:28:58.208 --> 00:28:58.948
And as they do,
00:29:00.307 --> 00:29:03.749
they lose men and they lose supplies and
00:29:03.769 --> 00:29:05.809
they become weaker over time.
00:29:06.450 --> 00:29:10.951
And Green's idea is they're going to get
00:29:11.570 --> 00:29:12.510
to the Dan River.
00:29:13.371 --> 00:29:15.311
The Dan River is between
00:29:16.722 --> 00:29:19.305
between Virginia and North Carolina.
00:29:19.325 --> 00:29:21.465
I have friends that live up there,
00:29:21.787 --> 00:29:23.008
that are from there.
00:29:23.988 --> 00:29:27.330
And once they get there,
00:29:28.811 --> 00:29:30.752
the American soldiers will be able to
00:29:30.794 --> 00:29:34.676
cross the Dan River and rest in Virginia,
00:29:34.957 --> 00:29:37.479
which has not been picked over,
00:29:38.358 --> 00:29:40.361
pleaded of crops.
00:29:40.401 --> 00:29:42.542
And, you know, it's been...
00:29:44.036 --> 00:29:45.737
It wasn't pristine,
00:29:45.757 --> 00:29:47.817
but it's not been fought over the way
00:29:47.837 --> 00:29:48.778
the Carolinas have.
00:29:49.159 --> 00:29:50.819
So he gets his men across.
00:29:51.721 --> 00:29:53.942
They burn the bridges.
00:29:53.981 --> 00:29:55.982
They burn the boats, everything.
00:29:56.743 --> 00:30:00.266
And Cornwallis gets that far up.
00:30:01.653 --> 00:30:02.594
And he can't cross.
00:30:03.836 --> 00:30:05.336
And the Americans, meanwhile,
00:30:05.376 --> 00:30:08.019
are actually having a kind of holiday up
00:30:08.060 --> 00:30:08.401
there.
00:30:09.241 --> 00:30:10.123
They're resting.
00:30:10.163 --> 00:30:11.344
They're recuperating.
00:30:11.384 --> 00:30:12.265
They're eating.
00:30:13.967 --> 00:30:15.068
And then they get in.
00:30:15.108 --> 00:30:16.730
It's Light Horse Harry Lee.
00:30:16.750 --> 00:30:19.093
That's the first who says,
00:30:19.173 --> 00:30:20.214
I want to go back now.
00:30:21.047 --> 00:30:24.890
And he gets his troops across back south
00:30:24.970 --> 00:30:28.113
over the Dan River and into the Carolinas
00:30:28.192 --> 00:30:29.875
and continues the war there.
00:30:30.734 --> 00:30:37.902
But Green has successfully depleted the
00:30:37.922 --> 00:30:41.744
British and gotten his troops back to...
00:30:44.280 --> 00:30:48.393
a fighting form fit, fed, rested,
00:30:48.894 --> 00:30:50.278
and ready to go again.
00:30:51.365 --> 00:30:54.866
And it's great because, as you said,
00:30:55.047 --> 00:30:58.209
Green says, we fight, we get beat,
00:30:58.288 --> 00:30:59.470
we rise, we fight again.
00:30:59.509 --> 00:31:00.530
Something to that effect.
00:31:00.590 --> 00:31:01.090
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:01.672 --> 00:31:05.134
And here he's led the enemy to its
00:31:05.213 --> 00:31:05.993
own destruction.
00:31:06.134 --> 00:31:06.674
Right, right.
00:31:06.694 --> 00:31:08.256
And then, of course,
00:31:08.296 --> 00:31:10.376
Cornwallis thinks a good thing to do now
00:31:10.416 --> 00:31:11.698
is to set up a base on the
00:31:11.738 --> 00:31:13.058
Chesapeake at Yorktown.
00:31:13.098 --> 00:31:15.720
And then he'll be able to counter Virginia
00:31:15.819 --> 00:31:17.201
and be resupplied.
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:17.662
And that's...
00:31:18.442 --> 00:31:19.722
going to be the yeah not to be
00:31:19.742 --> 00:31:24.027
a good idea yeah and and what again
00:31:24.067 --> 00:31:25.949
what's remarkable about the standard
00:31:25.969 --> 00:31:31.253
histories is that is it and there's a
00:31:31.294 --> 00:31:33.576
lot of i i get i mean i'm
00:31:33.635 --> 00:31:36.597
surprised well i understand it on level
00:31:36.637 --> 00:31:39.181
some level i'm surprised at how often
00:31:39.201 --> 00:31:41.583
there are new as a new one by
00:31:41.643 --> 00:31:43.625
a reputable historian i won't name his
00:31:43.684 --> 00:31:43.904
name
00:31:45.434 --> 00:31:46.394
that's again,
00:31:46.474 --> 00:31:48.635
it's about the build up to the war.
00:31:50.057 --> 00:31:51.436
All that happens, you know,
00:31:51.477 --> 00:31:53.458
you've got the Boston Tea Party and
00:31:53.538 --> 00:31:54.778
Lexington and Concord,
00:31:54.798 --> 00:31:56.199
the Declaration of Independence,
00:31:56.878 --> 00:32:00.820
Valley Forge and Monmouth in June of
00:32:00.861 --> 00:32:02.622
seventeen seventy eight.
00:32:02.642 --> 00:32:02.741
Right.
00:32:02.761 --> 00:32:05.423
Yeah.
00:32:05.462 --> 00:32:07.703
The endless appetite for this material.
00:32:07.723 --> 00:32:07.804
Yeah.
00:32:08.183 --> 00:32:09.183
Yeah.
00:32:09.243 --> 00:32:09.943
And right now,
00:32:09.983 --> 00:32:11.744
the Declaration of Independence and all of
00:32:11.765 --> 00:32:12.585
that, I get it.
00:32:12.684 --> 00:32:14.105
But but
00:32:17.949 --> 00:32:22.609
I'm still mystified to some degree by the,
00:32:23.730 --> 00:32:25.911
how exciting and determining,
00:32:26.030 --> 00:32:30.251
determinative the war in the South is.
00:32:31.192 --> 00:32:34.273
And the characters are so compelling.
00:32:36.354 --> 00:32:39.454
The friendship of Light Horse Harry Lee
00:32:40.355 --> 00:32:43.777
and Francis Marion is remarkable.
00:32:43.916 --> 00:32:44.856
Oh, it is, yeah.
00:32:45.657 --> 00:32:46.739
Very different people.
00:32:47.179 --> 00:32:49.861
Yeah, go ahead with that.
00:32:50.721 --> 00:32:54.003
No, I don't think Marion drinks.
00:32:54.825 --> 00:32:56.185
No, no, really.
00:32:57.105 --> 00:33:01.890
He carries a flask of vinegar or something
00:33:01.950 --> 00:33:02.911
like that.
00:33:03.471 --> 00:33:05.972
And Light Horse Harry, of course,
00:33:06.153 --> 00:33:07.794
is a Virginia gentleman.
00:33:08.134 --> 00:33:08.575
That's right.
00:33:09.434 --> 00:33:09.776
And they...
00:33:11.377 --> 00:33:15.470
lively that's right vivial gentlemanly
00:33:15.971 --> 00:33:18.018
party goer kind of way yeah
00:33:18.720 --> 00:33:21.181
And yet they get along perfectly well and
00:33:21.201 --> 00:33:22.260
work well together.
00:33:22.280 --> 00:33:22.820
Yeah.
00:33:23.442 --> 00:33:25.122
Lee is really the kind of officer
00:33:25.162 --> 00:33:26.863
Washington was thinking about when he
00:33:26.923 --> 00:33:28.883
wanted men of character,
00:33:29.983 --> 00:33:31.263
men of certain standing.
00:33:31.423 --> 00:33:32.724
And of course, he's Robert E.
00:33:32.765 --> 00:33:33.565
Lee's father.
00:33:33.684 --> 00:33:34.045
Robert E.
00:33:34.085 --> 00:33:36.185
Lee barely knew him because it was late
00:33:36.266 --> 00:33:39.067
in life and he was kind of estranged
00:33:39.106 --> 00:33:41.147
from the family when Robert E.
00:33:41.188 --> 00:33:41.567
Lee was alive.
00:33:41.708 --> 00:33:42.688
Yeah.
00:33:42.728 --> 00:33:44.588
I think that one thing that Washington
00:33:44.648 --> 00:33:48.430
probably would have hoped would have not
00:33:50.876 --> 00:33:56.682
been encouraged by was I think Light Horse
00:33:56.741 --> 00:34:00.905
Harry was a little too independent-minded
00:34:01.386 --> 00:34:02.968
for Washington.
00:34:04.309 --> 00:34:07.792
The Lee's are on a higher level socially
00:34:07.833 --> 00:34:09.835
than Washington was,
00:34:10.496 --> 00:34:12.157
and they set their own rules.
00:34:12.898 --> 00:34:14.438
Part of what makes them fun,
00:34:15.492 --> 00:34:17.494
people to this day, right?
00:34:18.074 --> 00:34:19.574
I don't mean historical figures,
00:34:19.635 --> 00:34:21.817
but some of these characters you still,
00:34:22.556 --> 00:34:25.239
you meet running around Richmond where I
00:34:25.278 --> 00:34:25.518
live.
00:34:27.820 --> 00:34:33.585
And so Light Horse Harry is a little,
00:34:33.746 --> 00:34:35.706
probably too independent minded for
00:34:36.106 --> 00:34:36.748
Washington.
00:34:37.688 --> 00:34:39.309
And that eager,
00:34:39.409 --> 00:34:41.251
being eager to cross the Dan River and
00:34:41.271 --> 00:34:42.351
go back into battle.
00:34:42.972 --> 00:34:44.853
But also over time,
00:34:46.414 --> 00:34:47.815
I think he was probably,
00:34:47.835 --> 00:34:48.715
I can't remember exactly,
00:34:48.735 --> 00:34:50.297
I think he was probably an alcoholic.
00:34:51.838 --> 00:34:54.380
I think he lost the fortune at some
00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:55.641
point later in life.
00:34:56.621 --> 00:34:58.643
And it was while he was in debtor's
00:34:58.722 --> 00:35:02.925
prison that he wrote one of the early
00:35:03.467 --> 00:35:05.188
histories of the American Revolution.
00:35:05.487 --> 00:35:06.849
Tarleton wrote one as well.
00:35:09.873 --> 00:35:12.773
But Light Horse Harry is just a great,
00:35:13.554 --> 00:35:14.815
lively character.
00:35:14.914 --> 00:35:15.974
And as you say,
00:35:16.255 --> 00:35:18.115
I don't think Robert knew him.
00:35:19.476 --> 00:35:21.777
Because he was living and he died in
00:35:21.817 --> 00:35:25.117
the Caribbean, I believe.
00:35:25.918 --> 00:35:26.599
I think so.
00:35:26.778 --> 00:35:29.418
And yeah, fascinating character.
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:30.679
I mean,
00:35:30.699 --> 00:35:32.179
there's so many different characters we
00:35:32.219 --> 00:35:33.940
can talk about in the few minutes we
00:35:34.001 --> 00:35:34.101
have.
00:35:36.541 --> 00:35:37.501
marrying, of course, Lee.
00:35:37.521 --> 00:35:38.581
But what about Tarleton?
00:35:38.621 --> 00:35:40.262
He's someone you said that we love to
00:35:40.322 --> 00:35:41.963
hate and that they love to hate,
00:35:42.003 --> 00:35:44.242
but he's much more interesting.
00:35:44.463 --> 00:35:47.483
He's not simply a one-dimensional ogre.
00:35:48.005 --> 00:35:49.364
No, no.
00:35:49.824 --> 00:35:53.045
He's not only the man you love to
00:35:53.085 --> 00:35:56.226
hate, but the man you hate to love.
00:35:57.746 --> 00:35:59.007
He's a typical...
00:36:00.338 --> 00:36:04.440
cad in London growing up, carousing.
00:36:07.561 --> 00:36:08.740
And I think that,
00:36:09.701 --> 00:36:11.581
I can't remember who said it of him,
00:36:11.702 --> 00:36:12.461
but that he,
00:36:15.103 --> 00:36:17.782
one of his British contemporaries said
00:36:17.842 --> 00:36:20.943
something to the effect that rape was the
00:36:21.443 --> 00:36:23.164
recreation of gentlemen,
00:36:23.525 --> 00:36:24.605
or something to that effect,
00:36:24.664 --> 00:36:28.106
being critical of Tarleton and his
00:36:29.824 --> 00:36:36.788
rather scandalous early life.
00:36:36.807 --> 00:36:38.469
So he goes to the great clubs in
00:36:38.568 --> 00:36:41.369
England and cuts a figure and
00:36:43.760 --> 00:36:45.601
It ends up as a very young man
00:36:45.641 --> 00:36:48.063
coming to America to fight in the war
00:36:48.244 --> 00:36:49.706
and does some...
00:36:49.846 --> 00:36:51.286
I can't remember where he's really...
00:36:51.547 --> 00:36:55.010
He gets wiped out by Green at Kalpans,
00:36:55.050 --> 00:36:55.271
I believe.
00:36:55.311 --> 00:36:55.431
Right.
00:36:55.451 --> 00:36:55.550
Yeah.
00:36:56.891 --> 00:36:58.393
And that's a great battle.
00:36:58.574 --> 00:37:00.255
It is, yeah.
00:37:00.295 --> 00:37:00.675
Because...
00:37:03.771 --> 00:37:06.213
Tarleton is a cocksure character.
00:37:07.893 --> 00:37:10.534
And so what Green does, outsmarting him,
00:37:10.653 --> 00:37:14.315
takes his position on the battlefield.
00:37:15.574 --> 00:37:18.556
And Green has some men that have never
00:37:18.615 --> 00:37:19.556
seen action.
00:37:20.436 --> 00:37:22.577
So he divides them into three lines.
00:37:23.056 --> 00:37:27.378
The first line is these Green soldiers who
00:37:27.398 --> 00:37:28.157
have never seen action.
00:37:29.514 --> 00:37:30.516
never been in a battle.
00:37:31.215 --> 00:37:33.416
Second line is experienced ones.
00:37:33.456 --> 00:37:35.577
And then the third line is even more
00:37:35.637 --> 00:37:37.818
experienced than I think cavalry back
00:37:37.858 --> 00:37:38.898
there in the woods.
00:37:39.898 --> 00:37:44.681
And so Green even goes from campfire to
00:37:44.721 --> 00:37:46.641
campfire the night before and he says,
00:37:48.043 --> 00:37:49.842
here's all I expect of you to do
00:37:50.003 --> 00:37:50.804
on the front line.
00:37:52.144 --> 00:37:53.324
Fire once, twice.
00:37:53.364 --> 00:37:55.266
If you can fire your guns three times,
00:37:55.326 --> 00:37:55.846
that's great.
00:37:55.885 --> 00:37:57.286
Then you leave the battlefield.
00:37:57.326 --> 00:37:57.806
You're done.
00:37:57.846 --> 00:37:59.507
You will have done everything I expected
00:37:59.527 --> 00:37:59.706
of you.
00:38:01.306 --> 00:38:04.327
He's making their weakness into a strength
00:38:04.588 --> 00:38:05.347
in a sense.
00:38:06.068 --> 00:38:09.809
And he's expressing his confidence in
00:38:09.829 --> 00:38:11.608
their ability to do what they need to
00:38:11.648 --> 00:38:14.449
do, but he's not expecting more than that.
00:38:14.789 --> 00:38:19.371
And what happens is Tarleton charges
00:38:19.931 --> 00:38:21.110
toward that front line.
00:38:21.532 --> 00:38:25.155
The front line fires their weapons as many
00:38:25.215 --> 00:38:26.536
times as they can.
00:38:27.737 --> 00:38:29.360
And then they leave the battlefield.
00:38:29.960 --> 00:38:31.882
Tarleton, in his arrogance,
00:38:33.824 --> 00:38:35.864
assumes that the battle is over.
00:38:36.726 --> 00:38:38.847
He's vanquished the enemy.
00:38:38.867 --> 00:38:40.329
They're leaving the battlefield.
00:38:41.070 --> 00:38:43.331
He charges ahead right into that second
00:38:43.371 --> 00:38:44.672
line and gets wiped out.
00:38:44.693 --> 00:38:45.114
Yeah, yeah.
00:38:47.704 --> 00:38:49.923
And the strategy is not the word,
00:38:49.963 --> 00:38:53.206
but the tactics involved on Green's part
00:38:53.706 --> 00:38:55.025
are really wonderful,
00:38:55.166 --> 00:38:59.047
and they take advantage of the weakness of
00:38:59.128 --> 00:39:00.047
his own troops.
00:39:00.128 --> 00:39:00.867
Right, right.
00:39:01.248 --> 00:39:03.068
Because typically you'd put the strongest
00:39:03.108 --> 00:39:04.630
troops at the center,
00:39:04.949 --> 00:39:06.190
and then the weaker ones you don't want
00:39:06.271 --> 00:39:06.851
engaged,
00:39:06.891 --> 00:39:08.791
but he sees you put the weaker ones
00:39:08.831 --> 00:39:09.172
here,
00:39:09.552 --> 00:39:12.452
and then the enemy isn't going to expect
00:39:12.492 --> 00:39:12.652
that.
00:39:13.887 --> 00:39:16.009
you've done this it's great and and he
00:39:16.048 --> 00:39:18.190
takes advantage of tarleton's arrogance
00:39:18.429 --> 00:39:21.072
right right yeah and it's a great victory
00:39:21.112 --> 00:39:23.913
and it's it's as a writer it's wonderful
00:39:23.932 --> 00:39:26.293
to write about yeah how can you not
00:39:26.333 --> 00:39:29.096
love these characters i know that is one
00:39:29.155 --> 00:39:32.336
of the great things about this period just
00:39:32.376 --> 00:39:34.438
briefly i mean one thing we've talked
00:39:34.478 --> 00:39:36.079
about alan over the course of doing this
00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:37.480
podcast is how come there aren't
00:39:38.413 --> 00:39:39.914
Good movies about the revolution.
00:39:40.135 --> 00:39:43.239
And you mentioned The Swamp Fox again.
00:39:43.298 --> 00:39:44.641
And it's hard now to picture Leslie
00:39:44.681 --> 00:39:46.663
Nielsen doing a straight roll,
00:39:46.782 --> 00:39:47.384
which he does.
00:39:47.463 --> 00:39:49.967
The Naked Gun.
00:39:50.588 --> 00:39:52.590
That's right.
00:39:52.630 --> 00:39:54.152
Maybe we should do a Naked Gun of
00:39:54.192 --> 00:39:54.972
the revolution.
00:39:55.253 --> 00:39:55.673
But I'm wondering,
00:39:55.693 --> 00:39:57.755
do you have any revolutionary movies that
00:39:57.795 --> 00:39:58.177
you like?
00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:00.382
The Patriot is one that does deal with
00:40:00.402 --> 00:40:00.963
this period.
00:40:02.606 --> 00:40:04.788
I think I tried to watch that once
00:40:05.349 --> 00:40:07.811
and I must not have finished it.
00:40:07.891 --> 00:40:08.853
I just don't remember.
00:40:08.972 --> 00:40:11.755
I know it's the most recent books of
00:40:11.775 --> 00:40:12.315
this time.
00:40:12.817 --> 00:40:14.239
My wife and I went to see
00:40:16.293 --> 00:40:19.655
And this will answer your question in a
00:40:19.695 --> 00:40:20.416
way, I hope.
00:40:21.936 --> 00:40:25.117
We went to see Disclosure Day the other
00:40:25.177 --> 00:40:25.398
night,
00:40:25.418 --> 00:40:29.159
which is Spielberg's movie about aliens
00:40:29.219 --> 00:40:30.940
and all of that.
00:40:31.039 --> 00:40:34.202
And my wife asked as we were leaving,
00:40:34.282 --> 00:40:36.882
why do aliens in movies always look alike?
00:40:37.802 --> 00:40:39.583
Mm-hmm.
00:40:42.416 --> 00:40:45.177
You wonder why do American Revolutionary
00:40:45.197 --> 00:40:48.239
War battles in movies always look alike?
00:40:49.860 --> 00:40:52.222
And it's a lack of knowledge and a
00:40:52.302 --> 00:40:57.724
lack of imagination, I suppose.
00:40:57.905 --> 00:41:01.827
And filmmakers want to give the people
00:41:01.867 --> 00:41:04.588
what they want, I suppose.
00:41:09.793 --> 00:41:12.715
I'm not sure how you could, but as,
00:41:13.034 --> 00:41:13.275
you know,
00:41:13.315 --> 00:41:14.815
I'm not sure how you could do it.
00:41:15.416 --> 00:41:19.579
It would take a lot of expertise that
00:41:19.679 --> 00:41:22.240
I lack to do that.
00:41:22.300 --> 00:41:26.943
But it's very visual to show flanks of
00:41:27.443 --> 00:41:32.807
redcoats marching, you know, in step.
00:41:33.128 --> 00:41:36.230
And the good guys behind the little,
00:41:37.400 --> 00:41:40.563
Stone walls firing and wiping them out.
00:41:40.583 --> 00:41:41.844
They fall in lines.
00:41:42.023 --> 00:41:44.445
And people like that.
00:41:45.865 --> 00:41:47.967
They like aliens that always look alike
00:41:48.547 --> 00:41:50.469
with the big heads and the tiny bodies.
00:41:51.088 --> 00:41:52.449
That's how we know they're aliens.
00:41:52.849 --> 00:41:53.570
That's right.
00:41:53.610 --> 00:41:54.929
That's how we know they're the British.
00:41:54.949 --> 00:41:55.731
That's right.
00:41:55.811 --> 00:41:56.971
Yeah.
00:41:57.010 --> 00:41:58.112
Well, this is a fascinating.
00:41:58.132 --> 00:42:00.072
We're talking with Alan Pell Crawford,
00:42:00.112 --> 00:42:02.952
whose most recent book is This Fierce
00:42:03.012 --> 00:42:03.413
People,
00:42:03.452 --> 00:42:05.114
The Untold Story of America's
00:42:05.554 --> 00:42:07.574
Revolutionary War in the South.
00:42:08.255 --> 00:42:09.737
Thank you so much for joining us, Alan.
00:42:09.757 --> 00:42:11.159
This has been fun talking with you,
00:42:11.179 --> 00:42:12.902
fun reading the book and hearing more
00:42:12.942 --> 00:42:13.842
about this period.
00:42:15.346 --> 00:42:16.427
So thanks for joining us.
00:42:16.586 --> 00:42:18.389
And you ask very good questions.
00:42:18.911 --> 00:42:19.512
Well, thank you.
00:42:19.532 --> 00:42:20.052
I've enjoyed it.
00:42:20.632 --> 00:42:21.054
Thank you.
00:42:21.534 --> 00:42:22.936
I'm sure I'll think of things I should
00:42:22.956 --> 00:42:23.536
have asked.
00:42:25.460 --> 00:42:27.061
And I also want to thank Jack Caddy,
00:42:27.081 --> 00:42:28.681
who's been our man behind the curtain
00:42:28.701 --> 00:42:30.581
today, and also Jonathan Lane.
00:42:30.601 --> 00:42:31.862
And if you have questions or if you
00:42:31.882 --> 00:42:33.762
want some Revolutionary War swag,
00:42:33.802 --> 00:42:35.224
send Jonathan an email.
00:42:35.264 --> 00:42:37.123
And if you're in one of these places,
00:42:37.164 --> 00:42:37.963
every week, Alan,
00:42:37.983 --> 00:42:39.844
we thank folks who are regular listeners
00:42:39.864 --> 00:42:41.186
in different parts of the country.
00:42:41.606 --> 00:42:42.905
And if you're in one of these places
00:42:42.965 --> 00:42:44.987
and want some Revolution Two-Fifty swag,
00:42:47.159 --> 00:42:50.260
evolution two five oh.org and this week I
00:42:50.320 --> 00:42:52.782
want to thank our listeners in Tallahassee
00:42:52.822 --> 00:42:56.065
Florida and in Falls Church Virginia Goose
00:42:56.105 --> 00:42:58.547
Creek South Carolina and Pigeon Cove
00:42:58.586 --> 00:43:02.228
Tennessee as well as Stratton Nebraska and
00:43:02.389 --> 00:43:05.010
in Edinburgh and Glasgow and here in
00:43:05.050 --> 00:43:07.233
Massachusetts and Taunton and Attleboro
00:43:07.632 --> 00:43:09.474
and in all places between and beyond
00:43:09.514 --> 00:43:10.394
thanks for joining us
00:43:36.851 --> 00:43:37.253
Great.
00:43:37.313 --> 00:43:37.936
Thank you, Alan.
00:43:37.956 --> 00:43:38.940
That was fun.
00:43:39.001 --> 00:43:39.422
Thank you.