Episode 160: A new George Washington Movie is coming your way with Dr. Craig Bruce Smith

Dr. Craig Bruce Smith and I break down the trailer for the upcoming film, Young George Washington

About our guest:

Craig Bruce Smith is Professor of History at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era and co-authored George Washington’s Lessons in Ethical Leadership.
 
Smith earned his PhD in American history from Brandeis University. Previously, he was an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), an assistant professor of history, and the director of the history program at William Woods University, and he has taught at additional colleges, including Tufts University. He specializes in American Revolutionary and early American history, specifically focusing on George Washington, honor, ethics, war, the founders, transnational ideas, and national identity. In addition, he has broader interests in colonial America, the early republic, leadership, and early American cultural, intellectual, and political history.

Transcript

Jason Herbert (00:01.267)
Happy Halloween my friend, how are you?

Craig (00:03.67)
I'm all right. it is indeed Halloween, which is why I wasn't allowed to shave. No, it's bizarre. So what happens is my daughter is right now, everything is how to train your dragon. So she's going as Astrid for Halloween, which means I have to be stoic the vast, which means I need a beard. So this is...

Jason Herbert (00:10.033)
I've never seen you with a beard.

Jason Herbert (00:23.553)
You know, it's changing the youthful look of you that I'm used to seeing.

Craig (00:32.174)
This is less than a week.

Jason Herbert (00:36.881)
I shaved, I shaved my down last time. can't find a good, a good guard. Cause this is too, too, too short for me. For me, it's like the chin, the second chin is, is upon us with the current thing. I need a couple of days here, but fortunately this, this, this recording is not audio. So, or is all audio only, but you, my friend gave me a trick and a treat yesterday when you said, or a couple of days ago when you said, Hey, we should talk about this.

Craig (00:42.604)
Yeah, that's weird. don't like it. Grow the beard.

Jason Herbert (01:05.961)
this trailer here. So.

Craig (01:06.23)
Yeah, we should because we've been, we have been arguing that we need a like this for years. In fact, we actually made an episode whenever that was, probably wasn't that long ago, where we actually called an emergency meeting to discuss the need for what type of movie is that.

Jason Herbert (01:11.893)
We're on record.

Yes.

Jason Herbert (01:28.117)
And then look at our power, Craig, a movie miraculously appeared, right? So if you're listening in right now, what we're talking about is the brand new trailer for this new film called Young Washington. It's being put out by the Angel and Wonder Project. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Slated for release on July 3rd, 2026, just in time for the nation's 250th birthday. We watched it.

Craig (01:31.863)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (01:57.097)
just a few moments ago as well. We've seen it a couple of times now. What are your thoughts on this trailer? Like what's going on here?

Craig (02:03.87)
I actually really liked the trailer. I think it looks great. I think it's capturing a lot of the essence of Washington and the French Indian War. They are showing multiple perspectives. There's the British side, there's the colonial side, there's the French side, there's the native side. So I think it actually has a lot of nuance to it. Because again, when you're talking about the sort of frontier between

Jason Herbert (02:06.313)
Yeah.

Craig (02:33.71)
The French colonies, the American colonies, sort of this, you know, to coin it, to borrow a term, the middle ground, this sort of un- really controlled, unconquered, it's no one really has control, everyone sort of claims it. I think you need that. And if it had just gone, oh, it's just the French perspective or just the colonial or just the native, I think you completely lose it because it's about how all these different groups interact with each other. So I think it looks great.

I, you know, they have, they have, you know, some, some legitimate people in it. some of the casting we could talk about that maybe is, it right? is, could, you know, I, I would argue that for Washington, are you ever going to get it right? you know, so I think that's, that's a tough role for, for William Franklin Miller. I mean, why didn't you get a William Washington Miller? mean, it's right there. but, but I think overall it looks.

Really good?

Jason Herbert (03:36.565)
Yeah, I don't like you and I look at this, the production values on this look absolutely terrific. Here's what I dig. There are two things that I actually dig here. One, I love teaching seven years war French and Indian war here in the United States. I think it's fascinating. It is a fascinating, fascinating story to tell. I I always call it the first World War I, although people will tell you there were other World Wars well before.

Craig (03:41.646)
Yeah.

Craig (03:50.83)
Hmm?

Jason Herbert (04:04.528)
This one, but it's my little turn of phrase that I used to like when I was teaching.

Craig (04:06.413)
Yeah. Yeah, but not, not on as many continents, as far reaching as many countries. Yeah. I still would argue it is the first. you could argue, I mean, there are others you could make a case for, but where else do you have wars simultaneously being fought on what, four continents?

Jason Herbert (04:13.598)
Sure.

Jason Herbert (04:26.056)
Yeah, it's, you know, for me, it's such a fascinating, you know, a fascinating book, right? Excuse me, fascinating conflict. And the thing that I dig about this is really, know, it's a historian, we often talk about when does the American Revolution begin, right? And what's the difference between, the American Revolution versus, the Revolutionary War? I tend to really separate those two things. The Revolutionary is really this intellectual concept of governance.

Craig (04:49.057)
Yes.

Craig (04:55.543)
Sure.

Jason Herbert (04:55.668)
and power and state agency and things like that. But you could definitely draw, you could definitely go this long revolutionary era, really kind of beginning in 1754, with the Seven Years War going really through the French and Haitian revolutions as well. So I think that there's there's so much here to mine from. then second thing, yeah.

Craig (05:17.509)
yeah, I agree. I agree with you separating the two and you could say the American Revolution may start in the French Indie War, though the war certainly does not. I think that's completely fair distinction.

Jason Herbert (05:28.722)
Right, right. And then the other thing I like, right, is going back and revisiting this idea of a young Washington, because I think when in our popular imagination, we are so used to seeing on dollar bills and paintings and things like that of these stately older men, older white guys, right? Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, whomever, right? And they're all in the wigs and the powdered wigs and they're all older guys and so forth.

Craig (05:36.8)
Yes.

Craig (05:43.853)
Mm-hmm.

Craig (05:47.319)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (05:56.04)
And there's almost this sense that these guys had an idea what they were doing when the reality is the founding generation was actually quite young. Now, Franklin's an outlier here, but these guys are young. These guys, a lot of these guys are younger than you and I at the outset of the American revolution. You know, they're kind of, yeah.

Craig (06:04.898)
Yes.

Craig (06:11.263)
Which is disturbing now when I think about all I have not accomplished.

Jason Herbert (06:16.093)
Yeah, well, we can we can go into Craig's therapy later on. But that'll be a paper pay per view. Listen on my patreon. But, you know, it's so I like the idea of showing like, wait a second, these are young people and they make mistakes like we're going to talk about at Fort Necessity. And like Washington is is not does not always have all the answers. You know,

Craig (06:29.698)
Yes.

Craig (06:33.78)
it.

Craig (06:39.517)
the thing is with young Washington, know, pre-French Indian War and especially early French war is a completely different person from American Revolution Washington. He complete again, a complete flip is too strong, but he grows up and he grows out of certain tendencies. And it just think about, you know, us things we would have done or said or thought when we were 20.

20, 21, 22 versus what, know, how we would think about it today. And granted, you're a lot older than me, but.

Jason Herbert (07:17.913)
Wow. Wow. Now I'm thinking about the things I haven't done, you know, but no, absolutely. Right. So let's from everything we can tell this film really kind of looks like it's taking place from what we can tell really between the years of say, uh, what 1754 and 1755, you know, somewhere in that range.

Craig (07:35.694)
I think a little earlier because it's got his mission out to the French commander, his trucking through the wilderness. So maybe it's 1753, but to 1755, can't really tell before or after, but it's in that sort two-year window, which I think is a really smart move because we've talked about this on, if you want to go back and listen to our emergency podcast, where's our George Washington movie?

Jason Herbert (08:05.107)
Mm-hmm.

Craig (08:05.217)
We talked about this, that if you tried to do a full span of life movie, it would fall flat. You have to pick a very specific moment. I could argue maybe two years is even, maybe it's a bit long, but I think two years is a good amount. I I could almost picture like a movie that is just a moment, but I think that two years is good.

Jason Herbert (08:29.449)
I think that there's a natural arc here that they can build to, right? Which is young Washington, the young Virginian, the young British officer, right? Kind of coming through the ranks. From what we can tell here that we see on screen, there's almost certainly Fort Necessity, his mistakes that he makes at Fort Necessity, which I think probably provides that downhill moment in the film was like, this is the challenge, this is where he screws up, this is his nadir.

Craig (08:32.225)
Yeah, yes.

Craig (08:38.157)
You

Craig (08:48.3)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (08:59.837)
And then we see him at later on, I'm pretty sure at the Battle of Monongahela when he kind of rallies the forces after Braddock gets killed.

Craig (09:08.087)
But there's also the question of, you we could say is Fort Necessity the low point or is the low point earlier the skirmish in Jummanville Glen named after the death of Jummanville, who is basically a French emissary. So there's a lot going on here, but I do agree with you. It's a natural story arc that goes from Washington's mission to the French, the death of Jummanville, Fort Necessity to Washington's

revenge at, you know, with Edward Braddock outside of Pittsburgh. It's a natural story. I think if you break it there, again, I don't know how it's gonna end, but I mean, if they break it with, you know, Braddock's, know, handing over his general sash, you know, with his final breath, I think that's a great way to end it. I would sort of just cut it right there. Yeah, I would just cut it there, personally.

Jason Herbert (09:42.367)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (09:59.368)
And now Washington has arrived on the stage. right. Yeah. think that that's, I think that that's probably where you're going where he can successfully leads this retreat from, from the Glenn. can we talk a little bit about some people we see on screen? Cause I think people listening to this podcast know who George Washington was now. There's also three other people that we really kind of see prominently pictured that people may know. First is Ben Kingsley.

Craig (10:16.46)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (10:28.083)
So I'm watching this trailer for the first time, I'm whoa, this is the legitimacy you need in this film, playing Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Denwiddle. Can you talk a little bit about Denwiddle?

Craig (10:32.684)
Yes.

Craig (10:39.501)
So Dinwiddie is actually a Scot. So again, it's not perfect casting. All of Scotland will point out that he's a Scot. But no, you absolutely have have Dinwiddie in there who is lieutenant governor, but he's basically functioning as...

Jason Herbert (10:41.205)
Sorry, excuse me.

Jason Herbert (10:45.342)
Right.

Jason Herbert (10:50.089)
Well, Kingsley's Indian, so...

Craig (11:05.645)
The governor is sort of like an absentee governor. So he's basically, and he's crucial in Washington's life because he's the one that's sort of giving him all these positions, whether it's the sort of this emissary to the French or as the adjutant general of Virginia militia, he's the one that's really crafting Washington's career. So anything that Washington gets during this period is really.

Jason Herbert (11:08.309)
Mm-hmm.

Craig (11:33.153)
due to the goodwill and patronage of Dinwiddie. So he is absolutely crucial character. You couldn't not have him. I think Ben Kingsley is a great choice. Again, aside from that he's not a Scot, but it's also, I don't think you need to have it completely, you you don't have to have a Scottish accent. Yeah, I think it's a great choice. He's got the gravitas, it works.

Jason Herbert (11:57.002)
Yeah, I think Kingsley goes, this is a serious movie. Is what they're looking at. Now you're looking at it and wait, is this a serious movie or has Ben Kingley just getting paid? But that's the cynic in me. Yeah, but then I see somebody else here. Now I see Andy Serkis. And I'm like, wait a second. This is two actors that I know. Andy Serkis is playing me late. They're all late. we're 250 years later. Edward Braddock.

Craig (12:00.248)
Yes.

Craig (12:06.635)
Yes. Is he just Nicolas Caging this?

Craig (12:15.307)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (12:27.093)
Can we talk a little bit about who Braddock was and why he's gonna be so important to this film?

Craig (12:31.687)
after we do nasty stinking colonials.

Jason Herbert (12:38.312)
Listen, is in a lot of ways the new Sean Bean. He's not making it through this film alive. But why is Braddock such a big deal to the Seven Years War?

Craig (12:48.365)
Oh, again, Braddock is so Braddock was a British general. was sent over basically after Washington fails. And there's a prevailing British mindset that American colonials cannot handle this. So you a general Braddock is sent over. He was previously the governor of Gibraltar.

So he sent over and it's the first standing army in America since Bacon's rebellion. So it's been a while and he is going to lead the mission to dislodge the French from the West. So the British claim the area around Pittsburgh. Well, well, Virginians sort of claim to the Pacific Ocean. The French obviously claim it, the natives claim it or, you know, variety of native nations claim

So he's sent to lead this mission to dislodge the French. He in many ways gets a bad, as always with history, it's complicated. So traditionally he gets a bad rap in that he's haughty, he's arrogant, he's this British officer that's sort of ho ho, hmm, colonials, you can't fight. There is some...

Jason Herbert (14:06.589)
Jason Isaacs, go on.

Craig (14:12.479)
So I don't think that's accurate. His career, he's actually been shown to be a fairly competent officer. I think he just doesn't understand the differences of fighting in North America versus fighting in traditional European theater. So he understands fighting the French on the continent of Europe. He doesn't understand fighting the French and natives in the wilderness of America. But the thing that the largest sort of

detractions against him is he has dinner with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, like you do if you're in Philadelphia. Franklin records this and Franklin sort of warning him about ambushes and the differences of fighting natives. And Braddock says something akin to him paraphrasing here. my dear Franklin.

Perhaps these natives would be fearsome for your colonial troops, but surely they would break against the scarlet red of his majesty's forces. And sure,

Jason Herbert (15:17.813)
Well, yeah, we're going to see that in film. We may not see Franklin himself, but look, we're going to see Braddock's self-assuredness. And we see that I think in the trailer as well. And when I was looking at the YouTube comments, people were like, oh my gosh, Ben Kingsley, Andy Serkis, Frazier. It's like, he has a name, right? A man has a name and it's Kelsey Grammer. So who is Lord Fairfax?

Craig (15:20.706)
Yes.

Craig (15:37.718)
Yeah

Craig (15:41.483)
Yes, I know who knows it. Yes.

So what you're seeing in this, you're basically seeing three prominent, or you could say four, but three prominent Anglo figures. it's obviously Braddock who does have a tremendous impact in Washington, not the same as the others, because it's limited, but he had the potential to have a major impact when Washington serves on his staff.

Lord Fairfax is one of the few legitimate titled aristocrats in the colonies during this period. So most of the time, most of the people in the colonies are, if you're elite, you're actually more probably more middling by the English concept, which is gives into why the British are often looking down on them. So you have these, you know, these elite American colonists that they're

at best the lowest, they're the poorest rich guys in England. Whereas the Farfaxes are an actual titled family. So here's a, for instance, just to show you the difference, the Washington's at, you know, pre-French Indian war, right before Washington's father dies owns 10,000 acres. The Farfaxes own 5.2 million. Just to show you. Yeah.

Jason Herbert (17:11.262)
bit more. It's a schmidge.

Craig (17:15.501)
So Lord Fairfax is based, you know, his house is Bellevoix. So if you know Fort Bellevoix in Virginia today, so it's not far from Mount Vernon. Washington's older brother marries into the family. And so he becomes one of these sort of mentor figures, giving sort of patronage, sort of guiding the way. So Washington gets his first job as a surveyor, which he has no reason to get as a 17 year old. Why? Because Lord Fairfax says, hey, go survey my land. I like you.

And then he gets his job through Dinwiddie because the Fairfax is basically vouched for. So he is a crucial figure and he's also the Fairfax are crucial for helping to correct Launder, massage Washington's reputation after Fort Necessity.

Jason Herbert (18:08.157)
when I looked at the IMDB page, I could see who was listed as cast and so forth. What we don't see are the native people listed by, least by casting, at least currently on IMDB. Although we do hear some presumably native folks speaking and I'm wondering Craig, if you're thinking that's also Tana Gressin or if you think that might be somebody else.

Craig (18:30.401)
That's the only person I could think it would be also known as Half King, which is the British nickname. I think he is, that's, I would imagine that's who that's supposed to be. I don't know who else it would be, because he is certainly the central native character. Again, there are many others. There are many others, but if we're boiling it down to who do you have to have, it has to be

Jason Herbert (18:35.05)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Herbert (18:56.415)
Fort Necessity. Yeah. I mean, cause we know this is going to be a big set piece, right? Yeah. if you guys listening in half King was a, was a Mingo, leader. was not a full on chief or leader per se. mean, he was kind of like a sub, kind of like a sub chief. this is, we're speaking really kind of broadly right now. but this guy was clearly respected clearly,

Craig (19:00.403)
It has to be Heffken, right?

Craig (19:13.259)
Yes. Yes.

Jason Herbert (19:21.021)
Respect is definitely as far as his martial skills and we're going to see more of him. It'll be interesting to see the depictions of him on screen.

Craig (19:28.105)
And he very much played both sides. played the French, he played the British, he played other native nations, he played the colonists. So there's a very real dynamic here of who is, who is he working for? If anyone is he out for himself? Yeah.

Jason Herbert (19:45.077)
He's working for himself. He's working for his own people, just like everybody else was.

Craig (19:50.238)
And you could even argue, maybe not even as people, there's actually, we could argue, is it paranoia, is it legitimate fear? He's actually afraid that the French are going to murder him. So it becomes really personal.

Jason Herbert (20:01.641)
Yeah, right. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see if he's giving as much screen time as say some of the other people that we've seen thus far.

Craig (20:10.541)
I would argue he should. He should have as, think he's, if this is the story you're telling, he's at least as prominent for the first half.

Jason Herbert (20:21.513)
Yeah, well, I think, you know, again, what we're talking about when we when we look at these areas, I mean, all of the stuff, the French and Indian wars, it's commonly called here in the United States is fought on native land, you're going to need to have native people in the story because they're part of this story. So as you and I are watching this kind of film unfold for us, this is the teaser trailer. It's supposed to give us a glimpse. It's not going to give us the whole thing. And I think the purposely holding back from what I think is probably going to be the big the next big push on the full on trailer.

Craig (20:41.911)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (20:51.305)
because this is maybe Craig, what for me as a scholar gives me a little, when I start to look at the production values, the groups producing this film, so forth, they go, wow, we've got some big people here. We've got Kingsley and circus and grammar and so forth. Who's making this film? And it's a group called the angel and wonder project. And it, the wonder project is created. They're based out of Nashville to, produce faith and value based productions. So I'm.

Here's my concern on this and I'm not the expert on Washington that you are but what I think is coming is perhaps a bigger trailer that starts to emphasize Washington's faith and I think that as we head into this 250th anniversary of the United States and I'm kind of wondering Craig what your thoughts on this as far as like if we can kind of talk just super briefly about where faith played in Washington's life, maybe over time and I guess what we should be

Craig (21:43.584)
Yeah.

Craig (21:47.501)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (21:50.059)
looking for as we move forward towards this film.

Craig (21:52.814)
Okay. So this is again, I, I don't have any, again, I think this trailer looks great. I am, I am, I am going, you know, I'm looking forward to this movie. That being said, given that the, studio is faith-based, again, perfectly fine. as a historian, this is where I get a little.

And we've talked about this before, do movies have to be absolutely accurate? No, by no means. But as a Washington scholar, this is the one place where I'm like, mm. So Washington absolutely is Christian. But you could argue perhaps he's not a traditional sort of Anglican, obviously later divorcing from early Episcopalian.

But he is absolutely, he believes in God, which is a deist, but he very much follows the ideas of divine providence. And he speaks in those terms. So you'll see, you know, in later time, there's people very much trying to make Washington out to be, you know, sort of this Christian soldier. You're probably familiar with the famous painting of him kneeling in the woods praying.

at Valley Forge.

Craig (23:28.563)
I don't think it would not be accurate to have scenes like that. Is it perfectly appropriate for him to mention God and providence? Perfectly fine. He would have done that. Anyone in the 18th century would have done that.

Jason Herbert (23:45.819)
any soldier would have said that. It would have mentioned God at some point in time.

Craig (23:48.384)
Yes. So the idea of, you and you see that in the trailer, Ben Kingsley is like, you know, you have four bullet holes through your coat. How are you alive? Which did happen. That's from a famous letter that Washington writes, and he's going to claim divine providence. There's also a legend that the natives are going to say, well, he is the favorite of the gods. He's sort of sort of protected.

Was that said? I don't know. It sounds good. I say, yes, it is true. But that's one of the areas where I think it could go maybe in a direction that is less accurate. But again, I don't know. I have seen nothing in the trailer to indicate that.

Jason Herbert (24:32.617)
Right, look, as you and I are trying to be critical of what we've seen, we're trying to be good scholars here, which says like, we can only judge what we have seen thus far, right? I think it's okay for us to go, okay, putting some pieces together here, because I think that I've got some very real concerns based off what you said that what this film might do is present George Washington as some kind of messianic figure that establishes the United States is a Christian.

Craig (24:39.404)
Yeah.

Jason Herbert (25:01.477)
nation once and for all. That's what concerns me.

Craig (25:04.055)
So again, I'm not going to comment because I don't know what's happening in this movie, right? I don't know. I'm just saying that if well, every movie often makes that the hero, the messianic figure. if that happens, that's just called movie making 101. So I don't think that's really an issue. Again, I'm not going to comment. I honestly don't know. What I do want to talk about is the casting. Of George Washington, young Washington.

Jason Herbert (25:20.245)
It's called Rocky IV.

Jason Herbert (25:33.535)
Yes.

Craig (25:33.922)
And I have no idea who this actor is. I have not seen him in anything, but much like how Washington gets named commander in chief of the Continental Army, it boils down basically to one thing. How tall is he? And I looked it up. He's six foot four. So he is tall enough to play Washington who was somewhere between six, two and six, four, depends how you measure toes out, toes in. But what we don't know, Jason.

Jason Herbert (25:37.599)
Never seen them.

Craig (26:03.199)
Are his thighs big enough to properly portray Washington? I don't know. We've got to get out the tape measure.

Jason Herbert (26:05.436)
Hahaha

Jason Herbert (26:10.225)
I'll let you go find an actor and ask him if you can measure his thighs. I'm sure that won't be weird at all. Listen, I think it actually works best that we have an unknown as Washington because as you and I have talked about certain characters, historical characters, they're almost too large. think one of the amazing things that Daniel Day-Lewis was able to do was humanize Abraham Lincoln, but that's also because you have maybe the best actor of his generation portraying the man.

Craig (26:16.237)
you

Craig (26:22.049)
Yes, I think that's great.

Craig (26:39.083)
I think he's overrated, but that's a whole other thing.

Jason Herbert (26:39.189)
How dare you, sir. I think there are certain guys like Washington, like Theodore Roosevelt, who were just too hard to portray on screen.

Craig (26:51.959)
To be fair, Teddy, Robin Williams did a really good job.

Jason Herbert (26:56.477)
Yes, in the museum, because why not? But I'm looking forward to it. So as a scholar, as a historian of early America, here's what I'm looking forward to. Good, or ugly, I'm looking forward to another opportunity to see how the memory of the revolution, the memory of early America is being portrayed on screen. What that tells us about our current era. What that tells us about where we think we want to go as a society. What that tells us about

biases and viewpoints and things like that. One of my favorite professors I ever had, his name is George Deener, teaches at Wichita State, always said this in class. He's like, look, as historians, we're not trying to have the final word. All we're trying to do is add to the argument. And I'm looking forward to seeing what this adds to the argument about a nation's founding, about how we think about America, what that informs us as far as who we are as Americans.

Craig (27:51.128)
What's often, I think is gonna be really interesting is this, is that this Washington, this young, arrogant, status-driven, rank-obsessed, out for glory, mistake-making, complaining. He writes a lot of angry letters. He's like my mom sending various letters to various companies about disappointment.

Jason Herbert (27:57.992)
Redheaded.

Jason Herbert (28:01.823)
Yes.

Craig (28:19.351)
This Washington's could be very different than what the average American is used to. So I am actually really curious about the reception. And most Americans, let's be fair, don't know a whole lot about the French-Indian War. So I think there's gonna be a lot of learning here for people who see it. I think there could be some really, what I could see is people saying, how could they portray Washington that way?

Jason Herbert (28:22.527)
than our Washington.

Craig (28:48.011)
their, you know.

Jason Herbert (28:48.233)
Well, I'm hoping that they're saying that because that means that they're portraying Washington in a format that we've never seen him before, which is the David Morris stoic, silent, has a plan. Not this arrogant, tempestuous 22 year old snot-nose brat kid who is out to make a name for himself.

Craig (28:58.06)
Yes.

Yes.

Craig (29:12.287)
Because you're talking about here, a guy who rises to the rank of Colonel of the Virginia Militia, despite having no military background. Why does he get this job? Well, his brother had the job. That's it. This is, you know, everything is, know, nepo baby stuff. And, you know, patronage, it's all there. And this is Washington that literally, so if you read a

Jason Herbert (29:25.013)
there.

Craig (29:41.964)
The book I recommend on this, I can recommend more, but the one I would recommend is by David Preston called Braddock's Defeat. I think it's one of the best books written, one of the best past 25 years in the era. And he basically has proven, and I think pretty definitively, Washington fires the first shot of what becomes the French Indian War. The question is, is it...

Jason Herbert (29:52.575)
I know this work.

Craig (30:10.797)
a shot like a signal, you know, to send his men. Is it a warning shot or is it literally a shot with intent? That I think is what's open-ended because he actually found this fantastic source. It's a native source describing this is the skirmish in Germanville Glen and basically says Washington's the one that fires. So, but this is a Washington that, you know, is

He doesn't kill a French embassy, but he's present. He's in command when, when. Yeah. So when, when half King, he splits the guy's head open with a hatchet and then. Let's go ahead.

Jason Herbert (30:41.385)
He's in there going, I mean.

And then you want to talk about what he does?

Jason Herbert (30:52.437)
After Half King splits Juwanville's head open with a hatching, sticks his hands inside the man's head, grabs the man's brains and...

smashes them up.

Craig (31:02.645)
I again, we have all varying versions of this and supposedly he says you, I am not dead yet my father, you know, and then all these other

Jason Herbert (31:11.743)
Good line, man. Like, we're gonna have a lot of Half-King Man crushes, I think, coming out of this.

Craig (31:15.933)
but it also, it, really turns Washington off his native allies here because he knows what's happened here, but he's trying to distance himself from it. The battle of Fort Necessity is huge because obviously it's a loss, but it's a fricking wooden palisade Fort in the middle of a Glen. Why do you build that? but the big thing there is Washington signs a treaty of capitulation, treaty of surrender, which is written in French. He doesn't speak French. His,

Translator is Dutch his French is better than his English and she basically signs a document that says he's he's responsible for the assassination of Jummanville He thought Yeah, he basically was he he he was like, no, no, it's just the death of oh good enough So it really affects his reputation the French are calling him an assassin the British are like, how could you sign this? It's a huge deal. And then how does he get?

Jason Herbert (31:54.249)
Yeah, because the translator's trying to get them out alive.

Jason Herbert (32:03.574)
Sorry.

Jason Herbert (32:12.16)
Right, and that's...

Craig (32:14.145)
And then as you get the Braddock job, well, we need someone who's been out there. Who was the officer that led it? Well, it was Washington. Well, how did he get that job? Well, his brother had the job. good enough. It's on my staff.

Jason Herbert (32:25.43)
Yeah, and like, we'll get into this later on when we watch the film, because we'll come back into a pod on this film here in about nine, 10 months, whenever that is. Antoc, Washington's a phenomenal horseman. We'll talk about this later on. There's a book, Craig, I really dig Fred Anderson's Crucible of War, which is an overview of The Seven Years' War. So if you're looking for a larger story, it's a big, meaty book. But if you're looking for a general story of The Seven Years' War, I...

Craig (32:42.561)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (32:54.1)
I love this one. This is the one that really kind of gets into the different phases and really kind of campaigns of the war, different regions and so forth. I really dig that one as well.

Craig (33:02.797)
So again, what I'm interested in, obviously the book, the movie is called Young Washington and we have two books that are out there called Young Washington. So there's a two volume biography that was done by Douglas Southall Freeman in the forties called Young Washington. So is it based on that one? There's also a more recent one, I think 2017 ish by Peter Stark also called Young Washington.

I am curious if these are directly based on one or both, or if it's just a compilation of varying accounts. There's some other great books, especially for you as a native historian, is Colin Calloway's The Indian World of George Washington, which won the George Washington Book Prize, beat me. I wasn't even a finalist, but it beat me.

So that's another book. And then we were talking about religion and Washington Mary Thompson is certainly the best book on.

Jason Herbert (34:01.942)
you

Craig (34:14.699)
And I thank you for those.

Craig (34:24.865)
So Jason's not here. This is my chance to discuss the real elephant in the room, which is the fact that his arms are digitally edited. Yes, you've heard it here first. He digitally edits his arms.

Am I joking? Who's to say?

Jason Herbert (34:52.571)
There we are.

Craig (34:53.707)
I recorded a little Easter egg in there for you, so you could keep it or you could edit it out.

Jason Herbert (35:00.783)
I can't wait to see that. All right, well, maybe that's the God's telling us it's time to wrap this thing up, Craig. We asked, the fates have delivered. We are getting our young George Washington film. Will it hold water? There's only one way to find out.

Craig (35:15.949)
Who knows? What I would hope is that this is a trilogy. Because we were just, I think you could do this, you could do this, add maybe a Crossing of the Delaware, and then add a presidency one. I think that'd be a really great trilogy. But we do have to talk about, there is another young Washington movie in the works. We discovered it.

Yesterday the Chronicles of young Washington. So in this version young Washington, he fights the French in the Chronicles of young Washington. He's slated to fight the beast of Odina What is the beast of Odina or Odina I have no idea but it looks like some supernatural monster So is Washington set to get his Abe Lincoln vampire hunter moment? I don't know

Jason Herbert (35:46.373)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (36:00.507)
You want to explain? Yes.

Jason Herbert (36:14.365)
can only hope we can only find out as well. We'll do that. We'll do that one as a pod I'm sure because if there's anything here on here here in the pod we love is George Washington. So stay tuned everybody. Craig thank you so much. I know you've got are you going to George Washington tonight? No, you're not. You still there is so the best. All right, Craig. Thank you so much for jumping in.

Craig (36:31.073)
Now I'm going to stoke the vest.

Craig (36:37.173)
All right, see you.