the programs you'll see on booktv this weekend. for a complete television schedule. go to booktv.org. booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors. television for serious readers. and now we kick off the weekend with nathaniel philbrick on the relationship between george washington and benedict arnold. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening, everyone. >> good evening. >> that was good. that was very good. [laughter] thank you all for being here. i'm the president of george washington's mount ver. no we are delighted to have you for this installment of the ford evening book talks, and i begin by thank the ford motor company for their enduring partnership with mount vernon. they've done a great deal for us including endowing this book talk series. i am personally pleased to welcome back nathaniel philbrick. it's his third time he's visited mount vernon in as many years. i asked to introduce him because whenever i do that, i'm struck by his bone fee bonafides as a true renaissance man. he has an m.a. in american literature from duke. he was an all-american sailor while at brown university. he worked as an editor at sailing world magazine, and he wrote and edit canned several sailing books including passionate wind, and yachting: a parody. [laughter] he is the author of play mayflower as well as in the heart of the sea. in 2010 he published a book called the last stand. it won a new york times -- it was a new york times bestseller, a new york times notable book and it's been adapted into a ten-part tv series. it is being adapted as we speak into a tv series, and he was also a consultant on the pbs american experience film custer's last stand. so the good news for everyone here this evening is at a moment he turned his prodigious talents to the american revolution. and he published in 2013, bunker hill: a city, a hill, a revolution, which he came and spoke about several years ago. it won the 2013 new england book award for nonfiction, the 2014 distinguished book award of the society of colonial wars. and the rights to the book have been acquired by warner brothers, my former employer, for a film adaptation that ben ben affleck may direct. stay tuned on that one. he has written for "vanity fair," "the new york times" book review, the "wall street journal," the l.a. times and "the boston globe." he's appeared on today show, on dateline, on pbs' american experience, on c-span and npr which actually leads me to say we're delighted to have c-span here this evening to film the lecture. nathaniel philbrick hails from pittsburgh. he credits his ap u.s. history teacher for recognizing his nascent talent and encouraging him to write. so her prescience is part of the reasons we welcome nat philbrick here this evening. it's titled valiant ambition: george washington, benedict arnold and the fate of the american revolution. so please join me in welcoming nat philbrick. [applause] >> well, thank you, curt, and it's really great to be here at mount vernon. this is just such a special place be you've been researching and writing george washington. and a little sidebar, that's yachting: a parody, and yachting was spelling with two as and no cs. [laughter] to be here in mount vernon after writing in this book, it begins with washington in new york after a -- as a huge armada of british warships and transports a arrives in new york harbor. more than 400 ships, more than 40,000 sailors and soldiers. that's more people than in philadelphia, than the largest urban center in america. it's like the war of the worlds in which this amazing force arrives at your doorstep. washington had been there at the siege of boston which i write about in my earlier book, bunker hill. but this was different. king george had responded with a real will. and washington wasn't, had never led a big army in a big battle before. this was new for him. and it would test his talents. and it was after finishing bunker hill that i realized i just have to follow this guy into where he'll lead me in the revolution because i was so fascinated with washington. he's not a statue. we hi of him as the careful pragmatist, the perp we see on the dollar -- the person we see on the dollar bill. but early on in his military career, he was wired to be aggressive. time and time again he wanted to attack the british that were then in boston, and his council of war repeatedly would say, no, it's just too risky. but he wanted that bold stroke to try to finish this war because he realized this was, america was hardly a country at all, especially in 1775, even with the declaration of independence in july of 1776. it was now supposedly independent, but it was barely being held together. washington was well aware how tentative his army was. it didn't have enough armaments or gun powder, all these things. and now in new york it's completely different. he's up against it. it would not go well for him in new york. the battle of long island, he would be out-generalled by william howe, forced to retreat from the high ground in brooklyn heights, across the east river to new york. eventually, forced to retreat from new york into the harlem heights. and this gave the british a toehold on the base of the hudson river. and much of my book is about, is set on water, believe it or not. because at the -- the hudson river was part of what i call a corridor of water that spanned the length, the breadth of the country at this section. it would, if you took the hudson river to the south and the river-like expanse of lake champlain more than 300 miles to the north, you had a corridor of water that went all the way to canada. now, we drive around in our multilane highways, and often you see a fort positioned by a river or a lake and you wonder, you know, why? what's the strategic importance? well, the fact of the matter is in the 18th century you could not transport people, provisions with any kind of speed or regularity unless it was by water. the road system was not there. and so whoever possessed this corridor of water would be in a position to cut off new england from the rest of the statements. and so -- from the rest of the states. so it was absolutely critical that america maintain some control of this or the war would be over. and with the loss of new york, the british now had the toehold on this corridor of water. and by september 15 with the americanss evacuating from new york, there was one group of soldiers that stood between the british is and taking lake champlain to the north, and that was benedict arnold. now, my interest in benedict arnold goes way back. it began with my mother. my mother was a renegade. for one thing, she smoked a pipe -- [laughter] which as a teenager, it was tough to take in a restaurant when mom would light up. [laughter] after dinner. and she had no problem telling someone what she believed even if she knew they wouldn't -- didn't want to hear it. and one of her heroes was benedict arnold. [laughter] now, mom being mom, i kind of dismissed that in my teenage years. but after finishing bunker hill, i realized i wanted to get at a part of the revolution -- the war of independence that i knew relatively little about. for one thing, i write these books not because i'm an expert in the field, but because i'm curious about the subject. i wanted the know -- i knew there was a story there that i hadn't really learned in high school even though my ap u.s. history teacher was a wonderful woman and really ignited my interest in history. but, you know, we grow up thinking of the revolution as heroic militiamen banding together to defeat british tyranny. and we think of the battles as steppingstones to our inevitable victory at yorktown. but the fact of the matter is the revolution went on for eight long years. and instead of this seemingly relentless course to victory, it stagnated terribly even after the french came into it, after the victory at saratoga. things just wound down. there wasn't the money to pay for the army. congress was highly suspicious of the military because in every previous revolution in which a republic was the hoped-for end result, the military had ultimately co-opted the civil government and either a dictator or an emperor would take over x. so they were rightly concerned about the military. so the continental congress was, had real control over washington. i think we think of him as, you know, operating, you know, being the one who's controlling this revolution. but, in fact, he had to report to the congress. and i hate to say it, but a dysfunctional congress is nothing new. [laughter] and washington had to deal with. and so, and one of the things that happened during this eight-year slog was that instead of fighting the british, we americans began to fight among ourselves. it was under the, it was patriot versus loyalist to a certain extent, but in large swaths of the hulledson river valley -- hudson river valley to the north of british-occupied new york, the long island sound and the coastal new jersey, it devolved into this ugly cat and dog fight. former -- neighbor going after neighbor. and it just was, it was just something that was horrible to live through. and afterwards people really didn't want to remember it in those terms. and so i wanted to get at this. but how to, how to find a way to dramatize it, how to find a personality to get at what i felt was the dark side of the revolution that i hadn't appreciated. enter mom with benedict arnold. [laughter] because, you know, i grew up thinking to be called a benedict arnold, oh, my gosh, that was the worst possible thing you could be. he's, like many historical figures, he's become caricature. he's just the worst thing on earth as far as americans can think of. but the fact of the matter is, in the beginning of the revolution he was our best general. and washington really respected him for that. and it's interesting, washington was wired, had an aggressive temperament by nature. he would learn to tame it for the good of his country. but in benedict arnold, i thought -- i think he saw a kindred spirit to a certain extent. that if washington had been ten years younger and not is saddled with the crushing -- not saddled with the crushing responsibilities of command, he could have been on battlefield and winning the kinds of victories that benedict arnold was racking up. was it's amazing -- because it's amazing. he learned at lexington and concord, and he's been an awe post care and sea-going merchantman. he's got a small fleet of ships that go down to the caribbean, up the coast to the st. lawrence river to quebec and montreal. he knows all about this water, corridor of water, and he says, you know what? we need to take ticonderoga at the southern end of lake champlain. there's all sorts of cannons there that we could use, and it's a key to maintaining control of this vital portion of our country. so he ends up -- turns out ethan allen and some others have the same idea, and it's benedict arnold and ethan allen that storm fort ticonderoga. after that he, washington assigns him -- while washington is mired in what will be a nine month siege in boston, he sends benedict arnold on an, over a crazy overland expedition to try to get to quebec. because the british have been caught kind of unaware by the outbreak of the revolution. they have very small forces in montrealing and quebec. -- montreal and quebec. we can take those two cities early before reinforcements arrive, we'll have canada and be in a much better position. and so montgomery is sent up lake champlain and takes montreal. it's up to benedict arnold to read ragtag band up the we knob scot river, not down, in the fall. it's getting very cold, and the river is a virtual torrent. i followed benedict arnold's trail into interior maine to quebec. up there, up north there's still nothing up there. [laughter] if there's a street name, it says arnold. [laughter] he led his men up there. it's just an incredible story on its own. and he's there with daniel morgan, the great virginian rifleman. i mean, it's -- aaron burr. it's an amazing cast. and they make it. they get to quebec. and after that amazing feat, he would be known as the american hannibal which is, you know, he was a hero. he was not -- they finally would storm quebec at the end of the year in a snowstorm. montgomery, who was, had teamed up with him by that point would be killed in the early going. benedict arnold would be badly injured when a bullet ricochet got his left leg, and it would not succeed. but it was still an amazing, amazing feat. he would eventually be reassigned in montreal and be a vital element in leading the retreat from canada back down lake champlain. and chapter two of valiant ambition takes us 360 miles north of new york to the lake champlain right near the canadian border where it's benedict arnold with a fleet of about 15 vessels, many of them hacked from the trees surrounding the southern end of lake champlain, galleys and gondolas. these are, basically, floating platforms for cannons. and he's put this fleet together in record time. and general horatio gates who's in charge of the northern army at fort tie cobbed row georgia -- ticonderoga is his boss in all of this. and he has sent arnold up there with this fleet. and the british now have new york. and now there is a general, the british general carlton is leading this vast armada down lake champlain. they have actual three-masted ships with, you know, they have schooners, they have thousands of soldiers, they have more than 20 gun boats. and they're all headed in arnold's direction. it's october. it's getting -- it's so cold he they can see snow in the adirondack mountain on one side and the green mountains on the other. they're up there all alone. it's only a schooner that goes back and forth, you know, 100 miles down lake champlain. it's their only connection to fort ticonderoga. he's up there waiting. and he knows that it's going to be a northerly breeze that blows the british down lake champlain. and so he comes up with a brilliant plan. i didn't know benedict arnold was a mariner. this was a surprise to me, a wonderful surprise. and what made it even more potential is guess where i learned how to sail? lake champlain. [laughter] and little did i know that i was sailing on other side of the lake and on the east side. on the west side a few miles below what's now platts burg, new york, is valcore island. and it contains a little bay inside. and arnold knew that if he would take his little fleet and hide it inside the bay and wait for the british to sail past and then reveal himself, basically wave and say here we are -- [laughter] the british would then have to sail against the wind to attack his small fleet. now, a three-masted british ship with 18 cannons is an awesome force. but it can't sail against the wind. and it's really the maritime e equivalent of taking the high ground. and it would work beautifully. the british, with this huge armada, would sail down. articled would -- arnold would, you know, wave to them. they'd turn around saying, aha, we've got him, you know? we're between him and his escape route. we'll destroy what the americans called the mosquito fleet, appropriately enough. and so what would unfold is just a tremendous sea battle on lake champlain. arnold had lined up his 15 vessels across the entrance to the bay. i was up there with my wife in a pontoon boat circling it and working it all out. and at the smithsonian museum of american history, they have one of the vessels, the philadelphia, that was eventually sunk during this battle. you can go down and see it. it's amazing. but so this fleet was all piled up. and so they were, his vessels were all lined up. arnold was in the center of his line, and they waited for them. and sure enough, even the schooners had a hard time making it up. only the gunboats were able, because they had oars, could get close enough. so they would line up, and they would just start wailing on one another, firing cannons back and forth. arnold was at the bow firing his, and he even took a pot shot at general carlton's flagship and nearly took him out on the quarter deck. and it was just, and it was eight hours of just going at it. philadelphia haha's at the smithsonian -- that's at the smithsonian would eventually sink, and eventually night would come, and arnold had fought them to a draw. i mean, he had -- his fleet was a mess. many men had died. but it was a miracle. he had done it. but the british were confident with once they had them trapped in this small bay. and so what they did was create their own line just below arnold's so that there was of no way more him to escape, and they were going to get him in the morning. well, arnolds has a -- arnold has a counsel with his officers, and one of the officers says, look, the only way we're going to get out of this is if we sail to the north, go around the top of the bay and the island. now, arnold had a swashbuckling charisma to him that i think was both inspiring and could be infuriating if you were an officer. i mean, he just -- and he said, no. we're going to go through their fleet. we're going to sneak through them. there's enough of a gap on the shore side of their line that if we go one vessel after another, we're going to get through. and so, okay, let's go for it. [laughter] and so vessel after vessel would go by with a light in the stern that could only be seen from behind. they would row with minimal sail up one after another, they went out. effervesce el got out. every vessel got out. carlton awoke the next morning, there was fog on the lake, so it took awhile to figure out there was no american fleet. [laughter] he was apoplectic. according to one account, he ordered them, let's go after them without telling everyone else he was leaving, then had to come back. okay, we're all going after arnold. [laughter] by this time the americans were many miles down the lake, and the wind had switched to the south, so they were sailing against the wind. and it was, you know, became a battle for the british were chasing them. a day passes, arnold is desperately trying to get his fleet back to fort ticonderoga when the wind comes out of the north. now, having sailed on lake champlain, i've experienced this phenomenon. it's a lake. the wind is not be always reliable, and so arnold's fleet was completely becalmed as a wind line come down the lake and british are coming after them. and so that great, big british ship and two scoopers were leading the way. -- schooners were leading the way. arnold basically says to his fleet, keep on going. although he tried to make one more stand at a place that's known as split rock. but his fleet sort of evaporated around him. and so he decided to make a kind of stand so that the rest of the vessels could escape to fort ticonderoga. and so there's arnold surrounded by three british vessels fighting for hours. eventually, they're beginning to sink. arnold realizes once again this is it. he notices that the wind has changed to the east. he can row, they can't really do that so well, so they go for shore, make it to shore. they pull their vessel up onto -- he's surrounded by a few galley, a few gondolas. they pull their vessels up. he orders his men up into the high ground around. he refuses to lower his flag so the flag's still up, but he orders them to blow up their ships because there's gun powder in there. he's done the order. the british are approaching. they've lit the fuse, and he notices that one of his injured officers has been left inadvertently on the deck of his vessel. and each though he had insisted -- even though he had insisted that everybody get off. it blows up, and for arnold it was crushing. and it's interesting, the only account we had of this episode was from a british surgeon who saw a body fly in the air x. he claimed -- he used this to say how insensitive arnold was, you know, that this was -- years later an account would be found written by a vermonter who as a young boy lived in the house right on that cove. and late in life when he was looking for a pension, he gave an account of what he saw. and he described how arnold had done everything he could to get his men off, and when he found out that one of his men had been killed, he threatened to run through the officer who had been responsible for getting them off. they didn't leave until they buried the soldier, and then they escaped down the lake to fort ticonderoga. they came in at four a.m. and as horatio gates would write to general skyler who was the theoretical head of the northern army, no one hat had more hair -- has had more hair breadth escapes than arnold. and so here we are. my book begins with washington at his lowest depth, lowest stage. here's washington, the man who is destined to be the one person who can hold this country together, and he's at his lowest. here's arnold, destined to become the man who attempted to tear that country apart, and he's a true hero. you could argue that through this action -- and, by the way, the british after all this, you know, it's like they were hit by a tornado, you know? what happened here? they make their way down to fort tie conned row da, they look at thallen daughter, realize it's getting late, and they decide, nope, we're not going to do it this year, we'll wait until next year. and what that would set up a year later would be the battle of saratoga. and it was arnold that achieved it. so that's where the book begins. and i follow, i follow them through this. and the next we see washington at trenton and princeton which is, was washington's great comeback of all time. it's just an amazing feat. but there's another side to it, and that's the side of, you know, this book is about loyalty and betrayal and patriotism and self-interest. because these are the issues that people were wrestling with. i mean, what is, what is to be loyal -- does your, how much does your country owe you and how much to you owe your country? and washington going into, crossing the delaware, you know, that would be the magnificent turn around. it wasn't looking good. he had lost three-quarters of his army. it, you know, this was a desperate gamble. and what's amazing to me is how many of his officers he could not depend on. horatio gates, for example, comes down from fort ticonderoga. washington expects gates to help him out here. he has helped him out by bringing down 500 very seasoned soldiers from fort ticonderoga, but gates claims he's too ill and can't, can't help. he needs to go to philadelphia. by this time with the british knocking on pennsylvania's door, the continental congress has fled to baltimore. somehow gates decides, well, he's ill, but he's not -- that does not preclude riding all the way to baltimore where congress is. [laughter] it's clear to washington that if this expedition into new jersey does not go well, jorge show gates will be -- horatio gates will be perfectly poised to be the next one in line. and even before this in november, his adjutant general, joseph reeve, who's been at his side throughout the battle of long island, was there for part of the siege of boston, he's begun to lose confidence in him. and washington learns this when he inadvertently opens a letter addressed to reid from charles lee. basically, the second highest command, ranking officer in the american army, an english -- a brit who is now on the american side. and by the correspondence, washington can see that joseph reid, his adjutant general, has reached out to charles lee that, you know, if this doesn't go well, what you should do is go south and reform a new army. and he's talking, you know, at this lowest moment he's talking to someone else about -- and they're talking about washington's inability to make up his mind, these kinds of things. washington reads this letter, and what i think is really for me the first indication of his incredible political skills, because he was okay on the battlefield, but it was as a politician where his aggression and cold, ruthlessness could really come to fore. he would -- because reid was not at headquarters. he resealed the letter and send it to reid saying, you know, this was addressed to you, and since -- when you're not here, i open all correspondence to you assuming it's for all of us, but i realized this was of a different nature. and that's all he says. [laughter] he leaves him twisting in the icy emptiness of his withheld wrath. [laughter] and reid, you know, knows the man is angered. and that's the thing about washington. he, you know, he could control his passions, but that does not mean he was not passionate. as a young man, his anger was a real problem, you know? he famously copied the more than 100 rules of civility as an a attempt to sort of contain himself. and as thomas jefferson would write, for the most part he maintained an avenn den city over those -- avenn dancy over those passions. but they were still there. i think that's why washington was able to hang in there for so long, because of that. and so washington doesn't confront him directly, and reid becomes despondent in december. you know, instead of being a team player while washington is coming up with this plan for trenton, there's several accounts of reid sort of -- he's not even at headquarters. he's going, he's talking to people about how, how the cause is pretty much lost. and even according to one account he was poised to go to the other side if he should hear that trenton didn't go well. so all of this is happening around washington. and by the way, charles lee, second highest ranking american officer, would be captured about this time by british. not a bad thing from washington's point of view. [laughter] and is so there -- and so there we are. washington pulls it off. and, you know, you'd think this would, congress would be ecstatic. look what we have, you know? he's turned it around but instead what you see is people like john adams, particularly the congressmen from new england who are the ones that are -- the real radicals that pushed for the revolutioning and are very fearful -- revolution and are very fearful of the military potentially co-opting this revolution. he, you know, he talks in congress about the dangers of one man becoming, taking on monarchical status. and so they're concerned about washington. and so one of the things they decide to do is, you know, you'd think that washington as military commander would be able to choose his major generals, the officers upon which he fends the most. he depends the most. not so. remember, this is a republic. so the civil government, and washington understood this and would respect this throughout the revolution. even though it was driving him crazy. and, you know, this is the incredible patience he had, just incredible patience and stamina. and so congress that winter decides that each state should have two major generals. connecticut, where benedict arnold's from, already has two major generals. so this means that five officers ranking below arnold are elevated past him, while arnold, the highest ranking brigadier general who has just achieved a miracle on lake champlain is overlooked for promotion. this, i mean, people would say that arnold was thin-skinned, but this was outrageous. and it horrified washington. the letter he would write to arnold about, you know, initially he says, you know, i've heard this is the situation. i can't believe it's the true, but believe me, if it if it is,i will do everything for you that i can. and he would try, but this began arnold's real problems with the continental congress. and, you know, he had a point. and others, for example, john stark from new hampshire, same thing would happen to him. you know what he did? he quit. he quit and went to new hampshire and would raise his own state army. and, you know, arnold could have done that. but, no, he hung in there. and in typical arnold fashion, he's in new haven kind of upset over all this. he's now a widower. he's 36. he's met a 16-year-old girl in boston that he's fallen in love with. he's written her the most purple letter you've ever read -- [laughter] and she's turned him down flat. and so he's in new haven. it's not looking good. and he hears that a governor, a royal governor, william tyrone, at british-occupied new york is leading a raid on danbury, connecticut, where americans have a lot of military stores. it's very much like the raid on concord that would start the revolution. so he sails up long island where westport is today. they would offload, march inland, burn danbury, they burned it to the ground. they destroyed a huge amount of stores. arnold hears rabbit this, get -- hears about this, gets on his horse, and by the time the british are leaving danbury, he and 500 militiamen are in ridgefield, connecticut, where they know the british have to go through. he's created, there's sort of like a cliff on one side, a farmhouse on the other. they've created this barricade. there's not many of them. there's 2,000 british. and they're there. and so the british come at 'em. arnold is shouting at his men to, you know, hold their ground. if we're going to retreat, we're going to do this in an organized fashion. he's riding his horse up and down the line as the british are approaching, but the british -- who have no appetite for attacking head on -- have worked, have flanked them and are now firing from the sides and behind them. the militiamen flee, arnold's yelling at them. his horse gets hit by nine musket balls. finally, the horse is killed, it collapses on top of arnold who's pinned to the ground as the british are approaching. leading the way is a noted loyalist and with his bayonet extended says to arnold, you are a prisoner. arnold takes the pistols out of the holsters of his saddle, shoots the loyal -- says, not yet, shoots the loyalist -- [laughter] is able to extricate himself from the stirrups and vanishes into a nearby swamp. that's arnold. the next day he would do it again. another horse would get shot out from under him. when word reached congress that arnold had just done this, they began to think, well, maybe we should have made arnold a major general. [laughter] they would do that. but they would not restore his seniority. so it meant that those that had been elevated -- and that really rankled him. they did, however, give him a new horse -- [laughter] which shows you, you know, politicians can somehow, sometimes miss the mark. but arnold fought brilliantly. it would come to a crescendo with saratoga where horatio gates, who had not been washington's friend prior to be trenton, now views arnold -- who they were friends on lake champlain -- a as a rival. and eventually, the battle of saratoga is kind of a misnomer. there are two battles. and after first battle, arnold and gates, it's arnold's men who fight the british to a draw and inflict huge casualties on general br gown who has once again come down that corridor, and arnold ends up getting dismissed from the army. he sticks it out. the next ballot, even though he has no official standing in the army, he's out there. and according to some accounts, you know, he was a hellion. and then leads a very dangerous charge towards the end of the battle through two lines of fire, through the sally port of the enemy's redoubt. he yells at the hessians that are in there to surrender. one of them fires, hits him in the same leg that had been injured in quebec. the horse is killed and collapses on top of him. and henry dearborn, who had been with him in quebec, is at his side, and he says, are you hurt? he says i've been shot in the same leg, i wish it had gone through my heart x. so that is the turning point. and i don't have time to go into too many -- any more detail about that. you're going to have to read the book. [laughter] but that begins arnold's descent. he he would end up in philadelphia as a military governor after, you know, this was a horrible injury. and for arnold, he was an athlete, and this just robbed him. he ended up as military governor. he would get in all sorts of trouble with none other than joseph reid who would now be head of the state legislature who would pursue him in a virtual political witch hunt. arnold would marry peggy shippen, 18, half his age with loyalist leanings. while the british had briefly occupied philadelphia, she had gotten to know some british officers, one of whom was major john andre who became head of the british spy network, and the rest would be history when arnold decided that it was time for him to turn over west point to the british. it would not be successful, but it would be word of -- arnold would escape in new york, eventually joined by peggy, and, you know, the british accepted him. but he was a traitor. you know, and traitors on either side are tainted. and the irony of the story, and i'd like to finish by reading a few, a paragraph or two from my epilogue. the irony of this is, you know, arnold in the first years of the war, short of washington, had done more than any american for the american cause. but it would be as a traitor where he, you could argue that he served his former country the most, in the most important fashion. because this was a galvanizing moment to america. americans were forced to realize in 1780, by this time congress was hardly had a pulse. the continental army was barely alive. the french alliance which arnold had made possible at saratoga had done nothing to win the war. it was all falling to pieces. and the treason of arnold was a true wake-up call to american people that in this war was -- that this war was theirs to lose. and so i'll finish with this from the epilogue. the united states had been created through an act of disloyalty. no many matter how elegantly the declaration of independence had attempted to justify the american rebellion, a residual guilt hovered over the circumstances of the country's founding. arnold changed all that. by threatening to destroy the newly-created republic through, ironically, his own betrayal, arnold gave this nation of traitors the greatest of gifts; a myth of creation. the american people had come to revere george washington, but a hero alone was not sufficient to bring them together. now they had the despised villain, benedict arnold. they knew both what they were fighting for and against. the story of america's genesis could finally move beyond the break with the mother country and start to focus on the process by which 13 former colonies could become a nation. as arnold had demonstrated, the real enemy was not great britain, but those americans who sought to undercut their fellow citizens' commitment to one another. whether it was joseph reid's willingness to promote his state's interest at the expense of what was best for the country as a whole or arnold's decision to sell his loyalty to the highest bidder, the greatest danger to america's future came from self-serving opportunism masquerading as patriotism. at this fragile stage in the country's development, a way had to be found to strengthen rather than destroy the existing framework of government. the continental congress was far from perfect, but it offered a start to what could one day be a great nation. by turning traitor, arnold had alerted the american people to how close they had come to betraying the revolution by putting their own interests ahead of the newborn country's. benedict arnold was becoming a biword for that most hateful of crimes, treason against the people of the united states. thank you very much. [applause] well, thank you. there's time for some questions that i'll try to answer. do you have any out there? you probably haven't had time to read the book yet. [laughter] yes. yes. >> please wait for the microphone. >> in doing your research, to what extent did you rely on manuscripts and original records, and where did you find most of these? >> yes. when it comes to this story, there's, there are documents everywhere. but really for me the cornerstone of this was the henry clinton papers. henry clinton was the general who was the commander of the british army at the time of arnold's treason. and his correspondence is at the clemens library on the campus of the university of michigan. and this is an absolute treasure-trove. it came into their possession in, i think, the 1930s. and tests fascinating. -- it's fascinating. it has the correspondence between arnold and major john andre. and up until those papers coming to light, the perceived wisdom was that peggy shippen was an unwitting victim of her husband's treason. that, you know, she was as, actually, alexander hamilton thought, because he was at her bedside after arnold had left. and she went into this hysterical swoon that seems to have been fairly well staged for her husband's benefit. [laughter] you know, he thought she was innocent as the lamb. but as this correspondence proves, that was hardly the case. she was actively involved and and was actually, when arnold had to move from, travel from philadelphia in the months prior to the treason, she was the real conduit for all. and is so, yeah. so that, those papers were absolutely important. i mean, it's just amazing. when you can hold in your hand a coded letter from benedict arnold to the british, and then there's also -- it's in my book too, you can see, you know, the british had then translated it. and so, you know, these kinds of things are absolutely important. and then, you know, another source that was hugely important, it's now been published several times, but, you know, in many ways my story is a shakespearean tragedy. but even though -- but though i focus on washington and arnold, this book has a greek chorus, if you will, to sort of mix the metaphors. and that is a wonderful character named joseph plum martin. he was 16 when he joined the war of independence from connecticut, and late in life -- by that time he had moved to maine. they must, his account must be based on notebooks he kept, because he was a very bright guy and wonderfully iconoclastic. he, you know, he had no respect for his commanding officers, and with good reason as it turned out. but it's an absolute revelation as to what the common soldier and the continental army had to deal with. i mean, they never had enough food, their clothing was minimal, you know? it's all there. and so, and what's great about joseph plum martin, he's a lot like forest gump. [laughter] when something was happening of historic importance, he was there. [laughter] and it's just incredible. there he is. he had known arnold before the revolution, you know? connecticut -- back then, you know, there was a lot smaller population. he claimed he had never liked him. but there he is. he's on the banks of the hudson, joseph plum martin is, days before arnold's treason, and he sees arnold on a horse, you know, sizing up various roads and things. and so those kinds of sources were very important. yeah. >> i'm just curious about, well, first, thank you so much. i can't wait to read your book. but as a sailor yourself, i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the deficit that the u.s. really was in this war as a result of the lack of boats or -- >> absolutely. >> -- the navy, the resources and time to build anything. i just, i'm a little bit curious about that. >> yeah, yeah. well, you know, i sneak in maritime stuff into all my books. [laughter] even the last stand a about the battle of little bighorn -- [laughter] hey, it begins on a river boat, the far west. [laughter] and this book particularly for me, oh, it was so much fun. battle of valcor island was important, the hudson river. here it is, arnold working his way up and down the river on the barge, all of this. and then when it comes to philadelphia, it's on delaware river. and water is absolutely important there. and joseph plum martin, that long-suffering continent aal soldier -- continental soldier, he is stationed -- the british take philadelphia, but they can't get their or ships there because they have to get by a series of forts the americans have built. one of them is fort mifflin on appropriately named mud island. [laughter] it's just a pile of mud at the confluence, you know, of two rivers. and they had sort of a fort, and they just got or, and they just get -- it's almost like world war i, trench warfare, where they are getting pounded, pounded, pounded. if they can hang out for another week, the british will be forced to evacuate philadelphia because they won't have the provisions. and they're out there, but eventually they succumb. and once again, you know, water was everything. and, you know, and the british navy be, you know, they had, they controlled the coast. and that's why that internal waterway was so important. and when it came to the battle of long island and the loss of new york, washington never really had a chance because the british had command of the water. they could move their armies with ultimate speed on their ships. there was really nothing you could do fighting a force which had control of the waterways. and so for me, it was part of my research process was to go to these places. and one of the -- and i love research trips. they just -- [laughter] i mean, there's nothing i enjoy in life more. one of the things i was able to get someone who would take me on a circumnavigation of both manhattan and staten island which was so important. i'd lived in manhattan for three years. my two grown-up children are in brooklyn. but it wasn't until wiz out there on the water -- until i was out will on the water and going through all these nooks and crannies and realizing what it was. the harlem river is just fascinating. to this day, it's up there as you approach the hudson, it's pretty wild. you know, there are trees and things like that. [laughter] it's hard to believe there's a city to the south. so water was a big part of it. and it's, and i think that speaks to a lot of the genius of george washington because he, you know, he was a plantation owner, but one of the things is why is it called mount vernon? it's because his brother, who had served in the british navy, so revered, admiral vernon who he was with early in the century, that he named mount vernon for a british admiral. so go put that in your pipe and smoke be it. [laughter] so being, coming -- you know, being a sailor, i tend to see maritime everywhere. but the fact of the matter is in the 18th century is and for much of the 19th century water would determine the strategic, what was strategically important in this country. yes, right here. >> thank you very much. you'd mentioned that washington saw a certain part of himself in arnold as a younger soldier and all of that. i wonder if you would comment on washington's attitude after the traitor incident and in particular i believe he issued orders subsequently that if arnold was captured as part of the virginia campaign that he'd be summarily executed. >> yeah. well, it quickly became very personal for george washington. and, you know, washington is such a rock, and yet, you know, there is that personal fire. and, you know, no wonder he had to have dentures. [laughter] he was breaking hickory nuts with his teeth. [laughter] this was a man for him, you know, the tensions he was operating under and yet managing to control were amazing. and when arnold's treason is revealed to him, i mean, this was something he could not help but take personally. this was a man whose career he had, who he respected and fostered. and he, along with everybody else, had no clue this was coming. and arnold -- washington is at arnold's headquarters at a house about a mile below west point when he learns of all this. he's got lafayette with whim, henry knox -- with him, henry knox and alexander hamilton. and he turns to lafayette who has become his surrogate son and says, simply, whom can we trust now? i mean, can you imagine what he's feeling? and at that -- in the wake of this, knox and hamilton, everybody, everyone around him is going crazy, you know? as knox would write nathaniel green, i cannot get arnold out of my head. i mean, this really messed with their whole sense of, you know, who they were. if this could happen, this is really fundamentally scary stuff. and washington was, you know, would be able -- by this time the french general had arrived, and prior to washington's learning of this, he had met with the french in hartford. , and you know, their first meeting. and it was absolutely fundamentally important. how the french were here in force for the first time, you know, he had to put the best face on it. and he writes this incredible letter to his french counterpart where, you know, there's none of that passion. he says, you know, it's actually amazing that we have gone this far in this struggle, and this has not yet happened. things like this are happen in a revolution. what happen in a revolution. and that said, he then turned his attention to getting benedict arnold. while articled was in new york -- while arnold was in new york, he got his cavalry officer, light horse harry lee to find an officer that could infiltrate british, pose as a deserter and get arnold. and they had to take arnold alive. he were going to see that he received justice. and so this soldier's job in december, you know, just within months of all this was to ingratiate himself with arnold, and he did exactly that. and he was on -- he had it all planned. he was going to, he was going to get -- he knew that arnold, every night around midnight would walk around his property, basically go to the outhouse and come back, and and he knew -- and so he was waiting for him and even pushed a piece of the gate open, and he was going to grab him and bodily take him to a boat waiting on the shore and row across the hudson where he would get justice. it was on that very day that henry clinton orders arnold to head south and to go after, to virginia. and it didn't happen. and there, i won't go into detail, but arnold once again would fight brilliantly. i mean, he would burn richmond. jefferson would be forced to flee monticello, and washington sends none other than lafayette down to get him. and i won't go into that because i'm going to be talking about that in my next bookful. [laughter] in my next book. [laughter] [applause] .. yes. the battle of princeton is fascinating. washington, the first battle of trenton is confusing, there are two battles of trenton, the first where washington crosses the delaware and surprises the hessians and there is an incredible turnaround. washington takes his armies back to pennsylvania and the decision is made to return to new jersey and washington is now occupying trenton. the british by this time have fled north, and here's this and the greatest asset, because there was a chance, battle of long island, to destroy washington's army, there are positive feelings about the american colonies, the elder george died in the arms of his real putnam and the massachusetts legislature voted money for a memorial on westminster alley and they never forgot that. these are two brothers, one was an admiral and the other was a pair and their hope was not to destroy washington but to reach the point where americans would be forced to negotiate. they felt that would be better for reconciliation but trenton mastered that scheme. he sends cornwallis down, very much like what benedict arnold had earlier done, was very interesting. the other side of the river flows through trenton into the delaware. and they are repulsed, american army is in a tight spot. cornwallis it as it comes on -- what does washington do? even though he betrayed washington in a personal way a month earlier helped him out at this stage because he had taken philadelphia on horse back up to princeton earlier and figured out the lay of the land up there and they decided to sneak out that night and do an end run and attack princeton and that would become the great victory of princeton. that would add to washington's laurels, clearing the british and leaving philadelphia safe. last one. >> i don't recall all of my history but can you talk about how benedict arnold, was exposed, was colonel andre captured? >> wonderful cloak and dagger stuff. arnold and andre had this correspondence but never met each other personally. the british are not even -- is it arnold we are corresponding with? they need to have a face-to-face before they go through with this operation and have it all set up, british admiral rodney has arrived in new york, and influx of transport and worship to go up the hudson, soldiers all set to go after west point, but andre needs to have a face-to-face with arnold, so they do that and have this midnight meeting on the western bank of the hudson, the escape vessel that andre was to take back to new york, the appropriately named vulture. you can't make this stuff up. is fired on by an officer who on his own initiative fires on it must -- much to arnold's chagrin and is forced down the river and andre has to find another way back. ultimately he would go with a young lawyer named joshua smith who would accompany him across the river to the eastern shore of long island and make their way down westchester. i was talking about how bad it got during the revolution, this is the neutral ground where neither american or british, neighbor fighting neighbor, americans were called skimmers, british gangs were called cowboys, they were going back and forth attacking one another, stealing things most people had left, it was a wasteland, and through this wasteland andre made his way to new york, almost there, he is in tarrytown new york when three soldiers step out of the early morning out of the shadows one of whom has on the hessian jagr codes, andre assumes they are british and is really happy to see them and they say hey and it turns out he is an american, three american militia men, one of them recently escaped from new york using this jacket in disguise and that is the unraveling of the plot, that close to happening. andre should never have spilled the beans that are early. it would take several days for this to get to washington and arnold through a variety of reasons. donald would escape and andre would ultimately be hanged. that does it, thank you all very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> you are watching booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. we kick off the evening at 7:00 eastern with a look at the influence of civil war generals. at 8:15 a review of the election of africa's first woman president, ellen johnson certainly, the head of the defense intelligence agency, michael flynn on fighting terrorism. at 10:00 pm on booktv's afterwards program congressman darrell isil talks about his book watchdog, the real story behind the headlines of the congressman who exposed washington's biggest scandal and we finish our prime time programming at 11:00 with daniel hatcher's report on misuse of federal funds by state and local governments earmarked for the poor. that happens tonight on booktv. >> colleen boyle, what is coming out this fall? >> we have some great titles. our lead title is the prince of cash. in this book, we make the case for phasing out paper money. he argues the economy would benefit from getting rid of cash, large bills, $50 and up reasoning is twofold, people who are involved in crime and corruption choose cash as their payment choice. he goes on to argue economies would benefit in times of financial crisis by lowering interest rates to be negative and with a cashless economy this would be possible so he goes on to suggest challenges that go along with switching to electronic currency and makes a great case for it. next in terms of science, welcome to the universe by neil degrasse tyson and michael strauss, you know neil degrasse tyson as host of the cosmos tv series and director of the hayden planetarium in new york city, michael strauss and richard got are leading astrophysicists at princeton, this is your personal tour of the universe by three leading voices in science today. they zoom out from the earth looking at things like stars, galaxies, wormholes and time travel has a possibility in the universe and in true princeton fashion this goes deeper than naming different phenomena, what scientists know about the universe. >> one more title from princeton university press? >> fashion and fantasy by roger penrose, one of the most influential and important theoretical physicists of our time. this is his take on 21st century physics, looking at it through three lenses, in terms of faith and belief in different theories, fashion in terms of what is invoking in the field at the time and fantasy in terms of fantastical ideas like the big bang theory, arguing all three of these ideas have a place in science, they move progress forward and inspire researchers but there is potential for researchers to stray and he talks about this in relation to three topics. quantum mechanics, string theory and cosmology, this is an expert in the field and his take on 21st century physics, a real critique of the field. >> colleen boyle gave us three titles. >> here's a look at the current best-selling books according to the conservative book club. topping the list, gary burns talked about his experiences working in the clinton white house in crisis of character followed by fox news host bill o'reilly's second companion book to his legends and lies. and wake up america, fox news host eric boling outlines 9 characteristics as grid, manliness and dominion over the environment that he believes helped make america great and argues the country has lost its way. next up on the conservative book club list of bestsellers is the international spy thriller for an agent. also in the top 10 is wall street journal columnist's the intimidation game. she argues the political left is trying to limit freedom of speech, you can see here on booktv's afterwards program in coming weeks. i look at best-selling nonfiction books according to the conservative book club continues with if you can keep it, syndicated radio show host ways in on the intentions of the founding fathers when they wrote the constitution and the state of liberty in america today. in killing kennedy, bill o'reilly, looks at the assassination of president john f. kennedy. next, former bill clinton campaign advisor dick morris lays out a strategy in armageddon that he thinks will lead donald trump to victory in the 2016 election. republican strategist peter schweitzer deals with financial dealings of the clintons in clinton cash. rounding up a list counterterrorism writer looks how the fight against extremism can be won in defeating jihadi. that is look at the current bestsellers according to conservative book club. many of these authors have appear will be appearing on booktv. you can watch them every weekend on c-span2 or on our website, booktv.org. >> booktv visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> i'm reading massacre at malcolm meadows by richard truly and can't remember the names of the co-authors. it is a historical account of the mountain meadows massacre that took pl. september 11th, 1857, in southern utah. a tragic event, but one that has affected significantly into the history of the state of utah where i come from. some of my ancestors lived in southern utah, one of them, my great-great-grandfather, was involved in the incident. it is an interesting book, sad and tragic but very interesting. >> can you tell us about it? >> yes. the name of my book is our lost constitution. are lost constitution identifies a number of provisions of our governing document that have become neglected or lost and explain how that happened, where the provisions came from, tells the historical account, the story behind the provision, why they became necessary and how they have been neglected over the years and how we can restore them. one chapter talks about federalism, the idea the federal government is supposed to be a government of limited power, tell stories behind that and how we neglected the principles of federalism and how we can restore it.

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