On a green slope in Arlington Cemetery the bodies of three heroes library. The unknown soldier of world war i and the recently interred unidentified heroes of world war ii and korea. They are symbols of all heroes who fell in the wars of the nations maturity. In the village squares in public grounds, their memory and the memory of all their brothers in arms before them are enshrined in a chain of tributes that reaches back across the developing story of the nation itself. Its manifest destiny to support freedom beyond its own shores. The wild opening of its western territories. The tragic strife of the civil war which tested its ability to stand as a union. The painful years of its early growth back to the beginning, the men who began building that history the , nations history, and with it the history of the army which has fought to preserve the nations integrity and indeed its very life. , . These were the first, these embattled farmers, as the poet emerson called them, the minutemen who stood at concorde bridge and fired the shot heard round the world. Here in a fury of rebellion the American Army was born, brought to life by angry militia men who turned back a british raid on a supply store in massachusetts colonies and drove the red coats to a route back to boston. They began their great adventure as a group of individuals, united at first only by something intangible in the already emerging american spirit a sense of the importance of independence. They came down from their farms and out of their shops to take up arms with the idea only of standing up for their rights against a domination which had become more oppressive with the years. Fate gave them a leader and under him they built a unity in arms, a fighting force in which they could wage the growing rebellion with the hope of victory. The Continental Congress gave their struggle a direction that was breathtaking in its audacity and sweeping in its vision of mans rights. Now the soldier of the revolution was fighting for more than a vaguely felt idea. He was fighting for the creation of a new and free nation under handicaps only vaguely understood by the 20th century american minds. But to the glory of his own wondrous age and the survival for all the ages that would do him honor, he endured. Through black defeats an d incredible hardships, he endured and went on to shape the victories of trenton and saratoga and finally the splendid triumph of yorktown where the dream of liberty at last took light. Because of his own beliefs simple and clean and the rightness of his cause, the American Army held together in its infancy. And for the first time in the history of a new world, the quality of patriotism became part of a soldiers creed. The young nation which the soldier had won with his blood flourished. A bedrock of political morality gave it a base on which its hard bought freedom could grow. Up next on American History tv, the bestselling historical novelist discusses the latter half of the civil war focusing on general shermans involvement in the burning of atlanta georgia. He argues against the popular depiction of sherman as a villain and talks about how slaves reacted to his military victory. The smithsonian