0:01You got me in costume today. I like it.
0:03>> Yes, sir.
0:04>> So, they would wear some yellow. I I always thought the American Revolution side had like a little blue and a little bit of red with the black. And you're telling me that there was like yellow.
0:14There was sometimes variation depending upon where you came from or what regiment you were in. And so, you are wearing the uniform of the 13th Virginia Infantry >> which fought at the battle of Germantown, Brandy Wine. And then they uh helped to guard Fort Pit in what later became Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. So, >> no kidding.
0:34>> There you go.
0:34>> Now, were they descendants as a regiment of like what George Washington was commanding when they were still under Britain back in the French and Indian War times and it just translated into this or >> so they they come from the same region, but it's entirely different from generationally. Yeah.
0:51>> Got it. Well, Jared, it's great to have you here, man.
0:54>> Thank you for having me. And obviously you have a very unique background because you know as we're coming up here on on the American 250th you know we've been trying to cover some good American history in here had some cool people but you're unique in the sense that not only do you cover all different eras of American history through your work and your writing and your teaching but you also have the whole aspect of like comparing it on YouTube to what we see in Hollywood media and what's accurate and what's not. in some cases ruining my life >> with things that I that I really really like. So, we'll discuss that today. But
1:29what got you into American history in the first place? And I also forgot to say this. Just pull that mic up towards you when you're talking. But what got you into American history in the first place?
1:38>> I've always had an interest in vintage things. And I can even remember the first history books that I bought. You know, they're like those little scholastic book orders that you would get in grade school and elementary school. Uh, so the first of those that I bought were biographies on George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr.
1:56>> Oh, wow.
1:56>> And I still have those books today. Many hundreds more on top of it.
2:01>> Uh, but really my interest in history grew in earnest when I was 7 years old.
2:07And I still have movie Gettysburg. You ever seen? Yes. That one? It's a 4hour movie. It might seem odd that something that long would hold the attention of someone who's in first grade, but perhaps that spoke to just how unusual of a grade schooler [laughter] I was.
2:24>> Uh, but the following year, my parents took me on a summer trip >> to Gettysburg.
2:30>> Oh, wow.
2:31>> And there's a a certain power to place.
2:34I mean, when you go somewhere, when you go to the World Trade Center memorial, when you go to Gettysburg, when you go to Valley Forge, you feel something when you go there >> that you can't feel by just paging through a book or even watching a movie in some cases. And so, the story of that place really resonated with me and the bug bit me and there was no turning back. Hey guys, three quick things.
2:59Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. It's a huge, huge help. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link in my description or in the pin comment below. And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the Discord link in my description below. Uh, and long story short, 15 years later, I found myself working there as a park ranger >> at Gettysburg. at Gettysburg. No kidding. Giving tours to the very sort of people that I once was, a tourist who
3:32was interested >> in learning more. So, it's been a hell of a journey and I love it. That's fascinating, man. I actually similarly, I obviously didn't take the full history jump that you did and go and teach it and everything, but I do love history.
3:46And when I was young, around when I was 10 years old, my grandpa took me to Gettysburg as well. And it's one of those things I I forget what what section of it it's called, but when you're standing on the rock wall where you can see the full vantage point of like a lot of the battlefield there >> and you're just kind of quiet for a minute. Even as a 10-year-old where >> you can't fully understand it, there's still something very heavy in the fact that you get it and you're like, whoa.
4:12>> And it's not only the fact that you're absorbing what happened there, but it's about family as well cuz you have a fond memory of, you know, being with your family while you were there, too. So yeah, absolutely.
4:23>> Yeah. So, and you became a park ranger there, you said.
4:27>> Yeah. So, I worked there from 2009 through 2013 and >> so cool.
4:34>> It is such an incredible experience.
4:36It's one thing to be an educator in a classroom in an indoor environment, but you have the greatest PowerPoint background in the world when you get to work in a national park. And one of the really fantastic things about it was being able to interact with people from all over the world. People are drawn to that place for all sorts of different reasons. Some people hike there, some people love the history, some people do bird watching, but everybody seeks a connection and it's almost spiritual >> in how it resonates with people. So yeah. Now, for people out there who aren't brushed up on the American Civil
5:14War and the battle battle of Gettysburg in 1863, what made that battle of all of them the most consequential and also like one of the largest I I think it was the largest casualty battle in the war, right?
5:29>> Yeah. So, 165,000 people fought there.
5:34>> 165,000 >> 165,000.
5:38So, I teach at Penn State Altuna. And how I always frame it for students. Uh, our football stadium holds about 110,000 people, >> you know, at University Park. And so I tell them, uh, picture that stadium full on a game day, like against Ohio State or something like that. Uh, and then picture another 50,000 55,000 people outside tailgating. Uh, give each one of them a musket and then shoot a third of them.
6:08That's what the Battle of Gettysburg is.
6:10>> A third of them died.
6:12>> Killed, wounded, captured, or missing.
6:16>> Yeah. [sighs] >> It's wild to me that, you know, the country we enjoy now had these two moments. The first where it's like this should have never happened because a bunch of rebels got in a bar and said England, right? And then it it turned into something. And then the second being they get the ultimate test roughly 85 years later to where it literally splits off from itself and could have just made the world a whole different place if that war went a different way.
6:44>> Yeah. And even people who fought in the Civil War, they thought of it as the continuation of the American Revolution.
6:52>> Really? And people on both sides, I mean, when you look at the Confederates who are looking to create their own country to perpetuate the growth of slavery, they think of themselves as the rebels, like we are fighting against big authoritative government that won't let us have our way. And meanwhile, you have people like Abraham Lincoln that are saying, "No, we need to uphold the country that the founding fathers created 85 years ago." Mhm.
7:22>> Uh and so it's and history is kind of the same way today whether you look at it left or right.
7:28>> Uh people often appropriate history to suit their own purposes. Absolutely. I mean you can look at the Tea Party on one end and you can look at the No Kings Rally on the other and both of them hearken back to some of the themes of the American Revolution. So in that regard, we've never really changed that much. Yeah, that's kind of wild to me like how it can you can literally take the same thing and make different or take pieces of it to create like a different narrative today. But it's it's also it's reflective of the fact that even though we are 250 now in the eyes of the world that's an infant country
8:03and it's the ultimate experiment that's ever happened. I mean, we don't have a You go to these countries in Africa, you go to these countries in Europe, you go to these countries in Asia, they have people and ethnicities that have been there for thousands of years in some cases. We have everything that's coming here to form America. And we're still obviously trying to figure it out these days. Like, as a historian, it's got to be interesting living through the continuation of that. No, >> I think of the United States right now.
8:31We're kind of in our teenage years >> is how I think of it. And uh the late great Robert Dval kind of made a similar comparison. He is he said America is like this big-hearted big muscular teenage football player who's kind of standing at the crossroads. You know, we're trying to figure out where we want to go and what we want to do.
8:54>> Uh and so I think the teenager analogy, especially in the broad scope of human history and other nations, is a very apt one. uh because we're kind of trying to figure ourselves out. We've kind of gone through a rebellious phase. We perhaps don't know where we want to go. We're questioning what do we stand for? Uh and us as individuals, we all go through those sorts of questions and crises in our own lifetimes. Uh and so, uh I think looking at it through that sort of personified lens might be a little bit helpful in determining where we're going to go.
9:28>> I agree. I and I think again it puts it in perspective like how young things are here and like that can go the wrong way.
9:36You know, you see kids go off the deep end and suddenly their whole life is over and whatever because they make bad decisions. So we have to make >> I guess collectively some good decisions. But being as it is like 250 years since these guys pointing at Mel Gibson here.
9:49>> Uhhuh. Mel Gibson. He was there >> on the table. [laughter] That's my American Revolution guy. The guys wearing my uniform though decide to do this whole thing and create the country.
9:58I I guess let let's let's start there.
10:01So obviously we know the story about the Declaration of Independence and they go against Britain because they didn't like taxes and everything and eventually were able to beat the big bad behemoth and then somehow form this country under this thing called the Constitution after some years of hammering and fighting about it and everything comes together and it's all hunky dory.
10:21What what do you think the most misunderstood part about the buildup to the Revolutionary War is that people out there often get wrong?
10:28>> I think people often underestimate just how complicated a conflict that it was.
10:34>> We think of it as a revolution, but as HW Brands has pointed out, it was also a civil war, right, >> within a revolution.
10:43And under certain circumstances, especially if you're a Native American or an African-American seeking your freedom, uh it's also a race war within a civil war, within a revolution.
10:56>> Uh and so it's incredibly messy. You have neighbors turning against neighbors. You have region turning against region. Uh in many ways, our civil war was a sectional war more so than a civil war. It was geographically divided, north versus south, >> right?
11:13>> Whereas the American Revolution from a textbook definition is more along the lines of a Civil War because you have people in the same regions and sometimes in the same neighborhoods >> who are turning against each other. And so even though we think of the American Revolution in kind of star spangly awesome ways, um it's important to note the incredibly tragic consequences that it unleashed for untold thousands of people who experienced it. Uh you have uh on one hand the patriot-minded folks who gain their freedom, they form a representative government, they embark on this great experiment as you allude
11:55to. If you're a native person though, chances are you're going to be displaced perhaps beyond the Mississippi River. If you're a loyalist living in a place like Philadelphia or even, you know, right here in the New York area, >> uh, chances are you're going to be sent on a ship and you're going to go back to England to live with people who are more like-minded. I found a different type of micro dose I love last year and it's a legal psychoactive mushroom that doesn't make you trip out or see God. The mushroom I'm talking about is ammonita muscaria. The red one with the white spots you see from every video game and
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13:40Link in description below. Code JDP22 for 22% off your first order. Uh so uh it's incredibly complicated. It was very volatile and I think for the 250th people should try to have a more nuanced view of what our forebears were going through.
14:01>> Meaning what you're saying as far as like there was just a lot of other things.
14:04>> It wasn't as black and white as we often like to make it.
14:07>> Yeah. It's actually it's it's ironic because I had a great conversation with HW but we didn't get a ton to the civil war aspect of it. We touched on it but to your point where you're saying a lot of at the end of the war a lot of loyalists had to go back to England.
14:22There was also apparently a lot of loyalists that were like forced into Canada and everything and effectively the way I understood it correct me if I'm wrong here is that if you had been a loyalist throughout the war you were pretty much kicked out of the country.
14:36like there weren't really loyalists that were able to stay behind and be like, "Well, you guys won. Congratulations.
14:41We'll just [ __ ] stay with our farm here."
14:43>> Yeah. And on top of that, too, just to add another wrinkle to all of it, we can also think about the Hessins, >> the the the mercenary soldiers brought in from Bavaria and different areas of modern day Germany. Uh, interestingly enough, uh, George Washington took a more forgiving tone with them than what many patriots did with the loyalists because many Americans, even though they feared the Hessins, saw them as rent soldiers, if you will, like they are being brought here against their will >> and many of them became Americans. They became US citizens in the years after the war. And hence why uh many places
15:26like Pennsylvania have a very strong German ethnicity to this very day.
15:31>> Yeah. There's still obviously German town, famous neighborhood in Philadelphia that I think >> I think that was even established like in the 17th century as far back as that, right?
15:41>> Yes. Yeah. Um and in fact, uh German Town was the site of the first formal anti-slavery protest in American history in 1688.
15:52>> 1688. Yeah. So it goes that's a full century before the American Revolution and it just goes to show that people were already debating these really consequential issues that had the capacity to tear the country apart.
16:04>> Can we take a quick tangent there? 1688 there was a full-blown slave rebellion.
16:09>> Not a slave rebellion. So Quakers >> who helped to establish Pennsylvania with William Penn a few years prior.
16:17>> Uh their whole attitude of course was brotherly love. treat thy neighbor as thyself. And even though many Quakers themselves owned human property, many of them also rebelled against the system in a diplomatic way. And they released a formal protest, a written statement against [snorts] this horrible institution in which people were being sold and bartered like cattle. What do you think? you know, because that's going way back now, too, where that's at least one solidly large community doing it in America as it's being founded. Why Why do you think it took other than just a pure economic argument, why do you think it took
16:58basically 250 years, give or take, for America to abolish slavery?
17:04>> I always frame it this way to my students because I think that this is a simplistic way that can be understood.
17:10Uh, slavery was like a drug. People were addicted to it and even though many of them knew that it was wrong, they couldn't kick the habit. It was so inherently tied into the moral, spiritual, political, economic lifeblood of the American system that they couldn't break away from it. In some of the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wanted to include denunciations of slavery despite the fact that he himself owned several hundred human beings throughout his life and fathered children with one of them.
17:51>> Interesting. Uh yeah, >> Thomas Jefferson is the perfect person to use as a vehicle in framing the sort of question that you just posed because on one hand in an earlier part in his life he denounces it. In other moments he kind of stigmatizes the enslaved people that he owns. You know he says these really horrible things by our standards today that they don't have the intellect to learn. They have this horrible odor, you know, so on and so forth. really horrible things, but yet at the same time he refers to those same people as my family in his written documents.
18:28>> Yeah.
18:29>> Uh and he said it perfectly. Um he said slavery was like holding a wolf by the ears.
18:36You don't want to let it go, but at the same time, you know, you have to kind of hold on to it as well for fear of what it might do. Uh so that's that's a kind of an interesting dynamic. See, now Thomas Jefferson because he's also so famous and there's some well, [snorts] as you said, some well-reported history about his I guess both sides of that argument and speaking out of both sides of of his mouth with it. You know, that one doesn't surprise me as far as someone who was always seemingly in the back of his mind struggling with the morality of it.
19:07>> But it is almost surprising to hear you say that many people actually thought it was probably morally wrong, but we're still gonna do it. That's I don't know if it's ever been framed that way to me.
19:19I have always had it more framed in how I've learned about it is like people were just brainwashed and genuinely thought like, well, these aren't humans, you know, and they just it was passed down generationally. But you're saying there was a lot more nuance than that, it seems.
19:32>> Yeah. No, and you're not wrong in your assumption because, you know, this was an inherited institution. it was inherited wealth >> and it was something that grew generation by generation in the years and decades leading up to uh the Civil War.
19:49>> Uh but there were some including some of Thomas Jefferson's neighbors who saw the humanity and the people that they owned and when the American Revolution comes to an end uh they free their cattle.
20:02They free their their human property.
20:04That's not universal. Not everybody does that. Uh some people wait until they pass away. That was the case with George Washington in his will. Uh the catch there was is that his enslaved people were to be freed upon the passing of his wife Martha. Right.
20:23>> And so she is now living on this plantation uh with people whose freedom depends on her death.
20:30>> Uh so get the bats out.
20:32>> Yeah. So uh [laughter] you know so there there's some complications there. Yeah.
20:38No, but on on that note, I am actually working through HW's latest biography of George Washington right now. I think I'm about halfway through. It's amazing. So, people should go check that out. But, >> you know, he he's one of those guys again, you have to look at all people throughout history and the time they lived, which includes the social flaws that exist at that time, and judge it accordingly, but judge it by the standards of the time as well. policy laid out. Obviously, there were some interesting moral conundrums with George Washington as it relates to slavery for sure.
21:08>> On the rest of him as a guy and and what he did though, obviously this was the man who >> commanded the army and and wanted incredible by every military standard >> victory over over the British and then was our first president. So easily has an argument to be maybe the most important American ever. But you know what what made him so special and and made him a guy that you know the the Continental Congress looked at and said that's our man.
21:39That's who's going to lead this.
21:41>> Yeah. And uh the author Rick Atinson who's in the process of writing an incredible trilogy on the American Revolution. I think he said it best when he said that George Washington had a mind for executive action. He knew how to take command of a situation. And of course, some of his contemporaries joke that that may have had something to do with his height. He's always be he would always be the tallest man in the room.
22:06Uh but even as he was a young officer from Virginia in the French and Indian War, uh he had this sort of command presence uh that was apparent on the battlefields of Western Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War when the Second Continental Congress uh forms up in and around the time um and the aftermath of the battles at Lexington and Conquered uh George Washington shows up wearing a uniform. form uh you know he dusts off his uh >> he didn't want the job though.
22:41>> Yeah. No, he uh he he was definitely advertising the point that you know I think I might be a suitable leader in this capacity.
22:50But I think one of his greatest strengths of all and to use some lingo from the time that the founding fathers would have been familiar with he had something called republican virtue.
23:03>> Republican virtue.
23:04>> Republican virtue. small R republican virtue. Um, which I will also add was a key tenant of Rome as well. So, as we think about somebody like Maximus, all right, he is driven by >> historically accurate to a degree.
23:21>> Well, that's a different conversation for a different time.
23:23>> We're not doing that [laughter] 100% accurate.
23:25>> If you say so. If you say so. Yeah. Wink wink.
23:28>> You're in New Jersey right now.
23:29>> Uh, yes. Absolutely. Um, but I'll give you this. Uh, you know, we can think of George Washington in kind of a similar vein as the fictional character of Maximus. They're driven by Republican virtue. What do they want to do? They want to serve in the military. They want to serve their people. And their greatest ambition of all after they achieve victory is to go home.
23:53>> They [clears throat] want to be gentleman farmers.
23:54>> That's right. I never thought of that.
23:56Holy [ __ ] [laughter] That's so good.
23:58That is the ultimate sign of being a virtuous citizen when you have all the power in the world and you give it up to go back and live a simple agrarian existence on your farm.
24:12>> How about him also giving setting that precedent with the two terms and being like I'll go home.
24:19>> That's so cool.
24:20>> Yeah. And uh you know in a way in the long term Dwight Eisenhower kind of does the same thing for a little bit after World War II and he buys a farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
24:32>> Uh very much kind of following the George Washington motif. You know, I've done my service. I've helped save the country. In this case, help save the world as well. I'm gonna be a gentleman farmer. But the presidency came beckoning uh and interrupted that.
24:47>> That's how it goes [laughter] sometimes.
24:49We'll talk about Ike, too. I know. Sure.
24:51>> I know you you've done a lot of amazing work on World War II, which I love, and you have a lot of great videos on Banded Brothers, which I think is like >> that might be the best miniseries ever made. I I don't know if I'm biased, but like >> we could do a whole session just on that, you know?
25:05>> We'll get to that. Maybe I'll have to lose the >> I didn't bring for that part, but we'll figure it out. But yeah, I I just I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of there are a lot of traits in George Washington that this is really Captain Obvious statement that like maybe our politicians today could take a little bit of a page out of the book from. You know what I mean? Like a little humble nature stepping aside when it's someone else's game. Maybe we don't have a bunch of [ __ ] congressmen that are 85 years old being wheeled in there with Alzheimer's because they still want to have power. you know, it's like there's
25:38a time and a place and like each generation kind of has to have its moment and he seemed to understand that.
25:45>> Yeah. No, and I think you're you're right on the mark um about politicians because the sort of career politician that we see today is something that the founding fathers did not envision nor did they think would be healthy for a republic. uh this sort of uh generational or institutionalized power of people who've been in Washington for 30 and 40 years uh it's completely antithetical to what the founders had in mind. Uh really what they wanted is the hope that increasingly a wider and wider segment of the American citizenry would have opportunities to serve.
26:24>> Uh and I I think some of my historian friends have put it very well. um that every politician should be a seasonal politician.
26:32>> Yes.
26:33>> That you should have one season in your life of public service. Whether that be serving on as a county commissioner, running for the state legislature, maybe running for the school board, you know, it doesn't have to be Congress or the presidency or anything like that. And this too goes back to that idea of being a virtuous citizen that you need to look beyond yourself in a chapter of your life and you need to think about the greater good of your society and that's the only way that a republic can grow and flourish.
27:09>> Yeah, I I I agree. I I think you know even if it was like let's say I had to be realistic and someone has to kind of start a political career maybe in the state legislature or something like that and after a term then they have to run for like federal government and then maybe they run for the presidency meaning >> sure >> you know maybe it's like a 16 20 year career where there are different layers.
27:31I'm cool with that. I could understand that. I take issue with someone having the same job for like 38 years.
27:37>> Yeah, for sure. It's like that, you know, that kind of gets old and then, you know, like now we see all foreign wars happening again and it's the same people who were voting for the last ones 25 years ago voting for it again. It's like, well, maybe that's not reflective of like all the people who have now grown up from the last one to see where we're at now. But >> I don't know, >> it speaks to why people of every generation need to get involved, you know, regardless of your political affiliation. And really the the core of that the the what should be the nucleus of that is being engaged and being
28:12informed. And the chief ingredient of that I think is reading. You know we are in an increasingly illiterate society where people read less and less. We see libraries under siege in more than one way. Uh and really you got to read.
28:31>> I agree. If if if you don't read, there's no reason I should debate you in anything. That's how I look at it.
28:38>> Far from stealing his whole flow over here.
28:42>> Okay. Yeah.
28:43>> Yeah. Honestly, like this conversation has come up with different people in different contexts. I couldn't agree more, man.
28:48>> Yeah. And yeah, I don't care if you read science fiction or current events or romance, you need something to stimulate your mind other than 30 second bits on your phone.
28:59>> Oh, yeah. Yeah.
29:01And uh you know certainly the founders didn't have that sort of digital distraction that we have today. But when you go and visit the homes of these guys be Mount Vernon or Montichello or Montpillar. Uh what's one of the most impressive rooms that they have in their house?
29:18>> Their library.
29:18>> Their library.
29:20>> That was the internet of the 18th century. and they had they took full advantage of it in placing the building blocks of our country.
29:30>> Yeah, there's some there is an enormous difference between getting all your reading every day. Let's not even say just tweets like reading articles >> every day just that. Not saying that's not useful. It is. But like there's an enormous difference between just stimulating yourself with 30 of those every day versus also, you know, maybe working in, I don't know, a 500page book where you really get to sit with it, learn about something like I think way better when I'm able to read a lot.
29:59>> Yeah.
29:59>> Period. End of story. And then when I go through these periods where we get so busy where I can't do that, I can it's almost it's hard to explain, but it's like original thoughts come to your mind a lot less cuz you're just filled with all these quick hits that you saw on Twitter and it's not it's not useful. But HW had a he was talking about this and he you know he's like a really just kind of report it like he sees it kind of guy wi without seemingly without a lot of opinion which I respect a lot but you know he had this viewpoint as a guy who's obviously spent his entire life reading where he's like yeah I feel like
30:36we're moving to a world where people aren't going to do that >> and I was like how do you figure and he goes it's just a different medium he wasn't even saying the 30 secondond quick hits but he's like everything is going to is digitized So like people will get their information doing something different. And I'm like well what does that what does that mean for like the future of how we function as a thinking society and he's like it's just change. I I don't know but like the way that I do it >> maybe won't be around in a 100 years. I would like to think he's going to be wrong about that with natural
31:07adjustments that happen as humanity progresses. That's a part of things. But I would like to think that, you know, the way that people like you may go back and read Socrates and stuff like that because we have it as written word. I would like to think that people 200 years from now are doing that and, you know, reading your books and and reading his books and and you know, reading fiction as well from the time period.
31:28>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm hopeful for that. Um, I'll say though that the the one major challenge for historians of the future will be access to digital records. you know, if there's less and less on paper.
31:39I mean, there's no guarantee that 500 years in the future there will be a digital archive, >> you know, we don't know. We can't say with any certainty.
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33:04Link in my description below. That's quo.com/julian.
33:08Link in my description below. Please, for the love of God, go click it. Thank you. So, uh I I I question uh how my colleagues of the future many generations from now will start to file and filter through everything that we're going through in the present. And certainly an interesting conundrum.
33:24>> It's going to it's going to get interesting. But going back to the revolutionary time period, we have this sitting right here.
33:30>> Yeah. A good momento.
33:32>> So, The Patriots, one of my favorite movies ever for sure. It's probably top 10 for me.
33:37>> And this is a really cool book you gave me because it's all the behind thescenes like imagery and really high Getty image quality, which is very cool.
33:45>> But I have always understood this movie to be 100% historically accurate. And um I'd like to not be moved off that opinion today, but I feel like I feel like you're going to ruin my life a little bit.
33:58>> I feel that's why you invited me almost.
34:00>> It might be part of it. But you know, Mel Gibson felt like he really nailed it. This this is my George Washington.
34:07>> Yeah. It's uh how I always think of it, [laughter] it it's American Braveheart.
34:13>> Okay. That that's what it is. uh you have this uh provincial who's just minding his own business and the forces of empire meddle in his life, destroy his family and he goes on a spree of vengeance and in the process becomes somewhat of a patriotic and symbolic figure. So uh it there are definitely uh strains of similarity between that movie between this movie and the one that he directed just a few years prior about William Wallace. Um but yeah, you know, uh how I think of it as we look at it from a cinematic standpoint, I mean, I think it's a really great movie. Um the production value is through the roof. I
34:55mean, John Williams music, I mean, one one of the most uh underappreciated John Williams scores. I think uh the cinematography is fantastic. They spared uh no expense. Uh but as we see with other big budget movies like Pearl Harbor, uh a lot of money doesn't always necessarily equate to historical accuracy or authenticity. So I'll give you a little bit of the the true life story behind the patriot fox.
35:27>> Yeah. So uh the fictional character of Benjamin Martin played by Mel Gibson.
35:32He's kind of an amalgam of Francis Marion known as the swamp fogs. There's a little bit of Daniel Morgan and his marksman thrown in with it as well and a hodgepodge of other continental leaders, too. Uh, but I'd say one of the great bits of authenticity about the film that they easily could have cheapened out on, they actually did film it in South Carolina.
35:58>> Yeah, that's cool.
35:58>> Where the film is set. And so they filmed it in Charleston, uh, beautiful historic city. They filmed it in the Carolina back country. They could have easily filmed it in California or South Africa or whatever and probably saved a whole lot of money. Um, so I'll give credit where credit is due. Uh, one of the big issues though, uh, is how the British are depicted in the film. Almost Nazilike.
36:23>> They were Let's be Let's be honest. Come on.
36:26>> Not universally.
36:27>> I know our Brits out there, you know the truth.
36:29>> [laughter] >> Uh but uh in any regard it uh it condenses things quite heavily. Uh it villainizes quite heavily. I mean Jason Issacs I mean he's he's like one of the top 10 movie villains of all time. He's in this movie.
36:45>> He is perfect.
36:46>> Yes.
36:47>> Um but the funny thing is uh in subsequent years like he himself said oh this isn't something you that you want to show your children in the classroom um in regard to authenticity. So, uh, it's kind of funny in that regard, but >> yeah, he was based on, so he was based on Tarlton. Banister >> Tarlton. He is based on a guy by the name of Banister Tarlton, who was this aristocratic gentleman from Liverpool >> uh, who gained quite a reputation for his ferocity. And uh, one of the stories of his ferocity um, comes from a a little known battle of the American Revolution known as the Battle of Waxaws. M
37:26>> and in that fight as his men, the green draons, are charging into continental forces.
37:33>> Uh yeah, look at that. Uh he has his horse shot out from under him and his men think that he has died or he is wounded in the process. And so that enrages them and they plow into the Americans and purportedly don't take prisoners among some who try to surrender. M >> and so that act of perceived brutality became known as Tarlton's quarter. No quarter. And so that is where this reputation of him as a take no prisoners officer emerges.
38:10>> So maybe that first scene or one of the first scenes where they go execute all the people at Mel Gibson's house, he might have done that.
38:16>> No. No. They they they wouldn't have been executing wounded people like that unfortunately. But cinematically, it works as the the perfect foundation for a story of revenge and retribution.
38:29>> It work like when I when that movie What's that first line where he's like, "I have long since feared my sins would come to visit me and the cost is more than I could bear." I'm like, "Come on, let's [ __ ] go."
38:39>> Uhhuh. Yeah. But like there's there's such a after that scene where you know they execute all the people and then as spoiler alert his one son is also killed and then they go to take his other son to be hanged Ledger. RIP you know that whole thing back in the woods. I thought that was perfect cuz obviously like he's a composite character. It's not a real thing that happened but you know the way this war is fought. Yes, there's a lot of conventional warfare where they're on the where they're on the battlefield facing each other and shooting, but because it was also like the British are fighting on I guess like the away field,
39:16you know what I mean? Like they're they're not the home team and they're fighting on the land that these people live in. That means that in some parts of the colonies, you're fighting out in the woods. You're fighting, you know, from in ways that are not conventional war. And like when you see Mel Gibson just be like, "All right, you killed my son. I'm going to I'm going to [ __ ] kill all you. And he goes out in the woods and he just hunts these dudes from the side. You're like, that's my that's Mel Gibson. Let's go.
39:42>> It's incredibly entertaining. No doubt about that. Oh, don't do this. Well, in reality, what what would have been a more likely scenario under a situation like that is that Mel Gibson's character would have gathered some farmers from surrounding properties and they probably would have gone after that British column together.
40:03>> Well, he did have his sons.
40:04>> Well, yeah, some expertly trained marksmen. They were not not missing small not missing a single round in the whole thing. Uh but you the scene that you speak of it really sort of doubles down on the perception that we have of British soldiers during the revolution that they were inflexible, they were rigid, they wouldn't adapt to this new mode of warfare, especially on the American frontier. In reality, what the British would have done under a situation like that, they would have been maneuvering. They would have bayonetted Mel Gibson like a stuck pig before before he got within six feet of
40:41Okay. All right.
40:41>> This is Mel Gibson.
40:43>> Mel Gibson does not get bayoneted by a bunch of people who drink tea.
40:47>> It's true.
40:47>> No disrespect.
40:48>> It's true.
40:48>> All right. Like he's he [laughter] This is Didn't he do like Hatchets Hacksaw Ridge with the hatchet and [ __ ] Like >> you seen him throw that thing?
40:56>> Yeah. There's a there's a picture of it in that book somewhere. Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah.
41:00>> But yeah.
41:01>> Hey guys, if you haven't already subscribed, please hit that subscribe button. It's a huge huge help. Thank you.
41:06>> I feel I feel like he could have pulled that off. I don't know. That's just me.
41:10But what what what else did they allegedly get wrong in this movie?
41:14>> Oh boy, let me think.
41:16>> All right, that's not [laughter] a good start.
41:19>> It uh you know it it probably shows many of the battles. It's slightly and this is forgivable in my mind from a cinematic perspective. Uh most of these battles, especially in comparison to Civil War battles that would take place 80 years down the road, uh most of these battles, especially in the South Carolina back country, were fairly small, >> maybe 3,000 men total in comparison to Gettysburg, like I mentioned a little bit ago, 3,000 versus 165,000. Um it's a huge uh gap um in regard to what we think of as a big battle. But I would say one of the greatest flaws of the film is its treatment of slavery.
42:01>> Yeah. No, that's fair.
42:02>> Uh there's the moment where Tavington's character rides up to Mel Gibson's farm um and he informs all the African-Americans on the property that they're now free and uh they can serve with the king. Um and one of them kind of timidly comes up and says, "We lurk this land, freed men."
42:21>> Right?
42:22That would have been highly unlikely in South Carolina where the enslaved population outn actually outnumbered the free population at the time.
42:32>> Yes. Of white res.
42:34>> Yeah. I would think South Carolina that wouldn't be it.
42:36>> Yes. And there you go. There's the picture. [laughter] >> Well, with the hatchet. That's what I'm saying. I we I can't show it on screen.
42:43YouTube is [ __ ] [laughter] >> But uh yeah, it it it treats slavery with kids gloves. And in actuality, uh, Mel Gibson wanted his character to be a slave owner really in the movie because that gets into the character complexity that makes for a really rich story because then it poses the question to the audience, how can this man be fighting for freedom when he simultaneously owns people and denies their freedom?
43:11>> I mean, you you can argue that that is a very interesting element um from a storyline perspective. Um, but apparently the filmmakers disagreed.
43:23They wanted it to be a little bit more black and white. Uh, and so that's how they went with it.
43:29>> Missed opportunity. But they also, isn't it they pretty much cuz his character is saying, "I don't want to go to war because I fought in the French and Indian War. I don't like what the British are doing, but like let's figure this out another way." So he doesn't go to war, but then they vote to go to like South Carolina votes to agree with the colonies to go to war. So they go to war. his son goes to war and then like when he ends up joining the war, it's supposed to be way down the line, right?
43:54Like the movie is effectively supposed to be maybe like 1780,881, something like that.
44:00>> Yeah. So, the movie begins in 1776 and then rather seamlessly there's a very big four-year jump. They don't even really alert you to that expansive time.
44:11Yeah. Um, and so it goes from 1776 to 1780 because that's when the war in the Carolina back country really heats up.
44:21>> Why did it take so long for that to heat up there?
44:23>> The Well, the war was always present, but it's useful to think of the revolution in this light. It happens in three major phases. It begins in New England.
44:34>> Uh, it and also Canada too for that matter.
44:38>> Benedict Arnold and >> Yeah. Benedict Arnold, the quest for Quebec, Canada almost becomes the 14th American colony when you think about it.
44:46>> Hey, you guys could maybe >> maybe 51. We'll see.
44:50>> Uh and then the war drifts into the area where we are right now. Um and it bounces back and forth like a pinball between New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania between 1776 and 1778. And that's really the hinge point of the war. And you have both highs and lows for George Washington in that time. I mean, what happens here across the river? Utter disaster. Um, >> but like Dunkerk kind of in hindsight, right?
45:20>> Yeah, that's a good analogy when you think about it. Uh, and so, uh, the war regains traction. Uh, George Washington delegates certain commanders to the south, Nathaniel Green, um, being prominent amongst them. Um, and so that final phase of the war uh happens in the Carolinas. New York is occupied by the British for almost the entirety of the war. This is a loyalist city >> for almost the duration of Yeah, [laughter] there you go.
45:52>> Yeah, you're right. Uh, and so, uh there's just some really fascinating and I think often overlooked episodes of the war that are happening in South Carolina, North Carolina, and then ultimately culminating in Virginia in 1781 with the Battle of Yorktown, >> right?
46:08>> Uh so it it is all over the continent.
46:12It's [snorts] being waged in Canada.
46:14It's being waged uh in New England. It's being fought in the Caribbean. It's being fought in Florida by the Spanish against the British.
46:24>> This is a world war.
46:26>> Yeah. Richard Bell, who was in here, that's what his book is about.
46:30>> Yeah. It was happening in India. It was happening in Europe. It was happening all over the expanse of the North American continent. Um, and so in addition to being a race war, a civil war, a revolution, it's also a world war.
46:41>> Crazy.
46:42>> It is. So down what are what are the most overlooked aspects of what was happening in the theater down in North Carolina, South Carolina in your mind?
46:50>> Boy, that's a a great question. It really what it does is that it cements that idea of guerilla warfare in the American psyche >> and we often think Yeah, that's a great image to think about there. And it helps to instill this idea that every American soldier, every American fighting force was going to be hiding behind stone walls and trees and running away into swamps. Where in reality, the vast majority of full-fledged battles during the American Revolution were face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder fights like we see in some scenes within the movie, >> right? Uh and so for the likes of Francis Marion, uh he hardly fights in a
47:39full-fledged battle in that last phase of the war. Now, he does serve at the Battle of Savannah. Um he he actually injures his ankle right before the battle for Charleston, and he goes off to recuperate and he misses being captured when Charleston falls. And so it's that stroke of good luck that allows him to go on with this uh mly crew, if you will, who perfect this idea of irregular warfare.
48:07>> And you you mentioned it though, the battle of Yorktown in 1781 is effectively what ends up in the long term deciding the war because Cornwallis just gets captured and >> trapped with the help of the French fleet who bottle him up in the Chesapeake. So there are still British forces in New York as that is happening.
48:27Uh, of course the Treaty of Paris isn't ratified until 1783. So, uh, that's the official end date of the war, but for all intents and purposes, Yorktown is seen as the military end to it. And of course, there were a few other skirmishes and engagements that happened uh, thereafter, but that's the big one.
48:45Yeah.
48:45>> That we remember. And effectively like another really even though they made a series on you know loosely based series on AMC about it a really overlooked part of the war is the role the espionage played is the way I understand it is that Washington's spies who were emanating he had a cell in operating out of Long Island New York and in New York City while was occupied by the British it was their intelligence that led to the trapping at Yorktown effectively. So you don't win the war without having really solid undercover people operating in in a high stakes environment like that and getting information.
49:25>> Mhm. And even so too in places like South Carolina uh in especially the the more rural areas that weren't quite as wellto-do as people along the coast. Uh they were thoroughly supportive of the patriot cause. And so people like Francis Marion and Nathaniel Green and Daniel Morgan um whether it be in South Carolina or North Carolina um in many ways they have the support of the people. You have those informal intelligence networks that are going from village to village and community to community spread by courier after courier. Uh and so having eyes and ears on the ground amongst the people who
50:05live there is a crucial element of all of it.
50:08>> Yeah. Now I think a really overlooked part of the history during this time period is the lapse in years between the official end treaty of Paris in 1783 and then the creation of the constitution itself. I believe you have things like Sha's rebellion during that time period where veterans hadn't been paid from the war and you have this really really nent not even agreed upon country yet that has 13 colonies to where >> it could have gone a totally separate way and not formed a country but like what was if you could take people back to that time period that four to six years what was it like to live in
50:46America as someone who had not been a loyalist who had actually been a part of the was and now you're like, "Okay, it's not it's not like you have a TV and you know what's going on every day."
50:57>> Yeah. Absolutely. Uh to be in their shoes would have been an incredible thing.
51:02>> Yeah.
51:03>> And really, I think the best way of putting it's a time of exciting opportunity because they've just defeated one of the largest militaries on the planet.
51:15Uh at the same time, and the founders could look back at history and recognize this themselves, most revolutions in history fail.
51:25>> Almost all of them.
51:26>> Yeah.
51:26>> Yeah.
51:27>> Um most, you know, we we like to think of ourselves as the American experiment.
51:31Most experiments fail until you, you know, find a good outcome. And there were certainly a share of people who feared that that might be the case in the 1780s or the 1790s. And so there are intense growing pains that are felt in certain geographic regions um as well as nationally. And you know there's a little bit of prologue to that. Uh shortly after George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, uh he has to break up a fight between New Englanders and soldiers from the Mid-Atlantic.
52:11These are people who think that they have nothing in common with each other.
52:15>> Uh people from Massachusetts, if they were to converse with somebody from Georgia, it would seem like they were speaking a different language.
52:22>> For sure.
52:23>> You know, when we think about when we think about accents today, Yeah. you know, [laughter] it's it's true to an extent uh even in the present. Uh on top of all of that, um each region is often defined by different religions. I mean, you have Puritans in New England, you have congregationalists in Pennsylvania, you have Quakers in Maryland, you have Catholics in the South, you have Anglicans. And that's one of the chief reasons why there is no official religion and why the founding fathers were steering towards separation of church and state because they believed that in order to unify these 13 separate
53:00countries, you can't let religion get in the way of all of that. And so that's a really crucial element of all of it. Um so those are some of the things that are in mind immediately after the war and this is even before ideas about well how are we going to pay off the war? What sort of banking system are we going to have? Are we going to have uniform currency? Um are we going to ditch the articles of confederation which is a loosely binding agreement that ties together our 13 colonies. Um, all of that is taking place in the buildup to the constitutional convention. And then even after the constitutional
53:39convention, you have growing pains like the whiskey rebellion that takes place over the course of three years in 1790s Pennsylvania >> where Alexander Hamilton wants to institute an excise tax on distilled spirits to help pay for the debt of the war. There's going to be a 25% tax.
54:01>> 25% on distilled sugar. That's exactly what the farmers of Western Pennsylvania thought.
54:06>> I know. Shout out.
54:08>> And you know, for people growing the for people cultivating the the grain, the wheat, the barley, all the ingredients that are necessary for something like rye whiskey. They said, "This is going to destroy us." Yeah.
54:20>> Financially.
54:22>> And uh grain and whiskey, it was a form of currency >> on the Pennsylvania frontier. you know, someone helps you clear your back field and you give mega whiskey or you give them grain. Um, and so they rose up in rebellion and they were going uh toring and pitchforking, you know, against uh tax collectors and whatnot in Western Pennsylvania. And >> that's during Washington's first term.
54:48>> That is during his presidency. Yes. His first term. And uh for the first and only time in American history, George Washington puts on the uniform while he is president and he goes out and he leads a command in the field himself as president. So he's acting as commanderin-chief in the truest sense.
55:10>> Oh, I don't remember this. and uh he takes several thousand regular troops and militia into the Pennsylvania countryside to disperse these rebels who refuse to pay their taxes.
55:23>> Shoes on the other foot.
55:25>> Yeah. And so the concern here was people are thinking, have we merely replaced King George III for King George I? M >> people thought that George Washington had these monarchical or dictatorial aspirations because of how he was treating the whiskey rebels in Pennsylvania.
55:48uh but ultimately uh by demonstrating this show of force with these thousands of soldiers and meeting with some of the me uh leaders in a more diplomatic sense um he essentially tells them uh disperse uprisings will not be tolerated. I will hear your grievances but first you need to send your men back to their farms.
56:11And so with that, he I think very diplomatically diffuses the situation.
56:18It could have grown a lot more violent and ultimately most of the whiskey rebels are are let off the hook. Um very few of them have charges brought against them and hardly anybody does jail time for it.
56:29>> What about the taxes? uh they remained in place until the administration of Thomas Jefferson who was more uh he perceived himself as more farmer friendly >> and so uh they stayed on the books through the presidency of Washington and John Adams who were both federalists.
56:48>> Wow. That's an under reportported part of history right there. Imagine that.
56:51Like George Washington in full uniform.
56:54>> It's like >> as president.
56:55>> It's like Jordan coming back with the [laughter] Wizards.
56:58>> That's a a great parallel. He's like, "All right, I'm going to drop 20 on you [ __ ] Here we go."
57:03>> Yeah, pretty much.
57:03>> Wow.
57:04>> Pretty much.
57:05>> So, something that's that's what's crazy though because I that's the part of when you look at history back then with something that's so new and spread out with all different colonies like we were saying that do all different things and have different, you know, some places are rural, other places are cities. It's like keeping all that organized and together when there's not this longterm story, right? Like my buddy Eric Zulliger always has a great quote, countries are just stories, >> you know. So like England, France, these are places been established for thousands of years. So you live in in,
57:40you know, the south coast of France or Paris, like we're just France. We get it. That's what it is. You know, you live in London or you live in Scotland, you know, we're a part of this thing.
57:49We're on the same island, whatever. But in America, when you have all these people who just watched a rebellion work and then see something instantly in the new government that they don't like, the idea that that didn't split off into a bunch of Mad Max Fury Roads is pretty crazy. It is. And I think that's the allore of what a lot of people think of like as the American miracle story, the American origin story.
58:12>> Uh but history shows us that there were plenty of speed bumps and obstacles along the way. It was anything but perfect. Uh not everything congealed all at once. Um there were penny plenty of growing pains like I I mentioned and uh those are things that we can likewise learn from as well.
58:32>> Yeah. What made the constitutional convention itself work and the constitution like actually come to be?
58:40>> That is the milliondoll question.
58:42>> Yeah. the Freemasons. [laughter] >> The fact that these 55 guys from all walks of life from across all 13 colonies could hatch this out over the course of three months um is really quite the feat.
58:58>> Um sometimes it takes college students three months to just write a paper, you know. So, >> uh it comes down to a lot of different things and this could be a whole conversation in and of itself.
59:13These guys knew their history.
59:15Uh people like James Madison uh was getting book and reading recommendations from Thomas Jefferson who was across the Atlantic um serving in uh Paris at that time.
59:28And Madison is looking back and he's thinking what forms of government have worked like what were the ancient Greeks doing?
59:35>> What were the Romans doing? Uh what were the Pelponyians doing? you know, he's he's looking at all these ancient civilizations of the past and he's using history as his compass. Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help. And if you'd like to check out this clip's full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.
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