2005年NPR美国国家公共电台七月-'1776' Takes Readers to the Battlefront

This is Morning Edition from NPR news, I am Rene Montagne with Steve Inskeep.

229 years ago, independence for America was not certain; a new book explains how the young Revolutionary campaign took hold, Steve Inskeep talks to the author of 1776.
David McCullough chronicles a little more than a year of fighting up and down the eastern seaboard, a year full of defeats and disasters for the Americans, and a painful learning experience for their commander George Washington.

And David McCullough what was it that George Washington had to learn over the course of that year.

He had to learn that he couldn’t fight the British head on, they were better soldiers, they were better equipped, everything about them was what you would expect from the most formidable military force on earth, which is what the British were then. And he had to learn that holding territory, holding Boston, holding New York wasn’t the point, the point was to keep the army alive, to keep the army alive and fighting.

Why was it that in battle after battle in Boston and New York and elsewhere, George Washington seemed determined 1, if he could, to attack the British head on even though people around him thought that would be a disaster?

Well, that was his nature. He was a very aggressive man in many ways. As a foxhunter for example, he was always at the very front, riding as close to the hounds as possible and he would chase that fox until he got them if it took 7 hours. To a foxhunter for 7 hours is not only a sign of phenomenal physical stamina 2, but a very determined mind. And he was held back from attacking more than once to the benefit of him and his army by his war council, his other generals.

You chronicle the way that this man had to learn when to trust his own judgment 3 and when to trust the judgment of others, you write of a moment of a particular indecisiveness in the fighting in and around New York City involving a fort that was named after him: Fort Washington. What happened?

Well we had created Fort Washington on the highest ground in New York city, at the very northernmost end of Manhattan Island to keep the British from bringing their warships 4 up the Hudson river, and the British had demonstrated quite dramatically twice that they could bring their warships up Hudson river whether we were fortifying 5 Fort Washington or not, so there really was no longer any reason to maintain Fort Washington, but his subordinate general, General Nathanael Greene, one of the best generals we had as it turned out, has said that he could hold Fort Washington, and George Washington, said “well, you are there, you are on the spot, I will rely on your judgment”, but then Washington arrived on the spot and he made no decision, it was one of the few cases where he is totally indecisive, and Fort Washington fell, 3,000 people were taken prisoner, it was a catastrophe 6 for the American side, and it was Washington’s fault.

How did that failure of George Washington affect his thinking?

Washington always learnt from his mistakes I think that's what's crucial isn't he didn't made mistakes but he learned from them. For example we the American Army and George Washington were almost caught in a trap at Brooklyn on Long Island, and the only thing that prevented the British from bringing their gunboats up the east river which would have sealed the trap, was the fact the wind was in the wrong direction that kept the British from bringing their ships up. At the end of the war, or very near the end of the war, the last great battle of the war at York Town, the American army under Washington and the French Army under Rochambeau had pushed Cornwallis and the British down to the end of the York Peninsula, and they were prevented from escaping by the appearance right on time by the French Fleet, the very same situation that Washington had found himself in back at Brooklyn in 1776.

How in the months after Fort Washington did Washington regain 7 confidence in his own judgment?

Oh I think he regained 8 confidence in himself quite quickly, I personally think that he was suffering among other things from what we would call sleep depravation. He was not himself. His great time really comes after Fort Washington in the long retreat across New Jersey 9, which Thomas Paine who was then with the troops described as a time that try men’s souls. When his troops are sick, hungry, they’ve been defeated again and again, they are in rags, winter’s coming on, they have no winter clothing, and he keeps going, he will not give up, Washington wasn’t a great intellectual, he wasn’t like Adams, Thomas Jefferson he wasn’t an eloquent 10 spellbinding speaker, like Patrick Henry, what he was was a leader, and men... some men would follow him through hell, and they did.

What was it that finally caused George Washington after this long retreat finally to choose the moment to turn around at the end of 1776, and try to attack for real this time?

Yes, he finally gets his chance to attack, and all hopes gone, he himself privately 11 said the game’s pretty near up, and it was a bold, brilliant stroke. It was simply a night march through a driving snow hail and sleet 12 storm, to strike at * on the Delaware, with all of his might, some 2,000 men, heaven knows what the wind chill factor was, two men froze to death on the march, nine-mile-march, after crossing the Delaware, and they hit it and they won, they beat them, and this had an immediate 13 effect on the morale 14 of the country, that was of importance, psychological importance, and then they struck again within days afterward 15 and hit Princeton and won there too, so that they ended this campaign, the campaign of 76, with two dramatic American victories, small scales not withstanding of immense importance, they really changed history.

David McCullough the author of 1776, thanks very much. Thank you sir.
You can find David McCullough’s summer reading picks at NPR.org