George Washington: Revolutionary General (Part 2)

Ben Wilson
I'm gonna show you how great I am. This would have tiny shower. I just wanna say from the bottom of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.

Hello and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. Welcome to part two on the life of George Washington, the american general statesman and the first president of the United States of America so far. In part one, this is an interesting story about a guy who has achieved some success, but he is far away from being one of the most famous men of all time. In this episode, we're going to explore the Revolutionary War.

So that's when the United States declares independence from Great Britain. His leadership in that war, why it was so vital, and how he was able to be so successful despite being a pretty mediocre battlefield general. One of the things that I think is so powerful is when you identify great, really successful people who were bad at certain things, and not just anything, but things that were core to what they were trying to do. So, for example, Demosthenes is known as one of the greatest speakers of all time. He lived in ancient Greece, and he had a horrible speech impediment.

Okay, so here you have someone who was the greatest speech giver of all time, who was physically bad at speaking. And so that means that there is something incredibly valuable that you can learn from Demosthenes, because you learn what is actually valuable in the pursuit of something and what is not. So, if I'm giving you a sports analogy to this, LeBron James, he's a little bit older now, but let's wind back the clock. Ten years, 2014, and LeBron James is the strongest player in the NBA. He's one of the fastest players in the NBA.

He's also one of the best passers, one of the best rebounders, one of the best on ball defenders, one of the smartest players in the NBA. And so it's incredibly difficult to know what to focus on, what to learn from his career. Because he's so good at everything, it's hard to differentiate what matters the most from what is dispensable. Tim Ferriss, the famous author and podcaster, has a good phrase for this. He says, you generally, when you're talking to coaches, you don't want to talk to the most successful coaches in any given field.

You can't learn as much from them because they usually get the best athletes. And so oftentimes, they never learn to actually be an extraordinary coach. They never learn to develop talent in an extraordinary way because they're doing what Tim calls babysitting mutants. Okay? They aren't developing talent.

They are just getting the most successful people. Mutants like people who are so genetically predisposed to be great at a sport, they just have to babysit them. They just have to make sure they're okay. They get them to play for them. The best coach.

And I think that's a really interesting point. He likes to talk to the second most successful coaches because they get athletes who are very gifted, but who they actually have to develop. And so they learn to develop skills, and they're actually good at coaching. So all that is to say, I think you can learn a lot from people who are very successful, but who have a very obvious fatal flaw. And that is very true of George Washington.

He's one of the greatest generals of all time, despite being pretty bad on the battlefield, or at least not excellent. He's like demosthenes, how do you become a great speaker despite literally being bad at speaking? How do you become a great general despite not being very good at commanding troops? So that is what we're going to find out on this episode. It's one of my favorite episodes I've ever done.

I think you'll like it. My sources are George Washington in the Revolutionary War by James Thomas Flexner and Washington a life by Ron Chernow. Special thanks to Camille Doom for her research assistance. Forgot to give her a shout out last episode. So with all that said, let's get into it.

This is George Washington part two, revolutionary general.

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Okay, so we left last episode, and George Washington has been appointed the commander in chief of american forces without any real forces. Now, what you do have is you already have some militiamen in New England. New England is the northern part of the United States, and these militiamen are fighting the British around Boston. So he's putting command of these forces, and then some other militias are raised from the other colonies as well to support. Now, one of the first things he does is interesting.

He's one of those people who argued for a boycott of british goods, but that doesn't mean a total end to commercial relations with Britain. Listen to what Cher now writes. He says, remarkably, in this fierce letter, he argued that the colonists should refrain from purchasing british imports, but not renege on paying debts owed to british creditors. For I think whilst we are accusing others of injustice, we should be just ourselves. He said it was this steadfast sense of fairness, even at the most feverish political moments, that set George Washington apart.

All right, I think that's really interesting. George Washington really wants to do things the right way, and it reminds me a lot of Julius Caesar. If you go back and listen to the Caesar guide to taking over the world recent episode, I talk a lot about Caesar's clemency. So he's involved in the civil war much like George Washington, and he has this policy of forgiving people, of not executing them, not taking their stuff. He says, I'm the rightful ruler, and I'm just trying to set everything right.

So there's going to be no retribution. I'm going to be very clement, very forgiving, and we're all going to go on our merry way with me as the leader. He wants to do things like George Washington the right way. He's sort of the law and order, peace and stability candidate from the beginning, and that makes his job more difficult in the short term, but it makes him a more attractive option in the long run. And his contemporary Cicero, who was opposed to him in the civil war, has this great quote that I love.

He says, caesar's treacherous clemency enchants them. Okay. And by doing things the right way, it really does have this enchanting effect. It pulls people into your orbit because they see you as more than a partisan in a conflict. But as someone who is kind of above it all, as someone who sees beyond the conflict.

And that was George. He was always trying to take the high road. There's another example of when he does this. A lot of people want to just take the stuff of the loyalists, the Tories, the people who wanted to remain loyal to the crown. You know, there's a lot of revolutionaries who are like, well, these people aren't on our side.

Let's take their stuff. And here's what Washington says. If any officer or soldier shall presume to strike, imprison, or otherwise ill treat any of the inhabitants, they may depend on being punished with the utmost severity. He announced, in a beautiful symbolic act, he returned a horse given to him after learning that it had been swiped from a departed Tory who had been an avowed enemy to the american cause. Once again, by opposing vindictive actions, Washington shaped the tone and character of the american army.

Okay, so, as you can imagine, he's losing out on a lot of cheap victories this way. But there are a lot of long term benefits to doing things the right way. You develop trust. You excite the imagination. People want to be a part of what you're doing.

In fact, he goes so far later, there's a statue of King George, and people behead it, and they melt it down, and they use the metal from the statue. It's in New York to create musket balls for the continental army. And Washington, instead of saying, hey, thank you for the ammunition, is very disturbed by this and condemns it. So just imagine that it's a purely symbolic object. It's doing nothing that demonstrates support for the enemy, and it is destroyed in order to create much needed resources for your army.

And Washington vehemently opposes this because it was so important for him to do things the right way. So that is one of my big takeaways from Washington. It is worth it to do things the right way from the very beginning, even when it might be convenient and you might score cheap victories by doing things the easy way. So he's trying to do things the right way. If you remember from last episode, he's actually initially open to peace.

And a lot of people in the colonies are open to peace. They're thinking this is kind of a conflict to show that we're serious, hopefully to convince the king to give us some of the rights that we're asking for, and hopefully, this can all be negotiated. But in late 1775 and early 1776, three things happen that change that. The first is in southern Virginia. The british attack and torch completely destroy the city of Norfolk.

And this really outraged people. The second thing is that in early 1776, King George gives a speech stating his absolute contempt for the american cause, that it must be crushed. So then the Americans had been holding out the hope that this whole conflict was caused by parliament, by an overactive parliament. But, hey, the king, when he realizes what's going on, he's going to side with us, and this will all get sorted out. And King George comes out and says, that is not the case.

I'm with parliament. So that's strike two. And then the third thing is that Thomas Paine writes a very persuasive pamphlet called common sense, and it is very effective at persuading people that independence is necessary. So these three things happen in quick succession. And so, by early 1776, most people in the american colonies believe in independence and support the cause of separating from Great Britain.

And this starts everyone down the path that would lead to the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776. One thing, George Washington is also very passionate about his intelligence. He has this thirst for learning more. He's a great spy master. He is immediately cultivating spies wherever he can to spy on the british troops who are initially in Boston.

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Okay, so George Washington takes command of the troops in and around Boston in 1775. And initially, some of these troops don't like him. The american identity had not really been developed yet. And so these New Englanders consider themselves somewhat different from southerners, from people like George Washington, who's from Virginia, which is a southern colony. And so they give him a little bit of a hard time.

So he really has to ingratiate himself to the men and get them to buy into his leadership. So he does this in a few ways. One is a theme I'll return to from the first episode, which is physicality. It helps to be jacked. This is something I'll return to again and again because it really helps George Washington.

You don't have to be physically impressive to be great, but it helps. It's definitely one path to get there. You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about this. He has this great quote. He says, once he starts weightlifting and getting really big.

He said, before long, people began looking at me as a special person. I was growing, getting bigger, gaining confidence. I was given consideration I had never received before. It was as though I was the son of a millionaire. I'd walk into a room at school and my classmates would offer me food or ask if they could help me with my homework.

Even my teachers treated me differently. Okay, so people are treating him differently. And you hear this all the time with George Washington. So, one contemporary writes, people were transfixed by Washington's lean, virile presence. Okay, I love that.

People are just transfixed by the way he looks. Here's another quote. This one's from Chernow. Washington had the inestimable advantage of looking the part of a military leader. As Benjamin Rush stated, he had so much martial dignity in his deportment that you would distinguish him to be a general and a soldier from among 10,000 people.

There is not a king in Europe that would not look like a valet des chambre by his side. And as Benjamin Rush is hinting at, it's not just how he looks, it's how he acts. So again, sure. Now, Henry Knox stood in awe of Washington's panache. George Washington fills his place with vast ease and dignity and dispenses happiness around him.

An enthusiastic friend reported to John Adams that Washington has, in a manner, inspired officers and soldiers with a taste for discipline, and they go into it readily as they all venerate and love the general. Okay, so it is both the way he looks, this massive, strong, impressive man, and the way he acts, this upright, dignified, proper, polite, friendly, serious man. One story I like that demonstrates this, the kind of the physicality of greatness is all these continental forces are coming together in Massachusetts, around Boston, and they're interacting for the first time, and many of them have not met people from some of these far flung colonies. And there are a lot of cultural differences, and there's kind of cultural whiplash. And so in one incident, a huge brawl breaks out.

People are fighting from different states, from different colonies, and here's how Chernow describes it. Quote. A fierce struggle commenced with biting and gouging on the one part and knockdown on the other part with as much apparent fury as the most deadly enemy could create, reinforced by their friends. In less than five minutes, more than a thousand combatants were on the field struggling for the mastery. Okay?

More than a thousand soldiers in the same army are all punching, gouging, kicking, fighting each other. At this juncture, General Washington made his appearance. Whether by accident or design, I never knew. I only saw him and his colored servant, Billy Lee, both mounted with the spring of a deer. He leaped from his saddle, threw the reins of his bridle into the hands of his servant, and rushed into the thickest of the melee, and with an iron grip, seized the two and held them fast.

Okay, so he comes in, and he physically breaks up a fight of more than a thousand men by going right into the fray. And at first, he just grabs two men and pulls them apart. And he keeps doing this, just physically separating the two sides until everyone calms down and separates. So you can see that with his physical presence, he is unifying this army. One of the other things he does that I think maybe goes back to the idea of doing things the right way is he believes in discipline.

He also believes in hygiene. He wants everyone looking clean, acting clean. So one of the most important decisions he makes of the entire war is one that he makes early in the war. Here's the quote. By January 1777, he ordered doctor William shippen to inoculate every soldier who had never had smallpox.

Necessity not only authorizes, but seems to require the measure, he wrote, for should the disorder infect the army in the natural way and rage with its usual virulence, we should have more to dread from it than the sword of the enemy. This enlightened decision was as important as any military measure Washington adopted during the war. Okay, so he's getting his army in order both in terms of their discipline and in terms of their hygiene and in terms of their unity. Okay, so let's get into the action and see what he actually does. The first thing that he does, I mentioned his thirst for intelligence.

The first thing he does is lie through his teeth, because he comes into command, and he is told that he has 308 barrels of gunpowder, which is comforting to him. That's exactly where they should be at. So he goes and he inspects, and he finds that this is completely wrong. They actually have 36 barrels of gunpowder. This is, like, catastrophic.

The British don't know it. They don't know they're this low on gunpowder. But if they did know it, they could just attack the Americans and wipe them out immediately. They don't have the resources to defend themselves, let alone attack the British. And so he lies to everyone.

He lies to his enemies. He even lies to his friends. This is so dire that if word gets out to the British, the war is over before it begins. So he writes back to continental Congress and says, yep, everything good here? We have tons of gunpowder.

He's afraid that if he writes to Congress, you know, this is a body of dozens. I think it's maybe a couple hundred men, and someone is going to let slip that they're in desperate need of gunpowder. So he can't just write to continental Congress and say, send me more gunpowder. That's going to lead to disaster. So he lies to them, and he's lying to the British.

He actually lies to his own troops. He says, we have so much gunpowder. I'm embarrassed by the amount of gunpowder we have. But he says, I am regardless, instituting a rule against target practice and the unnecessary firing of muskets. Just cause it's good practice.

Right. So he's trying to limit the amount of gunpowder they're using, while not giving away the reason that he doesn't want to waste any gunpowder. In the meantime, he starts sending around to other forts that Americans own, saying, hey, do you guys have gunpowder? Doing whatever he can in a clandestine way to get more gunpowder. So the crisis passes.

In about two weeks, he's able to get all the gunpowder he needs. And this is all alleviated when one of his subordinates, a lieutenant named Henry Knox, manages this amazing feat of transporting 120,000 pounds of cannons, mortars, and ammunition from a fort in upstate New York where it wasn't needed. And he brings it down to Boston, which lays the groundwork for an offensive attack. So now they have enough resources, they have enough cannons, gunpowder to think about actually attacking the British and getting them out of Boston. So, there's a hill south of Boston.

It's called the Dorchester Heights, and it looms over Boston from the south. And if it was fortified, it would be a very commanding position. The problem is, the British absolutely hammer them with cannons anytime they try and take and fortify the Dorchester Heights. But on the night of March 4, they fortify the hill. Henry Knox bombards the British with cannons the entire time to keep them occupied so they don't see what's going on.

And then another brilliant thing that George Washington does is he has them prefabricate the fortifications. So they build these kind of modular walls down below the hill, and then in the middle of the night, they just bring up the hills and kind of push them into the ground so they don't have to do all this construction. That takes time on top of the hill. They also get lucky with weather, so it's foggy down in the city, so the British can't see what's happening. But it's a clear, moonlit night above the fog so that the Americans have a clear view with which to build their fort on the Dorchester Heights.

So the British wake up on the morning of March 5, 1776, and they see an impregnable fort in a perfect position firing down on them. So this is untenable for them. And within a couple weeks, they pack up, and by March 17, the British flee from Boston. It's a huge feather in the cap of George Washington. He has scored the first real victory of the revolutionary war.

It is, in many ways symbolic. They had secured Boston, but they hadn't really done any damage to the british army. Nevertheless, Boston was an important city, and it was important to secure it for the american cause. Now the British are at sea. They don't have any beachhead, any major presence in the colonies.

And so the next target becomes pretty clear, and that is going to be New York. New York is America's second biggest city, after its capital, Philadelphia. It is also a hotbed of Tories, of loyalists, people who want to stay with the british crown. And it has all of these deep water ports, and so it lends itself to naval action. The British have a pretty good army, especially compared to the colonies, but they have the world's greatest navy by far.

They have this amazing navy. And so New York is a perfect place to use it, because you have not only the ocean, the sea, but you have all these rivers and little bays. You can basically attack any part of the city from the sea. And so it makes it a perfect place for them to come and land and establish a beachhead. And so, with the advice and consent of the Continental Congress, foolishly, George Washington decides to try to defend New York City.

There was a thought, and actually, George Washington favored the course of saying, look, there's no way that we can defend New York from this navy. But he wasn't really determined in this path, and so he let himself be convinced. And Congress really believed that the psychological effect of giving up America's second biggest city undefended would be too great. On the american public, it looked like throwing in the towel. So they say, hey, we have to try and defend New York.

And so they try. And it is a complete disaster from beginning to end. And it starts right when the British arrive. They had had a presence in the colonies. They had sent some troops to Boston, which they were trying to hold Boston with those troops.

But in July, the Americans declare independence. And so the British say, okay, we're doing this for real. So they send half their navy. They have this global navy that is supposed to be in Europe and in India and in Africa. Well, they take half of it and they send it all to New York along with 32,000 troops.

And so the Americans are just overawed by this. Here is what one american soldier named Daniel McCurtain. He sees this happening, and here's what he writes. I could not believe my eyes, keeping my eyes fixed at the very spot. Judge you of my surprise when in about ten minutes the whole bay was full of shipping.

I declare, I thought all London was afloat. Now, keep in mind, the largest city in the american colonies on the north american continent is Philadelphia, with about 40,000 residents. This british naval fleet has more people in it than that. Like, so, like, that is the peak of american experience in terms of dense population. And now they're seeing more than that.

And it's all in a navy coming to destroy them. And so you have american soldiers who are supposed to be preparing for an attack and they're just doing nothing. Like, they're just looking at this overwhelming force coming to attack them and they're frozen with fear and with awe at the spectacle of this amazing navy and army coming to destroy them. As I said, things go wrong immediately. Americans don't man their posts.

The british admiral in charge, Lord Richard Howe, was an extremely capable commander, and at every turn he bests Washington's defenses. First, he lands on Long island and embarrassingly defeats the american forces there. In fact, 8000 american forces are nearly captured, and Washington has to lead a daring nighttime escape to keep them from being captured. The men start to panic at the end of this escape and start cramming on board the last transport boats, which starts to sink them. There's too many men on the boats.

And Washington picks up a massive rock and threatens to sink the boats himself if soldiers don't disembark. And then he says, look, calm down. I promise you I will be the last one to leave. So if anyone gets captured, it's going to be me. And so this calms the men down.

Some of them get off the boats and there's a more orderly retreat after that. And true to his word, he boards the last boat out of Brooklyn and he can hear the British firing at them through the thick fog as they depart. And this move basically saves the revolution. If that many thousands of soldiers had been captured that early in the war, it was basically a quarter, I think more than a quarter of the forces they had raised. And so if they were all gone, it's game over.

So just getting them out alive is a sort of mini victory. So he gets them out of Brooklyn and over to Manhattan. They are then defeated. In Manhattan, they go up. They are defeated at a couple of different forts, one of them named Fort Washington.

Complete catastrophe at Fort Washington. There, about 3000 soldiers are taken prisoner and hundreds are killed along with much needed supplies. After that, the British keep marching. And then north of Manhattan, they are defeated again. A place called White Plains.

And at this point, and basically the whole time american morale is breaking. None of these people are trained soldiers almost. You have a very few veterans from the french and indian war. Very, very few. Most of these people are completely green, have never been in combat before.

And they are facing hardened, trained, professional british soldiers. And so they're just melting anytime they face a determined british attack. And George Washington cannot believe the cowardice that his men are displaying. And so at White Plains, he has like a breakdown. Here's the quote.

Fuming, he flung his hat to the ground and shouted, are these the men with which I am to defend America? According to another account, he swore, good God, have I got such troops as these. This display of Washington's wrath still could not stem the panic. As he told Hancock, I used every means in my power to rally and get them into some order. But my attempts were fruitless and ineffectual.

Another officer says this Colonel George Whedon says that Washington grew so distraught that he struck several officers in their flight. It is extraordinary to think of Washington flogging officers amid a battle a measure of his impotent frustration and shattered nerves. It eventually gets even worse. George Washington, General Greene wrote, was so vexed at the infamous conduct of his troops that he sought death rather than life. And what he's referring to here is at a certain point he's whipping all these people.

He's smacking them with the broadside of his sword, yelling at men to stay and fight. And soon everyone just keeps fleeing. And so he just stops in the middle of the road and he says, well, I'm not retreating. And he stands there as the british march closer and closer to him. Eventually his aides come up and grab his horse and like tear him away from the battle rather than letting him die essentially a suicidal death.

This is the end of what is a very ignominious defeat. All these battles in New York, here's what Chernow writes. He says it was a defeat without redeeming features a disastrous campaign in which Washington's army had suffered one humiliating, costly reverse after another. The outcome could only have deepened Washington's nightmarish sense of helplessness. Just as he fretted about expiring enlistments.

He had losses of almost 3000 men killed or captured. At the same time, a huge cache of valuable muskets and cannon had fallen into british hands. The only redeeming thing that happens throughout any of this is first that escape from Brooklyn that I talked about. And then there is another kind of miraculous escape over the Delaware river. To get his troops to safety in this final escape, to save, you know, some part of the Continental army, uh, they need cover fire from the british.

And there's one artillery detachment that stands very bravely and fires very accurately, just serves incredibly capably and provides this very necessary cover fire so that some men can be rescued. And Washington takes note of the officer in charge of this artillery battery and his name is Alexander Hamilton. Once they set up camp in Pennsylvania, kind of away from the action gets his men removed from danger, Chernow writes. Dismayed by his officer's behavior, Washington scouted for new talent and was impressed by the proficiency of a young artillery captain named Alexander Hamilton. As the latter superintended earthworks construction, Washington entered into conversation with him, invited him to his tent and received an impression of his military talent.

So thus began one of the most important relationships of George Washington's life. I won't say too much about Hamilton on this episode because I'm going to do an episode about Hamilton. But I think people misunderstand Hamilton. I'm glad for the play because it puts him on people's radar that he was really vital to the american founding. But Hamilton was probably the greatest mind of the American Revolution.

That's what I think. Even more so than Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, even Washington, Hamilton had the most greatness inside of him. If America had had a Napoleon, it would have been Hamilton. We'll get more to that story, but look out for the Hamilton episode. That's gonna be what I do after George Washington.

I think his greatness is underestimated by most people and is not helped, frankly, by the play Hamilton. I'm glad it puts him on people's radar, but I think most people think of him as, like, scrappy and inspirational when he was. Was, like, brilliant and egotistical and arrogant, but so, so capable. Like, true. A true genius.

A true genius and truly great in a way that. That you rarely, rarely see. So, I mean, I guess that's one good thing you can say, is that Washington is starting to form a core of capable officers beneath him. He was, you know, seeing some men who were really incapable and others who could distinguish themselves a little bit even in the midst of this disaster. But still, things are really bad after the invasion of New York.

And the problem is that problems beget problems. Everything compounds, so you lose all these battles, and now it becomes difficult to issue currency. No one wants to take your american dollars because they're like, well, it looks like you guys are about to lose to the British anyway, and this is just going to be valueless paper in a couple of months. So you can't issue currency, therefore you can't raise money. And because you don't have money, you can't raise more troops because you can't pay them, and therefore, you have fewer men with which to fight battles.

And so it's a vicious cycle, right? It all compounds. And so Washington knows that he needs to find a way to change this narrative and change it fast. So that's going to be his next mission. First, let me take a minute to tell you about miracle made sheets.

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Okay, so Washington badly needs to restore hope in the american cause. As Napoleon said, more wars are lost by loss of hope than loss of blood. And so Washington wants to counterattack. The problem that he's facing is that all these enlistments, all these men who signed up for military service in the continental army, their enlistments are going to end at the end of the year, and it's now December. So he's got a month to attack with badly demoralized men who just want to go home and get away from this horrible war that they've been a part of so far.

Luckily, the mood of the army is somewhat stabilized by another pamphlet from Thomas Paine. He writes one of the most famous passages of all time. He says, these are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of every man and woman.

And so this stabilizes the mood a little bit. But still, a military victory is needed to change the narrative. And so Washington plans this daring raid on british positions in New Jersey. And again, it's going to happen before the enlistments expire at the end of the year. And so the attack is scheduled for Christmas Day, December 25.

The odds are badly against them. It's a pretty desperate mission. They have to get a victory. Somehow, though, the revolution is crumbling around them. And so the actual password that they use in this secret operation in its planning, is victory or death.

Okay? That is how dire this is. Victory or death. This thing has to work. The morning comes, and there are three separate detachments that are all supposed to attack in concert.

You know, they have their times when they're supposed to land, and the weather is so bad, it's so cold and freezing, that the two other detachments figure there's no way this thing is going ahead, and they call off the attack. But George Washington proceeds with his forces. They have to cross the Delaware river in order to attack the british positions. And the Delaware river is partially frozen and has ice flows floating down it, which are very dangerous and could easily capsize their boats. But Washington says, hey, it's victory or death.

We got one shot. We're taking it. And so he goes, and crossing the Delaware is one of the most famous moments of the Revolutionary War, and it led to one of the most famous paintings of the Revolutionary War. You can go look up Washington crossing the Delaware. If you're american, you have definitely seen it.

Even if you're not, you may have seen it. It's. It's an extremely famous painting. They do manage to cross the river despite ice flows without casualties. However, it is so cold that on the march, 4 to five men just lay down on the side of the road and die from cold exposure.

The upside of this horrible weather is that when they make it to Trenton, the city, they were attacking. The german forces there. They were mercenaries for the British were so convinced that it was so cold, no one would ever attack on a day like today, that they're completely unprepared for the american attack. And so it's this lightning surprise attack, and it is a huge victory. Hundreds of casualties, and the Americans only lose two dead.

So they actually lost more people to the weather than they did in the actual fighting. The traditional story that you hear sometimes is that because it was Christmas, the Germans were drunk and weren't prepared for the attack. That's actually not true if you look at the sources. It's just that they weren't prepared because the weather was so cold, and Washington decided to attack anyway, not knowing that two thirds of his forces wouldn't be there with him. Anyways, it's a huge success.

They not only capture all of these forces, but they capture a ton of much needed supplies, you know, muskets, cannons, ammunition, as well as blankets and clothing. And then they hold the position for a few days. And then when the British come to attack, they retreat. But they don't just retreat to the safety of their own positions. They actually go and attack another city, Princeton, New Jersey.

And that's another success. During this attack on Princeton, you have one of my favorite stories from the war. There is an advanced party that is kind of scouting ahead, and they stumble into the British. They're surprised. Some of them get shot.

And so these Americans take off running, and they run into the main force of the army, commanded personally by George Washington, just as this main force is about to engage with the main force of the british troops. And George Washington sees all these men running, and he says, parade with us, my brave fellows. He exclaimed, waving his hat. There is but a handful of the enemy, and we will have them directly. According to his aide de camp, Colonel John Fitzgerald, Washington rallied the men with an act of unbelievable bravery.

He reined in his horse, faced the enemy directly, and simply froze. Yet again, the intrepid Washington acted as if he were protected by an invisible aura. I shall never forget what I felt when I saw him brave all the dangers of the field and his important life hanging as if it were by a single hair, with a thousand deaths flying around him, wrote a young Philadelphia officer. Believe me, I thought not of myself. So he calls out to these men, and he performs this unbelievable act of bravery, just standing there exposed to enemy fire.

Musket balls are flying all around him. Somehow he doesn't get hit and doesn't die, and that stems the retreat of this advanced party that had been running away. Another great quote comes from one of his secretaries. He says, as he issued the command to fire, Washington on his white charger was such a conspicuous target that Fitzgerald clapped his hat over his eyes because he couldn't bear to see him shot. When the fusillade of bullets ended and the enemy scattered, Fitzgerald finally peaked and saw Washington, untouched, sitting proudly atop his horse, wreathed by eddying smoke.

Thank God your excellency is safe, Fitzgerald said to him, almost weeping with relief. Washington, unfazed, took his hand fondly away. My dear colonel, and bring up the troops. The day is our own. Okay, so I think that's a story that gives you an idea of why these people would so willingly go die for him, even though he had lost a few battles in New York.

Like, it is amazing what that personal touch can do to inspire people even when things are not going your way. That personal bravery, that skin in the game, exposing yourself to the same sorts of dangers as your men, goes a long way. So this attack, this victory at Trenton and Princeton, really changes the calculus of the war. The British had been thinking we might have this thing wrapped up in a couple months. You know, it's not just the actual military victories.

It's the public perception, which is totally going the opposite way. And now this is enough to stabilize the american public and say, no, we can counterpunch. We can stand with these guys. We can fight with them. And so henceforth, the British are actually going to have to conquer the Americans.

They're going to have to win a war. They're not going to just be able to overwhelm and impress them and convince them to come to terms. These victories at Trenton and Princeton are what vault Washington into an even greater tier of celebrity. There's one newspaper, the Pennsylvania Journal, which writes, had he lived in the days of idolatry, Washington would have been worshipped as a God. And I think that's a pretty good summary of how far his star had risen.

One thing I want to pull out of this that's interesting to me is you have this pattern with Washington, which is things do not go his way until his back is against the wall, and then he pulls an amazing victory out of his hat. So there's a quote from one of his colonels who said, his Excellency George Washington never appeared to so much advantage as in the hour of distress, which is true. You see it again and again. And so, you know, that's a really interesting point. But part of me wonders, okay, what can you learn from this?

Because you're not going to intentionally put your back against the wall. You're not going to intentionally lose everything just to improve your performance. That doesn't make sense, right? But I think what you can do is get what I call nothing to lose energy. Just get into that mindset where you feel like you have nothing to lose.

Even if you do. I think that's a powerful framework to evaluate decisions, is what would I do? What decision would I make if I had nothing to lose? For me personally, I have a mortgage, a car payment, three kids. Like I do have things to lose.

And also, in terms of the podcast, I've got an audience now. I've got to think about tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of people who are listening to this. But when I get too caught up in that, I make bad decisions instead. When I just think as if I have nothing to lose, as if I'm a new podcaster, just making this podcast for myself. That's when I make the best decisions and make the best content.

And so, yeah, I think there's something to that having that nothing to lose mentality. You got to think as Washington did. He wrote it on all his papers. He wrote it on his pen. It was the password of this operation, of this great victory at Trenton and Princeton.

Victory or death. All right, sometimes it's good to take that mentality. Victory or death. Okay, but as I mentioned, the Americans can't actually hold these positions in Princeton or Trenton. It's more of a raid.

Uh, they take some stuff, they embarrass the British, they improve morale, and then they retreat back to their battle lines in Pennsylvania. The British decide to attack Pennsylvania, and specifically, they're trying to take Philadelphia. It's the largest city in North America. It is the capital of the United States, United colonies. And so it's going to be a huge symbolic victory.

And so the British attack, and once again, this general Howe just completely outmaneuvers George Washington. They defeat them at the battle of Brandywine, and they're able to take Philadelphia. The Continental Congress has to move, and they go to, first York, Pennsylvania, later Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and eventually they move to Baltimore, Maryland, to have their capital, because they cannot continue to meet in british occupied territory. Washington attempts a counter attack at a place called Germantown, Pennsylvania. It's unsuccessful because of some strategic errors by Washington and his lieutenants, but it's not really a defeat.

It's more of a costly draw. It's a disappointment. They had hoped for it to be a big victory, but there's kind of even casualties, and they're able to retreat. What it does show is that once again, they're battling with the British. It's not just one loss after another.

They're giving as well as taking, and it stabilizes public opinion. So, with the loss of Philadelphia, the Continental army retreats to an area called Valley Forge, where they settle in for a brutal winter. They build their own village. They have basically no supplies, so they have to chop down trees and build their own little huts. Many of the soldiers are hungry.

Many of them are half naked. You know, if you've ever been to the east coast of the United States, the northeast, the winters are pretty brutal. They're quite cold, and they have to make it through this winter. Many of them don't have shoes. Many of them have torn coats and torn pants like, these people are unclothed.

It's a really bad situation. And what makes it worse is this situation is fairly avoidable. Congress is not giving them the supplies they need. And in fact, instead, they tell them. Why don't you just go scour around, see what you can find.

Take it from the countryside. This is exactly the opposite of what Washington wants to do. Remember, he wanted to do things the right way. That means not stealing from people. That means acting like a professional force, and this is not what a professional force does.

They don't raid american farms for food and clothing, but it's what they're forced to do in order to make it through the winter. Like I said, this is avoidable. Congress was reaching the limit of their ability to finance the war, but there was another issue, which is that they were intentionally hamstringing the army. Flexner, in his biography, says that this was, quote, the solution to the dangers seen in a standing army and too much continental unity, and that it was obvious and so deeply rooted in american tradition that the civilian leaders found it maddening that Washington couldn't understand. So, like, this is an amazing situation to me.

You want independence. You've got this army that is fighting, sacrificing, and dying for you in order to achieve it. And Continental Congress is essentially saying, yeah, but we're kind of worried about their power and influence if we win. So we're not going to give them what they need so they don't get too powerful. Like, intentionally hamstringing your army even as they're trying to win a victory for you is just a mind bogglingly bad decision.

I can't believe that the Continental Congress was even somewhat thinking about it in this way. And they were. I mean, there were material constraints as well, but they were definitely thinking about not letting this army get too powerful. And that was part of the calculus. It was a very stupid decision on multiple levels because, as we will see later in this episode, it almost backfired.

Like, the very fact of them not supplying the army is what almost leads to that army becoming too powerful. We'll get to that at the end of the episode, but for our purposes, the point is, it's a very cold winter, the army is very poorly supplied, and thousands of men die of cold and disease. And it is only the charismatic leadership of Washington that holds the army together. The important thing is just to keep the army in the field so the revolution can go on. And he does that at the same time, when he's in Valley Forge, he comes upon a threat from an unexpected place, and that is from within the army, from something called the Conway cabal.

Basically. There was one other general who had accomplished some things and shown himself to be very capable, a general Gates and he had just scored a major victory in the north, in upstate New York, and so he had. A few of his cronies seek to have Washington removed from office, and they want him. Gates made the commander in chief in his place. Washington is able to survive it, and the way he's able to survive this kind of attempted coup is interesting.

He's kind of above the fray. He only marginally engages in the back and forth, tit for tat of, you know, well, you messed up this. Well, no, you did this yada, yada, yada. He does a little like, he makes the arguments, but he tries to be kind of subtle and he tries to be above it all. The real reason people are afraid to go with Gates is outlined very well by Flexner, who says Washington's presumptive successor, Gates would not have been a replacement, but a new departure.

He was an altogether different kind of man, a controversialist, an extremist. He was bitter against upper classes who had thwarted his career in England, and he had sharp elbows. Backed by the New England radicals and their allies elsewhere, he had allowed his battle for the northern command against the conservative Schuyler to be fought not only on military, but on ideological grounds. The opposition to Washington tended to come from the very ideological groups, those who most wished a social as well as a national revolution. Should Gates replace Washington, extremism on the left would be encouraged.

The right would feel a necessity to defend itself, and the whole cause would be sent spinning toward the interne controversy and perhaps warfare, which all responsible leaders, left as well as right, knew must above all things, be avoided. Okay, so essentially what he's getting at there is you have the American Revolution, which is very different from the French Revolution. And part of the reason it was different is you have these radicals, these liberals, who kind of favored a french style revolution. That is what Gates favored. But you had moderates like Washington and even outright conservatives who were still a part of the revolution for more moderate reasons.

Right. Just, we want to be independent from Great Britain. We want to do our own thing. We don't want a complete social upheaval, as Flexner said, a social revolution. They didn't want that.

And so it is this more moderate revolution, and it wouldn't have been if Washington had been replaced with Gates. Okay, so once again, you have this idea that doing things the right way pays off. In the end, people still go with Washington, despite his losses, despite Gates looking like a pretty good commander, because he does things the right way. And they figure, no, this is what we really want. We want a socially stable, moderate revolution.

We don't want these extremists in charge. You know, being a firebrand, screaming for attention, being very ideological, that that's fine. It gets some attention in the short term, and you can get some followers that way. But ultimately, people want to follow stable, serious people like Washington. So once again, it's worth doing things the right way.

Being stable, being serious, being pragmatic. That's what, ultimately, people want to associate themselves with. Well, so gates big victory. It might not have made him the commander in chief. Washington stays the commander in chief.

But one thing it did do, which was very important for the revolution, is it convinced some of the european powers that America had a really good chance of winning this thing. And so the French decide to back America with an official alliance, and that means money, troops, and ships. And by the way, it's not just gates and his victory. Also, Benjamin Franklin is hugely responsible for this. We'll get more into that.

This is going to be a series on the american founders. So we're doing Washington, Hamilton, and then Benjamin Franklin. But this is a huge diplomatic victory for Benjamin Franklin, who manages to convince the French that the Americans are a winning ticket and they should ally with them, and that this is a chance for them to score a victory against Great Britain. So the entrance of France into the war completely changes the game. You know, previously, again, they had sent half their navy over just to fight this one war with these pesky little american colonies, a huge chunk of their forces.

And now the British are going to be distracted. They have to defend way more places. They have to think about fighting in Europe. They have to think about fighting in the Caribbean. And a ton of forces actually immediately leave the colonies, and they're no longer able to defend Philadelphia because they don't have enough men.

So they retreat from Philadelphia, Washington pounces, attacks them while they're retreating. They don't win the battle, but they do, once again, have a draw. And once again, it's kind of showing, okay, the Americans might not have won this battle, but, you know, these guys are just supposed to be militiamen. They're not supposed to be able to line up pound for pound against the British and fight them at all. And they do.

And so this is showing more and more people that, hey, the Americans have a serious chance. And so eventually, the Spanish enter the war with the French against the British. And so you've got all these european powers aligning with the Americans against the British, which is tipping the balance in favor of the Americans. So after this, this one attack by Washington's battle, Monmouth. What this leads to is a big waiting game.

The Americans don't want to do anything without the french support, which is promised and still coming. And so Washington keeps his army in the field. There are some skirmishes back and forth between the Americans and the British, but mostly it's just a waiting game to see what the French will do. After a couple years of waiting and skirmishing and still just struggling to keep his army in the field, the cavalry finally does show up. The French show up in North America, and at this point, the french army, like the british army, is much more professional than the american army.

They just know what they're doing. They know how to march in formation, they know how to fight in formation. They've been doing this for a long time. And so George Washington kind of takes a backseat. He is nominally in charge.

The French pay him lip service. They say, yes, yes, yes, we're serving under your command. This is your revolution. But in reality, they often don't listen to his advice, and they do their own thing. They come up with their own plans, which the Americans have to respond to because they're the ones with the men and the money.

Because of this dynamic, you have essentially what is a repeat of what happened in the french and indian war. If you remember at the end of episode one, George Washington argues very vociferously for a certain road of attack against the French. And ultimately he argues that if they take this other road, they're going to fail. Well, the british general in charge takes the other road, and they're victorious. It's a little bit embarrassing for Washington.

Same thing happens here. Washington says, no, I really think we should attack New York. That is where the British are centered, and that is the key to the whole thing. The French favor attack in the south. So the British land an expeditionary force in Virginia, and they say, well, let's take out this expeditionary force.

And so they kind of force his hand, and once again, the war takes a course that Washington did not approve of, and once again, it is very successful. They manage to bottle up the british troops and besiege them at a town called Yorktown. The British are just holding out, hoping for reinforcement, and there were reinforcements in New York, but they're slow to get there. And so the Americans are attacking. Actually, in the climactic moment of the attack, Alexander Hamilton is the one who leads the attack, is very successful in that way.

Finally, the situation is looking really desperate for the British, and they realize they only have one hope, which is to escape George Washington style, in the middle of the night. And so they try this. They get some boats and they sneak out, and the Americans have no idea, and it looks like it's going to be successful. But what happens is that a storm comes in the middle of the night and blows the boats back to Yorktown so they can't get away. Here's what Flexner writes.

He says the God of the weather, who had so often interfered in the affairs of this war, had interfered again. The storm passed, and under a pink dawn that glinted on what foliage had escaped the destruction of warfare, messengers galloped to Washington's tent. British troops were on the river. Cornwallis had evidently tried to ferry his troops to Gloucester and had been interrupted by the weather. He was now bringing back those soldiers who had got across.

And so because they can't get across, they have to surrender. I like to think about what Washington must have felt that morning when the letter came. It had been six years of revolution, six years of stress, six years of suffering, six years of often difficult circumstances. Six years of just trying to hold together this army. And then one day, everything changed.

Here's what Flexner writes about what happened. Washington had just sat down to his mornings correspondence when in came another messenger, this one very excited. He carried a letter which had come out of Yorktown under a flag of truce. Having read it through, Washington told his aides that it had come at an earlier period than most sanguine hopes had induced me to expect. The letter read, sir, I propose a cessation of hostilities for 24 hours.

And that two officers may be appointed by each side to meet at Mister Moores House to settle terms for the surrender of the posts of York and Gloucester. I have the honor to be, et cetera, Cornwallis. And so the british surrender, according to legend. I don't know if this is very well documented, but supposedly the British, when they are marching out of Yorktown, surrendering, you know, they're surrounded by the american forces. The band plays a song called the World turned upside down, which was sort of a shot at the Americans even in their moment of defeat, saying, can you believe this?

These filthy colonials, these militiamen, they aren't even real soldiers. Can you believe that we're surrendering to these guys? Truly, the world has turned upside down. Washington knew that this was a pivotal moment, that this was a turning point. He didn't understand that this would be the last battle of the war.

It took a few months for everything to unwind, for the negotiators to work out the details. Of the treaties out in Europe. But it turned out that, yes, there would be no more large scale fighting. And with Yorktown, the war was over and America had independence in the aftermath. You know, there is this idea that Washington could have been king, and I suppose if he had really wanted to be king, that would have been possible.

There is one soldier who proposed it to him, and here's what Washington said. He said, be assured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the war has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army, as you have expressed, and as I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity, I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big, with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country if I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself. You could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. So there was never any realistic chance that Washington was going to be king. One person proposed it, and he smacked it down with as much force as he could.

He's just like, what did I do that would lead you to believe that there was even a modicum of possibility that I would want to be king? So, no, what there was a chance of, though, is a military dictatorship, and that is because the army is very upset, and now there are no british to fight. They have not been well supplied throughout the war. They have not been paid. Some of them are years in arrears.

And so they go to Continental Congress, and they say, okay, we're ready for our back pay. And Continental Congress says, yeah, we can't do that. Sorry, we don't have the money, can't raise the debt. So, you know, deal with it. We'll do the best we can.

They really drag their feet. They're not paying them. So the officers get together and they say, we should take matters into our own hands. We're not talking about necessarily a total overthrow, but we should gather the troops and we should start marching on state capitals, let these people know that we mean business. And I bet you that the money will magically appear.

And so, you know, some people who serve both in continental Congress and in the military are fans of this. Congress is completely frozen. They don't know what to do. They, you know, there's nothing they really can do, that this is the only army they have, and it's turning on them. Here's what Flexner writes.

Most of the members of Congress sat there aghast not knowing what to do. But there were others, including men of great influence, who agreed with Alexander Hamilton that if handled properly, the desperate situation may be turned to good account. Perhaps the army could be induced to rise against the civilian authorities. Perhaps George Washington could be persuaded to lead what would be put forward as a salutary insurrection. So in other words, the government as presently constituted is not working.

If they can't raise the funds, if they can't take care of their own soldiers in their own army, it's clearly not working. And so, you know, this will implement a more muscular federal government, which is clearly needed. And look, as events would come to show, it really was needed. What Alexander Hamilton was proposing was almost exactly along the lines of what would eventually be adopted as the US Constitution. But what he's trying to do is enforce it at the point of a sword.

And so many military officers agree with this and want to do it. In fact, all of them. In fact, it's starting to look like this can't be stopped. And Hamilton is putting himself at the head of all these officers who want to do this. Washington, though, is the one man who is opposed to this.

Not the one man, but the one really important person and certainly the most influential person who opposes this. There is a pamphlet that's written that's very persuasive, very well written, that argues why this would be beneficial circulated amongst the officers. And the officers are nodding their heads, they're getting on board. So they call a meeting, and they really want to get Washington on board if they can, but they're fully prepared to go forward without Washington if they have to. So they have this meeting and Washington is asked to speak.

And what happens next is one of the great moments that makes Washington immortal. Here's what happens. He gets up and he makes an argument and, uh, it fails. It falls flat on its face. No one is interested.

And then this is what happens next. Washington had finished his prepared speech, but the chill in the room had not thawed. The familiar faces looking up at him were uneasy, perplexed, sullen, Washington reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. This, he stated, was a letter from a member of Congress that would show the officers what that body was trying to do and what the problems were. He would read it.

The officers stirred impatiently in their seats. And then suddenly, every heart missed a beat. Something was the matter with his Excellency. He seemed unable to read the paper. He paused in bewilderment.

He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and then he pulled out something that only his intimates had seen him weara pair of glasses. With infinite sweetness and melancholy, he explained, gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown grey, but almost blind in the service of my country. This simple statement achieved what all Washington's rhetoric and all his arguments had been unable to achieve. The officers were instantly in tears, and from behind the shining drops, their eyes looked with love at the commander who had led them all so far and long. And it's a dramatic gesture.

And with that simple statement, gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind in the service of my country. He melts the hearts of all these officers, and they agree with him. They agree not to go forward with this military coup, to submit to civilian leadership and to take, you know, whatever is given to them. George Washington was a master of the dramatic gesture. Whether that was standing in the face of enemy fire or taking out his glasses to read a letter or physically pulling apart fighting soldiers during a brawl.

These gestures had a way of conveying what pure logic could not. You know, Washington was a master of political theater, a master of drama. And I think the thing that made him so effective was that he didn't appear to be dramatic. He was totally unselfconscious. You know, one thing that really breaks drama is when you become aware that you're in a drama.

When you become aware that something is intentionally dramatic. But when it feels like you're really a part of the movie, right, when it feels like everything is authentic, that's when you can really get carried away by these dramatic gestures. And so Washington's obvious sincerity, his seriousness, is what enables all these dramatic gestures to be so successful. And so that is where we'll end it with Washington's most successful move of the revolution. And that is convincing everyone that what is needed is not a military overthrow.

What is needed is now to submit to civilian authority and to come together as the United States of America. So I'm going to run briefly, as I usually do, through some of the lessons that we have learned. One is physical presence and the power of strong physicality. Another is be honest, but not too honest. You know, George Washington was known for his trustworthiness, his reliability.

But when it came to deceiving the enemy, he lied where he needed to. He engaged in spycraft and in deceiving the enemy. And sometimes you got to be crafty about the image that you project to others. Another lesson is to get a great group of young people around you, your tribe of maniacs, your young, ambitious hustlers who are going to help you get where you want to go. And because he could get the buy in from the Alexander Hamiltons of the world, is a large part of what allowed him to be so successful.

So to answer the initial question, how was it that George Washington was such a successful general despite not being a great battlefield general? And I think he compares favorably with Napoleon Bonaparte, who is probably the greatest battlefield general of all time and yet left his country in ruins. And Washington is kind of the opposite of that. And that is because Washington always kept his eyes on the final goal. You know, Napoleon loved the battlefield for the battlefield's sake, and that has its own beauty to it, but Washington loved it for what it created.

And so he always kept his eyes on what it was that he was trying to create. And therefore he was successful in the larger endeavor, despite some failures along the way. There's a quote from Flexner. Like an intelligent comparison between Washington and the celebrated soldiers of the past is greatly impeded by a fact too often overlooked. Washington was never truly a military man.

He remained to the end of the war a civilian serving half reluctantly in uniform. And he goes on to talk about what I just said, that the greatest victories of Washington's were over the hearts and minds of the american people, and getting them to buy in to this new endeavor into the United States of America. The hindsight of the historian, Flexner says, can only reinforce Washington's conviction that the crucial battles of the war were in the arenas of public opinion. And then I'll close with one more quote that I like that captures many of Washington's virtues is by a french contemporary. One of these officers that came over with the french army and was observing Washington for the first time.

And here's what he said. Brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity. He seems always to have avoided passing beyond those limits where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively but more changeable and doubtful colors, may be mistaken for faults. This is the 7th year he has commanded the army, and he has obeyed Congress. More need not be said.

That's it. In the next episode, we will talk about George Washington and his presidency and how he sets the United States of America on the right foot and really establishes the future of the nation as the first president of the United States of America. So until next time, thank you for listening to how to take over the world. One last point about Washington that I didn't mention is that many people think he was dyslexic because he struggled with writing and spelling correctly for his entire life and exhibited many of the characteristics of dyslexia that you see in modern people who have dyslexia. Because he was dyslexic, Washington would have loved speechify, which is a service that was started by my friend Cliff Weitzman, who himself was dyslexic and so struggled to be able to read everything that he wanted to digest and understand in order to take over the world in his own way.

And so what he figured out was a way to turn almost any written material basically into a podcast. And so I used speechify for the research for pulling quotes for this episode. So you can listen to articles, you can listen to books that don't have an audible version, you can listen to emails and newsletters. For this episode, I actually listened to the Ron Chernow biography in speechify. It actually does have an audible version.

But what speechify allows me to do is to listen. And then I also have the text with it so I can read as I listen. And having both the visual and the audio allows me to get through it faster so I can listen on three or even four x speed and just speed through really long books. And then as I'm reading, I just screenshot the parts that I want to remember, and then I have a text of quotes that I want to remember for later. So speechify is really great.

If you're serious about education, about learning more, and about developing yourself, I highly recommend getting speechify. And if you like my voice, you can listen to whatever you want to listen to on speechify in Myvoice is one of the options that's available there. Just go select Ben from how to take over the world. So check it out. Use the link in the show notes.

It's speechify.com benchmark for up to 15% off. I promise you'll love using speechify. So again, go check it out@speechify.com. Ben ok, thanks for listening. Part three on the life of George Washington will be coming soon.

Until then, thanks for listening to how to take over the world.

George Washington: Revolutionary General (Part 2)

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1: The Siege of Yorktown

2: Leadership and Morale

3: Espionage and Deception

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