What’s the funniest thing you’ve come across in researching this period? In Paris, while negotiating the treaty with France, Ben Franklin stopped for a bite to eat in a popular cafe. On the other side of the room he saw Edward Gibbon, member of Parliament and author of the already famous Decline and Fall […]
What two people from the Revolutionary period who never met (so far as we know) do you wish you could introduce? Why? I would like to have seen Dr. Joseph Warren, who died tragically at Bunker Hill, meet Dr. Benjamin Rush. Warren would have soon concluded Rush was an airhead and not even a […]
Since you began studying the American Revolution, how has your perspective on it changed? My perspective has become more complex. As I followed Ben Franklin to France, I saw the war become an international struggle. As I watched Washington think his way to the strategy that won the war in America, he emerged as […]
How do you define “Founding Fathers”? You can define it either broadly or narrowly. By consensus, most historians limit the narrow definition to six. Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison. A broader definition would include many worthwhile individuals, such as Sam Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, Nathanael Greene etc. –Thomas Fleming I don’t. […]
Which side do you think benefited the most from the Native American involvement in the war? Why? The British benefited the most, from one point of view. Most of the Indians fought on their side. These Indians perpetrated no massacres or torture of prisoners on British soldiers or civilians. But from another more long range […]
