 Okay, well, hello everyone. Thanks for joining me this afternoon, still morning out here in the Midwest. So as you may have heard, I do work for the Army, so please excuse me if there aren't enough ships and sails in here, but I made sure to highlight naval elements of this as well, because I do think it transcends any branch. So the title of my talk today is Gentlemen Soldiers Honor George Washington and the Ethics of the American Revolution. And what I'm gonna do is take you broadly from the French and Indian War through the War of 1812 as quickly as I can in 40 or 45 minutes and highlight what these terms honor virtue ethics, what they meant during this time period. And as always with probably every speaker you get here, all views are my own and represent no one but myself. So this is the book and it's really about a concept of what did honor mean. And I contend it is a key cause for the American Revolution and they underlie a lot of the founding of the United States, whether it's the constitution, whether it's the formation of the military. So it's a key component. And I invite you to think about the end of the Declaration of Independence. The final words are we pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. And I know when you think about the Declaration of Independence, oftentimes people go to the earlier portions, all men are created equal, but it's that last line that really is often understudied. So it's in the Declaration of Independence, people are actually risking their life, literally if they're, you know, they could be hanged for treason, but that blind sacred honor, you know, what does that actually mean? And it's not, it's a term that appears prior, it first appears in 1774, the first continental Congress. And it's looking at honor as almost a secular religion, a higher law. So the American Revolution against when it becomes about independence is about more than just political separations, also about separation from the king as the head of church and state. So in making it sacred, it's showing that this is a concept that spreads to all sort of denomination, all sort of beliefs, it's secular, it's civic, but it still has this higher ideal quality. So normally when I give talks like this, I start with this question, what it is honor. And I'm speaking to largely a military crowd. So you're probably better informed about this than the average sort of public. Usually, you know, one's the last time again, outside the military, you probably don't use this term. Maybe if you've been in front of a judge lately or your boy scout, but probably you don't. And so when you think of honor in this early sort of American period, you're probably thinking of this, you're probably thinking of dueling. And this is the Hamilton Burr duel, you know, made more famous by with rap battles and dancing. But people often think of this, two gentlemen face each other at six to 10 paces, ready aim fire. But what have I told you to most early Americans, this most visible symbol of honor culture was considered to be dishonorable because it risks lives, it was akin in some ways to both murder and suicide. So in fact, what we think of as the pinnacle of honor was considered dishonorable by most people. So what is honor? And definitions have constantly changed. So we go to a Cambridge professor in the mid 18th century. There's no easy undertaking to explain a word, which is used by all men very unsteadily and by most without any meaning at all. Meaning most people that use this term have literally no clue what they're saying. Okay, maybe it's just this one Cambridge professor. Here's some others in the essay on the art of war. So 18th century military text honors a V expression to which custom has given different meanings. So what does that mean? Honor can mean any number of things. Samuel Johnson, one of the early creator of the dictionary, so the British version that honor was dignity, reputation or virtue. Noah Webster of Webster's dictionary says that honor was any particular virtue much valued. Not very clear, is it? In fiction, Pamela, but the protagonist Pamela says to her antagonist, Mr. B, and a lot of the, it's very much set in these seduction narratives of the 18th century. Pamela is going to say to her antagonist, I too much apprehend that your notions of honor and mine are very different from one another. So in this concept of the 18th century Anglo-American world, it's the sort of amorphous term that's meant all manner of things. The US Navy even has their own definition of honor. So this is modern department of the Navy. And it says, I'm accountable for my professional and personal behavior. You probably, everyone in the audience probably knows this better than I do. But if you look here, does it actually define what honor is? And I'm gonna pause and offer no comment. The answer is it doesn't. So let's go some quick definitions as they were understood in the 18th century. Honor has been understood as reputation, as duty, as valor, as proper conduct, virtue are usually tied to morality, very much linked to religion and a concept of the greater or common good. And common good is very much a term coined by Benjamin Franklin in this period. Virtue and honor, again, they have this, it's a really complicated relationship. We'll come to this in a minute, but the two are always very much linked. Ethics, if you use the term ethics in the 18th century, you were probably talking specifically about Aristotle. Specifically, Aristotle's ethics. That's probably what you meant. If you delved a bit deeper, maybe it meant moral philosophy or the very helpful definition related to morals. But the term ethical as we use it today really wasn't used. So I'm here to say, in the 18th century understanding, in the revolution, honor and virtue became synonymous with what we think of as ethics. So I invite you today, when you hear the word honor or you hear the word virtue to think of what we'd think of as ethical in the modern concepts, in the modern construct. So this is a fun little exercise. Google Ngrams, you could play around with this and plug in any words and search in different books and publications in different languages. So this is from 1500 to 2008. And you'll see that it's got honor and virtue, both spellings of honor, American and British. It changes for Americans in the early 19th century from the OUR to the OR. And if you take a look at this, the highest usages of the terms honor and virtue coincide with the American Revolutionary Era. And this is something I really started to investigate. What is being said, what is being written? Conversely, look at the concept of national honor. It's basically not discussed before the Revolutionary Era. Again, you see a few blips, but it's really during that constitutional era, the end of the American Revolution dies down, picks up again in the War of 1812, dies down again, and then something happens in the 1860s. Who's to say what? Meanwhile, if you look at ethics, you see a lot of it in the 1500s. And this is sort of the rediscovery of sort of classical scholarship. It dies down, some spikes here and there, but it's really not used much until the modern era. So what's going on? If you take a look at this top, here is ethical overlaid with honorable. And you see it's in the early 20th century that honor as a term really stops being used, but ethical climbs, right? Give or take World War I era. So it's really a change in how the terms are used, not that the concept of honor or virtue has faded, it's just that how it's spoken of has changed. So a quick rule of thumb, further north you go, honor and virtue become separate, virtue takes prominence. This has a lot to do with religious denominations in the area. The further south you go, honor and virtue become almost inseparable and you could use them interchangeably. And so if you are a Virginian and you say honor or you say virtue, you're almost saying the exact same thing and little distinction is made going back to this earlier issue of definitions. So the book follows essentially four main figures, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and Adams who represent different regions, different backgrounds. But honor is a concept that becomes democratized in the revolution accessible to those of varying backgrounds, birth statuses, races, classes, genders, through the idea of service to the nation. But I'm gonna start with Washington and show you this progression. So Washington born into the upper echelons of Virginia society, but his father dies at a young age. He's banned from how he's due to finances. He's not able to have the classical education in England like his brothers. For his whole life, he's gonna complain of a defective education. So he's gonna take to reading. He's gonna try and emulate British culture. And one of the things he comes to is the spectator, which is a British gentleman's magazine. And this is where he starts to take his concepts of honor. A young Washington, point of honor in men is courage. Shame is the greatest of all evil. So honor only matters if others recognize you have it. And this line, I understand by the word virtue, such a general notion as affixed to it by the writers of morality and which by devout men goes under the name religion and by men of the world under the name of honor. So making a clear connection between these three just in different aspects of life. Washington would also pick up early etiquette guides such as Chesterfield's letters to his son. And it was here that the idea that honor and virtue could advance you in society. So Washington that's without this formal education without a father believed that if he followed the trappings of honor culture, he could advance in society. His favorite novel was a history of Tom Jones, which is about a illegitimate young man who gets involved in all sorts of perhaps dishonorable behavior, questionable actions. But at the end it's shown, well, he was actually the son of gentry. So therefore it's okay. So making fun of birth status while at the same time saying mocking birth, saying, well, birth status resolves all. But in that book, there's this line that true honor and true virtue are almost synonymous. For Washington, this is very much the guide and it was true for much of certainly the American Southern colonies, but also as the nation as a whole. He's going to take to writing his own rules of civility and decent behavior. Now you could pick this up at any sort of historical site bookshop now whether it has to do with Washington or not. And he is, though he's credited as being the author, he's not. It's probably just a exercise in penmanship. But it shows that he is very much well versed in these rules of behavior that are originally from Italian British sources. And one of the takeaways was associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. The idea of your company matters. Who you interact with matters. And this is the way to advance in society. His older half brother Lawrence in the red is going to marry into the aristocratic Fairfax family. And this is Washington's way forward. He gets people to emulate his older half brother, the Fairfax family. And that's what introduces him to the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia on the right, Robert N. Whitty. And that's how he ultimately gets appointed to become the adjunct general of the Virginia militia at the rank of a major. He basically assumes his brother's former position when he dies. Does he have a military training? Absolutely not. His brother had the job. That should work. Military thinking at the time was very sort of straightforward. There was no military academy. There's no formal martial tradition in America outside of colonial wars, fighting against Native Americans. And so how does one learn to become an officer? You'd read. And here are some military texts of the era that Washington may have read. And it's honor sprang originally from the field. Honor must be concluded to be purchased by venture and a high medal of courage. So these martial ideas of honor equals courage. In Sims military guide, common soldiers couldn't have honor. And this is a long standing tradition that the average soldier was a rabble. It was only gentlemen that could have honor. So here you say, common soldiers had a frailty of heart due to a want of the principle of honor. Whereas the gentlemen inherently possessed this concept. The idea was based on birth. Washington as an early officer, he's in his early 20s from a major to lieutenant colonel and a colonel, so just for some perspective. So from his early, he starts off as a major and will end his career under the British, in British service as a colonel. He's going to argue about his rank, does a colonial rank of colonel outrank a British captain. British captains are gonna say no because the King's commission outranks any colonial rank. Washington's going to threaten to resign. He's gonna march his way, he's gonna march his soldiers away from British officers so his command can't be questioned. He's gonna complain about his pay. He's gonna be saying, we should be treated as gentlemen and officers and not have annexed to the most trifling pay that's ever been given to English officers. He's going to literally resign his command when his complaining leads to the lieutenant governor to say, okay, no Virginian will hold the rank above captain. Washington resigns because he says, I will not serve alongside of those I formally commanded at equal rank. And he leaves service. And he justifies it by saying, he's doing it for my own honor and country's welfare. His own honor first. He's thinking very much in a personal honor mindset, his personal reputation rather than a sort of collective sense of country whether he means Virginia as his country or wider empire. But he is gonna come back and he's gonna become a great hero at the Battle of the Monongalia after General Edward Braddock is killed, Washington rising from his sick bed to stop a British route. And it's during the French and Indian war that Washington is going to come to push back at some of the more aristocratic hierarchical trappings of honor, the idea that it was based on birth, based on connection to the king. And as early as 1756, he begins promoting based on merit that honor was gained through the person's service themselves through merit, through duty, not based on birth, not based on connections. He's even going to refuse to commission Colonel William Firefax as one of his pseudo fathers, younger sons in the Virginia militia because he's saying this would overstep the bounds of merit. And he says to the lieutenant governor, well, you could do it, but I will not. French and Indian war ends, the British win. That was a quick war. And this leads to one of the more common understood troops of the coming of the American revolution. What causes the American revolution, taxes. So cost of the war, cost of garrisoning these new territories, exceptionally expensive, the rate of interest, exceptionally expensive. So what's one to do? First, the proclamation line of 1763, which it doesn't prevent movement into the West. It stops the protection of the British crown for anyone that moves to the West in an attempt to prevent further Native American hostility, more recently with Pontiacs Rebellion. The idea being it removes for the American mindset one of the basic tenants of government protection. Leads to taxation, but Americans had always been taxed. They just been taxed by their local government who they elected. And they gave an annual gift of subsidy to the king. So a gift, not a taxation. But in placing direct taxes on the colonies, whether it's a stamp backed or a T act, today is also the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party if anyone's keeping count. It wasn't about the taxes. It wasn't about the monetary amount. It really wasn't that much. It was about what the taxes denoted. And it was the idea that they were a conquered people, a lesser people, not full Englishmen. They had been dishonored in some way. And this is what's gonna bring Washington back to service as he starts to connect his personal slights with those of the nation as a whole. And when he's named commander in chief, he makes a conscious choice. He accepts the commission for my country's honor and my own character. It's a fundamental reversal of the words he uses when he resigned in the French Indian War. He's now viewing his country's honor or national honor as the pinnacle. So it's less about personal honor, which is reputation and more about national honor. And he views it as a way that the actions of an individual reflect on the nation as a whole. This is a war that he wants to win, but it's one that they want to win well. The manner in which they fight it is just as important as the outcome. So when Washington is recruiting the Continental Army, he has very clear criteria for who should be an officer. And it's right up here. The degrees of rank are frequently transferred from civil life into the departments of the Army. The true criterion to judge by is to consider whether the candidate for office has a just pretence to the character of a gentleman, a proper sense of honor, and some reputation to lose. What he's speaking of here is that the idea there's no real martial tradition. You do have some veterans of the French Indian War, but if you found a gentleman, someone who imbibed this quality of honor in civilian life, they would make a good officer. He's really thinking of honor in ethical terms here. It's the way in which someone behaves, proper conduct. And he views that as how one fights on the field, treatment, proper treatment given to prisoners of war, all aspects of what we would view within the concepts of sort of just war. Washington is understanding in this concept of honorable behavior. And he reinterprets honor. Washington, like many of the other continental army officers, have to learn on the job. So they're constantly reading. And it's not just the Americans, the British officers are also reading oftentimes the same texts. And they're making their own determinations here. So for the military instructions, the officers' religion was upon which true honor is founded. So this idea of religious morality tied to honor. Jay Watson's, the military dictionary, was honor consists in the constant practice of virtue. And the duty of a soldier is honorable and honest where properly performed. Honor and virtue, again, almost interchangeable in the definition. James Wolfe, who is a British general who dies in Quebec during the French Indian War, is going to argue against a drunken, vicious, irregular armies, but a poor defense of the state, but that virtue, courage, and obedience in the troops are assured guard against all assaults to execute their part with spirit and honor. So the conduct of the army matters. From Frederick the Great, the great Prussian commander, Washington, who's fighting against disproportionate odds, against one of the probably the most powerful military in the world, has to come to terms with how do you fight a war in which you do not match up, in which Washington is going to lose badly in and around New York? And it takes some lessons from both Prussian and British military writers. Numbers are an essential point of war and a general who loves his honor and his reputation will always take care to conserve and recruit his troops. The idea to not needlessly risk men in combat, even common soldiers. These were lessons Washington took from Frederick the Great, from Humphrey Bland, who's a British general. His treatise on military discipline is probably the most read text on the era. Some British officers actually carry two copies. I have no idea why, I can make an old joke about wanting to read it again, but some actually had two copies. And the idea being that even if you lose in battle, you can still gain honor. Honor is not through victory. Honor is through how you behave in the field. If you do your duty, you can be honorable. If you follow orders and even if these amount to defeat, you can be honorable. And these are the lessons Washington took aside from additional classical ones such as Fabian tactics, retreating until the odds are in your favor. And he's gonna say to the Marquis de Lafayette, Casuto son, no rational person will condemn you for not fighting with the odds against you. And while so much is depending on it, but all will censure of the rash step if it is not attended with success. The idea being, if you fight against the odds and you lose, the whole world will shame you for it. But if you retreat, there's no shame in that if the odds are against you. We see similar understandings in the Navy. John Paul Jones is going to make the determination that the American Navy, which is essentially non-existent in any way against the most powerful Navy in the world, which is the British Navy can compete. So how does he view it rather than fighting in a traditional European sense, he looks at raiding vessels that two or three fast ships are more important, bring more interest and honor to the United States than attempting to meet the British Navy on their own terms. And this was the way to gain honor, not trying to fight necessarily in the same fashion. And he's saying, well, after the nation is established, then this could be done. A Washington is going to state, I should hope every post would be deemed honorable, which gave a man opportunity to service country. Honor in Washington's estimation is the ability is gained through service to the nation, above all. And we was going to see this in very early on, as early as 1775, with the term gentlemen soldiers. And to the modern year, this may not seem like anything. And nowadays, everyone's a gentleman by nature of being a man. But a gentleman was primarily meant something, of education, of status. Officers were gentlemen, soldiers were not. But as early as 1775, we have the term gentlemen soldiers being used to describe the average enlisted men. The idea was it was based on good conduct, noble character. So noble, almost the idea of playing on this birth concept. In the service of their country, every soldier was a gentleman. How did one become gain honor in this way? Merit. And the idea that it was for the militia, it was for the continental army. It wasn't, it was across society. And it even, we see officers discussing it, that honor was conferred on every soldier and officer. There was a sense that one's behavior reflected not just on themselves, but on their officers, on their units and on the nation as a whole. It also applied to African-American soldiers. So Washington's initially against using African-Americans, either free or enslaved, but he's gonna start to change. And there's lots of debate. Is this a pragmatic thing when the British offer freedom for African-American slaves to fight against their owners? Perhaps, but there's also another interpretation. When Washington takes command outside Boston, he starts to hear about the service of African-American troops. And it's coming from really prominent places that Salem poor, for instance, had character of so brave a man, he behaved like an, not just like an excellent soldier, but like an officer. General John Thomas says that African-American soldiers are equally serviceable with other men. It doesn't say black men, it says all men. And the idea that after the war, the idea that these individuals are due honor in service of the nation, just the same as any other soldiers. So we start to see this expanding definition. There are also flaws in this. One of the more famous ones, Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold is going to represent the older model of personal honor. He's going to be passed over for promotions by Congress. Despite the fact he's probably the best battlefield commander. Congress constantly overlooks him, they slight him. He takes it personally. He's ultimately going to betray the American cause. Yes, 20,000 pounds are involved. But his primary motivation is honor. He's even going to take a lower rank from Major General to Brigadier General to show it's not about rank, it's about honor. He feels that he has been slighted. He's forced to sign an oath of loyalty. And he thinks, look what I've given to you and this is how you're treating me. So going for personal honor over national honor. Washington in a great leadership move doesn't dwell on all the negatives here at a moment that could have potentially crippled the revolution. Washington instead focuses on the positive. When he says at the bottom, great honor is due to the army that this is the first instance of treason of this kind. How honorable are we that this hasn't happened? That the enemy must resort to this. And it sort of revitalizes the Continental Army during a period later in the war where there's lots of civil military tension where the civilians are blaming the military for not gaining victory and the military is blaming the civilians for not providing supplies or price gouging. But it's this shock of Arnold that revitalizes this early discussion of this honorable behavior of national honor over the individual. And within a year, the war is over, the surrender at Yorktown. But Washington has one last major battle and so with his own men. It's at Newburgh, New York. And this is 19th century depiction of his headquarters which was just outside New York where the British were still occupying the city. It's fairly close to West Point today. And the men, his officers are, sorry, are threatening to, it's open-ended what they're doing. They haven't been paid. They've been promised a half-pay pension for life. Congress has no money. There's rumors of a peace treaty coming. The officers are afraid that if peace comes, they will never be paid. So some theories exist that are they threatening to retreat behind the mountains and let the British march out and do what they will? Are they threatening a coup against Congress? Is it all just idle talk? A secret meeting is called. Washington in a move leadership cancels that meeting saying, you can't call a meeting only I can call a meeting and then calls his own meeting. Where he entreats the officers to do no such thing. And he uses the language of honor and let me conjure you in the name of our common country using this idea of national honor. As you value your own sacred honor, purposely linking back to the words used in the Declaration of Independence to express your utmost hard distation of the man who wishes under any specious pretenses to overturn the liberties of our country. He reminds them, think of what we've accomplished all we have done. Don't risk this for personal honor, for personal interests. And a combination of this and a combination of some showmanship putting on his glasses and showing what he's personally sacrificed for the cause. It amounts to nothing. And it's again, an early reaffirmation of civilian supremacy over the military. One that Washington constantly is going to do again and again. In 1783 in Annapolis at the state house, Washington is going to resign his commission. Back to Congress in an act that was unheard of since the classical era. The idea of a victorious military commander surrendering power was rare indeed. If you thought back to the English Civil War or Julius Caesar or even slightly after this Napoleon, Washington again showing in action, national honor was more important than personal. And the idea has become institutionalized in a lot of ways through colleges, through organizations, even in the concept of sort of the federal government of national honor taking precedence. But it also becomes politicized. And with the emergence of political parties this rhetoric is constantly used of the federalists have national honor. That's their true interest. While the Democratic Republicans do not, they're only concerned with personal honor and vice versa. And it's this political division, this partisanship that Washington warns against that is going to complicate this term. Going along with this, it's not just politicization but it's also a generational story. So when you start to have the next generations, the sons of the revolutionary generation and their grandsons coming to prominence, they don't necessarily have these great moments, this great war, this great opportunity to promote national honor, to advance themselves. So they start looking for other means and that's why you get the increase in the duel. Before 1800, there were about 70 duels in all of American history. After 1800 for about a century, there were about 800 known duels. It's illegal in many places, so there could be more. And it's a way for those to try to prove themselves to this personal manifestation. So we get to a really prominent incident, 1807. It's the Chesapeake Leopard Affair. And the USS Chesapeake is off the waters of Virginia and they've recently picked up some new sailors in port. They're out sailing and they're stopped by the HMS Leopard. And Chesapeake is under the command of a Commodore baron despite the fact that the ship's regular captain, Captain Gordon's on board. Baron by nature of the higher rank has the command. And he thinks it's just gonna be some sort of communication. The British captain informs him that they have taken four British subjects aboard. Baron denies it and refuses to return them to the British. The British then fire a warning shot followed by three full volleys of 26 cannon. The Chesapeake is caught unaware. Baron is screaming that he's gonna have to surrender but just fire one shot for the honor of the flag. And as the flag is going down, there's debate, is the flag down or is it still up with the shots fired? And throughout the nation, this is viewed as infringement on national honor, also personal honor in this idea of imprisonment. Only one of these men was actually a British subject. How did they know he was on board while he got drunk in port and was telling everyone he was skipping ship? But the idea was that this needed to be responded to. While many are very hesitant to go to war, the idea that America is not ready for a war against Britain so soon after the revolution. Many are pushing for this in more of the terms of personal honor, the language of a duel rather than the sort of ethical language that was being put forth in the revolution. And we see this depicted as Thomas Jefferson avoids war. His depiction in the popular press is one as being robbed by King George, literally bludgeoned while Napoleon picks his pocket, throwing his arms up in submission, being unable or unwilling to do anything. When James Madison, the next president, ultimately declares war and overimpressment of American sailors and harassment of shipping, among other things, it's going to be viewed as this sort of masculine martial response, a duel between nations. And you'll see that in the depictions where we now have James Madison punching the king in the nose, showing that America is not willing to stand by and not respond to the dishonor. So taking on this martial notion. So this is the sort of concept we see building up through the Civil War, popularized by individuals like Andrew Jackson, who focus on this personal, martial sense of honor rather than the older traditions of the ethical, proper conduct sense that Washington and others had been advancing. And it's why we see the War of 1812 celebrated as a triumph of America after burning of presidential mansion and really not a lot to show for this war. It's about new generations redefining what honor means and the path to it. And then when we get to the Civil War, it's about looking at different interpretations of what national honor means and does personal honor Trump national honor? And we see this at that moment, but I'm gonna stop for there and I'm happy to answer any and all questions or have an open discussion.