Transcription
All accounts agree, George Washington was a man of absolute physical courage.
This French encroachment cannot stand. They must be told to abandon this.
This is very much showing Washington's ambition.
An invitation, sir.
He describes not being able to go to a party because he can't afford the feed for his horse. So, he didn't have gas money. I can relate to that.
Right.
You'd be hard-pressed to find another set of circumstances where someone in Washington's position could fail more miserably.
He would literally be embodying these principles.
The volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire. So said Sir Horace Walpole of George Washington's clash with the French in the Ohio Valley in 1754. Today, we travel back to what we might call the first chapter or even the prelude of the American Revolution.
This is a time before President George Washington embarked into the great unknown of leading a federal government without any precedent or example to guide his path. This is a time before General George Washington accepted the horrifying honor of leading an ill-trained, poorly fed, and underfunded Continental Army.
We're going even further back than that. When George Washington found himself the unlikely linchpin in a contest between global empires that came to a head in the wilderness of the Ohio Valley.
Our conversation today centers on the film Young Washington. Not simply as a work of cinema and how or where it takes liberties with history. Though we'll certainly do some of that. But as an invitation to examine the real history behind it.
To help us do that, we're joined by a world-renowned panel of historians who will help us explore the events, the people, and the deeper historical forces at play. This is a story about the beginning of a leader and in many ways the beginning of America itself.
I'm very excited to be joined by the writer, producer, and director of Young Washington, John Irwin. It's so good to see you again.
It's great to see you, man.
How did this story get off the ground?
For me, the only stories that I that I really want to tell are the ones that have deeply moved me first. I just was awestruck and fell in love with Washington. His greatest failure when he was very young really became his most formative event and it was the way he responded to failure and and what I began to see is here is a young person that learned what is the best form of leadership, what does it mean to lead, and what's the bad version and what's the good version, and what's a character that transcends from one to the other. And that's that's really what drove me as I made the film.
We talked through the script many times.
Right? So, obviously there were departures from timeline, there were composite characters. Basically all the the French leaders
Yeah.
Stolen up into one. Yeah, into one guy. Why do that?
What my kind of philosophy is. I like what the great writer Aaron Sorkin says. He says, "When you're at adapting a true story, you're not taking a photograph, you're painting a portrait." But, you want to get as as much as you can the portrait of the character correct.
My name's Greg Jackson. I'm the creator and host of the US history podcast History That Doesn't Suck, the author of Been There, Done That, How Our History Shows What We Can Overcome, and served as a historical consultant on the Young Washington film. In other words, I'm passionate about history and so are my fellow historians. Craig Bruce Smith is a historian and the author of American Honor, The Creation of the Nation's Ideals During the Revolutionary Era. Edward G. Lengel is a renowned historian and an author whose work has helped shape the public's understanding of George Washington and early American history. Colleen Shogan is an author, political scientist. She served as the 11th archivist of the United States, becoming the first woman appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to lead the National Archives and Records Administration.
I love the idea of this discussion because it's the discussion that never gets to be had of the limitations of what a movie is and then what it can explore in the life of a historical figure. And so I am so glad we're doing this.
I'm so sorry. Where is he?
He's there. He's not spoken since since his father died.
Hello, George.
This first scene, I think, does a good job of conveying one of the pivotal moments in Washington's life, his early years, the death of his father, Augustine. Washington's about 10 years old when he dies and the death of his father changes the course of his life. Because the fact that his father dies means Washington is not going to be educated in England like his elder half-brothers are. It really hurts his claims to being sort of an English gentleman. So this is a really pivotal moment and we see Lawrence um being introduced in this scene. The one thing I will say about the film that maybe, you know, the initial meeting, the Washington meets Lawrence later. Uh he's aware of him. And his father is constantly talking about it. He's reading letters about his exploits in the Caribbean.
So he's already larger than life, right? He's this superhero.
He's been waiting for this moment and it would have hit like, you know, a lightning bolt.
The world is often an unfair place. And you must take what it gives you and make it yours.
The relationship with his mother is is sort of complicated.
To say the least.
[laughter]
Because she's lost her husband.
You're the eldest son in this house and you have a duty to it.
It's really impacting her life, her stability. They're both very strong-willed, perhaps stubborn is a better word.
You're my son and Washington and you'll behave like both.
Where they do really differ is on aspects of religion. She very much tries to instruct him in religion. George is rather resistant. He is really sort of rebellious in a way that if his mother is is pushing it on him, whether it's, you know, George, you should read Pilgrim's Progress. He's Nope. Washington is obviously is Christian. He's very much focused on the role of Providence. He loves that word. That there is some something faded or God is interceding in some fashion. Again, I think it's really he's shaped by Providence more so than a conventional sort of Christianity.
One really interesting thing as you watch Washington develop, you see the competing influences of Lawrence and his mother in his character as it develops. Lawrence's aspect of that is that he was a dreamer. He was he was somebody he talked about the things that he did in the Navy, the things that he was going to do and he likes to bring George into his dreams and that was the episode of him potentially going off to join the Navy, to seek adventure, pursue your dreams and you see that in the film. Whereas his his mother, Mary Ball, she really taught him the virtues of personal conduct, things like diligence, commitment, loyalty, honesty. You have to think many of those things came from his mother, but you see those elements almost at war within George Washington as he grows up, the dreamer and the practical man of business.
There's going to be disagreement down the road between Lawrence and Mary Ball Washington about George Washington's future. Lawrence will be more supportive of him having a military career, and his mother will always be resistant.
This is a scene where basically Washington wanted to go to sea. He wanted to be a naval officer. If he had gotten on this boat, which we're going to put in digitally in the back, there's no George Washington as we know him today. Maybe no America, who knows? His mom, played by Mary Ball Washington, stopped him and convinced him to get off the boat, even though his half-brother Lawrence, uh played by John, was complicit in this recommendation. So, he's pulled off this boat.
Lawrence, who actually was part of the Royal Marines, in this in this really convoluted way of getting a a royal commission. But that royal commission is something he's chasing throughout his whole life.
How may I become a British officer of the Crown?
You cannot.
There must be a path.
There is not. For you.
It's a great theme in the movie because it is something that really shapes his thinking from the time he is a youth all the way forward.
What you look for as a filmmaker is intention meeting obstacle. So, what's the character's intention? What's the obstacle to that intention? And I found it interesting that this boy was so, um, driven to advance his station, to define himself. And much of the time what stood in the way was his mother. And when you understand her point of view, because so much was taken from her, she needed him.
You an officer now?
Not yet. But someday.
Or never. If God hears my prayers.
As we talked about earlier, his life's interrupted when his father dies. And Washington no longer has formal schooling the way that we think about schooling.
Yeah.
Rules of civility and decent behavior. That will teach you how to be a proper gentleman. Then Cato, Plutarch, essential readings. Seneca and Cincinnatus. If one desires to be great, he must study those that were.
I like the idea in this scene that that George is a voracious reader. As he develops and he gets older, he will read more and more and he will develop his own library eventually as an adult. He's interested in learning. He will have a a bit of a complex, you know, his entire life because he doesn't have that classical education.
He's trying to be at this point an English gentleman. The way to be an English gentleman is to have a classical education, to speak French. And as we know, foreshadowing
a problem.
That's going to be a big issue. That's a serious issue.
So, I've always felt that too, though. That That's it's a hole that he feels.
I think it's a good lesson, especially for if you think if you're a a student applying to colleges and you don't get into your first choice, your life isn't over.
Right.
Right. He didn't get to go to Applebee's school. He still did pretty well for himself.
Aristocracy is a game, George. But you have to learn to play it, I suppose.
I think this really comes full circle when we think about how important his concept of public virtue and education and that being crucial to having the republic.
I feel like our nation and our form of government does require a a common virtue and a common commitment uh to function correctly. He had complete faith later on in the American people that if they are well educated, they will make good choices in their in their political decisions. And in fact, much of his charitable giving later on in his life is for education.
One of the things that I I found interesting at this time of his life was just the scarcity of knowledge, you know, and the scarcity of of books. My children have an almost total access to knowledge and to books and yet reading is not something that's a part of everyday life in kind of a scary way. And to me, if you want to live a fulfilling life, movies are cool, but read books.
You're talking yourself out of a job, essentially.
No, I we're both necessary.
What do you think respect means?
To listen to or obey the one you are respecting.
Perhaps, but obedience can be commanded. Respect must be earned.
There were some definitive and influential books that I find so interesting of how he began to embody those concepts in his behavior.
Cato is is the closest because he loves the play and he loves everything that it stands for. Standing up to to the notion of tyranny, you know, this whole idea that he actually almost becomes
There's a lesson there. We become our obsession.
The idea is, you know, with Cincinnatus and and Cato, it's there, but the idea of republic, but there's also the inverse side of what happens if a government becomes tyrannical.
Underlying what's coming with the American Revolution, but also once Washington is successful in the revolution.
It speaks to that public virtue belief that he would carry through his life that we need an educated public in order to have a functional republic.
Even a pawn can take a king.
A favorite anecdote for me from George Washington's life. He describes not being able to go to a party because he can't afford the feed for his horse. And for me, it's always like, oh, so he didn't have gas money. I can relate to that, right? Like a teen, I've got a car, I can't afford gas. Right? That's kind of where George Washington's at. And does he pause and think like, how lucky am I to be a teen with a car? No, he's focused on the fact that I don't have gas money.
Invitations, sir?
I'm Mr. Washington.
Uh George Washington. I'm part of the Lawrence, who's married to Anne, uh formerly Fairfax.
Well, thank you for the genealogy. Now, your invitation, sir?
I think there's a couple things we have to talk about. George Washington would have been familiar with the Fairfaxes at Belvoir because he had had a long-standing relationship with the Fairfaxes through his half-brother who had married into the family and he had worked for Lord Fairfax earlier as surveying some of the millions of acres that the Fairfaxes actually owned. Washington's station in life isn't quite the same as the richest or the most wealthiest, which would have been the Fairfax family and that's certainly true. But, Washington himself, you know, had inherited land. He had inherited enslaved people. He was extraordinarily wealthy in comparison to other colonials. But, to get into the the house, then he goes underneath into the basement where he interacts with several enslaved people and there certainly would have been many enslaved people working at Belvoir that would have been really, quite frankly, ubiquitous because the entire plantation, the entire structure, everything that it revolved around how that plantation operated was facilitated by enslaved people.
Good evening.
Evening, sir.
Good evening.
How do How do I get in the house?
Having inherited enslaved people at the age of 11, he would have been very used to the fact that he would have given them orders. He would have told them what to do.
I found it interesting to see the cost over the course of the film of, you know, one of these characters portrayed here dies because they're sent to fight by proxy flippantly.
That That was the case, right? I Basically, I was I was sent here. I had no choice.
Excuse me. You'll fight for nobles.
I'll be you're in stead.
What we're trying to portray that I found interesting with Washington and what we do have to amplify over the course of a of a narrative like this to make the ideas clear to the audience or as clear as we can make them is that Washington was sort of on the one hand in between these two worlds and clearly defining the world he wanted to get into and was somewhat denied but that over the course of history that being in the middle made him this perfect person to unite many people together in into a common cause. I find the the words of I think what Jefferson wrote we hold these truths to be sacred and um undeniable and then you know uh Franklin came back and says self-evident, you know, empirical but that all men are created equal um was a radical disruptive foreign notion um and that took many many many many many decades. I think I would say we're still on that quest of trying to understand fully what those words mean and how to live them out and uh but to throw that gauntlet um was bold thing and so what we're trying to portray here is that this was the context context of the world they lived in and it's just a constant part of that context and I think the lesson is you're somewhat blind to the paradigms that you're raised in and it it takes a very bold mind um like you think about Jefferson to say maybe the world shouldn't work this way.
Woah. Ah. Ah. Lord Fairfax. Begging your pardon. I've dreamed of seeing your library. These are my true tenants. Who are you? George Washington. Sir, brother to Lawrence. I didn't know he'd invited you. Neither did he if you must know.
Ah, so I've caught you slipping in.
I think this is an important scene because the Fairfax's are so crucial to his life. And and Collins already alluded to this that he is a family familiar. Um so this there's there's some dramatical license here, but it's their essential family. The Fairfax family are basically his patrons, right? Patronage in the 18th century is huge. That Washington is making his way because of the good opinion of others. So he gets brought into the Fairfax family because of Lawrence's marriage to Ann. There are other Fairfax's that are very important that we don't meet. They're alluded to. So there's there's Colonel William Fairfax who becomes a pseudo father. He was agent to Lord Thomas Fairfax. And his Colonel Fairfax's son, George William Fairfax, who we meet later in the film, becomes George Washington's best friend. And they are basically growing up together. What's really important to understand is that Thomas Fairfax is a titled aristocrat. A titled aristocrat in America is a rare thing. There really aren't any of them. So the idea there's a theme in the film about Washington being middling. In my opinion, he's not middling at all. He's quite high-born. It's just when you have someone so elevated, he's just at the lower reaches of this this upper class.
I obtained a letter of introduction from your cousin. An eccentric fellow, isn't he?
The lending of the books, the discussion of the library, I think that's so important because the Fairfax's are the ones that really are giving him access to a lot of this classical learning. And there it's Colonel William Fairfax who actually introduces him to the idea of stoicism, reserved emotion about tying into these these classical ideas. That's something he learns from them.
A post of honor is a private station, Cato. You've seen the play?
No, but I've read it 50 times over.
They're telling him to read things like Seneca's morals. I don't know how many times he read Cato. Maybe it was 50 and maybe you you know who used to say
We know we know he had his his troops put on put it on multiple times at Valley Forge. So he liked it. But I think it's it's this scene really is important but what it's leaving out is that the Fairfax's are almost creating jobs, creating opportunities for him. So this is very much showing Washington's ambition that he's saying, "Oh, can I survey your lands for you?" They're actually creating positions for him.
I could go there. Survey it and map it for you.
One of the worst things that a movie can have is is what you would call a passive protagonist. A character in which the plot is happening to as opposed to a character who is instigating the plot. And so there is this thing where he had this patron, this gate he walked through that did create these opportunities for him. But what we have to lean on is that he had a level of ambition and drive to create these opportunities for himself. Fairfax saw something in Washington.
Yeah, of course.
Yes, he did.
To say I'm going to I I like that kid and I see something in that kid and I'm going to create these opportunities for that kid.
I think that comes back to the rules of civility. He crafted himself in such a way that he would be appealing to someone like Thomas Fairfax. Oh, I want to help you young man. You seem like a fine upstanding chap.
But what's embodied in this one scene with Kells is he's amazing and I love him and I'm so grateful is really what what would have happened over the course of several years.
Thank you, sir.
Without the Fairfax's, young George Washington may not advance to the heights he gets to. They are crucial.
And you can't tell the story of young Washington without the influence of the Fairfax's.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
The first surveying expedition and journey that Washington did for Fairfax was to the Shenandoah. He wrote a journal of it. If any of you have read it, it's hilarious because it's actually his first experience camping out. And he doesn't handle it very well. These people are out camping in these rude tents or, you know, sitting on sitting on rocks. He said, "I don't want to do this. You know, there's a cabin over there. I'm going to go sleep the night in the cabin." So, he goes to sleep in the cabin and he gets lice. And then he says, "I'm not doing that anymore." And he actually writes Riley in his journal that I learned to dine on rocks using sticks for utensils. And this is when he's actually like 16, 17 years old.
Thank you for your letters. I read them all 10 times over. At the river's fork, the world widened as though God himself had drawn back the curtain and whispered, "Begin." These are not Xavier's notes. No, you love the frontier that we poets love their first muse. Why?
It loved me first. I guess. Offered fairness.
Fairness?
Yes, because the frontier is new, wild, unclaimed, vast enough to outrun the old ways.
And old rules like dowries and fathers who barter daughters?
Rules that say man is measured by ancestors you never met.
George Washington never courted or dated Sally Fairfax. At this point in time, chronologically, she would have already been married to a Fairfax and that's when his relationship, his friendship with her blossoms. Now, there is some truth to the fact that it's almost undeniable that he was attracted in some way to Sally Fairfax because we have letters that he wrote in which he certainly is is smitten with her and had spent time with her and was was drawn to her. But what I really like about the role of gender and women in the film is that it does accurately portray what it was like for women in even in the highest echelons of society.
My fear is choosing. And then being told it was never my choice to be alone.
And what would your choice be?
What Sally says in that that scene is right. I don't know how much agency uh she would have necessarily had. We don't see a lot of agency when it comes to decisions um with women because when women get married, they literally become the legal property and union of their husbands. She would have been faced with the choice to marry someone like George Washington who had not yet been established or to marry a Fairfax who was extraordinarily wealthy.
What think you about young William and Sally? Hm? Yes. Do they not make a a handsome couple?
It was really important who you married. It was one of the decisions that were made that could really affect your entire life, your uh how you would live, and your entire fortune. George Washington will make this decision later on uh after his military career, and he will marry very wisely. He marries the wealthiest widow in Virginia, Martha Custis, who will bring 17,000 acres of land and uh hundreds of enslaved people to their relationship. And what we had been talking about is that, you know, George Washington is on the edges of the highest echelon of society. When he marries Martha Custis, he will be at the highest levels of aristocratic uh society in in colonial America because of that merger. So, I like the storyline because, you know, in the story uh uh Sally marries the Fairfax, and it's it's a little cruel to George Washington that he has to watch and see this happen. And that's realistic. That is actually what would have happened. Uh and so the the drama of the storyline, I think, is is appropriate.
This French encroachment I cannot stand. They must be told to abandon it.
By whom, sir? We don't even know where they are.
I do. Sir, I could lead this expedition to deliver your demands to the French. I know the land, sir, better than anyone.
You? In the 15 years since the Crown sent me to serve, I've yet to have a good experience with a colonist.
Well, I look forward to changing your opinion.
When I first started watching this movie, there were a number of things I was worried about and how you would present them and and how they would be handled. And one of those is ambition. And I think you nailed it. I think I think you got this
[laughter]
I think you got this down just right.
John?
And this Well, this scene captures so well, in a very balanced way, Washington's attitude toward self-improvement, growth, and achieving fame, and, you know, glory to some degree. In that it was not a selfish ambition. It was a shared ambition.
You shall receive the rank of major in the Virginia militia, which is not a royal commission. Understood?
Will my men and I receive equal pay, sir?
To whom?
British officers of the Crown.
Mr. Washington, you've just advanced from farmer to major in a matter of seconds. What you ask for is offensive to me.
Then I'll volunteer my service. I have no need to pay that is not equal to those of whom I will prove myself equal. Sir.
And a lot is made often of how Washington sought a royal commission, which he did. He certainly liked that idea. He He sought that distinction. But one thing is often forgotten is that when he want to seek that commission, he said, "I want commissions for all of my officers." And also, the idea that we're going to prove that we're just as good as you are.
Mhm.
Absolutely spot-on, because that is what he wanted to do. He wasn't necessarily trying to say, "Hey, look, I can prove I'm as good as you." But we can prove we Virginians, me and my fellow men, my fellow Virginians, can prove that we are capable of the same things. He goes on to craft that Virginia regiment to be every bit as good and effective and as well-disciplined as any British unit. And in fact, British officers do give him that credit later on. And it gets to a core of of Washington's idea of leadership, you know, and virtue, which you can extend to his view of civics later on. Is that it's service-oriented leadership.
Mhm.
[clears throat]
That I do not lead for my own improvement, my own growth, my own fame and glory, but I lead for us. And that is absolutely something here from this moment
Mhm.
that he will carry on.
Washington writes about this next expedition where Joshua Fry is going to lead. It's Washington's writing says, "I want to be a part of this. I want to lead. Also, I'm not ready. I I want
Yes.
to be second
in command.
He pushes back in case anyone's actually considering him for colonel right out the gate. He's saying, "Lieutenant Colonel would be great. I need a mentor. I need a teacher." And he sees it. He knows that.
And you know what that captures? It captures what I think is the key element of Washington's character and his achievement is clear self-vision.
Mhm.
Which I like to say is true humility, which is see yourself as you are.
Yeah.
Right? You can see the areas where you can become better and improve because everybody can improve can improve. You can also see the things that you're good at and you can say, "Yeah, I'm pretty good at this. Here's what I can do and I'm not shy to say I can do this and I want to achieve. I want to become the best I possibly can." But you can also see areas where I'm not ready yet.
One thing I want to mention from the scene, Washington wants to practice his virtue. He he has all these ideals, but he's also very concerned throughout all of his life, but particularly in this period, with external validation.
Mhm.
He really does feel as though a part of the notion of honor is also others recognizing your your your worth. And so, I mean, this is a theme of Washington throughout his career. I don't want to portray it as negative, but it is something that we have to be realistic about.
Yeah.
No, so I think you're I think that's spot-on. The idea that he's always touchy about his status because he's at the lower edges of the gentry. It's almost like there's room to rise, but there's also room to fall. So, honor as the external validation. So, if he takes lesser money, that's that's him acknowledging that he's lesser.
This is such a great moment. And I think in one of Washington's letters he wrote at the time he said, "I put myself forward for this role." I think it's impossible to to overestimate the courage because he believed he could do it. He may not have merited it, but he believed he could do it. He knew he could do it.
Deliver this message. Which says what, sir?
That they leave immediately.
And if the French refuse?
Do not permit them to refuse.
This moment is like a 22-year-old kid saying, "Yeah, I'm ready to step on that helicopter, fly out into Afghanistan. You drop me in there with a few guys. I'm going to talk to some hostile tribal leader and tell him to get out, and then I'm going to come back home on my own." I mean, that that is the equivalent of what we're talking about here. It It's that kind of a wilderness.
And incredible courage. There is something to be said for when you have an inner voice of like, "I know, given the opportunity, I could do that thing." When you have no basis of anyone else saying that around you, but something is telling you, "I could do that if someone would give me a chance." It is such an act of courage to go in front of someone like Dinwiddie and say, "If you give me the chance, you know, if you give me the ball, I will win the game for you." Is it And there's something that has incredible courage about that statement, and that is what Washington did. And And And one of the things that I wanted to portray is is is that is that is a sign a lot of times of people that end up doing great things is there's something There's an inner voice that they listen to even when those around them disagree.
Many Indians are aligned with the French, weren't you? I know their nature and their intentions. What are yours?
Just a man they leave.
Native Americans are really caught in this vice between the advancing British and French empires that are both
Mhm.
closing in. I You know, each in indigenous nation uh aligning with the British or French depending on
Mhm.
what's right for for their people specifically.
What I tried to, you know, start to set context is, you know, two empires, one frontier. And this is a group of people that's caught in the middle of these two empires.
They were in a terrible position. But these were tough, smart, complex people who were great diplomats.
The one thing that's important to remember that the natives are also making choices on their own. They did not just having things imposed on them. They Exactly. are making decisions. They're playing both sides.
Washington has this kind of naivete about them, but they are a lot smarter than he gives them credit for, and that's another tough lesson he learns.
Drunk with his own pride, he defies you and your king by traveling this far.
Historically, nobody knows who fired this first shot.
What do you do when they refuse?
Pray they
Yeah, this kid with a with a musket that are very temperamental and before we called action it went off. Obviously blanks and everything and he looked at the camera and he's like, "Was I not supposed to fire that shot?" I'm like, "We've solved it. We now know."
We know who fired the first shot.
But what's your what's your theories?
So, David Preston wrote a book Braddock's Defeat and he in his source he found from a uh Native American source uh named Silver Heels says it's Washington himself who fires the first shot. The question is just what is the intention of the first shot? Is it fired with intent to hit or is it fired mistakenly or is it fired as a signal? So, he's presented pretty strong evidence. So, when you say Washington fires the first shot
He might have.
We are here to reinforce the Virginia Regiment and deal with this situation you've created. Now, you call this fort?
Well, it was made by necessity. So, I think that's a fitting name.
I had talked earlier about Washington's clear self-vision and understanding what he's good at, what he's not good at. That doesn't mean he can't stumble and be a victim to hubris, which I think he is here. He He has become overconfident. And he learns the really painful lesson of simple elementary tactics.
Building this fort too low.
What do you mean?
This here, this is a dry lake bed.
That he has established this fort in a field where it is overlooked by wooded terrain, where an enemy can approach under cover and fire down into the fort.
They'd shoot every one of us from them trees.
He has cited this this fort improperly. Rain is pouring down and from the accounts, and the French are firing into the fort. Washington's enslaved body servant is killed right next to him, as are many other men. It was really a a horrible affair, and one that he would never forget. One that one that he would learn from, and that ability and capacity to to learn the hard lessons, to accept what happened. But then the surrender is, you know, even worse.
Yeah, the surrender is a pivotal moment for how Washington is viewed throughout the world, in fact. So, the articles of capitulation, the surrender, he has no choice but to sign it. But then, it gives all the pretext for the French to say, "Look, the British have started this. This is a just war. We are fighting a defensive war." And it's going to take a lot for him to um reshape his image, which is very low after Fort Necessity. This is probably one of the lowest points of Washington's career.
There's a misconception, I think, about the role of failure, if you fail correctly. You'd be hard-pressed to find another set of circumstances where someone in Washington Washington's position could fail more miserably. I mean, this is a embarrassing failure, it's his fault, and and I find with some great figures in history that that is in many ways where a journey of transformation begins. There is great value in failure if you let it teach you. And this is one of the things that I I really wanted to to try to communicate uh through the film is failure forged Washington more than success. Um and and I find that to be a missing part of the conversation about achievement in any kind.
We'll cross the Monongahela River tomorrow. The next day we reach Fort Duquesne.
AH! AMBUSH!
ALL ACCOUNTS AGREE, GEORGE Washington was a man of absolute physical courage. He had no fear. The threat of death never concerned him, and that that shows here, that shows throughout his life. There is a bit of mythology here and that it has Washington saying, "Let's let's go into the woods and fight as the Indians do."
Find cover in the trees! Fire from the trees! Spread out! Spread out!
That's the story. Um I don't think it's true because the lesson that Washington brought out from this is not, you know, let's go out and fight like Indians, let's kind of break down our organization and hide behind the trees, but that he really believed in discipline. He believed in organization, and his beef with the British was that their discipline broke down. The biggest element of this battle, and and the battle scenes are great, and it's depicted so well, his courage and how he is able to organize the remnants of the army and formulate a plan under pressure, which he could do, which he was very good at, and extricate the remnants of that force with with great courage. But, this is the moment where he becomes truly a combat veteran.
Mhm.
And this will influence the whole remainder of his life and the whole remainder of his career. He did come close to death. He did have horses shot out from under him. He did have
Two in their call, right?
Two, yeah. And he did have bullet holes in his in his coat and in his cap. So, he came close to death. Could he have been in engagements hand-to-hand like this? Absolutely. I think I think it's it's very plausible, but this moment will transform his understanding of warfare. In that when he's uh when he's much younger, from what he learned from Lawrence, kind of coming back full circle, that Lawrence kind of led Washington to believe that war is a glorious undertaking. This is where he learns war is brutal. War is tough. And war requires certain qualities of character to carry you through. And that knowledge of the reality of warfare is going to lead him as commander-in-chief during the Revolutionary War, is also going to inform his presidency of the United States. Grit and strength strength of character as a galvanizing force is so required that you do want to see where did he where was this grit, this ability to endure, forged. And uh and you come to this moment. One of the things that we do pull vastly forward, I think, the idea that he was informed that he was being shot directly at and they couldn't shoot him.
[screaming]
It was much later.
But, it did happen.
It did happen.
I I believe that story comes from Braddock's physician.
It just happened a great deal later. And again, to me, it kind of started the journey in his life of what of what, you know, he was obsessed with this concept of providence, the divine hand, as a thing that he would say that he witnessed.
Fire!
What you want to portray is a person that has learned from their mistakes and has the chance to to come back. And yet even in another loss, he defined himself heroically.
I'm so glad you captured this moment in the film because it is the defining moment of his life.
I would love to just get some final thoughts.
As someone who's been around Washington for her entire career, I think it's still a little bit difficult to get to know George Washington. And it is a great service to this film that we can actually see a young George Washington and see him embodied, to see him in action, to see that he's a real person, and most importantly, what we've talked about, that he made mistakes. And I think the biggest takeaway that I have is that we need to allow ourselves to be awed by Washington. And not just awed by the mythology of Washington, but awed by the actual person, the actual story, and the fact that he had a start in which he made major mistakes, he learned from those mistakes, he was resilient, and he goes on to, you know, found a nation, lead a revolution, and that's something that we should really pay attention to, I think, in 2026 at the 250th anniversary.
So, I think someone could sit down and watch this and get a sense for Washington. This correct feel, the themes are right. And hopefully, it inspires people to want to learn more. And I think that's the best thing about films. They can reach people in ways that historians cannot.
The most important tool for any chronicler or storyteller, and whether it's a filmmaker or historian, and historians that I believe are are storytellers too.
Absolutely.
is empathy and to be able to reach him in a way that that you can capture his character requires that empathy. As a historian, we can all talk about things that well this didn't happen this way, this didn't happen that way and it wasn't your goal to produce a document.
Correct.
But but to to present something that can help us to understand a man and his times and his importance to our country and I think you've captured his character uh and his personality in a way that as somebody who spent most of my career reading his letters, it feels right to me.
My ultimate goal is that people will be, you know, wildly entertained by it, but I hope to instigate the same journey that I went on. Um which is it greatly enriched my life to spend a lot of time in what a movie can never do, but read some of the great books on this subject, many of which are are right here, you know, in terms of the the uh the writing of them because I found that when you take time to understand the origin of America, you really do learn that this is something fragile that has been entrusted to us and it really is an experiment and it's this again, it's the greatest idea in the history of nations. The lessons that I took away from the movie is that failure is not final. It's the courage to endure, you know, and let failure be the great teacher. And then it's the last uh line of the film uh to lead is to serve. To serve a cause greater than yourself and to serve those that you've been entrusted with. That is the essence of leadership in its correct form. I think the reason you love any good coming of age story or hero's journey is because we all have a quest and destiny and some voice that says we are capable of more than we think and we're able to do something given the opportunity and just like Washington, I would hope that the film encourages people that see it to say, you know, I'm going to listen to that voice and I'm going to chase what others might call impossible because you can do it, just like he did, even if you fell on the way.
I am a Virginian. And it is my honor to serve you.