who are considered worthless. i would love to for you to weigh in on this question. >> it is interesting. as we were both speaking i tend to agree with you. we have overregulated a lot. but we certainly cannot afford to take members of congress to dinner a lot. well, i kind of feel like a member of congress would not go to dinner with us anyway. unless they were interested in our issue. once a dirty know are interested in our issue, i'm not sure it would make a huge difference in our lobbying. ..

>> that's a very powerful way to lobby, and i know that a lot of the lobbyists in this room probably aren't lobbying on quite that grassroots of a level, but i still think it's a way to get members of congress to actually understand how their policies affect real life human beings. and i think that that's a really important part of my job. um, i would also say as to something you just mentioned, laura, about bipartisanship, i totally agree that nothing gets through congress unless it's bipartisan, and our last big victory that we've had with aclu

was on crack cocaine. who on earth would think jim seven seven sensenbrenner would support the policies. well, he did. it was unanimous in the senate and almost unanimous in the house. that's the kind of bipartisanship that lobbying can bring together when it's done right, and i think we did a good job with the aclu and a number of other groups. so that bipartisanship is sort of sticking its head up with rand paul and senator leahy in the senate on a safety valve bill on drug -- on sentencing, rather, and also in the house with bobby scott and thomas massey. so there is bipartisan work, bipartisanship at work in the house and the senate on things that you wouldn't necessarily think you could find common ground on, but i think it's absolutely critical if we aren't trying to get both party toss the table to discuss these issues, we'll never win anything. >> thanks, julie. julie stewart, chapter four.

[laughter] well, it's almost 4:00, and i -- we've provided refreshments for all of you, and we want you to get our your wallets and buy books and get, give beth a chance to autograph them for you. the aclu's not making any profit from the sale of these books. we just profit from people who tell the truth. and i think we all profit from that. >> thank you, laura. >> and i want to say how honored i am to have worked with you on your first book in 2000 and this latest book and how honored i am to be included in this book. when am i -- what chapter am i? >> five. >> i'm chapter five. [laughter] that'll be a running joke in my office for a while. [laughter] and i just think your work and the work of the other political scientists who are with you, your colleagues, is of great

importance. we're an odd group. we deserve to be studied. and we also deserve to have our personal stories told. so i encourage everybody to learn about the industry from a different vantage point. and, beth, i would like to give you the last word. if there's anything that's been said that you want to comment on or anything you forgot to say. have at it. >> i just want to thank you, laura, and the aclu for having me here today and all of you folks here in the front couple rows who made the book possible. if you find the book interesting, it's because they are interesting. their stories are the ones that are in there. it's not me talking about what i think should be done. it's them talking about what they do every day in their lives. so thanks, everyone, for coming. >> thank you. prison -- [applause] >> every weekend booktv offers 48 hours of programming focused op nonfiction authors -- nonfiction authors and books.

watch it here on c-span2. >> next, national book award-winning author nathaniel philbrick recalls the leadup to the first large-scale battle of the american revolution, the battle of bunker hill. it's about 5 minutes. 45 minutes. [applause] >> well, thank you. it is an honor to be introduced by a fellow nantucketer. julia's parents were teachers in the high school, and both our kids were educated by them. and it's great to see you here in brookline. and it is wonderful to be in the coolidge center theater with this great bookstore and co-sponsored with the massachusetts historical society which has been an institution that has been absolutely essential to my life as a historian. i sometimes sort of feel like i've taken up residence at the, in the archives there. in every book i've done, there's

been essential information that's come from there, but none more so than in "bunker hill." many of the characters i delve into, their papers are at what we call the mhs s. and it is just an organization that is essential to anyone who's looking into not only the history of boston, but this country. and the genesis for "bunker hill" really goes back to the summer of 1984. i -- my wife and i had just moved to boston full time. we were living on prince street in the north end. it was at that time a fail -- i was at that time a failing journalist, but my primary responsibility was to be at home with our almost 2-year-old daughter, jenny. and so i had a lot of free time on my hands, and we would -- i would push the stroller through the crooked streets of the north end. and be it was there, copse hill was a favorite hangout, and it was really there that i began to

think, jeez, you know, what was it like back then? and when i thought back then, i thought of the book i had read in middle school along with many people of my generation, johnny tremendous main. tr emaine that just captured me as well as the movie is and what was revolutionary boston like. so i began to look into the history of boston in that year, on 1984. on sundays when melissa was at home, i would take the t to the bpl, the boston public library, and began to look into the history oif the city. soon after that we ended up in nantucket, and i went in that path. but it was after writing "mayflower" which begins with that famous voyage but ends with kink phillip's -- king phillip's

war that i began to realize i wanted to continue the story, so to speak. "mayflower" ends in 1676, and even during the midst of this terrible battle it was amazing that the governor of massachusetts insisted to an agent from the king, king charles ii, that the king would be wise, if anything be, to give more liberties to those in america and that their own general court, the laws enacted by that, superseded anything they were going to get from parliament. it sounded very eerily like what was going to be said a hundred years later. and it was with that that i began to think, yeah, at some point i want to continue the story and do something about the revolution. i would then write a book about the battle of little bighorn, the last stand, and it was working on that book about a very complicated battle that i began to set my sites on the

battle of bunker hill. and from the beginning i didn't see this as a battle book. all of my books one way or another are about communities under enormous stress, whether they're on a whale ship or a whale boat or on a -- taking a passage into an unknown new world. those are the kinds of stories i find of interest. and what interested me was what was going -- what happened to the people of boston in the revolution. and it, i knew that bunker hill was going to be the pivot point. it seemed to make sense that i should start after the boston tea party when britain responded with the dumping of three shiploads of tea into boston harbor with the institution of the boston port act which, basically, shut down the town commercially. sealed off the port. and it would begin there with the arrival of lieutenant

general and royal governor thomas gage, military governor and his four regiments of british regulars. and it would take the story to the uptick of tension as boston became an occupy -- a militarily-occupied city to the skirmishes at lexington and concord with bunker hill being the point at which violence turned from skirmishes into all-out war. and the battle of bunker hill was that turning point. when it was realized that this was going to be something more than a dustup that could be dealt with diplomatically. this was going to move into new and truly terrifying directions. and i was -- and what a lot of people think of outside of boston is when they look to revolutionary boston, they think of boston as the center of patriot defiance which it originally was. but with the arrival of general gage and his growing army of

british regulars that would grow to almost 9,000 by the end of the occupation of boston, boston became instead of a center of patriot defiance, it became -- it was turned inside out as patriots began to flee the city, particularly soon after lexington and concord, which created a wave of panic throughout new england. and not just bostonians gab to leave the -- began to leave the city, but people who lived around boston began to flow out. and boston became emptied of most of its inhabitants, and this was an island, this was truly an island community. and it was interesting for me being an islander that has a year round population of about 15,000 on nantucket to think that boston was a, basically, an island connected by a thin neck of land known as the neck that was as power narrow as 100 yardt high tide in some places that then led to roxbury, that it was

this island dominated by three hills almost of mountainous proportions with a small town of 15,000 people crammed in to a group of houses in the north and the south ends. and so this was an island. and it was easily -- after lexington and concord as the patriot inhabitants fled out, there would be about 3,000 nonmilitary people left in the city. most of them loyalist, refugees and a smattering of patriots who decided to leave -- decided to stay so that they could look after their houses along with 9,000 soldiers. and so boston became a city under siege as patriot militia who had been involved in the skirmishes in lexington and concord and from towns well beyond flooded into cambridge and roxbury on either side of boston. and surround, literally

surrounded the city. and so boston was now the former center of defiance was a british garrison under a patriot siege. and now the point of a siege is to cut off the city and starve it to death. this wasn't going to happen in boston because the english had the navy, the british navy, with men of war and other ships throughout the harbor. and, you know, today the town of nantucket is -- excuse me, the town of boston is now the city of boston, and it's almost unrecognizable to the way it was. many of those hills that once defined the island that was boston were shaved down to fill in the back bay. the back bay was a bay. it was water. the that upon set river came in much closer than it does now. what is now washington as you walk that in, that was the neck as you come in from now the south end into boston.

and this was an island. but the -- and one of dozens of islands that occupied gigantic boston harbor. and the british had their navy. and they had their men of war and other ships scattered throughout the harbor in strategic areas and kept the entrance open so that they could get provisions whether they be from england or from canada. this meant that even -- no matter -- even though they were completely surrounded by land, boston as a british-occupied garrison was not going to starve. and so it became a stalemate that then erupted into violence with the battle of bunker hill. in june 17, 1775. and this was a battle like none other. it was a terrifying spectator event for those not only living in boston, but in towns around.

because all of the roofs of boston were filled with people watching as more than 2,000 british regulars made their way across the harbor in the charles river to the charlestown peninsula and began the assault that would erupt into the battle of bunker hill. and so this, this was something viewed by everyone there. and then it would settle into a stalemate that would then have george washington arrive, and that would change everything. and then eventually in march 17, 1776, the british would be forced to evacuate with the arming of dorchester heights. and i'll get to that later. but that was the arc i wanted to tell in the story. with the uptick of tensions, with the arrival of the -- with the boston port act and then with the evacuation. and so when i began this research, almost immediately i

was, i realized that i was going to -- the characters that i was going to focus on were not the characters most of us are familiar with. because what was happening as tensions were building in boston was that the continental congress met for the first time in philadelphia in the fall of 1774 which meant that leaders such as john adams and sam adams were out of town when all of this was beginning to unleash. and tensions were escalating with the boston port act, but it was really an act that followed this, one of many acts, the massachusetts government act which robbed the town not only of its commercial way of life, but of its government. the entire province lost its, the town meetings were basically outlawed except for an annual one, and town meetings had been the fundamental way of life of the town.

they had also been the fundamental lifeblood of the patriot movement. because it was sam adams who really was in many ways the presiding presence as tensions built between great britain and the american colonies, particularly in massachusetts. and it was -- but he had a problem. by 1772, two years after the boston massacre, an unsettling calm was settling on boston. the patriot movement was losing steam. and it was in that fall that he instituted the boston committee of correspondence. and it was a brilliant move, because what he did was create a network of communication that had never existed before in which a 21-member committee in boston would write up tracks that were then distributed to the 250 towns throughout massachusetts. and remember, this was a time when massachusetts included what

is now modern maine. and this set up, and what it did was transform town meetings that usually were devoted towards discussing things like repairing roads and bridges, turned them into forums on the issues of the day. one of the first tracks that was distributed was an argument how the natural rights of man superseded anything parliament could determine. and they soon got a bunch of responses from towns throughout massachusetts about, you know, why we feel this is important. and suddenly, adams had found a network of communication that was independent of the royal government, that allowed people throughout massachusetts to talk among one another, to share ideas. and these letters began to come in from committees of correspondence in towns throughout massachusetts. and they began to get unusual responses.

and one of them, and i'd like to read from the book, one response was from the town of gorham which was -- it's about 10 miles inland of what is now portland, maine. and what it was quickly became clear was that if there were radicals in massachusetts, they were not necessarily in boston. they were in all the towns surrounding them. because many of these people saw their current problems not so much in terms of representation in parliament, but in terms of their freedoms. freedoms that they felt had been earned by their ancestors in the blood of the indian wars that had preceded all this. and i think this is -- and for the citizens of gorham, the fight for liberty, and now i'm quoting from my book, was not about the current frustrations with parliament. it was about the terror, anger and violence that went with colonizing this ancient and

blood-soaked land. our eyes have seen our young children weltering in their gore in our own houses, in our dearest friends' led in captivity, they wrote to the boston committee of correspondence in january 1773. now gorham, just six years -- sixteen years before had been attacked in a native raid, and several people had been killed, several abducted. and this was still fresh in their memories. we have been used to earn our daily bread with our weapons in our hands. therefore, we cannot be supposed to be fully acquainted with the mysteries of court policy. but we look upon ourselves as able to judge so far concerning our rights as men. we look with horror. and indignation on the violation of them. many of our women have been used to load the musket and the swords which we wet and brightened for our enemies are not yet grown rusty. and so what they had discovered

was if these growing tensions should ever move in the direction of violence, the militiamen in the 250 towns of massachusetts were there for them. and if the words from gorham as early as january 17173 were any -- 1773 were any indication, these people were willing to fight. and so tensions would uptick. sam adams, john adams and several other leaders were away in -- on their way to philadelphia at the end of august and early september of 1774. thomas gage has been put, the british general, has been put in an impossible situation. he might have had a chance at convincing the people of boston to pay for the tea and to begin to respect the authority of parliament if parliament had stuck with the boston port act. but when they came up with the massachusetts government act

which meant that royal appointees were replacing people that should have, from their perspective, been elected, they went crazy. and many of these royal appointees were attacked, forced to flee into boston. and gage decided with these growing tensions it was time to round up as much of the gun powder as he could. because each town had legally a certain amount of gun powder, and they were in powder houses all around the, all around the province. and gage determined to get the powder out of what -- the powder house that's now modern sommerville. so in the early morning hours, he sent some soldiers in boats up the mystic river, and the operation went on without a hitch. they were able to get the powder, take it to castle william which is where the fort was, where they were stockpiling this kind of thing. and it went off without a hitch

except a rumor was spread. and the rumor spread like wildfire that as the british were there in what was then part of cambridge, they fired upon some militiamen, and several people were killed. it hadn't happened, but that was the rumor. and the rumor spread through towns throughout massachusetts. and this is early september 1774. and suddenly, the entire region erupted with a call to arms. and hundreds and then thousands of militiamen began to stream in towards cambridge. it began that night and all the next day. cambridge began to fill up with thousands of militiamen. they soon learned that this had been a rumor, that there was no violence, but there were all these people with their weapons in the middle of cambridge, and it was a very volatile crowd. and these were the country people who had turned into the rabble-rousers. and it was then both sam adams wasn't there, john adams wasn't

there. they needed someone from the boston committee of correspondence to show up and try to calm things down. and in samuel adams' absence, a new person began to emerge as one of the leaders of the boston revolutionary movement. and he was a young doctor named joseph warren. 33 years old, he had been an act lite really of samuel adams for more than a decade, and he had gained more and more of a public presence. and where -- and he was a different kind of guy from sam adams who sam adams was almost two decades older, had a different approach. joseph warren, there was a charisma about him. and i'd like to read a passage in my book that describes warren as he was -- pause the quest went out -- because the quest went out that he come to cambridge. so he and some other members of the committee went to cambridge

to try and quiet things down. they were successful in this. but it was a key point in which this young 33-year-old man, joseph warren, stepped to the forefront of the patriot movement. and here's a brief description of his background. where samuel adams was part political boss, part i'd log, warren -- close to two decades younger -- possessed a swashbuckling personal magnetism. he'd been born in the nearby town of roxbury. as a boy, he was often seen wandering the streets of boston selling milk from the family farm. the eldest of four brothers, warren was recognized as an unusually gifted boy. and when he was 14, he was began his studies at harvard. the fall of that year his father was picking apples from the top of a tall ladder when he fell and broke his neck. warren's youngest brother john had been just 2 years old at the time of this tragic e gem, and -- event, and one of his first memories was watching his

father's lifeless body being carried away. warren was able to continue at harvard and later served as a surrogate parent for his brothers, particularly john who was now a doctor in salem. at harvard warn's talent for pursuing a dizzying variety of extracurricular activities was evident. he staged several performances of the politically-themed play cato in his dorm room. he joined the college's militia company, a classmate later told the story of how warren responded to being locked out of a meeting of fellow students in an upper story dormitory room. instead of pounding, he made his way to the building's roof, shimmied down a rain spout and climbed in through an open window. just as he was making his entrance, the spout crashed to the ground. warren simply shrugged and commented that the spout had served its purpose. for a boy who had lost his father to a fatal fall, it was

an illustrative bit of bravado. this was a young man who dared to do what should have by all rights terrified him. it was at harvard that warren showed an interest in medicine. the great challenge for medical students in the 18th century was finding human cadavers for dissection. it's likely that warren was a member of the spunkers, a club of medical students for which we know his younger brother john and warren's apprentice remembers who regularly raided graveyards, jails and poorhouses in search of bodies; illegal yet all in the name of a higher good. so this was a leader with a difference. and he would be successful in cooling tempers at what was known as the powder alarm. he would then be instrumental in writing the suffolk resolve which would make their way down to that first continental

congress, be approved by them, pushing that congress in a more radical direction than they probably would have gone. and then his time continued as a leader in the movement. he would become a member of the provincial congress that the colonists put together to provide them with some kind of organizational force as they prepared themselves for a potential violence. it would be warren who on the night of april 18th would give paul revere those famous order toes to tell the countryside that the british were headed for concord. warren would the next -- he was one of the few, probably the only patriot leader still in boston. he would cross the river the next morning after a meeting of the committee of safety which was operated as the executive branch of the province at this point. he would then make, join the

fighting ahong the battle road as the british who had made it to concord, fought their way back towards boston. and warren took such a -- was right there in the midst of the fighting. and, in fact, he was a very stylish dresser. and he had a pin that was holding up the horizontal curls, the side of his hair. and a musket ball passed so close to him that it knocked out the pin. and this was a stein -- a sign to everyone that this was a leader who was very willing to put himself in danger's path. after lexington and concord as cambridge and roxbury filled up with militiamen, warren would be elected president of the provincial congress. he was also the leading light of the committee of safety so that, in effect, he was the leader of the legislative body and the executive body. he was way overtaxed in terms of

what he had to do, but his standing was so high that people in massachusetts felt that there was no one else who could do it. this was a 33-year-old man. by this time his four children and his new fiancee were in worcester, and he was managing things in cambridge. and during those 60 days he was the one overseeing the creation of a war, of an army and as the battle of bunker hill approached, he was named a major general. and so from the beginning he had decided that if it should turn to war, he wanted to be in the fighting. he would be at the battle of bunker hill k and he would die at the very end of the battle in the redoubt and thus become a here roy. and because he died, many of us have never heard of his story. and just a word on the battle of bunker hill. it began as a mess.

it was not supposed to be that way. and this is a battle named for the wrong hill. they were supposed -- it was named for the hill they were supposed to put the redoubt on which is an earthen fort. the patriots knew that the british were planning an attack, and in a hope to delay that, they decided to build an earthen fort on bunker hill which is to the north of the charlestown peninsula, a half mile away from what's called breeds hill where the monument is now. but for reasons that we're unsure of even to this day, william prescott and more than a thousand people built their fort not on bunker hill, but on breeds hill right in the figurative face of the british in boston. when general gage woke up the next morning, he felt he had no choice but to attack this threat to the shipping and to boston itself. and so the fort that was supposed to delay an attack actually provoked an attack. and be this battle would

unfold -- and this battle would unfold causing all sorts of mayhem. and it is, would become the bloodiest battle of the revolution. more than 2,000 british regulars were involved. they would suffer casualties of close to 50% which are just devastating. this would be a british victory technically. they would take the redoubt. but as william howe, the general who was on the ground during the battle, would admit, it was a victory bought by too many lives. washington would arrive, and washington was one of the great surprises to me. you know, it was a great relief to find out that he was not born the statuesque person that stares at us from the dollar bill. he was, this was a young washington who arrived from virginia and was appalled at what he found; this group of dirty, provincial soldiers, none of whom were disciplined or interested in following orders.

washington decided that he had no choice but to try to attack as soon as he could. unfortunately, his soldiers were not necessarily the best trained, and he also didn't have the gun powder he needed. and his decisions to attack were, luckily for i think all of us, were opposed by his council of war. but he was always pushing, pushing, pushing. and he provided a real kind of electrical force to an army that was in disarray after the death of joseph warren. and finally with the occupation of dorchester heights which involves one of the great stories of new england history with a bookseller, henry knox, going to fort ticonderoga and returning with the, with the cannons that would be, some of which would be placed on this dorchester heights and force the evacuation of the british.

and as boston went from being a city that had been occupied to being a city that had to pull itself together. and, you know, this had been a devastating experience for everyone. and 9,000 soldiers left along with about a thousand loyalists never to return. and bostonians would filter back. and the town had been beat up terribly. many structures had been burned as the british tried to heat themselves in the winter. but bostonians by and large had survived. and i'd like to end my remarks by quoting a passage from a sermon that was delivered by reverend samuel cooper on april 7, 1776. his first after the evacuation of the british. and much as we've seen boston in the last few weeks, his had been a community that had seen the worst of times, but they had

made it through. and and so he delivered the sermon, and i'd like to read, it serves, this quote serves as the epigraph for my book. it's a short one, but i think it's to the point. boston has been like the vision of moses; a bush burning but not consumed. thank you very much. [applause] do you have any questions? i'd be happy to try to answer them. >> you feature a number of characters that are not household names. you talked about joseph warren, his fiancee mercy scully. you didn't talk about, but it's

wonderfully described in the book joyce jr., the customs inspector malcolm, this wonderful cast of key characters. how did you settle, what was your process onsetting on -- on settling on those historical characters as perhaps others who were known or maybe you had thought of or rejected? >> thank you. and this is from dr. samuel foreman who is biography of joseph warren was a huge help to me, so thank you, sam -- [applause] it's a real contribution to all of us. [applause] and thank you for that question. you know, i -- it was a story that was full of surprises for me. i kept discovering these characters, and there is this joyce jr. character who appears in a nathaniel hawthorne short story in a fictional form, but a kind of thuggish vigilante who dress inside a costume kind of

like an evil "batman," that kind of thing. and organizes patriots in tar and feathering. he describes himself as the chairperson of tar and feather, of the committee of tar and feathering in boston. and in my first chapter i describe the tar and festering of a customs agent, john mall come. and it was just -- malcolm, and it was just a horrifying affair that happened in january of 1774, one with of the coldest days of that winter. and they would pour the hot tar on his naked flesh, place feathers on it and dragged him around the streets of boston often in a cart and on occasion beating him up for hours until finally they dutched him at his house -- dumped him at his house in the north end. he would be in bed recovering for six weeks, but he would live. but he was a brother, his younger brother daniel, who had died several years before, had been a foremost patriot.

and there in the malcolm family you kind of see how much of a civil war this was and how itdivided families. you know, we think of it as patriots versus british, but the bostonians were deeply divided as these issues began to bubble up. and it was a truly traumatic occurrence. >> nathaniel, i still have not read "moby dick," but i intend to one of these days. thanks to dr. foreman -- i've lived in boston for about a year and a half now. i'm a new yorker, i'm rooting for the knicks tonight. today don't need myrrh help. [laughter] thanks to dr. foreman who i went to hear talk about, i believe, about the battle of bunker hill,

something like that, i learned of this gentleman joseph warren. i'd never heard of joseph warren. my sister's lived near boston for 40 years, my family and i have visited every historical site in new england, boston several time, never heard of the man. and dr. foreman and some more reading i've done convinced this was one unique human being. and since then i've talked to a number of native bostonians, and i'm amazed at how few of them have ever heard of joseph warren. thanks to your book, which you didn't send me an advance copy of so i just got ahold of it yesterday -- >> my apologies -- [laughter] >> your book talks about two charismatic men, one from massachusetts, one from virginia -- i'm assuming i know the answer to the man from massachusetts, joseph warren -- i've wondered since i've been here why isn't there a bridge named after joseph warren?

>> yeah. well, yeah -- >> and reading further in your book a little bit, there was a bridge named after joseph warren. could you tell me what happened to it? >> i -- my history of boston past 1776 is very thin. [laughter] so i'm not going to go into that. but, you know, joseph warren was a hero of his day. he was someone that was a revered icon of the time. but he -- and would very, perhaps, have been a founding father if he hadlied. but he didn't live. so he did not become part of that pantheon that we are so aware of today. but, you know, it's interesting. a loyalist who did not necessarily appreciate joseph warren's efforts, probably gave him some of the greatest praise where years after his death -- and this was as much an attempt

to take it to george washington. but he said that if joseph warren had lived instead of dying at the battle of bunker hill, washington would have been an obscurity which just gives you a sense of how highly respected he was. and how absolutely pivotal he was to the events that created our country and the city. and you're right, he's largely unappreciated. >> you know, in new york we renamed the triborough bridge the robert f. kennedy bridge. there is a bridge here in boston that i think should be named after joseph warren. >> okay. i think that's a -- we'll talk to our congress people, right? [laughter] >> can i have one more brief question? because i haven't read the book. >> okay. you've got to cut to the chase. >> do you know where that famous statement was made, do not fire until you've seen the whites of their eyes? >> we've all heard that. it's, it may never have been

said at the battle of bunker hill. there's no documented, you know, so and so said to me don't fire. i mean, the one reference i saw that was documented was someone saying don't fire til you see the whites of their half gators which are the splash guards on the british thing. it doesn't quite have the same ring, does it? laugh -- [laughter] but it was a phrase that had been used before this battle and used after. so it very easily could. it's interesting, when you start thinking about firing until you see the whites of your eyes and you start looking at people, it is -- that's very close. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> yeah. well, and what is interesting in my account of the battle is that was the basic tactic that the patriots were using. they didn't have a lot of gun powder. they were dug in. and so those provincial soldiers knew that they had to make every shot count. and so their officers were telling them they had to wait,

they had to wait, and they also had to aim low. and they listened to those orders with absolutely devastating results. >> hi. i first of all of wanted to say i really enjoyed your book "in the heart of the sea," and secondly, i am very familiar with joseph warren, and i'm a descendant of mercy scully who, obviously, did eventually marry. i'm, my question is about your description of 9,000 troops in boston, british troops in boston. i'm wondering before a lot of people left what the population was. in other words, were there more than 9,000 boston residents who

were surrounded or less than 9,000 that were surrounded by british troops? >> well -- yeah. what happened was the city got turned inside out. and so that, yeah, there were -- an army that approached 9,000. and then there were about 3,000 shall we call them civilians in the city at the time. a lot of them loyalists, some of them people just there caught in the middle of it. and so you had the city that was a population pretty close to what it had originally been, but it was largely soldiers. and so they had taken up residence in houses, turned the old south meeting house into a writing school, ripping out the pews and spreading manure around, you know, just the ultimate indignity. the green, the green dragon, the

tavern that had been sort of the patriot nerve center, was turned into a hospital. and so it was, the city was beat up. and it was a city of military occupation. and so this was a real trauma for all involved. ..

>> like the city when it comes to carrying on what is obviously a war. very quickly, teach me the suggestion that we should reform and the british ministry agreed with them. by the end of that summer the decision had been made that they were going to evacuate boston anyway. that is one of the great ironies. the british had decided to leave. there was no need to attack. of course, the americans did not notice. and so prior to all of this, the british had made an attempt to sort of show this and had burned

this town, which is now portland, maine. this isn't helping our cause at all. what they were finding is what happens to any empire that finds that it is conducting a war in which they have to attack civilians. it is hard to feel good about those kinds of wars. the british found themselves in the middle of it. it was not a situation that any of the british soldiers enjoy. in fact, it was just horrible and would become the graveyard of many an officer's career. you bring so much light to the story. it is not like there our news sources. when you go to the news sources,

how do you find so much vitality and i'm? for me, it is all in the details. it is finding those traits and characteristics that sort of ring a person to lie for a situation to light or did you really have to go to the primary source to find them. the case of this, the sources are not extraordinarily rich. they are at the massachusetts historical society. it still exists. the notes on who is taking care of you at what time, what the description was. it runs right up to april 19. it is just an extraordinary document. there are all sorts of

materials. especially when coming to bring the path to light. not only were these people witnesses, but you have their voices coming through. those can be a great help. the other interesting source, which is not necessarily reliable, it is the new stores. they all have a political ax to grind. combining newspapers from both sides, it is often even get sides of the story that are revealed. that is the great challenge. trying to get a balance in the town. as much as possible. >> just? >> thank you for the talk. i would like to address the gentleman from new york. if i'm not mistaken, there were several things and anyone in this country whose name, including my father, people

named jefferson or washington or so forth and they are named after this war general. and the building of the massachusetts general hospital, and all of the wine of doctors they are correct in saying that people have that name, they have that first thing coming? >> i cannot voucher that personally. that might actually be the case. it is almost like archaeology in terms that it was such a popular name that got passed on. it is part of the genealogy and where that came from.

this is an extraordinary capable family. this is a person of talent that went yonder offerings. he was a victim and he was doing everything on those final 60 days of his life. he ran from one crisis to another no one comes to the death, sort of settling things down, because times have changed. we have gone from this growing revolution into stalemate and

the siege. it had turned into an eight year war. that will take a different kind of skill set. so i think that they would've been helpful in washington. they had real trouble at the end of the year they have an effective go-between between him and this whole war, it would've been perfect at that. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's website. nathaniel filbert.com.

>> i don't mean to put you on the spot. but representative tom cole, what are you reading this summer? >> i am reading a wonderful book. about halfway through that now. it is part of the legendary life of fdr. you probably don't have the same politics. it is a compelling life. i haven't had the chance to read this book, the act of congress, but the reviews have been really compelling. i think that that is an interesting case study. you know all of the characters, you know senator dodd, you know some of the legislators, it is interesting to get that perspective donovan put this on

my radar of politico. he was very much into his job as vice president and continued to play a role in politics and became one of the architects of nixon's success in the south in 1972. i read it more policy and less history, but i just have to learn about this with history. >> let us know what you reading this summer. tweet us at booktv great post on her facebook page and send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org

ours is not a caravan of despair. come if you have even broken your vows, calm yet again. a couple of reasons that this is meaningful to me. it is in the books and i say that whenever i look at the statue of liberty, this great and beautiful woman of welcoming. the inscription is bring me your huddled masses to break free. it is this notion of america, a radical welcome, plant the seeds in american soil. let them grow into institutions and congregations that are welcoming and open to us.

i need to confess that i get emotional when i talk to people like this right after 9/11. right after 9/11, a lot of us got into usc and we went to a mosque or at an eckerd sentence that changed my life. it is that dedication that draws me a lot with the way he thinks

one of the great moments in this book is the way he tells about the genesis moment. >> yes, this is actually run on 2010. it is august of that year. i'm waking up at 4:00 a.m. it is additional time of centering and meditation. i have a right wing hate type of

people who write on the websites there is a new route new word about this being a terse command center. those people supported by the muslim community. >> you can watch this and other programs coming up booktv.org. >> here's a look at some festivals. booktv will be alive at the literature fest and check our website at booktv.org were of on our coverage. in mid-july, the 15th annual harlem book fair takes place in new york city. the festival will highlight its awards show.

the martha's vineyard book festival will take place in august. the two-day festival features several authors. the festival will host over 280 authors and more than 104 people. we will be glad to feature your book fairs and festivals in our area. post them to our while at facebook.com/booktv. e-mail us at booktv.org. >> 40 reading this summer? booktv wants to know. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ >> let us know what you reading this summer. tweet us at tv. posted on our first facebook page, and send us an e-mail at