standby the edge of the road in newark, new jersey, and count the troops as they went by. there were 3,000 of them left. he started with about 30,000 men. he lost nearly 90% of the army under his command. and he was beginning to despair. he wrote home to his family and he said prepare to move everything into the mountains. he told them that he thought that the game just might be about up. but as they marched across new jersey, followed in a distance by the british army, something happened amongst these men. somehow washington dug into the reserves of his character and found the strength to try again.

and he had with him another extraordinary figure, who was the journalist, as we would say, embedded in the continental army. it was thomas payne. he soldiered beside them in that campaign. they called him the common sense man. and as they were in their camps retreating in new jersey, he decided that it was time to write another pamphlet called "the american crisis." this was the one about the times that try men's soul. it was truly so. and this was one of the first literate armies in history. they read these writings of thomas payne and it helped to remind them of that cause. and of its importance. even as they weren't all of one mind as to what it meant. so washington led his forces across the delaware, gathering all the boats as he crossed, and then he began to try to reorganize the army to try to undertake and invent a new way of leadership. he wrote back home. he said he discovered something with these new england men.

he said he discovered "people unaccustomed to restraint cannot be drove. they must be led." and so he undertook to invent a way of leading. the first thing he did was to work with his counsels of war. they had been very difficult bodies before. this was normal in those armies. it was mostly a place where the commander told subordinates what he intended to do and they did it. in america it was a little more complicated than that. washington had often fluctuated between that very authoritarian style he grew up with and then they ordered him to consult with other officers, which he undertook to do and it was not very successful at first. but then they worked out a way of doing it. his chief lieutenant was sent to the continental congress and in boilermaker they worked out an understanding, first of all, that the continental congress would be the supreme body

representing the sovereignty of the people in america. and the generals would obey. but the generals would be allowed to get on with the war. and that was a very unstable compromise, but in a rough way, it worked. then washington also worked out a way in which his counsels at war, unlike the british counsels, were very open. anybody could come in. many other civilians were invited. and washington cultivated two gifts that i think were critical to his leadership. first, he had the gift of listening. he was beginning to learn to listen to these people in his army. and the other was that he had the gift of silence. he could keep quiet about his own opinions and reserve his views until the discussion had pretty much run its course. then he would intervene and nobody was in doubt as to who was running the army, but he chose to run it by that open way.

and then he went about business of reordering intelligence. and he did it by creating an open system of intelligence. he ordered all of his senior officers, his general officers, to run their own agents, to build their own networks, but to stay in touch and to tell him what they were finding. and so unlike other systems in which intelligence was very tightly held as an instrument of power, washington distributed

the process of intelligence through his army. he built a new system of logistics in november and boilermaker, and he did it not as a kind of chain of logistics, but as a web in which most of the now states of the union were involved. and it was deliberately designed in that web-like form because it meant that if one piece of it broke, the other pieces could still function, and that's what happened. and this was a hugely difficult job that washington himself had to run. his published papers will run to more than 100 volumes and even this virginia collection is only a selection. and 75% of those papers are military papers, but most of them are logistics about the logistics of the army. and washington was corresponding with all the governors of the states simultaneously and with many other people as well. and he was leading what was the first american national institution after the

continental congress. the continental army became a school for the design of institutions and also a foreign idea of leadership. he also had to find a way of fighting the war. the american people had difficult requirements of their leaders. they wanted them to be bold, to take the initiative. but they wanted them to be prudent at the same time and prudent meant to be very careful with the lives of their men. and washington had to find a way to do both of those things as well. he had to find a way to fight two very skilled armies. the hessians were not the clowns that they appear in much of the literature, but were very professional soldiers. they studied military science in that regard. and washington was up against the first team here. and the question was, how could his forces stand against such a formidable adversary? experience compared with what the american leaders had had. he worked on a system of changing the tactics in the

continental army. he began to use artillery. there was a lot of artillery available. it could be taken from ships in philadelphia. the continental army developed a much larger ratio of artillery to infantry than was the indication with the british and hessian forces. and all of this -- the artillery was used up front in the way the german army used some of their artillery in the second world war. what it was meant to do is stabilize and support the inexperienced american infantry and the man at the center of that was the book seller henry knox who taught himself about artillery from the books in his own bookstore. and all of this was put to work. and then washington's counsels began to get news from the intelligence networks that there was an opportunity in new jersey. the opportunity was that the british and hessians were having big problems of supplies themselves. they were at the end of a 3,000-mile chain. so they were distributed widely

across new jersey to far regions of the country side. and the forage left to theft and violence and violence to murder and murder to rape. and suddenly, the people of new jersey began to understand what this occupation might mean to them and they spontaneously began to organize small risings all across new jersey without any command from the congress or from washington. but washington's intelligence network told him what was going on. and he was able to very quickly act. he also knew he had to act in such a way that he could begin to rebuild confidence in the

cause and to do that he decided in boilermaker -- in december they decided they would cross the delaware at four places and organized all of that. it was very complex. they set it in motion on christmas night in 1776 just as a horrific storm that anybody here from the northeast will know very well about a nor'easter which came sweeping in. heavy rains, snow, sleet, and the conditions were just almost impossible. so nearly so that of those four crossings, three of them failed. only one of them got across the river just north of new jersey, just north of trenton, new jersey. and washington led that force into the storm attacking the hessians. the hessians had expected them

to come. they had spies of their own. but then a small american force had attacked them in the day without orders. they thought that was the attack. and they led down their guard just for a moment and that's when the americans arrived. it was very carefully managed. the americans synchronized their watches. that's the first instance i can find of an army synchronizing the pocket watches that the officers carried and then they attacked trenton from both sides within about two minutes of each other and won a great victory. then the question was what to do with the victory. and he had a couple problems there. the hessians were not drunk. we have eyewitness accounts of their sobriety, but the american army discovered quite a lot of liquor in the ins of trenton and the american army got drunk.

and washington had great difficulty getting his troops back again over the delaware river, more so than he did getting them across the first time. and he also was carrying back with him 900 hessian crystals. and the question was what to do about them. the prisoners expected the worst. and to many people remembered what those hessians had done after fort washington, after other engagements around long island and washington could have gone with the lex telionis. he it could have been an eye for an eye. but what he did with members of the continental congress was to declare a policy of humanity. that the hessian captives would be entitled to some of their rights that the american revolution was all about. they would be entitled to the

right to life. that was very different from the law of 18th century warfare. they were treated decently to their surprise. and this news spread rapidly around the world. we had a man now in paris as the news reached europe, and it was benjamin franklin and he published essays on all of this and the idea of humanity began to spread. it wasn't universally observed in other parts of the revolution, but the continental army tried to do that all the way into the campaigns of the 1780s. after the battle when daniel morgan fought the group that was

most hated in the revolution, tarleton's raiders. he wrote a letter up the chain of command and said we treated them with humanity. we weren't even rude to them, he said. the americans made a point of that and what they were doing was leaking the conduct of the war to the values of the revolution and washington himself became a symbol of that linkage. and that linkage began to haunt the opponents of this war. and one of the interesting things or the way it haunted george iii after george went mad, one of his delusions was that he himself had become george washington and we can see how this example of a humane and highly-successful leader spread with the idea of the cause. and then after that, it was decided in counsels of war that one victory was not enough. so they went back. and it was those committees of sergeants, the associators, who

were the prime movers of that. and the american army went across the delaware fought series of battles, all of them very different one from another. one was a delaying action. a very difficult retreat from the road down through lawrenceville, new jersey. and they did that with great success. the purpose of that was for the american army to occupy a hill above trenton on the south side of the town. and there to draw the british troops into an attack which happened in a second battle of trenton. and the british were defeated in that battle. then washington who was then in a tight spot, a light came on and he and his counsel decided they would try another attack and washington led his troops around the british armies to attack a british brigade that was in princeton ten miles away and the result was a battle of princeton and again another victory.

so washington had won four victories in this very short period and they were very different one from another. and it was frederick the great saying this is the greatest military feat he had ever seen in the conduct of that campaign and that was only the beginning of that campaign. it went on in which all together the american army and the militia fought something like 80 engagements. they were very small, mostly foraging parties, but what they did was slowly wear down the british and the hessian troops who were in new jersey. it was a heavy blow on that force. then as the revolution went on, there were something like 24

campaigns. washington and his two lieutenants who commanded in the same open way, that's green and lafayette, commanded in ten of them and they lost many battles, but they won nine of those campaigns. nine campaigns. there were other -- all the other campaigns, maybe something like 13 or 14 depending on how one counts, were commanded by other officers who didn't master that same method of command and the americans lost all but two of those campaigns. dramatic difference in the way this style of leadership began to pay off. and then afterwards, washington was called to another sort of service as president. what he did was to apply that same style of leadership to the presidency. his cabinet was very much like his counsels of war. he tried to bring in very able .

he was comfortable in his first administration with people of high ability working under him. and he also picked people who were very diverse representing the diversity of the cultures in the country. and he could keep them -- he got hamilton and jefferson and john adams in the same room. and he kept them there for three, four, most of his first term. using that same style of open leadership. it was a very flexible style of leadership. they had a cause and a principle -- set of principles, but they didn't have an ideology, a word that was just starting to come to use. they didn't have foreign policies, with a few exceptions. but what they did was to serve the idea of this new republican government in ways that moved it forward, but they were very

flexible about the means. and washington would sometimes use the invisible hand of adam smith, and then he saw no contradiction in turning to the visible hand of the use of government to actually run what he called laboratories. we call them factories, to manufacture the weapons that the republic needed to survive. and it was that sort of flexibility that, i think, was a key to what was going on here. he kept cultivating the art of silence and reserving his conduct with others. he was of the first generation to use the phrase public opinion, but he was not a democrat.

he thought it was important he accepted the idea of the sovereignty of the people. he believed in the elections as fundamental to all of that. it never occurred to him he should choose his policies on basis of their popularity. in that way, he was very different from what would come later. he thought it was important that he should show himself to the people and so he toured the country twice, a huge labor to go from maine to georgia as he did so that he could really represent to the american people what was happening. he had the capacity for growth and he grew on the subject of slavery, which is very interesting and another subject. and all of these things were going on at the same time. and then after washington, there was a period that ran through 1836.

the presidents through andrew jackson all had one thing in common. they all had known george washington. every one of them. and they didn't copy him exactly. they were all different one from they were all different one from another, but they were inspired by that example of a highly-principle leadership, of a leadership that thought it was important not only to do the right thing, but to do it in the right way that held to the idea of honesty in government and in politics. and that, i think, made a major difference in the course of the early republic. then there were other leaders who from time to time emerged who had the same success that washington had. not many of them. i think abraham lincoln would be one. i would say franklin roosevelt would be another. all of these men, one could say washington was a little to the right of center. franklin roosevelt said he was a little to the left of center. i think abraham lincoln was right down the middle.

but all of them governed from the center. they really governed. and they tried to govern in ways that would engage a great diversity in their country. lincoln was very different from washington in the sense that he was born into a democracy. he became a party man. washington hated parties. he believed in a nation. washington's thinking was not precisely national, even as it became continental. he centered, i think, more on this great republic than on an idea of nationalism. but these men shared those same ways of having a set of values without an ideology, of having a large purpose without fixed and structured plans of the sort that became too rigid and constrained, of working closely with the people but reserving their own leadership, and most

of all, it was the capacity for growth. this new wonderful book on abraham lincoln describes the growth of lincoln through the years. the same thing could be written about washington. and then about franklin roosevelt. he's commanding a global power, a completely different undertaking at least in many of its parts. and he also built that broad base of very able leaders. putting republicans into the major positions early in the war, secretary of war, secretary of the navy, working across party lines in that regard. also doing the other great -- combining the other strengths of leadership that washington had done, but in a different key, in another era, in a different framework. now the question is what next? we can see that people took inspiration from lincoln for that same period of about 60

years that had worked for washington. and then there's a wonderful book by bill luchtenberg on the shadow of fdr at least to ronald reagan. even reagan turning against the new deal, but embracing that style of leadership on the explicit example of franklin roosevelt. and now what today? what for us? and we look at this country and find many great leaders in every field. we find great leaders in american universities. you are in the presence of one in david bore. such an extraordinary leader that way. and there are 3,000 american universities today and most of them are in the hands of very good leaders. we see good leaders in government. one of my privileges is to talk to the first classmen at west point, which i have done these last two years.

and the leadership of these young men and of the general officers of the u.s. army are extraordinary today, and we find that everywhere in this country, except recently on pennsylvania avenue. and i wonder what the future holds for us. and much of it, i think, it was said by thomas jefferson that his toughest job of his presidential office was appointing other people to office. and that's now our job. we have the job of appointing other people to that presidential office. and who will we choose? i'm a centrist, and i'm not happy about my choices, as i think many americans feel on both sides. and somehow as the arnold brothers said, we have to educate our masters. we have to find a way of reminding people of the leadership traditions that we have had in this country. and they have seen us through

very hard times. times much harder than what we knew today. and i believe that we can do this yet again. thank you. [ applause ] >> questions? how is the time. okay? >> yeah. we do have time for a question if anybody wants to step down to the microphone. anybody? they're being shy. i know they want to ask questions. >> the question is what about washington and slavery. >> what's slavery? yes. the question is, talk a little bit more about washington and slavery.

it's a story of growth. i think starting with -- and before the revolution, when, as i mentioned, washington was comfortable in the role of slave holding and became one of the largest slave holders in virginia. made a success of it economically. but then he began to think again, i think, during the war and as part of the war. and one thing that happened was there were these former slaves who were in his army. he was very unhappy to find them there. and issued an order saying they would be required to leave the army. and the people of new england said basically, no way. they're part of our regiments. so washington sent out another order. we'll enlist no more in the future. and the new englanders kept enlisting them. then he said, well, we will have them in individual units, but we will have no units that will be black units.

and then that was done as well in rhode island. and there was an entire unit of african-americans later in the war. and as he was doing that, also into the 1780s, he began to correspond. there's some extraordinary new work that's just been published from scholars who have been reading of the books in washington's library, which are now kept in the boston athenaeum. and in them, they found that washington was buying and reading many of the anti-slavery traps of his time. they were pouring in from all over the world. and he was part of a kind of western movement that had a very particular quality. it was not only british, but also french. it tended to be centered on gradual emancipation. and he was moving in that direction. and then he decided that he would not free his slaves in his

lifetime. others were doing that. it was spreading very rapidly in particularly in maryland, in virginia, especially in delaware. but he chose not to do that. i think partly it was complicated because most of them were not his slaves. they belonged to his wife. and there was some complication about that as well. but he did finally decide, as others did not, to end slavery at mt. vernon on his death. what drove him there, i think it was probably that idea of these men engaged in a struggle for in the cause. and it has been observed that that's happened again anai jane adams trying to explain why women's suffrage was enacted,

just after world war i. she said that the decisive factor was the support of women in this country for the american war effort in world war i, which won the respect of people who had to vote on that question in the congress and in the legislatures. i think it may have been something like that that was working with george washington on the subject of slavery. >> thank you, professor fischer. for an amazing talk. >> thank you. [ applause ] ronald reagan was leaving this hotel after delivering a speech to the afl-cio. hinckley can't believe he's this close. he's 15 feet from the president. the agents are surrounding him. he shoots. the first hits the press secretary in the head. he falls down. the second hits a d.c. police officer who has turned around to check on the president's progress. he gets hit in the back and falls down, screams, i'm hit. the path to the president is clear. wide open. hinckley has an effective range.