realize there isn't going to be a short, unpleasant business which will wind up with reconciliation and that we better be fighting for >> rose: welcome to the program. independence. we begin this evening on this now, they don't dare say it july 4th with a conversation right away, although some of about america and it's history them are writing it, like by looking back at a series of conversations we have had with the imminent historian david nathaniel green wrote it in mccullough. >> there but for george letters to washington, who, like washington, there is no america. young knox, knew no more of the >> that's my feeling. military when he joined up and i think he's the greatest when he was made a general at president we ever had. i think he's the greatest age 33, knew no more of the american of all because, if it military than what he read in weren't for him, as you just books. but we have to remember that's said, there would be, in my an age, if you want to know how view, no united states of america, and he did it all to do or do something, a good right, particularly when he became president. he set the example, just as he way is a close study of the books, which is the idea of the was setting the example as the generals, the commander-in-chief enlightenment. washington, green and knox had of the very dark days of the the equivalent of a fifth grade revolution. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the education, formal schooling. following: >> rose: these two guys are new englanders, and george washington is a very, very

patrician virginian. >> and he ardently dislikes new englanders. he thinks they're dirty and >> and by bloomberg, a provider unrule y. they have the unfortunate idea of multimedia news and information services worldwide. they like to decide things for captioning sponsored by rose communications themselves, which you can't have if an army, but he overcomes that bias, which is a big inner from our studios in new york struggle, he has to, because city, this is charlie rose. that's all he's got, a new england army. he has some people from the middle colonies who joins them. >> the glorious ideals and ideas >> rose: he takes command at of the declaration of independence which we celebrate, as we should, every fourth of 33 in '75. >> he said to congress, i'm not july and, as we know, our the man. but he also knew he was better secular faith would have been nothing more than a declaration, than anybody else they could pick and they choose him not words on paper, if it weren't for the people doing the hard because he's a great general. they know he fought in the slogging and the fighting, against all odds, suffering french and indian war and had a

terribly. distinguished record. one of the reasons i wanted to they pick him because they know write the book is one of the him as a person and as a lines abigail adams wrote to her husband about this time. politician. h he is a political general, and she said, "future generations who will reap the blessings will that's sometimes used in a scarcely know the hardships and dismissive or a less than complimentary way. sufferings we've endured in we should thank god that he was their behalf." and we don't sufficiently know. >> rose: i knew she wrote that a political general because he and, when i read that, it remind never forgets who is boss. >> rose: so we have washington med that these people knew they were making history. >> absolutely. at 43. he goes to the constitutional absolutely. they knew that they were being convention, though, in a called upon to play a part in uniform. >> yes. >> rose: even though he's saying, i'm not the man. one of the great historical >> he's available. >> rose: there is a dramas of all time and that they contradiction there. >> they choose him. would be judged by how they well, yes and no. i think he's being perfectly played their parts, each individually. honest in both. wonderful henry knox, one of the he will serve if called upon, is ready to serve, he has his most admiral people in the whole story. >> rose: aide to george uniform, reminding them he's a military man at heart, but he's washington. >> aide to george market, commander of artillery, former very genuine, look, i'm not the ideal fellow at this job. book seller who knew mother of he makes some very bad mistakes the military other than what he in judgment. read in books. he was outfoxed, outflanked,

25 years old, and the very day the text of the declaration of outnumbered, to be sure, made to independence arrives from look pretty inept at the battle of brooklyn. he was so indecisive at the time philadelphia, he writes, as we play our parts, history will of the siege of fort washington judge us ill or favorably, the that he likely cost that bastian future will judge us ill or favorably. so they know that they are part of history. that they thought was i think that's an completely impregnable along with several thousand of his troops and extremely important thing to understand. hoards of supplies and cannons great that you pointed that out because that gave them a kind of sense of responsibility, a duty. and the rest, these were horrible defeats, charlie, very they didn't have much cause to serious, yet he did not quit, he did not succumb to his own sense have hope, when you consider the of defeat and failure, and the odds against them. people who followed him, with no real army, no navy, no money, only a few exceptions, were determined to stay with him, as was congress. no gunpowder. >> rose: it is said about him washington never commanded an that he had this special quality army in battle in his life before he was given role of and that you couldn't quite put your finger on it, but you knew commander-in-chief. >> rose: speaking of knowing from the people who saw him up his role in history, i mean, close that he had it. >> yes.

george washington, who we get to almost like an x factor. know here, was carried forward because he upped what he had to do, even though he didn't have a yes. he was a commanding figure. great strategy, even though he >> rose: tall? was, as you say, not a great oh, yes, 6-feet-2, probably general, except by definition that he was a great leader. >> he was a great leader. 190 to 200 pounds, perfect he isn't a great intellectual physical condition in the prime like adams or jefferson, not a of his life. he was only a young man, 43, but great orator like patrick henry, they were all young. he's not a napoleonic figure, green 33, jefferson 33 when he wrote the declaration of he's a leader and people will independence. >> rose: franklin was the only follow him. one who had age on him. he has absolute integrity and he >> and he was old enough to have will not give up and he never been their father. >> rose: yeah. forgets what it's about, what but we see them as the the war is for. white-haired founding fathers, and again and again, you have people saying they're not going to quit because i will not leave patriarchs, elder statesmen, but at this point they're not. this good man. it's a young americans cause, we have to remember that, at one point, it was down to 3,000 troops. that's all he had left. and they were not in the hundreds, thousands had either quit, gone home when their majority ever. the people who are for the revolution were never in the

enlistments expired, deserted, went over to the enemy. majority. they were maybe a third. >> rose: because they were adams -- no one knows really given pardons. what the proportions were. >> absolutely. and people in new jersey, when there were no polls or surveys washington in the army were retreating across new jersey, when the general and the british taken. but at least as many people were commanders offered pardons for against the war as were for it. anybody who would sign the >> rose: and they knew what would probably happen to them, the leaders, if they lost, off loyalty eat, people in with their heads. >> yes. new jersey came by the thousands >> rose: they would be all hung at the crack of dawn. to sign as quickly as the >> yes. >> rose: let me talk about the believed. war for a second. if there would have been daily 75, they go to boston. polls taken and run in the they win some early victories, newspapers, it would have just don't they, in '76? disintegrated immediately because people would realize >> no. >> rose: no victories? that they haven't got a chance, didn't they surround them in it's over. >> rose: a couple of points boston? >> they drove the british out of here. you thought of this, this story, boston, made it impossible for the british to remain in boston by this incredible feet of midway through the john adams book. >> yes, i did. >> rose: what caused you to ingenuity and doing the think about it, the lesser from abigail or -- impossible, hauling a cannon -- >> no, it was when i was writing >> rose: did that give them the chapter dealing with the summer after the declaration of confidence? >> absolutely. probably gave them too much independence was signed, and the confidence. they felt pretty big. after all, they drove the

whole war effort is starting to british empire out of boston is that this was the biggest fall apart, and then came the superpower in the world. >> yes. >> rose: and they had taken them on and driven them out of boston. >> and they were jubilant. they were a victorious team and battle of brooklyn and the escape from brooklyn, the miraculous night escape by marched off to new york and washington. and when you're writing a faced them on the field of biography, you can't stray from battle for the first time, and your subject very much. they suddenly have a name. they're called the continental elizabeth longford who wrote the great biography of queen army. they have a flag to march under. they have their general, and victoria, said you can't leave your subject for more than five they're going to be joined in pages, and she was right, you new york by the people from can't. and i wanted very much to write new jersey and new yorkers and about, in some detail, about the pennsylvania and so forth and battle of brooklyn and about the will become more than it was in escape from brooklyn. i thought, well you can't do it boston, truly a continental army. >> rose: and what happened? here, but you can do it in the next book. they got sick in great and so i began, which surprises numbers, epidemic dysentery, some people, i began with george smallpox. they didn't understand the rules of hygiene. a they -- washington divided his army, leaving half in manhattan iii before going to parliament and taking the other half over in october of 1775 to declare that the american colonies are in rebellion and that their to brooklyn. >> rose: mistake?

leaders, these rebel rousers -- >> rose: he calls them the mistake. it was a mistake to try to defend new york. new york was inthe defensible unhappy americans. >> the unhappy americans, because they had no sea power, absolutely, they're traitors, he says so, and that he, the king, they had no navy. the british came into new york with a fleet of 400 ships. and the british power of the british army and british empire >> rose: if the british navy had gone up the hudson, it would are going to bring these people to heel, they're going to crush have been over? >> oh, yes. no. yes, indeed, it would have been. the rebellion. and it's when that speech when washington fought the reaches boston opt first day of battle of brooklyn with about 9,000 of his troops over there the new -- on the first day of and was soundly defeated, 300 the new year because of the great delay in crossing the americans or so killed, over ocean, first day of 1776, that the people in the army under 1,000 taken prisoner, including washington, people everywhere threthree generals, it was awfu. there were valiant performs on the part of some of our troops and the miracle is they didn't lose more, but at that point, the army was, you know, in fact, in the midst of a real trap because all the british had to do was to to bring their fleet up the east river and would seal them off. but the wind was in the wrong

direction. if the wind had been in the other direction on the night of august 28th, 29th, i think it would have been all over because washington and his army would have been trapped. >> rose: no united states of america. because just of the wind, history was changed? >> absolutely. but then the next day after the defeat of the battle of long island, they decide they have to escape, the night of august 29th, and they organized a retreat at night back across the east river by rounding up every boat they could get their hands on, on the east river, on the hudson, new jersey, and everywhere they could get boats, brought them all over, and they took that army off of brooklyn in the night, 9,000 men, cannon, equipment, horses, everything, without the loss of a single

man. now, an organized retreat in the face of an enemy of overpowering strength is the hardest thing in the military operations to bring off successfully, and the fact that this amateur army, really undisciplined troops, green troops, people who'd never marched with a rifle or musket before, but they pulled this off, and it worked, it was as miraculous as the wind being in their favor. >> rose: i mean, you've got to realize what they were facing. the largest expeditionary force ever mounted. >> who had just defeated them in a horrendous battle, a huge battle, the biggest battle ever fought on a north american continent up to that point, and the people who saved the army were the marblehead massachusetts mariners under a tough little general named john

glover. so you have a combination of both fate or luck or circumstance, the hand of god as many said, with the wind being exactly what they needed. but you also had the skill, the ability of those mariners to pull that off. the boats were going across so loaded down, the water was only inches below the gunnels. they had no running lights. they had to be absolutely silent. if the enemy had any idea they were trying to evacuate, they could have descended on the army and annihilated them, truly, right then. then they get across, most of them, morning is coming, there are a lot of them that are still back on the brooklyn side, and it's going to be light, and that will be curtains for them. in comes a providential fog that covers all of brooklyn, but it

doesn't happen on the new york side. now, if you were writing a novel and you had that happen, you would say, no. >> rose: no, that's too much. it's not real. >> rose: too much of a perfect weather. >> yes. >> rose: at this time, as they were retreating, what was the mood of washington? >> oh, one of abject discouragement. hhe was exhausted. he hadn't slept for three night or more. they all were exhausted, and he -- you know, i'm sure he realized he played his hand wrong, that he'd misjudged the whole situation. he never covered what was called the jamaica pass. there's a pass-through the rough ridge that runs along long island, and they had nobody post-ed there to stop the british, so the british sent 10,000 men on a 9-mile march through the night up and around

and they just completely outflanked us. it was a perfect military maneuver, perfectly handled, perfectly performed by the british just as they're landing on long island, everything was done just right. now, if general howe had attacked after he had them on the run and they were retreating back to th the fortification of what is now brooklyn heights -- >> rose: what does this say about the british and their ten nasty? >> the military scholars have debated this for 229 years, why didn't howe move in for the kill. some say he didn't do it because he'd had such bloody experience at bunker hill where the americans were in a position on a high ground, entrenched, and he wasn't going to attack that way again. it had been awful. they'd lost 1,000 men.

on the other hand, he would attack a frontal position later on in fort washington. i think he felt why destroy them completely when we've got them and we're going to win this and let's pull back a little bit, let's not just crush them because we want them back into the empire. >> rose: they wanted to maintain the union and -- >> politically, he was a wig. >> rose: not end up like the south did after the civil war. >> yes. that doesn't mean he wasn't a very tough and very professional soldier, he was, and very smart and very courageous. >> rose: the two howes were brothers? >> yes. >> rose: richard. and william. richard was an admiral and william was the general, and they were very highly-placed, very influential figures in london society, they were aristocrats, as all officers were, and any picture we have of bumbling aristocratic tool fooln

high command during our revolution are not so. there are many misconceptions. >> what about misconceptions of george iii. >> is seen as the crazy king who lost the colonies. >> rose: and in fact? a very courageous man, interesting man, i find him a great sympathetic character, a great collector of books, a wonderful painter, he was a musician, devoted father and husband. he was intelligent, samuel johnson thought he was charming company and samuel johnson did not judge people lightly. but he saw as his duty to crush this rebellion. his mother said, george, be king! and when your mother tells you to be king, you be king. and he was still fairly pretty young, and the madness of king george which we know about in the play and movie, that doesn't

come till 20 years later, long after the war. >> rose: let me say this, this is history at the ground level. this is history on the battlefield. >> yes. >> rose: this is diaries from soldiers. >> yes. rose: and you liked some ofed them. >> i like them. >> rose: hodgkin's. joseph hodg hodgkins. >> rose: tell me about hodgkins. >> hodgkins was a shoemaker, had children, a wife at home, sarah, to whom he wrote regularly no mary what was happening, and they're wonderful letters, and he talks about, if i'm told to march, i'll march, and he fights on. after escape from brooklyn in this terribly demoralized army,

hodgkins is writing to his wife and just received a letter their youngest child has died. he had known the little boy was sick and very worried about him. we forget sometimes these people are thinking about their families and loved ones. so they have been defeated, looks like they're over, they're exhausted, filthy dirty, no proper uniforms, he hears his child he adored died and yet he picks himself up and goes on and he will not stop. >> rose: because they believed in their leader, they believed in their mission, they believed in the holy idea that they were creating a nation. >> yes, i think so. now, joseph hodgkins and fitch never talk about the declaration of independence. it's interesting. i never found life, liberty and pursuit of happiness mentioned. >> rose: how about equality?

yes, i think our country, we're going to decide this for ourselves and make the kind of society and the kind of way of life here that we want. we're not going to be dictated to. >> rose: that's what always drives revolutions. >> yes, but they're not fighting because they're e exploited and suppressed and poor. americans had the highest standard of living, average americans, of any place in the world. >> rose: but they wanted to shape their own destiny. >> yes, exactly. >> rose: okay. and they were proud of who they were, and they wanted to show these brits that they could fight as well as anyone, given some experience. they're learning from experience. washington, green, knox, glover, they're all learning as they're going along. >> rose: that was one of the values washington had. he could learn from his experience. >> exactly. so when he's defeated, he doesn't say, oh, woe is me, pity

me, but what can i learn from this. experience had been his teacher all through life. his father died when he was quite young. he was on his own from about the age of age 16, as all these other people were, too. but the jabez fitch story is different because he's keeping a diary, and he kept a diary no matter what was happening, including after he was captured and taken prisoner and put in one of those vial british prison ships in the harbor here in new york, and i think he must have hid this. we showed a picture of a beautiful leather diary and all that -- they were writing on little scraps of paper and i think he was hide aing them in his shoe because that was against the rules, you weren't supposed to do that. >> rose: right. but the fact they wrote the letters and kept the diaries is part of the great contribution to their country because now we know what it was like. we can be in their shoes and skin and feel what they went

through, these very human beings. and also i think what comes across the how tough they were. these people were people who had been beat up by life, just by life in peacetime by our standards. we are sort of contained an in cotton compared to how life was then. >> rose: they did not now how it was going to turn out. >> right, and they also knew without courage, without an understanding that life isn't always a big gift of a bed of roses, you're not going to make it through life, because life was hard. any new englander, for example, knew that it's best to expect the worst. you know, life on a new england farm, and most all of these people are farmers, was a struggle. life was a battle. and, you know, many of these fellows had no shoes.

of course, in the wintertime, it was terrible. the sort of legendary stories of their leaving bloody footprints in the snow from marching in their bare feet, that's true, really happened. but you also have to understand that a farmer, particularly a young farm boy, as many of them were, went barefoot all summer long, from about may till probably october. they had tough feet. they with respect like our feet -- they weren't like our feet. and that's something we need to understand. they knew how to fix a broken wagon. they knew how to pull out a stump or dig a trench, they were used to hard work. >> rose: they knew how to survive outside. >> yes. >> rose: let me take you back to the battle. they retreat to new jersey. >> yes. >> rose: down to 3,000 or 2,500 men, ill-clothed, ill-fed.

>> cold. >> rose: cold. yeah. >> rose: it is now december. november, december. things are precarious. george washington, on christmas night, decides what? >> well, all hope was gone. he said himself, the game's pretty nearly up. well, sometimes when all hope's gone, the thing you do is attack. >> rose: freedom is having nothing else to lose. >> yeah. so he's wanted to attack all along, from boston on, he's constantly wanting to attack, and his counsels of war again and again and again are pulling him back from that wisely. had he launched an attack on the british in boston, it would have been a catastrophe. >> rose: for us. absolutely. but he decides christmas night, they're going to attacks cross the delaware and strike at

trenton, where there are 1,500 german mercenaries bivouacked for the winter at a certain outpost, while the major part of the british army, the enemy army, has pulled bark back, mosf them back here to new york. they cross in the night and march through the night. to give you some idea of how rough that was, the only fatalities, the only men we lost at the battle of trenton were two guys that froze to death on the march. >> rose: wow. just froze to death. and they hit early the next morning, and it was a route, because it was a total surprise and they came in determined to really win. when it was over, washington turned to one of his officers

and said, this is a glorious day for america, and it was. he knew what the psychological impact to have th to have -- ime victory was. >> rose: what did it do? gave people the idea we might win. >> rose: even though it took six, seven long years. >> absolutely. well, they didn't know that yet, that we could beat them. it was possible to fight them and beat them. now, it wasn't a big battle. it wasn't like the battle of long island. the battle of brooklyn, as it was called then. it was a small battle. it was a fierce fight, bloody, for the enemy, for the mercenaries, and they were not drunk from christmas celebrations the night before as many people have written and said. they weren't. washington then had to do something. the natural decision would have been to retreat back across the delaware where it was pretty

safe because the british didn't have any boats to get across. but he didn't do that. he turned and made a big loop around and came up and struck at princeton and won again. two victories, one right on top of the other. and that combination just changed the morale of everybody. you can read it in the letters of abigail adams and you can read it in letters of all kind of people, ministers and attorneys and people in all walks of life writing about what it meant to get the word that we had won at trenton. trial princeton was important and was a victory, trenton was far and away one of the most important events in the war and, consequently, one of the most important events in history. it would truly change the world, that little attack on trenton, which was a little village. >> rose: and he took 2,500 men

over. >> yes, and two other attacks were to be launched farther down the river -- >> rose: and in this case, washington was the field commander? >> he road with the troops, but he was not commanding them immediately. general green and general sullivan were in command of the two prongs that attacked, and our old friend the boston book seller, henry knox, was in charge of the artillery and the artillery really were decisive in that battle. >> rose: these two guys george washington chose early in '75 served him brilliantly? >> and served him through the entire war. the only general officers to stay the distance, to go the whole way with washington. only two. washington, knox and green are the only ones that fight through the whole war, of the general officers. >> they all would come in and serve or be killed -- >> yes, or leave. >> rose: hamilton came in at some point.

>> yes. >> rose: did he serve as an aide to washington? >> later. at this point he was a young artillery officer and fought in the battle of trenton and princeton and new york. >> rose: what did he think of washington? >> he idolized him. later on they would have their differences, patch it up and he would become washington's secretary of treasury. >> rose: there but for george washington, there is no america. >> that's my feeling. i think he's the greatest president we ever had. i think he's the greatest american of all because, if it weren't for him, as you just said, there would be, in my view, no united states of america, and he did it all right, particularly when he became president. he set the example, just as he was setting the example as the general, as the commander in chief, in the very dark days of

the revolution. i think we've got to understand how human they were because that would make their achievement more remarkable. gods can do anything. they weren't. they weren't super humans. they were extraordinary people and some truly brilliant and it is truly a miracle what they accomplished, but these were the people that were present at the creation. >> rose: the founding fathers. they were making a country, making a revolution first, then making a country against the most daunting odds imaginable. >> rose: where did the phrase "president of the creation" first come? because it was also the title of dean acheson's book. they're not just starting a broadway show. they're making a country, a nation. they don't know how it's going to come about. if they had taken a poll in the

13 colonies in 1776, they never would have gone ahead with it. only about a third of the people were for it. >> rose: odds were against them. >> it was not possible. >> rose: what marion of man and woman was in favor of it? >> well, to a large degree, they were new englanders and virginians. >> rose: some from south carolina. >> yes, definitely we have to include the carolinians. >> rose: yes, indeed. and maryland. but the central states, principally new york and pennsylvania were very much on the fence. they were led by a man named john dickinson -- >> rose: but i'm asking, what was the nature of the revolutionist, is my question? were they intellectuals? were they political fire brands? what? >> they were all that, intellectuals, fire brands, decent, hard-working people who had farms and -- >> rose: just were offended by

the way things were. >> they felt they were not being granted the rights -- their birthright as english subjects. in other words, they're not so much revolting to create a new and very different kind of society. they're saying wait a minute, you're taking away our rights as english subjects, free englishmen, a government of laws, not of men. and you're taxing us with -- and we have no choice in that, and you're taxing us to pay your own bills back home. why srould we pick up the tab for your expenditures there in end land when we have no part in that life, most of us have never seen england and it's probably time we started our own country. >> rose: no taxation without representation. >> yes. and when they say free and independent, the concept is they can't be free unless they're independent and they can't generate the moral fire, the morale, let's say, the spirit to

fight a war unless they're fighting for independent. >> rose: all right. so they have to do it in order to give spirit to the army, and they're not going to be able to get any help from abroad, namely france, if they don't declare their independence because france is not about to come in and give financial and military support to a country that's going to make up and go back and be part of england again. the french support of our american revolution, which was essential to our victory in the american reamerican revolution,s primarily a way for the french to get at the english. they weren't anxious for a government of the people, all people created equal. france was a monarchy, more so than even great britain was. so -- >> rose: it's amazing when you think about that. on the great decision of the war against france, john adams -- >> yes. >> rose: -- believes that the most important thing he did was to want peace with france and

not war. >> yes. most americans don't realize that we were fighting a war with france in the last years of the 18th century during the john adams administration as president. we were fighting an undeclared war at sea, but a real war, exchanging fire, capturing ships, all of the acts of war at sea. but the real war, the undeclared war of sea could have very well ignited into a real war with, as it happens, the new high dictator, if you will, the emperor, as he claimed himself, napoleon. but adams steered a very careful, dangerous, treacherous, even, course among the shoals and the whirlpools of diplomacy and managed to keep america neutral, not to side with either

england or france. the jeffersons wanted peace with france at any price. the hamiltonians were eager to go to war with france. i was high politics. probably would have guaranteed adams reelection had they gone to war with france. when he succeeded in keeping us from going to war with france after the humiliations of the so-called xyz affair, he felt he'd saved the country from a colossal blunder and he was right but at the expense of his own political fortunes and he knew that. >> rose: where did he place that in terms of his own historical legacy? >> he thought it was number one. >> rose: that's what i thought. >> i think he was proudest of that than anything he'd done. and it really does rank as an extremely brave, politically courageous act, a true propile in courage -- profile in

courage. many similarities in truman and adams. >> rose: what are the similarities? >> farmers sons, short in stature -- not charismatic or handsome -- both great readers of history. >> rose: both letter writers. both very direct. both letter writers, exactly. both very direct in their candor, and both underestimated and boast men of character and integrity and both viepts who followed looming -- both vice presidents who followed looming idolized presidents before them. having said all that, there were tremendous differences. >> rose: like? adams was brilliant. adams was an intellectual, a giant mind. truman was very intelligent but not that.

adams was learned, probably the most widely, deeply-read of american of his day, more so even than jefferson, a farmer's son who became that. >> rose: right. and adams did not like party politics. he thought party politics were vial. he thought that, as did washington, that the country would be destroyed by party politics, because people would begin to think more about the fortunes of their party than the united states of america. >> rose: one of the similarities is they both had a great sense of the country and what it meant and the mission. >> and they were true patriots who showed that by risking their lives, by going to war or by going to serve overseas as adams did in the midst of war, crossing the atlantic four times at great risk to his life, signing a declaration of independence that declared him as it did all the other

traitors. >> rose: was truman more a club guy and adams -- >> no, truman was not a loner at all. >> rose: a club guy. yes, active in the masons, a good party man. they were both devoted to their wives. >> rose: abigail and bess. yes, and they were both well advised by their wives backstage. >> rose: bess was a wise counsel. >> yes, i think she was. bess abhorred public life. she would freeze in front of a camera, became an old stone face. whereas abigail loved public life. abigail adored politics and, in many ways, abigail adams was a better political thinker than was her husband. she had a wonderful capacity to judge people. >> rose: i'm going to get to that book in a moment. suppose i had said to you, david, this is a really good idea, but it's going to take ten years of your life.

>> i would have said no. >> rose: you would have? oh, absolutely. i'm glad i didn't know because i never would have done it. >> rose: but you never thought about quitting? >> no, never, never. no, i've been very lucky in my subjects, charlie. the more you learn, the the more you want to learn, and every book -- i have never known a great deal about any subject that i've embarked upon to write about, ever. >> rose: so that was a voyage of discovery for you. >> yes, and if i knew about it, i wouldn't want to write the book. it's a journey, and you learn so much by doing this, and you learn a lot about yourself. >> rose: like what? well, this may sound strange, but i think writing history requires a tbreel -- a great deal of imagination. i don't know mean that you're making things up, but you have to be able to transport yourself into that other time and into the shoes of those other people, get inside their skins, if you will. and that takes imagination.

that takes empathy and sympathy. i don't mean sympathetic in the sense of feeling sorry for them, but sympathetic in that you understand what trouble they were in or how complicated the situation may have been and what they didn't know. we have to always remember, they don't know an awful lot because they're caught up in the moment just as we are and they don't know how things are going to turn out. but i also feel that, for me, it's been an opportunity for self-expression, because i can express things that i feel about human nature, about life, about the bonds of friendship, family, about loyalty, about brave riunder difficult -- about bravery under difficult circumstances, and about our country that i'm dying to express, that i want to express.

i can't understand how anyone who professes to love our country can have no interest in our history. >> rose: exactly. but let me go back to jefferson, too. what's interesting is everything adams was, jefferson wasn't. jefferson burned all the letters that he and his wife wrote or received. >> yes. jefferson lives in a different world from adams. he's been born and raised in a different world. his first memory was of being carried on a pillow by a slave. first thing he remembered in his life. he is, of course, our great voice, our great pen, of the revolution. >> rose: is that what they called him? >> and adams was the voice. and he speaks for the equality and the common man, and here he is living as far removed from

the daily rounds of life of the common man as one could get, served in every possible way by people held in bondage, by slaves. adams, who is of the common man, adams, who was a farmer's son, whose mother was almost certainly illiterate, who grew up knowing that life, particularly on a new england farm, is a struggle. he's saying, you have to watch out for the common man, i know, i'm one of them, and the majority, if they get too much power, can be as dangerous as an individual. so there is the i didn' ying anf the american revolution. >> rose: i've been fascinated by the idea of first adams, jefferson and franklin, of those free, is it automatic that jefferson loved paris more than the other two, or is it hard to tell? >> i don't think he did necessarily love paris more than the others. >> rose: jefferson.

jefferson. adams spoke french more than he did, read it more readily than he did. franklin, of course, took to the way of life immediately. >> rose: yes, he did. jefferson was there longer. he was there five years, and i think, in many ways, they were as happy as any years in his life because he was away from slavery. >> rose: right. although, wasn't hemings with him? >> yes, but they were free while they were there. >> rose: do you think he was so troubled by slavery that it made him happy to be away? >> yes, i think he knew it was wrong. >> rose: why didn't he give it up? >> that's a good question. we'll never know the answer. i have a feeling it had to do with finances. he was always in debt and his greatest wealth was in his slave which was true of many southern planters. >> rose: he died very poor, didn't he? >> broke. >> rose: but with fine wine in his cellular. >> yes, and never stopped

spending. >> yes, exactly. he must have been a smooth talker when he went to the bank because how he could get away with it. all his life. >> rose: yeah. he was never not in debt. but i think that jefferson wanted to bring something home from paris. he brought home paintings, he brought home some 80 crates of books, all kinds of things, to raise the cultural level of the country. and i think that was a genuine mission. i know it was a genuine anything, and that's exactly what these -- i know it was a genuine mission. that's exactly what these people felt. these americans weren't disenchanted with their country. they weren't the lost generation. >> rose: they went to learn something and bring something back. >> yes, they weren't alienated from america. again and again, they would talk, this will make me a better american. >> rose: jefferson or the people of the time. >> the people, in the time of 1800s. they're not going to bring home

80 crates of stuff but will bring home themselves as a better sculptor, painter, physician, politician. >> rose: excuse me because i've asked you about this before, the famous story that jefferson and adams died on the same day. >> yes. >> rose: who was it that reached out to whom? you told me it wasn't either -- i first heard that it was adams' wife, abigail, who was responsible. then i heard, no, that she actually -- >> , no benjamin rush from philadelphia, the physician, a signer of the declaration of independence. >> rose: felt like what? he felt those two should have a reconciliation. >> rose: before they died? before they died. adams agreed right away and wrote to jefferson. >> rose: adams wrote to jefferson. >> yes. >> rose: abigail had nothing to do with it? >> nothing to do with it. in fact, abigail was angry with jefferson. >> rose: that's what someone said, abigail didn't like

jefferson and was angry. >> she felt he had betrayed her husband because he was the one who put the reporter after adams during the campaign, when they were running against each other. >> rose: on jefferson's orders? >> yeah. snowso what does that tell you? >> the irony is he was the same one who turned around and revealed the sally hemings relationship on jefferson because jefferson he felt hadn't rewarded him sufficiently for the job he'd done attacking adams during the campaign. but they were really true friends. they were as different as night and day, and they died on the same day, and they didn't die just on any day, they died on the fourth of july, their day. and adams truly did say, jefferson survives. >> rose: survives.

survives. >> rose: and jefferson was dead. >> and jefferson had died that morning. >> rose: wow. july 4th. >> yes. i had the opportunity to write about some of the most spectacular human beings. i'm interested in the people. an entirely virtuous person is not very interesting. >> rose: right. an entirely perfect score -- >> rose: goodie two-shoes. ight, no. >> rose: you want flaws and warts. >> i think writing history requires a great deal of imagination. i don't moan that you're making things up, but you have to be able to transport yourself into that other time, and into the shoes of those other people, get inside their skins, if you will, and that takes imagination, that takes empathy and sympathy. i don't mean sympathetic in the sense of feeling sorry for them, but sympathetic in that you understand what trouble they were in or how complicated the

situation may have been, and what they didn't though. >> rose: which of these stories, which of these characters, which of these books means the most to you? >> can't answer it. it's like answering which of your children. i can say this -- and no question about it -- of all the years -- 40 years i have been at work, the happiest, most fulfilling years -- and i've loved every subject that i have undertaken, i have been very lucky in my subjects, but the years i enjoyed most were the years writing the john adams book because of that material. it was such a privilege to keep company with those people. they set such a high standard for us. >> rose: you believe that, if your subjects live to an older age, they lose some of their inhibition, they have a different perspective on things,

they are freer. >> yes. >> rose: to talk with more -- i feel that way. maybe you know, somebody said courage is having done it before. >> rose: yeah. and i feel now that i see a lot more clearly than i did before. to write well is to think clearly, and that's why it's so hard. but it's also why it's so enjoyable. writing is hard work, but i never equated ease with happiness. i'm often happier when i'm working than i am doing anything else. i'm on vacation every day. >> rose: that's because you found something you love. >> i love it. and i want you to know what i love. >> rose: yeah americas -- yeah, me, too. >> i do. >> rose: and i want you to know much more about our

country, and i want people to understand that we, too, are being judged by history. history isn't just something that happened before we came on the scene. we are part of history. how are we going to measure up? how will our political discourse, our participation as citizens, how will we look when they take a look at us 50 or 100 years from now? >> rose: you have been part of our history, and i thank you for sharing with me. >> thank you very much, charlie, as always. >> rose: for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com.

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