I'm John Batsowith, Professor Benjamin Carp.

Brooklyn College, CUNY Graduate Center, but most importantly, the author of the new book,

The Great Fire of 1776.

The burning of New York between September 20th and September 21st, 1776, Washington

has now retreated to the north of the city.

There will be battles fought over these next weeks.

Washington loses every battle and he wins the war.

That's a story we tell ourselves 250 years later.

It does, however, do a deal to explain what is now about to begin, which we call here

in the 21st century Information War.

This is the wonderful part of your book, Professor.

Without our understanding of Information War, we might have ended with the unresolved

aspect of the fire who died, who was hanged, and that's all very sad and tragic.

But the Information War seems to have been a focus of major names right away.

George Washington knows that he can be accused of this, but most importantly to me,

Robert Morris and Benjamin Franklin.

What were they in the information war that followed?

Yeah, they are members of a congressional committee called the Committee of Secret

Correspondence.

One of their major duties was that they were in touch with their emissaries in France,

trying to secure aid of various kinds from potential allies in Europe.

So they write an important letter to their emissary, Silasdeen, updating them on a variety

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