You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello and thank you for joining this special edition of the American Revolution.

This week I'm joined by Norman Pozer, who is the author of a new book called From the Battlefield to the Stage,

The Many Lives of General John Burgoyne.

Mr. Pozer is a professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School.

I had the opportunity to speak with him via Zoom about his new book on General John Burgoy.

Mr Pozer, welcome to the American Revolution podcast.

Well, thank you for inviting me.

So John Berghoyne, the British General from the American Revolution, what true your interest to him in the first place?

I was working on a book, researching a book

at the Morgan Library in New York

on theater in London in the 18th century. I came across a letter which really surprised me.

I just read you the first sentence, two sentences of it.

This is what Berghoy wrote to the theater manager and actor David Garrick.

Berghoy had written a play.

What he was writing about was the production of the play and the terms that they would have together.

And he wrote this.

He says, for some days past, I frequently smiled in thinking upon your situation and mine.

This is Bergoing writing to Garrick.

It is something like that of two lovers who flutter at the thoughts of an interview where a proposal is to be made.

They feel awkward and hesitate and procrastinate and always resolve to explain the next time they are alone.

Well, that letter, first of all, I thought maybe

it was somebody called Burgoyne, not the general who surrendered his army at Saratoga, but it was the same person.

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