This is CBS Islander World, I'm John Boucher with Professor Joseph Ellis.

The cause is the book, the American Revolution and its discontent, 1773 to 1783.

It is now 83, December of 83, Washington departs from France's tavern and then from the

Congress in Maryland, Washington's off the stage, so looking around at the remains of

the day, let us begin in London.

Several generals are looking at each other, who to blame, Gage and Boston, how at the

Battle of Long Island, Bergoin who was not reinforced at Saratoga, Clinton, who

paid his orders and stayed in Philadelphia and New York, Cornwallis, who was trapped

at Yorktown.

Who do we blame, Professor?

Was there one man more than any other?

Well, when you lose the war, and this is something that I think we can see in American

history, quite frequently, the first instinct is to search for scapegoats.

And scapegoats are effective because if you identify a single person or person, you

don't have to rethink the fundamental issues that got you into the war in the first place.

In this case, they try to blame the generals if you wanted to find somebody who is really

more than a scapegoat, you'd have to point to George III.

But you can't accuse George III within British politics, because that is to accuse the British

empire itself.

And that's avoided.

So they don't go after Cornwallis, but they go after all the other generals, and they

go after Germain, who was probably bisexual, and they begin to notice that in the papers.

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