I'm John Betzer with Ed Larson.

His new book is declaring independence why 1776 matters.

What Ed is done for us is put together an intellectual pursuit, the idea of

independency from the royal court in London and the king, into the idea of a republic

that has for a king the people. This required not only intellectual combat, but actual

combat. So after the evacuation of Boston by the British Army and the Royal Navy,

the next thinking is that the British are going to come back, and the logical place for

them to come back is to take New York, the centerpiece of the whole of the 12 colonies at this time.

There wasn't the 13th yet.

And Washington sees this, and yet at this time, Washington is also going through this transformation

of, I'm a, I'm a member of a colony with grievances for the king to repair into thinking

of himself as a commander of an independent army. He sees New York. Does he believe his burden is to hold New York

because there is that other style that he could have adopted, which is to just not give battle

and continue to retreat into the land? And he made his choice at that point. Great question. Great point.

George Washington had never commanded a major army, but yet, when he was put up assigned to be commander-in-chief and placed up in Boston, there was a 16,000 person army.

The militias, the combined militias of the New England colonies, he was put in

commanded this really, for then, huge army. And then his task was to drive the, the only place

the British really held was Boston, drive them out. So, as we saw it, we see this evolution. And first, when the king had declared,

and the speech from the throne reached the colonies in January, that they were no longer under

his protection, and he was going to destroy him with the largest army and navy that Britain

has ever assembled for foreign use.

32,000 soldiers drawn from all over the colony. Plus, they're bombarding Norfolk. Plus, the

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