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Dedication
To the man in Preston, Idaho, who stood and asked me when I would start “writing history as stories to make them more interesting”;
To the congressman who stopped himself in the middle of telling me that the history elitists wouldn’t like it if I make history entertaining;
And to my son, Raphe, who has curled up next to me to read great American stories, giving me memories I will never forget.
Contents
Author’s Note
1. Jack Jouett: The Ride That Saved America
2. Shays’ Rebellion: A Loud and Solemn Lesson
3. The Virginia Convention: Compromising for the Constitution
4. The Barbary War: A Steep Price for Peace
5. Edison vs. Westinghouse: An Epic Struggle for Power
6. The Battle of Wounded Knee: Medals of Dishonor
7. Easy Eddie & the Hard Road to Redemption
8. The Saboteurs: In a Time of War, the Laws Are Silent
9. Who Is Tokyo Rose?
10. The Battle of Athens: Repeated Petitions, Repeated Injuries
11. The My Lai Massacre: A Light in the Darkness
12. The Missing 9/11 Terrorist: The Power of Everyday Heroes
About the Writing of This Book
Our Fading History
About Glenn Beck
Author’s Note
There are many great history books (and many more that are not so great) that cover American history. Some focus on just one story, one event, one decade, or one era. Others take a broader view and try to cover it all, from Christopher Columbus to President Obama.
As I began looking through some of these books, two things struck me: First, most of them are about as exciting as an Al Gore speech; and second, none of them leave readers understanding just how complex and nuanced our history really is. My goal in writing this book was to solve both of those problems.
I’m a huge history nerd, but I don’t study the past so that I can memorize dates or names to pass a test; I do it because I love the stories. Ultimately, that’s what history really is: an ongoing story that is far more exciting than anything a Hollywood screenwriter could ever come up with. I tried to embrace that in this book by writing history in a way that feels like you’re reading a thriller novel rather than a history book. By immersing you in the action I believe you’ll come to see people and events in a much more vivid and real way than you ever have before. (When you’re finished, I urge you to read the section “About the Writing of This Book” so you can get a better sense for the writing and research process involved.)
The next challenge with this project was how to choose the right stories. As I searched (and reviewed the thousands of submissions that came in from fans), I adhered to a few guiding principles. I wanted to find stories that:
1. Were lesser known, or that could be told in a brand-new way;
2. Had a clear message or lesson that was relevant to today;
3. Acknowledged that our history is not all heroes—there were plenty of villains as well.
It’s that last point that I want to dwell on for a moment, because I think this is where so many other books go wrong. America is not a bad or evil country—we truly are an exceptional nation with a miraculous past. In less than 250 years we went from being subjects of a king to being the greatest, most compassionate superpower the world has ever known.
Along the way, however, we’ve made plenty of mistakes. Ignoring them, or worse, covering them up, is not only ignorant, it’s dangerous. A country that does not learn from its history is doomed to repeat it.
That’s why stories like the Battle of Wounded Knee, the My Lai massacre, and Tokyo Rose are in this book. They are stories about times when America was not at her best. By studying them, talking about them, and, ultimately, learning from them, it’s my hope that we will never make the same mistakes again.
Of course, our history is full of great accomplishments as well—people and events that have influenced and inspired us and changed America forever. The rest of the stories were chosen to remind us where we’ve come from and the lessons we’ve learned along the way. The first Barbary War, for example, gave America a glimpse at the ruthlessness and brutality of Muslim jihadists. The ensuing wars shaped our future foreign policy by teaching us that you don’t negotiate with terrorists and that lasting peace can come only through strength. The Battle of Athens, Tennessee, reminds us about the importance of standing up for our rights and the rule of law—especially when it’s those we’ve entrusted with power who are at fault.
Then there are the stories that exemplify the American spirit: the courage and selflessness of Jack Jouett; the heroism of Hugh Thompson and Jose Melendez-Perez; and the redemption sought by Al Capone’s lawyer, “Easy” Eddie. Taken as a whole, the twelve stories in this book represent the full American experience: the miracles, the massacres, and all of the gray area in between.
After this book was finished, I finally sat back and had a chance to read all the stories together. It was only then that I realized that all of them can be put into one of three categories: The good guys win; the good guys win, but it takes a while; or the good guys lose because people put their trust into politicians instead of each other.
I hope that the stories in that final category—the German Saboteurs and the Battle of Wounded Knee, for example—remind people why we should rely on ourselves, our neighbors, and our God, but never on our government.
Laos Deo,
1
Jack Jouett:
The Ride That Saved America
Albemarle County, Virginia
June 3, 1781
10:15 P.M.
A thin dogwood branch slashed across the rider’s face like a leather whip. But the sting was no worse than any of the dozen that came before. A quarter mile earlier, a limb had cut him so deeply that blood flowed from a gash high on his cheek to the corner of his mouth.
Captain John “Jack” Jouett rode on.
With forty miles to go, the muscular twenty-six-year-old sliced through the night and gave thanks for the full moon. It could not protect his face or clothes, but it might safely deliver him and his bay mare Sallie to the green lawns of Thomas Jefferson’s beloved and now-endangered Monticello estate.
It was possible, Jouett knew, that the future of the revolution might very well depend on how fast he got there.
The Cuckoo Tavern
Louisa, Virginia
One Hour Earlier
Jack Jouett had decided to live dangerously.
The British army was on the march in Virginia—even that damnable traitor Benedict Arnold had been assigned there—and Jouett had been lucky enough to capture one of Arnold’s men. He might have been content to simply turn the man over to army jailers, but a daring idea had seized him. Jouett’s captive was an unusually big man, roughly his own size. “Off with your clothes!” Jouett ordered him.
The prisoner’s brilliant red coat festooned with equally grand gold braid fit him as though it had been tailored just for his six-foot-four-inch frame. The grand plumed hat only added to the picture. Now dressed as his enemy, Jack Jouett mounted his steed Sallie—said to be the best bred and fleetest of foot in seven counties—and hurried off to see if he might find more of the enemy. The British were up to no good, and Jouett wanted to know exactly what that might be.
Not long after
riding off in his new attire, Jouett quickly stumbled across the British in the form of a fearsome detachment of Green Dragoons near the local tavern. He rode up cautiously, worried that someone might willingly or accidentally reveal his true identity. Jack Jouett was playing a very dangerous game.
A stranger wiped sweat from his unshaven face with his soiled coat sleeve as he passed Jouett outside the tavern doors. “Captain, do something about this dreadful June air, would you?” The man laughed over his shoulder and slyly shouted, “What’s a soldier of the king for if not to fight for better weather?”
Jouett wasn’t sure if he had been recognized but he certainly wasn’t about to ask. In any case, he remained outdoors, enjoying what passed for a breeze. Sallie whinnied from her hitching post. “I know, Sallie. I know.”
Jouett pretended to be absorbed in his own thoughts while he tended to his steed, but as more tavern patrons came and went, he eavesdropped on their conversations. Today, with British cavalry loitering just outside the Cuckoo, the locals were more guarded than usual. Jouett listened in to their still-energetic discussions, which became more energetic and less guarded with each draft of hard cider or flagon of rum. They soon veered toward politics. “The stubborn boys in Maryland came around,” a patron shouted atop the noise. “Did you hear they finally signed the Articles?”
“I suppose every man—and colony!—has their price,” belted another.
A feisty argument erupted over Maryland and Virginia’s simmering land-rights feud and Maryland’s long-delayed ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The Second Continental Congress had become the Confederation Congress three months earlier, but most people still didn’t know quite what to call their fledgling government.
The discussion turned to Thomas Jefferson and the impending end of his tenure as Virginia’s governor. “He’s in mourning!” one patron loudly guffawed. Another pointed out that, for several days, there might be no governor. “Appoint me!” slurred a man hunched over the bar, his gnarled fist firmly hugging his precious pewter mug.
But none of this, of course, was Jack Jouett’s real interest. He was there to hear what foes, not friends, might reveal. So far, he had heard nothing to justify risking the noose. Perhaps, he thought, it was time to call a halt to this perilous adventure and just ride away.
Suddenly, Sallie again called out and skittishly pulled her rope taut. Jouett moved to provide her with more water. As he bent down something caught his ear. He wasn’t sure, but . . .
Right before him was the infamous Colonel Banastre Tarleton, commander of the Dragoons—one of the most hated of all the new nation’s foes. Sallie had always been a good judge of bad character.
Jouett had difficulty making out exactly what Tarleton said. Fearing to advance any closer toward the colonel, he strained to catch whatever information he could. The words were soft and the background noise made it difficult to hear clearly, but Jouett was able to understand two words clearly: Monticello and Charlottesville.
That was all he needed to know.
Near Cuckoo Tavern
10:30 P.M.
Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s uniform clung to his chest like a wet wool blanket. Like most British soldiers fighting the war, Tarleton believed the only thing worse than the insects and thick Virginia humidity was the morale of both America’s people and Washington’s army. The would-be nation’s independence hung by a thread in the early summer days of 1781 and Tarleton lusted to sever it with his saber.
General George Washington knew that the soldiers’ grievances against their officers and the Continental Congress over supply shortages and pay were legitimate. He’d experienced deplorable conditions and supply problems himself during a brutal winter in Valley Forge just three years earlier. He knew what shoeless, bleeding, frozen feet and empty stomachs did to a patriot’s mind.
Tarleton and his fellow British commanders were well aware of the festering discontent that racked the Continental camp. It was their job to stir the pot and hope that discontent would boil over into chaos—and, so far, that job was going very well. The most important year of the war had begun with the New Year’s Day mutiny in the ranks of the Pennsylvania Continentals.
It was no secret that many of the Pennsylvanians had been unpaid since receiving the twenty-dollar bounty bestowed for their three-year enlistments. Tired and angry, with their families facing destitution back home without them, they were ready to walk away from the front lines and return to their loved ones. Meanwhile, other colonies were enticing men with much larger sums, as high as one thousand dollars in neighboring New Jersey. General Washington and his officers did their best to prevent defections to the British, but Tarleton and his allies schemed at every turn to lure them away with fortune and impressive military appointments. With this strategy, they hoped to break the American spirit and finally deliver victory for the king and Parliament.
Washington, however, was intelligent enough to know that additional pay alone wouldn’t solve the problem. What good was another twenty dollars when you had no musket balls or powder and wore the same ragged, lice-infested uniforms for weeks on end? Washington recognized what the British already knew and were capitalizing on: his men couldn’t fight both the Royal Army and such insufferable conditions for much longer.
Alerted to the mutiny among the Pennsylvania Line, Washington stood with his men and demanded that additional resources be provided. After negotiations—and despite the British using the uprising to further hunt for Loyalists among the disenchanted American soldiers—the episode ended peacefully and the vast majority of soldiers were back in the fight within weeks.
Tarleton was impressed by such loyalty, even to a cause he considered disloyal. But, to his great delight, a mutiny in the New Jersey Line just a few weeks later ended quite differently.
Washington had quickly realized that the Pennsylvania Line’s mutiny would only inspire other disgruntled troops to demand similar concessions. He needed to send an important, possibly war-saving message to the whole army: mutinies would not be tolerated. He quickly stamped out New Jersey’s insurgency and court-martialed its ringleaders. Two were executed. All twelve members of the firing squad had also participated in the mutiny. George Washington, when he had to, could play very rough indeed.
Though he liked little about Americans in general, Tarleton secretly admired Washington’s aggressive tactics to quell the insurrection. If given the chance, Tarleton would have done the same thing with his own men—though he would have liked to carry out the executions himself. Unlike some of his colleagues, he liked to get his hands dirty.
• • •
Attired in a bright white coat and high black boots polished to a shine as bright as the Virginia sun, Colonel Tarleton now watched two men stumble out of Cuckoo Tavern and exchange whiskey-weakened blows. “Such unlicked cubs,” he muttered to himself.
Then, without a word, he pointed with his saber west up the road and his two hundred Dragoons fell in line behind him.
Backwoods Trails to Monticello
11:45 P.M.
Snap!
Another branch punished Jouett’s forehead, but the rider knew his wounds and shredded clothing would have to wait. Plus, with Tarleton and his Green Dragoons headed west on the only main road to Monticello, Jouett knew that the mountain trails and back roads overgrown with dense thickets were his only hope for beating the British to Thomas Jefferson’s front door.
Sallie stumbled to her side and Jouett hung on tight to keep his massive frame upright. His mind wandered, to images of Jefferson and members of the Virginia legislature gathered in the safety of the governor’s famous retreat on the outskirts of Charlottesville. The great patriot Patrick Henry was there. So were Benjamin Harrison, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Nelson—each of them signers of the Declaration of Independence. They’d all fled Richmond and the red-hot pursuit of British general Charles Cornwallis as the war had moved south.
Even the most intoxicated patron at Cuckoo Tavern that
night would have understood that the men atop the mountain at Monticello were in great danger. Relatively peaceful conditions in Virginia had sent the majority of its best fighting men northward. The local militia, though spirited and anxious to break free from British tyranny, were too few and without enough resources to battle the brutal Tarleton.
We have Jefferson!
Jouett’s imagination heard the words burn across the hills and directly to the ears of General Cornwallis. He knew it wouldn’t be long before news of Jefferson’s capture—or, he shivered at the thought, death—would sail across the seas to the king. It would be shorter still until word spread among the colonies that the British had taken the author of their Declaration of Independence. What then? Morale and optimism were already in short supply. The capture of patriots like Jefferson, Henry, and Lee might just be more than the fragile army could handle.
More voices found audience in Jouett’s mind:
We have them all!
Virginia is ours!
One signer, two signers, three signers, four! Hanging from the gallows, traitors no more!
Jouett knew the lives of important men weren’t the only jewels at stake if Tarleton’s infamous butchers successfully took Charlottesville and Monticello. Both the city and the mansion that overlooked it held gold, silver, and something even more valuable: information. The patriots gathered at Jefferson’s estate would surely be discussing war plans and coordination with their top Virginia spies. If Tarleton and his Dragoons succeeded they could ride off with men, maps, and even letters. Perhaps, Jouett allowed himself to wonder, sensitive correspondence to General Washington himself.
He drove his heels into Sallie’s sides and urged her to gallop even faster.
Plantation Near the Louisa County Courthouse
June 4, 1781
12:15 A.M.
“The men and horses need a pause.” One of Tarleton’s lieutenants had approached him to deliver the news.