Dr. Scott Stephenson
speaker
278 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 15 Jul
Dr. Scott Stephenson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
It is great to be here.
Washington was so notoriously self-controlled, so aware of his public persona during his adult life that even in the period, a lot of people felt that he was a little unknowable.
When I was a child, I was born in Western Pennsylvania, grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and 50 years ago was the American bicentennial, so people were talking about George Washington a lot.
But actually, if you live in Western Pennsylvania, the George Washington who sort of inhabits the neighborhood there is actually a very unfamiliar George Washington because he's in his 20s, and he's fighting not against the British but on behalf of the British Empire.
And I think that's one of the surprising things for many people is learning, like, the young George Washington aspires probably to nothing more passionately than to actually wear a red coat and become a British officer.
Really, in his late teens, early 20s, he, like most British colonial Americans, looked to Britain as the homeland.
They considered themselves the most loyal of Britons.
Their heroes were British military heroes.
Washington would eventually inherit the home Mount Vernon that originally was owned by his elder half-brother Lawrence, who had actually been a British officer.
It had a commission in a British regiment when George Washington was a boy and had named his home Mount Vernon.
after Admiral Vernon, who was the British admiral aboard whose fleet he served in the expedition in the Caribbean.
So I think one of the surprising things about George Washington is just understanding that the young George Washington, he's looking forward and imagining what the future would be like
Nothing like what happened would have been anywhere in his consciousness.
He was dedicated during those early decades of his life to the greater glory of the British Empire, its expansion across the North American continent, and hopefully actually securing a commission signed by King George.
And all of that went a very different direction.
So Washington actually never secured a British commission.
He becomes colonel of the 1st Virginia Regiment.
So he has a commission that is actually derived from the powers of the governor of Virginia.
He goes and actually petitions twice during the French and Indian War to British commanders and chiefs and sort of presents his case and says, you know, the Virginia regiment, I've raised these men, I've trained them.
And they actually received a lot of praise.
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