Kristen Blackstone
speaker
65 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 23 Jun
Kristen Blackstone’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 Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
He has a few really important qualities.
The first is that he does have some military experience in an era where not a lot of men in the colonies have military experience.
He is also from Virginia, which is incredibly important.
Up until 1775, and even actually for the duration of 1775, the revolution is focused largely in and around Boston.
And it was very clear to politicians at the time that if there was to be some sort of revolution, if there was to be certainly a sustained protest or rebellion against the British, if they wanted to effect real and lasting change, it needed to be an effort that all of the colonies were behind.
And so George Washington, being from Virginia, added that Southern element to the conflict that it desperately needed.
Civilians at the time write about being very impressed by George Washington.
Abigail Adams in particular writes in 1775, 1776 to her husband, John Adams, just how impressed she was.
And I don't think Abigail Adams was a woman who was particularly easily impressed.
So at the time, there are certainly a huge number of people who are kind of in awe of his presence.
The first thing he does in 1775 is order a horde of military textbooks after he becomes commander-in-chief because he understands he lacks knowledge.
And I think it's something he does frequently throughout the war is he learns from what goes right and what goes wrong and adjusts his strategy throughout.
We severely underestimate the brutality of the American Revolution.
One of the reasons is because 18th century warfare looks very different to warfare that we are accustomed to today, right?
So it is often compared to things like the U.S.
Civil War,
which has much newer technology that is much more deadly, where battles look slightly different.
They're not quite the straight line marching armies towards one another.
They are much more chaotic.
And so when you compare the American Revolution to something like that, 18th century battles seem significantly less violent.
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