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The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army with Paul D. Lockhart

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Manage episode 522302831 series 2792952
Content provided by Robert Allison. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Robert Allison or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Paul D. Lockhart to discuss Lockhart’s acclaimed book The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Together they explore the remarkable life and career of Baron de Steuben, the Prussian-born officer whose training, discipline, and organizational genius helped transform Washington’s ragged Continental Army into a professional fighting force.

Lockhart places Steuben in a broader European military and intellectual context, untangling the myths about his noble status and supposed “magnificent fraud,” and showing instead a serious soldier of the Enlightenment—well-read, imaginative, and deeply committed to his adopted country. The conversation ranges from Valley Forge and the famous “Blue Book” drill manual to Steuben’s volatile temper, gift for friendship, chronic money troubles, complicated relationships with Washington, Congress, Lafayette, and Jefferson, and his lonely final years in upstate New York. Along the way, Allison and Lockhart reveal how Steuben’s real legacy lies not just in drill on the parade ground, but in the systems, standards, and expectations that helped shape the American army for generations to come.

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

  continue reading

276 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 522302831 series 2792952
Content provided by Robert Allison. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Robert Allison or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Paul D. Lockhart to discuss Lockhart’s acclaimed book The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Together they explore the remarkable life and career of Baron de Steuben, the Prussian-born officer whose training, discipline, and organizational genius helped transform Washington’s ragged Continental Army into a professional fighting force.

Lockhart places Steuben in a broader European military and intellectual context, untangling the myths about his noble status and supposed “magnificent fraud,” and showing instead a serious soldier of the Enlightenment—well-read, imaginative, and deeply committed to his adopted country. The conversation ranges from Valley Forge and the famous “Blue Book” drill manual to Steuben’s volatile temper, gift for friendship, chronic money troubles, complicated relationships with Washington, Congress, Lafayette, and Jefferson, and his lonely final years in upstate New York. Along the way, Allison and Lockhart reveal how Steuben’s real legacy lies not just in drill on the parade ground, but in the systems, standards, and expectations that helped shape the American army for generations to come.

Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

  continue reading

276 episodes

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