We think of the revolution ending in Yorktown, Va. The fact of the matter is that the French defeated the British in a naval battle right in the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Because the British fleet was coming to rescue Cornwallis, the British general, Washington was able to surround Cornwallis.

To my mind, an adventure is something a person willingly undertakes.

One of the questions I face when working on a book about a historical event is whether I should visit the actual place that I'm writing about. No matter how scrupulously maintained a historic house or battlefield may be, it is nothing like it was in the long-ago past.

Unfortunately, we have a tendency to see figures from the past as caricatures - either all good or all bad - when the truth is always much more complex.

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.

The old interests of aristocracy - the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war - faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilization.

The goal is to deter war, and this can only be done with a strong, modern, and ready military that has overmatch in all domains.

The government I led gave ordinary people peace, security, dignity, and opportunity to progress.