Improvising a Nation with Rick Atkinson

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“Democracy is something that people must always be doing.”

With that line, three-time Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Rick Atkinson framed a March 3 conversation at Duke about the American Revolution, leadership and the enduring responsibilities of citizenship.

Atkinson, this year’s Egan Professor for American Grand Strategy, joined Distinguished Lecturing Fellow John Hillen for a fireside chat in Reynolds Industries Theater hosted by the American Grand Strategy program. The discussion centered on The Fate of the Day, the second volume of Atkinson’s Revolutionary War trilogy, and expanded into a broader reflection on resilience, improvisation and America’s role in the world. This talk was also part of the Provost's Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry and Belonging. 

A fragile revolution

Atkinson has written about nearly every major American conflict. When he turned to the Revolution, he argued that the subject still offers inexhaustible terrain.

“The great events, like the great personages in history, particularly American history, are bottomless,” he told the audience.

The Revolution unfolded through improvisation. Thirteen colonies tried to function as a nation without a constitutional framework. Congress created committees to manage everything from diplomacy to munitions. The Continental Army formed in 1775 as a largely New England force and struggled with supply shortages, disease and desertion.

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In the winter of 1777–78, thousands of soldiers died from “disease, malnutrition, neglect.” Desertion became so pervasive, Atkinson said, that Washington feared he would need “to send out one half of the army to bring back the other half.”

The war swung between hope and near collapse. A French alliance after Saratoga revived morale. The training at Valley Forge strengthened the army. Then came devastating defeats in Savannah and Charleston. In 1780, 5,000 American troops surrendered in Charleston, a low point that left the British poised to push north.

“You’re seeing this kind of sine wave of emotion throughout the war,” Atkinson said.

For him, that volatility carries a lesson that extends far beyond the eighteenth century. “War never goes where you think it’s going to go. Like never.” Leaders who fail to plan for contingency do so at their peril.

The indispensable man

Hillen pressed Atkinson on leadership, focusing on George Washington. After more than a decade immersed in Washington’s papers, Atkinson offered a nuanced portrait.

“He is the indispensable man,” he said.

Washington arrived in Cambridge in 1775 with limited experience commanding a large army. He made serious tactical mistakes at Long Island and Brandywine. He did not initially grasp the depth of sacrifice made by the men who left their homes to fight.

Still, Atkinson described him as “organized for executive action,” “willing to make decisions,” and “willing to take responsibility.” Washington learned quickly. He recognized that the Royal Navy gave Britain a decisive advantage and adjusted his strategy accordingly.

“He recognizes that if the army is destroyed, the cause is destroyed,” Atkinson said.

Rather than gamble everything on decisive engagements, Washington preserved the army. He adopted what Atkinson described as a strategic defense. He chose his moments carefully, as at Monmouth. He made one of the most consequential decisions in American military history.

“He makes the decision to have the army inoculated against smallpox,” Atkinson said, calling it essential to ensuring that disease would not destroy the force.

Atkinson also addressed Washington’s moral contradictions. During his lifetime, Washington enslaved hundreds of people.

“We cannot square that circle,” Atkinson said.

Yet he argued that confronting that reality should not obscure Washington’s central role in sustaining a fragile enterprise. Washington endured. He adapted. He built a team of capable subordinates and held together a coalition that might easily have fractured.

Violence and civil war

The Revolution, Atkinson emphasized, was violent and deeply personal. It functioned as the nation’s first civil war. Roughly 20 percent of white colonists remained loyal to the Crown, a significant minority that fought against their neighbors.

“It was our first civil war,” he said. “It was as nasty as every civil war.”

In the South, the conflict devolved into brutal local fighting. Atkinson described the war in parts of the Carolinas as “really pretty nasty,” marked by reprisals and atrocities.

At the same time, he urged the audience to look beyond myth and hagiography. The Revolution exposed traits that still define the country.

“It reminds us that this country is born from violence,” he said. It also reveals “tenacity, inventiveness, idealism.”

“We’re all drawn from the same clay,” he added.

The founding generation faced a fundamental question: what were they willing to die for? That question, Atkinson suggested, never disappears. Each generation confronts its own version.

Allies and global power

The conversation also turned to alliances and America’s emergence as a global power. The Revolution succeeded, Atkinson argued, in large part because American leaders recognized the need for foreign support.

“Recognizing that they need allies comes early on,” he said.

Benjamin Franklin’s diplomacy in France secured money, arms and eventually a formal alliance. After Saratoga, France committed naval and military forces, transforming the conflict into a global war that strained British resources.

That awareness of international dynamics carried forward into later conflicts. Atkinson noted that the United States, as a global power, has used military force frequently. He did not offer easy reassurance.

“The more I study, the less I like it,” he said of war.

He returned repeatedly to the human cost. “The bottom line is part of the human life,” he said, reflecting on the deaths of service members in modern conflicts. For Atkinson, the responsibility rests with citizens as much as leaders.

An aspirational promise

During the Q&A, a high school teacher asked how to reach students who question the Revolution’s relevance. Atkinson encouraged educators to ground the story in real, flawed human beings rather than marble statues.

He also pointed to the Declaration of Independence.

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” he said. “That is a brilliant aspirational convocation.”

At the founding, that promise excluded enslaved people, women and Native Americans. The gap between rhetoric and reality was vast. Yet Atkinson described the Declaration as “the propulsion system that has taken us from those days.”

“We’ve come a long way,” he said.

He acknowledged civil war, Jim Crow and other dark chapters. Even so, he argued that the broader trajectory has moved forward.

“The arc of justice is generally bending in the right direction,” he said.

Throughout the evening, Atkinson returned to a central theme: nations, like revolutions, evolve through improvisation. The American Revolution did not unfold according to plan. It survived because leaders adapted, citizens endured and opportunities were seized at critical moments. That story continues to shape the country Americans inhabit today.