There is a maxim in storytelling:
It is a maxim of storytelling:
The Higher the Stakes, The Better the Story
Some perspective on the high stakes in our story:
In 1999, as the millennium drew to a close, the New York Times Magazine published a book titled The Best Ideas, Stories and Inventions of the Last Thousand Years.
For the most important battle of the millennium, the Times selected The Battles of Saratoga. It was a clash in the wilderness of upstate New York in 1777 between the upstart American Army and the greatest fighting force in the world, the British Army. The Americans earned a decisive victory and breathed new life into its struggle for independence.
The Times concluded:
“The consequences were undeniable: France entered the war on the American side. When Washington and his ragtag army, wintering in Valley Forge, Pa., received news of the alliance in the spring of 1778, their spirits were lifted; the road was open to ultimate victory in October 1781.
“The millennium would see other great battles, like Gettysburg and the Marne and D-Day. But in the last 1,000 years, I think, only the defeat of the Turks by Jan Sobieski near Vienna in 1683 rivaled Saratoga. It turned back the tide of Islam. Saratoga did more. It launched two centuries of revolution elsewhere. It marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire. And it breathed life into the United States of America.”
It is within this larger epic, eight year struggle for American independence that the story of Aegis for Dreams is told.
It is a story of the complicated relationship between two men operating at the tip of the American spear, one a revered General and the other is a brilliant but frustrated aide de camp. America’s War for Independence is a vivid backdrop, with these two men fighting elbow-to-elbow during some of the most critical events of this conflict.
High stakes indeed.
America Against Itself
The delicate conflict between the ambitious Alexander Hamilton and George Washington (his gatekeeper to military glory) is the central conflict in the story.
A secondary conflict – far more weighty from an historical standpoint — is America’s internal struggles, particularly at War’s end, that threatened to negate its hard-won victory on the battlefield. The inability of Congress to raise funds to pay its soldiers created severe instability that had the Army on the brink of a coup d’ dtat.
Washington teaches Hamilton. The two stories intertwine at the most dramatic moment.
Washington: An Actor On the World Stage
Like many of the Founders, Washington was greatly influenced by the historical figures of ancient Rome. He was also a lover of the theater. For Washington, these two strong influences were joined in the popular stage play Cato, which Washington’s officers had performed during the trying winter at Valley Forge.
This influence was real. Washington saw himself as the lead actor in a great historical drama playing out in real life, with the entire world watching.
Like his tragic hero Cato, Washington acted with steadfast virtue in the face of insidious action by his fellow countrymen at Newburgh. However, unlike Cato, Washington averted a disastrous dissolution of his government by force, and preserved our new nation.
Aegis For Dreams celebrates this triumph.