read a couple of

paragraphs from a pitch letter from the executive editor at saint martin's press about this book and he says for years bob drury and tom clavin have been taking forgotten pieces of history and turning them into compelling narratives that illuminate the subjects. making the historical figures or events leap off the page. and i concur with daniel boone. they have found the sub perfect subject for their unique brand of history. he's a well-known historical adventurer shrouded in legend. this fast-paced and fiery narratives fueled by contemporary diaries and journals newspaper reports and eyewitness accounts. is sturring as stirring chronicle of the conflict over america's first frontier that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epic and it's

a gripping tales of courage and sacrifice. bob drury and tom clavin are the number one new york times bestselling authors of the heart of everything that is. lucky six six halsey's typhoon last man out and the last stand of box company which won the marine corps heritage foundation's general wallace m green junior award. they have just learned today that the book is on the new york times bestseller list. and it is number one at watermark books and cafe on our bestseller list. so i just want to give you both a warm welcome and i will turn the virtual stage over to you bob. thank you sarah. thank you so much. thank you so much. and thank you, lauren and and thanks to everyone at watermark. i have never been there as you

know, tom has and he just sings your praise. so it's not only a pleasure to be here tonight with all of you, but it's not her and thank you all who's ever out there. i thought we might have a brady bunch screen in front of me, but i can only see tom and you so it's probably better that way i get distracted easily. so i'll just i guess i'll kick it off by saying that both tom and i are well aware. at the foremost important words in any public speakers vocabulary are and so in conclusion. so we will try to make this as short and as sweet and i hope as informative as possible. so i suppose i i want to start tonight or i should start tonight. we've been getting some as sarah mentioned. we're beginning some terrific reviews on this book and one of them was very it just sang the praise is but towards the end the reviewer did say, i feel like i'm in one of those mppa

whatever those warnings are before a cable show. i cannot disagree with the reviewers. injunction that blood and treasure is not for the faint of heart. i mean the narrative opens with daniel boone's 16 year old son james bleeding out he's being gut-shot from an indian ambush cherokee, delaware shawnee, and he's about to die anyway, and the leader of the ambush shawnee named big jim who actually had died at had eaten at the boone house is just gratuitously. plucking out one by one his fingernails and then his toenails and then we come almost full circle to later in the book. very late in the book where daniel boone's son his other son israel one of his other sons dies in bones arms. he's got a an indian musket ball lodged in his heart and as his

dying breaths, he's doubts. he's fuming doubts of blood and it it so yes, this book is not for the pain of heart. i suppose it one historian called the era that we write about the mid 18th centuries the mid 1700s. let me make sure i get this straight a world a whirlwind of blood and carnage. because this was the era when the first stirrings of what was later to be called manifest destiny. were sprouting up among the american colonists who were stuck union on the east coast by the appalachian mountains the appalachians as they call him down there and they were anxious to get over those mountains and complete what they felt was their role in manifest destiny accorded by the way, which was not even coined for 50 years. and the butchery that i spoke of earlier was par for the course

for the era. i mean we're talking disembowelments and scalpings and burning at the stake was big and and both sides both sides and and one of the reasons. for that is because the white people wanted the red peoples. treasure the blood i already told you about the treasure was the land and the indigenous people who had been in the north american continent for for millennia. they weren't about to give up without a fight. so in a way this led even if a preachers cotton mather the famous boston preacher. he he would he would preach it extinguishing the the red sons of satan and even such luminaires is thomas jefferson. propose exterminating the savages closed quote between the atlantic coast and the mississippi so there would be room for whitesetters. now this did not shock tom and i

the fact that there was a butcher's bill that ran on both sides. we knew that from the the first moment that white immigrants from europe. reached the fatal shores of a new world there had been constant conflict between native americans and whites. it's it's no coincidence that but the jamestown colony with john smith. and the plymouth rock pilgrims with miles standish hired soldiers of fortune to be there to be their leaders to be their emissaries. but once again, i i want to emphasize because i think it's been a bit of a disney vacation and the savages the heathens as cotton mather would call them the butcher's bill ran both ways. so for every white infant that was scalped or every white militiamen that was captured and made to dance while his fingers

or his arms were chopped off or for every time a soldier was where there's one scene where they capture one of george washington's best friends and they burned him alive at the stake and after flaying him and a witness describes his brains bubbling in his skull until his his nose starts whistling like a tea kettle but once again for every indian atrocity there was a way to atrocity. i mean you had the spanish in the florida's running down seminars with packs of bloodhounds and then when they had them cornered, they would release packs of irish wolfhounds to tear them apart you had virginia militiamen, pennsylvania militiamen. falling on villages attacking and killing men women and children including one delaware village where all 96 men women and children had converted to the moro to the moravian faith which meant they couldn't take up arms. so they sang hymns and they

prayed while these militiamen bashed in their heads with mallets in order to save musket balls. you had a british governor general gifting and ottawa peace delegation as a parting gift with blank. it's purposely infected with the smallpox. figuring it would spread throughout. this was a peace delegation. berman. vermin is the way he put it and it goes on and on and as a matter of fact, i'll just as an aside. the same governor general jeffrey ann hurst, he would pay what is the equivalent today of $10 for a scalp of any indian man or woman over 10 years old how they knew the scalps were over 10 years old. i do not know but it backfired on him because when he would send out malicious to rate in the villages they would spend less time fighting and more time digging digging up the graveyards the indian graveyards, so they get scalped the corpses. so we kind of expected this kind

of blood in our book blood and treasure what we did not expect was that daniel boone would be such a central figure to it, tom and i did not start out to write a biography of daniel boone. in fact, we don't think we have written a biography of daniel boone. there are many fine biographies out there what we feel we have written what we hope we have written is a biography of an era. the biography of the mid 18th century when as i said before the first stirrings of manifest destiny started to show themselves in the the white colonists who were hemmed in by the appalachians along the eastern coast and we hope that that era where the colonies transform themselves from 13 colonials will actually people don't know there were 15 colonies. there was east and west florida, but they declined to take part in revolution. and but that year it really got us digging into and we didn't

the dignification. of daniel boone is such that and we blame walt disney for casting the actor fest parker as both davey crockett and walt disney, and in fact, let me dispel two myths right now about daniel boone one. he did not die at the alamo. that was davy crockett and two he hated coon skin caps. he was a average size man for his ear. he was five seven five eight, but all his cousins were gigantic man, six two six three six four daniel always thought he was sure and he felt wearing a coon skin. cat made him look shorter. so he always wear a tall hunters cap. and but another thing that really jumped out about us and once again keeping in mind that this is not so much a biography of daniel boone, but the biography of an era as and we're using daniel boone as our guide. is that the man was just everywhere?

everything that happened every big historical event either boone or his family was there now daniel boone was also a man out of his time. he did not believe that the indians were heathens that they were savages and when i say that he had 21st century sensibilities. it came as a bit of a shock to tom and i and i think tom is much more erudite at explaining why that is than i am so if you don't mind tom you want to tell him one of they probably don't know what i'm talking about. so i'm leaving it up to you to clean up my mess. i'll do what i can. yes something that you you referred to bob about the daniel boone is as our main character, but this is not a biography of him. maybe i can invite the viewers behind the curtain a little bit to to what writers and certainly us to as writers experienced. daniel boone was not our first thought by any means to be a

main cat a main character. they main character in this book we had you know one of one of our books perhaps the book that we have gotten over the years the most feedback about is called the heart of everything that is and i know over the years it's been for sale there. what are more books? and the main character there is the sioux leader red cloud and the only indian leader to win a war against the us government not just a battle but a war. and for the most part just to sum up very quickly. the the story is mostly in the 1850s 1860s into the 1870s when you have the final battles between the white military white settlers white explorers white business communities. and the indian tribes of the plains the sue the crow some of the the apache the cheyenne and and basically they had been backed up. there was no place else for them to retreat to so that's why they

were forced by mandate to go on to reservations in montana. the dakote wyoming for example. and when we finish that book there to me. anyway, there was always a kind of lingering poignant about that. and also had had us thinking. well, we a lot of ways we've we've talked about the end of the story. if we get a chance, it would be interesting to go back to more like the beginning of the story. what where was that? template first established. where was that blueprint created? of of the white settlers and military pushing their way west and the indigenous people who live there already where the the interlopers the intruders were showing up. that they many times they were either defeated in battle or bob referred to these, you know, smallpox infested blankets disease that the indians had no immunity to ran rapid and killed, you know, probably millions over the course of the

300 years or so since the white men arrived. and so there were those that would that were killed or died off but you also had many of them left. i mean they had earlier in the united states even before the united states. the option of backing up so to speak of retreating of getting out of harm's way because there was always more west to go to you know across the mississippi then across the, missouri. so we wanted to you know, we had a couple other books says some people may be familiar with the after we did the heart of everything. that is we did a world war ii story called lucky 666 and and then in 2018, we sort of returned. to the earlier days of america where we wrote the book valley forge. uh, but that was all that was dealt with the revolution on the east coast and the battles in virginia and new jersey and manhattan and long island in places that boston, of course. so it kept certainly i could say

this for me it kept. you know. bothering me that there was a story to tell about how like i said, how did a blueprint was established? and so once we determine that we were going to do a story about the early days certainly much earlier days of the relationship and interactions between the you know, the white settlers an explorers and hunters. who were unable to restrain themselves from from going west and you know fat establishing farms and and small communities in forts? and and the tribes who were there who got to experience first early a century earlier what the planes indians were going to experience? and so that that was the story that was the origination of this book that we wanted to tell that story. and what we hope to do was like with the heart of everything that is have a our main

character be a an indian and as red cloud have been. uh, but we ran into a couple of problems one of them being that unlike with red cloud who was born in 1821 did not die until 1909 is a long thread of his uh existence to draw from and his experiences in the case of a lot of the chiefs. i used the term chiefs loosely a lot of the chiefs of the ohio valley of the the upper midwest of what kentucky in, tennessee. they usually didn't last too long. i mean they they either were defeated in battle. they died. they were killed. they they left the area and getting out of here. i mean and there were some very fascinating character indian characters and who do are in our book. corn stock the shawnee who was both a chief in the diplomatic

sense and the political sense and in the military sense a little turtle tecumseh hanging more dragging canoe some of them had to even more colorful names and but they didn't they wasn't a strong enough a lengthy enough thread for us to to last the whole story on to and then when we thought of daniel boone a challenge that another challenge that we faced was well, what if daniel boone everybody knows daniel boone the by name, you know, they know the figure daniel boone as bob mentioned before some people think he died at the alamo. so they think they know daniel boone. they know if you're from a certain age because daniel boone was in the television show for several years played by fess parker with ed ames playing bingo is trusty loyal indian sidekick. but we thought what if what if the real daniel boone doesn't measure up, you know, he has bob

said before he was everywhere it seems you know, he kept showing up at battle battles here in the french and indian war revolutionary war adventures against rescuing his daughter and and two friends from being kidnapped and all these other exploits that he was involved in. but if we did some a deep dive into the life of daniel boone to borrow from that use for that to connect our story would he measure up and that's what was one of the real delights of blood and treasure. is to find out that a lot if not most of what the legend of daniel boone has been passed down is based on truth. uh, you know, they're the current skin cap, which one example of you know exaggerations or fictions about daniel boone. but he was somebody who in his early life and his childhood on had regular interactions with with indians so that he came to

admire and respect them and emulated them and the way he dressed. it's the survival skills and the forest and everything like that. and and he would seem to have this kind of natural ability to lead people. people turned to daniel boone he was the one that when lord dunmore's war was about to start in 1774. you know leaders there were saying. oh my god, we've got all across the front here. we've got surveyors. we've got settlers. we've got hunters we've got other people that they have no idea the indians are are gathering to to begin a large scale attack on the frontier. they'll be they're so vulnerable. they'll be killed the hundreds might be killed. it was daniel boone that they asked i said you're you're the guy who can get through the forest get through the woodlands get to the entire frontier on foot. and warn these people which he did, uh, and and many many lives. he was the one that led the boonsboro which was obviously

named after him that was built first built in 1775. by the time of 1778 when this large british. army and indian ally and british led army was going to cut through kentucky go through the over the mountains or through the mountains the cumberland gap or how they could get to the into, virginia, north carolina and started two front war that probably would have doomed the american revolution. it was daniel boone. who was the leader of that the fort that everybody turned to for leadership and they they survived that siege that if boonsboro had fallen. we might be writing a very different history of the outcome of the american revolution and most people we understand who think they know daniel boone had no idea. what a pivotal role he played the american revolution. that that he seemed to have this the zelig like a way to to show

up. i mean there was there was daniel boone serving with george, washington in 1755 under the british general braddock during one of the most biggest defeats that a british army ever suffered in the in the americas they barely both of them washington and boone barely made it out of there with with their lives. um, and we also found humor with daniel boone. he was a man with good sense of humor. you know someone he would like to tell a good story and oh, you know one of the one of the stories that already people who have read the book already, even though he was published yesterday are citing is the one where boone's gone for a year on an expedition. and when he comes back his wife rebecca who was totally devoted to presents him with a daughter. and he does the math. he was he's he was not a school person but bullard could do basic math. and if i'm gone for a year or more and it takes nine months

for the gestation period something happened here. and his wife, you know being quite honest about us that i thought you were dead. and and i i sought comfort and your brother ned's arms. and sub-produce the daughter named jemima and boone ruefully said well, i'm glad you kept it in the family and you also understood which says a lot about boone's character. he said i married a full-blooded woman not a portrait of a saint. so i think that says it says a lot about him. there's another incident where again he's gone for a long time. he comes back. i think he's either christmas eve or christmas day and there's a dance in a settlement community where his family is and his wife is part of this dance with other community members and he's been gone for a long time has got beer is beard her hair covering. his face is hair is long. he's been you know, looks like he looks like somebody who had been in the forest for a year. and he goes walking in and he asked this rebecca boone for a dance. she's horrified. who is this? i mean, she probably didn't use

the word bum, but who is this bum and it's appalled that that he this guy would come in off the street basically and he starts cackling and laughing and he thinks the biggest joke and she recognizes her husband's left. and of course dances with him despite his appearance. so i think that i think the viewers might be be interested to know that. boone was a process for us. it was not saying we didn't at the beginning of this period of whatever two or three years we work in this book say, let's set out to write a book on daniel boone boone was actually kind of late to the party. and but what we when we did explore his life we found such a fascinating character that he does provide that thread when i first began my talk, he does provide that thread that we needed to hang the story on and he was he's he just remarkable character. i hope one of the things our book does is offer that opportunity to people who think they know boom to find out the

real daniel boom the bottle and take it back to you. well, i'm just tom listening to what you're saying. the thing that jumped out at both of us as we we were lucky enough. there was a near contemporaneous historian named lyman draper who traveled 50,000 miles by horseback interviewing. he didn't interview daniel boone himself, but he interviewed people who had hunted and fought old men by this point hunted and fought and pioneered with daniel boone and lyman drapers contemporaneous papers were so useful. so worthwhile to us in our research. and the thing that tom and i would go back on the phone saying do you believe this do you believe this i mentioned before cotton mather exterminate the heathens daniel boone had an empathy and the sympathy there's a difference between the two he had both for the indigenous peoples who were populated this continent millennia before we

showed up from europe and for instance. he told his first biographer and school teacher named john filson. he said i'm not much of a religious man, but i have as much esteem for the shawnee or the cherokee great spirit as i do for the christian god. it seems to me they're both the same people he had perhaps naively a feeling that if he can only and this greats on 21st century sensibilities on the ears, but it's his quote if we can just make the indians more white we could live with them instead of having to exterminate them. and when he was he was a captive for four months. he was adopted by a shawnee head man, and he tried to convince him you got to get cattle. you have to get the loom and the shawnee didn't want anything to do with this. but at least boone was out there trying as opposed to everyone else who was basically just picking up their kentucky long rifle at the first sight of an indian and blowing his head off they could before they got their

own head blown off. and that's one of the things that really struck me about boone that he was a man out of his time. i mean, tom and i have seen stories now about i guess their statues of daniel boone that have been to faced or there's petitions to take them down. i know there's been graffiti in the daniel boone national forest in kentucky. daniel boone was not one of those men. he had his faults. he was a man of his era like washington and jefferson and john hancock and benjamin franklin. i think 46 like 46 of the 51 signatories to the declaration of independence later in life. daniel boone did own slaves. he owned black human beings. he bought seven females and their children to work in his failed trading posts. so the man was not a he was not a saint by any means but there was something about the man out of his time. that coincided with the zellig

or forrest gump. type. he's here isn't there for the french and indian war? he's here for the american revolution. he's here for lord dunmore's worries here for the the quake. i mean, he was just everywhere that that made him the perfect guide. just like he was a pathfinder and his own time. he was a he was a pathfinder for us looking through as we tried to write this biography of an era. so all that said i get a sense that sarah is in the back somewhere with one of those hooks that she wants to put around my neck and pull me up the stage. so let me beat her to the punch by uttering those four words. i told you about and so in conclusion, we're about to to wrap it up. you know what tom and i what we tried to do what we contend. is that the characters who inhabit blood and treasure both white and native americans. they constitute a generation that shaped the core values of what is today the united states.

we hope we have accomplished with this book as the anthropologist say is to to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. not long ago. there was a visiting chinese people's army commun. army general lecturing at the army war college and he just offhandedly happened to mention that well, of course the longest war in recorded history is the european american war against the native indigenous peoples. and the army officer, who were they were like whoa. whoa, what are you talking about? well, yeah you europe had that we've been in afghanistan for 20 years now, but europe at the 30 years war it had a hundred years war. what you talking about? and the chinese general explained he said i'm talking about your 300 year war. against the native americans and many of the officers came around to agree with them and there was one history professor. my desk is such a mess. but oh here it is peter

maslovski who taught at west point. he wrote euro-americans did wage your protact a war to conquer indian nations in order to acquire their land and its resources. mess and if the proof of course lies in the numbers of the 330 odd million americans extent right now a good 46 million of them can claim that their ancestors. we didn't even talk about tom we didn't even talk about the cumberland gap can claim that their ancestors came through the cumberland gap the gap that was not discovered by daniel boone the indians know it was there for centuries, but he's the one that hacked the way through it for pack trains. it was called boone's trace for its first 30 years before it became known as the wilderness road. so now talking about coming full circle. i started out this with the perhaps macabo scene of james boone 16 year old james boone being as he was bleeding to death. anyway being tortured to death

by big jim the shawnee, so let's come full circle with that. decades later boone's now 52 years old. he's on his last indian war fight. and they run across the ohio and they're fighting the shawnee's and he hears the baying of indian hounds and he's been around he knows what this means. it means indians are escaping. so he and a small platoon of men turn their horses from the main force and they do see these indians escaping. across this meadow and one of them turns amses kentucky long rifle fires. the soldier right at the militia men writing next to blows them out of the saddle. boone spurs his horse as he gets closer to the indians frantically reloading he reckon it's big jim. it's big jim who killed and tortured his son james? boone looks a big jim they knew each other big jim looks at boone and he's he's reloading they look at each other. boon is shocked. finally is this my time for

revenge? he pulls out his his saber which is where the origin of the long night. that's where they the india started calling the americans long knife. he pulls out his saber big jim's reloading boone spurs his horse and what happened next was? well, you know if you want to know what happened next you're gonna have to read. thank you very much sarah. thank you very much. everyone who tuned in tonight. we really appreciate it. and i'm sorry to leave you hanging like that, but i'll have to read the problems of scholar here. i'm the stick meister. there you go. oh, i'm glad i love hanger. hello paying her for for readers. i have i have a couple questions and then i have some questions from people who are attending but first of all, the entire title of the book is blood and treasure daniel boone and the fight for america's first frontier, so you know it you explained all that that he

wasn't the primary but where did the blood and treasure come from i am going to ask you to take this one because what we were talking i spill tea all over my sweater and i got to get up. i'll be right back. i'll be right back all the joys of doing in home. reviews towards the end of his life when when boone was being interviewed and bob alluded to that there were people that went to see boone and interview him and have asked him to talk about some things about his his life and experiences. he does make a reference. he said that his he's looking back on on you know, he's he's at that point in his later years living a life of contentment. he would live to almost 86 years old and die in his daughter jamai's house with her husband and children around him. but he looks back and he said that what what took him on this journey caused him so much in blood and treasure. and he's referring to ladies

talking about the lost two sons and a brother to to violence and with treasure. he there were there were over and over again, daniel boone found himself bankrupt. he was not a good businessman and i guess treasure too. he's talking about property that he lost. he was not he didn't end his life as a successful man, even though he had done so much and had so many adventures. so that's where the quote comes from him and later in life referring to blood in treasure. over and and you refer to you know in my introduction, i think you know, you used newspapers original documents journals all sorts of sources for your information, and i wonder how what was that was there a single primary sort when i say primary. i mean was there a dominant? area where you got you it and

then have you research together. and how do you divide up the writing? well, i could i could begin the answer bob wants to talk time bob made a reference to it. there are a lot of sources that we use if anybody, you know cares to look at the bibliography. we didn't put everything in there, but it's pretty extensive it but we refer to lyman draper and live. okay actually kind of a sad character because he has bob said he went 50,000 miles. he did all this research. he collected the horseback. on horseback all these notes, i mean spent years and years and years so that he could be able to write this magnum opus about one of the most marketable characters american history and he started writing and he got to a certain point developed writer's block. oh my god, and he could write me more and he did he died with leaving his book unfinished now thankfully, you know his notes and his interviews and everything are available to researchers and that was enormous help to us. it was it would it sarah it was

was a pile about from i'm trying to think it was a hundred thirty thousand pages something like that. it's at the wisconsin historical society and and you asked what our are system is i guess is basically what you were asking how to two people and tom likes to say that you know, he writes one sentence. i write the next he writes one sentence. i write the next but what happens is we've developed a very henry ford like assembly line tom is it you could send me into the library of congress of the national archives and i probably come out with what i was looking for. you might have to sending out my party with minors hats and lights to find me but tom is so. adept he was born to be a researcher born to be and i cannot compare like when it comes to lyman draper it was all tom. i'm good if we're writing books

about people are still alive. i'm good at interviewing them. but so what tom will will point me in the right direction and give me the research. i'll start to write i'm not going to say i write a chapter and send it back to him right two chapters, but i'll write a hunk a chunk. remember the million questions in it. need this need this. how do we expand on this too much of this? i'll send it back to tom and he's as good an editor as he is a researcher and he'll get it back to me. so we kind of have this assembly line thing going back and forth. and so far it's worked for us. it's probably. i don't trust tom at all. no, no, i wouldn't we never turn our back on each other. yeah, you do it on screen right now. yeah, so one of the things that is very compelling is all these descriptions of the the landscape and the woodsman, you

know life and going out and that smells and the look and everything, but it's also nice to get a bird's eye view. so you've included some really great maps in the book and you know, they're so helpful. did you decide did you know, i mean you could have probably put lots of maps in but how did you decide which maps? on the map guy. i'm the map why we since we tom and i started collaborating back on with halsey's typhoon. we both sensed. we innately sensed that the kind of books. we write people want to see where it happened. where did that typhoon start and it had a sweep across the western pacific. how did that hill in near the chosen reservoir? how did the marine perimeter get smaller and smaller and smaller every night when tens of thousands of chinese were attacking a couple hundred marines. we know valley forge they want

to know where did german town? how did washington almost win the battle of jeremy and then he was turned back at the last moment because here's the militiamen up here on the mat. who were deceived by the fog of or the literal fog of war when the british set the court fields on fire and they couldn't see through the smoke. we know that the type of books. we we write. the more maps the better and maps cost money, you know and publishers, you know, and publishers have been very good to us when we've argued for maps maps maps and more maps. yeah that i think they're well appreciated. so and i know how hard it is to break up that text and put something in there and then move on. so, thank you. thank you. this was our first book where i actually wrote captions for the maps. i don't know. well, we want discuss inside baseball here whether it worked or not, but we have never had captions on our maps before they

were always kind of. a self-explanatory and and i just felt in this case. i don't know some of the things confuse me the trail when you get off the boone trace in the wilderness trail and you got on the old indian warriors path or you're going this way to harrods, but i felt that it just need a little bit of more explanation and then you need to caption and saint martin's press was just yeah if that's what it needs. that's what it needs. i mean our our editor was just it couldn't have been more accommodating. mm-hmm. i i don't know if you were working. at this book finished books working now on something and how did that affect everything for you? it's not people's questions here. yeah, we are working right that is what we're back in world war ii story mindset. and it was it was we've been working on the book for it's got to be over a year.

well over a year that we've been working on it and it definitely presented some challenges. i mean, we're certainly not the only authors that had to confront this but um trying to you know, for example a very good source for us of holdings of documents we want to look at is that the army war college in carlisle, pennsylvania, and they were in complete shutdown for a pretty much all of you know from march on in 2020. so where they're almost they're open now unlimited capacity, but you know, it's it's something where you know there what could you do? i mean you couldn't say to people. well listen, i really need this what we're gonna put people's lives at risk, you know, because i need to journal of a private and in the second ranger company, you know, so you just have to be patient and take your place in line, and and i think people who are in these positions at these research facilities respond to and appreciate that kind of cooperative, you know, we rapport that you have and they

they've done the best they can and we've done the best we could to get as much information we could that was available. i still have a $500 deposit with a guy to take me to the hurricane forest on the german belgian border. i made these arrangements to to that's the one thing tom and i like to do we like to get out on the road when we're researching for blood and treasure. i follow boone down through, pennsylvania. into the blue ridge, you know into eastern, tennessee and very, western, virginia, not west virginia through the cumberland gap my wife flew down into knoxville and we spent a weekend at the cumberland gap at a b&b and then she flew back and i continued on into kentucky. yeah for the heart of everything. that is tom and i both traversed the dakotas. wyoming nebraska montana, i mean, i remember tom telling me story. i'm driving my little rented ford fiesta 80 miles on a dirt road so i can eyeball the site of the battle of the crazy

woman's fork and tom is in these historical societies where some of the diaries they're bringing out. you can't even touch with your hands. i guess they were written on some kind of vellum. where the oil on your hand so they bring it out in a plexiglass box and thomas turning to be telling me he's turning the pages with like a spot not spatula with like a tweezers and almost i mean or several of our books halsey's typhoon the last ten of fox company last minute out. we've actually interviewed the soldiers who were involved but other times when we're going back to the 19th and 18th century. when tom can find diaries where a 12 year old girl is writing. she made it across the oregon trail, utah, and she's writing back to saint louis. well paul got killed in wyoming and the next wagon trained through through said that that either wolves are indians and dug up as grave. so we're gonna have to go back and re bury him. i mean that's almost like your

interview with somebody. yeah. yeah, that's amazing. that well, that would be the fun of it too. it's like you're you know, you're i mean you're providing armchair travel experiences to all of us that are aren't going out because you're descriptions are so vivid. there's a question that about rebecca and you know most women are overlooked. most women stories are overlooked. especially during this period and in you know in the shadow of this great man. how did you find out about her? well, rebecca boone. unlike many women who a lot of times did not have very long lives because they died in childbirth or from disease or just just endless hardship rebecca boone lived into our 70s and she and daniel were married for 56 years and she came from a family her maiden name was brian

b r y am and so the brian's became us rather prominent and and you know, there was a lot to a lot of brian family members and i'd rather prominent family and you know, there's there's graveyards of brian's that could be found in in missouri for example, and certainly in some parts of kentucky and elsewhere. so you know, we didn't have nearly of course the kind of information about rebecca that we had about daniel because let's face it. not too many people were interested in interviewing rebecca. you know, daniel was was the star of the family. but there was information there and and we also had you know, one one source of information, which is very good. very helpful to us was the reminisces of nathan boone. who was their youngest son youngest child and youngest son of youngest child. and and his later life. he was interviewed by lyman draper and and and he talked a

lot about the dynamics between his parents. i mean they were there was a very extremely strong attachment to them over the decades that obviously was put to the test by his daniel's long absences, but but nathan was an example he revered both his parents. and nathan also turned over what boone papers there were two lime and draper which we got a hold of in, wisconsin. historical society so i don't know if we have time but i tom told you that great story about well in any father the child that's all in the family. okay so much better there's another girl. one of not jemima who was the little girl and that's who daniel rescued after she was kidnapped by indians and james fenmore cooper stole that i mean just took it from the headlines for his last the mohicans, but there's another story about susie boone another daughter an older daughter and she's one of two women when boone first hacked his way through the boom

trace through the cumberland gap and and hacked a trail in kentucky. she was one of two women there. and as young irishmen and susie was 16 or 17, and he's young irishman came to daniel boone and said i want to ask your for your daughter's hand in marriage. and daniel very diplomatically tried to dissuade this irishman, you know, let's let's say susie was what's a good way to put she was a sporting girl. she was a sporting girl susie was and so anyway, the irishman would not be dissuaded. they married in a few weeks later. he returns to daniel boone and he's kind of complaining about and i'm quoting here susie's frolics some ways with other men and daniel looks at him and says, son. i think i told you. you got a you got to try father a trot mother and you expected a pacing cult. i don't think you're gonna get one. so anyway, that's that's a it

just another example of of daniel boone's equanimity towards life his philosophy towards life. i'll take anything you throw at me. yeah that my daughter. i'm gonna go get her. you know kill my two sons. i'm gonna rebound that we talked about nettie who father jemima at one point. they're coming back from yet another indian war nettie and who's the younger brother and daniel they race off to do some hunting. and nettie looks so much like daniel. it's one of the reasons rebecca fell in love with him and had the child with him. so daniel's chasing his berries wounded and he hears shots and he runs back to where the water in the horses and there's three shawnee standing over nettie and they're slowing off his head. they think they've killed daniel boom. they want to bring the head back to their village. we've killed the great daniel boom. so of course daniel gets into a to a gunfight with them and but the point is as tom mentioned he

my footsteps have been traced by blood. and i've lost much blood in treasure two sons and a brother have i lost but he just never lost that. that competence that life would turn out. okay. it's remarkable remarkable. well, i want to thank you both for taking the time to be with us, and i want to thank you on the congratulations on the new york times. the book is blood and treasure. and it's available watermark books and cafe. it's in the chat link and i hope we get to welcome you back to wichita in person. i'm gonna get it promise. i promise sarah i will be there. i know come rain or whatever weather now. i i want to say either for the paperback of this or whatever. it is next you're working on and i wonder party started on that.

oh, we have we have as you know, because of a several reasons covid being them the publication of blood and treasure was postponed us three months and then another three months so we just got to work on the world war ii book and like as tom said we still need to get down to the army war college. i still need to get over to to europe to tour the battlefield, but but we'll get out there. we'll get out and and i tell you what sarah i'm gonna let you on a secret when i get out there. i'm out there with tom and we're giving a presentation and you're gonna have to get me a coffee cup that i got an audience with you. there's not tea in this coffee cup. it's at i need it and it's a pretty big cut. i noticed. blood and treasure there you go blood pressure. thank you so much. and thank you everybody for tuning in independent bookstore day is saturday, and we appreciate your time