7/8 The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware by Patrick K. O'Donnell (Author)
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 17 January 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
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7/8 The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware by Patrick K. O'Donnell (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Indispensables-Marbleheads-Soldier-Mariners-Washington-Delaware/dp/0802156894
On the stormy night of August 29, 1776, the Continental Army faced capture or annihilation after losing the Battle of Brooklyn. The British had trapped George Washington’s forces against the East River, and the fate of the Revolution rested upon the shoulders of the soldier-mariners from Marblehead, Massachusetts. Serving side by side in one of the country’s first diverse units, they pulled off an “American Dunkirk” and saved the army by transporting it across the treacherous waters of the river to Manhattan.
In the annals of the American Revolution, no group played a more consequential role than the Marbleheaders. At the right time in the right place, they repeatedly altered the course of events, and their story shines new light on our understanding of the Revolution. As acclaimed historian Patrick K. O’Donnell dramatically recounts, beginning nearly a decade before the war started, and in the midst of a raging virus that divided the town politically, Marbleheaders such as Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orne spearheaded the break with Britain and shaped the nascent United States by playing a crucial role governing, building alliances, seizing British ships, forging critical supply lines, and establishing the origins of the US Navy.
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and |
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| 0:27.0 | Slack.com slash DHQ. |
| 0:35.0 | This is CBS I In The World. I'm John Bachelors. Patrick O'Donnell, the book is The Indispensables, |
| 0:41.2 | the diverse soldier mariners who shape the country, form the Navy and road washing in across |
| 0:45.8 | the Delaware. Patrick, the Marble Hatter's Divide. John Glover leaves, leads one contingent |
| 0:52.6 | home to Marblehead. His wife is ill, they're exhausted, they're sick, they're filled with, |
| 0:58.3 | they're closer filled with vermin, rubbed raw. You give some brilliantly detailed analysis |
| 1:04.6 | of how exhausted they are. But some of the Marble Hatter's stay on. And they stay on to fight |
| 1:11.3 | and I'm looking at 1227, several days later at Asapone Creek. Please describe what the |
| 1:17.9 | scene is and why Asapone becomes so critical. This is also known as the second battle of |
| 1:24.5 | Trenton and a variety of factors basically lead Washington back across the Delaware. It |
| 1:31.0 | wasn't really necessarily initially part of his plan. But John Cadwalder and the Philadelphia |
| 1:37.3 | Associators, it's a militia group, if you will. They were one of the groups that tried |
| 1:42.4 | to cross on Christmas and it failed. They couldn't get across because they didn't have the skilled |
| 1:48.8 | hands of the Marylanders and their boats or the Marble Hatter's and their boats. But they |
| 1:52.8 | went across anyways a few days later and they make it across. And also the militias in |
| 2:00.0 | New Jersey are uprising and Washington has a dilemma on his hands as he support Cadwalder |
| 2:05.2 | or order him back across. And he decides to go back and he crosses the Delaware River. |
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