8/8: The unsolved arson: 8/8: The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution by Benjamin L. Carp (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 18 June 2023
⏱️ 10 minutes
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8/8: The unsolved arson: 8/8: The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution by Benjamin L. Carp (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Great-New-York-Fire-1776/dp/0300246951
New York City, the strategic center of the Revolutionary War, was the most important place in North America in 1776. That summer, an unruly rebel army under George Washington repeatedly threatened to burn the city rather than let the British take it. Shortly after the Crown’s forces took New York City, much of it mysteriously burned to the ground.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBSI in the World. I'm John Bachelworth, Professor Benjamin Carp, his new book is the Great |
| 0:10.1 | New York Fire of 1776, a lost story of the American Revolution. Seven years later, October |
| 0:18.2 | 1783, General Guy Carleton convenes an inquiry in part to ascertain whether the same the |
| 0:26.6 | burning was accidental or the effect of a design. That is the question before the court. Professor, |
| 0:32.8 | this is wonderful. At first I thought, no, it can't be true. You kept referring to the inquiry |
| 0:39.2 | throughout the early part of the book and I then realized, no, this is a real thing. Very thorough |
| 0:44.6 | on General Carleton's part. His questioners had four questions initially to ask of the eye |
| 0:52.7 | witnesses of the people who participated. Do you believe it's an accident? Do you believe it was |
| 0:57.2 | designed? What do you make of the pumps being sabotaged? And at this point, what do you make of the |
| 1:05.4 | after effects of the question of the contested, the combustibles that were found that hadn't been |
| 1:13.1 | burned? All four questions are put to the witnesses. Is there a summary opinion that speaks to |
| 1:23.5 | these four questions? There were others were added at the time. And does a summary opinion give |
| 1:30.0 | more than we can have in these separate questions, Professor? Yeah, no, there's never any kind of |
| 1:36.1 | summary opinion. I mean, these records are thorough, but they are also incomplete. I think because |
| 1:41.4 | they just kind of gave up on the inquiry once it was clear that the evacuation was the final |
| 1:48.0 | evacuation was going to proceed. And evacuation from New York. Yeah, the British evacuation from New |
| 1:54.1 | York, that's correct. And what's really odd about these records is that they are not in the British |
| 1:58.0 | National Archives. They were in the personal papers of the clerk who took down these notes, |
| 2:04.2 | who brought them in exile to New Brunswick in Canada. And then in 1893, the New Brunswick |
| 2:10.8 | historian donated these papers to the New York Historical Society, which is where I was able to look |
| 2:17.0 | at them on Central Park West. Wow. I mean, the British didn't hold on to their own records. These |
| 2:22.8 | particular records, as far as I know, do not appear in the formal British National Archives. It may |
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