Good morning and Merry Christmas. I'm Patrick K. O'Donnell, and I'm hosting today the combat history of Christmas through America's eyes.

It's something that Stephen K. Ben and I have done for over 15 years.

I've been a historian for 26 years, written 14 books, and been on dozens of radio TV shows, hundreds, thousands of them actually.

But this is my favorite show that we do annually.

Steve's traveling today, so I'm hosting the show,

and we're going to take you back in time into the most important inflection points in the

combat history of the United States that happens to be at Christmas time. It's here that,

in many cases, history changes and turns on the actions of individuals.

Individual agencies changes history.

And I'm going to take you through several periods of time where this change was dramatic.

These were inflection points in history.

And it will be focused today on the individuals and the actions that they performed.

In many cases, this is some untold stories or little known stories that we're going to focus on that you haven't heard on the war room.

And the first individual that I'd like to talk about is Henry Harrison Young, who's the leader of Sheridan Scouts.

And I want to take you back in time to Christmas, 1864.

The lines were stalemated at Petersburg.

Many things weren't moving in the front, but things were very

active and hot in and around Loudoun County, and specifically the border area in West Virginia.

And it's here that Mosby's Rangers are very active. And Harris inherits what's left of what's known as the Jesse Scouts.

Mosby's Rangers just demolished an entire hunter-killer team that was part of the Jesse Scouts.

These were men that were actively pursuing John Singleton, Mosby, and his Rangers.

An entire company of men was annihilated at a place called Myers Town or Cables Town, that old Cables Town.

...