THE REVOLUTION WAS GOING BADLY: 1/8 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)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2024
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
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.
1776 NYC
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is |
| 0:05.0 | is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:08.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:10.0 | And I welcome the author Patrick O'Donnell, his new book The Indispensable, the |
| 0:16.6 | diverse soldier mariners who shaped the country formed the Navy and rode Washington |
| 0:22.3 | across the Delaware. It is April 1775, April 18 to 19th, the |
| 0:28.8 | night of the Black Horse Tavern in Monotomy, Massachusetts. Monotomy is a word meaning swift water, Mystic River. |
| 0:37.0 | It is now part of Arlington. |
| 0:39.0 | In that in the Black Horse Tavern are three prominent members of the Marble Head leadership, the Marble |
| 0:46.8 | Headers. |
| 0:48.1 | That is what Patrick is focusing us on. |
| 0:50.2 | He's telling the story of the early years of the revolution, the Civil War, between the |
| 0:57.0 | marble headers and first the British overlords and then the marble headers versus the British Army, involved in critical to the |
| 1:06.7 | success of Washington's Continental Army. |
| 1:09.6 | But this night, these three men have been at the Black Horse Tavern through the day meeting with |
| 1:15.1 | other leaders of the revolutionary, nascent revolutionary thinking in Massachusetts. |
| 1:23.1 | And they've gone to bed. |
| 1:25.2 | Unaware that very close by in a place called Lexington, there are Minutemen gathering to confront the British Light Infantry marched out under Colonel |
| 1:37.0 | Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to raid the stores, the ordinate stores at Lexington and Concord. the around two o'clock in the morning they're awakened and told the British are coming |
| 1:54.1 | the British are coming |
| 1:55.8 | they cannot flee they think the British are coming to arrest them |
| 1:59.4 | their wanted man if if it's revealed what they're up to which is to provide black powder to the nascent |
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