VIOLENT BIRTHRIGHT: 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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🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

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VIOLENT BIRTHRIGHT: 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)
1919 WINDSOR ST MT. VERNON
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.E

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0:00.0	This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchel. Patrick O'Donnell. The book is The Indispensibles. The diverse soldier mariners who shape the country, formed the Navy and rode Washington across the Delaware. Patrick, the Marbleheaders divide. John Glover leaves one contingent home to
0:23.5	Marblehead. His wife is ill. They're exhausted. They're sick. They're filled with their clothes
0:29.0	are filled with vermin. Rubbed raw, you give some brilliantly detailed analysis of how exhausted
0:36.0	they are. But some of the marblehead headers stay on. And they stay on to fight.
0:41.9	And I'm looking at 1227, several days later, at Asapunk Creek. Please describe what the scene is and why
0:49.4	Asapunk becomes so critical. This is also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, and a variety of factors basically lead
0:58.9	Washington back across the Delaware.
1:01.5	It wasn't really necessarily initially part of his plan.
1:05.5	But John Ted Walleter and the Philadelphia Associators, it's a militia group, if you will,
1:11.0	they were one of the groups that tried to cross on Christmas, and it failed.
1:16.7	They couldn't get across because they didn't have the skilled hands of the Marylanders in their boats,
1:21.0	or marbleheaders in their boats.
1:22.9	But they went across anyways a few days later, and they make it across.
1:30.9	And also the militias in new jersey are uprising and Washington has a dilemma on his hands as he support cadwallard or order him back
1:36.4	across and he decides to go back and he crosses the Delaware river and again but he doesn't make the mistake that Johan
1:45.8	Rolv had of trying to defend Trent in itself it's which was pretty much indefensible he sets up on
1:51.1	the high ground at Assypake Creek and he tries to defend the bridge which is the choke point
1:56.0	and he also has his army arrayed across Asapake. It goes about a mile long their line.
2:04.3	And it's General Cornwalls who organizes the British force to retaliate after what happens at Trenton and to strike the blow at Washington.
2:16.8	So they this is a great, a great army. They have, this is, you know, the blow at Washington. So they're, this is a great, a great army.
2:19.3	They have, this is, you know, the best units in the, in the British Army.
2:22.6	I want to listen because you have a very careful detail.
	...

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