Latest / Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast / DDH | The American Crises

Transcript

DDH | The American Crises · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

0:12
For the On Air Across America network, I'm Alex Ross and this
0:16
is your Morning News update. Iran backed Houthi forces
0:20
attacked 4 cities in southern Saudi Arabia Tuesday.
0:23
Saudi officials report at least 73 injuries and fires at several
0:27
energy facilities. The Houthis say the missile and
0:30
drone attacks were retaliation for a Saudi air strike in Yemen.
0:35
Canada's retaliatory tariffs on approximately $20 billion in
0:39
American goods take effect today.
0:41
Rates range from 15 to 50% and cover products including steel,
0:45
furniture, clothing and electronics.
0:48
Hurricane Lowell is approaching Hawaii as a Category 2 storm.
0:53
A hurricane warning is in effect for Kauai County Schools and
0:57
government offices are closed on Kauai, Niiihau and Oahu, and the
1:02
Seahawks host the New England Patriots Wednesday at 5:20
1:06
Pacific. Seattle safety Nick M and Wari
1:09
was limited in practice Monday with an ankle injury for the On
1:13
Air Across America network. I'm Alex Ross.
1:17
Stay tuned for Bill, Mick and Dave Does History.
1:41
Galley Electric brings you this hour of the show, and if it's
1:44
Tuesday at 8:00, it's Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live.
1:48
Dave Bowman's been with us throughout the day, brings us
1:51
that weekly look at historyinthishouroftheprogramheadline@billmick.com
1:56
is losing our minds. If you click on that, you'll
1:59
find links to Dave's work with the Dave Bowman's show.
2:02
Dave does history. What the frock?
2:04
So you can catch up with Dave at any point.
2:06
Dave, where are we heading this morning, Sir?
2:10
On September 7th, 1776, around the city of New York, the
2:14
newspapers there were carrying a letter.
2:18
You know how letters to the editor work, right?
2:20
Somebody sits down, writes a letter, sends it off, the editor
2:23
says hey, I need 5 column inches.
2:25
So they just publish them their opinions, right?
2:30
The letter said. And I quote Mr. Washington and
2:34
his dirty pack of New England long faces are losing, UN quote.
2:42
And then proceeded to mock the colonial army, the Continental
2:47
Army for its most recent defeat at Long Island.
2:50
We talked about that a couple of weeks ago.
2:53
The letter made fun of the defeat in a bitter, angry tone,
2:59
calling the rebels and their absurd challenges absurd.
3:05
It mocked the Continental Army and Washington as if the
3:09
American Revolutionary War had already been won by the British.
3:13
The problem was, of course, this letter was not real.
3:17
I mean, it was printed in the papers, but its author, a man by
3:20
the name of John Hawke, did not actually exist.
3:25
It was just a piece of propaganda written to demoralize
3:28
the American forces, make fun of Washington, and boost British
3:33
morale. There were other writers like
3:35
John Vardell, Jonathan Odell, other loyalist propagandists who
3:40
produced dozens of these fake letters between late August and
3:45
October of 1776. Each letter appeared to be
3:48
written by a real soldier, dripping with swagger and
3:52
insult, and they were designed to shape public opinion.
3:56
These letters showed us that the Tories understood the power of a
4:00
believable lie. A fake soldiers letter could
4:05
travel from London to New York to Charleston, where it could
4:08
easily affect the continental morale and make ordinary folks
4:11
think the revolution wasn't going well.
4:14
Which is kind of weird in a way, because the Revolution Bill was
4:19
not going well. And we pick it up in a minute on
4:23
WMMB. Dave, are you trying to tell me
4:26
that this yellow journalism existed before the hearsts of
4:30
the world came around? Well, imagine that.
4:33
Newspapers were lying to people, except they weren't really lying
4:38
because the the war was not going well for the Americans.
4:43
And as we talked about previously, you know, we'd, we'd
4:46
had John Glover and his Marblehead man who had stalled
4:49
the British advance at Pell's point, couldn't defeat the army.
4:53
They were buying time, but they were losing.
4:55
They were falling back at White Plains, Washington once again
5:01
managed to withdraw before how could destroy his army.
5:04
And by the beginning of November of 1776, Washington appeared to
5:08
have learned the central lesson of the New York campaign.
5:12
Territory didn't matter. Fortifications can be abandoned.
5:17
An army captured or destroyed could not be replaced.
5:20
He had to keep his army together.
5:23
But he had not learned that lesson entirely.
5:26
Although most of his army had escaped from Manhattan, one
5:29
major American position remained on the island, a place called
5:32
Fort Washington, which was on the high ground near the
5:35
northern end of Manhattan, roughly where Washington Heights
5:39
is today. It's amazing how different
5:42
Manhattan is in 1776 compared to today.
5:46
I mean, it's, it's like 2 different worlds, but you know,
5:49
it is there. Across the Hudson River, on the
5:52
New Jersey Palace sides stood a place called Fort Lee, and
5:55
together the two forts had been intended to control navigation
5:58
on the lower Hudson River. American engineers had placed
6:01
obstacles in the river, or obstacles, and they hoped that
6:05
the forts and barriers could prevent British warships from
6:08
sailing N But by November, that plan had already failed.
6:13
British vessels had demonstrated that your defenses don't mean
6:17
anything. And the Royal Navy, No.
6:20
You might say. The the Royal Navy possessed
6:23
overwhelming control of the surrounding waters.
6:26
Fort Washington had ceased to be part of an effective defensive
6:29
system and had become an isolated outpost in territory
6:33
that Washington had otherwise already withdrawn from.
6:36
He understood the danger, and on November 8th he wrote to General
6:40
Nathaniel Greene, who commanded that American Fort.
6:43
You might want to go ahead and abandoned that, but he couched
6:48
it not as an order, but as a suggestion.
6:52
And of course, Greene looked at that and said, no, I can hold
6:56
this. Fort Washington and its
6:59
immediate commander, a guy by the name of Colonel Robert
7:01
Mcgaw, felt the same way. They felt that it was the
7:04
highest and roughest territory on the entire island of
7:07
Manhattan. They had defensive lines, and
7:10
they believe that a determined Garrison could make the British
7:13
pay dearly to try and take the position.
7:16
There were practical reasons the Fort maintained an American
7:19
presence on Manhattan. It provided for some protection
7:23
movements across the Hudson, and abandoning it could be bad for
7:29
morale. You know, we, we've already
7:31
surrendered Long Island, we've already surrendered New York
7:34
City, we've already surrendered Harlem Heights and White Plains.
7:37
At some point, goes the thinking, we have to stop
7:41
retreating and at some point demonstrate that we can hold
7:44
ground. Washington trusts Nathaniel
7:47
Greene and allows him to carry out the US.
7:50
Why? He doesn't order him to abandon
7:52
it, he just suggested. Greene's confidence reinforced
7:55
Washington's lingering doubts and the decision would leave
7:59
3000 American soldiers on Manhattan Island the middle of
8:05
November. General Howe demanded the
8:07
splendor of the Fort. Colonel McGowan refused because
8:10
that's what Americans do. We don't surrender like that.
8:14
He declared that he was ready to defend the position to the last
8:18
extremity. The next morning, November 16th,
8:21
1776, Howe attacked. This was not a reconnaissance or
8:27
limited probe. He sent 8000 British and Hessian
8:30
troops against the Fort. From the north came General
8:33
Wilhelm von Neipeshausen and his Hessian troops.
8:37
I love that name. Neiphausen.
8:39
And among them were forces led by Colonel Johann Rawl, whose
8:43
name will become important later on.
8:46
From the South, British and Ham Hessian units under Lord Percy
8:49
advanced against the American defensive lines.
8:52
And the geography that had made Fort Washington appear so
8:55
formidable now became a trap. American defenders were not
9:01
concentrated at all inside the Fort.
9:03
They were spread out, which is a, you know, you don't do that.
9:06
And they were from several states, including Pennsylvania.
9:10
Many fought stubbornly, especially against the Hessians,
9:14
'cause we don't like the Hessians.
9:15
But we were outnumbered and attacked from several
9:17
directions, unable to reinforce each other, and the outer line
9:21
began to collapse. Hundreds of thousands of
9:24
hundreds and then thousands of men were crowded into position
9:28
never designed to shelter such a large force.
9:31
The Fort was not in the more enormous stone fortress.
9:34
It was primarily earth and walls, and once the outer
9:38
defenses were gone, the Fort could not accommodate, couldn't
9:40
supply and could not protect the entire Garrison.
9:44
The British and Hessian troops were closing in, and they had no
9:47
way to get across the river to escape.
9:50
Washington was across the river at Fort Lee.
9:52
When he figured out what was happening, he sent a message
9:56
encouraging the God to hold out until nightfall.
9:58
Maybe under the cover of darkness, the fog will come back
10:01
again and we can get you out of there.
10:04
But it wasn't to be. MAGA ended up surrendering.
10:08
His defenses had collapsed, his soldiers were packed, and the
10:11
enemy was preparing to finish the attack.
10:13
Confusing the bat. Continuing the battle would have
10:16
produced a massacre and given them no realistic opportunity to
10:20
escape. The British ended up captioning
10:23
approximately 2800 American soldiers, dozens of cannons, and
10:28
desperately needed military supplies.
10:30
It was one of the largest American surrenders in the
10:33
American Revolutionary War. Now, this is fundamentally
10:38
different from Brooklyn, Pell's Point, White Plains.
10:41
At Brooklyn, we had escaped across the East River in the
10:44
night. At Pell's Point, we had delayed
10:47
the British, allowing the army to get away.
10:49
At White Plains, Washington himself had withdrawn.
10:53
At Fort Washington there's no successful escape.
10:56
Washington had risked the Garrison and now 3000 men were
10:59
gone from an army that couldn't afford to lose 1 and the
11:03
surrender would be the just the beginning of their suffering.
11:06
18th century captivity was brutal and the treatment of
11:09
American prisoners around New York was especially notorious.
11:12
The prisons were overcarded, they used ships, they didn't
11:16
have food, sanitation was non existent, disease would kill
11:20
hundreds, and most of the prisoners taken at Fort
11:24
Washington would die in captivity.
11:26
For some, the surrender amounted to a death sentence.
11:30
A contemporary account tells us that Washington was visibly
11:34
overcome. Watching his soldiers trapped
11:37
and captured across the river brings us to a central question
11:41
though. Why was Washington willing to
11:42
risk Fort Washington after he learned that preserving the army
11:47
mattered more than the ground? Part of the answer is he hadn't
11:51
fully learned that yet. He still understood the
11:53
principle of preserving the army, but applying that
11:56
principle is more difficult. Fort Washington had appeared
12:00
strong, but it wasn't, and on November 16th, that hesitation
12:05
cost him more than 3000 men. Worse still, the British are now
12:09
preparing to invade New Jersey. And of course, Lord Cornwallis
12:13
is coming up as well. Those letters in the paper
12:18
telling us things aren't going well, Well, things weren't going
12:22
well. And you have to wonder at this
12:25
point, is this really going to happen or is this really going
12:29
to work? What if we lose this war?
12:31
Are we going to hang together or are we going to hang separately?
12:35
Congress is watching all of this.
12:37
The British are watching all of this.
12:39
What happens now? I could imagine it would have
12:43
been easy to feel defeated at that point.
12:47
We'll see where it takes us when Bill Mick Live continues with
12:50
Dave does History in Moments. It's a take on history you won't
12:55
find anywhere else. Dave does history on Bill Mick
12:59
live. Oh, Galley Electric brings you
13:02
the hour. Dave Bowman brings you the
13:03
history here on those Tuesdays on Bill Mick Live.
13:06
So I can imagine Washington's army having a very defeatist
13:12
feeling at this point, Dave. And then you got these fake but
13:17
not wrong letters to the editor that are saying we're losing,
13:21
we're losing, we're losing, we're losing.
13:23
Where's it go from? Here, they're not even saying
13:25
we're losing. They're saying you're losing
13:28
because they're clearly, you know, they're, they're they're
13:30
taunts in a lot of ways. And yeah, it's, it's got to be.
13:35
It's got to be oh, you mean like the the indigenous land
13:40
acknowledgments? They're taunts.
13:42
They really are on the morning of November 20th, Lord
13:46
Cornwallis and, and that name should be very familiar to you.
13:50
If if it's not by the time you get to the end of the American
13:52
Revolution, it certainly will be.
13:54
Lord Cornwallis crosses the Hudson River.
13:57
He has approximately 5000 British and Hessian troops and
14:01
he will land several miles north of Fort Lee that we talked
14:04
about. Now his army is between the
14:07
Americans and all the ways that they have to get to New Jersey.
14:11
And this is the precise danger that Washington had faced at
14:14
Brooklyn. If Cornwallis moves quickly
14:16
enough, he might cut off the Fort Lee Garrison and pin it
14:20
against the Hudson. This time, though, Nathaniel
14:23
Greene, who has just lost Fort Washington, recognizes the
14:27
danger, and he orders an immediate evacuation.
14:30
Get out. The problem is that this is
14:34
nothing like what happened at Brooklyn, where we had the boats
14:36
and we had the fog, and there's no silent ferrying of soldiers
14:39
across the river. There's no carefully maintained
14:43
deception to trick the British into watch, not watching what's
14:46
going on. This time we just went Full
14:50
Monty Python. We just ran away.
14:53
Run away, run away. We left behind artillery,
14:56
ammunition, tents, tools, blankets, cooking equipment, all
15:00
the provisions. British troops that eventually
15:02
got into Fort Lee found the kettles that were still hanging
15:05
over the fires, food left behind by men who had just left in the
15:09
middle of preparing meals. The army did escape with its
15:13
muskets and whatever they could carry, but everything else was
15:16
left behind. Now.
15:18
For an army already short of weapons, clothing, food and
15:21
shelters, these losses are just devastating.
15:24
There was no time to save the equipment and Green and
15:26
Washington understood that if they had stopped to take time to
15:29
load wagons, they might have been trapped by Cornwallis.
15:34
Fort Washington had already cost us 3000 men because we waited
15:37
too long at Fort Lee. Washington learned and Lee and
15:41
Green learned, and they did not make that mistake again.
15:44
They began to treat W retreat westward towards Hackensack, NJ
15:49
and to understand what followed it's help.
15:53
It's helpful if you picture New Jersey as a series of obstacles
15:57
running across Washington's path.
15:59
I certainly think of New Jersey as a series of obstacles, but
16:02
there's rivers, bridges, if you've been there, you know what
16:05
I mean. Rivers, bridges, towns, each of
16:08
these marked a stage of their treat.
16:11
From Fort Lee we went to Hackensack, and we had to cross
16:14
the Hackensack River from there, southwest towards Newark had to
16:18
cross the Passaic River, then came New Brunswick on the
16:22
Raritan River. Beyond New Brunswick lays
16:24
Princeton, then Trenton, and finally the Delaware River.
16:28
That's a lot of problems, and each town represents just a few
16:32
more miles between Washington and destruction.
16:35
Every river offers a defensible position, but it also offers
16:40
another place where Cornwallis might trap the Continental Army
16:44
before they can cross. So this retreat and and that's
16:50
and especially at the time with what they were travelling with
16:54
or on or trying to take with them, that's a that's a hefty
16:57
trip date. And there there's no
16:59
interstates, there's no highways here.
17:01
I mean we're, we're talking about 70 on.
17:03
The interstates? There you go.
17:05
The Jersey airplanes. Not the best thing in the world.
17:07
No, it's still a pain to get through New Jersey.
17:09
It's it's not easy. And Washington and his men, you
17:13
know, are facing this. And, and the problem, of course,
17:15
that he has is he doesn't have any margin for error anymore.
17:20
The British Army is only part of the problem, though.
17:23
The bigger issue that he's facing, he's trying to save this
17:26
army, is that the Continental Army is beginning to disappear
17:30
from within itself. Most American soldiers had
17:33
enlisted for limited terms. Continental Congress had hoped
17:37
that men would volunteer to serve for the duration of the
17:40
war. But political suspicion of
17:42
standing armies, We talked about this during Liberty 250 made a
17:46
long term enlistment very difficult.
17:50
Many of the men serving with Washington had only enlisted for
17:53
a year. Others belong to militia units
17:55
that would only serve for shorter periods.
17:57
Same problem we're going to have in the early parts of the of the
17:59
American Civil War. These enlistments are now
18:03
approaching the end of their timing for the soldiers.
18:06
The expiration date is not an abstract administrative matter.
18:11
A man had agreed to serve for a particular term, and when that
18:14
time expired, he had fulfilled his obligation.
18:17
He could go home. And many did.
18:21
Some left because their enlistments had expired.
18:24
Yes, there were some deserters who were leaving, you know,
18:27
early. Others were falling out because
18:29
they were sick, exhausted, inadequately clothed.
18:33
Men were marching through cold rain, early winter weather
18:37
without proper shoes or coats, and the retreat offered literal
18:41
food and almost no opportunity to rest.
18:44
Washington could issue orders he could appeal to honor.
18:49
He could remind soldiers of the 'cause he could not make a man
18:52
who's enlisted, whose enlistment had ended, remain in the Army
18:57
indefinitely. The Army that had stood behind
19:00
the Declaration of Independence in July was becoming
19:04
frighteningly small by December. A Charles Lee still commanded a
19:10
separate American force north and east of the Hudson, and
19:13
Washington had repeatedly urged him to bring those soldiers to
19:16
New Jersey. But Lee was delaying.
19:18
Whether from pride, ambition, poor judgement, or some
19:22
combination of the three, he just did not move with the
19:25
urgency that Washington needed. And so Washington continued his
19:29
retreat with whatever soldiers he could hang on to under his
19:32
immediate command. The political situation, by the
19:36
way, was deteriorating just as fast.
19:39
British victories had encouraged the loyalists who had previously
19:43
been kind of quiet. It made them, you know, a little
19:48
louder. It also made that group of
19:50
Americans that hadn't chosen a side to be more neutral.
19:56
A farmer or a merchant who had supported independence in the
19:58
summer now had to consider what would happen when the British
20:01
soldiers arrived in his town. Would the Continental Army be
20:04
able to protect him? Probably not.
20:08
General Howe began to offer pardons to colonials who would
20:11
lay down their arms and renew their allegiance to the Crown.
20:14
Thousands reportedly came forward to accept that
20:18
proposition. Some were genuine loyalists.
20:21
Others were frightened people just attempting to survive in an
20:24
uncertain outcome. In July, independence had seemed
20:30
bold, irreversible, and by December it seemed that the
20:34
revolution was collapsing. Even the Continental Congress
20:39
prepared to flee. With the British forces
20:40
advancing across New Jersey, Philadelphia was potentially
20:44
threatened. Congress adjourned on December
20:46
12th, relocated to Baltimore where they convened on December
20:50
20th. The institution that had
20:53
declared the colonies independence was leaving because
20:56
the British were coming. Cornwallis arrives at the
21:01
Delaware River, but without boats, he can't cross it.
21:04
So once again, Washington has escaped.
21:07
He has held his Continental Army.
21:09
But what exactly has he saved? The men in Pennsylvania now are
21:13
battered, exhausted, hungry, poorly clothed.
21:17
Behind him lay New New York, almost all of New Jersey.
21:22
The Revolution had survived another retreat.
21:24
The question is, can it survive to the end of the month?
21:28
Nobody knows. We'll see if it does when we
21:31
continue with Dave Does History in Just Moments here on WMNB.
21:37
No spin, no sugar, just the story as it was.
21:43
This is Dave Does history on Bill Mick Live.
21:46
Oh, Galley Electric makes the hour possible.
21:49
And as Dave continues, we got a retreating army and it's not
21:55
looking good. Dave, where are we going now?
21:57
This is this is really looking bad.
21:59
As a matter of fact, George Washington has reached the West
22:02
western Bank of the Delaware River.
22:05
Behind him the British and the Hessian troops are continuing to
22:08
occupy New York, most of New Jersey.
22:11
And before him stands an exhausted army whose enlistments
22:14
are rapidly approaching their end.
22:17
Washington had escaped Cornwallis, but now that's not
22:21
going to be enough anymore. At precisely the moment that the
22:25
revolution appears to be collapsing, our old friend
22:30
Thomas Paine, remember him we do, is actually in this army.
22:35
He's a soldier in this army. And he sits down in his tent and
22:40
he takes out scraps of paper, literally scraps of paper.
22:46
And he begins to write mostly by candlelight.
22:50
When we met him in earlier in 1776, back in the spring, he was
22:56
writing his his pamphlet Common Sense, which would become a
23:01
guidepost really, for Americans who grew up considering
23:04
themselves British subjects, believing their liberties came
23:08
from the British constitutional tradition.
23:10
And even after Lexington and Concord, many had hoped that
23:13
they could resolve this whole thing without breaking apart
23:17
from Britain. But in January of 1776, a mere
23:21
11 months ago, Thomas Paine published Common Sense.
23:25
And as you recall, I don't want to rehash the whole thing.
23:28
He rejected the the the legal arguments and the plight appeals
23:33
that have been made by the British.
23:35
He attacked the monarchy itself. He argued that the problem was
23:38
not merely bad ministry or an unwise tax.
23:41
It was a complete misunderstanding between the
23:43
British and the colonies. It wasn't that sorry.
23:47
The problem was the entire relationship was was flawed.
23:51
An island should not rule a continent, and Americans did not
23:54
need the permission of a hereditary monarch to govern
23:57
themselves. His writing was direct.
23:59
It was forceful. He stripped the argument for
24:02
independence of its legal complexities and presented it in
24:06
language that ordinary readers could understand.
24:09
Common sense did not single handedly create the independence
24:13
movement, but it gave that movement of vocabulary and an
24:17
urgency and it reached common people, unlike some of the
24:22
writings of other people like Adams and and Jefferson and
24:25
those folks. By July, of course, six months
24:28
later, the Continental Congress had declared US independence.
24:32
That had been the first crisis that Thomas Paine had helped
24:35
America to confront. The question then had been
24:39
whether or not Britain should be separate from the colonies by
24:43
December. The question is whether or not
24:45
this independence movement can survive.
24:48
Payne was not observing this second crisis from the safety of
24:51
Philadelphia in a writing room. He had enlisted in the
24:54
Pennsylvania militia and now he was in the American army during
24:58
its retreat through New Jersey. He had served for a time with
25:01
Nathaniel Greene's command. He had, he had first hand
25:04
experience of the army's condition.
25:07
He had seen all these defeats. He had followed the retreat
25:10
across New Jersey through the same towns Washington soldiers
25:14
had passed on their way towards the Delaware.
25:17
He now saw the men marching without adequate food, shelter
25:21
or clothing. This matters because what he
25:25
would write next was not written by someone trying to imagine
25:29
what defeat might look like. He had watched it happen.
25:33
He later described that retreat as a period in which officers
25:36
and men were greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without
25:40
rest, shelter or provisions. These were not dramatic
25:43
inventions added afterwards. These were the everyday,
25:46
ordinary conditions. The revolution that Paine had
25:50
helped inspire in January now appeared in danger of dying out.
25:57
The Loyalists were becoming more confident, Other colonials were
26:00
accepting the offer to for pardon and protection, and
26:04
things were really getting tough.
26:09
Paine sat down, began to write. He wrote a piece that would
26:14
eventually be called The American Crisis.
26:17
It began to appear in Philadelphia in December 19th of
26:20
1776 with a name that had already made him famous.
26:25
The opening words have become so familiar to us that we often
26:29
remove them from the moment in which they were written.
26:33
You've heard this quote a million times.
26:35
Do you know where it comes from? These are the times that try
26:40
men's souls. Pain didn't mean that these were
26:45
merely difficult or unpleasant times.
26:48
A trial is going to reveal something.
26:50
It separates what's genuine from what exists only when
26:53
circumstances are comfortable. He made that meaning explicit in
26:57
the next sentence. The summer soldier and the
27:01
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service
27:05
of their country. That phrase is every bit as
27:09
important as its famous opening. And if I I'll be honest with
27:14
you, it's where my mind went a couple of weeks ago when I heard
27:18
about sailors complaining in the middle of the ocean.
27:22
Well, we didn't sign up to be in the middle of the ocean.
27:25
The Summer Soldier, the Sunshine Patriot and the the Simple
27:29
Sailor will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
27:31
country. The Summer Soldier is willing to
27:34
serve while the weather is warm. Everything's going.
27:37
Wait. Great.
27:38
The Sunshine Patriot supports the cause while carrying little
27:42
personal cost. Payne was addressing the people
27:45
who had applauded independence in July but were running away in
27:49
December. He was not asking whether they
27:51
still like the idea of liberty. He was asking whether they
27:54
valued it enough to continue when the price became real.
28:00
He then praised people that as it stands now, the person who
28:04
remains when the cause appears to be failing.
28:06
That person, Payne wrote, deserves the love and thanks of
28:10
man and woman. He understood that successful
28:14
movements attract people who wish to associate themselves
28:17
with success. That's our politics today.
28:22
The true test, though, comes when success disappears.
28:25
Once the celebration ends and the sacrifice begins, principle
28:30
must carry people forward, because enthusiasm no longer
28:34
can. In December of 1776, he would
28:38
continue. Tyranny like hell, is not easily
28:42
conquered. That sentence answers the
28:46
assumption that independence should have been easy.
28:49
Americans had declared themselves free.
28:51
But a declaration did not remove the British troops from New
28:54
York, could not feed an army, could not replace soldiers whose
28:57
enlistments had ended, and it could not prevent the Royal Navy
29:00
from controlling the cost coastline.
29:03
The declaration states an intention war determines whether
29:08
or not that intention can survive, and Payne would
29:10
acknowledge that cost while transforming that cost into a
29:13
reason to continue. The difficulty of the struggle
29:18
did not prove that the cause was mistaken.
29:21
It demonstrated the value of what we were trying to obtain.
29:27
He would write these words. What we obtained too cheap, we
29:32
esteem too lightly. Can't tell you how many people
29:36
have said that to me and then attributed that quote to the
29:38
Bible. No, it's Thomas Paine, it's
29:42
American. His immediate poor purpose, of
29:46
course, was morale. He was not producing another
29:48
extended theoretical argument against monarchy.
29:50
The philosophical case had already been made.
29:53
The immediate problem was convincing frightened and
29:55
exhausted people that the cause was not lost.
30:00
He reminded Americans that the British had not destroyed
30:02
Washington's army. They had occupied territory,
30:05
captured forts, driven us across New Jersey.
30:09
But we're still here. The whole country, Paine argued,
30:13
could not be conquered by merely pursuing Washington's army
30:16
through New Jersey. And this is the practical genius
30:20
of his message. He did not ask Americans to
30:22
pretend that the situation was good, like John Hawke's letter.
30:27
He didn't tell him that everything's great.
30:30
Anyone could see that it was not.
30:32
He asked them to understand that a desperate situation was not a
30:36
hopeless 1 and he began to place responsibility on the
30:41
individual. Payne recalled encountering a
30:45
Tavern keeper who stood with a child and declared, Well, give
30:50
me peace in my day. Payne considered that sentiment
30:54
to be profoundly selfish. The man was willing to accept
30:57
submission if it spared him the hardship of war, and the cost of
31:02
that submission would fall then upon his child, Payne answered.
31:06
That generous parent would actually say, if there must be
31:11
trouble, let it be in my day so that my child may have peace.
31:19
The American crisis would circulate very quickly, and
31:22
according to famous tradition, Washington recognized its value
31:26
had it read aloud to the soldiers in in his army.
31:30
The story appears frequently in accounts of the Revolution.
31:33
Historians, however, have not found a contemporary order.
31:37
We should therefore treat the formal reading as a tradition
31:39
rather than established fact. What is beyond dispute, though,
31:43
is that Paine's words appeared exactly at the moment when
31:47
Washington needed them once again.
31:51
Providence, Fog. Rain Boats.
31:56
Thomas Paine Washington could not keep retreating forever.
32:01
The Delaware River had temporarily stopped Cornwallis,
32:04
but it had not changed the larger situation.
32:07
Washington's army needed more than just a rest.
32:11
They needed confidence. The country needs evidence that
32:15
the Continental Army could actually defeat British or
32:19
Hessian troops in the field. After months of retreat, it
32:24
seemed like waiting till the spring might be prudent.
32:28
But if we wait that long, this crisis may pass and there won't
32:32
be any army left. And across the Delaware River,
32:35
about 9 miles away, stands the little town of Trenton, NJ.
32:41
And in that town is a Garrison of Hessian troops under the
32:46
command of Colonel Johann Raul. Remember the guy that attacked
32:50
us at Fort Washington? If the army does nothing, it may
32:56
simply dissolve on its own. Washington has saved this army.
33:01
Through all this retreat, his men had performed brilliantly.
33:06
Although they had been beaten. Now they had to try to save the
33:11
Revolution once more. And across that river lay their
33:15
target in Trenton. So, Dave, as we get about ready
33:20
to wrap this up, we've retreated, we've retreated,
33:25
we've lost equipment, we've lost supplies, we've lost ammunitions
33:29
along the way, yet we still got to fight to fight.
33:31
And you got Thomas Paine saying, are you committed or not?
33:35
Are you convicted in what we're doing here?
33:37
And does that then turn into a rallying cry?
33:41
I guess. Well, we certainly hope so,
33:44
don't we? Yeah.
33:45
I All of this stuff is going wrong, All of this stuff is
33:49
happening, all of this disaster. It looks bad.
33:53
Congress is running away. The Army is running away, chased
33:56
across New Jersey. But I leave you with this line
33:59
from Thomas Penny. Yet we have this consolation
34:03
with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
34:07
triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we
34:09
esteem too lightly. It is dearness only that gives
34:14
us everything of value.