Patrick K. O'Donnell

This is the most, you know, the American Revolution is probably the most significant event other than the birth of Christ and life of Christ. It's an immensely important event. And as you state accurately, the war itself is only part of it. And the actual revolution begins much earlier with the Stamp Act and other things.

there's a series of things and grievances that that cause the colonists to to break from great britain and i mean there's a lot that i get into with the indispensables for instance which is one group of americans that are up in marblehead and their great grievance is they're fishermen but they're being taxed to death

and most importantly from their perspective their boats are being seized or actually their board their boats are being boarded and men are being taken aboard as and kidnapped and basically put into the the royal navy against their will this is called impressment and this is a major grievance that's that takes place the um a major event

Within this, there are a number of atrocities that really magnify the American Revolution. The impressment issue is one, there's the Boston Massacre as another, and then things accelerate. In 1773 and 1774, there is a true revolution of ideas.

that are at the time groundbreaking steve i mean we're talking about the idea of freedom and liberty which they base you know they look at john locke's theories but they also bring in ancient greece and other things and an american version of freedom and liberty kind of emerges at this point uh one thing that is extremely significant that was not brought out

was the importance of gunpowder. And what I mean by that is disarmament. And you can be, you know, you can have all the revolutionary ideas that you want, but if you were defenseless against a major empire like the crown, every revolution, every uprising which occurred prior to 1775 was crushed by the crown. And they saw an opportunity

So it was a good, maybe it was 2009, it was a good six years before that book was... I should say it was 2016 that it came out, not 2015. So it was a good six or seven years that I spent with Washington's Immortals. It was a book that began with a tour that I took with my...

battalion commander the willy buell who was in volusia with me in 3-1 and he was uh counseled foreign relations he was the colonel that was there was there one of their the the fellows and he said to me you want to go to the met i said no let's do a combat tour of the battle of brooklyn and you know it was one of the coolest things is to be able to to walk the ground

of a critical battle with somebody you had been in battle with, especially a man that really kind of understood history and tactics strategy. We walked through Greenwood Cemetery where the rolling hills are, you know, the site of some of New York's finest and most infamous characters. But it was also a great battle that took place. The Battle of Brooklyn begins at Greenwood Cemetery in the Heights. And this is where Washington troops

um initially are pinned down by the british as a massive flanking maneuver is going behind them led by cornwallis and lord hall and clinton and uh you know to their utter dismay and horror they realize that they're being flanked and they pull back to a stone house or near it many of the men and they make a last stand uh an american thermopoly takes place here

which buys an hour more precious in history than any other, as one contemporary historian said. And it's at this thermopoly that they prevented the junction of many wings of the British army and the Hessian forces from uniting and smashing the nascent revolution. But hang on. What I want to do is get the Washington Immortals...

The Indispensables, which I think you followed Washington's Immortals about the regiment from Maryland. You followed that with The Indispensables, right? About the guys from Marblehead? I wrote The Unknowns in between that, and that's my book on World War I. Okay. And The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, the body bearers that brought back the most decorated men of the AEF. But when Willie and I stopped near the Stone House...

We found an old rusted sign that said, here lie 256 Marylanders, Maryland heroes. And these men, through their effort, they were the only unit, or one of the few units that had bayonets. Their bayonets, the bayonets of the Revolution, the Immortal 400, or Washington's Immortals, make this epic stand. But their mass grave is still yet to be found. And it was there that I thought, well, this is an amazing mystery, an amazing story.

And sent the proposal in along with a book called First Seals. And my editor at the prior book said, we want you to write World War II history. This book will never, you know, one of my worst books was on the Battle of Long Island. I'll never do a book on this. And long story short, I have another publisher and things are going great. And that was one of a tremendously bestselling book.

Yeah, I love to journey to these places. I visit them. I walk in their steps. I go to their graves. I immerse myself in the history, and I try to immerse myself in the story of the men that I write about, as well as their opponents.

So I try to tell as balanced a story as I possibly can. And I let them tell their own story in their own words. So as you mentioned, Steve, primary sources, I don't have an agenda. My only agenda is to tell the story and to put you there, in their time, what it was like to be in the boots of the men that they were fighting this or being, that were fought against. Or in some cases, it's also people on the home front that were,

you know waiting for their husbands to come home dealing with um you know massive starvation or not you know not having any money for years or having people that are you know the the untold story in many cases is these guys go off to war nobody brings home the bacon so to speak and the creditors are still there waiting to be paid and you know many of their these men uh

you know, have their homes repossessed. I mean, it's a remarkable story of endurance. It's truly, you know, somebody that's interviewed thousands of World War II veterans, I think this is our greatest generation. And many of the World War II veterans I interview would say the same thing. Let's go back. We've got a couple of minutes in this segment. I want to tee up to get us to Christmas night, to the actual Christmas day. But

What I will say before that and before the Revolutionary War is something that is immensely important that I brought out in the Indispensables, and that is something called the Articles of Association. And this is an obscure document that nobody hears about or thinks about, but it's in the fall of 1775, and it declares war, economic war, against Great Britain. It basically boycotts their goods.

and we won't ship anything in or export to them this is a seminal document that unites the colonies as well it's not so much a path to revolution but it's a path to being united against a common front which is the greatest economic power and one of the greatest military powers at the time and it's a incredibly important document it also covers dependency