Patrick K. O'Donnell
speaker
672 appearances
8 recordings
1 series
first heard Oct 2025
last heard 29 Aug
Patrick K. O'Donnell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 4.
Appearances
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
And the colonists realized that if they were dependent on British goods or dependent on gunpowder or whatever, that they would not have freedom. And that rings true today as much as ever. Dependency is a very important thing to avoid. As you mentioned though, Steve,
In 1776, they pull up with two thirds of the British fleet to Long Island. Most of their army, about 65 to 70%, as well as over 10,000 Hessian members or allies that they hire to crush the rebellion. It's a show of force. They're there to destroy and crush the rebellion.
um initially first they try to negotiate but washington and his lieutenants and battle captains realized that laurel really has no authority to actually have to hear their grievances or to recognize the independence of the united states this is uh and we're going to take a short commercial break here in a moment this force
best lieutenants, captains that he is fighting with killed right in front of him as they are attacking Bunker Hill. If there hadn't been a shortage of gunpowder, the Americans may have very well held the hill, but they run out of gunpowder and they're eventually overrun after several assaults.
But it's these massive casualties that really influences Howe in an attempt to preserve His Majesty's troops as well as the German allies that he has. So he's trying to conduct blanking maneuvers whenever possible and avoid another bunker hill or direct frontal assault. And this is where the Washington's Immortals play a key role in the sense it buys them important time.
And then there's not much daylight left to assault the American fortifications at Brooklyn Heights. Had Howe done that, it's very possible that they might have carried the day and basically crushed the rebellion. There was about 10,000 troops that were in Brooklyn.
Indeed, and this is where just some miraculous things take place. There's a massive nor'easter that pelts both armies, and it keeps, I mean, the British lines keep, they use a siege tactic, which is popular today, and they keep advancing their trench line closer and closer to the fortifications. But there's massive amounts of rain coming down, pelting both armies together.
And it's here that the three chimneys, it's a mansion in Brooklyn Heights that Washington decides. He talks to his top officers and says, should we fight or should we flee? And he wisely decides that.
to to flee but it's it's not it's a very tough decision because a you know you you've got to cross a mile-long uh east river with the the british the royal navy right at your back potentially uh and and then you've got a massive juggernaut of
over 25,000 British and Hessian troops that are about to pounce on your position. And it all has to be done, you know, secretly. And it all has to be done with, you know, gathering hundreds of small boats. It's the American dunker. And it falls upon the shoulders largely of John Glover and the Marblehead Regiment, who I write about in The Indispensables. And they organized with only hours of time
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