In this episode, I read from the Declaration of Independence, written by John Adams and read by Robert F. Kennedy. I hope you enjoy it and share it with a friend or family member who needs to hear it.
00:17:16.340From the magnificent Ken Burns' The Civil War.
00:17:20.460And if I can make a recommendation, have your family watch John Adams on HBO and Ken Burns' on, I think it's 12 hours nationwide.
00:17:32.600Ken Burns, no fan of MAGA, no fan of President Trump, certainly no fan of Stephen K. Bannon.
00:17:38.400But it's still the best documentary ever made about The Civil War.
00:17:40.900Although from a, I think Ken is from New Hampshire, it's from a northern perspective, but pretty damn good.
00:17:46.920Not too shabby, as you say in the Navy.
00:17:49.400On, I think it was, I want to say it's July or June 30th, June 30th of 1863 in the middle of the night.
00:18:03.720In the middle of the night, like 3 o'clock in the morning, a messenger, a courier came from Washington to where the Army of Northern Pacific was encamped on the road to Gettysburg.
00:18:18.340And they came to the tent of the head of that Army, it was General Meade.
00:18:24.020And his adjutant let him in, the courier.
00:18:28.020He said he had a, when it came in, he had a message from Lincoln.
00:18:31.660Meade would write to his wife about a week later at the end of the Battle of Gettysburg,
00:18:38.180where he had actually prevailed against the Confederate Army of Robert E. Lee.
00:18:43.340And he would write his wife and say, when the courier came in with my adjutant, I thought I was under arrest.
00:20:19.420He kind of, he kind of, you know, took as many blows as he could.
00:20:22.880We're going to do two Fourth of Julys.
00:20:25.940We're going to do the Fourth of July of 1863, and then the next segment, Patrick Kaye O'Donnell's going to tell us an amazing story about 1864.
00:20:31.820Folks, this Civil War, and although Gettysburg's one of the dividing lines of it, it was in the balance all the way to, I believe, in the 1864 election, Patrick, when Atlanta fell.
00:20:46.900When Atlanta fell, I think, September 1st, 2nd, 3rd of 1864, that's when I really think that the war essentially came to end.
00:20:54.460We had another six or eight months worth of fighting, but that was the biggest single thing, the fall of Atlanta, but it was in the balance in 1863 and 1864, and as war-reary as the South was and as tired as the South was and beat up and lack of resources,
00:21:10.540and, man, the war, I think you can say, particularly from working-class people, was generally hated because the generalship was so bad, everything was so bad.
00:21:21.820Let's take two things over the Fourth of July, 11th and Fourth of July weekend was the pickets charge on the 3rd at Gettysburg after three days, and each day bigger than Waterloo,
00:21:31.980and, of course, the fall of Vicksburg under Grant in the West, which basically gave Grant command of the entire army.
00:21:37.600Let's take Gettysburg first. Your thoughts about the scale and brutality of the Battle of Gettysburg, sir.
00:21:46.360It's one of the greatest battles in American history, and it's the summer of 1863, and as you mentioned, the Battle of Chancellorsville changes things.
00:21:58.020It's a massive defeat for Hooker. General Lee divides his army, but it opens up an opportunity through the Shenandoah Valley,
00:22:05.660and the Shenandoah Valley is the route of invasion. It was that way in 1862, 63, and in 1864, as I'll get into it a little bit later.
00:22:16.360But the route of invasion has opened up, and it's the route of invasion to the north,
00:22:20.420and it's here during the summer that a character in my book, John Singleton Mosby in The Unvanquished, plays a role for what he does and what he doesn't do.
00:22:31.740It's – as Lee's army is marching north, they need a screening force to basically block the probing eyes of the Union cavalry,
00:22:42.340and that's where Jeb Stewart comes into play. His cavalry is there to screen Robert E. Lee's movement as they go up the – through the Shenandoah Valley north,
00:22:53.340and it's at the Battle of Upperville that they have an epic clash.
00:22:59.600Mosby is a regular force here in Middleburg and Aldi and that area,
00:23:04.740and he raids a Union headquarters area and is able to capture what he's called – what's known as the open says-me letter.
00:23:14.420It's – they understand what the federal, like, allotment of troops are and where they're going,
00:23:21.000where they're going to be moving towards.
00:23:22.900It's a massive intelligence coup that is potentially, you know, a huge, you know, a huge move for the south.
00:23:31.840But what happens next is it – is Mosby's faulty intelligence actually sends Jeb Stewart's cavalry in a diversionary operation,
00:23:44.680which will change the course of the battle because Robert E. Lee will lose his eyes and ears.
00:23:50.060What they recommend is that Stewart basically takes his horse off and moves up the Carolina Road,
00:23:58.700which is Route 15 today towards Pointer Rocks.
00:24:02.280But what happens is they run across the second corps, and this changes everything.
00:24:08.820They raid a bunch of wagons in Haymarket, which delays everything,
00:24:14.180but they have to make a circuitous route all the way around the Union forces.
00:24:20.400And meanwhile, Lee is deprived of his eyes and ears.
00:24:23.580There's some cavalry in his army under McClawson, but it's – you know, he misses that reconnaissance force,
00:28:08.260His gun's right there at the angle where he put the, basically, shot, buckshot, at point-blank range and stopped the charge.
00:28:16.980I want to warn you of a huge change that could be coming to our money and our bank accounts.
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00:28:26.640This gave the government power to spy on innocent Americans by monitoring our phone and email and tracking our movement across the Internet.
00:28:35.500Now, Jim Rickards, editor of the independent financial newsletter Strategic Intelligence and New York Times bestselling author,
00:28:42.640is warning about a coming event that could elevate this governmental surveillance to a terrifying new level.
00:28:48.720In fact, some of the guests I've had on The War Room believe that the government will soon expand their powers to track our every move.
00:28:56.100If we say the wrong things on social media, donate to the wrong causes, buy firearms, or even vote MAGA,
00:29:03.140the government may be able to shut us out of our bank accounts.
00:29:07.120I can't say for sure if this will happen, but it's an interesting and dire warning.
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00:29:24.980Watch Jim's warning video now, before it's censored like I've been in the past.
00:36:38.740And, you know, as we see in most insurgencies during the 20th and 21st century, they win if they have the population support, and they merely survive.
00:36:48.300And the South feels that it's in a position to do that.
00:36:51.460So it turns to a regular warfare to extend its chances.
00:36:55.860And one of the things that it does is it activates the Confederate Secret Service.
00:36:59.560They send—you know, Jefferson Davis sends his best spies to Canada with millions of dollars in gold to basically bribe the, you know, potentially foreign powers.
00:37:13.140But also that they work with the Democratic Party at the time.
00:37:16.760And it's here in the summer of 1864 that they basically write the campaign platform for the Democratic Party, which is a armistice, because they believe that the war is a forever war that can never be won.
00:37:34.340And in some ways, they have a legitimate point.
00:37:38.500The northern population hates the war, and then they start to basically funnel money to northern newspapers to write stories about the forever war and how it's unwinnable.
00:37:49.660And then what happens is the South also goes on the offense, as you mentioned.
00:37:53.060The Battle of Lynchburg, where General Hunter, who is moving out of West Virginia along with General Crook, attacks Lynchburg, but Lee rushes Jubal Early's Corps, which is roughly 14,000 strong, by rail to Lynchburg, and they repel Hunter.
00:38:10.820Instead of retreating to Washington, he doesn't want to retreat to Washington because John Singleton Mosby's Rangers are in the way, and he might—his supply line might be cut.
00:38:22.280So instead, he retreats to West Virginia, and the army is to endure this, like, death camp-like march, like the Bataan death march.
00:38:30.540Many guys just die of heat exhaustion.
00:38:33.180It's a horrendous march back to West Virginia.
00:38:35.580But it opens up the way to Washington, D.C., and the Shenandoah Valley.
00:38:42.140And Early's army is marching straight up or straight down the valley towards Washington, D.C., unimpeded.
00:39:02.080He realizes that this is a diversion, but he dithers, and he doesn't dispatch more men to deal with it.
00:39:08.840And it's around the 4th of July that the Unvanquished plays a huge role in this whole thing because it's a—this is a special operations mission to take not only the capital of the United States, but also free the largest prisoner of war camp at Camp Lookout, where the Confederates have over 10,000 men.
00:39:31.100And it's near the 4th, and Jubal Early is Lee's bad old man.
00:39:40.260He's just a cantankerous guy that wins battles, but he hates John Singleton Mosby, and he doesn't coordinate with him.
00:39:47.640And this potentially has a devastating effect on the entire operation.
00:39:51.580But Mosby, on the 4th of July, attacks the Point of Rocks, where there is a B&O railroad hub there, which connects Harper's Ferry and all the troops that are there to Washington, D.C., and they sever the line, which is crucial.
00:40:08.640And they raid the—it's called the Calico Raid, and they move out, but it's at this time that Jubal Early, instead of pivoting towards Baltimore, pivots towards Washington, D.C. itself.
00:40:23.340And it's at Monocacy near Rockville—or Frederick, Maryland, I should say—that the North makes one of the epic battles under Lou Wallace, who's the author of Ben-Hur later in life.
00:40:37.520And it's here that he buys time, kind of like Washington's immortals during the American Revolution.
00:40:44.020And he's burning precious hours to protect the Capitol, which is empty of men, practically.
00:40:51.640They had all been shipped down to the siege at Petersburg.
00:40:56.220And they were terrified because the nation's Capitol is virtually—it's empty.
00:41:03.620There's dozens of forts around the Capitol, but there's not enough men to man them.
00:41:08.640And it's at Monocacy that Lou Wallace burns precious daylight and hours, but Jubal Early's army is still marching forward.
00:41:18.900And it's only hours away from D.C., which is still unoccupied.
00:41:26.060And I have an amazing account in The Unvanquished by McClawson, who's the cavalry commander for Early's men.
00:41:59.120And my uncle, my great-great-great-uncle, who was with the 150th Ohio, was thrust out in front of Jubal Early's massive army of over 10,000 men as they were bearing down.
00:42:10.440And it's Lincoln, who's at Fort Stevens, as the 7th Corps is coming to the Washington Navy Yard in literally an hour before early is about to take Washington, D.C.
00:43:32.880We'll have a few closing thoughts in a moment.
00:43:35.160General Nelson Miles, our second greatest Indian fighter, actually relieved General Crook and was the actual general that ended the Apache Wars and brought Geronimo.
00:44:00.900If you haven't had an opportunity out in Arizona and New Mexico and Texas, just absolutely amazing.
00:44:08.240Colorado, the story of the American West, particularly up all the way to Montana, Wyoming, all of it.
00:44:14.060The U.S. Calvary, if you get a shot over the weekend, maybe you start John Ford's Calvary trilogy.
00:44:21.060Was it Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande, three amazing, amazing films on the Calvary trilogy of John Ford.
00:44:31.800Patrick K. O'Donnell, I want to thank you again for taking time away on the 4th of July.
00:46:29.180In Brooklyn, New York, in Brooklyn, New York, now the hipster capital of America.
00:46:33.700Now, this is not particularly in a hipster part of Brooklyn.
00:46:35.920But you have a grave of, I think, about 250 individuals who were all from fairly prominent families in Maryland at the time, the Washington's immortals.
00:46:47.360But right there, the American Thermopylae, if they had not held that position for a couple of hours, the American, the Continental Army would have never been able to get actually to survive.
00:46:58.200And at that time, the whole point of the revolution came down, could the Continental Army hang together, just hang on long enough?
00:47:07.600And, of course, the American Dunkirk right there at Brooklyn Heights, right near where the Brooklyn Bridge is today.