Episode 4150: A WarRoom Special 2024: Combat History of Christmas
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Summary
Henry Harrison Young is one of the greatest unsung heroes of the Civil War. He is a chameleon that can impersonate anyone. He can be a spy, a spy for the enemy, and he can even impersonate a member of the enemy.
Transcript
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Good morning and Merry Christmas. I'm Patrick K. O'Donnell and I'm hosting today the combat
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history of Christmas through America's eyes. It's something that Stephen K. Band and I have
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done for over 15 years. I've been a historian for 26 years, written 14 books, and been on
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dozens of radio TV shows, hundreds, thousands of them, actually. But this is my favorite show that
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we do annually. Steve's traveling today, so I'm hosting the show. And we're going to take you back
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in time into the most important inflection points in the combat history of the United States that
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happens to be at Christmastime. It's here that, in many cases, history changes and turns on the
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actions of individuals. Individual agencies changes history. And I'm going to take you through
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several periods of time where this change was dramatic, that changed. These were inflection
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points in history. And it will be focused today on the individuals and the actions that they
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performed. In many cases, this is some untold stories or little-known stories that we're going
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to focus on that you haven't heard on the war room. And the first individual that I'd like to talk
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about is Henry Harrison Young, who's the leader of Sheridan Scouts. And I want to take you back in time
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to Christmas, 1864. The lines were stalemated at Petersburg. Many things weren't moving in the front,
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but things were very active and hot in and around Loudoun County, and specifically the border area
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in West Virginia. And it's here that Mosby's Rangers are very active and Harris inherits what's left of
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what's known as the Jesse Scouts. Mosby's Rangers just demolished an entire hunter-killer team that was
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part of the Jesse Scouts. These were men that were actively pursuing John Singleton Mosby and his
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Rangers. An entire company of men was annihilated at a place called Meyerstown or Cablestown, that old
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Cablestown. And what was left were some of the men that Henry Harrison Young had to put together
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Sheridan Scouts with. And this is an epic story. Harrison Young, Henry Harrison Young, is really one
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of the great untold, unsung heroes of the American Civil War. He begins the war in 1861 at Bull Run and
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is immediately drawn to battle. He's extremely heroic. He actually kind of has this sense of thrill
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in battle in battle and craves it. He is not a man. He's completely fearless in the saddle and in
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battle. And he rescues a man, for instance, at the Battle of St. Mary's Heights at Fredericksburg,
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rides into battle in the middle of a massive maelstrom of lead and cannon fire, and picks up a man that's
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gravely wounded and carries him off the battlefield and does this multiple times. But in 1864, he finds
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himself being tapped to lead the Scouts. And this guy is extraordinary. He is a chameleon that is a
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shapeshifter. He wears a Confederate uniform at times to go behind the lines. He'll wear civilian clothes.
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He'll act as a peddler even. And one of my favorite stories with Young is that he is able to impersonate
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anybody. And the Confederates are still, in 1864, very actively recruiting soldiers because they
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desperately need them. And in the Shenandoah Valley, he goes to a recruiting station and impersonates
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a young soldier that, you know, wants to join the Confederate army. And a Confederate sergeant
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recruits him into the Confederate army. And he's asked to show up the next day and join the army.
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And he literally shows up the next day with a company of his men and captures that Confederate
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sergeant at pistol point. He goes after, um, high, uh, value targets, but he has to somehow mold
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his men into a combat fighting force. And it's Christmas. It's right around Christmas day
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that he puts them on an impossible mission to really, to forge unit cohesion. And he arms his
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50, 80, 80, 80, so men who are in Confederate uniform. These are Jesse scouts. And they are,
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this story is chronicled in my new best selling book called The Unvanquished. And what he does is
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the impossible. If you go to the area around Stroudsburg, there's a place called the Back
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Road. And it's, it's literally called the Back Road. It's, that's the title of the road.
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And it's here on the back road in and around the trees that Harris, that, uh, Henry Harrison Young
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knows that Confederate cavalry always kind of moves into this area and on a patrol. And he positions
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his men behind a series of trees to ambush them. And it's not just a, a small group of men that he's
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going after. He literally takes on an entire Confederate, uh, cavalry battalion, uh, hundreds of men
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strong. He arms his men with the Spencer carbine. This is a repeating carbine. After you pull the
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trigger, uh, a bullet will fire. Unlike a regular muzzle loading, uh, action, you can fire up to 20 rounds
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or more a minute with these weapons. They were kind of the, the machine gun of the civil war in many ways.
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They're also armed with Colt, uh, pistols, uh, to the teeth they're armed and they are behind the
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trees and they wait for that right opportunity right at Christmas time. And they pounce and they
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attack, uh, and they basically disrupt this entire Confederate cavalry battalion, which is then set
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running to the hills. Uh, and, uh, it's, it's, it's just one of the actions that Henry Young and
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Sheridan scouts become kind of renowned for. They use this sort of terror or psychological warfare
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against their enemy to basically show up at any time, this element of surprise, um, and then
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stealth, and then they kill and then they disappear or vanish. Um, and this is something that is a
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hallmark of today's special operators. Harrison Young, um, Henry Young welds these men into a very
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cohesive unit. This is called Lincoln special forces in the unvanquished or the Jesse scouts or
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otherwise known as Sheridan scouts. They literally lead his army in battle, uh, at multiple points.
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And, um, it's, it's really an extraordinary story. They, they capture, um, multiple high level targets
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and including Harry Gilmore, who's a partisan alongside John Singleton Mosby. And they capture
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him in the Shenandoah Valley in a midnight raid. Uh, and it's extraordinary story. I have a great
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article in Breitbart that's that'll, that, um, that, um, that, that records that, um, that capture of,
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of Gilmore, but also the, the capture of, uh, Captain Stump. Um, and this guy's nickname was
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Stump's arsenal because he was a Confederate that was so armed to the teeth. He would literally have
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five or six pistols and a carbine, uh, at all times on his body. And he was rounded up along with
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Gilmore by, by Young's men and captured. But what made, uh, Stump unique was he had killed in cold
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blood, a number of the Jesse scouts. And they said to, uh, Stump, we will give you an opportunity
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to, to, to, for your life. And that opportunity was, we'll give you 15 paces or so on your horse
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and, and we will, uh, allow you to put the potential to escape. And, uh, that's exactly
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what they did. They allowed, uh, Stump, uh, you know, several seconds to, to, to run on his horse.
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And then the men were such excellent shots with the pistol that he was, he was taken down.
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And, uh, the, the, the, the men continued to, to lead, uh, Sheridan's army in battle. And they
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would play a very crucial role at the battle of, um, battle, uh, the battle campaign, the final
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campaign at Appomattox. It would be the Jesse scouts under, um, under Young that would determine
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the, the weak points in the line at a place called Five Forks, which is the most, in some ways,
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one of the most decisive battles of the American civil war. It, they, they determined the weak
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points in the line and Pickett's line. And it would be here that with the Jesse scouts at his
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side, the general Sheridan literally charged the line, uh, single handedly and broke it.
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And this precipitated, uh, general Lee's retreat by about two or three weeks. They were planning on
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leaving the lines at Petersburg, but now they were forced to leave because they had been outflanked.
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And as they were being outflanked, it would be the Jesse scouts that would pursue them.
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You know, the scouts were made up of just really fascinating individuals. One of them was, um,
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a guy by the name of, um, Woodson, who was a, uh, former Confederate that had come into Young's lines
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and Sheridan's lines. And he told them that he was, his, uh, his sister was killed, um, or was,
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I'm sorry, he was insulted by the Confederates. And as a result, he killed his captain. He was,
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by the insult. And he had to flee Confederate lines and then offered his services as a, um, as a,
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as a Jesse scout. And he would receive the medal of honor, um, near, uh, near five forks for capturing
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a Confederate battle flag and helping capture General Berenger, who was a Confederate general
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at the time, along with Young. They pursued, um, Lee's retreating army. And it's here that they
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may have played a very decisive role in the entire war by leading Lee's supply trains in the wrong
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direction. Uh, the, instead of when their first Ronnie pointed at a place called Amelia Courthouse,
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uh, they, they got, instead of food and supplies, they received a bunch of uniforms and caissons for
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wagons. It was exactly what they didn't need. And it's, it's rumored and possible. There's evidence
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that it was Young's men that misdirected the, the, the right, the food trains to the right source.
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And from there, they capture the supply trains at Appomattox. And, uh, and, and this is a decisive
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blow because General Lee's army is starving and, uh, they are, you know, very desperate for supplies.
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The, um, the key here though, is that Henry Young then spends another, another winter or another
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Christmas in Mexico. And Mexico is really one of the great untold stories of the American Civil War
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because at the time it was occupied by Emperor Maximilian. And there were 40,000 troops down there,
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uh, at, at the time. And it would be a regular warfare special operations that would thwart them.
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And it would be General Sheridan and his 50 or so Jesse scouts that were led by Henry Young
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that were arming the resistance down there. And, and, and, and basically creating what we now see
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as a regular warfare today. These were men, these men were really true commandos and they were working
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with the Mexican, um, guerrilla forces that were down there, arming them, blowing up bridges, destroying
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French, uh, outposts. And it's here that Henry Young and many of the Jesse scouts mysteriously disappear
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and they are never heard or seen again. And it's, it's unknown exactly what, you know, where,
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where they went, uh, there was, is likely a, a coverup on, in terms of, of his actions down there
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because his duties were unofficial, uh, covert operations, if you will. And, you know, this is a
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true unsung hero along with many of the other men that were Jesse scouts. They would receive seven
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medals of honor, uh, during the civil war, um, for their, for, for their valor and actions.
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Um, but this was a, he would never, he would never return home. And, uh, it was a very solemn time
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for his mother. The, the book actually ends with his mother's story. And every year, um, after his
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capture, after that Christmas, she would, she would wait for him. She, he would write every month
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to her, um, about just to, to keep her informed, to keep her, um, aware, uh, of the, their relationship
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was that close and special. But every, every, uh, every time that a stagecoach would come into Providence,
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Rhode Island, she would wait for her son that never returned home. Uh, and that is, that, that,
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those were many, um, long Christmases without, without her son, uh, and many of the Jesse scouts,
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uh, faced the same, you know, trial and hardship that, you know, of the, the, the families faced
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of missing their, uh, their loved ones, which covert warriors of today. Um, you know, we, we've seen
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that over and over in Vietnam in particular, where special operators go behind the lines and never
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return home for Christmas. It's obvious the unthinkable continues. Most Americans know
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I'm Patrick O'Donnell, and I'm hosting the Combat History of Christmas. This has been an annual
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tradition that we've had on the war room for almost 15 years, Steve Bannon and I. This is really one of
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my favorite shows that I've done. What I'd like to talk about now is the continuing with the American
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Civil War. The great adversary of Henry Young and many other Jesse Scouts was John Singleton Mosby.
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And Mosby was a Confederate partisan and really arguably the, in many ways, the organizer of
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American Modern Special Operations Forces, his ideas and principles begin on Christmas. And it's
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Christmas 1862, specifically in Middleburg, Virginia, at a place called Oakham Manor. And one thing that's
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amazing about these stories is you can still visit Oakham and visit Middleburg and Loudoun County,
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where many of the actions that I'm talking about, you can go there, you can visit these places and feel
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the history and walk the ground. At Oakham, that wintery Christmas day, he approached his boss,
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Jeb Stewart, who's the leader of the Confederate cavalry, with a specific request. If he could have
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a small band of men to create a partisan group to attack the Union supply lines in and around Middleburg
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and Loudoun and Prince William counties. His request was granted, and he was given about six men.
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And that is the origin, in many ways, of modern special operations forces. These six men would then grow
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into nearly 1,000. And they would tie down 30 to 40,000 Union troops over the course of the American
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Civil War. They would ambush supply trains. They would blow up bridges. They would capture Union generals
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and do, in many cases, the impossible. And Mosby was behind all of this. And it was his vision and
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leadership. He was only about five foot seven, kind of a wiry guy that was a law student that had kind
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of a bit of a hothead initially. He literally, he was accosted and insulted and pulled a pistol on his,
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one of his fellow law students and nearly killed him, which put him in jail for several months.
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But at the beginning of the American Civil War, he was initially very reticent to secession,
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didn't really believe in slavery, but fought for his state like many other members of the South.
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And his beginnings are extraordinary. He's a scout within the Confederate Army, leads a long,
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one of Stuart's long cavalry rides around Richmond, which is epic and legendary. He's known for gathering
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intelligence. This isn't his first time as a potential partisan leader. Stuart gives him the
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opportunity several months earlier. And he's given him only one man this time with a club foot. And,
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you know, John Singleton Mosby's days as a partisan are very numbered. He travels to a train station
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and literally a union company of calvary surround him and his horse along with a club footed individual.
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And he is taken into captivity in the middle of 1862. He is quickly imprisoned at a federal prison
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and languishes there for several months until there's a prisoner exchange. And this is where
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John Singleton Mosby really shines. He makes lemons out of lemonade. And literally, in the exchange,
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he's able to create actual strategic level intelligence out of nothing, basically, just his own sources
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and intuition. He's on a riverboat, but he senses that the captain of that riverboat is a Confederate
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sympathizer, a Southern sympathizer. And indeed, he is. He pumps him for information about Union troop
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movements, who this captain had moved around initially. And through that information, along
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with his kind of keen eye, where he's able to sort of see some of the units in and around the area,
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he's able to determine that the Union army is going to attack and wear, which is really extraordinary
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and miraculous. So after he gets off the boat, he immediately goes to General Robert E. Lee.
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And he arrives at Robert E. Lee's headquarters in Richmond, this kind of lowly lieutenant.
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And they initially kind of are very skeptical of what Mosby could bring to the table or offer,
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because he's just a lieutenant. But he remembers sort of the ride around Richmond with Stuart and some
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of Mosby's other exploits and listens to him. And this actually literally changes the course of the
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Battle of Cedar Mountain, which Mosby provides and furnishes actionable strategic level intelligence to Lee
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through his efforts. Going back to 1863 now, Mosby is very active within the
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sort of the area in and around Middleburg. And he pulls off one of his greatest exploits
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by capturing General Stoughton in Fairfax City itself. And this is one of the great special
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operations stories of all time to capture a high-value target. The key to it is a deserter from the 5th New
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York Cavalry guy by the name of Yankee Ames, who deserts to Mosby and to the Mosby line. He doesn't
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like the Emancipation Proclamation. He feels he's being lied to for why he's fighting. He's not fighting
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for the union per se. And he joins Mosby. He shows up unexpectedly. And Mosby believes that Yankee Ames
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is telling the truth. And he's given an opportunity to then get a horse. And he has to go back into
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union lines to Centerville, where there's a massive union encampment, and steal a horse with another
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ranger. And they are successful in that. And it's big Yankee Ames that is put in the very front
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of the vanguard on the raid to Fairfax to capture Stoughton. And he understands the call signs and
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the signals. And they ride in a raging snowstorm and sleet and hail. And in some cases, they're in
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union uniform or in rain jackets, in most cases, with their Confederate uniforms underneath them.
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And they ride into Fairfax. And they basically, they seize anybody that they can, that could
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potentially alert any of the guards. And then they continue to Stoughton's residence. And they
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knock on the door, go in, and the general is sleeping at the time. And Mosby wakes him up and
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says sort of these immortal worlds, do you know who John Singleton Mosby is?
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And the general says, back to Mosby, have you captured him yet? No, it is he who has captured
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you. And he's brought into captivity. And Mosby scrolls on the fireplace, I am Mosby, just sort of
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a psychological bit of terror to, you know, let him know, let people know his calling card, who he is.
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And they then, they go back and to back through the lines and with the general in tow.
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This continues to, they have a number of raids and amazing actions that the Rangers are part of.
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And one of them is at, in and around Christmas. And this is the battle for Loudoun Heights,
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as it's called. And right around Christmas, Cole's Cavalry, which is a Union outfit that is made up
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of Marylanders, Pennsylvanians, and other loyalists to the Union cause, form a cavalry unit. And they
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are based in Loudoun Heights. And it's here that they then conduct forays into Mosby's Confederacy,
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which is in and around Middleburg and Warrington and other areas. And they lead an entire unit into
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Mosby's Confederacy. Mosby has his men shadow them, provide kind of a psychological terror,
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just to let them know that they're there. And as they shadow them, they pounce and destroy
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this entire force of about almost 200 Union cavalrymen. They're surrounded and attacked.
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One man, the leader of the group, is able to, Hunter, is able to escape on foot 40 miles
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to Loudoun Heights. It's then that Mosby determines that they are going to destroy
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the Cole's Cavalry on Union Heights. And he organizes
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over 100 men to attack this nest of Union cavalry. And in the middle of a snowstorm,
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they mount up and they move towards Loudoun Heights. And it's, you know, an interesting
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figure sort of emerges here. A guy by the name of Frank Stringfellow, who is somebody that is in
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in through the unvanquished multiple times. He's 94 pounds, sometimes dresses in drag to literally
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act as a spy to elicit information. And it's here he finds a weak spot in the Union lines
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and they attack. They move through, you know, over 40 miles of territory in the dead of night with,
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you know, freezing rain and sleet and snow. And they creep up to this Union encampment. And it's
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Stringfellow that initially attacks before he's supposed to. And he lets out a shout and it alerts
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the camp. And many men are wounded from the attack. This is an article I also wrote in Breitbart,
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I'm a Breitbart historian in many ways, called Crimson Snow. And many men are killed or gravely wounded.
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And the Rangers, the Cole's Cavalry has standing orders to shoot anyone on horseback.
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One of the men that is gravely wounded is a guy by the name of Paxton. And Paxton,
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there's an amazing story. Paxton, his family saved a Union Calvaryman and nursed him back to health
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and then brought him back to Union lines. And they had a standing agreement that if Paxton was ever
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wounded, they would save him. And he called that Union Calvaryman forward. And they gave him
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sustenance, even though he was gravely wounded and allowed him the dignity to die with respect.
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And this is what the Unvanquished is about. It's the hidden war of the American Civil War that you
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haven't seen. Good morning and Merry Christmas. I'm Patrick O'Donnell and I'm hosting our annual
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Combat History of Christmas. And we are now talking about the American Civil War and many of the
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actions of individuals that are in the inflection points of history. John Singleton Mosby being one
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of them, who was a great partisan or guerrilla leader, arguably one of America's greatest guerrilla
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leaders in modern history, that changes the course of history with only six men and forms an entire
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guerrilla group that ties down 30,000 to 40,000 Union troops over the course of the war. He pioneers the
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tactics and techniques that we now see in modern special operations forces. And one of my favorite
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Christmas stories of Mosby is his multiple escapes and woundings. He was a man that was only five foot
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seven, about 127 pounds or so, but escaped death constantly and escaped Union dragnets. And one of
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those actions was in and around Christmas at a place called Lakeland. And this house, like many of the
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others in the unvanquished are still there. You can visit these places. And Lakeland at the time, he was
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riding back from a wedding in his finest clothes. He had an ostrich-plumed hat and a cape. And he was
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coming back from a wedding in the middle of a snowstorm. And they stopped at Lakeland for dinner.
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And it's here that they're eating dinner. And suddenly, the house is surrounded by over 100 Union
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Calvarymen. And they storm the house. Mosby puts his hands up. And then all of a sudden, a shot comes
00:30:29.700
through the window and hits him right in the stomach, right near the heart. And he is pushed down. And then there's an
00:30:37.300
ensuing melee within the room. And the lights are kind of put out. And they then, the Union officers
00:30:45.240
that are there, then sort of come, you know, basically are able to sort of sort things out.
00:30:51.520
In the meantime, Mosby realizes that it's probably, he's probably about to be not only dead or killed
00:30:59.180
from this mortal wound, but also captured. Somehow, he has the presence of mind to take his coat off,
00:31:07.120
which has two stars on it, representing his rank, and moves it slightly off to the left near another
00:31:14.360
room and hides it. And then he goes back on the floor. And they capture him. And a doctor comes.
00:31:24.240
And they sense, they see where his wound is. And they say it's in his heart. And it's a mortal wound.
00:31:34.480
And Mosby is the presence of mind to almost laugh, because he realizes that his heart is up a little
00:31:42.460
higher. It didn't pierce his heart. But he still thinks he's mortally wounded. And he lays there,
00:31:48.780
they take off his pants and his boots. And they pronounce that he is a, you know, mortally wounded
00:31:54.200
soldier. And then they start to ask the room who this guy is. And the daughter of the room says,
00:32:01.140
we've never seen him before. He just showed up for dinner. And it's one of the great lies of the Civil
00:32:07.080
War. They literally believe it. And they leave this guy on the floor, bleeding to death. And Mosby
00:32:14.980
is gravely wounded. He recognizes that he somehow survived this brush of death and miraculously gets
00:32:26.660
up and moves to the other room. And his guests are absolutely astounded. They then put him in a number
00:32:35.240
of blankets. And he's moved to a safe house. And the Union cavalry then come back looking for their
00:32:43.460
quarry, because they think that they may have killed Mosby. And he's gone. He just disappears.
00:32:50.420
He's the gray ghost. And the gray ghost then makes his way towards Richmond. The newspapers are all
00:32:59.780
ablaze that this guy, Mosby, was killed. And my favorite anecdote from one of the newspapers is,
00:33:09.520
the devil takes care of his own, as Mosby somehow survives just another one of these mortal,
00:33:17.200
what would have been a mortal wound for pretty much anybody else, and then gets back on in his command
00:33:24.140
and leads his men throughout the rest of the American Civil War, where they do really extraordinary
00:33:33.260
things. The story then shifts a little bit back in time to where the Jesse Scouts form for one of their
00:33:46.400
first raids, which is in and around Christmas. But this is 1863, and it's West Virginia, which is a
00:33:55.280
cauldron of partisan activity. It's here that guerrilla groups are formed on both sides. And it's
00:34:03.780
the Jesse Scouts that are formed to hunt them. The book is about several Jesse Scouts, including a group
00:34:12.060
under the command of Richard Blazer, who's in Ohio. And he's really from my home state and one of the
00:34:18.380
great unsung heroes of the American Civil War. Richard Blazer was a riverboat captain right before
00:34:28.840
the Civil War. He transported supplies up and down the Ohio River near Gallipolis, Ohio, which was his
00:34:37.220
hometown. And at the start of the Civil War, he is an officer in the Union Army, and he's tapped
00:34:45.020
to hunt gorillas because he's got this innate sense of finding people. By the way, I always visit
00:34:52.740
the graves, if I can, of the individuals that I write about. I also walk the ground of all the
00:34:58.540
individuals that I—the stories and the battles that I write about. And I spend years in the archives
00:35:08.360
piecing together the stories of these men to give you an accurate narrative history.
00:35:16.080
It's nonfiction that many—many reviewers have said read like fiction. It puts you there. But it's all
00:35:24.540
based on fact. And one of the things I did is I went to Richard Blazer's grave to find him. And I went
00:35:34.500
there assuming that it would be a small cemetery. And I went to Mount Hill Cemetery, Gallipolis,
00:35:41.780
which is a beautiful cemetery. It overlooks the Ohio River. But it has—I got there, and there were
00:35:47.300
literally thousands upon thousands of tombstones and graves for these people. And I immediately went to
00:35:55.280
where I thought would be a directory. There wasn't one. And I—but I knew that I would find him.
00:36:01.740
And I just prayed. And within maybe 10 minutes, I found Richard Blazer's final resting place.
00:36:13.240
Blazer, as I mentioned, was part of Blazer's independent scouts. And he leads
00:36:18.420
these scouts by leading the Army. And one of those—one of these raids was in and around
00:36:24.940
West Virginia, where they were trying to take out the Southern Railroad that bordered West Virginia
00:36:31.780
and Virginia. This is a Maine lifeline or artery. And Avril's raid, or Christmas raid, took place
00:36:38.820
in the winter of 1863. Background on that is the Confederate Army under General Longstreet,
00:36:47.700
who had been basically loaned to the south near Chattanooga, where they have an amazing battle
00:36:56.880
at Chickamauga. He then is bringing—he's been coming back towards Robert E. Lee. And they surround
00:37:03.440
Knoxville, Tennessee, in a siege. And they need to relieve pressure on that city from Longstreet's
00:37:12.040
forces. So they launch a desperate and bold raid behind the lines. And it's the Jesse scouts
00:37:17.460
and Blazer scouts that lead General Avril's Army. And this is an epic story behind the lines,
00:37:27.600
where these men have to march and ride 400 miles to various depots that are in Southern Virginia.
00:37:37.080
And, you know, it's through the mountains. It's through the sleet and rain. It's—they are—in many
00:37:45.560
cases, it's so rugged and treacherous that they're wearing out the horses. It's so—the area is such
00:37:54.880
difficult terrain, and they have to walk in many cases. But it's also an area that is infested with
00:38:01.080
the Confederate—the Confederate forces. And the Confederates, it's the Jesse scouts that lead
00:38:07.080
these men. They're able to do some amazing things. They're able to seize some bridges
00:38:11.640
ahead of time by impersonating Confederates and allowing the Avril's raiding force to cross before
00:38:19.560
they're able to burn the bridges. But the Confederates know what's going on, and they send out
00:38:24.120
six different commands, thousands of Confederates to annihilate General Avril. And it's the Jesse scouts
00:38:32.840
that have to somehow weave their way through all of this. One of my favorite stories is they're deep
00:38:40.760
behind the lines, and it's near Christmas time, and they need to find another crossing point. There's—there's
00:38:46.600
rivers everywhere. And they—they literally enlist—they try to enlist the services of a doctor that's
00:38:53.080
there. And Avril puts a pistol to this guy's head. First, he initially says, we'll—we'll hire
00:38:59.400
you for $500. And they said, no, there's no way, because my family's going to be known as a traitor.
00:39:06.280
I won't do it. And then they—they put a pistol to his head. Avril put a pistol to his head and said,
00:39:11.320
you need to lead us out of here. If you don't, I'll kill you. And he gave him one minute to respond,
00:39:18.280
and basically put a stopwatch—is watch out. The doctor complied. And they were able to thread their
00:39:25.640
way through southern lines to captivity. But there's an epic story of how one of those—one of those
00:39:34.200
commands. The 14th Pennsylvania is trapped by the bridge—by one of the bridges, which is
00:39:41.800
the Confederates burn, and they're—they're stuck on the—on the wrong side of the river. They have to
00:39:46.840
ford the river. Amazing stories of resilience. And somehow this group has to then trudge
00:39:55.960
another hundreds of miles through all these Confederates that are following them and the
00:40:03.560
mountains. And they—they make—they make this epic—this epic march that is, you know, truly extraordinary. And
00:40:14.200
as they—they make their way back towards the Union camp, they are—they are somehow expected
00:40:25.240
to—to pay for their uniforms and the shoes that they—that they utilized. I—it's one of the most
00:40:33.560
extraordinary stories that I—I found in the book. They—they had done this extraordinary thing,
00:40:40.840
and many of these men were like the veterans of the Battle of the Bulge that I interviewed.
00:40:43.800
They had frostbite. Their uniforms were rags after all this—traversing all these mountains.
00:40:50.760
And somehow the Union Army was expecting them to pay for new uniforms and shoes. And it's here that
00:40:57.400
Avril interceded and—and was able to get the—the government to not—to not do their typical policy.
00:41:07.640
But this is a—this is a Christmas story for the ages. It's about human endurance. It's about individuals
00:41:14.760
that do the impossible. And in the next segments, we're going to go back in time to our founding,
00:41:22.600
to our greatest story, the story of the American Revolution, the story of the Revolutionary War,
00:41:29.480
where our founders do the impossible. They go against the greatest army and navy in the world at the time,
00:41:39.080
and they—they somehow prevail. But they also create the greatest ideas in world history,
00:41:47.720
our ideas of freedom and liberty, which resonate today and have changed the course of history,
00:41:55.000
and have changed empires, and are more important today, now than ever.
00:42:01.080
I'm Patrick K. O'Donnell, and I'm hosting the Combat History of Christmas. It's our annual
00:42:18.040
tradition that we've done for almost 15 years, Stephen K. Bannon and I. And we're going to go back
00:42:24.200
in time to a topic that we've never really—we've never discussed on The War Room, The Forgotten
00:42:31.400
Christmas of 1775. And this is really an epic story in many ways. The—our first—first units within
00:42:41.800
the United States Army were rifle companies. The American long arm, known as the Pennsylvania
00:42:49.160
long arm rifle, would change history. It was about nine pounds, but it could shoot farther than any
00:42:56.680
other rifle in the world at the time. And it was a—it was a—it was a—a weapon that was
00:43:03.480
a—a circumstance of its environment. And that would be the American frontier, where Americans and rugged
00:43:10.280
individuals had to fend off Native Americans, had to shoot wild game. And this rifle, which has its
00:43:19.000
origins at the beginning of the 1700s, is—it's in America. And it's unique because it can shoot
00:43:29.320
about 100 yards more than its European counterparts, which are—have their origins in Switzerland and
00:43:37.400
Germany. But it's these rifle companies that are the foundation of the United States Army, and they answer
00:43:44.200
the call shortly after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and they make their way up to Boston.
00:43:53.400
And it's in and around the siege lines that the rifle companies have a—play a major role in keeping
00:44:00.600
British heads down and then taking off British heads by their sniping ability. And they fear—the
00:44:07.480
British fear of this weapon tremendously. There's a fascinating story of how one of these
00:44:14.360
Pennsylvania companies has a mutiny, because rifle companies are specialized men. They are able to
00:44:22.440
shoot at a target 200 yards away, in many cases the size of a small plate. Many of these guys can
00:44:28.440
shoot an eye out on a squirrel. They were extremely rugged individuals from the frontier,
00:44:33.880
and in many cases very undisciplined individuals. They didn't have the same discipline requirements
00:44:40.200
as the regular army or militia in and around the siege. And they could do what they want. In one case,
00:44:46.840
they literally won company mutinies. And that—what that does is it leads them with a ticket to Canada.
00:44:53.320
Canada. And the—an epic Christmas in 18—in 1775. And that story is incredible. They have to go
00:45:06.920
through nearly 400 miles of Maine wilderness to get to Quebec and Canada to somehow to take the capital
00:45:16.360
city of Quebec City. And they are under the command of Benedict Arnold, who leads them through the
00:45:23.800
wilds—the wilds of Maine and in the rivers. And to get there, they have to basically go through
00:45:36.760
whitewater rapids. They have to ford multiple waterfalls. And they have to take all their provisions
00:45:44.520
with them. As they get up to Maine, they are given these crude rafts, which are made out of,
00:45:52.040
in many cases, wood that's still green. And when they hit the water, they expand. And many of these rafts
00:45:59.560
fall apart as they're going through this whitewater, or the water. And it's an epic, epic story of
00:46:08.360
endurance and survival. Months in the Maine wilderness, weeks in the Maine wilderness. And
00:46:16.280
these men are constantly under the potential attack from the British as well as hostile Native Americans.
00:46:25.080
But they also have to deal with starvation, because there's never enough provisions around.
00:46:32.920
And as this journey through these rivers and mountains train, there's snow. The men are starving.
00:46:39.800
They're literally eating the buckles or the belts that they have in their cartridge boxes. They're
00:46:46.040
boiling them because they don't have enough food. And it's an incredible story of survival.
00:46:53.880
And it's Arnold and Daniel Morgan and the Pennsylvanians and Virginians and other members of the
00:47:03.320
Continental Army that have to make this epic trek towards Canada. And in the Canadian border area,
00:47:13.560
it's Arnold that is able to get a number of cattle and livestock to his men. And they literally have
00:47:20.760
this kind of an orgy of food where they literally eat some of the cattle nearly as they're alive,
00:47:29.960
which causes many of these men, which had not eaten for days, to literally die from what they had eaten.
00:47:37.960
They then make their way up to Quebec City and they are under strength. They don't have artillery for a proper siege,
00:47:48.200
but they siege Quebec and they wait for the ultimate opportunity, which is a nor'easter that occurs right after Christmas.
00:47:57.960
And it's a massive snowstorm. And they attack in that snowstorm to the city gates.
00:48:08.360
And this story is one for the ages. They literally, they come within a hair's breadth of taking Quebec.
00:48:17.640
There's two different wings that assault from two different sides. And on the, on the, the western side,
00:48:25.400
it's General Montgomery that's leading the attack. And they make their way towards a sort of a crude roadblock,
00:48:33.640
which is manned by a number of troops, including a, there's a, there's a British sailor that's brought
00:48:39.400
off of a ship who's drunk at the time. And they see the approaching this force of led by Montgomery
00:48:47.800
of hundreds of men. And he says to them, they're ordered to retreat. They just decide to flee the
00:48:52.920
area. He's like, I, he said to the people around him, I'm going to fire my cannon one last time.
00:48:59.800
And he touches off the cannon and it's a lucky shot. The grave shot literally hits General Montgomery
00:49:07.320
in the forehead and kills him, which has a tremendously negative effect on the entire attack.
00:49:14.120
That entire wing then retreats and it's Daniel Morgan and his men that assault on the opposite side.
00:49:21.640
And they make their way through various barricades against all odds and are this close
00:49:29.160
to seizing Quebec and taking Canada for, for the United States.
00:49:35.880
It's an incredible story of human endurance. And it's, it's a story that is important because
00:49:46.680
as Americans, we often like to look at the victories, but this is a situation where it was a defeat,
00:49:54.280
but it was a victory of human endurance and courage. That is something that
00:50:00.760
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