Tag: revwar

The Well Known Caesar Marion (was committed to prison) (episode 333)

In this episode, we go in search of a Black Bostonian who was “well known” to his contemporaries, including Boston newspapers, but who was all but forgotten by history.  If not for a one-paragraph news article and work by historians to reconstruct aspects of his life from notarial records, we may not know the name Caesar Marion.  In this somewhat brief episode, we’re going to look at why Mr. Marion was thrown into Boston’s notorious jail 250 years ago this week, and then we’ll compare his treatment inside British-occupied Boston with the experience of Black volunteers in the Continental Army outside Boston, once Virginia enslaver George Washington took command.  


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The Battles for Boston Light at 250 (episode 332)

In July 1775, the siege of Boston was approaching its peak, with the New England militias that had been surrounding Boston itself since April coalescing into the brand new Continental Army and the British dug in within the city to protect the vital harbor.  250 years ago this week, Continental officers planned a daring raid on Boston Harbor, essentially taking them deep into hostile territory, since the mighty Royal Navy ruled the waters.  The objective of this raid, or rather raids, because there were two of them, was Boston Light.  Marking the entrance to Boston Harbor since 1716, this humble lighthouse became an important strategic target, during a phase of the war where Britain’s presence in Boston was only possible because of a boatlift connecting their supply lines from Long Wharf to Newcastle and Plymouth in old England.  We’ll also see how the tide of battle could turn on the back of the simple New England whaleboat, which proved itself to be the 18th century equivalent of a stealth fighter in these engagements.  (Parts of this episode originally aired in 2021 as episode 227.)


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George Washington Takes Command at Cambridge, featuring the American Revolution Podcast (episode 330)

This week we celebrate another important anniversary in the lead up to America’s 250th birthday.  On July 3, 1775, George Washington assumed command of the newly created Continental Army at their headquarters in Cambridge, and Mike Troy of the American Revolution podcast is going to tell us how it happened.  Mike was our guest last week, but this week he’s allowing me to play clips from two of his classic shows.  I’m going to play part of episode 64 of the American Revolution Podcast, which was titled “The Second Continental Congress Begins,” and all of episode 67, “Washington Takes Command.”  Both these episodes originally aired on the American Revolution Podcast in the fall of 2018, and they will allow us to understand why the Continental Army was created, how George Washington was chosen as our first Commander in Chief, and the challenges Washington faced upon taking command in Cambridge 250 years ago this week.


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Boston’s Forage War (episode 327)

Over the past few episodes, we’ve seen how Massachusetts troops drove the British back from Concord and Lexington to Boston, then created elaborate siege lines that kept the redcoats bottled up in the city, while the Americans controlled the surrounding countryside. 250 years ago this week, the focus of the war shifted from land to sea, with the British leveraging the immense tactical advantage that their navy gave them in projecting power on the ocean and along the coast. To try to offset the hardship of the American siege, the British used their naval power to find food in the Boston Harbor Islands, first on Grape Island, near today’s Weymouth and Hingham, then at Noddles and Hog Islands, which form most of today’s East Boston. At Grape Island, the Americans put up a spirited but largely ineffective defense, but the skirmish we remember as the battle of Chelsea Creek became an important turning point for the Americans. This was the first operation where soldiers from different colonies worked together in a coordinated effort; the first time the rebellious New Englanders used artillery in battle; and the first time Americans engaged and actually captured a British warship.


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A Hero for Fort Ticonderoga (episode 326)

Every Bostonian knows Fort Ticonderoga as the source of the cannons that Henry Knox brought to Boston, secretly hauled to the top of Dorchester Heights in the middle of the night, and used to drive the redcoats out of Boston forever.  We’ll cover that story later in our 250th anniversary season, but this week I want to think about the other end of the chain.  Before Henry Knox could bring his noble train of artillery to Boston, somebody had to take those cannons, and the fort they belonged to, from the redcoats.  We usually give credit for the daring capture of Fort Ticonderoga to Ethan Allen, whose homestead you can visit outside Burlington, Vermont these days.  The capture is actually at least as much a Boston story as it is a Vermont story, as the orders to capture the fort were issued by our local patriots.  We forget about this part of the story because the officer who was chosen to lead the expedition to Fort Ti was one of the greatest heroes of the revolution, right up until the point when he became one of history’s greatest traitors.  That’s right, Benedict Arnold.


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Boston Under Siege (episode 325)

From the moment the April 19, 1775 battle of Lexington and Concord ended until the British gave up and evacuated the city in March 1776, Boston was the epicenter of the American War for Independence.  After eleven months of under siege, Boston was effectively independent after the British evacuation, never being under serious threat of re-invasion after March 17, 1776.  Unfortunately, the Siege of Boston started and ended before independence was declared in Philadelphia, so it’s usually forgotten in our retelling of our national origin story.  For this week’s show, let’s linger on the siege to see how it came together 250 years ago this week, how colonial Bostonians decided whether they should stay in their homes or flee to the countryside, and where the battle lines were drawn upon the map of modern Boston.  Over the course of the coming year, we’ll return to the siege of Boston several times to talk about battles and skirmishes, heroes and traitors, and generals and everyday Bostonians, but for now I want to set the stage with an episode about the early days of the siege in April and May of 1775.


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Paul Revere’s Ride at 250 (episode 324)

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

This week marks the 250th anniversary of our American Revolution, with the first battles taking place in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.  The night before, Paul Revere rode from Boston to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British regulars were coming out that night.  Most Americans have a mental image of a lone rider in the night carrying the fate of the nation and the future of independence with him.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Landlord’s Tale, or Paul Revere’s Ride” is largely responsible for that image, but is it accurate?  This week, we retell the story of Paul Revere’s ride by looking at Longfellow’s poem alongside two versions of the night’s events that were told by Paul Revere in his own words.  


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Drinker, Draftsman, Soldier, Spy (episode 321)

250 years ago this week, General Thomas Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts and commander in chief of all British forces in North America, sent two British spies into the rural communities around Boston. He carefully selected two redcoats to go undercover, roaming highways and country lanes and taking painstaking notes about their terrain and relative military advantages. First they surveyed the western roads to Worcester, then the northern roads to Concord, anticipating a spring offensive against one town or the other. Unfortunately for them, however, their disguises weren’t as good as they hoped, and they were soon under nearly constant surveillance from patriot counterintelligence that left them in fear for their lives.  


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More Than Just Tea (episode 290)

I had originally planned to release an interview with an expert this week where we debunked some of the most common myths about the destruction of the tea.  Events conspired against me, however.  Luckily, the rest of Boston has the 250th anniversary of the Tea Party covered.  There are commemorative events taking place around the city and throughout December, so we’ll look at a different detail. In all the hoopla about the tea, it’s easy to forget that the tea ships also carried other cargoes. In this week’s episode, we’ll revisit two classic stories about other cartoes that the tea ships brought to Boston.  First, we’ll hear about Phillis Wheatley’s book of poetry, which was on the Dartmouth, through the story of enslaved artist Scipio Moorhead.  After that, we’ll learn about Boston’s first street lamps, which were on the forgotten fourth tea ship, the William.


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King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father, with Brooke Barbier (episode 286)

In King Hancock, the Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father, Brooke Barbier paints the portrait of a walking contradiction: one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, but a man of the people; a merchant who made his fortune in the warm embrace of empire, but signed his name first for independence; and an enslaver who called for freedom. Perhaps most of all, he’s portrayed as a moderate in a town of radicals.  Hancock didn’t leave behind the same carefully preserved, indexed, and cross referenced lifetime of papers like our old friend John Adams.  He wasn’t immortalized as the indispensable man, like George Washington.  But Brooke weaves together the details that can be found in portraits, artifacts, official records, and surviving letters to create a nuanced portrait of a founder who should be remembered for more than a famous signature.


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