Tag: revwar

Paul Revere NOT on the Road to Concord (episode 351)

For Patriots Day this year, let’s talk about Paul Revere. Instead of focusing on his famous ride 251 years ago, let’s go into the back catalog to uncover some lesser known aspects of Paul Revere’s involvement in the Patriot cause. First, we’ll look at Revere as a messenger. He’s known for his famous ride on April 18, 1775, but Paul Revere was chosen for that ride because he already had a reputation as a reliable express rider, carrying secret messages from the Boston Committee of Correspondence on horseback to patriots in New York, Philadelphia, New Hampshire, and beyond. Then, we’ll turn the clock forward and look at Revere’s support for the cause after his famous ride. In 1779, Paul Revere was the colonel in charge of the Massachusetts artillery regiment, and he was tapped as one of the commanders of an expedition to dislodge the British from the Penobscot Bay in today’s Maine. The resulting fiasco was the worst American naval defeat prior to Pearl Harbor, and it left Revere’s soldiers half-starved and wandering through the Maine wilderness. In this episode, we’ll learn how much blame Revere bore for the chaotic retreat.


Continue reading Paul Revere NOT on the Road to Concord (episode 351)

Loyalists in the Siege and Evacuation of Boston, with Dr. Patrick G O’Brien (episode 349)

What does it mean to lose your home to a war you hoped would never come? In the popular imagination, the American Revolution is a black and white story of “Good Patriots” versus “Bad British,” but the reality on the streets of occupied Boston was far more gray, hungry, and heartbreaking. By the time the British fleet finally sailed out of the harbor on March 17, 1776, the city was a shell of its former self—a place where residents had been reduced to eating rats and burning their neighbors’ houses for warmth.

Our last episode examined the nearly miraculous American victory at Boston that forced the occupying British troops and Massachusetts residents who sympathized with them to evacuate Boston.  In this episode, co-host emerita Nikki sits down with historian Dr. Patrick G. O’Brien to explore Evacuation Day from the perspective of the Bostonians who later became known as “loyalists.”

From the economic fallout of the Boston Port Act to the shocking sight of British soldiers sleeping in tattered tents on a frozen Boston Common, this conversation explores the human cost of civil war, from the 1774 arrival of thousands of Redcoats to the desperate 10-day scramble of the March 1776 evacuation. From the rocky, fog-drenched shores of Halifax to the lonely streets of London, it’s a story of divided families, broken kinship bonds, and the long, bitter road to reintegration, reminding us that for many, March 17th was not a day of liberation, but a day of profound loss.


Continue reading Loyalists in the Siege and Evacuation of Boston, with Dr. Patrick G O’Brien (episode 349)

Boston’s Independence Day: Evacuation Day at 250 (episode 348)

2026 marks the 250th anniversary of American independence, and here in Boston Independence Day comes early, on a holiday we celebrate every year on March 17 as Evacuation Day.  In the early months of 1776, the American Revolution was stuck in a freezing, muddy stalemate. For nearly a year, George Washington’s fledgling Continental Army had kept the British regulars pinned inside the city of Boston, but without heavy artillery, they lacked the muscle to actually end the occupation. Washington, frustrated and desperate, even fantasized about a suicidal frontal assault across the ice of the Charles River. But the arrival of Henry Knox and his “noble train of artillery”—dozens of cannons hauled 300 miles through the winter wilderness from Fort Ticonderoga—flipped the script overnight. This episode explores the high-stakes gambit that followed: the secret, overnight fortification of Dorchester Heights.

We’ll dive into the primary accounts of those who lived through it—from Abigail Adams listening to the earth-shaking roar of a diversionary bombardment, to British officers waking up to find a “miraculous” fortress staring down their throats. You’ll learn how Washington used the best tactics and technology of 18th-century military engineering, like portable bulletproof shields crafted of wicker and dirt, known as Gabions, Fascines and Chandeliers, pulling off a logistical feat that left the British commander, General Howe, stunned. It’s a story of military brinksmanship, a providential storm that changed the course of history, and the chaotic, plundering retreat of the British that we remember every March 17th as Evacuation Day. Join us as we go behind the lines of the first great American victory of the war. 


Continue reading Boston’s Independence Day: Evacuation Day at 250 (episode 348)

Religion and the Revolution at 250, with Nikki Stewart and Dr. Kyle B Roberts (episode 346)

In this episode, Nikki Stewart of Old North Illuminated and Dr. Kyle B. Roberts of the Congregational Library and Archives discuss the pivotal role of religion in the American Revolution. The conversation explores how Boston’s religious landscape—ranging from established Congregationalist churches to the Church of England—acted as a catalyst for revolutionary thought or a source of complex loyalist tension. As the 250th anniversary of independence approaches in 2026, both organizations are shifting their focus toward a more inclusive historical narrative. Initiatives like “New England’s Hidden Histories” and new educational exhibits aim to uncover the long-overlooked stories of Black and Indigenous congregants. Ultimately, the episode emphasizes that understanding these intricate ties between faith and politics is essential for interpreting modern American identity and fostering a more nuanced perspective on our shared history.


Continue reading Religion and the Revolution at 250, with Nikki Stewart and Dr. Kyle B Roberts (episode 346)

The Noble Train Arrives

January 1776 was a dark and scary time in Boston.  By this time, the city had been on a wartime footing for nine months following the battles at Lexington and Concord the preceding April.  The redcoats had transformed the city into an armed garrison, but they were outnumbered and cut off by the patriots who surrounded them in Roxbury and Cambridge.  The Americans had the numbers, but the British had artillery regiments and the guns of the Royal Navy to dissuade a frontal assault on the city.  Those Navy ships were a lifeline for the British troops, bringing in enough food and supplies to keep them alive, but only barely.  Even though many residents had fled the town, leaving mostly loyalists behind, there was not enough food or firewood to go around.  Things weren’t much better on the other side of the lines.  The patriots had enough to eat, though they were usually gouged on the prices that winter.  But they were spending the winter shivering in hastily-built barracks with no insulation and little firewood.  They must have watched with some jealousy as the redcoats across the river tore down the meetinghouse in North Square to use the timber as firewood.  On January 24, George Washington seethed in a letter to John Hancock, “no man upon Earth wishes more ardently to destroy the Nest in Boston, than I do—no person would be willing to goe greater lengths than I shall to accomplish It, If it shall be thought advisable—But If we have neither Powder to Bombard with, nor Ice to pass on, we shall be in no better situation than we have been in all the year.”  Little did the general know that Boston’s salvation was just a day away.  The next day, 25-year-old Henry Knox arrived in Cambridge with 60 tons of artillery in tow.  Against all odds, he had managed to float, cart, and sled 59 cannons and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga, on the icy shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York, over the Berkshire mountains, to the Continental headquarters in Cambridge.  This week, we are going to revisit an interview that first aired in May 2020 with author William Hazelgrove about his book Henry Knox’s Noble Train and the audacious expedition that saved Boston 250 years ago this week.


Continue reading The Noble Train Arrives

How the Nascent Navy’s Nancy Armed the Army (episode 341)

By late November 1775, George Washington and the Continental Army encircling Boston faced a crisis: their soldiers were facing a frigid New England winter, their enlistments were expiring, and they were critically short of guns and gunpowder and essential supplies.  General Washington was desperate to strike the British before his army melted away, even contemplating the use of spears as a last resort against the world’s most powerful military. The Continentals’ luck began to change when Washington commissioned a small squadron of six lightly armed schooners, the first American Navy, and ordered them to patrol New England waters. One of these schooners, the Lee, was commanded by a Captain John Manley of Marblehead. Operating under Washington’s directive to harass enemy shipping, Captain Manley cleverly tricked and captured the British ordnance brigantine Nancy near Boston Harbor on November 29, 1775. This single ship that had strayed from the safety of a larger convoy proved to be an “immense acquisition” for the patriots, yielding a treasure trove of military stores: cannons, thousands of muskets, and perhaps most importantly, a cache of ammunition and gunpowder that, paired with Henry Knox’s noble train of artillery, would provide the Continentals with enough firepower to finally drive the British out of Boston.


Continue reading How the Nascent Navy’s Nancy Armed the Army (episode 341)

Revolutionary Self Defense (episode 339)

In this episode, we’ll revisit two murder trials that were held in revolutionary Boston.  The first case was against four ordinary sailors accused of murdering an officer of the Royal Navy on a ship in Massachusetts coastal waters, and the other was against nine British prisoners of war who were accused of murdering a guard aboard a prison ship in Boston Harbor.  The sailors were accused in 1769, when Boston was under military occupation and the tensions that would result in the Boston Massacre were coming to a head.  The redcoats stood trial over a decade later, in the midst of a bloody war that had touched the lives of all Bostonians by 1780.  In both cases, attorneys and judges worried whether a jury could deliver justice in a polarized city.  Both cases were argued by signers of the Declaration of Independence, with John Adams defending the American sailors in 1780 and Robert Treat Paine prosecuting the redcoats in 1780.  In both cases, the defendants argued that they had acted in self defense, and amazingly, both cases ended in acquittal.


Continue reading Revolutionary Self Defense (episode 339)

America’s First Traitor (episode 337)

250 years ago today, a letter from George Washington revealed a devastating secret: there was a British spy at the highest level of patriot leadership.  The traitor was none other than Dr. Benjamin Church, a man who seemed to embody the American cause.  He was a Harvard-educated physician who had been appointed as our first surgeon general, he was a close confidant of leaders like Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, and he was officially in charge of organizing the war effort as head of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety.  Church had risked his life for liberty and was trusted with the revolution’s deepest political and military secrets, but a coded letter, a secret mistress, and a suspicious baker would unravel a web of deceit that would make Benedict Arnold blush.


Continue reading America’s First Traitor (episode 337)

The Riflemen’s Mutiny and the March to Quebec (episode 335)

In this episode, we will learn about two important developments in the siege of Boston 250 years ago this month, in September 1775.  First, we’ll learn about the invasion of Quebec that Benedict Arnold launched out of Boston that month, in hopes of winning over Canadian hearts and minds.  If you have ever wondered why Canada isn’t part of the United States, we can probably chalk that up to Arnold’s ill-fated expedition, as well as the 150 years of conflict between Canadians and New Englanders that had gone before.  We will also learn about the riflemen who made up much of the invasion force.  Recruited from the backwoods of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and what’s now West Virginia, these exotic troops were treated as celebrities when they first arrived at the Continental camp in Cambridge, but the bloom was soon off the rose.  As we’ll hear, some of the riflemen staged the first mutiny in the Continental Army 250 years ago this week, until they were personally subdued by George Washington near Union Square in today’s Somerville.  


Continue reading The Riflemen’s Mutiny and the March to Quebec (episode 335)

Hot Siege Summer (episode 334)

After the Battle of Bunker Hill in June, the siege of Boston reverted to a stalemate through the summer of 1775.  While Benedict Arnold would lead some of the Continentals north from Cambridge into Canada and Henry Knox tried to wrestle Fort Ticonderoga’s cannons south from upstate New York to Cambridge, there was not a lot of action around Boston.  Instead, as we’ll explore in this episode, the focus shifted to preparation, with riflemen from the far western frontier in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland joining the lines, with Continentals building new forts to consolidate their siege lines, and with the redcoats venting their frustrations on Boston’s Liberty Tree.  We’ll also see how the new Continental commander in chief, George Washington, could barely be restrained from ordering a direct, frontal assault on the superior British force in Boston, even though there wasn’t enough ammunition in the Continental camp to go around.  


Continue reading Hot Siege Summer (episode 334)