Larry Mendte Curtis Sliwa America 250th June 11

Curtis shares the story of the Battle of Long Island and how each side of the war navigated the fight.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Curtis and Larry celebrate two fifty stories that made America
on sevent ten woe. And that's part of my responsibility
talking about what happened on the New York side in
the American Revolution against the tyranny of the Crown. The
largest battle of the entire Revolutionary War was to take

(00:24):
place soon after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
General Howe was in charge of British troops in Boston
and his brother, who was the Lord Admiral in charge
of the Navy, decided, guess what we're gonna go in.
We've got our spies telling us that George Washington has
assembled the Continental Army in what they called Long Island

(00:48):
at that time, which was divided from Brooklyn, Queens Nasau
and Suffolk. It was just called Long Island and what
was soon to be labeled the Battle for Long Island.
So remember I had origin told you that General Howe decided, Hey,
we have to have a landing spot. Not as complicated
as picking the landing spot. You know the anniversary of

(01:10):
the landing in Normandy that helped eventually end World War Two.
But we got to go to a spot where they
are loyalists people who believe that, yes, the king should
be calling the shots in the colonies. And they found
where Natalie was birth, Staten Island. They were all loyalists.
The greatest armada ever assembled since the Spanish Armadi came

(01:31):
onto the shores of the south shore Tottenville and started
moving to what is the Straits of the Arizona. Now
they were putting together their longboats with the help of
the loyalists. The dutchy formed on Staten Island, and George
Washington was aware of this, and he's like, oh man,
he doesn't realize that there's a battalion that's come in

(01:52):
on the Long Island side to Nassau South Shore and
they're marching through what is now Jamaica. So General, how
is going to do a pincher move to basically encircle
the beginnings of this continental army, you know of rebels
that is led by George Washington. So all of a

(02:13):
sudden they see the British coming across the straits of
the Arizontal in unprecedented numbers. So George Washington is at
the highest point, which is where the cemetery is, Greenwood Cemetery,
and he's observing this with the telescope was like, oh
my God. But he's unaware of what's coming behind him,

(02:34):
which is not as large a group but British Hessians
and British regulars, and they're going to entrap him against
the East River. So guess who volunteers to come forward
and basically do a Kamikazi defense because almost none of
them are going to survive. Four hundred men from Maryland

(02:54):
and they go up on the high ground of Park
Slope there is now a monument, it's called the Old
Stone House, and these four hundred hold off the British
who have come in from Staten Island. They're holding them off,
they're dying. Almost all of them will die killed, they're
wounded or taken prisoner. That gives George Washington enough time

(03:17):
to basically take a position of what is now Brooklyn Heights.
But he realizes, you know, we may have to contemplate surrendering.
The British and the Hessians have us surrounded to the
west and the east, and our backs to the East River.
What happens is an amazing act of God, There's no
doubt about it. A fog rolls in, a very thick

(03:39):
fog in general, hole says, well, let's build a wax
for the night. We'll get to those rebels and hang
them tomorrow. And George Washington silently during the night, gets
their longboats and evacuates across the East River into Manhattan.
And now, man he's like making tracks. Now, we ain't stopping,
we ain't sleeping nowhere. We got to get the hell

(04:00):
is Brits everywhere, and they're loyalists. This is New York City.
They support the Crown. They'll turn us in, they'll stood
us along the way. So they go up right to
Washington Heights, they go up through Westchester, across the Palisades.
They're now going up where Rockland County is now. They're
heading straight towards where West Point is now. If not
for that, that would have been the end of the

(04:22):
American Revolution. So just think of the bravery of those
four hundred from Maryland who held off the bridge. They
gave George Washington his troops enough time to prepare their
longboats for their escape that night in the fog.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's funny, that was excellent. It's really funny that I
just read about that when I was coming up with
some of the stuff I was gonna do with New Jersey,
and it was portrayed as a huge loss for the Americans,
but it wasn't. It wasn't if you think about it,
because in him escaping and by the way, George Washington

(04:58):
seems to be the greatest ape artists that he constantly
gets out of some really precarious situation.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Than Harry Houdini.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, exactly. If it wasn't for that, if it wasn't
for him surviving that, You're right, the war would.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Be oh is over right there, over right there. And
that's why we're telling you these stories because both Ian Larry,
as much as we are historians, we are learning things
about the American Revolution, finding out about things we didn't
know about all during the years. In order to celebrate
our two hundred and fiftieth birthday on July fourth, now
Taylor Swift's wedding the night of July thirty, Madison Square, Gardo,

(05:34):
maybe a victory parade of everything else. But anyway, up next,
we got to talk about the re engagement in the
war with Iran. Plus head to sevent ten wor dot
com for the special America two hundred and fifty cash
contests and your chance to win twenty five hundred dollars
after the eight o'clock news