Larry Mendte Curtis Sliwa America 250th June 25

Curtis shares the story of the colonial troops setting the stage to battle British General John Burgoyne as they trekked across upstate NY, nearing Canada.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Curtis and Larry celebrate two fifty stories they've made America
on sevennoor. In fact, to here all of our America
two fifties segments, just go to seven tenwor dot com
slash America. Larry's magnificently handled all the battles in New Jersey,

(00:23):
and I've handled New York. And I want to give
a high five to the President for kicking off the
celebrations of our two hundred and fiftieth birthday last night
in DC. Because there's nothing here with nine days, nine
days to go. So let me take you back to
the story that I told you when United States right
out of the box, after Lexington Concord bunker Hill fought man,

(00:46):
if we could go right into Canada, right into Canada
at the start of the war, we could get the
French to join us, we could get Indians to join us,
and we could cut off the supply lines to the bridge.
So the Second Continental con gave General Richard Montgomery the
right to take his army straight into Quebec. And Lieutenant

(01:08):
Colonel Bennettictonald was bringing his army through Maine. And remember
I had told you they took over Montreal almost no
shots fired, and they thought, wow, if we can only
take Quebec City, except Quebec City was up on a hill.
And on December thirty first, seventeen seventy five, they tried
to do it in a blizzard. General Richard Montgomery was

(01:28):
killed and Lieutenant Colonel Bennetdictonald was barely able wounded to
get the troops back to Fort Tykonderoga. So all that
year seventeen seventy six, the Brits plotted their revenge, and
then they launched a massive invasion right from Quebec to
seize control of the Hudson River Valley. The idea would

(01:51):
be to cut off New England, which is where the
Patriots were strongest, and the Brits that pretty much said
we can't take them in Massachusetts and in the way,
and they had three separate British forces that would converge
on Albany. The leader, the British General John Burgoyne. He
had seven thousand Brits, he had Hessians, he had Indians,

(02:15):
but he had a lot of baggage artillery, and there
were a lot of blockages on his way down. But
he was a man who was refined. They called him gentlemen, Johnny,
he had to have his champagne every day, he had
to have his chef prepare his meals for he and
his captains and lieutenants. And naturally they had their gomads

(02:36):
traveling with them, so they had to have some downtime
with their ladies from Quebec. So the American spies beginning
to see this all over the place, and they say,
we're gonna have to probably give up Fort Tychonderoga. So
there's an argument, no, no, no, let's hold for Tykonderoga. We
can take them. But all of a sudden, General John

(02:58):
Burgoyne with all the artillery, gets the high land between
Vermont and New York along Lake George and threatens to
blow the Americans out of Fort Tykwonderaga to Kingdom come.
And so the general there decides General Saint Clair abandoned,
abandoned for Tykonderoga, Man, they're gonna blast us to smitherings.

(03:22):
There are too many Brits in Hessians and Indians. So
he starts retreating to Albany, New York because he knows
from the spies that the Brits are gonna convene there
and then they're gonna just work their way through the
rest of the Hudson Valley, and it probably means surrender
of the Americans. So as uh Burgoyne is waiting for

(03:45):
General Howe, He's supposed to be coming up to Hudson.
General Howe was in charge of all the forces in
the north for the King, decided, Nah, I'm going to
Pennsylvania instead, without telling John Bergoine. There was another general
who supposed to meet him in Albany. He tried to
make it halfway up to Hudson, and they decided, ah,

(04:06):
boy Goinge can handle it. So he keeps going and
going and going. His job is to make it to Saratoga,
make it to Albany, and all along the way the
Patriots are just cutting off the Brits and the Hessians
and shooting at the Indians. But the Brits are still powerful. Meantime,

(04:26):
who's in Paris sitting down occasionally sampling the product in
the nearby bordellos and trying to convince the French to
come in completely into the war and give us even
more money, more weapons, and send troops. It's Benjamin Franklin,
and the Brits say to him, you don't have one
freaking victory. We are not gonna risk everything against England

(04:48):
again unless you have a major victory. And tomorrow that
major victory came about in the most unlikely of ways
against gentlemen, Hommy General John Burgoyne. Wow, you don't hear
a whole lot in the history books about about Canada,
but I think I know the battle you're going to

(05:10):
be talking about next. That is in their excellent job,
and setting up what's going to come next is just
as always an excellent job.