Larry Mendte Curtis Sliwa America 250th June 29

Larry Mendte shares the story of New Jersey being the key to winning the American Revolution by being the only land between NYC and Philadelphia where the British and American armies were stationed.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Curtis and Larry celebrate two fifty Stories that made America
on sevent tenor.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
It is impossible to overstate the importance of New Jersey
in the American Revolution. The British and the Americans knew
that New Jersey was the key to victory for both sides.
New York was controlled by the British Empire. New York
City was their headquarters and stronghold in the New World,

(00:32):
and the only things standing between the British Army and
New York City and Philadelphia, the capital of the brazenly
declared new country called America, was New Jersey. If New
Jersey fell, the Revolution would have ended early, and maybe
even to this day, we would be part of the

(00:53):
British Empire. But New Jersey held strong. Washington and the
Continental Army played a big part, but so did the
citizen soldiers called the minute Men, who made up local militias,
producing legendary heroes like Colonel Joshua Huddy, a fearless Monmouth
County militia leader who led dozens of daring raids against

(01:17):
the British and their loyalists. When he was executed in
seventeen eighty two by the British It caused an enormous
uprising in Monmouth County, so enormous that it caused the
Brits forces and their local loyalists to flee for their lives.
Heroes like Ann Cooper Wittall, a Quaker from Salem County,

(01:41):
who famously refused to evacuate her home during the fierce
Battle of Redbank on October twenty second, nineteen seventy seven.
Legend says she calmly spun wool on her spinning wheel
while the battle raged on. When a stray cannon ball
crashed through her wall, she calmly moved her spinning wheel

(02:04):
to the basement and kept working. Her home became a
triage unit after the battle. Being true to her Quaker faith,
An Widaw treated American patriots and Hessian soldiers alike, but
they would all have to listen to her chastise them
for bringing misery upon themselves, for taking part in the

(02:25):
sin of war, a true Quaker. And then, of course
there was Mary Pitcher her real name is Mary Hayes.
During the intense Battle of Monmouth, fought in sweldering one
hundred degree heat, Mary tirelessly carried pitchers of water from
a nearby spring to cool down the cannon barrels and

(02:46):
hydrate the troops. When her husband, William Hayes, who was
manning one of the cannons, passed out from heat exposure,
Mary took his place, loading, swabbing, and firing the artillery
for the rest of the day. Joseph Martin, who was
a private who witnessed the bravery of Mary Pitcher, wrote

(03:07):
in his diary that when an enemy cannonball tore right
through between her legs, ripping the lower half of her dress,
she turned to the stunned soldiers and said how lucky
she was that it didn't pass a little higher, and
then she just kept shooting. General George Washington would acknowledge

(03:28):
Mary Pitcher's extraordinary valor with an honorary commission, after which
she was proudly called Sergeant Molly. Colonel Huddy Ann Cooper Widall.
Molly Pitcher and New Jersey itself have been unfairly relegated
to but a cameo role in the story of the

(03:49):
American Revolution. History is infamously unforgiving. In a fair world,
New Jersey would have a starring role, but in this story,
it is the beginning and the end that gets all
the acclaim. New Jersey as usual is lost in the middle.
New Jersey was so fierce in keeping the British from

(04:10):
getting to the nation's capital in Philadelphia, they gave up trying.
British General Sir Henry Clinton, the commander in chief of
all British forces, would retreat from New Jersey and put
all of his efforts in the South. In other words,
New Jersey won hoping Philadelphia. General Clinton hoped Philadelphia would

(04:32):
be easier to access through the back door of Delaware.
And that's where I'm going to pick up the story
on Wednesday, as we close in on the British surrender
in Yorktown, Virginia on October of seventeen eighty one. But
it's important to remember this was all made possible by
the strength, resilience, and patriotism of New Jersey. They held

(04:54):
the line, they held a union together, and they held
the truths outlined in the Decklo Ration of Independence to
be self evident and worth fighting for.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Outstanding Larry again, and remember originally when we started this series,
where the only network of any nature doing this on TV,
radio or any other form of communication. The person called
talkback said you got to talk about the female poll
Revere Sybil Luddington sixteen years old. It was controversy about that.

(05:27):
That's why I couldn't bring it up so quickly. But
tomorrow I will answered. Oh, looking forward to that.