Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBSY Foston's Meat Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Prabby Jake for Dan, and thank you to Dean Michael
con Massachusetts School of Law. Always a blast when he
comes in. And if you're out there listening in the
car on the way home, I must have known you,
Mike for like ten or eleven years now, which is
is quite stunning. Well, my friends, we live in a
very historic area. This is New England. This is where
(00:28):
it began, you know, this is kind of America's home area,
and we're proud of our history. And this is a
key time when it comes to anniversaries of our history.
This is a time where it's good to look back
and deep dig, deep down into the events of the
(00:51):
American Revolution. And we're going to do that now. And
our guest is a guest someone that's been with me
many times, Professor Bob Allen from Suffolk University and an
act super expert on the Revolution and related topics. So
I'm really happy to have Bob here and talk about
(01:11):
Revolution two fifty, which is an well actually, I let
Professor Allison talk about it. Thanks for being with us, Bob.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Nih Bradley, It's great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Good to hear that big, booming voice of yours.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's great to hear your voice over the airwaves too.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Okay, So you are very involved with an organization, an
ongoing series of events called Revolution two fifty. Can you
give us an overview of that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, A Revolution two fifty is a consortium of about
seventy five groups in Massachusetts history groups big and small,
and about ten fifteen years ago, we realized that the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversaries of the Revolution were approaching,
and we really should get together and start organizing things otherwise.
Suddenly we say, hey, you know, but this is the
(02:00):
two fiftieth maybe we should have done something. Because there
are some events that do happen every year. There are
re enactments of the Tea Party and Lexington and Conquered
and Bunker Hill. They're commemorative events. We thought it we
all work together, we can actually do more. So that's
what we've been up to, and we've had some really
spectacular events. It's also been exciting to see people in
(02:21):
different towns in Massachusetts and communities getting together to commemorate
their history and their communities role in this history. Whether
these Folks's ancestors were there at the time or not.
We had a great event series of events in Chelsea
in May commemorating and East Boston commemorating the Battle of
Chelsea Creek or Noddles Island, which is one of those battles.
(02:43):
I bet even you hadn't heard about.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, right, while you're at it, why don't you talk
a little bit about the battle at Chelsea Creek.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, This is about a month after Lexington conquered and
the British now were besieged in Boston, and they rely
on the Harbor Island, including Nobles Island which is now
East Boston for food. This is where livestock raised and
hey for the horses the British had and other things
on these islands. And so the rebel militia camped out
(03:14):
in Cambridge and Malden and other places go to get
the livestock off of the island. And while they're doing it,
some of them set fire to haystacks and this alerts
the British, and the British and a party of marines
across Nobles Island and there's an engagement there in what's
now East Boston, and they also send a British sloop
up Chelsea Creek, this narrow waterway you see now between
(03:37):
Chelsea and East Boston. There are oil tanks on the
side of it. It's really it's an urban waterway, but
you think this water's been flowing for a long time.
And the sloop goes up the creek because there's an
unusually high tide and it's trank of fire on the
colonial rebels on the shore, but of course they're lower
(03:57):
than they are, and because it's an unusually high tide,
gets very far up the creek, and then we know
that six hours after a big high tide there's going
to be a really low tide, and the Diana runs
wind up running aground, and the colonists bring out a
piece of artillery and start firing at the Diana, the
British abandoned ship, and ultimately the ship is set on fire,
(04:21):
but not before the colony is substricted of everything of value,
including the main mast, which they take up to Prospect
Hill and what's now Summerville and becomes their flagpole. So
this battle is of interest not only because it happens
in Chelsea and East Boston, which are heavily populated areas.
Now it's the first time colonists from different colonies fight
(04:43):
together under one command. Their guys from Massachusetts as well
as New Hampshire and Connecticut involved, first time they capture
a British warship and also the first time they use
artillery in a battle. And also because they are a
number of British casualties, we don't know how many, there
are no American casualties. This gives the Americans the idea
(05:03):
we're invincible, and that's something that will come back to
bite them at Bunker Hill when they think no any
of artillery, enemy artillery can't do anything. In fact, the
israel Putnam is one of the generals and colonels in
charges from Connecticut, So I wish my men could face
artillery fire every day. Then they see there's no danger
in it. Well there is. I mean they were lucky
(05:24):
that day. So here you have this event, and in
Chelsea and East Boston they did a wonderful series of
re enactments of this, commemorations of this in may really
connecting people in these communities with this history and realizing,
as you were saying in the beginning, we live in
really an historic place.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You mentioned Bunker Hill. I'm glad you did because it
gives me an excuse to ask you about that. This
is one of the most impressive events for me. The grit,
the face to face.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
The reality of area of war back in the day,
not that far from the you know, Rome, medieval Rome.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
It's Europe, close and personal and fighting hand to hand
at some point, can you can you get into some
detail about how violent and bloody I shouldn't say bloody,
but how well it was body.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And we're really I think in many ways the public
memory of the revolution has been sanitized. You know, there
aren't photographs the way there are of the Civil War,
and there's no news. You know, there's no television the
way there is in Vietnam, so we don't really see it.
You know, there's the painting in the MFA of the
death of General Warren at Bunker Hill, and he is
(06:46):
wearing this immaculate white shirt. You know, the artist is
trying to show him as this christlike figure. But I
think he's just been shot in the head and he's
been in this readoubt all day, this dirt read out
fighting on this hot day. But his clothes are immaculate yeah,
and the artist who painted it was actually there. He
(07:08):
paints it long after the fact, but yeah, we have
this view of it, when in fact it is Plady
and the British who are marching up the hill are
their favorite weapon is the bayonet, so they're preparing for
hand to hand combat getting over this and stabbing these guys,
slashing at them with their bayonets. Really a brutal, brutal weapon.
(07:31):
And you know, over the course of the war that's
going to go on for eight years, something like seventy
five British officers will die in battle, and twenty five
of them die on this day.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
How many people who were involved in the battle and
what was the percentage of casualties? That is the stunning thing.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That is a stunning thing. And on the British side
there may be three thousand men involved and they have
a bat nine hundred casualties, so about a third of
their fighting force they lose that day killed or wounded
on the hill. And yeah, they had about fifteen hundred
(08:12):
troops engaged all day. And it's actually we know where
the monument is and that's one redoubt. There actually are
there different places where fighting is going on. Most of
the casualties actually happened along the Mystic River beach. They're
about three thousand or so Americans we think involved in
(08:34):
maybe about half were engaged at any particular time, and
something like four hundred and forty American casualties one hundred
and forty killed.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's a total of thirteen hundred killed and wounded.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
How long did the battle last?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
It lasted about six hours. And another thing to remember,
the British aim was not to get this hill. The
British aim was to get their force to Cambridge. That's
where the rebel camp was. And they thought, if we
can just have a show of force there, that's going
to disperse this rebel camp to Cambridge. So it was planning.
They're planning a three day operation. Day one crossover you
(09:18):
get to Cambridge. Day two you're going to march. Then
from Cambridge across the Charles River. There is a bridge
over the Charles near where the John John F. Kennedy
Boulevard is now in Cambridge here the John F. Kennedy
School of Government, and there was a bridge there. Then
we'll march through Muddy River Brookline Little Cambridge, which is
(09:39):
now a muddy River, we'll get to Roxbury and so
by the end of day two we're going to be
in Roxbury. And so that was the plan. But the
Americans overnight had put up this fortification on Breed's Hill,
and it wasn't the hill that was ordered to be fortified.
Hartemas Ward, who is the overall commander of this his
(09:59):
headquarters in Cambridge all day and he sends Colonel Prescott,
Massachusetts officer, to go and fortify Bunker Hill, which is
the higher point. It's where the Saint Francis to South
Church is today in Charlestown. And Prescott gets there and
he thinks, well, why am I fortifying this hill when
there's another hill they're going to have to pass through first,
(10:21):
Breeds Hill. So he goes and fortifies Breeds Hill, and
Israel Putnam, if I mentioned, comes on the scene. He's
a general from an officer from Connecticut. He thinks, what
a moron he was supposed to fortify this hill, so
he that is Bunker Hill. So he does fortify Bunker Hill.
And then John Starr, officer from New Hampshire, comes on
(10:41):
the scene and he realizes that along the river, the
Mystic River, the British can simply land their troops there
and march around Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill and cross
Charlestown Neck into Cambridge. And so both of these fortifications
in the hill stark reel Lises are meaningless. So he
(11:01):
fortifies along the beach. He and his men build a
rail fence there to prevent the British advance, and that's
actually where most of the casualties happen. There is, of course,
very fierce fighting on Breed's Hill. This is the main redoubt,
and this is where Joseph Warren is and Colonel Prescott
and his men who spent the night digging this fortification,
(11:25):
and the British spend the morning preparing for this three
day assault. That is their baking bread, roasting meat. They're
a couple of deserters. They hang and they're rowing across.
So they get underway probably around the middle of the day.
And it's a hot, humid June day, and we know
what those are like. And these guys are not only
wearing their heavily heavy wool uniforms, they're also carrying their
(11:48):
packs for this three day campaign. And so these men
are marching up this hill and the day before they
had scouted it and there was nothing here. And they
get to the top and guys in this readout open
fire on them, and they're aiming at the officers because
they know the British soldiers, if their officers are out
(12:10):
of commission pretty much don't know what to do, and
of course they're not expecting this, and so the men
open fire, targeting the officers, and the British retreat down
to the bottom of the hill. Now, meanwhile, over in
Boston at Tops Hill, there's a burying ground there that
was another British battery. Sir Henry Clinton, another British general,
(12:32):
notices that there are snipers in the town of Charlestown.
You know, the town is around the very tip of
Charlestown Neck, and most of the civilians in town had
evacuated because I have.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
To break here.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
So we're gonna, okay, we'll get back a.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Pen at that most of the town's been evacuated, and
then we'll finish up on that and we'll get to
one of your upcoming events, which is celebrating Henry Knox,
which is a big deal, and you're going to go
into d tail on that too. Thank you, Bob. Allison
more in a moment on bz.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'm your host, Bradley J. Tonight in for Dan Ray
on Night Side. Our guest is Bob Allison, Suffolk University
history professor. Excuse me, and we are talking about events
related to the American Revolution and it's in relation to
Bob's organization, an organization Bob's involved with called rev Revolution
two fifty And we have a few moments to really
(13:34):
drill down on the Battle of Bunker Hill. We get
in all kinds of details that I certainly didn't know about,
and then we'll spend a significant amount of time after
the bottom of the hour on one of the more
amazing feats that took place during the Revolution, where Henry Knox,
a person named Henry Knox went up to Fort Tae
(13:54):
Kwonder Roga and drug a bunch of cannon through the
word there's no roads which winter all these cannon down
to Boston. And I'm not going to tell you the
whole story, Bob is, but let's finish up with the
Battle of Bunker Hillbob, So.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
The British burn in the town of Charlestown, and so
you have this big fire going on, and what finally
gets the Americans is they've held off. They hold up
two British assaults on the hill and at the rail fence,
but then they're out of ammunition. So what they have
to do, the guys in this readout too and if
the rail fence have to do is hold the British
(14:35):
back long enough to the rest of the army can
get back to safety. And they do this. So imagine
you are one of these guys in your job is
just to slow the enemy down. You know, you can't
stop him, and the British are going to come over
the redoubt with their bayonets, and that's when some real
carnage happens, as well as at the rail fence. So
(14:59):
tactically the British hold the hill at the end of
the day, so they win the battle. But on the
other hand, they've had enormous casualties and it's the last
time during the war they'll ever try to assault a
position the Americans have been able to fortify. And General
Howe is reported to have said, these men did in
one night will take my army three months. And Nathaniel Greene,
(15:21):
who is an officer from Rhode Island, right, I wish
we could sell them another hill at the same price.
And when Washington hears about it, he thinks what we
need to do is get the British into another battle
like this, and that will convince the British public to
give up the war. So Bunker Hill looms really large.
It's going to be the last major battle fought in
(15:42):
Massachusetts and actually the last big engagement for the British
for another year. The year there's going to be a
campaign in Canada, so it looms very large here. And then,
of course the big problem the Americans still have is
the British are holding Boston and they don't have artillery.
And in May of seventeen seventy five, a couple of forces,
(16:06):
one led by Benedict Arnold and one led by Ethan Allen,
captured for Tykhonderoga and they're about seventy or eighty pieces
of heavy artillery there. And this is what brings us
to Henry Knox, who's a twenty four year old Boston
bookseller and he had a London bookstore. Interesting guy. His
father had kind of abandoned the family when he was
(16:27):
a kid. So Knox is a dropout of Boston Latin School.
Although his name is in the auditorium, they have the
names around the molding of illustrious alums, and Henry Knox
is up there in one corner and the opposite corner
is Benjamin Franklin. Neither of them graduated, but both were
Latin students. And Knox goes to work in a bookstore,
(16:51):
and by the time he's in his early twenties, he
owns a bookstore, and he actually he has an artillery
company he's part of, but then he leaves it. He
is in a hunting accident when he's twenty one years old.
He's out hunting on Boston Harbor and his gun explodes
and blows off two of the fingers on his right hand,
and he bandages it up. It wraps a handkerchief around it,
(17:12):
rows back to shore, goes to see his doctor, Joseph Warren,
who patches it up, and the Knox goes back to
the bookstore, and he likes reading books on military science
in the bookstore, and a lot of guys who are
in the militia, and then later British officers will come
there to buy books on military science. And when the
(17:32):
siege of Boston begins, Knox builds a fort in Roxbury,
at Fort Hill in Roxbury, and when Washington sees it,
he realizes this guy understands how to build forts, and
so he gives Knox the job of going out to
fortech Hunderoga and getting the artillery there. It's kind of
a good news bad news proposition. Washington says, I want
(17:52):
you to be in charge of the artillery in the
Continental Army. That's the good news. The bad news is
you have to go three hundred miles to go and
get it. So Knocks and his younger brother Michael set
off for Fort Tekonderoga. And when they get there, this
is in December, and they're doing this a because this
is when they need it. But also it would have
(18:13):
been impossible to hold these guns when the roads were muddy,
or even when they were you know, they want them
covered with snow. And so he goes out there and
he builds about forty sleds, or has about forty sleds
built to bring these guns. Some of them weigh like
a ton. A couple of them, the howitzers or mortars,
way about a ton. And then he has about fifty
(18:36):
or so cannon, as well as a barrel of flints
and twenty three about a ton of lead. He also
brings back and again he and his brother are the
only ones who are associated with the Continental Army. The
rest of the guys doing the work are teamsters that
he hires, and he gets teamsters to, you know, have
(18:57):
their teams of horses or oxen all these sleds. First
they put them on boats to get them down Lake
Champlain and across Lake George. It's not really frozen yet,
and they haul them to Albany. Then they cross the
Hudson River and bring them into Massachusetts around the town
of Alfred, and then bring them through the Berkshires. And
(19:20):
that's really an extraordinary feet because by now the mountains
are covered with snow and ice, which is a good thing,
you know, But then you have to haul them up,
not an easy thing to do, and it's even more
difficult to get them down without running over the guys
ahead of you. This is a major feet to three hundred.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Miles just to get up there, and to take cattle
and horses and sleds. They built three hundred miles just
to get there, and what were the total tons of
you say.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
It's about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, and you got to lug them back through the
wa woods. It's not like this is a.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Road, right yeah, yeah, yeah, one of each one of
these cannons. So each one of these sleds is carrying
essentially the weight of the offensive line of the New
England Patriots. So think about that, the weight on these sleds.
These and there were the roads weren't really well marked.
There's actually a couple of guys out in Otis, Massachusetts
(20:24):
who have been marking the trail. They figured out where
it was because they found this ancient cut through the
stone in the mountains. You know, there's a road nearby,
and they did find one of the original markers from
when the roads were marked in the earlier in the
seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And here the whole story of the return. We got
to break for news and then you'll have a big
patch of time to tell us about the return trip
on WBZ. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Bomb night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
In case you just joined us, let me set the
scene or reset the scene where with Professor Bob Allison,
from Suffolk University, and we're talking about events related to
the Revolution, and in this case is I picture it.
The British are in Boston Harbor. They have their ships
there and that's a problem, and we've got to get
them out of there somehow. We need some artillery to
(21:22):
get him out of there. And Henry Knox was tasked
with going three hundred miles up to Fort Tkonda Rogo
was where a lot of heavy artillery had been captured,
and his task was to drag it all the way
back on sleds, through the woods, through the snow, on lakes,
et cetera. A massive task, and Professor Bob Allison is
(21:46):
painting the picture of what that must have been like
as we relive that. So, Bob, you got a big
chunk of time here, So go.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Ahead, okay. So what as they're crossing the Hudson near
the river frozen and they had been trying it, and
in fact they've poked holes in it so more water
could come up and then freeze because they're bringing these
really heavy sleds across the river, and one of the
last ones on this trek breaks the ice and falls through,
(22:17):
and these guys, the Taters, have to dive down, tie
ropes around it and then haul it out because they
can't leave it behind. So they haul this cannon out
of the frozen river having dived down and dove down
into the water. They're not wearing diving, these guys are
wearing their wool wool cloathes. And it's it is winter,
(22:39):
you know. But they retrieve the canon and then they
get them through the Berkshars and when they get to
Westfield they actually fire them because people here have never
seen artillery like this before. And in late January, Knox
gets them as far as Framingham and then he rides
ahead to Cambridge to alert Water Washington that he has
(23:01):
the cannon, and so Washington is delighted. John Adams goes
out and takes an inventory of the cannon at Framingham
and then Washington has them placed at Dorchester Heights and
what's now South Boston it was then Dorchester Neck, while
he's also has some put at Leechmere Point in Cambridge,
(23:21):
and he has those cannon firing. So the British think, hey,
they're planning to attack from that side, that is from
the Cambridge side, and be the noise of the cannon
covers the sound of these guys in Dorchester and Roxbury
cutting down fruit trees to make the barricades. They need
(23:42):
bumper hills in June, they're able to dig into the
soil there. This is happening in February, and when they're
beginning the fortifications at Dorchester Heights February in early March,
and the ground is frozen, so they actually need to
build everything that they're going to use. Who's up at
the top of the heights to place the canon there
(24:03):
so that they can get the British out. Another problem
they have, too, is they don't have a whole lot
of gun powder, so the British of course don't know that,
so they are improvising. And so that's an incredible story
about how Knox does this and accomplishes this. He gets
back to, as I said, when he comes to meet
Washington in February. Washington by this time, Martha has joined
(24:29):
her husband at the camp and George invites Henry Knox
and his wife, his wife Lucy, who was pregnant, to
come and have dinner with them, and Martha is really
taken with Lucy Knox and Lucy's family had disowned her
when she married Henry. Her father was the secretary of
the province. Her maiden name was Lucy Flucker, and her
(24:50):
father the rest of the family disowner. She never sees
them again, but she now is devoted to Henry. Devoted.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Do you know why they would disown her for marrying Henry.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Well, he was a guy with no real prospects that
as he was, as his father had abandoned the family.
He's working at a bookstore. Also, he's on the other side.
He has become a rebel, and they are staunch loyalists.
Her father is the secretary of the province, and here
his daughter has run off and married the guy. Who
(25:23):
is this guy who was on the other side a dropout.
And Lucy had you know, she saw him marching in
a parade and she was struck by this gallant young
man with a bandaged hand. And she starts going to
the bookstore as well, fanging an interest in book sub
military science and other things. And that's how she meets Henry.
(25:44):
And before he had gone off to get the guns,
he had actually can in from Tikhonderoga. He had taken
Lucy to the safety of Worcester, where she was bored
out of her mind being in Worcester and also being
away from her husband wrote and also isolated from her family.
So she is delighted when Henry comes back and then
brings her to dinner with George and Martha. Washington and
(26:06):
the Knoxes in the Washingtons remain very close actually till
the end of their lives.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Another question, did they drag the cannon up on Douchester
Heights in the night time? Do they have to do
it all in one night?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
They did it actually on the night of March fourth
is when they brought the cannon up to Dorchester Heights
and they came by way of Roxbury. In fact, in
Roxbury you can see General Thomas's house in John Elliot Square.
It's one of the remaining buildings here. And if you
stand in front of the Dillaway Thomas house you can
(26:40):
actually see Dorchester Heights off in the distance. Good the
better view in the winter. And so General Thomas was
the guy who really orchestrated this campaign with something like
seven hundred men, and they had wrapped the wheel this time.
Now they have wagons to use, and they wrapped them
and straw so they won't make any noise, and they
(27:03):
take them from Roxbury, through Dorchester and then to Dorchester
Neck and going up well up the hill. And actually
here the teamsters look at the hill and they say, no,
you're not going to use my oxen or my horses
to get these cannon up the hill. So this time
these soldiers have to drag the cannon up the hill,
(27:24):
and they are doing this at night. So it's on
the morning of March the fifth, with the cannon are
in place at the top of Dorchester Heights and Washington
knows what the British are going to do now is
come over and attack, because now they see this fortification
on the top of Dorchester Heights and this puts their
ships within range. And Washington, I'm.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Trying to get a handle on how far away the
ships were and how do they see the canon. They
could you just see with the naked eye or do
they have to you can see with the naked eye.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
They also would have had telescope through field glasses.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And what was the range away that the ships were
from the cannon.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
The ships are probably a mile or so and that
is about the range of a cannon. And Castle Island
is also about a little over a mile from Castle
Island is another British fortification. And actually that's a good question, Bradley,
because what these cannon are then doing is you have
this big hill and Dorchester Heights was the tallest point
(28:23):
south of the town, just like Bunker Hill tallest point
north of the town. And so this is an important
strategic point. But then further toward the town on the
south Boston near Dorchester Neck Peninsula, roughly near the corner
of C of B Street and Broadway now was Nookhill,
(28:44):
a hill that's been leveled, and that put in the
cannon on top of Dorchester Heights gives cover to fortifying Nookhill,
and with the cannon on Nookhill, could reach downtown Boston
very easily. You know, there was Braddle Square where City
of All Plaza is now. There was a church that
had a cannon ball lodged in its steeple, and it
(29:08):
was allegedly from one of these cannon in South Boston
that fired it. You know, Henry Cabot Lodge wrote about it.
It inspired him as a boy seeing that cannon ball
lodged there from the Revolution and thinking about how close
these things were. So this does give them and the
Nook Hill on which is there's a marker on one
(29:28):
of the buildings there now. Of this, there were a
number of casualties because those guys make noise in the
British fire on them. But they do manage to build
a fortification there that puts the British within range.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
The Brits just backed off, you know, a few hundred
yards half a mile to get not.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Really because they're in Boston. I mean, they don't really
have any place to go. Yeah, they could move their ships,
but they're also afraid of getting the ships damaged. And
it's along about the tenth or eleventh of March that
the chairman of the Board of Selectmen in Boston comes
to the lines on what's now Washington Street on Boston
Neck with a message for General Washington that he had
(30:08):
heard General Howe saying if Washington won't fire on the
British as they're leaving, they won't burn the town. Washington knows, okay,
this isn't an official communication, but he does know, okay,
the British are planning to leave. So they British do
leave on March seventeenth, and Washington now from Dorchester Heights
(30:31):
as well as from Roxbury and Cambridge they're watching as
the Britisher packing up things. Actually, the British do a
good deal of looting of stuff, loading it onto ships.
And How not only has to get his soldiers and
sailors out of town, he has to get about eleven
hundred loyalists, including Henry Knox's White's family, who'd say, we
don't want to stay here. So How is loading up
(30:54):
the ships. And on March seventeenth they leave, and Washington
knows there's a smallpox outbreak in Boston. He won't allow
any soldiers to go in unless they've been exposed to smallpox,
and he does have sentries moved from Prospect Hill in
Somerville toward Bunker Hill, where there's one last British sentry point,
(31:16):
and they see there's actually a British soldier there, so
they don't know what this guy is doing. They get
down to this sentry box and it's actually a dummy
wearing a British uniform holding a sign saying welcome Brother Jonathan.
Jonathan was kind of a nickname they had for the
British had for Americans. But by this time the British
are on their ships and they're dropping down toward Castle island,
(31:37):
waiting for a favorable tide when to get out of town.
And then Washington sends General Artemis Ward into Boston. He
was the head of the Massachusetts militia, and this is
really a sign from Washington he is not the Victoria's
general capturing Boston. Instead, Boston's being liberated and the existing
(32:00):
provincial government now is reasserting itself. So Washington is a
very savvy politician, and so he's orchestrated this siege. But
he also knows the British are kind of goen to
go to New York. So he's also started sending men
and supplies to New York to try to protect New
York against the British. He's also sending others to Canada,
(32:21):
and the Canadian invasions become something of a debacle, and
General Thomas, who had orchestrated the siege of the putting
a place in the Canada and Georchester Heights goes up
to Canada to try to bring things under control. There,
he contracts smallpox and winds up dying in Canada. So
you have the Siege of Boston, this victory in Boston.
(32:43):
It's really one of the most important events of seventeen
seventy six and you were going.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
To do something to you haven't done this yet, right, this.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Is next year. Yes, we're doing a lot of things
to commemorate this. Actually, folks in upstate New York are
doing a lot too there in Saratoga and there's the
Skylar Mansion there, all kinds of activities. In fact, they're
making sleds there, kids in high school, high school, they're
making sleds. They've also made a lin stop, which is
the stick you used to light a cannon. And then
(33:14):
beginning in January, we have events in Great Barrington on
January tenth of next year, in Springfield, the following weekend
in Worcester and Amingham. And then in March March fourth,
we'll be in Roxbury with cannon and Oxen. And then
March seventeenth of twenty twenty sixth, which is going to
be a Tuesday every year, the South Boston Citizens Association
(33:39):
has events as well as the South West and Allied
War Veterans Memory.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
When we return from this break, give out the website
where people can learn when and where all these things are.
So we'll do that right right after this quick break
on BZ You're.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
On Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I'm Bradley Jay and for Dan, we're with Professor Robert
Allison from the Great Suffolk University, and we're talking about
revolutionary events that happened two hundred and fifty years ago
and events that are going to happen two hundred and
fifty years later, which is not pretty much now to
commemorate those events. And let's see where were we, Bob, we.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Were we were talking about Dorchester Heights and events there.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
The canon got up to the top and the British
had to leave.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
On March seventeenth, and in fact, the challenge they evacuate.
That's why it's evacuation day. And on that week or
that day, in Washington's camp, if you are approaching the campus,
century challenges you and you have to know what the
counter sign is. And the challenge word was Boston and
(34:50):
the counter sign was Saint Patrick. So you say that,
how do you know that? Anyway, It's actually in Washington's
order book. Every day he would write in the order
book what the challenge and countersign was his general orders
for the day. And so that is the counter sign
is Saint Patrick March seventeenth and still a big day
(35:13):
in South Boston and in many places. And in fact,
two things to mention. One is the Park Service, which
oversees the Dorchester Heights Monument, is just finished a thirty
million dollar rehabilitation of the monument to get it ready
for twenty twenty six, and it looks beautiful and people
will be able to go into the monument, something we
(35:34):
haven't been able to do for about twenty years, and
get the view from the top, which is really spectacular.
You can see the harbor as well as the city,
so that's the big thing. And also the Masons are
planning to put a statue of Henry Knox up on
Dorchester Heights. Henry Knox was a Mason and Henry Knock
(35:55):
Square in front of the Heights Thomas Park named for
John Thomas, so you have that being commemorated. And also
on March seventeenth to twenty twenty six, there will be
a procession from Georchester Heights to Castle Island. There will
be fireworks, there will be army bans, other things will
(36:15):
be happening. We're billing it as Massachusetts is Independence Day,
because it really is Theday, Massachusetts throughout the invaders and
became resumed its path of being a self governing commonwealth.
So big day.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
We're going to be two minutes left, and I'd love
you to share the you know, the basic idea of
the book you're writing about the USS constitutionship around the world.
I have two minutes exactly.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Okay, So before I get to that, just mentioned Revolution
two five zero dot org is our website. You can
check out all of these events and more and get involved. Yes,
I've been working on a book about the USS Constitution's
World cruise in the eighteen forties. The ship sailed around
the world. The ship was already fifty years old and
goes to Brazil. It goes to Vietnam, where they provoke
(37:04):
a war. They get into a war in Vietnam, which
does not go well for Constitution, goes to about three
months in China and then to the Philippines and Hawaii
and Mexico and unfortunate. Working with the Constitution Museum to
find some journals some of the sailors aboard, who are
(37:24):
accounts of the places they visit and the people they meet,
as well as some of the personality clashes they have,
so it's a great story. You have the oldest commissionship
in the Navy. It's already kind of an antique and
already a legend, but it's obsolete and the Navy doesn't
know why they should keep it, and so they send
it around the world on this voyage that doesn't have
(37:45):
any real purpose. But in doing this, these guys are
encountering this wide world. And many of the guys aboard
the ship were actually not American. It's about half our
guys from Europe, North America, Asia. A fascinating story of
this ship and of what the world would have been
like in the eighteen forties.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Wow, I can't wait for that book to come out.
Thank you so much, Bob for a standard bread and
sharing this. Bob has a lot more stories, by the way,
if you ever get a chance to see him speak,
he does speak around. He's really really great. Thank you
and good night, Bob, and I hope to hope to
hang around with you soon.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Take care, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Too happy to get to you this hour, but maybe
next hour. And our next guest is named Micah and
he is an airplane geek. He's an actual airplane geek.
He's part of Airplane Geeks dot com podcast, and he's
going to talk about aviation as it applies to travel,
(38:52):
and travel tips and things like changes to the TSA,
like perhaps you won't have to take your shoes off anymore,
and by the way, does that mean we never really
had to take them off? And why did we? And
maybe address the notion that what goes on at the
TSA gate is simply theater. I don't know what are
(39:12):
your thoughts on that, but all that coming up after
this on WBC News Radio ten thirty