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Dec. 25, 2020 - Bannon's War Room
47:03
Bannons WarRoom Ep 610: The Combat History of Christmas Pt. 1 (w/ Patrick K. O'Donnell)
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patrick k odonnel
30:29
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steve bannon
14:15
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unidentified
Well the virus has now killed more than a hundred people in China and new cases have been confirmed around the world.
So you don't want to frighten the American public.
France and South Korea have also got evacuation plans.
But you need to prepare for and assume.
Broadly warning Americans to avoid all non-essential travel to China.
That this is going to be a real serious problem.
France, Australia, Canada, the US, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, the list goes on.
Health officials are investigating more than a hundred possible cases in the US.
Germany, a man has contracted the virus.
The epidemic is a demon and we cannot let this demon hide.
Japan, where a bus driver contracted the virus.
Coronavirus has killed more than 100 people there and infected more than 4,500.
We have to prepare for the worst, always, because if you don't and the worst happens, War Room.
Pandemic.
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Welcome, it is Christmas Day, the 25th of December, the year of our Lord 2020.
You are in the War Room from our nation's capital, Capitol Hill, our location.
This is the number one podcast, number one political podcast in the country, and of course we're distributed with our partners, John Frederick's Radio Network, Real America's Voice, Dish Channel 219, Comcast Channel 113, throughout the world, GNews, GTV.
And on Roku, Pluto, Rumble, YouTube, Facebook, everywhere.
Ubiquitous.
Ubiquitous on our television show, on our streaming show, and still the number one podcast, which is just the audio.
So I want to thank everybody, all of our listeners, worldwide.
We have a tradition every year.
Jack, you were with me last year, and the first time we did it in the War Room, we've had a tradition.
I did it at the Breitbart radio show for many, many years.
But it's to do on Christmas Day, to really do a special celebration.
And to tell the combat history of Christmas through the eyes and experiences of American fighting men and women, not simply throughout the world, but also on American soil.
We talk about the American Revolution, we talk about the Civil War, we get into it all.
And every year we're honored, since we first started this many years ago, by the combat historian, I think the finest combat historian of his generation, Patrick K. O'Donnell.
And today we're going to be going through the American Revolution.
We're going to talk about the Battle of the Bulge and Hurricane Forrest and everything in World War II.
We're going to go to Korea, the Italy campaign in World War II, also about the Civil War.
We've got a lot to talk about today.
We really want to have a day of, obviously, it's the most important holiday in America, I think, people would say.
And we've always enjoyed doing this and making sure that our veterans and our military people are honored, in addition to letting the country know that just because it's Christmas Day, it doesn't mean that servicemen throughout the world have not been sacrificing.
I would argue, and I think Patrick K. O'Donnell, when we bring him in, is going to argue that if we hadn't used Christmas as a kind of a cover, there might not be an American Republic.
The tent might have been folded on this one pretty quickly.
So let's bring in now Patrick K. O'Donnell.
Our honored combat historian, Patrick, thank you very much for continuing our many-year tradition of the combat history of Christmas.
So thank you for joining us.
And I want to go through just briefly how, you know, I continue to say as you've come on and you're a massive audience favorite here over many, many years, I think you're the finest combat historian of your generation because your books really put you in the fight.
You don't do a lot of top-level strategy or top-level Big picture about campaigns.
You really get down to where the fighting is and you tell the story in a very human term.
Number one, let's do an introduction.
Give people your background and how you got into this.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
My entire life has practically been American history in one way or another.
It began when I was two or three and I just got into World War II, just like many other kids.
And I was reading avidly, and I was dragging my parents to battlefields, Civil War battlefields, Revolutionary War battlefields, when I was three and four years old, five years old.
My father would say to me, you've seen one, you've seen them all.
And I'd be like, no, Dad, we haven't, and we've got to go to another one.
And this is something that I did as a kid, and I currently do.
I actually visit and walk all the places that I write about.
If that's overseas, I visit them overseas.
But I also interview the veterans.
And I've interviewed close to 5,000 veterans from World War I through Afghanistan and Iraq.
And the bulk of those veterans were World War II veterans.
And these are true American heroes.
I mean, my friends, some of the friends that I've made are people that literally changed the course of history.
And I've also been in combat.
I was a civilian combat historian, but I was assigned to a rifle platoon in the Battle of Fallujah.
And I have a book called We Were One, which is on the Commandant's leading reading list right now, which is required reading for Marines.
It's about our story, his first platoon, Lima Company 3-1 in the Battle of I was with them fighting through the Jolan house-to-house.
My books are very personal.
They're about people.
They're about stories.
And they're kind of micro-history, in many cases, that tell a larger story.
And each one of the books that I've written has found me in one way or another.
And that's certainly the case with the first book that we're going to talk about, which is Washington's Immortals.
And the story there is a Christmas story as well.
But Washington's Immortals found me in the summer of, I think, 2010, when the battalion commander of 3-1 said, I'm in New York.
Would you like to just hang out and go to the Met or somewhere?
I said, well, why don't we do a battlefield tour of Brooklyn?
And we met up at a place called Greenwood Cemetery.
And this is one of the most interesting cemeteries in the United States.
It's a cemetery, but it's also a battlefield.
And here, in the summer of 1776, it was the largest battle of the American Revolution up until that point.
And we walked up and down the hills of Greenwood Cemetery, where the Marylanders, for Washington's Immortals, fought.
And they held back the British, but they fell back to a stone house, which was their kind of headquarters.
And it was here that I found, with the colonel, a rusted old sign that said, here lie 256 Continental Soldiers, Maryland heroes.
Somewhere in Brooklyn are buried these American heroes that literally were involved in one of the greatest small unit engagements in American history that hardly anybody knows about, until I wrote Washington's Immortals.
They made an epic stand, an American Thermopylae, Where they held off thousands of British soldiers, creating an hour more precious in our history, according to one contemporary historian at the time, than any other.
They allowed the American Army, the bulk of it being near Greenwood Cemetery and elsewhere, to retreat back to their entrenchments in Brooklyn by buying time.
in this engagement where they charge multiple times.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, let me just set the stage.
This is where the Washington's Army is the really first, I guess, of that army, the field engagement, and they were getting rolled up across Long Island.
I mean, this is, I don't think we even call it a strategic retreat.
In many regards, they were just cutting and running, or they weren't, because the British landed so many troops in, I guess, southern Long Island, and weren't prepared for it.
But this stand at this stone house gave that hour, that precious hour, that allowed him to get back to, I guess, Brooklyn Heights and actually dig in and actually be able to take a stand.
Is that generally the question?
That's why this is so important.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
That's generally what's going on here.
But let me also point out that this is a point in American history where all could have been lost.
They were in a position to inflict a crushing defeat that would have captured more than half of the Continental Army As well as potentially Washington himself.
But they retreat back to their entrenchments, and it's here that they, by this time, they chew up daylight during this series of Bane attacks, which are forlorn.
Many of these men are dead after the attacks.
They sacrifice themselves for the army.
And that's where I found, you know, this story so compelling.
Who were these men?
You know, the sacrifice that they've made, and they're buried somewhere.
You know, just under a street or probably a sidewalk somewhere in Brooklyn, there's no memorial hardly at all.
And this really should be a national battlefield.
And there should be more recognition of these men and the sacrifices of the Battle of Brooklyn for that matter.
But they make their way back to the entrenchments and they're able to fortify themselves.
But Washington has a decision to make.
Does he make a stand?
Or does he retreat?
And this is one of the great stories in American history.
It's an American Dunker that occurs next.
And a Nor'easter sets in where both armies are kind of static.
They're in their entrenchments.
And they're not able to really move.
They're pelted by hail and, you know, severe storms.
And Washington decides to retreat.
And it's on the shoulders of really my of my next book.
It's called The Indispensables.
Which will be out in May.
You can pre-order it now on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, where the entire war is literally saved, also.
These men, who are from Marblehead, Massachusetts, are able to transport 9,500 Americans across the East River in the dead of night.
It's an amazing story.
One wave after another.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Just to set this, they retreat, and by the way, this was essentially close to a broken army, and this was fairly close after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
I mean, people think the declaration of all the films and musicals have been done about it, and obviously the 4th of July was kind of, oh, we signed this document, we had our freedom.
You're talking, what, 90 days afterwards?
You know, 120 days afterwards, you're in a battle, you're in a fight that's basically going to put the Republic, it's going to destroy the Republic.
You're sitting now with essentially a shattered army.
At Brooklyn Heights, right there by where the Brooklyn Bridge is, I take you today, and somehow they gotta get across the East River to Manhattan to be able to hold Manhattan or to even retreat further, right?
And that's where the Indispensables, the Immortals held at the Stone House, but then you have to somehow transport this army, what's left of this army, to save it across the East River, which looks impossible.
Patrick, hang on one second.
We're taking a commercial break.
We've got a commercial break.
Oh, hang on.
I'm sorry.
Just keep going.
My clock is a little messed up here.
Just keep rolling.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
This is in the middle of the night where a British army can attack.
It's also in a swirling river, the East River, which is over a mile long and treacherous with currents and everything else.
These men with their skill, which is honed By fishing in the Grand Banks, some of the most skilled sailors in the world transport the entire army across the river.
But there is also something that occurs, which is a providential act, which many people consider.
A fog sets in at the right time, at the right place, and screens the movement of the army as they cross the river at this time.
And the other thing that occurs is the wind is favorable to them, but not to the British Navy, which is right in the river as well.
And they're able to come back behind the entrenchments if they have the right wind, but they don't have the wind.
The wind favors the Marbleheaders, and they're able to bring the army across.
And it's truly one of the most amazing military evacuations in world history.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
So the American Dunkard, where did these men come from?
Where did these men, because they take part of the story when we get to the Christmas Day part of it, or the Christmas season part of it, where did these guys, how did they come from Marblehead all the way down?
How did they end up in an army that's fighting on Long Island and Brooklyn?
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
They come from Marblehead, Massachusetts, and this story, the Indispensables, begins really in 1769, and these men are the beginning of the American Revolution.
They are the mainspring, in many cases, of the American Revolution.
They're the ideas of the American Revolution.
For instance, one of the main characters in my book is Elbridge Gerry, the future Vice President of the United States and Congressman, but Elbridge Gerry, many of his ideas Patrick, hang on one second.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I want to get to him and do it right, because we've got to take a commercial break now.
My clock's been a little off here.
Patrick K. O'Donnell.
The book is Washington's Immortals and Washington's Indispensables.
The Indispensables got out in May.
We're here with the Combat History at Christmas.
We're setting up to get to Trenton in the attack that saved the American Republic.
Patrick O'Donnell will return with us in a moment.
unidentified
War Room with Stephen K. Bannon.
War Room with Stephen K. Bannon.
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Okay, we're here with the combat history of Christmas in the War Room.
It's Christmas Day, the 25th of December, the year of our Lord 2020, a year that no one will ever forget.
We have a saying here, I think it's taken, they say it's either Marx or Lenin, I think it's Lenin, that there are decades in which nothing happens and there are weeks in which decades happen.
And when we talk to the combat historian Patrick K. O'Donnell, we're talking about those types of weeks in which decades happen.
I want to go back now.
We're starting off, as we always do, with the American Revolution, and it's setting up for the incredible Battle of Trenton, which really saved this republic.
But people, Patrick, don't realize how close this was to all collapsing.
Very early on, on Long Island, in the Battle of Brooklyn, the American Dunkirk to get the army from Brooklyn Heights back to Manhattan, and then even to escape across the Hudson over to what, from Fort Washington to Fort Lee.
But walk us through, what excites me about your, the Washington's Immortals was a bestseller.
And we had so many of our audience members loved it.
We had you on so many times, they could not get enough of the story of this heroic, I guess, Maryland regiment that has kind of faded into history, faded from memory until you came back and found them.
And you really found it on giving a battlefield tour with some of your colleagues from the battle of Fallujah in Iraq and just went around and going around Brooklyn when they saw a plaque I guess on the side of a wall that pointed to where 256, I guess in an unmarked grave, these heroes have been buried near where this historic battle
But then your new book, The Indispensables, really talks about those individuals that were basically the sailors and the watermen from Marblehead, Massachusetts, that got the army across the river, and then they play a role later in our story.
Tell us about The Indispensables.
Who are they, and why are they important?
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
An extraordinary unknown story as well, Steve.
These men were the mainspring of the American Revolution in terms of their ideas.
They financed the American Revolution at the beginning.
They're some of the wealthiest men in the colonies.
They build an empire on codfish.
And fishing in Massachusetts is over 35% of the economy during the revolution.
And these men are, you know, the equivalent, in many cases, of billionaires of today.
And it's them They are the ones that have this fire of liberty in their bellies.
They financed the revolution at the beginning, they come up with many of the ideas that we now know, and they're the ones that are hoarding and supplying the army with the all-crucial supply of powder, which gunpowder during the time of the American Revolution was absolutely a critical element.
That was very very very limited during the American Revolution is at the beginning of the war because we didn't have hardly any organic production.
So these men in their shipping converted their shipping lines into supply lines and they brought the powder from Spain and elsewhere from from Europe and brought it to the army and they also formed the Navy.
They were the first vessels That would attack British ships, and they would seize vital powder as well there, and other munitions and armaments.
So they play an incredibly important role in shaping the United States, forming the Navy, and then transporting Washington's army in many times and places.
But they're also an incredible land unit as well.
They fight on land.
But these men are the source of my next book, and it's really an origin story of our founding.
As well as a combat history of the revolution and they fight through some of our darkest days as we get into, you know, after the Battle of Brooklyn.
It's one disaster.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, by the way, it was one catastrophe.
It was one dark day.
And this is within the shadow of the signing of the Declaration.
I mean, the reality is the British didn't take it all that seriously because, I mean, they sent a large field army, but this was a disorganized Continental Army, although brave and had stick-to-it-ness and steadfastness.
It was one defeat after the other.
So we now get to Manhattan.
How do we get across into New Jersey and then down eventually to Southern New Jersey?
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
The Declaration of Independence, it's been said, was signed with the blood of Washington's Immortals, with their stand.
I mean, they sacrificed themselves to allow the Army to escape.
And the Indispensables then transported over to Manhattan.
And then roughly two weeks later, the British land again in Kips Bay, and they attack Manhattan, and we're pushed back.
Washington's Immortals, as well as the Marbleheaders, are part of the rear guard that allows the Army to escape to Harlem Heights.
They make stands at what's now Central Park, for instance, at McGowan Pass.
For those that are in Manhattan, And Brooklyn, the place is steeped with history and plain sight that hardly anybody knows about.
There's just some amazing stuff.
In many cases, not properly marked, but there's an amazing history of the United States there that it really has an impact on our entire country.
They make their way back towards Harlem Heights.
They have a battle of Harlem where it's an American victory, but that's rather short lived and it's really one defeat after another.
The biggest being the Battle of Fort Washington, which is now the base of the Washington Bridge.
There was a massive fort there that was over two miles long that over nearly 5,000 Continental soldiers defended, and many of these men were then captured by By the British, and it's one of the largest roll-ups of American prisoners of war.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
By the way, many of those went to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or went to those prison ships.
But was that a mistake for Washington to take a stand there at Fort Washington on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River, or should he have used the Indispensables and others to get off Quit, you know, earlier and to get to get to New Jersey and at least somehow save the army and get to safety.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
It was clearly a mistake.
The Manhattan was indefensible because the British Navy could attack it at any point with their, you know, massive amphibious capabilities.
So there's no way to really defend Manhattan.
Washington didn't even really want to.
But it was political pressure from Congress and others that forced him to make a stand in Manhattan.
But it was really a bridge too far to try to defend Fort Washington.
It was General Green, one of his most able generals, that insisted that they hold Fort Washington.
And he fell to that advice.
And unfortunately, you know, thousands of Americans are captured.
And I capture that in Washington's Immortals.
The book is a kind of band of brothers on the American Revolution.
It's focused on the main characters.
And much of the story is In their own words, using the great oral histories, mostly untold oral histories of the American Revolution, I did this with the Indispensables as well, there's something called pension files.
And if you survived the Revolutionary War, you'd go down to the local courthouse, and this is in 1818 and 1820s, and you'd swear under oath what you saw and did. And those pension files can be incredibly graphic and revealing.
For instance, one of the men in the book was one of the lucky guys.
He was in Fort Washington, but escaped in a rowboat across the Hudson.
And he landed on the other side and recalls seeing Washington view the disastrous assault on Fort Washington unfold through a spyglass.
And he talked about how Lawrence Eberhardt recalls how Washington had tears in his eyes as he was seeing the Fort Fall, and many of his men were literally run through a gauntlet of Hessian soldiers.
These are German mercenaries that fought for the British or allies.
And British soldiers, and they ran through this gauntlet, and they were punched, kicked, in some cases stabbed by bayonet, and robbed of their belongings, or in some cases even killed.
And as this was unfolding, Eberhardt recalled it in his pension file.
This is the great untold oral history of the American Revolution, and very few authors have ever tapped that source.
And I did it with Washington's Immortals and with The Indispensables, where I literally rebuilt the entire regiment through the pension files and the muster rolls that are out there.
And so their words and their views are revealed, in many cases, for the first time.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
We've got about two minutes.
How close an operation was it to get across the Hudson and actually get to the relative safety of New Jersey, get the remnants of the Army to New Jersey?
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
The good thing is that the Army, for the most part, they went up north.
They went up through the Army.
After the Battle of Fort Washington, they fought in an area called the tip of Manhattan, and they kept falling back to White Plains, New York.
And there was an epic battle there.
The Marbleheaders and the Marylanders were able to delay the British long enough for the army to escape up north and move up towards New York and then over towards New Jersey, ultimately.
And it's the British that actually crossed the Hudson River.
and attacked Fort Lee and it was a disaster as well. They captured the fort and almost all the supplies that were in it and the army was in full retreat.
And the army was, you know, it begins around somewhere around 20,000 and it is diminishing quickly after every single defeat.
There's multiple cases of smallpox, disease, etc.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
and combat casualties.
Patrick, hang on a second.
Let's take a quick commercial break.
We're going to take this army now down to... it's one defeat after the next until they get to Christmas.
Patrick K. O'Donnell, a combat historian, the combat history of Christmas.
We're in the American Revolution and we're going to return on War Room in just a moment.
unidentified
War Room with Stephen K. Banner.
Here's your host, Stephen K. Banner.
you you Merry Christmas!
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
It is December 25th, the year of our Lord, 2020.
Combat History of Christmas.
And we're now in the year 1776, and a crisis for the young American Republic.
In fact, a crisis that may permanently shut it down.
And it really starts less than, what, six weeks after the signing of the Declaration.
Everybody today, the way they're taught American history, think, hey, the Declaration's signed, we're a free country, let's go on and get on with it.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
That's when the British really, really took this, started to take it very seriously.
They landed a massive amount of combat troops, a field army, basically around late August, within, you know, what, 60 days of the signing of the Declaration.
So that army was already en route.
They signed, they landed an army in Long Island.
And it essentially rolled up the Continental Army all the way, basically in one defeat after the next, with heroic stands all over the place.
But basically rolled them up till they got to New Jersey.
Now, Patrick, the question gets to be, there was tremendous pressure.
People don't realize, a lot of folks don't realize, there was tremendous pressure at that time, given how the Continental Army had essentially held together, but been in a series of defeats.
There was big pressure to actually relieve General Washington of his command by the time we get to the Advent season, I think around Thanksgiving in December.
Was it General Charles Lee?
I mean, there was a lot of people in Philadelphia that were talking about, we've got to make a change here or we're not going to have an army.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
The disaster at Fort Washington politically changes things for Washington.
There's a real talk of replacing him With Charles, General Charles Lee, who's a very seasoned soldier.
He'd fought in Europe for the British Army and elsewhere.
And, you know, was very odd and strange character.
He had a lot of peculiar mannerisms.
He was a bit of a loner.
And he always had to have, you know, three or four dogs, his dogs surrounding him constantly.
He was considered the first choice to remove, to relieve Washington.
And he was stabbing Washington behind the back and using his contacts in Congress to eventually get himself positioned as the Commander-in-Chief.
But, you know, sort of a miracle happens in many ways.
The British, under Bannister Cornwallis and another British officer, Capture in a daring kind of cavalry like raid.
They capture Charles Lee who is sleeping in a tavern in New Jersey.
And they capture Lee and what happens next is he's he's a prisoner of war of the British.
And what we don't know for another 50 or so years is that Charles Lee was also a traitor.
He gave information to the British Army on how the British could defeat the American cause, and what his opinions were.
But none of that is known during the Revolution, and he spends a year in captivity and eventually is released.
And then Washington then entrusts him with leadership at the Battle of Monmouth, initially.
And there's some disastrous results.
But the silver lining in all of this is that George Washington is the Commander-in-Chief.
And remain so.
Who's the indispensable man of the revolution.
unidentified
Washington learned from his defeats.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
But he's a master of strategy and tactics.
And also an alliance builder.
And he's the man that can keep everybody together in these dark times.
And this is some of the darkest period in American history.
One defeat after another leads to political disaster.
People are abandoning the cause.
Left and right.
In New Jersey, for instance, citizens are given the ability to sign, they're given, they can sign an alliance of allegiance with the British and their pardon.
And people line up in droves, including several congressmen, do this, that were signers of the Declaration of Independence.
And the cause appears lost.
I mean, New Jersey is being occupied.
The army, Which is disintegrates, is down to, you know, thousands and hundreds of thousands of men as they retreat as quickly as possible to what they consider the safety of Pennsylvania and the Delaware River, because there are farms there that can support the continental cause.
And, you know, some of the great stories in the book are, you know, that one is Charles Wilson Peale, who's his brother, James Peale, is a Marylander.
You know, he's at the crossing and there's these massive pyres of flame As, you know, raft after raft crosses the Delaware River to bring the army to safety.
But one of the men that falls out of line is bound in rags.
He has no shoes on.
His face is full of sores and is swollen.
And he looks at the guy and he suddenly realizes that it's his brother.
That's how bad a condition he was.
The army makes it back to the other side.
And it's even more desperate.
All the enlistments for the army are expiring either on December 15th, early December, or at the end of December, January 1.
So Washington has to strike.
He has to turn the tide with some sort of a counteroffensive that, you know, potentially could change the course of the war because all is about to be lost.
And this is where the remarkable Battle of Trenton takes place.
It's a master stroke, really.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hang on a second.
How does he come up with the plan?
Now you're in December.
I guess Charles Lee's been captured.
Your army's down to a couple thousand men.
You don't even know if you're going to be housed.
You've had at least one signer.
This was very controversial because people tried to deny it later.
But I think you had one signer of the Constitution from New Jersey that actually signed a Declaration of Independence.
Declaration of Independence is signed requesting a pardon.
This is within four or five months of the Declaration actually being debated and signed.
This is as dark as it gets in American history.
How does Washington, with only now a couple thousand men and really hasn't won except for a couple of stands at Harlem and other places, White Plains, hasn't really won a major engagement.
How does he come up with an idea of going on offense?
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
Well, the British have sort of a dilemma on their hands.
It's the same stuff that we have to deal with today, right?
They have to seize the ground and then hold it and then protect the population.
So what they do is they set up a series of fortifications or encampments where they try to control New Jersey.
And one of those encampments is at Trenton.
And it's guarded by their Hessian allies, these are Germans, under the command of Johann Rahl.
There's about, you know, over a thousand German soldiers, a handful of British Calvary, but it's mostly these Hessian soldiers, which are hardened combat troops.
Johann Rahl was literally born into war.
His father, you know, he's part of the regiment as a drummer boy and everything else.
He literally grew up in war.
And was one of the most seasoned and hardened commanders of the Hessian Army, and he was an incredible hero, too.
We talked about Fort Washington earlier.
It was Johan Rall that led the breakthrough.
It was at White Plains that Johan Rall and his men also lead the breakthrough.
But they're given the, you know, the inglorious honor of guarding Trenton, and they're outnumbered and outgunned.
And the American Army is constantly raiding them, With probing attacks and everything else, and in Rawls, men are on high alert every day, every night.
They're being hit by raids and everything else.
So this myth that we've heard about them, you know, being drunk at Christmas is not true.
These are highly trained and seasoned soldiers that are on high alert.
And, you know, a series of things happen that they decide, Washington decides to attack Trenton, which is a A garrison that is within reach of the Continental Army.
But they have to get across the Delaware River.
And that is in itself a major obstacle.
Because on Christmas Day, there was a Nor'easter.
And it was an incredibly, the waters were treacherous.
There was ice floats, there was chunks of ice, there were swirling parts of the river.
It was impassable.
Washington had several prongs of his army attempt to cross the river, below Trenton, for instance.
They all failed.
They did not, they were not able to cross the river because they did not have the indispensables guiding the boats.
And that's where the Marbleheaders, once again, literally saved the war and saved the army.
They are in charge of the amphibious river crossing, the assault river crossing at Delaware.
They man the boats, and they crew the boats, and they somehow are able to make it across this very treacherous river.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
But hang on one second.
We've got a couple minutes left in this segment.
I've just got to reset for a second.
Here's an army that essentially, Jack, has not won any major engagement, and you're telling me that they've now conceived a plan to do one of the toughest things you do, a river crossing at night in winter.
Get a beachhead and then attack a highly trained combat force of battle-hardened mercenaries from Europe, the Hessians, probably the Germans, probably not the most innovative or most maneuverable, but guys who know how to stay on their ground.
How does Washington 1 come up with this idea and how does he sell it?
to the officer corps, because you would think an army that hadn't done anything but essentially retreat, how are they going to do what is beyond a crapshoot?
I mean, it is a... in military tactics, people will tell you this is one of the hardest things you can possibly do.
The only harder thing would be under enemy fire, under live enemy fire.
But how are you going to camouflage yourself, and how are you going to get across in the night, in the middle of winter, right?
It's a miracle, Steve.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
In many ways, this operation works.
And people have no idea how difficult it was.
He convenes a council of war.
He actually convenes two councils of war.
The first council of war is one for the British prying eyes, because he knows that there are spies in the camp, and he provides misinformation.
The second council of war is with his most trusted captains of battle.
And there he devises the plan to attack Trenton.
But even with all that security and the disinformation, the British, they know that the attack is coming.
This is something most people don't know.
Intelligence, their intelligence is able to know that an attack is coming.
They just don't know where and when specifically.
But they suspect it's Trenton.
And Johan Rahl is informed that an attack is coming that night.
In fact, and he readies his men.
And what happens next is sort of a miracle and an accident.
A guy by the name of Stevens, who's with Virginia, decides to, for sort of a revenge operation, attack early without orders.
And he sends about 100 guys across and they attack.
And it's part of a raid.
And they sort of melt away.
And the Nor'easter is raging at this point, as they're crossing the river.
Johan Rahl, we think, assumes that that is the main attack.
And he starts to go to bed as he's playing checkers that night, that the attack has already been made.
And nobody would attack in the middle of a Nor'easter.
But meanwhile, Washington's army, thanks to the Marbleheaders, crosses successfully.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Patrick, hang on right there.
We're gonna take a short break.
When we come back, we're gonna talk about the crossing and actually the attack, the crossing on Christmas night and the attack early on the 26th.
Patrick K. O'Donnell is our guest.
This is the Combat History of Christmas on War Room.
unidentified
We'll be back in just a moment.
you Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Welcome back to War Room.
It is Combat History at Christmas, Christmas Day.
It's the 25th of December, the year of our Lord, 2020.
Our guest, Jack Maxey, and I are here in the War Room.
Our guest is Patrick K. O'Donnell.
We are in, we're I guess late in the evening of the 25th of Christmas Day of 1776, and it's one of the darkest hours in American history.
General Washington has conceived this plan to do a crossing of the Delaware River in the middle of a Northeaster.
for an army that really hasn't had a victory.
His army, in Saratoga they had, but his army had not.
He was under intense criticism and a lot of pressure to potentially be relieved for cause when he conceived this plan at a Council of War and then crossed.
So how does the main body, what time did they leave, how did they actually get across the river, and then how did they surprise the Hessians?
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
The Nor'easter is screening the movement of the Marbleheaders as they cross The Delaware River.
They then are over 10 miles above or north of Trenton as they make the crossing and they assemble.
And the army, it takes, you know, a fair amount of time to get the army over.
And then they start the march.
Even though they're, at this point, they're delayed, they're beyond schedule.
The goal is to get to Trenton before dawn to attack and surprise the Hessians.
And they then move They move south towards Trenton at this point, and they have security measures in place where they sort of detain people.
Some are loyalist Americans that potentially alert the British that the army is on its way.
It's on the march.
And in fact, according to legend, that's what one of those individuals does.
They send a servant to Rahl.
With the message that Washington is on the march and he's approaching Trenton.
And Rawl, at this time, according to legend, is playing checkers and receives the note and puts it in his pocket and never reads it.
And he then goes to bed with the assumption that the attack had already occurred earlier in the day thanks to Stevens and the probing rate.
But Washington attacks in marches and then shortly after dawn, in the morning, Daylight, they attack.
And the Hessians make quite an epic stand.
But part of the battle that is not really well known is it's the Marbleheaders that march down the south side of Trenton.
And they seize a crucial bridge across the Assumpete Creek.
And this is Rahl's escape route.
And they seize the high ground and the bridge.
And then they start to attack outward from there.
And Rall is a very seasoned commander.
He wants to retreat.
Because this is what happens in most engagements during the American Revolution.
They're not decisive.
There's a set battle, and they retreat.
But here, Rall fights to the death.
He actually charges forward.
There's misinformation.
He doesn't know that the bridge still actually, at the point that he could have made the order, was still open.
But doesn't make it.
He attacks Washington.
What occurs next is a crushing defeat for the Hessians.
They are surrounded, and it's a double envelopment, which rarely occurs during the American Revolution.
And the entire Hessian garrison, nearly the entire Hessian garrison, is captured or killed.
And it's Johann Rahl that is also hit.
And he's on his deathbed, and it's there that the note is revealed, supposedly, that he says that if he only read the note, he would have been able to take appropriate measures.
But it's here that this is a crushing defeat for the British.
The attack is, you know, beautifully executed, and Washington doesn't want to try his luck.
He decides to take the army back across the Delaware.
And it's kind of interesting.
They have more casualties on the return than they did on the initial voyage, because they found the British or the Hessians' rum supply.
And start drinking heavily, and it's a drunken cruise on the way back across the Delaware.
Several men fall overboard, but they have all these Hessian prisoners in tow, along with their weapons and mini-cannon, and they sit there and wait.
And the plan is to not necessarily attack.
They've got, you know, a major victory here on their hands.
But what happens is a series of events take place that sort of force Washington's hand A gentleman by the name of John Cadwallader and the Philadelphia Associators, this is a militia group, they were part of that initial group, those two groups that tried to cross but they failed on Christmas Day.
They then cross a day or so later and they're on the New Jersey side.
So Washington has a decision to make.
Does he support Cadwallader along with the New Jersey militia groups that are now rising up because of this great Trenton victory?
So he decides to cross again.
And they cross back over to Trenton, but they don't make the mistake that Johan Rahl makes, and that's to try to fight and defend at Trenton.
They fight on the high ground on the opposite side of Acid Creek and that bridge.
And that bridge is so important as well.
It's one of those bridges.
I wrote an article in Breitbart called Bridges Save America, and it's sort of true.
It's another epic, largely unknown story where the army All could have been lost, again, at Assinpeak Creek.
And this is a picture of the battle at Assinpeak Creek.
They line up on the opposite side of Assinpeak Creek.
And Cornwallis, after the defeat at Trenton, they charge forward as quickly as they can to Trenton.
And Washington slows that army down with some of Edward Hand's expert riflemen.
But they're able to advance To Trenton and to the bridge in the afternoon, shortly after New Year's.
And it's there that they make an epic stand.
It's really an incredible story.
And here, Washington is by his men.
His horse is literally touching the side of the bridge.
He's urging his men on.
And the Hessians and the elite light infantry, Patrick, hang on one second.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
We're going to continue on with America's first Christmas, 1776, and the fighting that took place over Christmas.
Short commercial break.
We're going to be back with a second hour of War Room.
Patrick K. O'Donnell, combat historian, is with us.
Jack Maxey, Steve Bannon, War Room.
Short commercial break.
We'll be back in a second.
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