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May 27, 2024 - Bannon's War Room
48:57
Episode 3639: WarRoom Memorial Day Special: 'Our Honored Dead'
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patrick k odonnel
20:47
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steve bannon
22:20
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unidentified
♪♪ ♪♪
♪♪ It's cut it off.
And this world of slum, this world of slum, they grind in.
him.
I'm a warrior.
♪♪ ♪♪
Hero。 Thank you for watching
♪♪ Thy songs were made for the pure and free.
I shall never stop singing.
Welcome.
It is Monday, 27 May, in the year of the Lord 2024.
steve bannon
It's Memorial Day, and therefore the War Room Memorial Day special, which has been a tradition for us,
where we've honored the or commemorate the honored dead of our country.
Patrick O'Donnell joins us as he always does.
I think going on now 10 years between Breitbart Radio and here.
Patrick, thank you so much and change your schedule up to make sure you're here.
It's fantastic.
unidentified
Thank you.
patrick k odonnel
It's Steve.
It's always an honor and a pleasure to be here.
This is after the Christmas special.
This is my my favorite show with you.
steve bannon
The Christmas special is pretty good.
The combat, when we first started doing it, the combat history, Christmas previews, what do you talk about?
I go, hey, on one level it's a commercial and obviously deeply religious holiday, but American fighting men have been fighting and we tell those stories and people go, wow, I didn't realize all that happened on all those different wars over Christmas.
But it's extraordinary.
And your reason I'm so honored to have you here on Memorial Day is I don't think anybody understands First off, what we'll talk about a little later in the show, which we always traditionally get to, is what happens today in Washington, but really the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetery, the really civic religion of the United States, and your deep understanding of that and how we actually got to that.
But also the reason it's so great is you have, you now with your new book on the Civil War,
essentially covered the revolution, Iraq, Korea, you know, World War II, World War I,
you have your hands in all these and just tell amazing stories because this is,
remember as a veteran, this is not Veterans Day.
Veterans Day is 11 November and that's because it was really Armistice Day in World War I
and then roll over to Veterans Day.
That's where we do honor the veterans, the veterans' service.
A lot of people I think get confused about Memorial Day.
Memorial Day is not about service.
Memorial Day is about sacrifice.
It is for the honored dead of the United States and that's where we delve in.
I really want to change it up because normally we start back with the World War I, how we actually got here with the Tomb of the Unknown.
We'll be playing a lot of footage of that.
I had experience as a very young child.
My dad took me to the, my older brother and I went to the internment of the Korean veteran back in the 1950s in the Eisenhower administration.
We'll talk about that.
But your new book, and I gotta tell you, of all the great books, and I love that kind of two-part, the two-part one on the revolution is one of my favorites, probably my favorite.
patrick k odonnel
Soon to be a third.
steve bannon
Soon to be a third.
patrick k odonnel
At the 250th.
steve bannon
But you stopped, you took a break from the third and wrote, I think this is your first book on the Civil War?
patrick k odonnel
This is, but this has been my passion since I was about four years old.
steve bannon
And with that said, you got drawn into this In fact, the other day when producer Cameron had, we had some other stuff, we had one of the great RAV team here, and a technician, one of the, he was a camera operator and worked the board, and we started talking, he's from Southern Maryland, in a complete
Civil War aficionado and he got into it.
He's very young.
He reads all the books on people are drawn to this topic Particularly in the certain obviously in the in the east in certain parts of Tennessee, etc Because so many battlefields around and memorials you just drawn it to his kid talked to us about the unvanquished and particularly related to Memorial Day, you know people don't realize that It's argued that our Memorial Day here kind of started with the Confederates, the Daughters of the Confederacy, and people, my folks are buried at the Arlington National Cemetery of the Confederacy, which is Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, which has the Pickett's Charge Memorial and all that.
How did you get drawn into the Civil War?
Talk to us about the unvanquished year of Memorial Day in 2024.
patrick k odonnel
I was drawn into the Civil War when I was about four years old, and I was picking up Military.
steve bannon
Four years old.
patrick k odonnel
Yes.
My first book was a book on World War I, which is massive.
I was maybe 30 pounds.
It was a massive book.
It was a 40-pound book.
It was a pictorial history of World War I, and it was graphic and hardcore.
And I was reading that instead of dinosaur books.
And then I was reading Civil War books.
steve bannon
You were flipping through these black and white pictures.
patrick k odonnel
And I was dragging my dad to Civil War battlefields.
He would tell me, you know, Patrick, you've seen one, you've seen them all.
I'm like, Dad, no, we haven't seen enough.
unidentified
Wow.
patrick k odonnel
And I was going to, we went to Fredericksburg, we went to the wilderness, we went down to Richmond.
steve bannon
Where were you raised?
patrick k odonnel
I was raised in Ohio.
steve bannon
In Ohio, and you were still drawn to the Army in Northern Virginia?
You guys would come down here on family trips?
patrick k odonnel
We would.
Our family trips were always, we were never going to the beach, we were doing historical things.
And I loved it, and it was hardcore.
steve bannon
How did you talk to your parents?
They said, hey, the kid's got an interest.
The kid's got an interest.
The kid's obsessed.
The kid's obsessed.
Were you obsessed?
patrick k odonnel
I was obsessed.
I was collecting artifacts.
steve bannon
I had a book, a library of like... I didn't know this part of Patrick K. O'Donnell.
I know his recent history of the last 20 or 30 years.
patrick k odonnel
No, it's nothing new.
And everybody that went to grade school with me knew I was doing this stuff.
And I was drawing tanks.
I was... you name it.
steve bannon
What was the interest at...
Four, five, and six, what was it internally you wanted to know more about these people?
What was it?
patrick k odonnel
It was the stories.
I was obsessed with the stories.
I was obsessed with just sort of people that change things, and history itself, and how the ebb and flow of it.
I would love to go, and in all the books I've written, I always walk the ground whenever I can, like the unvanquished.
unidentified
Very important.
patrick k odonnel
You can go visit Northern Virginia.
You can go to Loudoun County and go to Prince William County.
The book's a driving tour of all these places.
The mansions, the safe houses, which still have carpentry work for, you know, hidden compartments.
steve bannon
Why is it important?
This is one of the reasons your book comes to life.
This is one of the reasons I think that War Room Posse is your part of the, a huge part of your fan base.
patrick k odonnel
I love it.
steve bannon
These, well, these books If they take you forever, just the research, then you write them, but they feel like novels in the fact that they have a feel to them.
Part of that, as I tell people, you actually go in the research, not just into the archives, you then go to the actual place.
So when you describe it, it's from a firsthand understanding of what the actual geographic place, because history takes its place in, you know, site-specific.
patrick k odonnel
What I want to do with all the books I've written is put you there.
It's the camera that just puts you there on the ground in 1864 or in 1865.
I want you to feel what Lincoln was feeling or what the Confederacy was feeling of how desperate the situation, how back and forth was.
It was certainly not a war that was preordained.
In any way.
And it's a miracle.
steve bannon
I mean, you kind of, it came upon people like a storm.
patrick k odonnel
Right.
steve bannon
Right out of nowhere.
I mean, you've been building for years the tension and the, and quite frankly, some of the hatred.
But the actual kinetic part of it caught people by surprise.
patrick k odonnel
Indeed.
And it was the election of 1860 that changes everything.
And that's where, that's the beginning of much of it.
steve bannon
Your people in Unvanquished, before the conflict starts, They're normal folks, right?
Most of them are not super-engaged partisans on the political process.
patrick k odonnel
No, most of them are not.
But you have within that some really extraordinary people like Richard Blaser, for instance, who's this He has a riverboat on the Ohio River, and he's a hack driver.
He drives a carriage up and down the road.
He's 34 years old, but this guy has a knack for hunting Confederates.
But at the same time, he never would make it on the parade ground, uniformed, totally disheveled.
His one eye kind of wanders off to the side.
And then you got that combined with the command of the guy that would be the future publisher and founder of the LA Times.
Harrison Gray Otis, who's there too, and a Republican.
steve bannon
One of the most powerful families in America.
And it's incredible.
patrick k odonnel
They're ardent abolitionists.
But on the other side of the spectrum, you have guys like John Singleton Mosby, who's this lawyer that, you know, in law school almost kills a man in a fight with a pistol.
steve bannon
And tell us about Mosby, because he's a fascinating, fascinating figure in the book.
Mosby is a towering figure.
patrick k odonnel
He's a towering figure that is the pioneer of American modern guerrilla warfare, and he's an unlikely figure.
You know, he's five foot 7'8", 5'7", 128 pounds.
Brilliant, and has gravitas.
And, you know, he is able to change the course of the war through his actions.
He's given his first command, he's given a guy with a club foot and told to go, by Jeb Stewart, to go create a guerrilla warfare operation, and it's a miserable failure.
He's captured at a train station by a company of Union Calvary.
But makes lemons out of lemonade by, um, he's captured and through his prisoner exchange, he's transported down the James River in a steamboat and he sees all these reinforcements building up.
And he knows that that's part of an attack.
It's actionable.
steve bannon
A big troop movement.
patrick k odonnel
He recognized, he also sees the commands that are there.
This guy is brilliant.
He recognizes that it's several corps.
He knows that this is actionable, strategic level intelligence.
He gets off the boat.
The guy doesn't go, you know, like hang out somewhere.
He immediately rides to General Lee's headquarters.
He's exhausted, sud-beaten.
He's only a lowly lieutenant that pops into Lee's headquarters and they're immediately suspicious.
Who's this guy?
And he convinces General Lee that this is an attack that's coming.
And sure enough, the Battle of Cedar Mountain is decided by Mosby's intelligence.
steve bannon
And Cedar Mountain is one of the more unknown, but more important battles leading up to the whole campaign of Second Manassas, right?
Which is really incredible.
Okay, Patrick K. O'Donnell, the final combat historian of his generation, and a beloved, revered figure for the war in Posse.
It's Memorial Day and we're on a Memorial Day special back in a moment.
unidentified
♪♪♪ It is Memorial Day.
steve bannon
Always a very special day here in the War Room.
Our honored dead, Patrick K. O'Donnell, best comrade in history.
I want to go back to your youth.
I can tell already in the chat people are quite interested in this.
How did you, after at four and doing this, What was it then that, as you went to elementary school, you started reading books, I take it, early on?
Do you remember what the first book about the Civil War, about war, other than the thing, that really engaged you?
patrick k odonnel
There was an American Heritage book on the Civil War, the golden book.
steve bannon
I've had it as a kid.
patrick k odonnel
I used to love those.
steve bannon
The illustrations were amazing.
patrick k odonnel
And all the famous paintings are in there.
And I used some of those paintings in the Unvanquished.
And it's like, I love that feeling.
steve bannon
American Heritage.
What year were you born?
patrick k odonnel
1969.
steve bannon
The American Heritage series, I think, came out for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary.
Being from Richmond, Virginia, that was a major, it was started obviously in 1861, or 1961 and went all the way through the 100th anniversary, was huge.
That American Heritage, and I believe Bruce Canton.
patrick k odonnel
Exactly.
steve bannon
Bruce Canton had written all of those and uh... written the great history of lincoln's army mister lincoln's army and then written his own history the civil war from the he was if you take uh... if you take uh... lease lieutenants and douglas southall freeman was the historian of the army in northern virginia canton was the historian of the army the potomac and the power of his books they read like novels i mean they start off with just it's a narrative history at the highest
Level.
You're getting there.
But he actually took over and became the editor at American Heritage to put out that series.
I remember that series like it was yesterday.
I used to sit there for hours.
patrick k odonnel
That was me.
steve bannon
And that artwork was amazing.
patrick k odonnel
Civil War, World War II, like the Battle of the Bulge one with the guy with the grease gun on the cover and the snowy pine trees.
I mean, I was obsessed with all this stuff when I was a kid.
And I was going to these battlefields.
steve bannon
How did you talk?
You're from Ohio, so it's not like... Ohio had some stuff from the War of 1812 and stuff like that, but it's not like... There were a lot of recruits.
You go to Gettysburg, there's a lot of Ohio monuments.
But how did you talk your folks in as a little kid?
My dad loved history too, but it was... But it's one thing to love history, another thing to take the family back to those days and schlep down to Chancellorsville, right?
patrick k odonnel
It was not easy, but we did it!
And we loved it.
steve bannon
Did you start at Gettysburg?
patrick k odonnel
We started, no, it was at Fredericksburg that I began.
I think it was the first start.
steve bannon
Wow.
patrick k odonnel
And outside.
steve bannon
One of the most brutal battles of the Civil War.
patrick k odonnel
Fredericksburg and St.
Mary's Heights, and then Wilderness.
We did the whole chain, Wilderness, Chancellorsville.
steve bannon
Spotsylvania.
patrick k odonnel
Yeah, you can literally drive through these places.
steve bannon
At six years old, Patrick O'Donnell recreates the Overland campaign.
Did you end in Cold Harbor?
patrick k odonnel
We did.
I remember going to the Mule Shoe and all that stuff.
And then we did the Peninsula campaign.
It was obsessive.
I would go to the houses of these guys in Ohio.
We'd find old mansions and stuff.
And then we'd go to just every weekend we'd do stuff.
And I remember finding this old mansion that had A gas mask from World War I guy, and this helmet, because they always brought those home.
Then I started to try to collect a little bit of that stuff.
I couldn't do it, but then I got into it later in life.
steve bannon
Who were the historians?
Was it Bruce Canton?
Because I remember the first book I remember, besides World War II history, the first Civil War book, I remember being conscious of having read, because my father gave it to me.
And I think it's because it came out in 61, I guess I was 9 or 10 years old, was The Stillness and Appomattox, which ended the history of, he did two, he did Mr. Lincoln's Army, then he did a history of the Civil War.
I think Stillness and Appomattox was the concluding volume.
I just remember it was so powerful.
He was such a great writer, it was so powerful.
What's the first book you actually remember diving into and being yours?
patrick k odonnel
It was probably the American Heritage Civil War book, and then it would be after that, like Shelby Foote's books.
unidentified
Yes.
patrick k odonnel
I would be obsessed with those.
steve bannon
If you haven't read Shelby Foote's, he's a novelist that was going to write a 30, 70,000 word, I think up to 100,000 word history of the Quickie, I think for the 100th anniversary, by a publisher.
And they said, you're a Southern novelist.
Could you do it?
And that became, I think, for the next 30 years of his life.
An obsession, and he wrote a magisterial three-volume history of the Civil War, which Ken Burns based the Civil War on.
patrick k odonnel
And then, yeah, and then it just continued to grow.
After college, I would interview—I was the only—I was interviewing World War II veterans.
I've interviewed thousands of them.
steve bannon
Well, people don't—maybe ours don't understand this—you are probably, on oral history, You did a great service to the country, culturally and historically, because you went out and got the oral histories of the Greatest Generation and others before they passed away.
patrick k odonnel
I did, and it was through the website called The Drop Zone, where I gathered it through email, but also I would just go to these reunions.
Every weekend, when I was in my 20s, I was at a reunion.
unidentified
It was all... I probably have the greatest... Reunion of units, of regiments... It was specific.
patrick k odonnel
It was private.
I have probably the largest collection of private oral histories in the world of elite units and special operations units from World War II.
You really focused on... Yeah, I focused on first the 82nd Airborne and, you know, I mean, it was every regiment, every independent unit like the 517, 551st, 509.
I mean, this metal right here was worn by a 509 paratrooper that You know, this unit went in with 800 men and they fought the 15th SS Panzer Grenadier and they halted them.
They received the Presidential Unicide Agent.
Only 50 of these men walked out.
This guy never had a scratch.
He dropped in North Africa, too.
Gave them the medal to me.
The Scapula OSS man, which was with the maritime unit, the first SEALs.
steve bannon
The 82nd Airborne.
The bridge that had to hold across the marsh.
Talk about that for a second.
patrick k odonnel
All of those guys.
steve bannon
This was on D-Day, the night before.
patrick k odonnel
I wrote a book called Beyond Valor, which captures the stories of The Murderay River and Chef Dupont and this is Lafayette Bridge, which is one of the greatest small unit actions in American history.
steve bannon
American military history.
patrick k odonnel
And this is where the Germans are trying to cross the bridge and basically wipe out the beachhead.
And it's the 82nd that makes the stand.
then recrosses the bridge and takes the positions.
And it's epic because I'll never forget, I talked to Ed, one of the 507 guys that was in that charge,
and he told me how a bullet whizzes or snaps, and I'll never forget it till the day I die.
And then when I experienced it firsthand, I was in a drainage ditch in Fallujah, running and crawling from two snipers for about four or five hundred meters.
And I heard the bullets whiz and snapped.
And then I also had a president say to me, don't crawl any further.
And right where this white piece of paper was, a bullet landed.
And that changed my life.
steve bannon
Wow.
You've been out of luck.
In all the reading and leading up in the oral histories, how did that prepare you to then segue into being a writer, actually being a historian that would tell these stories?
patrick k odonnel
I developed all my own techniques.
I'm still kind of an island to myself.
I don't, like, interact with a lot of writers.
I don't, like, hang out at writers' conferences or any of that stuff.
I do my own thing.
steve bannon
You didn't go get a master's degree in creative writing.
patrick k odonnel
No, no.
I just—this is something I guess I'm a natural at.
steve bannon
And I just— Or you made yourself.
patrick k odonnel
Yeah, I just—I developed my own technique, which is I want to put the reader there, but it's academic in the sense that every single footnote you can trace back Where the source came, it's nothing is made up.
steve bannon
Why is that so important to you?
Because a lot of the popular narrative histories, you don't have any footnotes.
You're just assuming the writer, like some of the great ones, Longest Day, who are great guys, but you're taking it on faith that these quotes happen and these things happen.
patrick k odonnel
No, I want it to be real and true.
It's the truth.
And that's important to me.
steve bannon
So none of the dialogue in your books... None of it.
unidentified
Nothing.
steve bannon
And when we go to your books, and you have this amazing dialogue, and I look and you go back and you see a footnote, you've taken that from a diary, you've taken that from a recollection, you've taken it from a memoir.
unidentified
Excellent.
patrick k odonnel
Or a report.
I want the camera to be there on the scene, and I want the participants to tell the story in their own words.
And that's why Being Vanquished is so successful, because we're putting the reader there, and we're letting these participants tell their own story, which is In the Unvanquished, starting in the Civil War, and then leading through.
steve bannon
People may not understand, you have tremendous resources to work for, to go check, like battles and leaders in the multivolume history of the Great Rebellion, right?
As a country, as a government, as a nation, there was a conscious decision, to the degree possible, to try to document a lot of this.
patrick k odonnel
Which is an incredible source.
steve bannon
But the oral histories, somehow, The oral histories, they didn't think about, right?
It was guys like yourself that went back and go, hey, you've got unit recollections, and these unit recollections can be a little dry, right?
But you don't have a battles and leaders, which the Civil War you had guys writing or first-hand accounts.
You guys then, led by you and others, went and said, we better get these guys on tape.
Before they leave, because we need this.
And that's added to this historical record, which now is pretty overwhelming.
patrick k odonnel
Yeah, that's especially true with World War II.
I even interviewed some World War I veterans.
Not many, but... And I also try to get both sides as much as possible.
I interviewed Japanese and German veterans for World War II.
So, yeah, it's all... I try to have stuff that's fresh, that nobody's ever seen.
steve bannon
The Unvanquished.
Just tell people, a book like that from the inception to the day it publishes.
patrick k odonnel
It took seven years.
steve bannon
Seven years.
patrick k odonnel
And it was all handcrafted, hardcore research done by me.
I don't have a staff.
I do this myself and I love it.
steve bannon
I haven't worked for 25 years.
Or otherwise you can say you worked every day for 25 years.
But I love it.
patrick k odonnel
It's my passion.
This is fun for me.
I like to explore and find new things.
It's about America, right?
It's about who we are as Americans.
An exceptional country.
steve bannon
I think you're with ordinary people who do exceptional things.
Achieve exceptional things.
patrick k odonnel
It's what the books are all about.
It's about personal agency and people changing the course of history.
steve bannon
Short break.
I think this is why you're beloved by your readers.
Short break.
Patrick A. Dunn on the other side.
unidentified
Okay, welcome back.
steve bannon
Top of the hour, we're going to get into Patrick's deep understanding of Memorial Day, the traditional commemoration we have, and particularly around Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown.
You know, in preparation for this, I've been doing some traveling.
People know we've been doing the show on the road a lot.
I went back just to make sure, and I read a couple of combat histories of World War I.
And the scale of slaughter, it came out of nowhere.
You had the assassination on the 28th, I think, of June.
It didn't make the front page of the Times of London until the 28th, again, until the 28th of July.
And the mobilization had started.
The guns of August were there in four days.
And by the third week of August, the scale of combat is just overwhelming.
The first year, 1914 through 1915, you're talking a million, I mean, you sit there and it's all slaughterhouse.
Just a slaughterhouse.
And you think that Victorian era.
Here, also, you had one country, but it was obviously split politically about the dynamics They had two different kind of ways of life, except in the rural areas were very similar.
But these are very strong Christian values, very strong Victorian values.
And you get into your book, and quite frankly, the viciousness of the combat, although on a smaller scale, is pretty shocking.
I mean, one of the things about this book is that you have people who are countrymen and very close Boom, and then all of a sudden they're in a vicious, I mean vicious war to the knife fight on people who were not politically partisan.
They really weren't caught up in any of this.
And then all of a sudden, and it's one of the powers of the book, all of a sudden you're in this kind of special forces guerrilla war, which are always the nastiest wars.
And in the Civil War, bad as horrific as the combat was, and it was horrific.
You did the Overland Campaign.
You look at the Western Campaign.
right with control and and and what happened out there up in the name Nathan Bedford for us and you look at the
guerrilla war which is not lean only these guys are very Victorian a guerrilla
wars a whole different thing but man the
patrick k odonnel
viciousness of it is shocking yeah the the the unbanked wishes born in Missouri
where its neighbor against neighbor You don't know who your enemy is at all, and it's vicious and violent.
And it's John Fremont, the first Republican candidate.
steve bannon
The Great Pathfinder.
patrick k odonnel
Yes, the Pathfinder.
1856, presidential candidate for the Republican Party.
steve bannon
First Republican Party.
Not Lincoln, it was Fremont.
Yes, and he is... And Mrs. Fremont always thought that he should be the president.
patrick k odonnel
It's there, that his command.
He's the pathfinder, as you mentioned.
He's the explorer.
He spends a lot of his time, prior to the Civil War, exploring the Great West.
He is, you know, extremely successful through his scouts in the West, like Kit Carson.
steve bannon
The famous scout.
And he discovers, quite frankly, what we call the discovery of California and makes the path to California.
He's not an American here.
He's a global hero.
You could argue he's the first media celebrity, like Horatio Nelson.
He's at that level of global.
They know as much about Fremont and London as they know out here.
He's a global figure.
patrick k odonnel
He becomes a U.S.
Senator in Canada and then he has a command in the Civil War, but he transfers some of this Western knowledge of fighting Native Americans and exploring to create a scout unit to deal with Missouri which is this you know hotbed of insurgency and he creates the Jesse Scouts and they're named after his wife Jesse Fremont who's
You know, one account says she's the most extraordinary woman of her age.
steve bannon
She's beautiful and brilliant.
patrick k odonnel
She's beautiful, brilliant, well-read, and she's... She's the daughter of one of the most powerful U.S.
steve bannon
Senators in the history of the Senate.
patrick k odonnel
And she herself is powerful.
steve bannon
No, she could have been, but... The story...
When he gets kind of relief from command because he's got his own ideas about how this deal ought to be run, like free the slaves immediately, she takes a train back to Washington, D.C.
And John Hay writes this story in his memoir.
She shows up to the Willard Hotel at like one in the morning because she's got to deliver a handwritten note or bring a note from Fremont.
Who's just been relieved for cause, but it hasn't been announced.
And she shows up to Lincoln's.
Lincoln said, no, go get her.
I got to meet her right away.
They go to like the green room.
She walks in and Lincoln says something and she's up in his grill, literally treating him like a deck seaman.
And you know, he gets out of there and he just tells Hay and these guys, get her out of here.
unidentified
Right?
steve bannon
Again, she just thought Linker was just some grundoon, some servant, right?
She's Jesse, you know.
patrick k odonnel
And one of the great quotes of the book is she's the better man of the two.
Big time.
Between her husband and herself.
steve bannon
She's one of the most unique, by the way, just for the book, she's one of the most unique women in American history.
patrick k odonnel
Absolutely.
And she is, she, we believe, she's the one that said that these scouts should wear the uniform of their enemy.
Confederate uniform.
steve bannon
Tough, smart broad.
patrick k odonnel
She is amazing.
And they named the group after her in her honor.
This is fit for Hollywood.
We've already got interested.
But it's like these guys are seedy in many ways.
They're able to go in and infiltrate into Fort Donaldson under disguise.
One guy literally comes out as a woman in disguise.
But they have some great tradecraft that they develop.
But they also have a dark side, and that is they steal anything not nailed down.
Their commander, John C. Carpenter, is part of the problem.
steve bannon
If you look at it, because it's all the border war.
Remember, the whole initial stage of the Civil War was going to be decided on which way the border states went.
Missouri, Kentucky.
West Virginia, McClellan, they actually, West Virginia is part of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
It breaks off.
But then you've got Maryland.
You've also got this section of Northern Virginia.
These are all the borders of the Mason-Dixon line, and people, quite frankly, got a little bit played both sides, because they don't know how this thing's going to turn.
Right?
It's very uncertain how this thing's going to go.
Exactly.
And so that's why you don't know who your enemy is, you don't know who your friend is, and the farther west you get, That thing in Missouri is about as nasty a partisan war.
I mean, John Brown came from there.
Contrell came from there.
You had the red-legged, the bushwhackers.
I mean, the Jayhawks.
You had Lawrence, Kansas, arguably the greatest, one of the great tragedies in American history.
Right?
I mean, it is vicious.
I keep saying that.
foreshadowed the horror of the Civil War.
patrick k odonnel
Right.
And what happens is this unit, which is trained out there and learns how to deal with the guerrillas in Missouri, is then moved to West Virginia, which is also a, you know, a cauldron of, you know... Well, first of all, West Virginia, that Scotch Irish had no use for the plantation aristocracy.
steve bannon
They had no use for them.
They said, what are we doing here, right?
We got a country.
They're kind of, they're backwoodsmen.
But they got very strong values, and they never understood the elites in the Tidewater area, and particularly Richmond.
You know, what are we doing here, right?
They were hardcore, tough people.
Very tough people.
And look, they carved out a state from Virginia.
patrick k odonnel
Which I think is interesting, too.
In the summer of 1863, West Virginia comes into the Union as a slave state.
Which is sort of a bizarre thing, if you really think about it.
Well, they couldn't push it too hard at the time.
Yeah, and it becomes a slave state, but it's these rivalries, but the state is where the main supply roads, the railroads and also the main lines go through for the Union from the Midwest to Washington, D.C., so they have to be guarded.
And it's here, there's a buffer state.
And it's the Jesse Scouts that are acting as, uh, they lead raids there on those Confederate railroads and also help protect the railroads there, but they're also leading the armies.
And it's, uh, you know, there's just really powerful stories of, of, uh, of what these guys do.
And then what happens eventually is they're, after John C. Fremont decides not to take command under John Pope, he, Leaves and most of the scouts are disbanded.
Carpenter is actually cashiered out of the army because of his illicit activities.
But this small remnant of scouts stay around in their move from one command to another where they do some amazing things.
steve bannon
The commands, particularly the more Victorian Army Northern Virginia.
You had Virginia gentlemen, you had all these units from North Carolina and from Alabama, but this was the officer corps there was West Point and the elite of the elite of the Southern Gentry.
Did they have a natural problem?
Because they're kind of guys that say, hey, these are essentially criminals, right?
They're fighting for us.
Did they have a problem initially with the tactics?
Because remember, the war in the East, they made a big deal That it was not the war in the West.
The war in the West not just had Sherman and Grant and had a different way of... But they didn't approve of what was happening in Missouri.
It wasn't the way gentlemen fought.
patrick k odonnel
They understood.
I mean, Robert E. Lee in particular was constantly torn between this guerrilla warfare That was blossoming under his command and its benefits, but also the detrimental side, which is he understood the information war and how if these people executed civilians, it could totally turn the tide the other way.
So they created something called the Partisan Ranger Act in 1862, which tried to put these guys under the command of the Confederacy, under the command of the Confederate Army, which was partially successful.
And what you get Our two authorized commands, one of them is Mosby's Rangers, and they're considered
They're amazing, in terms of their paralysis on the battlefield.
steve bannon
And they're also coming, they're also from... Highly disciplined.
They're also from the war in the valley, where Stonewall is from.
They are from, today you would argue, some of the most expensive real estate in this country.
Middleburg, Virginia.
These are magnificent estates, with horses as one of the great equestrian centers of this country, for super elite.
I mean, where Mosby Rangers It's one of the most beautiful parts of this nation.
patrick k odonnel
And many of the men were from the homes in and around that area.
And many of them were also wealthy members.
And they also relied upon these plantations for safe houses because they were being haunted by men in my book.
For instance, Richard Blazer and Blazer Scouts, the Jesse Scouts, and it's this clash between these two groups on horseback.
steve bannon
You cover, the power of the book is you cover Both the Union part of it and the Confederate part of it.
So you see it through both the two lenses.
patrick k odonnel
You have to tell both sides of the story in order to tell this story.
And it's an epic clash.
I mean, it's fascinating, too.
I mean, you get the Jesse Scouts.
There's scenes in there where, I mean, one of the Jesse Scouts, Archibald Roland Jr., is one of the guys that I follow through the entire book.
And he's witnessing the burning of Chambersburg, and then literally a day later, he's watching a bullfrog battle against a black snake in the the men are transported back to their battle their their childhood and literally betting on it and then within an hour they are in a they're in the midst of a confederate calvary charge they are in their confederate uniforms and they are literally charging with confederate calvary because they have nowhere else to go against the union position i think you imagine that how did uh... in the book how did
steve bannon
Memorial Day from the Confederate dead.
How did Memorial Day get its reel?
Because it started as a Confederate commemoration.
patrick k odonnel
It begins, there's evidence that it begins in Warrington, Virginia, not far from here.
And it's part of Decoration Day, where they were... Talk to us about decoration.
They're strewing the graves of the fallen, they're honoring them with flowers to decorate their graves.
And this is occurring through the South, but also in the North, too.
Especially after Gettysburg, where They're trying to remember and honor the fallen.
steve bannon
We don't talk about this, that the nation was traumatized by this war.
This is why what happens after the Civil War, the nation's traumatized.
The level of destruction, the level of bloodshed was, I mean... You talk about Waterloo?
unidentified
The Civil War, I think we had 30 Waterloo's.
steve bannon
Or 40 Waterloo's.
What Europe had known as these massive battles, out of nowhere.
And the partisan nature of this, because America was so vicious.
unidentified
You talk about shooting civilians and killing civilians.
steve bannon
These people got to the part of killing civilians.
It's part of another day at the office.
That's what's so stunning about it.
That's why the decoration days were so important because the nation was traumatized and they had to think of something in our cultural structure to start to get over that.
Okay, we'll take a short break.
back tell me some stories about this honored dead of your book
patrick k odonnel
the unvanquished The book is dedicated to two soldiers that gave their last full measure of devotion to the United States.
And the cover photo is a haunting one.
He's almost looking back through time at us, I think.
And that's Sergeant Joseph Frith.
steve bannon
He looks modern.
It looks like a kid today.
It looks like the guys I see at the conferences, some of the cameramen and guys that work for us.
He looks like a modern man.
patrick k odonnel
Exceptional story.
Courageous, brave.
He's part of Blazer Scouts or the Jesse Scouts.
And it's, you know, we're coming up on the anniversary of the Battle of Lynchburg, and these men led the armies specifically towards Lynchburg.
And it was in and around Covington, Virginia, where they were coming out of West Virginia, that the scouts had a clash with Confederate scouts.
And it was a violent clash.
It was a meeting engagement.
And Frith was in action, along with the other members of the Blazer Scouts, or the Lincoln Special Forces, and they were able to repel this small group of Confederates.
But in the midst of this action, one of the men that was in, he had no business being there, he was riding with the Scouts, he was a clerk, was there and his pistol discharged as he was falling from his horse, and it shot Joseph Frith in the stomach.
steve bannon
Totally random.
patrick k odonnel
Random act.
This guy was pretty much indestructible until that point.
And he's brought to a home near Covington, Virginia.
Mrs. Dickinson's home, or Dickens.
And there's a... I unearthed an amazing article in the Milan Times.
This is in Milan, Ohio.
He's from northern Ohio near the lake.
He's only a few miles from my home town of Westlake.
And he was recruited out of there and he's brought to the bed of Mrs. Dickinson And he basically spends an entire day writhing in pain.
He's mortally wounded.
And the entire command is, there's a surgeon there.
They try to bring him back.
And it's a powerful story.
Because his father writes in the letter in the Milan Times that Joseph taught you how to live, but also how to die.
And he died a noble death.
And one of the aspects of this book is to find his unknown grave.
He's buried in somebody's private cemetery or back of that house somewhere.
And I'm hoping that this, that haunting image of him, you know, is able to transcend time and place.
steve bannon
In Winchester, Virginia.
patrick k odonnel
It's not too far, I mean, Staunton, that whole area.
But it's not too far from the West Virginia border, which these men were, they were leading the Army, Hunter's Army at the time, and Crook's Army.
Through West Virginia towards Lynchburg.
And then that has the whole dynamic of the summer of 1864 where Jubal Early saves Lynchburg and then marches up, or marches through the valley towards Washington, D.C.
and nearly takes the capital.
steve bannon
Lincoln goes out to the ramparts.
Barely saved D.C.
D.C.
was totally shocked by Jubal Early.
patrick k odonnel
And Lincoln, you know, famously would say, you think I'm going to be beat?
I know I'm going to be beat, and badly.
steve bannon
This is in the election.
patrick k odonnel
In the election, yes.
But you know, I mean, to his credit, he literally still holds the election.
steve bannon
Yes.
patrick k odonnel
Which is incredible.
And then he even has his staff, or cabinet, sign a memorandum called the Blind Memorandum that they will participate with the President-elect if they lose.
steve bannon
Now hang on.
patrick k odonnel
Which is incredible.
steve bannon
Now you're getting down to Trump country now.
Because that memo is so important, and they'd never want to talk about it.
In, I think it was July or August, of eighteen sixty four uh... he's running against lincoln's running against his former field commander mcclellan the general of the american mcclellan's a a peace democrat that they're saying hey we gotta cut a deal with the confederacy we have to make a deal
patrick k odonnel
Now, he changed a little bit as it gets on, but initially, his thing is that Lincoln... He was totally in line with that policy of an armistice.
Negotiation.
Preserving slavery.
And this is the Democrat Party.
Democrat Party to say, now... And I mentioned that the campaign platform for 1864 was written partially by the Confederate Secret Service.
It's another aspect of my life.
steve bannon
That's another reason.
Look, the Lincoln in this memo, basically to the cabinet secretary, just remember, team of rivals, he picked all the best guys that ran against him to be on the cabinet of the smartest lawyers in the country, Seward particularly, Stanton, right?
You had some heavyweights, you had some heavyweights in that cabinet.
And they basically, and this gets back to Trump and the peaceful transfer of power.
He, Lincoln says, hey look, we haven't put the country through this thing for nothing.
We just can't, and we're not going to negotiate, we're not going to negotiate, we're not, we're going to have an election, and the people are going to vote in that election.
And whoever wins, wins.
And if the other side wins, You know, eventually, they will take over.
But, we've got unfinished work.
If that happens, there's unfinished work.
That's what his memo was.
And it leaves open the question, was for March 1865, was that be the day they actually turned things over?
Because he made the point that we have to finish the work that we set out to do.
patrick k odonnel
I think he was going to turn it over, but in those months, in between, he was going to go whole hog.
That's whole hog is kind of the other member of the the Jesse scouts that I should we should talk about that gave his whole his life to our country and that would be Henry Young and in Henry Young is is an extraordinary figure Steve that Takes over under Phil Sheridan, the Jesse Scouts, and he has got this chameleon-like appearance.
He can become a peddler, he goes to a recruiting station for the Confederacy and recruits soldiers, and then puts his men through the test.
And he's buried somewhere in Mexico.
Also in an unknown grave.
And that's the Unvanquished.
I mean, the stories and reviews are on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Wall Street Journal.
Best-selling book.
steve bannon
You say these guys are extraordinary.
They stepped up into the moment and became extraordinary.
But if the war had never come on, if you look at them pre-war, they'd have been average citizens.
They were living Good lives, but an ordinary life like most people live, right?
It was this cataclysm, this catastrophe hit, and certainly the power of it is all of a sudden people you would never expect become these great combat leaders.
patrick k odonnel
And that's something that I think we see in every generation.
steve bannon
We're going to talk about that.
patrick k odonnel
People step up, Steve.
steve bannon
It's Memorial Day.
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