Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies - The Patriots Read online

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  NEW YORK CITY

  JANUARY 19, 2016

  Having just finished writing another O’Reilly Factor script, I am thinking about the people who made my program possible: the American revolutionaries. This day the Factor is packed with opinion and robust debate that would be unthinkable on television in, say, China and many other countries.

  Having lived in Boston for some years, I immersed myself in New England history. Back in the mid-eighteenth century, life was hard in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Few people had any luxuries at all—they lived week to week trying to feed their families and ward off fatal disease.

  The climate was harsh and the labor hard.

  Thus many British subjects living in the colonies were in no mood to share what little they had with a corrupt king thousands of miles away. As King George’s financial demands grew, so did rebellion and sedition against the Crown. It was almost all about money.

  The leaders of the rebellion were a very mixed crew. Led by tough working-class guys, the Sons of Liberty roughed up the king’s men and eventually sent an unforgettable message by dumping English tea, the source of a hated tax, into the cold, murky waters of Boston Harbor. Others, like John Hancock, were patricians who had a lot to lose by defying London but did so anyway because they believed in freedom and fairness.

  The actual American Revolution began soon after the Tea Party and is filled with thrilling stories of bravery and deceit, brilliance and stupidity.

  This book will bring some of those stories to life while telling the reader the truth about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, and other American icons.

  Along the way, we debunk some of the lies attached to the legends, which I always find fascinating. As a former high school history teacher, I am often shocked to find that some Americans know virtually nothing about the origins of the place where they currently live and therefore believe most anything.

  How many of us know the story of the Francis Marion—the Swamp Fox? What a guy he was—a fearsome fighter who used the thickets of South Carolina to terrorize British forces. Marion’s guys were tough outdoorsmen who openly mocked the king’s men dressed in their elaborate “red coats.”

  The Swamp Fox used guile and guerrilla tactics to hammer a much more powerful opponent. He exemplifies the true American spirit; self-sacrifice and goal oriented.

  How much more opposite could Francis Marion be from, say, Benjamin Franklin, the crafty inventor turned diplomat who guided the Independence movement? Talk about two different worlds: Franklin at home in the salons of Paris; Marion camping out in desolate backwaters!

  This book chronicles both men, demonstrating the diversity that was present in colonial America, even as it is today in modern times.

  My life has been directly affected by those who forged rebellion against England and won freedom. I have made my living for over forty years by using my freedom of speech and working in a free press. No other country on earth has so many liberties in the marketplace of ideas in which I traffic every working day.

  So I owe the original patriots a deep debt and hope to repay it by writing the truth about them and bringing their courageous deeds to millions of readers. It is a mission that is worthy and necessary in this age of declining knowledge about how America became the land of the free.

  As always in my books of history, there is no political message other than stating the facts. The American revolutionaries were men and women of differing opinions, united against what they saw as an unbearable oppressor—King George.

  But not every colonial was a rebel. About half the population, called Tories, did not want separation from the Crown. That caused a bitter divide that lasted for decades after independence was finally won. In fact, if you travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts, today, you can visit Brattle Street and see some of the large homes that colonists loyal to the king inhabited. To this day, that neighborhood is called “Tory Row.”

  So what side would you have taken? Most of us now would most likely say “the patriots!” But back in 1775, the decision was not an easy one. Few thought George Washington and his ill-equipped army could defeat the powerful, well-trained British regulars. And the Brits were vengeful—the lives of all rebels were definitely on the line, as they say.

  Still, the allure of freedom intoxicated many colonists. But it was the extraordinary leadership provided by the subjects of this book that made our present freedoms possible.

  Their stories demand to be told accurately. We don’t need false legends or propaganda. The truth is simply too compelling.

  Hopefully, you will enjoy the following pages and visualize the intense struggle that gave all contemporary Americans a chance at living a free and worthwhile life. Reading this book will be educational and enjoyable; my favorite formula. We write for you, the reader, in a fast-paced, action-packed way. But please don’t forget how important these stories really are as you get caught up in the drama.

  So let’s go, and thanks for taking the time to learn about the patriots.

  Bill O’Reilly

  INTRODUCTION

  It took slightly more than four decades from the first rumblings of discontent for the thirteen loosely aligned colonies comprising New England to be transformed into one of the largest and most prosperous nations on earth. It started with a simple idea, that all men deserve to be treated equally, and became the great experiment that would change the world.

  The American Revolution was born in the town meetings of Massachusetts, when ordinary people stood up and spoke passionately to their neighbors about their common interests. It did not begin as a quest for freedom but rather as citizens’ simple desire to have their rights respected. It was a war of ideas as much as a fight over economics.

  When the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, it is probable that the British believed this was more of a nuisance than a war. Would the colonies really dare fight the greatest military power ever assembled? The British army was well equipped, well trained, and highly professional. The British navy controlled the oceans. The colonials had no army and no navy, just poorly equipped and untrained local militias.

  At first the British tried to contain the revolt within Massachusetts, believing they might end it by occupying Boston. That strategy failed at Bunker Hill, when the redcoats were stunned by the ferocity of the colonists’ defense. When the cannons Washington had retrieved from abandoned Fort Ticonderoga put the British troops in jeopardy, the British withdrew to Canada to reinforce their army. It was time to take this uprising seriously.

  No man did more for the cause of American freedom than George Washington, who was, wrote Henry Lee, “First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” At top, his celebrated entry into New York City in November, 1883. Below, General Horatio Gates acce
pts the surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York, in October 1777, marking the turning point of the war.

  In 1776 the largest military offensive in history captured New York, forcing Washington to retreat. The colonial army had been reduced to only six thousand men when Washington launched an extraordinary Christmas Night attack on the Hessians in Trenton, providing the colonies with a great military victory—and hope.

  A year later the strategy changed once more; this time the British intended to isolate the northern colonies. To accomplish this, they split their army in half—and were stunned when five thousand troops were captured at the Battle of Saratoga. The war had become incredibly costly, causing many people in England—and Parliament—to question the value of continuing the fight.

  Everything changed when France entered the war on the colonial side in 1778, forcing the British to protect their possessions scattered around the world. Once again the British objectives had changed, and they launched an invasion of the American south, where they expected to be supported by Loyalists. At the beginning of 1780 there were more than sixty thousand British and German troops fighting Washington’s twelve-thousand-man army. While at first the southern strategy worked and the British successfully captured South Carolina, the attempt to move north was defeated by small, highly mobile guerrilla bands using hit-and-run tactics. The result was that Lord Cornwallis’s army was trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, by American and French forces and ultimately surrendered, effectively ending the fighting in America.

  The colonies won the war. The question became: What kind of nation would emerge from the victory? The founding fathers battled over lofty ideals and harsh realities, and slowly a new form of government was carefully molded. It was tested in numerous and unexpected ways, but, with the Louisiana Purchase, a vast new democratic nation was born.

  What follows is not a complete retelling of the war and its aftermath but rather an investigation into the truth behind many of the legendary stories from the time, the stories of the heroes and the traitors, the leaders and the ordinary soldiers, who together forged one of the most exciting narratives in all of history.

  David Fisher

  January 2016

  The Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770.

  CHAPTER 1

  Samuel Adams AND Paul Revere

  THE REBELLION BEGINS

  The flame that would ignite the American Revolution was lit on a Thursday morning, February 22, 1770, when, according to the Boston Gazette, “a barbarous murder … was committed on the body of a young lad of about eleven years of age.”

  Earlier that morning Christopher Seider and a crowd of young men had marched defiantly through Boston’s cobblestone streets to the merchant Theophilus Lillie’s shop. In addition to a cart overflowing with rotten fruit, they carried painted papier-mâché figures of Lillie and three other importers who refused to respect the colonists’ boycott on all British goods. As the protesters stained the shop windows with rubbish, the greatly despised customs collector Ebenezer Richardson tried to stop them. Richardson, described by the Gazette as “a person of a most abandoned character,” had been forced to leave the Massachusetts town of Woburn after impregnating his sister-in-law and blaming the local minister. Richardson tried to knock down the rioters’ papier-mâché figures. When his attempt was thwarted, he threatened to “blow a lane through this mob” until finally retreating the hundred paces to his own home.

  The growing crowd, numbering as many as sixty boys, turned its whole attention to him. The morning was dark. More nasty words were exchanged. “By the eternal God,” Richardson swore, “I will make it too hot for some of you before night.” At first only rubbish was thrown into Richardson’s yard and was thrown back by Richardson and his wife, Kezia, but soon rocks were being hurled and the Richardsons retreated into their secure home. Windows were shattered as the barrage grew in intensity. Seconds after an egg or a stone struck his wife, Ebenezer Richardson appeared defiantly at a second-story window, holding high a musket loaded with swan shot.

  He fired once. It was intended to be a warning, he later swore, but two boys were struck. Sammy Gore was wounded in both thighs and his hand but would survive. Christopher Seider was hit in his breast and abdomen by eleven pieces of shot “the bigness of large peas.”

  “The child fell,” reported the Boston Evening-Post, “but was taken up and carried into a neighboring house, where all the surgeons within call were assembled, and speedily determined the wounds mortal, as they indeed proved about 9 o’clock that evening.”

  Richardson and his alleged accomplice, George Wilmot, were taken to Faneuil Hall. As more than a thousand people stood watching, they told their story to three magistrates. Richardson was charged with murder. The crowd pressed forward, its intentions clear, and, as the newspapers reported, “had not gentlemen of influence interposed, they would never have reached the prison.” There is reason to believe one of those gentlemen may well have been Samuel Adams, who by then was well established as a leader of the protests.

  The whole of Boston was invited to attend the boy’s funeral, “when all the friends of Liberty may have an opportunity of paying their last respects to the remains of this little hero and first martyr to the noble cause.” More than two thousand of the city’s approximately twenty thousand citizens marched in an extraordinary procession, which caused John Adams to write in amazement, “My eyes never beheld such a funeral. The procession extended further than can be well imagined.”

  The fervor in the city continued to grow until a few days later it finally exploded in battle between the colonists and British soldiers. To the English this was called the Incident on King Street, but Americans have always known it simply as the Boston Massacre.

  The names and events of the American Revolution are the foundation on which this great nation is built. But contrary to what is often believed, it did not begin as a quest for freedom but rather as a protest to ensure that colonists enjoyed their rights as citizens of the British Empire. How had relations between Great Britain and the colonists come to this kind of violence? Until the early 1760s, the estimated two million free white men and women living in America—or “the best poor man’s country,” as it was known to Europeans—enjoyed a mostly peaceful and prosperous relationship with Great Britain. While each of the thirteen colonies was mostly self-governed by elected assemblies that made and enforced laws, controlled land ownership, and levied taxes, the cultural, economic, and political ties to the empire remained strong. While some colonists had risked their lives crossing the ocean for personal or religious freedom, many more of them had come for the economic opportunity; the colonies were known as a place where a hardworking man could eventually lay claim to his own piece of land or establish a business.

  News was interpreted by artists and published in newspapers and pamphlets, which often served as propaganda.

  While colonists proudly called themselves Americans, even those people born in North America remained loyal to the Crown. Their goal was not to become an independent nation. The first sign of trouble came on November 16, 1742, when riots erupted in the streets of Boston after Royal Navy sailors impressed, or kidnapped, forty-six men, intending to force them to serve aboard British naval ships in the long war against France. While impressment was common in other parts of the world, until that night both tradition and the law had protected Massachusetts’s men. The riots lasted three days; the city was paralyzed and colonists took several British naval officers hostage, then attempted to storm the State House.

  The commodore of the British fleet anchored in Boston Harbor ordered his ships to load twenty-four cannons and threatened to bombard the city. He never had to make good on his threat, as Governor William Shirley soon arranged a trade of the impressed men for hostages held by the rioters. A day later the fleet sailed.

  But the seeds of discontent had taken root. A pamphlet signed by “Amicus Patriae,” an anonymous American patriot, was distributed during the crisis. This “Address
of the Inhabitants of the Province of Massachusetts” defended the “natural right” of the people to be free in the streets and band together for defense against impressment if necessary. Evidence suggests that the author of that pamphlet was a young brewer named Samuel Adams.

  By that point in his life, Samuel Adams had proved to be a remarkably unsuccessful businessman. After being dismissed from his first job at a countinghouse, he borrowed a small fortune from his father to open his own merchant business, which failed. He then began working in the family’s successful malt business, becoming known somewhat derisively as “Sam the maltster.” His problem, according to historian Pauline Maier, was that he was “a man utterly uninterested in either making or possessing money.” His true passion was politics, and that perhaps was his greatest inheritance: his father, Samuel Adams Sr., was a wealthy merchant, church deacon, and a leader in Boston politics, eventually being elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Samuel Adams Jr. entered politics in 1747, being elected to the post of clerk in the Boston market. He also served as the local tax collector—and failed miserably at that job, too. According to British law, he was personally responsible for taxes he failed to collect. To settle that debt, the sheriff announced an auction of Adams’s property, including the family brewery. Adams’s reputation, and perhaps the fact that he threatened to sue any purchaser, allowed him to keep his property. In 1748 Adams joined several men to found a newspaper, the Independent Advertiser, and wrote in its first issue, “Liberty can never exist without equality.” It was an attack on both the wealthy mercantile class and the growing threats on individual freedom from England.

  By 1760, 130 years after being founded by the Puritans, Boston was a thriving, growing seaport. While in theory its commerce was regulated by British navigation and trade laws called the Navigation Acts, in fact those laws were rarely strictly enforced. Instead, a system of common laws had developed based on the local practices that had served to encourage business. That changed in 1761, when London ordered its customs officials in Boston to begin aggressively cracking down on smugglers who were depriving the government of taxes needed to finance the Seven Years’ War or, as it was known in America, the French and Indian War. Suddenly the Navigation Acts, so long ignored, were to be enforced. It seemed only fair that the Americans should help pay for the ten thousand British troops who were protecting them from the French. But rather than reducing the flow of smuggled goods, these duties had the opposite effect, enticing more people to take risks.