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Welcome to the Kim Monson Show podcast. Kim Monson is your host. April 19th we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of Patriots Day. Patriotic historian Ben Martin discusses Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem Paul Revere’s Ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord which were fought on April 19, 1775. Col. Bill Rutledge (Ret. USAF) explains the involvement of Michael Collins in the Irish Easter Uprising in 1916 and Collins’ contributions to Irish independence. RE/MAX realtor Karen Levine shares her thoughts about springtime and the significance of Easter. ————————————————————————————– The Kim Monson Show airs on KLZ 560 AM every Monday
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 13 :
I find that it takes work to get your brain around these ideas, and it takes work to engage in these conversations.
SPEAKER 14 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 13 :
With what is happening down at the Statehouse, I used to think that it was above my pay grade to read the legislation, and it’s not.
SPEAKER 14 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 13 :
I see big danger in as much as we will be giving an unelected bureaucrat the power to make rules about what we inject into our bodies.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 13 :
Indeed. And welcome to The Kim Monson Show. Thank you so much for joining us. You’re each treasured, you’re valued, you have purpose. Today’s drive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind and your body. My friends, we were made for this moment in history. And thank you to the team. That’s producer Joe, Luke, Rachel, Zach, Echo, Charlie, Mike, Teresa, Amanda and all the people here at Crawford Broadcasting. Check out our website. That is Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. Thank you. And support us and all of our sponsors because it is so important to have these conversations. You can hear the show Monday through Friday, 6 to 8 a.m. live. America’s Veterans Stories is on Sundays, 3 to 4 p.m. But the Kim Monson Show is on all platforms, KLZ 560 platforms, which is KLZ 560 AM, 100.7 FM, the KLZ website. the KLZ app. You can listen via Alexa, and then the shows are on Spotify and iTunes after we get those posted. And we do search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. And we are pre-recording for several of the days during Holy Week. And that’s the time between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. And pleased to have on the line with me a fan favorite, and that is 96-year-young Colonel Bill Rutledge, retired United States Air Force. He’s traveled the world, has this deep interest in people, and was established right around the same time that we were in the 1600s. That’s correct. Okay. And you’d mentioned in some of these preparation things that you’d sent over that Plymouth, which was established in 1620, was based upon a desire by the settlers to seek religious freedom from the Church of England. and then you said the Irish had largely been converted to the Roman Catholic faith by priests who had arrived in the 9th century. So this was setting up probably a situation where there were a lot of disagreements, yes?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, but we have to recognize that when they were first colonized, I shouldn’t say colonized, but when they first were introduced to the Christian faith with Ireland to try to convert them and to gain greater control over them through sending people from Scotland, mostly, who were Scotch Protestants, to gain control. And they were concentrated in the northern six counties, which is called Ulster. And that, again, was in the early 1600s. And this was started by the English King James I and also by William and Mary. And, of course, we recognize that King James was reigning when that’s why it was named Jamestown and William and Mary College in the state of Virginia. was one of the first colleges in America, and it was named, again, for the king and queen of England.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and so a couple of things. I imagine this King James was the King James that had the Bible translated into…
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. And did he have it translated into English? Is that what it was? So we all know of the King James Version, yes? Yes, absolutely. Okay. You also mentioned in some of the prep work here that there was the Book of Kel, which was a handwritten Bible with beautiful illustrations dating from the 1900s. And this was via the… Let me correct. From the 900s. Oh, from the 900s. Yes, thank you for that correction. Correct. And it was written in Latin. And you said there’s a display at Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct. And I was not aware of this until we went to Ireland in 1977. And we were visiting in Trinity University. And they have the original book, the Book of Calvin. And they also have extracted or made copies of many parts of that book since it was all done by hand. And it was done in color when they did pictures to illustrate stories because you have to recognize that most of the people couldn’t read in those days and the priests were using Latin. And now they have copies of their most artistic presentations that are available for sale And my wife and I looked it over, and we picked four that we liked very much and we felt were compatible with us. And years and years later, I received an art book, and the art book had portraits and things from many, many generations, many centuries. And it happened to have some of the very copies from the Book of Kel that we had purchased. So it was very interesting.
SPEAKER 13 :
Wow. And I love the way that you have connected history in so many of our different conversations. So Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying, regarding our revolution, our Declaration of Independence, all of that, he said, we must all hang together or surely we shall hang separately. And fortunately, the British did not capture and hang our leaders of our revolution. But the Irish were not so lucky, right? No. That’s correct.
SPEAKER 04 :
There are a lot of parallels. First of all, we were the first English colony, starting from Jamestown in 1609, the first colony away from their main islands. And then Ireland followed pretty closely thereafter by just two or three decades later. So there were many, many similarities that occurred in that time. And we were most fortunate that not only did they not capture the people who signed it, but they didn’t capture George Washington, because George Washington was the key. And if we had not had him and if he had not been saved by divine providence, by his choice of words, we would never have gotten our independence for many, many decades later. So The Irish also wanted to have their independence, and they tried, but they were too close to England and too close to the English so that they could bring their army over there when they wanted to assert their power. So it took them many, many years. So whereas we were the first British colony to gain their independence, the Irish were almost the last.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and again, such a close proximity, easy for the British to get troops there. And so let’s talk a little bit about Michael Collins, because I find this fascinating. You said he was born in 1890 on a large farm in County Cork, southwest Ireland. His father was the seventh son of a seventh son. And Michael was the seventh child and a family of eight. And that is curious. And the number seven is very important in the Christian faith.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it is. And it’s I’ve used this reference many times when we talk about climate change and people are all distressed about factors. And I said, just just read the Bible. I said the Bible uses seven so frequently and it talks about seven year periods of drought and seven year periods of prosperity and plenty of moisture. And this is why they went down to Egypt periodically when they had drought up in what is now Israel. And so it’s amazing how there are so many correlations between the Bible and both the Catholic faith and the Protestant faith.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, it is. And this is interesting. You said his father did not marry until he was 60. So was that his first marriage? And his bride was 22. Yes. And then they go on to have eight children. Good grief.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is. And it’s what’s so odd? I say it’s odd. It was traditional in that era. An Irishman never considered marriage until he was older. and until he was employable and he could sustain a family. And it was that same way in America when I was young. A person never considered marriage unless they were going to be able to support a wife and children. Unfortunately, that is not true today. But it was the basis for strong nuclear families that were very active either as members of the Roman Catholic Church or in some Protestant denominations.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and gosh, it took him a while, it took his father a while if he was 60 to get to that age. But I guess marrying somebody that was 22 years old, they ended up, again, having eight children. So Michael was always a real leader, and he was a student of Irish history.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, and he had that interest from earliest days. And he… learned during those periods, the British did not like for the Irish to dwell upon their history. They tried to encourage them to think of English history, and they wanted them to be sure and use English as their conversational language. But he wanted also to look at the Gaelic historical part of Ireland and their history and he continued that and in Ireland they had teachers who were referred to sometimes as hedgerow teachers because they didn’t have a particular school or anything they just moved around from place to place and they would go to areas where children could come out by the hedgerow because And they would try to teach them the history of Ireland before the British invasion, and especially to try to teach them Gaelic language so that they could maintain the language that they had inherited for hundreds of years.
SPEAKER 13 :
Boy, this is absolutely fascinating, Colonel Bill Rutledge. We’re going to continue the discussion. All this happens because of our sponsors. And did want to say thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. And also the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team can help you with your insurance coverage to make sure that you know what you have and you have what you need. And so give them a call, 303-795-8855. Like a good neighbor, the Roger Mangan Team is there.
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SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at Kim Monson dot com as well. And we are pre-recording many of the shows for Easter week, which that is the time between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. And in Irish history, there is the Easter uprising, which is Easter. It has a lot of corollaries to our fight for independence here in America. So I’m talking with Colonel Bill Rutledge. He’s retired United States Air Force. He’s 96 years young. And his interest in people and places and history and the fact that he will share this with us is really a gift. It’s a treasure. So, Colonel Rutledge, we’re talking about Michael Collins, which some might say that Michael Collins is to the Irish as what George Washington is to the Americans.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, there’s a lot of parallels in that Michael, like George Washington, had many occasions when he could have or perhaps should have been killed. because he was the target for the English for at least five years once they found out that he was a leader of the Irish people and sort of covertly trying to seek independence from the crown. So there are many, many similarities. There’s one thing that I didn’t mention earlier but was germane to this discussion, and that is how the British established control over the entire island. And this happened in the mid-1650s when Oliver Cromwell took over and actually gained control of Parliament. It was between two of the British kings, and Cromwell went to Ireland with an army, and he had a battle with the Irish natives, an account called the Battle of the Boyne, in which they defeated the Irish Catholics who were in the lower counties and therefore asserted English domain over the entire Ireland of Ireland, the entire island. But the Battle of the Boyne is still celebrated in the northern six counties where they wear orange. It’s odd, but they’re referred to as orange men and even till today. So the British occupation in the mid-1600s is when they gained control of all these lands, many of which had been owned by the Catholic Church and the Pope. And just like in England, they took control of all that land in England from the papacy. Well, they did the same thing when they got to Ireland. And the Catholic Church presence there also controlled a lot of land. It was taken over and it was given to people who were loyal to the British crown. So that really it was taken away from the Irish owners. So the Irish, again, they became renters of their own land. And this created continued animosity.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, that would do it for sure. Just an off-the-cuff question. The Syracuse University is known as the Orangemen. Is that any connection with what you’re saying about these counties in Ireland?
SPEAKER 04 :
Which school are you referring to?
SPEAKER 13 :
Isn’t it the Syracuse Orangemen, I was thinking?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct, but I don’t think there’s any connection. None that I know of. I’ve never heard of that correlation. However, when I went to Ireland in 1977 and I went down to the Vital Statistics Office to try to track my ancestors who had lived in Ireland. And when I was there, I gave them my name and they said, well, your ancestors may have been living here a long time, but they weren’t Irish. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, your ancestors were loyal to the crown. They were orange men.
SPEAKER 13 :
Huh. Fascinating. Okay, so Michael Collins, we’re setting the stage here for what he is doing. So what’s next?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Michael Collins, in his early 20s, went to London because there were job opportunities there. So he first went over, like many people who got started with contacts in the mail service in Ireland. And so he went over and worked in the mail operation in London. And then he went into financial investment areas. as a beginner to learn because he was very intelligent and he learned a lot. And he was there when World War I started in 1914. So shortly thereafter, he elected to go back to Ireland because he said that if he stayed in England, he would be subject to the military draft. and that he did not want to fight on behalf of the king. So he went back to Ireland and renewed his association with various Irish organizations that were for perpetuating Irish history, Irish traditions, and ultimately to seek independence.
SPEAKER 13 :
And so what happens when he goes back to Ireland? How did they start to do this?
SPEAKER 04 :
She went back, and he went back in 1915, and they started organizing to take advantage, really, of World War I in that the British were so involved And their military was, of course, in France. And so, therefore, there were less British military presence in Ireland than there had been before. And it looked like, again, a great opportunity for them to seek their independence. So the various leaders, political leaders internal to Ireland, either they were local or a very few members were actually members of parliament. but they didn’t have enough votes to be significant. Nevertheless, these people all aspired to be free, and they formed an organization very loosely and got together and elected that they were going to have what they called a rising. Now, they had done this on three different occasions in the 1800s very unsuccessfully. But this time, because of the war and the fact that the British presence was much smaller in 1950 and 1916, they looked as though this was a great opportunity. And Michael was very sympathetic with them, and he was a very junior person, but he was also interested in politics. contributing towards the uprising. So the rising was scheduled for Easter week in 1916. Now, on Easter Sunday, they did the regular traditional things. They had parades. They all went to Mass. It was an Irish Catholic holiday. in celebration, but it was also when they were assembling their military capabilities. They had gathered over a period of years, really, rifles and ammunition and things that they could use. They did not have any heavy guns like cannons. They didn’t have machine guns. So they were not well-armed, but they had weapons. some resources, and they had established different places around Dublin that were to be their military points in which they would show their resistance. So actually on Easter Monday, they started significant changes in trying to control the main British post office and the main seat of government in in Dublin and that’s when the firing and things started. Again, at this time, Michael was sort of like a junior officer in, say, the National Guard.
SPEAKER 13 :
So what happens then? They’re not that well-armed, and they don’t have the benefit of a big ocean between them and Britain like the Americans did. And this is 1916. World War I is occurring at the same time. So what goes on with this Easter Monday uprising?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they started defending various positions around the city. And then what happened was that the British brought in more soldiers from England, and the British brought in machine guns, and the British brought in artillery. And so consequently, the fighting really started on Monday, and by Saturday, because of the overwhelming number of trained military personnel, officers and men and also. Their guns, especially the artillery. They had really recaptured all of these strategic points that the Irish had established, and Michael was in one of these specific locations around the city. He was one of the last that was captured. Now he got some minor And there were a couple of times when he was a real target, when he was trying to act as a courier between one strategic point and another. But nevertheless, he was eventually captured by that weekend, the weekend ending Easter week. And most of the other people who were insurgents or people who were fighting were captured. There were a lot of people killed on both sides, but obviously the Irish had more wounded, killed and wounded. Now, when the people had signed, the leaders, the political leaders in Ireland had signed, and we’re talking about six or eight people, they had signed this document declaring that they were independent, then what happened was, the British declared martial law. And in so doing, then they established that they would use military courts. And so they had military court marshals. And those men whose signatures were on the documents were all presented before the courts, found guilty of treason. And within a week or so, they were all put up against the wall and executed by firing squads.
SPEAKER 13 :
So why wasn’t Collins, why wasn’t he killed at that time?
SPEAKER 04 :
Because he was not a signature. And it was just like, this is a parallel with those comments about Benjamin Franklin, said, if we do not hang together, we will surely hang separately. And they would have, if they’d have captured our people in Philadelphia. But they did capture the ones in Dublin. So it shows that we were lucky and the Irish were not. And this junior officer and all of these other people who were fighting were put into prisons. And they were given indeterminate terms. They were just captured as though they were insurgents. Many of them were sent to prisons in England, some in Wales, and then some, of course, on the island in Ireland. Ireland didn’t have enough space for them. And so Michael was one of those that was sent to Wales. And while he was there, he began to plan for when he would be able to get out. The good luck for him was this situation. that he was captured in the Easter week 1916, and for some reason or not, he was released just before Christmas 1916, so he could go back to Ireland. But while he was in Wales, he started developing a plan to counter the British, and he realized they couldn’t do it militarily because they didn’t have the weapons, they didn’t have the training or the men to do it. So what he did, it was to develop really what we know as guerrilla warfare. It was very covert. He set up spies in all the British organizations. As a matter of fact, he had one of the secretaries of the British commander… In Dublin, she was one of his spies.
SPEAKER 13 :
Wow. Okay, we’re going to continue the discussion with Colonel Bill Rutledge regarding Michael Collins, who is part of the Irish’s quest for independence. And we’ll continue these discussions. We have them because of our sponsors. For everything residential real estate, reach out to Karen Levine.
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SPEAKER 13 :
Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMonson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. The show comes to you because of our sponsors and did want to say thank you to Hooters Restaurants. They have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs. And they have five locations, And really a great place to get together with friends and family for their lunch specials, Monday through Friday, and a great place to get together to watch all the games. We’re getting into hockey playoffs, I think, very soon, and baseball, basketball, lots going on out there. So be sure and check out Hooters Restaurants. And then also the USMC Memorial Foundation is a nonprofit I dearly love. We certainly need to remember and honor all those that have given their lives for Thank you so much for having me. And all that is connected with the Easter uprising of the Irish for their independence. And the pivotal figure in this is Michael Collins. We’re talking about him, and Colonel Bill Rutledge is sharing his knowledge about Michael Collins. So question, was Michael Collins married?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, Michael Collins was not married. He was engaged, and he was following a pattern really strong. were very common in Ireland in that the men often were in their 30s when they would marry someone, maybe in their early 20s or even late teens, because they had to be able to support a wife and children. This was the concept, and it’s still the concept in many places. And so his was deferred. But also one of the reasons is that Michael became so active in the military and political underground, and he had great mobility. And as his leadership grew, he was hardly ever in one place long enough to be considering a marriage and supporting a family. So his priorities were different. to create chaos for the British and therefore by a continued period of doing this to make it where it was not desirable for the British to continue to control the Irish. And so therefore he became the underground leader and he realized that the way to do it was to gain intelligence from the English leadership positions. So he planted people in, say, service-type positions, be secretaries, or it might be a janitor, or it might be a doorkeeper, or it may be a manager of a pub. They were scattered around throughout, especially the concentration in Dublin. And they would find information and then share it with Michael, who in turn would share it with what he had like a hit squad. He actually had a small, like a small squad, maybe eight to 10 people that would go all around the counties and would cause all the havoc they possibly could. Sometimes they would get in armed conflict with some of the militia. Some of the police. And it was that kind of harassment warfare. like an undeclared war with England for five years.
SPEAKER 13 :
So, Colonel Rutledge, we’ve talked about some correlations between Michael Collins and the Irish and getting their independence, and America and George Washington and achieving our independence. But the thing about America is it was founded on this idea of all men are created equal with these rights from God of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. But the Irish independence, was that just, it seems like it was more just based on we want independence and we want religious freedom. What would you say regarding the correlations between the two on that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, the big, I’d say one of the big differences was that all of the lower counties were very strongly Roman Catholics. Catholicism was a part of everyday life for the people in all of the lower counties. Ulster, the six northern counties, were principally from Scotland, and that’s why you often hear the term when people talk about their heritage, they were Scotch-Irish. That means they came from the northern counties, but They lived there for generations, but their tradition was Protestant Scotch. And so that was completely different than the situation that you had in America, whereas most of our earlier colonial people had broken away from the Church of England and also Before that, because of King Henry VIII, he had made the break in the late 1500s, early 1600s with the Pope. So England, then when the people came to America, the ones that came to Virginia, those were traditional people. Church of England people there. But those that went to New England, to that area, they were breakaway from the Church of England. Now, they didn’t officially declare it, but that’s what it was. It was a declaration, and they did not want to owe homage towards the crown. So there were Similarities, but very distinct differences because the people who came to America, they still considered themselves English. Their loyalty basically was to the English throne, whereas the Irish had their own tradition, which was hundreds, maybe even thousands of years older. And it was this Celtic background tradition. their own language, their own written language, their own traditions, and their loyalty to the Catholic Church. So there was that distinct difference.
SPEAKER 13 :
OK, so, Michael, thank you for all of that. Michael Collins, it was only 32 when he was killed. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But he’s in prison. He’s a model prisoner. But he’s working on these covert operations, guerrilla warfare. And is it effective what what he and his guys are doing? Guys and men and women, I should say.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it was very effective, and especially after the war in Europe ended, of course, on the 11th of November, 1918. So after that, then the British could move more soldiers over into Ireland, which they did. And you’ve heard of things I call the Black and Tans. Well, these were takeoffs on the uniforms that the British wore that came over. They were supposedly there to maintain the peace. But, in fact, there was a lot of friction. There was a lot of killing between the British and the Black and Tans from after 1920. after November 1918, all the way up into the middle of 1921. So this, again, was this continuation of an undeclared war between the Irish and the English. And finally, the English parliament and the people, they just got to the point they’d had about enough of it. So they were willing to meet with the Irish, and try to come to some conclusion. And during this era, Michael had taken the lead, and Michael wanted to negotiate with the British to bring this to an end. Many of the others who were in the so-called IRA, the Irish Republican Army, which was not formal at that time, they didn’t want to do that because they didn’t want a division in Ireland. They didn’t want the six northern counties to be separate. They wanted everything to be Irish. And Michael was willing to compromise to get a start in Irish independence. So he was one who was a principled negotiator who went to London in the summer of 1921, and he signed the documents. And that established what was then called the Irish Free State. And it was always that way until 1949. And all the time when I was in public school, when we studied Ireland, we talked about the Irish Free State. We never talked about the Republic of Ireland because there was no Republican of Ireland until 1949 when they declared absolute break with the British crown.
SPEAKER 13 :
So, was it 1949? Wasn’t that also when Israel was established? Or was that 1948? That was 48, wasn’t it?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, Israel had been already established, yeah. It was separate. The thing that even though they signed and were Irish Free State, we had… the Irish had a continued struggle with the British because there were various members of the IRA that still insisted we must have control of all six counties north. Well, after they gained their independence in 1921, then they established their political body, and they appointed Michael as the commander-in-chief of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army. It now became a legal part of their government. But there were still breakaway people. There were those who had fought for independence and were not willing to compromise. And so consequently, they would go around and destroy things and kill people. And they would also go up into the northern six counties and create all sorts of havoc. And one of the times they went up there and actually went to this British general’s home and killed a general in his house. This caused a lot of problems. And it almost broke up the treaty with the English. And the British sent more and more people to Northern Ireland to protect them. And about that time, Michael was out traveling in the southwest, actually over in County Cork area, with a small detachment of his soldiers, because he was now commander in chief of the IRA. And they were surrounded in one small village. And the other people were trying to kill him, but nobody was hurt. And so they were all breaking away, going out. And so Michael got out of his staff car and was standing out in the street talking to his soldiers, and nobody had been wounded. Everything was fine. And there was one sniper of the breakaway IRA people who was up on the top of a hill, and he didn’t even know who was down in the valley, but he could see one officer standing out there, so he shot. And that one shot hit Michael in the head and killed him on 22 August. And this was 1922. Michael was only 32 years old.
SPEAKER 13 :
And that was a breakaway IRA person that shot him, huh? Wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. And the thing is, this wasn’t an end to this. The IRA, as an informal group, not sponsored by the Irish government or the Irish Free State, but they were still an organization all the way up probably even till today, but most assuredly late in the 1900s and early 2000s because I remember experiences that happened that were international. For example, in 1979— You know what?
SPEAKER 13 :
Let’s keep that as a cliffhanger, Colonel Rutledge, and we’re going to go to break. We’re talking about Irish independence, Michael Collins, and the Easter uprising. These are great discussions to have. We all learn something, and they happen because of sponsors. One of those is Lorne Levy.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s 303-880-8881 Call now.
SPEAKER 03 :
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s kimmonson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMonson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at KimMonson.com as well. Thank you to all of you who support us. We’re an independent voice. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, shouldn’t have to force people to do it. I did want to mention the Center for American Values located in Pueblo, Colorado. And they do really three things. They have these beautiful portraits of valor of our Medal of Honor recipients, or many of them. They focus on educational programs regarding these values of honor, integrity, and patriotism. And then they also have these great On Values presentations there as well. So get more information. Go to AmericanValueCenter.org. They are nonpartisan, nonpolitical, just focused on these values of honor, integrity, and patriotism. I’m talking with Colonel Bill Rutledge, retired United States Air Force. He is 96 years young. And I love the fact that he shares his knowledge and curiosity with us. We’re talking about Michael Collins, who is probably to the Irish and their independence as what George Washington is to we Americans and our independence. With Michael Collins, it was happening much later in the 60s. early 1900s. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet in, was that 1922, Colonel Rutledge?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, August the 22nd, late in the afternoon in 1922.
SPEAKER 13 :
He was only 32 years old at the time. But he was the head of the IRA, the Irish Republic Army, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
An army, correct. It would be just like if some maverick member of our own military were to be hiding out somewhere and shoot the chief of staff of the Army.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. But I really had kind of thought the IRA was violent because I remember in the 70s and 80s, I just remember a lot of violence with the IRA. And I remember this news story that Lord Mountbatten was killed on his yacht. It was blown up. That was 1979. So I’d always kind of thought of the IRA as super violent. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they do have that tradition. And one of the things that’s perpetuated it is that they have been able to get financial support over decades from the Irish who came to America. The people, there are many Irish, millions of Irish who came to America, first starting strongly. when the potato blight hit in 1848. But even then, later in continuing affiliation, there were still a close identity between all those migrants who came to America and their homeland, and they always were in support of gaining independence from England. And that continued after 1921 and the agreement for the lower counties to gain Irish independence. So they still kept supporting them because still many of these Americans who were Irish Americans still felt strongly that the entire island should be under the Republic of Ireland. And so they offered support throughout that era. So the people, there was always a small element that wanted to create problems, and they did. And we don’t know even the status today. I mean, those of us in America, I feel confident that there’s still pockets of these people. And you gave the example of Lord Mountbatten, them blowing up his yacht, and it was anchored in one of the more than six counties in harbor. But shortly thereafter, in the early 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, they carried their action over to England. And the conservative party, which Margaret Thatcher was the head of, was having a large meeting over in Blackpool in the west of England. And they tried to kill her with a bomb. She was very lucky. She wasn’t injured. But that was the IRA. And the IRA would always take pride in saying, yes, yeah, we did this. It was IRA. And I had a firsthand experience with them. In 1990, a friend of ours, he and I and our wives all did a home exchange in England. And we were down near the British Naval Academy. And he was a retired Army colonel and I was retired from the Air Force. So we wanted to visit the British Naval Academy. So we went over to the main gate and we asked the guard if we could come in and visit. And we showed him our identification, explained our interests because I had been assigned at the Air Force Academy. And my friend had worked very closely with the people in West Point. And the guard there said, you can’t come in. And we said, well, what’s the problem? And he said, the problem is the IRA. And our defense and protection against the IRA takes priority over anything else. And that was 1990.
SPEAKER 13 :
Wow. So you said in your information that the IRA has kept a low profile, but it still would really like to have Ulster absorbed into the Republic of Ireland. So those six counties are part of Britain. Is that right? Do I get that correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s correct. And even today, there are exceptional situations. Like you may recall when we were having the Olympics yesterday, that some of the good athletes who are in the northern six counties, a few chose to represent Ireland in international competition. McElroy, for example, was a classic example. He played in the golf competition in France last summer and representing Ireland, not representing England.
SPEAKER 13 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
They’ve been raised in Ireland. And there are other occasions where, because these things are close, but they have these divided… It’s an awkward situation.
SPEAKER 13 :
Oh, my gosh. Well, Colonel Rutledge, thank you for bringing this to my attention. This is super interesting, particularly to broadcast during Easter week. So thank you, Colonel Rutledge.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you for the opportunity.
SPEAKER 13 :
And our quote for the end of the show is from Winston Churchill regarding Michael Collins. Churchill said this. He was an Irish patriot, true and fearless. So, my friends today, be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music, communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideals, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. My friends, you are not alone. God bless you. God bless America. Stay tuned for hour number two.
SPEAKER 10 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 13 :
I find that it takes work to get your brain around these ideas, and it takes work to engage in these conversations.
SPEAKER 14 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 13 :
With what is happening down at the Statehouse, I used to think that it was above my pay grade to read the legislation, and it’s not.
SPEAKER 14 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 13 :
I see big danger in as much as we will be giving an unelected bureaucrat the power to make rules about what we inject into our bodies.
SPEAKER 14 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to our number two of the Kim Monson Show. Thank you so much for joining us. You’re each treasured, you’re valued, you have purpose. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. My friends, we were made for this moment in history. And thank you to the team. That’s Producer Joe, Luke, Rachel, Zach, Echo, Charlie, Mike, Teresa, Amanda, and all the people here at Crawford Broadcasting. Check out the website. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. That way you’ll get first look at our upcoming guests as well as our most recent essays. You can email me at Kim at Kim Monson dot com. And thank you to all of you who support us. We’re an independent voice. on an independent station searching for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force force versus freedom if something’s a good idea you should not have to force people to do it the show comes to you 6 to 8 a.m monday through friday first hour is rebroadcast 1 to 2 in the afternoon, 2nd hour, 10 to 11 at night. That’s on all KLZ 560 platforms, which is KLZ 560 AM, 100.7 FM, the KLZ website, the KLZ app. And if you say, play KLZ Alexa, apparently that comes in loud and clear as well. And I wanted to say thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. It is because of these sponsors and all of your support that we are on the air. We are pre-recording for most of the shows during Holy Week. And Colonel Bill Rutledge, you know him, 96 years young. He’s traveled the world. He has this great curiosity about history and people and places. And he said, Kim… Coming up to April 18th and 19th, it’s a very historic time in the history of America. And he said, you really should do something, a show regarding Paul Revere’s ride. And I thought, okay, well, who would be the perfect person to talk to about that? Well, of course, it would have to be patriotic historian, my friend, Ben Martin. Ben Martin, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, great, Kim. It’s good to be with you today. And what a great day to be talking to our fellow American patriots here in Colorado. 19 April, to go along with what you said at the introduction, is a very important day in the history of America. It is known as Patriots Day. And Patriots Day is to be differentiated from Patriot Day, which is, you know, we do that for the fall of the towers. And this year, it is a very special Patriots Day. Because it is the 250th anniversary of Patriots Day and the start of the American Revolution, or as it is sometimes called, the War for American Independence.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, 250 years. So that puts us back to 1775. Right. 19 April, 1775. The battles of Lexington and Concord.
SPEAKER 05 :
And we’ll talk about that, yeah. So, yeah, what happened? Tell us what happened. Well, tell us. So in today’s program, we’re going to discuss the general situation that led to those multiple battles that occurred on the 19th of April, 1775, in the countryside west of Boston, Massachusetts. And then we’re going to take a little diversion because you asked about that and you talked about it in the talk. In the introduction to discuss a famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which, although is historically inaccurate, has served the good purpose of helping to make many young American schoolchildren aware of this epic historic American event. Then we will discuss the actual battles that were fought during that long day, some of the key players to include the conclusion, and the tie-in to another famous battle in the lineage of the birth of the American Army, which was on 14 June of 1777. Same date. 1775, right?
SPEAKER 1 :
75.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m sorry. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And finally, we will discuss the legacy of that day in American history. So if you’re ready, let’s get started. Let’s do it. Okay. So the general situation, and we can talk about some of these if we need to, but there are a whole lot of things that happened between 1754 and 1775. Okay. that we are just going to list. Most people have heard of them before and, you know, save a lot of time in trying to go through the details of them. But if we need to do any of that, just let me know and we’ll stop and do it. So we started with in 1754. So 1763, we had the French and Indian War, or as it is called in the worldwide scope, the Seven Years’ War, which most people believe was really the First World War. And it was mainly between the French and the British, but in America, it changed. It kind of spilled here. It kind of really started here, and it was started by the father of our country, George Washington. And it was called the Seven Years’ War, but here we called it the French and Indian War. And so that lasted for those years, for seven years here, six years really, a full year. And so then after that, the British— were in great depth because they had spent so much money on prosecuting this war and winning it. And so then they started thinking about, hey, we need to find other sources of income to pay for this war. And so that’s when they started with all this taxation without representation. Started with 1764, the Sugar Act. And then in 1764 later, they also added the Currency Act. All of these are taxes. In 1765, the Stamp Act. 1767, the Townshend Acts. Which all this, you know, created quite a turmoil here in America because that’s what we kept saying. Taxation without representation is tyranny. And there was a lot of tyranny involved in it. And then in 1777, it led to the Boston Massacre. And then came 1767.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, just clarifying.
SPEAKER 05 :
1767 or 1777?
SPEAKER 13 :
1767 was the Townsend Act. And 1770 was the Boston Massacre.
SPEAKER 05 :
1770, okay, got it. In 1773 was the Tea Act, which, again, put taxes on tea, which we had here to then had drank a lot of tea, but stopped drinking tea. And then 1773, later in December of that year, we had the Boston Tea Party. And in 1774, we came out with the intolerant, what the British called a coercive act, and the And the patriots here in America called the Intolerable Acts. And it consisted of four acts, plus another one. And it wasn’t really part of that, but it was passed at the same time. So those are the things that created all this turmoil and started going towards a war. So then we will leave that for a minute, and we’ll go to Paul Revere’s ride. the Longfellow’s poem. It’s eight stanzas, and we’re not going to go through all eight stanzas. It starts out with what everybody has always heard, because we learned it. We really did learn it as kids. Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. On the 18th of April in 75, hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year. So then we go into the next stanza, and it says, He said to his friend, if the British march by land or sea from the town tonight, hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch of the North Church Tower as a signal light, one if by land and two if by sea. So we go back and we say, when we look at this, to be critical, we say Longfellow’s poem is not historically accurate, but his mistakes were deliberate. The fact that Longfellow knew of Revere’s account and deviated from it in so many ways shows that the poet wasn’t really trying to be historically accurate. He was trying to create a stirring story. And a new American legend. And he was successful in doing that.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. Hey, Ben, let’s go to break on that regarding we’re talking about the founding of America, Paul Revere’s ride, this poem by Henry Wadsworth, a long fellow. And these are important discussions. They come to you because I get to work with a lot of really great people. And on The Kim Monson Show, as you all know, we are an independent voice on an independent station. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through this lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. We get to do this because I work with great sponsors. I know each and every one of them personally. And as you all know, I think Karen Levine is… Remax award-winning realtor has been a friend of mine for many, many years. I’m blessed to have her as a sponsor. And if you’re going to buy a home or sell a home or look at a new build, you want her on your side of the table. And Karen Levine, we are pre-recording for most of these shows during Holy Week. And I know Holy Week, it’s so important to me. It’s important to you. But why would you let our listeners know that Holy Week is important to you?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I think it’s important to me for a variety of reasons, Kim. The one being that we’re celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ who defeated the grave, which means he came back to life after being crucified, and in doing so provided us a means to have a relationship with our Father God. And we look at Good Friday and what he went through through the crucifixion and the pain and the suffering, and he did that for us. And so to get to celebrate his resurrection, defeating death, means that He gave me that gift that gives me eternal life. And so worth celebrating. Plus, it’s springtime and there’s newness. You know, we are seeing our tulips come up and buds on my trees. And it’s just how God shows us his beautiful creation through renewal and through new births. And just spring is lovely, especially in Colorado.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, it is. And as I am up in the morning, I hear the birds chirping. And I think I hear even little ones. So as you say, it’s new beginnings. And that can segue us over to new beginnings in a possible new home or somebody downsizing. And there’s opportunity in this housing market here in Colorado. And I know that you go way above and beyond as you work with your clients. But these new beginnings of a new home is so exciting for people.
SPEAKER 12 :
It really is. And we have talked continuously, Kim, that home ownership not only provides shelter for families, for people, hardworking Americans, but it also has the potential of building generational wealth. And it’s been an American dream for decades, for centuries. And I get the privilege of helping people fulfill that dream. And that dream can be your first new house. And I learned yesterday that the city and county of Broomfields has down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, which is a really amazing program. So if you’re looking in Broomfield, I can certainly help you as a first-time homebuyer maybe take advantage of that. The other thing is in providing you the assistance to buy that first new home, you land there for maybe three to five to eight years, and then you’re ready to make a move. And then that’s a new beginning, whether you’re moving up because your family is growing and we have to sell your existing home and get you in to the next home. And that transition are a lot of moving parts that a lot of buyers and sellers don’t realize. And Kim, you kind of watched it from the sidelines with some clients. And I think that’s one place where God’s gifted me to understand how do we keep people from having to make multiple moves so we can save their resources and get them into that next home. And then, of course, our aging population is always in a position of wanting to move down and simplify. And that can be challenging.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and it can be. And, of course, I’m going to give a disclaimer. You know, I don’t think government should be involved in all this stuff like Broomfield. But you, watching out for your clients, have to look at what’s out there and take advantage of those things out there. But you knew I had to give a disclaimer on that, Karen.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, you did, but the reality is we passed, I think it was 223, it was a federal mandate about affordable housing, and the federal government sent the state of Colorado all this money, and so it would be, I think, not responsible of us to… spend it since it was given to us and it is our money to spend. So if we can put it back into the hands of our citizens, that’s a good thing.
SPEAKER 13 :
Oh, okay. Great disclaimer. So, hey, Karen Levine, we’re just about out of time. How can people reach you?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, they can reach me by picking up the phone. They can give me a call at 303-877-7516, or they can certainly text me and I’m happy to reach out. Love to just start the conversation. housing and real estate poses a lot of questions and it’s not something you do on a regular basis. So you have a question about buying or selling or just, you know, about real estate in general, please pick up the phone and give me a call.
SPEAKER 13 :
And that’s Karen Levine, 303-877-7516. Happy Easter. We’ll talk to you next week. Thanks.
SPEAKER 12 :
And you too.
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SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That’s kimmonson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at kim at kimmonson.com as well. And I’m very pleased to be pre-recording some really special shows for most of the shows during Holy Week. And I’m talking with Ben Martin. He is a patriotic historian. I took an amazing class that he taught, which I think really probably set my path forward. on loving our country the way that I do. But we’re talking about the founding of our country. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had written a poem about Paul Revere’s ride, and as we went to break, Ben Martin said that there are eight stanzas, and we were talking about the first two, and Ben had indicated that maybe the poem’s not historically accurate, but Wadsworth Longfellow knew that, right, Ben? Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. And that wasn’t what he was trying to create, a historically accurate poem. He was trying to create a poem that would stir patriotism in young children as they were going to school. And so many children learned to recite this, and they learned to read poetry this way. So it was a great thing.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and so going on, the other stanzas, what should we know about that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, he says, and I just talked about one if, you know, one lantern if by land and two if by sea. And he says, you know, he said that he talked to a friend. That’s what the poem says about putting that in there. And what really happened was that Paul Revere… And the signal from the old church wasn’t meant for him, but it actually was a signal that came from him. He actually put it in before. So he knew that they were coming by sea, by they were rowing across the Charles River. to get to the west of Boston so that they would have a shorter route to get to Lexington and to Concord. And then the third part is to— Well, and quick question.
SPEAKER 13 :
They wanted to get to Lexington and Concord because wasn’t there ammunition there or something? Or why did they want to get there?
SPEAKER 05 :
Two reasons. One, they wanted to get to Lexington first because they knew— that we had two great patriots that were there. One of them was the president of the Continental Congress, which you know is John Hancock. And the other one we call the father of the revolution, and that was Samuel Adams. And they were hanging there. So that was the first thing at Lexington. And then they knew that the patriots were storing arms in Concord at Barrett’s farm, Colonel Barrett’s farm. And so that was the second part of the mission. So the third part of this thing, and I’ll go through this poem really quickly, was that he says in the poem that Revere rode himself across the Charles River to get to Cambridge on the other side. But in actuality, there were other people that were rowing him across. And then he also skips Longfellow skips that important mission to warn Sam Adams and John Hancock that these people are coming after him. He never mentions that in the poem. And he also left out some aspects of the story that are still mysterious. But one of the big things he talks about in one of the last verses of the poems where he talks about it was two by the village clock when he came to the bridge in Concord Town. Now, accurately paul revere never made it to concord he was he was stopped by a british patrol and that british patrol kept him took his horse away from him so the only person that made it to concord was a man uh who who was uh His name is Sam Prescott, and Sam Prescott was a doctor, and his fiancé lived in Lexington, but he lived in Concord. And so when Revere and Dawson were leaving Lexington and going to Concord, they ran into him going back to his house after leaving his fiancé’s house. Now, this is early in the morning or late at night, whichever way you want to look at it. And so he knew the way to Concord. And so when this British patrol caught them, Doss and Revere didn’t know any other way to go except along the road. And so they were both detained by the patrol because— Sam knew the way home because that was where he lived. He took off through the woods and he got to his home so he could warn the people in Concord of the battles that British regulars were going to have in Concord and also in Lexington. So that’s why it’s so accurate. Now, we talk about the the real battles of Lexington, Concord, and Minnetonka. So after midnight of 18 April, 1,700 British soldiers crossed the back bay of Boston, or what we call the Charles River, to begin the roughly 14-mile trip to Lexington and the roughly 20-mile trip to Concord. So They were there, as we talked about before, to, they were going to capture both John Hancock and Sam Adams, and they were going to capture the rebel arms and ammunition that was supposedly stashed in Concord. So earlier, Paul Revere had crossed the same waters, mounted a good horse, galloped and spread the word to the patriots in Lexington and Concord. Now, this road is from Boston to Concord is from east to west. But as he rode through the towns and warned those people, then they had other messengers that rode along that road north and south to warn the towns farther out so that they could get their militia and bring them back to be part of the battles at Lexington. And Concord. And so one of the things that we always talk about, you know, when I ask people that I speak with about, so what did Paul, what was Paul Revere and William Doss saying as they were riding along? And they would say, well, the British are coming. The British are coming. I’d say, no, we’re all British at the time. So they called them the regulars are out or the lobster backs are out. So they go there. So they crossed. So what happened with Paul Revere, he crossed the river, the Charles River or the back bay of the Boston Bay. So that’s called the north route. And William Doss went along the south route along the Boston Neck. So they took different routes. And so they could get to Lexington. And if one of them got caught, then they thought, well, maybe the other one would get through. So it was pretty smart. So there were two riders on the way to Lexington. But after Lexington, there were three riders. So although Longfellow only talks about Revere, there were three riders that were involved in this. So, you know, that’s another one of the inaccuracies. So they warned John Adams, I mean, John Hancock and Sam Adams, and they escaped. They avoided capture. And after a short rest, Revere and Dawson headed towards Concord to warn the Patriots there. That’s when they met Dr. Samuel Prescott. Now, he lived in Concord. I talked to you about that already. But one of the things that we really need to talk about here, we should note at this time, is that Dr. Prescott was a cousin of Colonel William Prescott, who later, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, will be the commander of the Patriot Force that built and defended the main redoubt at that Battle of Bunker Hill, which was actually really Breeze Hill. So later, all three men were stopped by patrol, as we said before, and the only one that was able to escape and get all the way to Warren Concord was Dr. Sam Prescott. Because he knew the area so well.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, so just clarifying, Doss and Revere were able to warn Lexington. So those were the two riders. Then the three riders, you add in Samuel Prescott, and so there’s the three riders. They get detained. Somehow Prescott gets away, and he is able then to warn Lexington.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s correct. That’s exactly right.
SPEAKER 13 :
And one other thing before we go to break. It seems like I remember in the class that you taught us that Roger Prescott, that is where there’s the famous quote of don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. Do I remember that correctly?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s William Prescott. I’m sorry, not Prescott. not Roger Prescott.
SPEAKER 13 :
William, you know what? You said it correctly. It was me. I wrote that down wrong. So it was William Prescott, and that’s what he said, right? Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes? Correct. Isn’t that amazing?
SPEAKER 05 :
He was the main commander. He was a colonel in the militia, and he was the main commander. He was the guy that led about a thousand-man force in the middle of the night before the Battle of Bunker Hill. He led them across, and he They were there, and they started in the middle of the night improving all the defensive positions there on Breed’s Hill. So they were ready. And the British woke up the next morning for the attack, which didn’t happen until after the noon hour. And they saw that they had made all of these – these defensive positions. And the British general, Howe, said the Americans have done more work in the night, in one night, than my army does in a whole month.
SPEAKER 13 :
Isn’t that amazing? American ingenuity and creativity and hard work. I love it. We’re going to continue the discussion with Ben Martin, patriotic historian, regarding Paul Revere’s ride and Patriots Day, which is April 19th. These discussions are so informative. They happen because of sponsors.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMonson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter while you’re there. And we are prerecording these shows for most of Holy Week. And I’m talking with Ben Martin, patriotic historian. And we’ll be broadcasting this on the 17th of April, which is really a historic time. April 19th is known as Patriots Day. And that is the time that coming up to the Battle of Concord and Lexington in our history, the shot heard around the world. And Paul Revere, we have the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow regarding the right of Paul Revere. But we’ve realized there’s some inaccuracies there. But Wadsworth Longfellow knew exactly what he was doing on that, Ben. And getting everything ready for really our war of independence. Before we went to break, you mentioned the Battle of Bunker Hill. And William Prescott was the commander there. And even though the British won that battle, I remember, again, in the class that you taught, that you said that it was really a pyrrhic victory for the British. And I had never really understood that. So explain that to our listeners. Sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, a Pyrrhic victory is when you may win the battle, but you lose so many people that it really wasn’t worth the effort. You know, you may have won something, but it wasn’t worth the price you paid to win it. And so that’s what it’s called. And the British lost over 40 percent of their soldiers in that battle. And they lost, if you think about all of the officers that were killed during the Revolutionary War, One out of eight of all the officers that were killed, the British officers that were killed during the Revolutionary War were killed at that battle, the Battle of Bunker Hill. So it was a pretty pyrrhic victory, yeah, if you want to look at it that way. And I do look at it that way. And the only reason the Americans lost, because they had built these great fortifications in the middle of the night, was that they ran out of ammunition. So they fended off the British for two frontal attacks. And then on the third frontal attack, they were loading their muskets with any kind of metal they had, like nails. And anything that was metal tacks, they put in their guns, their muskets, to fire. You know, they still had powder, but they didn’t have any more lead balls to shoot. So… It was really tough, and that’s why they eventually had to just get up and leave their positions because they didn’t have any more ammunition. So now let’s talk about them. So they got in their boats on the Back Bay after leaving the Boston Peninsula, and they were really not well organized. And this is late at night. So they didn’t get all organized and started their march until approximately two hours after midnight. So that’s just to let you know that now we are definitely in the 19th of April, okay? So that’s when all this stuff happens. And so they marched. Then they started their march at about two hours after midnight. And they had their heavy muskets and their ammunition and their haversacks. And they marched through the darkness. And they reached Lexington about a little before sunrise. And they were on the village green. They were met with 80 militiamen. that were commanded by Captain Parker, who was a militia commander who had been a veteran of that war between, you know, called the French and Indian War. And he told his men, the British had about, they were led by the lead guard, and it was by a British Marine named John And he had about 400 men with him, and they were faced with 80 militiamen under the command of Captain Parker. They were on the Lexington Green. And so Pitcairn looked at him and said, lay down your weapons, you rebels. And what Parker had said to his men was, stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here. And so he was telling his men to drop back, you know, to kind of just do a retrograde. And as they were moving backwards, a shot was fired. And still to this day, nobody knows what side fired the shot. But after that, then everybody started shooting. And before it was all over, eight militiamen had died. and a like number were wounded, and the British had only had one soldier wounded from the engagement. Then after a reasonable delay, the British continued their march toward Concord, which was about another six miles. So the British soldiers reached Concord at approximately 9 o’clock that morning. They were led, again, that big 1,000-man force, or maybe it was like 700-man force, by Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, who then organized his group into five separate parties and sent them to different locations to execute General Gage’s orders.
SPEAKER 13 :
And this is all on April 19th, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
This is all on April 19th, 9 o’clock in the morning when he gets to Concord. And he sends them in different directions, to the right, to the left. You know, he sends them to the South Bridge and he sends them to the North Bridge. Now, the North Bridge is where that’s the historic battle site there. And so the British send a party out that crosses the North Bridge going from the east to the west across there out to look out into the field when Colonel Barrett’s formed to see if they can find any of these weapons. group goes to the South Bridge, and then he has another few groups that are inside the city or the town, and they’re looking for weapons there, too. So he’s got all this stuff going on. They find three massive cannons buried near the South Bridge, but they miss all the other, the 550 pounds of musket balls hidden that the militia, the patriots have put in the pond, the mill pond there. And so they didn’t find those. And then they buried all their muskets in the farmer’s fields, in Barrett’s fields. And so they just put dirt over them, kind of wrapped them up so the British didn’t find any of that except for those cannons. And they, of course, destroyed the cannons that the— the wagons that carried the cannons. And so that’s about all they did. But the thing that happened at the bridge, because that guy, Sam, made it all the way to Concord, the Concord volunteers, you know, there’s a town right past him called Acton. And the volunteers there were commanded by Captain Isaac Davis, very important man. He was also a gunsmith. And he was the only one at the time, that made bayonets for his men so his was the only company that had bayonets and bayonets as we found out you know after this the war that that was the big killer on the battlefield because you know the the rifle the muskets only fired one shot and then you had to reload them and so and they weren’t really accurate so the british normally would fire one shot and then they would just charge with their bayonets and we didn’t have any so that would make the American forces break. But Davis had given all of his men bayonets. So when they said charge across the bridge where the British are on the North Bridge, Hibbs was the only one. He volunteered his company to narrow, so they had to do it in two columns, and Davis was the head of one of the columns. And he was, if you look at the famous statues of the Minutemen, both at Concord and at Lexington, they’re done in his image. He was a pretty good-looking guy.
SPEAKER 13 :
Boy, that is fascinating.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. So anyway, he was the first officer killed in the Revolutionary War. He was killed right away. But his men didn’t stop because he was killed at the head of the column. They just kept marching. The British were just, they were completely nonplussed because none of the Americans had, you know, had had bayonets before. And these guys were coming at them with their bayonets. And so they took off and this started the retreat all the way back to Boston. But, you know, what had happened, so now after they had marched, they had been up all night, they had marched all this way, they carried all this stuff, they had had two battles, not two really big battles, but they had had battles and they were doing the marching. Now they were looking at going all the way back. But what had happened between 2 o’clock in the morning and 9 o’clock in the morning, those riders that left the trail that was going east-west and went north and south, They brought back all of these. They brought back about 5,000 militia men from all of the surrounding towns. And so as they came back, they were lining the roads so that the British had to march down these roads, and they were taking potshots at them and ambushing them and stuff like that all along the way. So this wasn’t a pleasant time. Not only did they have a 20-mile march with all their gear and ammunition, But they were being harassed. They were being shot at, and they were being wounded and killed along the way. So this was, you know, looking like this is going to be really, really bad. But Lieutenant Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, back to General Gage in Boston, who was a commander early that morning before they got to Lexington, because as they were marching towards Lexington, they heard all these bells, these church bells ringing and people calling out alarms. So they knew that their element of surprise had been compromised completely. And he figured that there would be a lot of reinforcements coming back down on their way back. So he asked for a relief force to come in to help them get back to Boston, to get back to safety. And so as they were marching back, they got east of Lexington. They had already passed through Lexington. And then that British force, that relief force of about 1,000 well-rested and well-armed troops with two cannons with them under the able command of a guy named Lord General Percy, He brought these guys back, and he was a pretty able commander. So now the British have about 1,700 men, and so they’re headed back. But their face, they’re being harassed by about 5,000, 5,100 militia men from 13 towns in the Middlesex and the Essex counties. And they kind of all got together around, congregated around this town called Minnetonka, which is now called Arlington, but at that time it was called Minnetonka. And that’s where the battle in and around there took, that was the most ferocious fighting that they had fought. the whole day. And that took 25 militiamen were killed, but 40 British soldiers were killed at the battle. And that was, they’d called the battle at Lexington an accident. They’d called the battle at Concord a skirmish. But around Minnetonka, they had… over six thousand men were engaged in combat at that time and it was mostly a lot of hand-to-hand fighting from house to house too so this was a great and so percy had made a wise decision in his efforts to keep his men there and he put he put smith’s men that were tired and everything he put him in the middle of this formation to kind of protect them and it was nearly dark when pitcairn’s men uh… were getting back and they got across the water. They came back the same way. They went, instead of crossing the water at the Charles River, they went down the peninsula of Charleston. And they started digging defensive position on the hills of Charleston, which as we know now, that’s Breed’s Hill. And so later on in this Battle of Bunker Hill, when they come across in the middle of the night, they use those positions as a starting point to dig the militia, the American patriots, use those positions. They start digging where they were digging before, and that’s the positions that they improve greatly. so that they could fight the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill two months later in June.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. Well, let’s go to break. I’m talking with Ben Martin. And as you all know, the Center for American Values is a nonprofit I dearly love. And, of course, many of our Medal of Honor recipients that are honored there are Army. And June 14, 1775 was when the Army was founded. So this will be the 250th anniversary of the Army as well. And I would suggest that you go down to the Center for American Values and check that out. And that website is AmericanValuesCenter.org. And my, oh my, these are interesting conversations. And they come to you because of our sponsors. And if you’ve been injured, reach out to John Bozen with Bozen Law.
SPEAKER 09 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
Welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Check out our website. That’s kimmonson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter there. You’ll get first look at our upcoming guests as well as our most recent essays. And did want to mention the USMC Memorial Foundation. They are doing amazing work to raise the money for the remodel of the Marine Memorial. And a great way to support them would be to make a contribution. You can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We are prerecording most of the shows for Holy Week. And this show, we’re talking with the patriotic historian Ben Martin. About 1775, late spring, early summer, 1775, a lot was happening. We talked about the three battles on April 19th, 1775. What’s the aftermath of that battle?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, the aftermath of the battle, it can be said that British battle losses were still comparatively significant and shocking to Gage’s troops in Boston and to the British politicians in public back in London. The total British casualties for the march back and for the three battles numbered 73 killed, 174 wounded, and 26 were missing. The American casualties numbered 49 killed and 41 wounded and five missing. So the American Revolutionary War had begun. And we’re talking about this is the 25th anniversary of what we call Patriot’s Day. The American War for Independence has now begun. The battles were over. And the talk about the casualties and the willingness in the The British casualties were produced, but they also understood, it was plainly illustrated, the willingness of the American patriots to fight for independence and the failure of the British policies that we talked about earlier that tried to establish and impose the Intolerable Acts. And the days immediately after the battle, approximately 15,000 militiamen had assembled around Paulston. and organized by American generals Heath and Ward. And they began the siege of Boston at that time. The size of the American forces continued to grow as militia from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut arrived around Boston. So the British responded by sending another 4,500 troops to Boston. They arrived on 25 May of 1775 with three ambitious generals called General William Howe, General Henry Clinton, and General John Burgoyne, which we’ll talk about later in the Revolutionary War. The army kept getting better, and on 16 June 1775, Washington accepted the Continental Congress’s unanimous decision as commander-in-chief of the newly formed American Continental Army. But he would not arrive in Boston until 3 July. So on the night of 16-17 June, that newly formed Continental Army stealthily employed and occupied the high ground of Breed’s Hill, and worked industriously to build fortifications. We talked about that before, and it resulted in the Battle of Bunker Hill, or really it was Breed’s Hill, but it’s called Bunker Hill today. George Washington arrived in Boston to take command of the Army on 3 July 1775, a couple weeks after that battle. And approximately 100 yards from the Old North Bridge that we talked about in Concord, there is a home called the Old Monts. And it’s still there, and you can review it. And it was owned by Reverend William Emerson. He witnessed the fighting at the bridge from his field. His grandson was named Ralph Waldo Emerson, and he wrote the Concord Hymn in 1837 at the request of the Battle Monument Committee, and it was sung at Concord’s Independence Day celebration of 1837. And his first verse is inscribed on the base of the Minuteman statue created in 1875. And this was kind of a connection. It was by Daniel Chester French. And he was also the artist who later created the famous statue of a sitting Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
And so here is the first and fourth verse of that poem. And that’s where that shot heard around the world comes from. By the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flag to April’s breeze unfurled. Here once the embattled former stood and fired the shot heard round the world. Great spirit that made those heroes dare to die and leave their children free. Bid time and nature gently spare this shaft we raise to them and thee. And that’s the poem. It’s a great poem. It’s small and it’s on a big turn shaft and, you know, right there by the North Bridge where that’s where the battle changed and the British started going back. So it’s really great. And like I said, this is the start of the American Army, 14 June of 1775. So this is a 250th anniversary of it. And there’s a lot of great things that come from this. You know, a year later, we have the birth, the Declaration of Independence. Then we have the Constitution. A few years left of that, George Washington’s farewell, where he talks about, you know, how important religion and virtue are. This is Holy Week that we’re talking about. And then 87 years later or 87 years later, At Gettysburg, Lincoln talks about, you know, our nation, of the people, by the people, and for the people. And then in the 150th anniversary later, Coolidge talks about the Declaration of Independence. And it’s one of the most beautiful speeches, and it’s on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. So it’s just a wonderful thing that was started.
SPEAKER 13 :
250 years ago. Ben Martin, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. And these 250 years later, I’m convinced we are in the third founding of our country. And so we can take a look at this history and we can take action to preserve, conserve. this great American idea and the things that happened 250 years ago. Absolutely. So with that, again, Ben Martin, thank you. My friends, today be grateful. Read great books. Think good thoughts. Listen to beautiful music. Communicate and listen well. Live honestly and authentically. My friends, strive for high ideals. Unlike Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. My friends, you’re not alone. God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 10 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
