Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
General Richard Montgomery; The Making of an American Hero with Michael Gabriel
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison welcomes historian and author Michael Gabriel to explore the life and legacy of one of the American Revolution’s earliest fallen heroes. Drawing on his new book, Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero, Gabriel traces Montgomery’s remarkable journey from Irish-born officer in the British Army to a committed leader in the Continental cause.
Together, Allison and Gabriel examine Montgomery’s transformation in the crucible of imperial conflict, his growing identification with the American colonies, and his leadership in the ill-fated campaign to capture Quebec in 1775. They also consider how Montgomery’s death in battle helped shape early Revolutionary memory—turning him into a martyr for the cause of independence at a moment when the outcome of the conflict was far from certain.
This episode offers a compelling look at identity, allegiance, and sacrifice in the Revolutionary era, highlighting how one man’s story reflects the broader currents of a world turned upside down.
Link to Mike's Book below:
00:00:02.612 --> 00:00:03.353
Hello, everyone,
00:00:03.392 --> 00:00:05.155
and welcome to the Revolution Two Fifty
00:00:05.176 --> 00:00:05.695
podcast.
00:00:05.756 --> 00:00:06.577
I'm Bob Allison.
00:00:07.437 --> 00:00:09.019
I am co-chair of Rep Two Fifty.
00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:10.843
We're a consortium of about seventy five
00:00:10.903 --> 00:00:13.305
organizations in Massachusetts planning
00:00:13.326 --> 00:00:15.409
commemorations of American independence.
00:00:15.429 --> 00:00:16.088
Our guest today
00:00:16.937 --> 00:00:18.217
is Michael P. Gabriel.
00:00:18.277 --> 00:00:20.158
Mike Gabriel is a professor of history at
00:00:20.219 --> 00:00:21.420
Kutztown University,
00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:23.760
author of a number of books,
00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.843
one on the he edited Quebec during the
00:00:26.862 --> 00:00:27.903
American invasion,
00:00:28.263 --> 00:00:29.725
another book on Bennington.
00:00:29.765 --> 00:00:31.225
And we're here to talk about your book,
00:00:31.466 --> 00:00:33.186
Major General Richard Montgomery,
00:00:33.207 --> 00:00:34.768
The Making of an American Hero.
00:00:34.787 --> 00:00:36.287
So, Mike, thanks so much for joining us.
00:00:36.628 --> 00:00:37.289
Thank you, Bob.
00:00:37.329 --> 00:00:40.470
Really glad to be here today.
00:00:40.490 --> 00:00:42.652
And Richard Montgomery is one of those
00:00:42.752 --> 00:00:43.832
figures that
00:00:45.170 --> 00:00:48.213
plays a big role and then becomes a
00:00:48.253 --> 00:00:48.774
hero.
00:00:48.933 --> 00:00:49.534
And as you say,
00:00:49.594 --> 00:00:51.375
he's admired but neglected,
00:00:52.417 --> 00:00:53.938
but you've really told a story very well.
00:00:53.957 --> 00:00:54.999
So what is, what is,
00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:56.841
so can you tell us what interested you
00:00:56.881 --> 00:00:57.680
about Montgomery?
00:00:57.902 --> 00:00:59.902
Yeah, that's a very good question.
00:00:59.942 --> 00:01:02.185
You know, when I was in graduate school,
00:01:02.204 --> 00:01:03.866
you're looking for a dissertation topic
00:01:03.887 --> 00:01:05.268
and it has to be something unique.
00:01:05.308 --> 00:01:08.691
And I actually took this early American
00:01:08.751 --> 00:01:10.132
literature class and there's a play
00:01:10.152 --> 00:01:12.213
written about Montgomery in,
00:01:13.974 --> 00:01:17.275
by Hugh Henry Drackenridge.
00:01:17.296 --> 00:01:18.975
And I thought, oh, gee,
00:01:19.036 --> 00:01:21.016
it'd be interesting to look up something.
00:01:21.037 --> 00:01:22.037
I knew the name Montgomery,
00:01:22.058 --> 00:01:23.278
but I really didn't know anything about
00:01:23.317 --> 00:01:23.397
him.
00:01:23.418 --> 00:01:23.518
Well,
00:01:23.537 --> 00:01:25.478
it turns out nobody really knows anything
00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:26.680
about Richard Montgomery.
00:01:26.700 --> 00:01:28.801
So I began to think this might be
00:01:28.840 --> 00:01:30.382
a really interesting topic.
00:01:30.421 --> 00:01:34.543
The trick was trying to find many sources
00:01:34.664 --> 00:01:36.284
on him because he does have a very
00:01:36.364 --> 00:01:38.045
short public career.
00:01:41.293 --> 00:01:44.137
by going to multiple places and piecing
00:01:44.177 --> 00:01:45.977
together something here and there,
00:01:46.117 --> 00:01:46.799
you actually,
00:01:46.838 --> 00:01:48.299
there's way more than what people would
00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:50.322
think, but they're widely scattered.
00:01:50.543 --> 00:01:51.123
Right, yeah.
00:01:51.503 --> 00:01:51.884
Yeah.
00:01:51.903 --> 00:01:54.105
You've really used a lot of the letters
00:01:54.146 --> 00:01:56.287
he writes to his wife and his
00:01:56.367 --> 00:01:57.069
brother-in-law.
00:01:57.088 --> 00:01:58.609
He marries Janet Livingston,
00:01:58.629 --> 00:02:00.210
who was one of the New York Livingstons,
00:02:00.272 --> 00:02:01.712
becomes very close with Robert R.
00:02:01.753 --> 00:02:02.313
Livingston.
00:02:02.713 --> 00:02:02.933
Correct.
00:02:02.953 --> 00:02:04.796
And that's really a treasure trove of what
00:02:04.835 --> 00:02:05.956
he writes to them.
00:02:06.650 --> 00:02:08.693
yeah you know the the letters that
00:02:08.733 --> 00:02:10.854
princeton to his wife i didn't know about
00:02:10.914 --> 00:02:13.739
when i started the process and somewhere i
00:02:13.778 --> 00:02:16.241
got a clue actually i don't think anyone
00:02:16.282 --> 00:02:18.965
had really used those i got i don't
00:02:19.025 --> 00:02:20.387
even remember how i knew they were there
00:02:20.407 --> 00:02:23.009
and i remember this is pre-internet pre
00:02:23.370 --> 00:02:23.591
yeah
00:02:24.230 --> 00:02:25.372
everything's digitized,
00:02:25.512 --> 00:02:27.932
writing a letter to Princeton and them
00:02:27.973 --> 00:02:29.974
sending me back this computer printout and
00:02:30.014 --> 00:02:31.094
says, oh, we've got like,
00:02:31.474 --> 00:02:34.137
nineteen letters to his wife and seven or
00:02:34.197 --> 00:02:35.758
eight to other people we don't actually
00:02:35.798 --> 00:02:38.019
know who they are and, you know,
00:02:38.139 --> 00:02:41.061
I went there and that opened up a
00:02:41.121 --> 00:02:44.362
whole new angle because people had written
00:02:44.383 --> 00:02:46.864
about Montgomery the General and some of
00:02:46.883 --> 00:02:49.705
his public letters but his private life
00:02:49.746 --> 00:02:52.668
was largely unknown.
00:02:52.967 --> 00:02:53.108
Yep.
00:02:54.670 --> 00:02:57.393
And so he really wants, I mean,
00:02:57.592 --> 00:02:59.492
you can tell basically his career.
00:02:59.532 --> 00:03:00.873
He had been a British officer,
00:03:00.933 --> 00:03:03.014
realizes he's not going to get promoted.
00:03:03.055 --> 00:03:04.235
This is after the war,
00:03:04.275 --> 00:03:05.795
so things are being shut down.
00:03:05.816 --> 00:03:07.296
He wants to be a gentleman farmer.
00:03:07.836 --> 00:03:10.538
He signs this commission and moves to
00:03:10.578 --> 00:03:12.359
America to built by a farm.
00:03:12.915 --> 00:03:13.697
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:13.717 --> 00:03:15.457
And he actually buys a farm,
00:03:15.677 --> 00:03:18.259
what today would be Kingsbridge.
00:03:18.460 --> 00:03:20.001
And I think now it's a reservoir.
00:03:20.061 --> 00:03:20.800
I think I looked it up.
00:03:20.860 --> 00:03:22.201
It's a reservoir.
00:03:22.681 --> 00:03:26.324
But he's a gentleman farmer and he marries
00:03:26.985 --> 00:03:27.906
Janet Livingston,
00:03:27.945 --> 00:03:29.847
who's the eldest daughter of one of the
00:03:30.227 --> 00:03:31.788
chief judges of New York,
00:03:31.867 --> 00:03:33.329
Robert Livingston's sister.
00:03:33.368 --> 00:03:35.211
He's on the committee that writes the
00:03:35.251 --> 00:03:36.651
Declaration of Independence.
00:03:36.671 --> 00:03:36.771
Right.
00:03:37.711 --> 00:03:40.775
And they marry and they move to basically
00:03:40.794 --> 00:03:42.556
the area around Rhinebeck, New York.
00:03:42.656 --> 00:03:44.957
And he's in the process of building a
00:03:45.018 --> 00:03:51.623
manor house and has no desire to be
00:03:51.683 --> 00:03:52.705
a public figure.
00:03:52.724 --> 00:03:55.546
That's the last thing from his mind.
00:03:55.567 --> 00:03:56.687
Yeah.
00:03:56.747 --> 00:03:58.128
So what draws him in?
00:03:58.508 --> 00:04:00.251
How does he?
00:04:00.290 --> 00:04:01.831
You know, that's a very good question.
00:04:01.872 --> 00:04:04.174
And that's where I spend a lot of
00:04:04.213 --> 00:04:06.415
my time digging into his
00:04:06.985 --> 00:04:10.388
It looks like Montgomery and his family,
00:04:10.467 --> 00:04:12.127
by disposition,
00:04:12.328 --> 00:04:15.969
are somewhat distrustful of the rising
00:04:16.029 --> 00:04:19.831
power of the office of the prime minister.
00:04:20.512 --> 00:04:23.072
And there's this widespread belief of
00:04:23.132 --> 00:04:23.814
tyranny.
00:04:23.874 --> 00:04:27.295
And he seemingly somewhat buys into that.
00:04:28.235 --> 00:04:28.656
Some of the
00:04:31.567 --> 00:04:35.170
Kind of indirect sources suggest he's on
00:04:35.250 --> 00:04:37.392
good terms with members of people who
00:04:37.413 --> 00:04:38.935
become the Rockingham Whigs,
00:04:39.055 --> 00:04:42.798
who they don't necessarily agree with what
00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:45.062
England's doing in America and kind of
00:04:45.081 --> 00:04:45.762
things like that.
00:04:45.882 --> 00:04:48.024
I also found in this new edition,
00:04:48.685 --> 00:04:49.286
religiously,
00:04:49.346 --> 00:04:51.928
he's a Unitarian and Unitarians and...
00:04:53.029 --> 00:04:54.870
be distrustful of these powerful
00:04:55.071 --> 00:04:57.752
centralized authorities.
00:04:58.091 --> 00:05:00.892
According to his wife, Janet,
00:05:01.252 --> 00:05:04.675
the thing that really makes Montgomery
00:05:04.915 --> 00:05:07.675
enter the revolutionary movement is the
00:05:07.696 --> 00:05:08.596
coercive acts.
00:05:08.615 --> 00:05:14.177
He writes something to the effect of when
00:05:14.218 --> 00:05:15.999
he saw what they did to Boston,
00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:18.899
he knew this could happen anywhere and he
00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.120
had to get involved.
00:05:22.494 --> 00:05:25.776
So unlike a lot of other characters who
00:05:25.836 --> 00:05:28.139
are just consumed with ambition and
00:05:28.978 --> 00:05:30.079
ideology,
00:05:30.519 --> 00:05:34.142
he is all along really reluctant,
00:05:34.182 --> 00:05:35.884
but then he has this sense of duty
00:05:36.144 --> 00:05:36.785
once he is there.
00:05:36.805 --> 00:05:36.944
I mean,
00:05:36.964 --> 00:05:38.485
he's a member of New York's Provincial
00:05:38.505 --> 00:05:39.086
Congress,
00:05:39.146 --> 00:05:40.487
and he's really not happy being a
00:05:40.528 --> 00:05:41.208
politician.
00:05:41.848 --> 00:05:42.910
And then because he has military
00:05:42.949 --> 00:05:43.449
experience,
00:05:43.470 --> 00:05:46.512
they appoint him to be a general under
00:05:46.552 --> 00:05:46.992
Schuyler.
00:05:47.483 --> 00:05:48.663
Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:05:48.783 --> 00:05:49.345
And, you know,
00:05:50.225 --> 00:05:51.666
when I first started to read a lot
00:05:51.687 --> 00:05:53.749
of the things he says, he repeatedly says,
00:05:53.769 --> 00:05:53.908
like,
00:05:53.968 --> 00:05:55.350
I'm not really happy about doing this,
00:05:55.389 --> 00:05:56.670
but I'm obliged to.
00:05:56.730 --> 00:05:58.151
And some of the people on my committee
00:05:58.172 --> 00:05:59.553
say, you know, that's very admirable.
00:05:59.593 --> 00:06:01.774
But that was sort of a standard things
00:06:01.836 --> 00:06:03.276
people were supposed to say back then,
00:06:03.297 --> 00:06:04.298
because if you saw it.
00:06:05.418 --> 00:06:06.461
You were ambitious,
00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:10.228
but he says it so many times and
00:06:10.267 --> 00:06:12.812
to private people, like telling his wife,
00:06:12.853 --> 00:06:15.398
that's not posturing, you know?
00:06:15.538 --> 00:06:15.879
Right.
00:06:15.978 --> 00:06:16.059
Yeah.
00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:17.641
So he, he clearly says,
00:06:18.709 --> 00:06:20.689
doesn't really want to get involved in
00:06:20.730 --> 00:06:20.930
this,
00:06:20.970 --> 00:06:23.891
but he does truly believe American
00:06:23.951 --> 00:06:25.572
liberties are in jeopardy.
00:06:25.711 --> 00:06:28.632
And one of his really interesting quotes
00:06:28.673 --> 00:06:29.954
is he says something like,
00:06:31.134 --> 00:06:33.194
when he's appointed to the Continental
00:06:33.274 --> 00:06:34.836
Army, he says something to the effect of,
00:06:35.516 --> 00:06:37.437
this is completely undesired by me,
00:06:37.476 --> 00:06:39.398
but the will of an oppressed people
00:06:39.517 --> 00:06:41.778
compelled to choose between liberty and
00:06:41.838 --> 00:06:43.199
slavery must be obeyed.
00:06:43.238 --> 00:06:44.779
That's quite a statement.
00:06:45.509 --> 00:06:46.050
It really is.
00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:46.449
It really is.
00:06:46.990 --> 00:06:48.432
And then another thing that is really
00:06:48.552 --> 00:06:51.636
interesting about him is he's in a number
00:06:51.675 --> 00:06:52.737
of, by the way,
00:06:52.757 --> 00:06:54.059
we don't need to dig very far in
00:06:54.098 --> 00:06:55.920
some characters to find that ambition that
00:06:55.940 --> 00:06:56.802
they're trying to have.
00:06:56.822 --> 00:06:57.221
Correct.
00:06:57.401 --> 00:06:57.682
Correct.
00:06:57.702 --> 00:06:59.244
Like Hamilton and others.
00:06:59.464 --> 00:07:00.165
Correct.
00:07:01.137 --> 00:07:02.639
But then he's in these really interesting
00:07:02.939 --> 00:07:03.779
situations,
00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:06.403
which could be very difficult in terms of
00:07:07.122 --> 00:07:09.345
preeminence, appointment and so on.
00:07:09.384 --> 00:07:11.927
People like Skyler, David Worcester,
00:07:11.968 --> 00:07:13.869
Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen.
00:07:13.949 --> 00:07:14.089
I mean,
00:07:14.110 --> 00:07:16.372
he handles all of these people really
00:07:16.512 --> 00:07:17.473
extraordinarily well.
00:07:17.973 --> 00:07:18.452
Yeah.
00:07:18.713 --> 00:07:20.353
One of the things that I took away,
00:07:20.394 --> 00:07:22.314
the more I dug into this, you know,
00:07:22.334 --> 00:07:23.014
it's funny.
00:07:23.656 --> 00:07:25.456
I guess what I really liked Richard
00:07:25.497 --> 00:07:29.077
Montgomery from the past.
00:07:29.298 --> 00:07:29.918
Who would you pick?
00:07:29.959 --> 00:07:30.119
Well,
00:07:30.298 --> 00:07:31.418
he would be on the top of my
00:07:31.478 --> 00:07:36.901
list, but he's very deft at dealing with.
00:07:38.142 --> 00:07:40.584
Many people have fairly large egos or it's
00:07:40.624 --> 00:07:43.204
very easy to make a misstep that could
00:07:43.245 --> 00:07:45.024
create all sorts of problems.
00:07:46.045 --> 00:07:47.545
Certainly that's the case with David
00:07:47.565 --> 00:07:48.146
Wooster,
00:07:48.386 --> 00:07:50.226
to some degree it's Benedict Arnold,
00:07:50.846 --> 00:07:52.947
but he defers to everybody.
00:07:54.016 --> 00:07:54.315
Yeah.
00:07:54.615 --> 00:07:56.416
And Schuyler is his superior,
00:07:56.516 --> 00:07:58.317
and he questions whether Schuyler has the
00:07:58.418 --> 00:07:58.939
nerve.
00:07:59.218 --> 00:07:59.778
And, of course,
00:07:59.819 --> 00:08:01.420
Schuyler's health is always an issue.
00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:03.201
Yeah, yeah.
00:08:03.661 --> 00:08:05.062
And, you know, it's interesting, you know,
00:08:05.081 --> 00:08:06.101
he's a British officer,
00:08:06.122 --> 00:08:08.723
so he has some prejudice against American
00:08:09.264 --> 00:08:10.444
officers to begin with.
00:08:10.524 --> 00:08:13.846
And Schuyler wasn't a combat officer in
00:08:13.865 --> 00:08:14.627
the French and Indian.
00:08:14.646 --> 00:08:16.266
He was more of a logistical guy.
00:08:16.286 --> 00:08:18.387
And he even writes,
00:08:18.427 --> 00:08:20.249
but it's in a private letter, he says,
00:08:20.269 --> 00:08:20.629
you know...
00:08:22.658 --> 00:08:23.620
Well, you said it.
00:08:23.682 --> 00:08:23.901
He says,
00:08:23.942 --> 00:08:25.204
I'm not sure he has the nerve to
00:08:25.225 --> 00:08:26.468
be a combat commander.
00:08:26.908 --> 00:08:29.194
He might be a fine administrator,
00:08:29.235 --> 00:08:30.418
but I don't know if he's the kind
00:08:30.437 --> 00:08:32.503
of person you want to command an army.
00:08:34.186 --> 00:08:36.006
but he works very well with Schuyler.
00:08:36.827 --> 00:08:39.470
One of the striking parts to me is
00:08:39.850 --> 00:08:42.373
when they first enter Canada and Schuyler
00:08:42.472 --> 00:08:43.052
is with them,
00:08:43.092 --> 00:08:45.696
and Schuyler's desperately ill.
00:08:47.417 --> 00:08:48.857
When they first land at St.
00:08:48.898 --> 00:08:49.519
John's,
00:08:51.080 --> 00:08:54.102
Schuyler writes a letter to John Hancock
00:08:54.143 --> 00:08:55.865
and writes something to the effect of...
00:08:58.490 --> 00:09:00.851
I can't begin to tell you how much
00:09:00.932 --> 00:09:02.293
Montgomery's doing.
00:09:02.633 --> 00:09:04.033
I'm so sick I can't even hold a
00:09:04.073 --> 00:09:04.453
pen.
00:09:04.974 --> 00:09:06.754
And then Montgomery writes to his wife.
00:09:06.794 --> 00:09:07.255
He says, you know,
00:09:07.275 --> 00:09:08.615
I feel really bad for Schuyler,
00:09:08.655 --> 00:09:10.817
but if he can't be the commander,
00:09:10.856 --> 00:09:13.378
I wish he would go home because he's
00:09:13.457 --> 00:09:16.279
sort of complicating things because I'm
00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:17.460
not really in command,
00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:19.980
but I sort of have to be.
00:09:21.322 --> 00:09:22.802
But he never says that to Schuyler.
00:09:23.361 --> 00:09:23.581
No.
00:09:24.082 --> 00:09:24.943
Yeah, that's true.
00:09:25.083 --> 00:09:26.885
And he does manage to negotiate this
00:09:26.905 --> 00:09:29.187
really difficult situation very well with
00:09:29.248 --> 00:09:33.913
Skyler is the superior and Montgomery has
00:09:33.952 --> 00:09:35.495
to take the initiative on a number of
00:09:35.554 --> 00:09:38.116
things to keep this campaign going.
00:09:38.197 --> 00:09:40.419
And the campaign goes extraordinarily well
00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:41.480
considering all of the
00:09:42.506 --> 00:09:43.748
It ends in disaster,
00:09:44.528 --> 00:09:46.089
and he kind of has a portent that
00:09:46.149 --> 00:09:49.071
it's when we're finally going to take,
00:09:49.110 --> 00:09:50.250
they have to take Quebec,
00:09:50.331 --> 00:09:51.692
and he writes a letter to his
00:09:51.751 --> 00:09:53.812
brother-in-law about the different options
00:09:53.832 --> 00:09:54.133
they have,
00:09:54.173 --> 00:09:55.494
and none of them seem really appealing.
00:09:55.894 --> 00:09:57.455
No, no, no.
00:09:57.995 --> 00:10:00.756
He very much comes to the conclusion
00:10:01.998 --> 00:10:02.418
that...
00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:04.921
The Canadians won't fully embrace the
00:10:04.941 --> 00:10:06.921
American cause till the British are gone.
00:10:07.201 --> 00:10:07.341
Right.
00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:08.861
The British aren't gone till Quebec's in
00:10:08.902 --> 00:10:09.802
American hands.
00:10:10.221 --> 00:10:10.562
Yeah.
00:10:10.721 --> 00:10:12.763
And, you know, it's interesting.
00:10:16.283 --> 00:10:17.984
I sometimes feel bad for Montgomery and
00:10:18.865 --> 00:10:19.784
like I once made a joke,
00:10:20.085 --> 00:10:21.384
he could be a department chair.
00:10:25.153 --> 00:10:26.774
he's supposed to deal with diplomatic
00:10:26.794 --> 00:10:28.054
things he's supposed to deal with
00:10:28.115 --> 00:10:29.475
recruitment things he's supposed to deal
00:10:29.495 --> 00:10:31.496
with financial things he's got all these
00:10:31.537 --> 00:10:34.618
things he needs to be dealing with and
00:10:34.658 --> 00:10:36.879
like he asks congress to send a committee
00:10:36.918 --> 00:10:39.419
and congress doesn't send a committee till
00:10:39.539 --> 00:10:41.841
november and then they never go to canada
00:10:41.961 --> 00:10:43.241
anyways and they write him a letter and
00:10:43.282 --> 00:10:44.763
say you should have done things
00:10:44.822 --> 00:10:47.163
differently yeah yeah why did you come
00:10:47.203 --> 00:10:48.364
here and tell me that and do i
00:10:48.465 --> 00:10:48.644
know yeah
00:10:50.115 --> 00:10:51.557
His brother-in-law is on the committee
00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:55.240
too.
00:10:55.259 --> 00:10:56.721
We're talking with Mike Gabriel,
00:10:56.780 --> 00:10:58.942
who is a professor of history at Kutztown
00:10:59.024 --> 00:11:02.166
University, former department chair.
00:11:02.225 --> 00:11:03.947
His book is Major General Richard
00:11:03.988 --> 00:11:04.469
Montgomery,
00:11:04.489 --> 00:11:06.049
The Making of an American Hero.
00:11:06.711 --> 00:11:08.172
It was first published about twenty years
00:11:08.192 --> 00:11:08.351
ago,
00:11:08.371 --> 00:11:09.933
but now he has a new edition out.
00:11:09.974 --> 00:11:11.735
It has lots of new stuff in it
00:11:11.794 --> 00:11:14.557
telling the story of Richard Montgomery.
00:11:16.701 --> 00:11:18.464
He dies on the last day of seventeen
00:11:18.504 --> 00:11:19.206
seventy five.
00:11:19.285 --> 00:11:20.769
It kind of unclear.
00:11:20.989 --> 00:11:22.712
We don't know what he would have done
00:11:22.773 --> 00:11:24.956
had he lived into seventeen seventy six.
00:11:24.996 --> 00:11:25.639
His main job.
00:11:26.687 --> 00:11:28.106
desire was to go home,
00:11:28.147 --> 00:11:29.267
go back to his farm.
00:11:31.028 --> 00:11:34.528
But he also writes that he might have
00:11:34.567 --> 00:11:36.269
known Guy Carlton before the war.
00:11:36.389 --> 00:11:39.769
And he still has that kind of British
00:11:40.028 --> 00:11:41.049
officer's attitude.
00:11:41.090 --> 00:11:42.909
He has a wonderful quote from him about
00:11:42.990 --> 00:11:45.250
Carlton, to it in a letter to Carlton,
00:11:45.289 --> 00:11:46.471
about the firmest friends of the
00:11:46.510 --> 00:11:47.431
Constitution.
00:11:48.130 --> 00:11:49.811
Necessity impels one of the firmest
00:11:49.850 --> 00:11:52.091
friends of the Constitution to oppose one
00:11:52.131 --> 00:11:54.211
of the most respectable officers of the
00:11:54.251 --> 00:11:54.591
crown.
00:11:55.193 --> 00:11:56.735
Yeah, you know,
00:11:57.475 --> 00:11:59.696
this is something I became more and more
00:11:59.755 --> 00:12:01.736
aware of actually just within the last
00:12:01.856 --> 00:12:02.517
year or two.
00:12:02.576 --> 00:12:04.197
And I probably should have put more of
00:12:04.217 --> 00:12:04.937
this in the book.
00:12:04.977 --> 00:12:05.557
But you know,
00:12:07.739 --> 00:12:10.279
Americans aren't necessarily sure when the
00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:11.740
revolution breaks out at Lexington
00:12:11.760 --> 00:12:14.121
Concord, independence is the end game.
00:12:14.782 --> 00:12:15.042
And
00:12:16.243 --> 00:12:19.303
the more you really read into Montgomery,
00:12:19.364 --> 00:12:22.005
Montgomery's, well, when he's killed,
00:12:22.346 --> 00:12:23.807
he's not necessarily in favor of
00:12:23.866 --> 00:12:24.486
independence.
00:12:24.506 --> 00:12:25.807
He might come around to that and he
00:12:25.827 --> 00:12:27.207
sort of hints maybe it might be a
00:12:27.227 --> 00:12:27.868
necessity,
00:12:27.908 --> 00:12:30.309
but he's not enthusiastic about that at
00:12:30.429 --> 00:12:30.750
all.
00:12:31.370 --> 00:12:33.971
And the quote to Carlton where he says,
00:12:34.991 --> 00:12:35.871
we, the Americans,
00:12:35.912 --> 00:12:36.873
are the friends of the British
00:12:36.913 --> 00:12:37.633
Constitution,
00:12:38.013 --> 00:12:41.455
and they see Carlton as an honorable man.
00:12:41.495 --> 00:12:43.096
You know, that's very interesting.
00:12:43.456 --> 00:12:43.735
Yeah.
00:12:45.275 --> 00:12:47.378
from the sort of stereotype,
00:12:47.398 --> 00:12:49.379
the Americans can't wait to be independent
00:12:49.418 --> 00:12:51.541
and they're chomping on the bit for that.
00:12:51.581 --> 00:12:54.442
That's not true for many Americans.
00:12:55.344 --> 00:12:56.004
That's very true.
00:12:56.044 --> 00:12:57.566
And he has really,
00:12:57.725 --> 00:12:59.548
would you say he has become an American
00:12:59.587 --> 00:13:00.028
at this point?
00:13:00.048 --> 00:13:01.509
You say he's an American hero.
00:13:01.969 --> 00:13:04.230
Yeah, he's well on his way that,
00:13:04.250 --> 00:13:07.754
but it's interesting if you read some of
00:13:07.793 --> 00:13:08.715
his, very carefully,
00:13:08.754 --> 00:13:09.696
some of the things he writes,
00:13:09.735 --> 00:13:10.897
like when he,
00:13:12.158 --> 00:13:13.818
in the letter he writes to Guy Carlton,
00:13:13.839 --> 00:13:14.759
he's talking about
00:13:15.993 --> 00:13:17.673
the treatment of POWs.
00:13:17.693 --> 00:13:19.514
And he says,
00:13:20.254 --> 00:13:22.615
he's concerned that American and Canadian
00:13:22.654 --> 00:13:24.395
POWs are being mistreated.
00:13:25.096 --> 00:13:25.916
And he says, hell,
00:13:26.015 --> 00:13:28.297
he would retaliate if he had to.
00:13:28.576 --> 00:13:29.336
But then he says,
00:13:30.177 --> 00:13:32.317
I would hesitate to retaliate if they were
00:13:32.337 --> 00:13:36.239
from a foreign country, let alone my own.
00:13:36.418 --> 00:13:38.080
He still sort of identifies with the
00:13:38.120 --> 00:13:41.240
British soldiers as countrymen.
00:13:41.260 --> 00:13:44.201
And he doesn't see them as foreigners.
00:13:46.140 --> 00:13:46.721
Yeah,
00:13:46.760 --> 00:13:48.822
it is part of this seeing the problem's
00:13:48.861 --> 00:13:50.783
been this British ministry which is
00:13:50.842 --> 00:13:53.443
distorting the nature of the Constitution
00:13:53.624 --> 00:13:55.124
and as opposed to,
00:13:55.884 --> 00:13:57.985
it's really not about the king so much
00:13:58.044 --> 00:14:00.125
as it is about these political policies
00:14:00.166 --> 00:14:02.147
that they see driving a wedge between the
00:14:02.187 --> 00:14:02.767
Americans
00:14:03.746 --> 00:14:05.227
There's that line that's taken out of the
00:14:05.248 --> 00:14:05.788
Declaration,
00:14:05.807 --> 00:14:07.488
but we could have been a free and
00:14:07.508 --> 00:14:09.129
prosperous people together.
00:14:09.548 --> 00:14:10.649
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:10.769 --> 00:14:11.049
You know,
00:14:11.149 --> 00:14:13.390
it's very interesting had he lived what he
00:14:13.410 --> 00:14:15.010
would have thought of common sense and
00:14:15.051 --> 00:14:16.652
would he have come around to it.
00:14:16.692 --> 00:14:17.351
But, you know,
00:14:17.412 --> 00:14:19.712
he's killed before any of that happens.
00:14:19.753 --> 00:14:22.494
But a couple of times he talks about.
00:14:23.413 --> 00:14:26.255
the wicked ministry or something like
00:14:26.336 --> 00:14:26.456
that.
00:14:26.476 --> 00:14:28.118
At one point he talks about keeping the
00:14:28.158 --> 00:14:30.078
majesty sacred.
00:14:30.580 --> 00:14:33.761
It's not so much the king in England,
00:14:33.841 --> 00:14:35.562
it's this corrupt government,
00:14:35.923 --> 00:14:37.205
specifically a prime minister.
00:14:38.109 --> 00:14:40.510
yeah it's really fascinating to think
00:14:40.530 --> 00:14:44.014
about um uh all of these questions you
00:14:44.073 --> 00:14:46.275
raise in this and of course another issue
00:14:46.316 --> 00:14:48.719
comes up when he's leading this army into
00:14:48.798 --> 00:14:51.860
canada that needing to get the enlisted
00:14:51.921 --> 00:14:54.023
men's support for things which is
00:14:54.062 --> 00:14:56.205
something that surprises him as a british
00:14:56.345 --> 00:14:58.767
officer that he asks the officers what
00:14:58.807 --> 00:15:00.349
they think and then they have to pull
00:15:00.408 --> 00:15:01.549
the enlisted men
00:15:02.051 --> 00:15:03.032
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:03.091 --> 00:15:05.794
You know, that's a very striking point.
00:15:06.216 --> 00:15:09.240
And Washington deals with this.
00:15:09.299 --> 00:15:09.620
And, you know,
00:15:09.660 --> 00:15:10.902
this is early in the war.
00:15:10.942 --> 00:15:12.144
This is pre-continental.
00:15:12.283 --> 00:15:12.484
Well,
00:15:12.524 --> 00:15:14.647
the Continental Army exists largely in
00:15:14.706 --> 00:15:15.408
name only.
00:15:17.370 --> 00:15:18.572
He's very...
00:15:20.605 --> 00:15:23.047
unhappy that during the siege of St.
00:15:23.086 --> 00:15:24.648
John's, on a number of occasions,
00:15:24.687 --> 00:15:26.948
he makes proposals and the officers say,
00:15:26.989 --> 00:15:28.168
no, we don't want to do that.
00:15:28.708 --> 00:15:31.610
And specifically when they're first
00:15:31.650 --> 00:15:36.653
arriving in Canada, the men panic.
00:15:36.692 --> 00:15:38.192
The men panic like crazy.
00:15:38.293 --> 00:15:41.674
It's nighttime and Montgomery finally
00:15:41.754 --> 00:15:43.255
retreats a couple miles,
00:15:43.936 --> 00:15:45.316
holds a council of war,
00:15:45.375 --> 00:15:47.417
and he's trying to convince the officers
00:15:47.437 --> 00:15:48.138
to try again.
00:15:48.298 --> 00:15:48.457
And
00:15:49.610 --> 00:15:50.331
Somebody shouts out,
00:15:50.350 --> 00:15:51.532
a British warship's coming,
00:15:51.572 --> 00:15:53.092
and they stampede it.
00:15:53.113 --> 00:15:55.573
They almost leave their officers on the...
00:15:55.714 --> 00:15:57.554
And that's when Montgomery starts to write
00:15:57.774 --> 00:15:58.754
letters to his wife.
00:15:58.875 --> 00:16:01.515
I can't believe what I've gotten myself
00:16:01.576 --> 00:16:02.876
into.
00:16:02.917 --> 00:16:06.077
But once again, he vents to his wife,
00:16:06.438 --> 00:16:10.740
but he sticks to it and keeps the
00:16:10.821 --> 00:16:11.461
army together.
00:16:11.561 --> 00:16:13.461
It drives him crazy,
00:16:13.501 --> 00:16:16.003
but he keeps the army together.
00:16:17.235 --> 00:16:19.057
It is very much like Washington.
00:16:19.118 --> 00:16:21.019
Washington is grappling with the same
00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:21.340
thing.
00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:22.740
Are these the men with whom I'm to
00:16:22.780 --> 00:16:24.162
win the liberties of America?
00:16:24.582 --> 00:16:25.363
Right, right.
00:16:29.855 --> 00:16:31.537
A lot of the men after St.
00:16:31.557 --> 00:16:33.219
John's surrenders on November third,
00:16:33.239 --> 00:16:33.918
they want to go home.
00:16:33.979 --> 00:16:35.179
It's wintertime in Canada.
00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:35.879
It's snowing.
00:16:36.321 --> 00:16:37.721
What am I supposed to do in Canada?
00:16:37.761 --> 00:16:39.883
And he promises them, well,
00:16:40.202 --> 00:16:41.484
I'll send you home early if you hang
00:16:41.504 --> 00:16:43.044
on until we capture Montreal.
00:16:43.325 --> 00:16:46.147
And then he does that because otherwise
00:16:46.167 --> 00:16:47.807
you're probably going to desert anyway.
00:16:47.908 --> 00:16:49.789
So it's better to send them off.
00:16:50.370 --> 00:16:53.792
It's sort of a good move then if
00:16:53.831 --> 00:16:56.013
they angrily mutiny or something.
00:16:56.114 --> 00:16:57.894
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:57.955 --> 00:16:59.615
It does seem like for someone who is
00:16:59.676 --> 00:17:00.395
reluctant,
00:17:00.995 --> 00:17:02.496
it does seem like he has a great
00:17:02.537 --> 00:17:04.499
deal of political skill.
00:17:04.999 --> 00:17:06.259
And there are a couple of cases you
00:17:06.299 --> 00:17:09.521
mentioned where he gives a speech to the
00:17:09.622 --> 00:17:10.882
men that really stirs them,
00:17:10.902 --> 00:17:12.884
like before the assault on Quebec,
00:17:12.943 --> 00:17:15.664
that they remember later what he had said
00:17:15.704 --> 00:17:16.806
really to move them and
00:17:17.544 --> 00:17:20.526
fire them up yeah um when he meets
00:17:20.767 --> 00:17:23.989
arnold's men uh he gives a short speech
00:17:24.189 --> 00:17:26.211
and a number of arnold men record like
00:17:26.530 --> 00:17:27.872
they say things like the fire of
00:17:27.932 --> 00:17:30.693
patriotism burned in our soul and yeah you
00:17:30.713 --> 00:17:32.695
know and and uh they say he never
00:17:32.736 --> 00:17:34.596
speaks long but what he says is always
00:17:34.676 --> 00:17:40.902
very very inspiring yeah you do wonder
00:17:42.041 --> 00:17:44.023
what would have happened to him had he
00:17:44.124 --> 00:17:46.506
lived and who he maybe would have become
00:17:47.622 --> 00:17:48.804
You really do.
00:17:48.923 --> 00:17:50.746
We're talking with Mike Gabriel,
00:17:50.786 --> 00:17:52.167
professor of history at Kutztown
00:17:52.248 --> 00:17:54.872
University and author of Major General
00:17:54.912 --> 00:17:55.833
Richard Montgomery,
00:17:55.873 --> 00:17:57.535
The Making of an American Hero.
00:17:57.895 --> 00:17:57.996
Mike,
00:17:58.036 --> 00:17:59.297
can we talk a little bit about his
00:17:59.498 --> 00:17:59.998
background?
00:18:00.038 --> 00:18:03.623
I mean, his career in Britain and...
00:18:05.224 --> 00:18:06.204
That whole episode,
00:18:06.224 --> 00:18:07.445
which you do cover in the book.
00:18:07.486 --> 00:18:10.126
There's fewer primary sources from him,
00:18:10.166 --> 00:18:12.147
but you do a good job reconstructing what
00:18:12.347 --> 00:18:13.669
he's up to.
00:18:13.769 --> 00:18:14.128
Yeah,
00:18:14.189 --> 00:18:17.530
so he's a younger son of a member
00:18:17.570 --> 00:18:18.810
of the Irish Parliament.
00:18:19.030 --> 00:18:21.393
He's got three older brothers, and...
00:18:23.990 --> 00:18:25.652
He's very well educated.
00:18:25.692 --> 00:18:27.673
He has a tutor and he attends Trinity
00:18:27.713 --> 00:18:29.517
College in Dublin,
00:18:29.557 --> 00:18:32.200
but seemingly does not finish.
00:18:33.020 --> 00:18:35.163
And his father buys...
00:18:36.203 --> 00:18:38.765
richard a commission as an ensign he's
00:18:38.805 --> 00:18:41.144
eighteen years old he also buys his older
00:18:41.184 --> 00:18:43.346
brother a commission as a captain in the
00:18:43.506 --> 00:18:47.027
forty-third regiment and montgomery will
00:18:47.086 --> 00:18:49.426
serve as an officer in the british army
00:18:49.467 --> 00:18:51.567
for fifteen years and a lot of that
00:18:51.607 --> 00:18:55.229
is in north america so he's at during
00:18:55.269 --> 00:18:57.068
the french and indian or the seven years
00:18:57.128 --> 00:19:00.029
war uh he's at the siege of louisbourg
00:19:00.942 --> 00:19:03.804
He's at the capture of Ticonderoga in the
00:19:03.983 --> 00:19:07.126
fall of Montreal in seventeen sixty.
00:19:08.227 --> 00:19:11.349
A really important event seemingly is he
00:19:11.390 --> 00:19:13.730
participates in the suppression of
00:19:14.011 --> 00:19:15.512
Pontiac's uprising.
00:19:15.553 --> 00:19:16.032
Right.
00:19:16.153 --> 00:19:18.595
And he travels as far west as Detroit.
00:19:18.634 --> 00:19:22.198
So he sees very large portions of North
00:19:22.238 --> 00:19:22.938
America.
00:19:23.419 --> 00:19:25.660
He also meets the Livingstons and many
00:19:25.740 --> 00:19:26.101
other people.
00:19:26.856 --> 00:19:31.298
people and seems to very much fall in
00:19:31.378 --> 00:19:37.823
love with the simplicity of rural American
00:19:37.863 --> 00:19:38.103
life.
00:19:38.143 --> 00:19:38.242
Now,
00:19:38.282 --> 00:19:40.044
he's not going to be chopping down trees
00:19:40.104 --> 00:19:41.625
and pushing a plow,
00:19:41.664 --> 00:19:44.145
but the idea of being a land holder
00:19:44.246 --> 00:19:45.267
and, you know,
00:19:46.574 --> 00:19:48.875
He talks a couple of times about the
00:19:48.935 --> 00:19:50.896
scenic beauty of, well,
00:19:50.936 --> 00:19:52.659
in one case he's talking about Northern
00:19:52.719 --> 00:19:53.038
Britain,
00:19:53.058 --> 00:19:56.602
but he likes the outdoors and things like
00:19:56.642 --> 00:19:56.902
that.
00:19:56.922 --> 00:19:56.981
Yes.
00:19:57.082 --> 00:19:57.521
Yeah.
00:19:59.884 --> 00:20:02.066
And so seeing by the end of the
00:20:02.105 --> 00:20:04.607
seventeen sixties that he's not going to
00:20:04.667 --> 00:20:06.348
advance in the British army.
00:20:06.368 --> 00:20:07.269
Yeah.
00:20:07.609 --> 00:20:07.990
Yeah.
00:20:08.049 --> 00:20:09.771
So he goes back to England after the
00:20:09.811 --> 00:20:12.453
seven years war and he's in the army.
00:20:12.554 --> 00:20:13.634
He's still an officer, but
00:20:14.234 --> 00:20:16.375
Britain cuts back the size of its army
00:20:16.435 --> 00:20:18.636
dramatically after the Seven Years' War.
00:20:18.676 --> 00:20:22.097
I think it goes from something like sixty
00:20:22.137 --> 00:20:23.898
seven thousand to forty five thousand.
00:20:24.098 --> 00:20:25.839
They cut the officer corps by fifty
00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:26.240
percent.
00:20:28.540 --> 00:20:30.162
And he can't get promoted.
00:20:30.842 --> 00:20:32.382
Yeah, it's a it's a purchase system.
00:20:32.422 --> 00:20:33.282
It's not just.
00:20:34.157 --> 00:20:35.557
being experienced,
00:20:35.577 --> 00:20:36.739
but you have to have connections,
00:20:36.759 --> 00:20:37.778
you also have money.
00:20:37.838 --> 00:20:39.759
And he's got experience and money,
00:20:40.220 --> 00:20:41.559
but in his mind,
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:42.921
he doesn't have connections.
00:20:43.681 --> 00:20:46.501
And after being passed over multiple
00:20:46.541 --> 00:20:49.762
times, he sells his commission.
00:20:50.462 --> 00:20:53.423
And one of the early sources I found
00:20:53.463 --> 00:20:56.224
about him is somewhere in the
00:20:59.365 --> 00:21:00.307
early source of him,
00:21:00.689 --> 00:21:02.811
somebody publishes this letter he writes
00:21:02.852 --> 00:21:03.673
to a cousin.
00:21:04.255 --> 00:21:05.777
And that's where he says, you know,
00:21:05.836 --> 00:21:07.440
I keep getting passed over.
00:21:08.260 --> 00:21:09.482
And he says, um,
00:21:12.458 --> 00:21:14.279
Somebody like me doesn't stand a chance in
00:21:14.359 --> 00:21:16.080
a country of peers and nabobs.
00:21:16.101 --> 00:21:18.202
That's the word he uses.
00:21:18.262 --> 00:21:20.265
And I'm going to cast my eyes on
00:21:20.345 --> 00:21:21.046
America,
00:21:21.125 --> 00:21:24.028
where my poverty will be much more at
00:21:24.067 --> 00:21:24.388
its ease.
00:21:24.409 --> 00:21:24.548
Now,
00:21:24.588 --> 00:21:26.770
he's not poor by any stretch of the
00:21:26.810 --> 00:21:27.671
imagination,
00:21:27.730 --> 00:21:31.615
but by British aristocracy standards,
00:21:31.654 --> 00:21:32.435
he certainly is.
00:21:32.455 --> 00:21:34.096
And he's Irish to boot.
00:21:34.116 --> 00:21:36.278
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:36.298 --> 00:21:38.020
An Irish Unitarian to boot.
00:21:39.300 --> 00:21:40.162
Yeah, not great.
00:21:40.241 --> 00:21:41.163
Not great.
00:21:41.222 --> 00:21:41.502
Yeah.
00:21:41.863 --> 00:21:42.844
Yeah.
00:21:42.884 --> 00:21:45.066
So the commission is actually worth quite
00:21:45.086 --> 00:21:46.106
a bit when he sells it.
00:21:46.567 --> 00:21:47.067
It is.
00:21:47.188 --> 00:21:47.628
It is.
00:21:47.689 --> 00:21:49.611
The captain's commission is fifteen
00:21:49.651 --> 00:21:50.731
hundred pounds sterling.
00:21:50.771 --> 00:21:51.952
That's that's a lot of money.
00:21:52.292 --> 00:21:52.673
That is.
00:21:52.733 --> 00:21:53.153
Yeah.
00:21:53.374 --> 00:21:53.734
Yeah.
00:21:53.815 --> 00:21:54.935
And I don't have any idea what that
00:21:54.955 --> 00:21:56.497
would translate to.
00:21:56.537 --> 00:21:58.038
But that's it's a lot of money.
00:21:59.140 --> 00:21:59.440
That is,
00:21:59.460 --> 00:22:01.761
and that helps him set up then by
00:22:01.801 --> 00:22:03.823
the farm at King's Bridge,
00:22:03.863 --> 00:22:05.825
and also the equipment he comes with,
00:22:05.845 --> 00:22:08.366
all kinds of scientific apparatus.
00:22:09.847 --> 00:22:10.107
Yeah.
00:22:10.147 --> 00:22:12.470
It's very interesting you bring that up.
00:22:12.490 --> 00:22:15.071
That's one of the fun things actually when
00:22:15.092 --> 00:22:16.753
you find a trove of letters.
00:22:16.773 --> 00:22:17.974
There's the actual letters,
00:22:17.994 --> 00:22:19.655
but there's all these little odds and ends
00:22:19.695 --> 00:22:22.258
in there that it's easy enough to skip
00:22:22.357 --> 00:22:23.219
over, and if you did,
00:22:23.259 --> 00:22:24.960
it probably wouldn't change the world any.
00:22:25.461 --> 00:22:28.042
But I found receipts for books he bought,
00:22:28.222 --> 00:22:29.986
and scientific equipment.
00:22:30.006 --> 00:22:31.047
And you get, oh, you know,
00:22:31.067 --> 00:22:32.548
you begin to have a sense of who
00:22:32.588 --> 00:22:33.830
this person was.
00:22:34.371 --> 00:22:36.173
He bought a microscope and he bought a
00:22:36.233 --> 00:22:38.797
telescope and he bought books about
00:22:38.856 --> 00:22:40.358
chemistry and things like that.
00:22:40.378 --> 00:22:41.240
And it's like, gee, that's,
00:22:42.682 --> 00:22:45.343
You know, that's kind of interesting.
00:22:45.403 --> 00:22:48.184
Tell something about his points of view
00:22:48.244 --> 00:22:49.125
and his interests.
00:22:49.705 --> 00:22:51.326
And he bought a dictionary of chemistry so
00:22:51.346 --> 00:22:52.727
he could understand what the terms were.
00:22:53.047 --> 00:22:55.288
Yeah, which is very interesting, too.
00:22:56.009 --> 00:22:58.690
And one of his sister-in-laws,
00:22:58.829 --> 00:23:00.290
well after he's dead,
00:23:00.330 --> 00:23:02.672
and maybe she's embellishing because she's
00:23:02.711 --> 00:23:04.093
fondly remembering this.
00:23:04.853 --> 00:23:06.773
brother-in-law who was tragically killed
00:23:06.794 --> 00:23:09.375
but said he used to set up scientific
00:23:09.415 --> 00:23:12.298
equipment for us to look at so we
00:23:12.337 --> 00:23:14.279
would be exposed to things like that.
00:23:14.500 --> 00:23:16.801
That's kind of a commendable thing.
00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:20.800
And Janet Livingston is interesting
00:23:20.820 --> 00:23:22.320
because she had had a number of suitors
00:23:22.361 --> 00:23:23.401
that didn't work out.
00:23:23.461 --> 00:23:25.602
Some after the Livingston money and one
00:23:25.642 --> 00:23:28.403
who dies at sea.
00:23:28.903 --> 00:23:31.202
So she's not as young,
00:23:31.443 --> 00:23:33.983
not the average marriageable bride.
00:23:34.044 --> 00:23:36.565
He had met her maybe the first time
00:23:36.585 --> 00:23:37.704
in the seventeen sixties.
00:23:37.744 --> 00:23:40.125
And then later when he comes back.
00:23:40.486 --> 00:23:41.066
Yeah.
00:23:41.306 --> 00:23:41.665
Yeah.
00:23:41.885 --> 00:23:44.247
She's, I believe, almost thirty.
00:23:44.366 --> 00:23:45.707
I think she's somewhere in that
00:23:45.747 --> 00:23:47.667
neighborhood and he's about thirty four.
00:23:52.813 --> 00:23:56.013
It's interesting when they're on their way
00:23:57.115 --> 00:23:58.255
against Pontiac,
00:23:58.295 --> 00:24:00.455
his ship runs aground in the mid Hudson
00:24:01.056 --> 00:24:02.757
and it's opposite Claremont,
00:24:02.777 --> 00:24:05.458
which is one of the Livingston homes and
00:24:05.498 --> 00:24:07.378
the Livingston family invites the officer
00:24:07.398 --> 00:24:08.778
to shore and he meets this woman.
00:24:09.319 --> 00:24:10.960
He writes nothing about this or at least
00:24:11.500 --> 00:24:12.941
nothing that has survived.
00:24:13.800 --> 00:24:16.623
But she will later write a memoir
00:24:17.603 --> 00:24:19.044
And once again, it's after the fact.
00:24:19.064 --> 00:24:20.845
And some people say she's sentimentalizing
00:24:20.865 --> 00:24:21.144
it.
00:24:21.164 --> 00:24:21.704
Who knows?
00:24:21.765 --> 00:24:25.066
But she says when his regiment returns,
00:24:25.105 --> 00:24:26.807
she noticed he's not there.
00:24:26.866 --> 00:24:29.428
And that's because he was sent back as
00:24:29.468 --> 00:24:32.670
a courier and given a leave of absence.
00:24:32.690 --> 00:24:34.471
So he's not with his regiment when they
00:24:34.510 --> 00:24:35.030
come back.
00:24:35.700 --> 00:24:37.942
But when he comes back to America,
00:24:37.962 --> 00:24:40.446
they remeet and they marry very quickly.
00:24:40.487 --> 00:24:44.352
He gets he arrives in America in fall
00:24:44.392 --> 00:24:46.976
of seventy two and they're married by May
00:24:47.016 --> 00:24:48.018
of seventy three.
00:24:48.097 --> 00:24:50.221
So they marry very, very quickly.
00:24:52.789 --> 00:24:53.770
And they don't have children.
00:24:54.010 --> 00:24:54.811
They do not.
00:24:55.031 --> 00:24:55.852
They do not.
00:24:55.872 --> 00:24:58.294
And yeah,
00:24:58.314 --> 00:25:02.496
he she writes something to the effect of,
00:25:02.536 --> 00:25:03.936
boy, I wish we had children.
00:25:03.977 --> 00:25:05.357
And he supposedly says,
00:25:05.738 --> 00:25:07.138
but what if he's a fool?
00:25:07.459 --> 00:25:10.340
You know,
00:25:10.361 --> 00:25:13.241
I don't know if that's really it's hard
00:25:13.281 --> 00:25:15.683
to say, but they do not have children.
00:25:16.223 --> 00:25:17.565
No, no.
00:25:17.684 --> 00:25:19.766
And then she is really responsible for
00:25:20.246 --> 00:25:23.106
bringing his body back in after the War
00:25:23.146 --> 00:25:24.467
of eighteen twelve.
00:25:24.527 --> 00:25:25.488
She is.
00:25:26.248 --> 00:25:27.909
She never remarries.
00:25:28.209 --> 00:25:31.289
And supposedly she wears mourning attire
00:25:31.329 --> 00:25:32.431
for the rest of her life.
00:25:32.490 --> 00:25:36.731
So she's widowed at age about thirty three
00:25:37.173 --> 00:25:38.373
and she dies.
00:25:39.554 --> 00:25:41.714
In her late seventies or early eighties,
00:25:42.075 --> 00:25:44.536
it's eighteen twenty something.
00:25:44.596 --> 00:25:44.655
Wow.
00:25:45.702 --> 00:25:50.326
And she apparently had tried to get his
00:25:50.566 --> 00:25:52.067
body back earlier,
00:25:52.126 --> 00:25:54.627
but post War of eighteen twelve,
00:25:54.647 --> 00:25:57.910
American Britain sort of learned to get
00:25:57.950 --> 00:25:59.171
along with each other.
00:25:59.611 --> 00:26:03.853
And the governor of Canada's personal
00:26:03.932 --> 00:26:06.134
secretary is a Livingston.
00:26:06.194 --> 00:26:09.856
So it's like a distant cousin of some.
00:26:10.596 --> 00:26:11.877
And that's what
00:26:12.932 --> 00:26:15.512
is enough plus the kind of the thawing
00:26:15.752 --> 00:26:19.855
of relations between them to get his body
00:26:20.415 --> 00:26:23.297
returned from Quebec to New York City.
00:26:23.917 --> 00:26:26.618
And it's really quite a series of events.
00:26:26.659 --> 00:26:26.818
I mean,
00:26:26.838 --> 00:26:29.701
it's July fourth when his body reaches
00:26:29.901 --> 00:26:32.701
Albany and then taken by steamboat down
00:26:32.741 --> 00:26:35.564
the Hudson to New York for reburial.
00:26:36.184 --> 00:26:36.645
Yeah,
00:26:36.665 --> 00:26:39.913
there's huge ceremonies in every town and
00:26:39.972 --> 00:26:40.535
village,
00:26:40.575 --> 00:26:42.558
and he's laid out and stayed in the
00:26:42.598 --> 00:26:43.961
coffin in Albany.
00:26:47.314 --> 00:26:49.214
The farther they get down the Hudson,
00:26:49.255 --> 00:26:50.974
the bigger the crowds are and the bigger
00:26:51.015 --> 00:26:51.934
the ceremonies.
00:26:52.174 --> 00:26:54.955
And by the time he's reburied,
00:26:54.996 --> 00:26:56.596
which is July eighth,
00:26:57.615 --> 00:27:00.076
New York City closes down for a morning
00:27:00.116 --> 00:27:02.196
and there's over five thousand marchers in
00:27:02.237 --> 00:27:02.977
the funeral.
00:27:03.237 --> 00:27:04.757
One's the vice president.
00:27:04.896 --> 00:27:06.298
There's members of Congress.
00:27:06.317 --> 00:27:09.357
This is a very big event.
00:27:09.498 --> 00:27:11.179
And the thing that struck me,
00:27:11.219 --> 00:27:12.638
and I put this in the introduction,
00:27:14.564 --> 00:27:16.325
He's been dead for forty-three years at
00:27:16.365 --> 00:27:16.884
this point.
00:27:19.006 --> 00:27:22.086
It's wild to me to think of anyone
00:27:22.126 --> 00:27:24.028
in the modern day who would be reburied
00:27:24.087 --> 00:27:27.890
forty-three years later and bring out that
00:27:28.049 --> 00:27:30.210
kind of emotion and response.
00:27:30.631 --> 00:27:30.990
Really.
00:27:31.530 --> 00:27:33.051
We're talking with Mike Gabriel,
00:27:33.112 --> 00:27:35.211
whose book is Major General Richard
00:27:35.251 --> 00:27:35.893
Montgomery,
00:27:35.932 --> 00:27:37.512
The Making of an American Hero.
00:27:39.846 --> 00:27:41.909
The Congress commissioned,
00:27:42.469 --> 00:27:43.830
shortly after his death,
00:27:43.990 --> 00:27:45.972
a monument that's the first one that
00:27:46.012 --> 00:27:49.496
Congress authorizes that's at St.
00:27:49.536 --> 00:27:50.896
Paul's Chapel in New York.
00:27:51.336 --> 00:27:52.577
Correct, correct.
00:27:52.699 --> 00:27:55.340
Word of Montgomery's death arrives in
00:27:55.381 --> 00:27:57.722
Philadelphia around January,
00:27:57.883 --> 00:28:00.766
and there's all these accounts.
00:28:01.506 --> 00:28:03.508
Congress and Philadelphia are just struck
00:28:03.548 --> 00:28:04.108
because
00:28:05.884 --> 00:28:08.186
Everyone was expecting success in Canada,
00:28:08.386 --> 00:28:09.887
and they certainly didn't expect him to be
00:28:09.928 --> 00:28:10.429
killed.
00:28:11.529 --> 00:28:14.711
And Congress debates,
00:28:14.832 --> 00:28:17.213
how would you memorialize somebody like
00:28:17.273 --> 00:28:17.575
him?
00:28:18.335 --> 00:28:19.715
And they ultimately decide,
00:28:19.776 --> 00:28:21.117
first time Congress does this,
00:28:21.137 --> 00:28:23.559
they authorize the creation of a monument,
00:28:23.579 --> 00:28:24.980
which is very interesting.
00:28:25.101 --> 00:28:25.381
Once again,
00:28:25.421 --> 00:28:27.242
this is pre-Declaration of Independence.
00:28:27.262 --> 00:28:31.405
This is February, seventeen seventy-six.
00:28:32.027 --> 00:28:34.469
Continental Congress authorizes money for
00:28:34.509 --> 00:28:34.788
this.
00:28:35.844 --> 00:28:40.707
And the monument itself, though,
00:28:40.928 --> 00:28:44.230
is going to be built in France,
00:28:44.390 --> 00:28:45.730
which creates some issues.
00:28:46.310 --> 00:28:47.991
And then you've got to get it back
00:28:48.031 --> 00:28:50.653
to the United States or what will become
00:28:50.673 --> 00:28:51.634
the United States.
00:28:51.673 --> 00:28:54.556
So the monument's not actually erected for
00:28:54.596 --> 00:28:56.136
another twenty some years.
00:28:56.356 --> 00:28:57.057
And it's at St.
00:28:57.077 --> 00:28:59.859
Paul's Chapel in New York City.
00:29:00.099 --> 00:29:00.359
And.
00:29:01.413 --> 00:29:03.714
The monument is put up and when he
00:29:03.796 --> 00:29:05.616
is returned from Quebec,
00:29:05.636 --> 00:29:07.198
they bury him at the base of the
00:29:07.258 --> 00:29:07.758
monument.
00:29:07.778 --> 00:29:10.140
But that wasn't the plan initially.
00:29:10.460 --> 00:29:14.182
It's how it sort of worked out.
00:29:14.241 --> 00:29:14.481
I mean,
00:29:14.863 --> 00:29:16.304
we could probably spend the rest of the
00:29:16.324 --> 00:29:17.824
day talking about other monuments.
00:29:17.845 --> 00:29:19.526
I'm thinking of the monument that
00:29:19.566 --> 00:29:22.067
Massachusetts commissions to George Howe
00:29:22.086 --> 00:29:23.827
that's at Westminster Avenue.
00:29:23.867 --> 00:29:24.568
Yeah, that's right.
00:29:26.473 --> 00:29:28.134
Jonathan's asking about a monument to
00:29:28.174 --> 00:29:29.316
General John Thomas,
00:29:29.355 --> 00:29:30.396
and I don't know if he knows of
00:29:30.576 --> 00:29:32.739
one or if he's goading us into...
00:29:33.578 --> 00:29:34.420
Is there one, Jonathan?
00:29:35.961 --> 00:29:37.642
Do you know?
00:29:37.662 --> 00:29:39.383
One of my favorite monuments is in Boston
00:29:39.403 --> 00:29:40.844
to the Chevalier Saint-Sauveur,
00:29:40.864 --> 00:29:43.205
who's a French officer who dies in Boston
00:29:44.126 --> 00:29:44.988
in the year of
00:29:49.291 --> 00:29:50.912
massachusetts as well yeah yeah
00:29:50.952 --> 00:29:53.192
massachusetts is really because he's the
00:29:53.212 --> 00:29:55.134
king's best friend and that's the reason
00:29:55.153 --> 00:29:56.834
he's here and now he gets killed by
00:29:56.874 --> 00:29:59.934
a boston mob and the story is then
00:29:59.994 --> 00:30:02.695
massachusetts is so remorseful they first
00:30:02.715 --> 00:30:04.355
they allow a catholic mass to be
00:30:04.476 --> 00:30:06.616
celebrated for him in king's chapel
00:30:07.366 --> 00:30:08.567
And which to Massachusetts,
00:30:08.587 --> 00:30:10.249
that is an extraordinary thing.
00:30:10.288 --> 00:30:12.371
Right, right, right, right.
00:30:12.471 --> 00:30:13.811
And then they also commissioned five
00:30:13.852 --> 00:30:15.834
thousand pounds to build this monument.
00:30:16.273 --> 00:30:18.234
And along about twenty,
00:30:18.335 --> 00:30:20.616
along about nineteen, fifteen or so,
00:30:20.636 --> 00:30:22.097
a guy in Paris reading about the
00:30:22.117 --> 00:30:23.298
revolution sees, oh,
00:30:23.419 --> 00:30:25.320
Massachusetts spent five thousand dollars
00:30:25.401 --> 00:30:26.382
pounds on a monument.
00:30:26.602 --> 00:30:27.563
This must be really great.
00:30:27.583 --> 00:30:28.803
He writes to a friend in Boston.
00:30:29.124 --> 00:30:29.564
When I come,
00:30:29.604 --> 00:30:30.924
you have to show me the monument to
00:30:30.944 --> 00:30:31.965
the Chevalier Saint-Sauveur.
00:30:32.105 --> 00:30:34.387
The friend says, yeah, you really should,
00:30:34.508 --> 00:30:35.268
because
00:30:36.128 --> 00:30:37.711
how likely is it the king's actually going
00:30:37.731 --> 00:30:39.193
to come and look at the monument?
00:30:39.233 --> 00:30:40.275
So we never actually built it.
00:30:40.635 --> 00:30:41.637
So very hurriedly,
00:30:41.837 --> 00:30:43.661
Mayor Curley had one put up and there
00:30:43.681 --> 00:30:43.901
it is.
00:30:43.921 --> 00:30:44.281
Really?
00:30:44.977 --> 00:30:46.057
Well, that's interesting.
00:30:46.397 --> 00:30:46.538
See,
00:30:46.597 --> 00:30:48.919
I was in contact with somebody within the
00:30:48.959 --> 00:30:50.760
last couple months after the Montgomery
00:30:50.780 --> 00:30:52.442
book out who's interested in David
00:30:52.481 --> 00:30:54.863
Wooster, who's actually with Montgomery.
00:30:55.182 --> 00:30:57.384
And apparently Congress authorized a
00:30:57.444 --> 00:30:58.484
monument for Wooster,
00:30:58.525 --> 00:30:59.546
but they never told me.
00:30:59.586 --> 00:31:01.247
But I never heard that before.
00:31:01.267 --> 00:31:03.228
That was news to me.
00:31:03.288 --> 00:31:05.490
So it'd be actually interesting to see how
00:31:05.529 --> 00:31:07.671
many monuments did Congress authorize and
00:31:07.711 --> 00:31:08.951
how many were actually...
00:31:09.739 --> 00:31:12.339
Bill, I never actually thought of that,
00:31:12.400 --> 00:31:14.020
but that might be an interesting one.
00:31:14.060 --> 00:31:15.921
Maybe you and I have a new project.
00:31:16.141 --> 00:31:16.861
Yeah, exactly.
00:31:17.321 --> 00:31:19.642
That could be an article into itself.
00:31:19.662 --> 00:31:19.863
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:23.104 --> 00:31:25.304
In your section based on Montgomery's
00:31:25.384 --> 00:31:26.845
memory, too, you have a lot of the,
00:31:27.825 --> 00:31:29.665
there's an article in the Smithsonian on
00:31:29.705 --> 00:31:31.487
the Canadian campaign that doesn't get
00:31:31.527 --> 00:31:33.547
around to mention Montgomery until seven
00:31:33.666 --> 00:31:35.627
pages into this nine-page article.
00:31:35.647 --> 00:31:35.748
Yeah.
00:31:35.847 --> 00:31:36.888
Yeah, you know,
00:31:36.909 --> 00:31:39.571
and that's actually what my whole take on
00:31:39.612 --> 00:31:41.134
this was after I got into this.
00:31:41.653 --> 00:31:43.596
He's a very significant person,
00:31:43.615 --> 00:31:45.597
but nobody has a clue who he is.
00:31:45.617 --> 00:31:48.340
And like I live in Pennsylvania,
00:31:48.520 --> 00:31:52.025
I live within half an hour of Montgomery
00:31:52.065 --> 00:31:52.424
County,
00:31:52.444 --> 00:31:52.945
but I would
00:31:53.958 --> 00:31:54.718
And hazard to guess,
00:31:54.758 --> 00:31:56.378
most people in Montgomery County have no
00:31:56.519 --> 00:31:58.878
idea who it's named after.
00:31:58.939 --> 00:32:01.619
And there's sixteen or eighteen states
00:32:01.660 --> 00:32:03.519
that have Montgomery counties,
00:32:03.539 --> 00:32:05.540
which is fairly striking as far as I
00:32:05.560 --> 00:32:08.020
think is Texas and maybe Mississippi.
00:32:08.582 --> 00:32:09.922
I can see the East Coast.
00:32:09.942 --> 00:32:11.961
I can see Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
00:32:12.001 --> 00:32:12.923
and places like that.
00:32:12.962 --> 00:32:15.143
But what about Montgomery, Alabama?
00:32:15.502 --> 00:32:16.743
It's named after him.
00:32:17.064 --> 00:32:17.523
It is.
00:32:17.743 --> 00:32:18.163
It is.
00:32:18.945 --> 00:32:23.028
And he becomes this great symbol of
00:32:23.208 --> 00:32:25.749
self-sacrifice and independence.
00:32:25.929 --> 00:32:28.230
And, you know,
00:32:28.309 --> 00:32:30.111
one of the really striking things to me,
00:32:30.131 --> 00:32:32.612
and I began to dig into this,
00:32:32.652 --> 00:32:35.292
but during the War of eighteen twelve,
00:32:35.353 --> 00:32:37.673
people invoked Montgomery as the Americans
00:32:37.713 --> 00:32:39.574
are thinking about trying to get Canada
00:32:39.673 --> 00:32:40.054
again.
00:32:40.855 --> 00:32:43.296
And Andrew Jackson, you know,
00:32:43.415 --> 00:32:45.696
Andrew Jackson in the eighteen twenties,
00:32:46.670 --> 00:32:49.393
write something about um if we don't honor
00:32:49.452 --> 00:32:51.954
people like montgomery we're like reneging
00:32:52.055 --> 00:32:54.497
on our responsibility to our heritage you
00:32:54.517 --> 00:32:56.818
know that's yeah that's a crazy statement
00:32:56.838 --> 00:33:00.201
for andrew jackson i know really yeah yeah
00:33:00.482 --> 00:33:01.584
yeah yeah i i remember thinking that
00:33:01.624 --> 00:33:03.746
jackson must have served under him i mean
00:33:03.806 --> 00:33:05.948
he felt so speak so passionately about
00:33:06.008 --> 00:33:07.189
remembering montgomery
00:33:09.425 --> 00:33:13.347
yeah the other thing that really struck me
00:33:13.387 --> 00:33:15.148
about like the monument you know it's
00:33:15.249 --> 00:33:19.490
interesting um i talked for one semester
00:33:19.530 --> 00:33:21.532
while i was working on my dissertation at
00:33:21.573 --> 00:33:24.993
gettysburg college and they had like a
00:33:25.054 --> 00:33:26.575
history club and they asked me to talk
00:33:26.595 --> 00:33:27.895
about them so i talked about it well
00:33:28.596 --> 00:33:30.777
a couple of years later a former student
00:33:30.817 --> 00:33:34.159
sends me something in the mail and he's
00:33:34.259 --> 00:33:34.880
reading
00:33:35.851 --> 00:33:38.392
The published diary of Gideon Wells or
00:33:38.451 --> 00:33:39.132
something, you know,
00:33:39.192 --> 00:33:41.232
Lincoln's Secretary of Navy.
00:33:41.333 --> 00:33:44.755
And in eighteen twenty five or something,
00:33:44.815 --> 00:33:47.155
Gideon Wells is like thirteen years old.
00:33:47.215 --> 00:33:48.576
I mean, I don't even remember the details,
00:33:48.596 --> 00:33:51.477
but he sees Montgomery's monument at St.
00:33:51.537 --> 00:33:54.058
Paul's and he writes in his diary
00:33:54.098 --> 00:33:54.919
something like.
00:33:56.624 --> 00:33:59.846
seeing this monument send a thrill through
00:33:59.885 --> 00:34:00.625
my body.
00:34:00.665 --> 00:34:03.047
And I thought about the sacrifice this
00:34:03.086 --> 00:34:04.107
hero had made for us.
00:34:04.127 --> 00:34:05.828
And I thought like, holy smokes,
00:34:05.929 --> 00:34:08.630
like that's an amazing thing for a
00:34:08.690 --> 00:34:10.590
thirteen or a fourteen year old to write
00:34:10.951 --> 00:34:12.152
about seeing a monument,
00:34:12.172 --> 00:34:14.432
which gives you an idea what Montgomery's
00:34:14.592 --> 00:34:15.673
image must have been.
00:34:15.693 --> 00:34:17.153
Yeah.
00:34:17.173 --> 00:34:19.675
Also makes us think about monuments and
00:34:19.715 --> 00:34:22.297
what the purpose of them is to inspire
00:34:22.416 --> 00:34:22.876
this.
00:34:23.336 --> 00:34:23.416
Yeah.
00:34:23.436 --> 00:34:23.557
Yeah.
00:34:23.597 --> 00:34:24.478
Very definitely.
00:34:24.538 --> 00:34:25.719
Very definitely.
00:34:25.878 --> 00:34:26.139
Yeah.
00:34:26.219 --> 00:34:26.318
Yeah.
00:34:27.429 --> 00:34:28.789
And he does have, I mean,
00:34:28.869 --> 00:34:30.130
these characteristics.
00:34:30.170 --> 00:34:30.630
As you said,
00:34:30.891 --> 00:34:33.172
his writing isn't as well known as someone
00:34:33.211 --> 00:34:33.351
like,
00:34:33.851 --> 00:34:35.253
someone like Washington of course has a
00:34:35.313 --> 00:34:37.293
political career after the war.
00:34:39.634 --> 00:34:42.755
And so making him into an American hero
00:34:42.996 --> 00:34:43.155
is,
00:34:43.789 --> 00:34:45.730
It's really an interesting project that
00:34:45.791 --> 00:34:48.132
happens at the time because he is the
00:34:48.211 --> 00:34:49.373
highest ranking officer,
00:34:49.432 --> 00:34:51.213
American officer to die in the war.
00:34:51.514 --> 00:34:52.114
He is.
00:34:52.275 --> 00:34:52.856
He is.
00:34:53.215 --> 00:34:53.876
It's interesting.
00:34:54.137 --> 00:34:56.438
He's made a major general on December
00:34:56.498 --> 00:34:59.119
ninth and he's he actually never finds
00:34:59.300 --> 00:34:59.541
out.
00:34:59.880 --> 00:35:02.362
Well, he's killed before that happens.
00:35:02.842 --> 00:35:04.985
You know, very interesting.
00:35:05.085 --> 00:35:06.786
And I always thought this could be a
00:35:06.865 --> 00:35:07.827
mini article, too.
00:35:07.927 --> 00:35:09.447
On the day he's killed,
00:35:09.507 --> 00:35:10.668
December thirty first.
00:35:13.134 --> 00:35:15.114
Philip Schuyler writes him a letter.
00:35:15.335 --> 00:35:16.596
Philip Schuyler is in Albany.
00:35:16.635 --> 00:35:18.217
Montgomery is literally being killed in
00:35:18.257 --> 00:35:18.677
Quebec.
00:35:18.737 --> 00:35:20.318
And Schuyler writes,
00:35:21.619 --> 00:35:23.380
there's a rumor that you've been killed
00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:25.260
and the army has been trounced.
00:35:25.880 --> 00:35:27.342
I hope that's not true.
00:35:28.222 --> 00:35:29.903
And he says, by the way, he says,
00:35:29.963 --> 00:35:31.885
I just found out Congress has made you
00:35:31.905 --> 00:35:32.804
a major general.
00:35:32.844 --> 00:35:33.905
Congratulations.
00:35:33.945 --> 00:35:35.327
Well, you know,
00:35:35.907 --> 00:35:39.548
obviously Montgomery is not going to know
00:35:39.588 --> 00:35:39.869
that.
00:35:39.889 --> 00:35:40.929
No, no, no.
00:35:41.876 --> 00:35:43.438
And then Carlton wants him buried with
00:35:43.498 --> 00:35:44.398
military honors.
00:35:44.798 --> 00:35:45.460
He does.
00:35:45.519 --> 00:35:45.900
He does.
00:35:45.940 --> 00:35:47.101
And they actually do.
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:49.101
Carlton thinks it should be a bigger
00:35:49.161 --> 00:35:49.882
ceremony.
00:35:49.943 --> 00:35:52.905
But it's interesting to me, too,
00:35:53.846 --> 00:35:56.427
how they dug a grave for Montgomery and
00:35:56.467 --> 00:35:58.769
his aides in early January,
00:35:58.789 --> 00:35:59.630
because by all accounts,
00:35:59.650 --> 00:36:02.472
there's tons of snow and bitter,
00:36:02.552 --> 00:36:03.693
really bitter cold.
00:36:03.733 --> 00:36:04.393
But they do it.
00:36:04.554 --> 00:36:07.556
And he resides there till eighteen
00:36:07.615 --> 00:36:08.056
eighteen.
00:36:08.097 --> 00:36:10.938
So he's there for forty three years.
00:36:10.998 --> 00:36:11.259
Yes.
00:36:12.057 --> 00:36:13.579
And then one of the officers who had
00:36:13.699 --> 00:36:15.659
overseen that is still there in eighteen
00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:18.599
eighteen to identify where they know
00:36:18.619 --> 00:36:21.400
exactly where it is and where which body
00:36:21.460 --> 00:36:22.981
is his because there's three bodies
00:36:23.021 --> 00:36:23.402
buried.
00:36:23.422 --> 00:36:24.503
That's exactly right.
00:36:24.702 --> 00:36:28.923
And the lieutenant governor of Canada pays
00:36:28.943 --> 00:36:31.585
for the the coffin.
00:36:31.625 --> 00:36:34.246
He's another Irishman who probably knew
00:36:34.326 --> 00:36:35.666
Montgomery, you know.
00:36:35.686 --> 00:36:35.766
Yeah.
00:36:37.708 --> 00:36:38.831
Do you think, Mike,
00:36:38.871 --> 00:36:41.172
that the Canadian campaign could have
00:36:41.233 --> 00:36:43.474
succeeded had Montgomery lived?
00:36:43.574 --> 00:36:45.677
Or do you think it was a hopeless
00:36:45.777 --> 00:36:46.117
choice?
00:36:46.157 --> 00:36:49.561
You know, that's a very good question.
00:36:50.061 --> 00:36:51.702
I think they probably could have taken
00:36:51.742 --> 00:36:54.045
Quebec eventually.
00:36:55.733 --> 00:36:57.735
Britain just sends so many troops.
00:36:57.755 --> 00:36:59.516
They send twelve thousand troops there in
00:36:59.536 --> 00:37:00.016
the summer.
00:37:00.396 --> 00:37:02.456
I really think the Americans would have
00:37:02.476 --> 00:37:04.878
had a very difficult time holding Quebec.
00:37:04.938 --> 00:37:05.659
Yeah.
00:37:05.739 --> 00:37:07.780
The only thing that might have saved them
00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:10.460
is I think had they taken Quebec City,
00:37:10.501 --> 00:37:13.143
the French Canadians would have fully
00:37:13.202 --> 00:37:14.744
embraced their cause.
00:37:15.284 --> 00:37:16.684
There probably wouldn't have been the same
00:37:16.744 --> 00:37:18.505
problems they had with supplies.
00:37:18.525 --> 00:37:19.786
They probably would have had way more
00:37:19.846 --> 00:37:21.387
soldiers, you know.
00:37:22.519 --> 00:37:23.420
It's a great what if.
00:37:23.621 --> 00:37:26.282
I think without Quebec, though,
00:37:26.342 --> 00:37:27.902
they don't have a prayer.
00:37:29.503 --> 00:37:30.842
If Quebec falls, though,
00:37:30.882 --> 00:37:32.003
it is interesting.
00:37:32.403 --> 00:37:33.264
Like Montgomery,
00:37:33.344 --> 00:37:34.505
one of the things he's supposed to do
00:37:34.545 --> 00:37:36.985
in addition to fight the war and reenlist
00:37:37.025 --> 00:37:38.525
troops is he's supposed to get them to
00:37:38.626 --> 00:37:40.567
organize a convention to pick delegates to
00:37:40.606 --> 00:37:42.387
Congress.
00:37:43.168 --> 00:37:45.989
Would Canada have sent delegates to the
00:37:46.028 --> 00:37:48.369
Continental Congress is a very interesting
00:37:48.409 --> 00:37:48.989
question.
00:37:50.050 --> 00:37:52.271
um if you actually read the articles of
00:37:52.331 --> 00:37:56.856
confederation which are written in the
00:37:56.916 --> 00:38:01.201
articles very clearly say canada can join
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:03.802
the united states whenever it wants to
00:38:04.963 --> 00:38:07.525
All other places have to be voted on.
00:38:07.606 --> 00:38:08.226
So it's interesting.
00:38:08.246 --> 00:38:10.606
Like if Jamaica wants to become part of
00:38:10.626 --> 00:38:11.166
the United States,
00:38:11.186 --> 00:38:12.427
we have to vote on the Jamaicans.
00:38:12.507 --> 00:38:13.789
Or Florida.
00:38:14.329 --> 00:38:14.668
Right, yeah.
00:38:14.869 --> 00:38:17.670
But Canada can join whenever they want,
00:38:18.090 --> 00:38:20.791
which very much shows the Americans very
00:38:20.831 --> 00:38:24.853
much want Canada in this confederation.
00:38:24.873 --> 00:38:25.675
Right.
00:38:25.755 --> 00:38:27.215
And then after Montgomery's death,
00:38:27.255 --> 00:38:29.317
Congress does actually send a delegation
00:38:29.336 --> 00:38:31.237
to Canada that includes the Carols and
00:38:31.297 --> 00:38:32.358
Benjamin Franklin.
00:38:32.378 --> 00:38:32.657
Mm-hmm.
00:38:32.878 --> 00:38:33.458
Yeah.
00:38:34.278 --> 00:38:36.320
Yeah, and what ultimately happens,
00:38:36.340 --> 00:38:38.601
and this is beyond the scope of the
00:38:38.661 --> 00:38:38.880
book,
00:38:38.940 --> 00:38:42.302
but Congress sends enormous numbers of
00:38:42.342 --> 00:38:43.402
troops to Canada,
00:38:43.902 --> 00:38:46.302
but there's a massive smallpox outbreak,
00:38:46.322 --> 00:38:49.704
and that just undermines everything,
00:38:49.724 --> 00:38:51.184
and they don't have enough money,
00:38:51.625 --> 00:38:52.804
and they don't have enough supplies,
00:38:52.844 --> 00:38:53.726
and at some point,
00:38:54.206 --> 00:38:56.246
they begin to requisition food from the
00:38:56.286 --> 00:38:58.126
Canadians and give them paper script,
00:38:58.726 --> 00:39:00.248
and they alienate
00:39:01.097 --> 00:39:03.501
a lot of the population who maybe would
00:39:03.541 --> 00:39:06.885
have at least been neutral or supportive,
00:39:06.945 --> 00:39:09.389
you know, and it just unwinds.
00:39:09.769 --> 00:39:10.391
It really does.
00:39:10.550 --> 00:39:10.891
Yeah.
00:39:10.971 --> 00:39:13.454
Very, very rapidly and kind of tragically.
00:39:14.139 --> 00:39:14.798
Yeah.
00:39:14.818 --> 00:39:16.079
And also trying to keep the native
00:39:16.099 --> 00:39:17.800
Americans neutral in this.
00:39:17.880 --> 00:39:18.099
Yes.
00:39:18.980 --> 00:39:19.541
Yeah.
00:39:20.661 --> 00:39:22.221
You know, it's interesting.
00:39:22.521 --> 00:39:26.242
I found a quote way after the fact,
00:39:26.302 --> 00:39:27.202
but, um,
00:39:27.322 --> 00:39:30.103
in may the American position in Canada
00:39:30.143 --> 00:39:31.923
begins to deteriorate almost immediately.
00:39:32.003 --> 00:39:34.045
And it ultimately collapses in may of
00:39:34.085 --> 00:39:36.646
seventy six with smallpox and British
00:39:36.686 --> 00:39:38.085
reinforcements and, uh,
00:39:38.990 --> 00:39:42.014
As the Americans are evacuating Montreal,
00:39:42.695 --> 00:39:44.697
Benedict Arnold writes something to the
00:39:44.737 --> 00:39:47.760
effect of, I'm chagrined.
00:39:47.780 --> 00:39:49.181
That's the word he uses.
00:39:50.163 --> 00:39:52.784
We've lost everything in a month that the
00:39:52.824 --> 00:39:56.409
immortal Montgomery spent a whole season
00:39:56.528 --> 00:39:57.409
gaining for us.
00:39:58.251 --> 00:39:59.592
It's interesting he calls him the immortal
00:39:59.632 --> 00:40:00.253
Montgomery.
00:40:00.887 --> 00:40:01.849
Right.
00:40:01.929 --> 00:40:02.590
Yeah.
00:40:02.610 --> 00:40:02.750
Yeah.
00:40:02.809 --> 00:40:03.130
It's amazing.
00:40:03.650 --> 00:40:03.990
Yeah.
00:40:04.510 --> 00:40:06.213
We've been talking with Michael P.
00:40:06.253 --> 00:40:06.753
Gabriel,
00:40:06.793 --> 00:40:08.914
who is the author of Major General Richard
00:40:08.954 --> 00:40:09.476
Montgomery,
00:40:09.496 --> 00:40:10.777
The Making of an American Hero.
00:40:10.817 --> 00:40:11.998
I know we could probably go on all
00:40:12.018 --> 00:40:13.639
day talking about Montgomery and other
00:40:13.679 --> 00:40:14.059
things.
00:40:15.300 --> 00:40:16.963
So thank you so much for joining us,
00:40:17.023 --> 00:40:17.202
Mike.
00:40:17.608 --> 00:40:19.329
Yeah, I very much appreciated this.
00:40:19.429 --> 00:40:20.268
I had a lot of fun.
00:40:20.309 --> 00:40:21.730
Thank you so much for inviting me.
00:40:22.070 --> 00:40:22.670
Well, thank you.
00:40:22.730 --> 00:40:24.811
And I look forward to talking to you
00:40:24.831 --> 00:40:25.130
again.
00:40:25.150 --> 00:40:26.472
You've also written about the Battle of
00:40:26.512 --> 00:40:28.733
Bennington and another book you've edited
00:40:28.773 --> 00:40:30.132
on the Canadian campaign,
00:40:30.193 --> 00:40:31.753
actually told from the perspective of
00:40:32.153 --> 00:40:33.835
three of the habitants,
00:40:33.875 --> 00:40:35.835
I guess they're the Canadians.
00:40:35.896 --> 00:40:36.335
Correct.
00:40:36.356 --> 00:40:38.317
So it's the Canadian view of what was
00:40:38.356 --> 00:40:38.737
happening.
00:40:39.436 --> 00:40:39.737
Yeah.
00:40:39.956 --> 00:40:42.898
Really a great story that I don't think
00:40:42.938 --> 00:40:44.358
we know enough about.
00:40:44.539 --> 00:40:46.099
So thank you for writing about it.
00:40:46.420 --> 00:40:47.360
Thank you very much.
00:40:47.400 --> 00:40:47.782
Thank you.
00:40:47.842 --> 00:40:49.322
I look forward to speaking again.
00:40:50.284 --> 00:40:50.425
Good.
00:40:50.485 --> 00:40:51.606
I want to thank you.
00:40:51.626 --> 00:40:53.007
And thanks to Jonathan Lane,
00:40:53.047 --> 00:40:54.228
the man behind the curtain.
00:40:54.708 --> 00:40:55.469
And every week, Mike,
00:40:55.489 --> 00:40:57.572
we thank folks who are regular listeners.
00:40:57.612 --> 00:40:59.213
And if you're in one of these places
00:40:59.233 --> 00:41:01.516
and want some Revolution two fifty swag,
00:41:02.177 --> 00:41:03.358
send Jonathan an email.
00:41:03.398 --> 00:41:05.701
Jay Lane at Revolution two five zero dot
00:41:05.800 --> 00:41:05.960
org.
00:41:06.802 --> 00:41:07.483
And this week,
00:41:07.543 --> 00:41:09.003
I want to thank our listeners in
00:41:09.083 --> 00:41:11.686
Middletown, Ohio, here in Massachusetts,
00:41:11.706 --> 00:41:14.128
in Waltham and Dedham, in Vestal,
00:41:14.248 --> 00:41:16.231
Brooklyn, Queens, and Locust Valley,
00:41:16.271 --> 00:41:18.251
New York, Ho Chi Minh City,
00:41:18.373 --> 00:41:20.333
Pringy and Upper Savoy, Hanover,
00:41:20.373 --> 00:41:22.396
New Hampshire, Charlotte, North Carolina,
00:41:22.836 --> 00:41:24.498
and all places between and beyond.
00:41:24.538 --> 00:41:25.418
Thanks for joining us.
00:41:25.458 --> 00:41:27.119
Now we will be piped out on the
00:41:27.159 --> 00:41:27.820
road to Boston.