Acting on intelligence that the Provincial militia had cannon in a Salem blacksmith shop, Beneral Thomas Gage sent Lt. Colonel Alexander Leslie and the 64th Regiment of Foot to Marblehead and then to Salem to find the weapons. We talk with Charlie Newhall and Jonathan Streff about this expedition, known as "Leslie's Retreat," which is re-enacted in Salem every February.  Leslie did not get the cannon, but he and the people of Salem avoided war.  

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The Boston Town Watch kept order on the streets of Boston, particularly at night. When soldiers of the Crown arrived in 1768 their overlapping authorities came into conflict, which deepened as Crown and colony careened towards war.  We talk with Nicole Breault of the University of Texas, El Paso, who is writing a book on the Boston Town Watch.

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Few things shocked American patriots as the betrayal of General Benedict Arnold.  After attempting to surrender West Point to the British, Arnold led a series of raids, first in Virginia, and then in his native state of Connecticut.  Matthew E. Reardon has written a new account of Arnold's raid on New London and attack on Fort Griswold,  The Traitor's Homecoming; Benedict Arnold's Raid on New London September 4-13,  1781.

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The first engagement against the Crown forces that involved soldiers from multiple provinces operating under a unified command.  The first use of field artillery by the Provincial forces. The destruction of the HMS Diana, whose mainmast was to be used to hoist the "Grand Union Flag" atop Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776.  Few engagements can boast so much, and yet the engagement that has become known locally as "The Battle of Chelsea Creek" has all of those stories and so much more.  We talk with local author, journalist and historian Jeff Pearlman about the engagement on Noddle's and Hog Islands and the loss of the HMS Diana on the 27th of May 1775.

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Few men were as highly esteemed and just a decade later despised beyond measure as Timothy Ruggles.  Ruggles was a hero of the French & Indian War, a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress from Massachusetts, a land owner, legislator and  community leader who had a large and prosperous family.  His daughter Bathsheba married a Boston man, Joshua Spooner, and their marriage was once described as "inharmonious." Imagine then the country gossip when Joshua was found in March 1778 beaten and murdered and stuffed into his own well, and that two British prisoners of war and a young man from Topsfield were found in possession of his personal property.  Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Andrew Noone, author of ‘Bathsheba Spooner, A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy.'

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Founded in 1923 through the gift of  William Lawrence Clements, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan is a fount of historical manuscripts, maps and rare books, particularly on the American Revolution.  Their collections include the papers of General Thomas Gage, and General Henry Clinton, two of the leading British military leaders during the American Revolution, as well as Lord George Germain, a cabinet minister and Hessian General von Jungkenn.  The Clements library is currently engaged digitizing the Gage and Clinton papers, making these resources available to scholars world-wide, and an exhibit on April 19, 1775, which will open on April 18, 2025.  We talk with Paul J. Erickson, the Randolph G. Adams Director of the Clements Library, and Cheney Schopieray, Curator of Manuscripts, about the treasures the Clements hold, how scholars and students can access them, and what are their favorite things (today) in this tremendous archive. 

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We are now deep into the Semiquincentennial commemoration of the events that led to American Independence.  2025 represents a watershed year as we commemorate the Battles of Lexington & Concord, Chelsea Creek and Bunker Hill.  Just in time to help us remember  these events, and why we are commemorating the 250th,  Professor Abby Chandler of UMass Lowell, has launched a new journal, Remembering the American Revolution at 250.  Professor Chandler joins us to talk about this new project, along with Professor Marianne Holdzkom, author of its first article, "Based on a True Story; Remembering the Revolution through Film." 

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After a stint in the Navy and forty years teaching history, Larry Kidder was curios about the lives of ordinary people in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.  He could not find a good book on the subject, so he started writing , and how he has told stories of the Revolution from the vantage point of New Jersey's militia. On Christmas Eve he joins us to share the epic story of General Washington crossing the Delaware, and  introduces us to the Revolutionary World of Jacob Francis, a Free Black man from New Jersey who, as a "Massachusetts" soldier, participated inn the crossing.  Larry Kidder tells us of Jacob Francis and other stories from New Jersey in the Revolution's ten crucial days--from the Delaware crossing to the Battle of Princeton. 

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John Dickinson burst onto the scene with his "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1767 and 1768.  He wrote "The Liberty Song,"  sung all over America, including at the 1769  Sons of Liberty dinner in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and the Continental Congress's Olive Branch Petition and with Jefferson  the "Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms."  While he opposed the Declaration of Independence, he drafted the Articles of Confederation, and in 1787 was a member of the Constitutional Convention.  We talk about Dickinson with Dr. Jane Calvert, author of the new biography, Penman of the Founding:  A Biography of John Dickinson , and the Director and Chief Editor of the John Dickinson Writings Project.

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In the place of Professor Cornelia Dayton who could not join us today, Professor Robert Allison presents a lecture on the military career of Benjamin Lincoln, who, with General George Washington and General Nathanael Greene were to only General officers to serve from the Siege of Boston to Yorktown.  Lincoln came from a distinguished family in Hingham, Massachusetts where the family held various town offices since the 17th century.  While Lincoln never anticipated a military career, his quiet and steady capability soon recommended him to Washington for a number of posts.  Wounded at Saratoga, Lincoln would also be forced to surrender Charleston, SC to the British, but also accepted (at Washington's urging) the surrender of the British at Yorktown.

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