Episode 8: Freed Slaves: The Unsung Heroes from the Civil War and Revolutionary War- Part II

Andrew is a guest once again (previously interviewed on  Episode 4)
and he continues his historical storytelling by including unsung heroes from both the Civil War and the Revolutionary War.

Website for U.S.A. history books: Wallbuilders.com
Interesting find from Battlefields.org  website: 
Robert Smalls (who was once a freed slave) stated “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

***Anyone interested can also find the Podcast Listen to a Criminal 2020's episode about Robert Smalls, a story told by Smalls' great, great grandson Michael Boulware Moore.

Women in the Revolution (A History Compass) by Jeanne Munn Bracken

This is a podcast for those who love to talk common sense about everyday issues. You will listen to a variety of guests that share common sense ideas through their life experiences by sharing what they learned. For any comments, questions or suggestions for future topics, please contact the show at: stand4commonsense@outlook.com
Song title: Upbeat Indie Folk Music
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Transcript

MizzyM: 0:22

Hi. Welcome to another episode of Podcast From the Edge Talking Common Sense. In this episode, I'll be speaking with Andrew, who's already been on a previous podcast, Episode 4 in late October, forgotten Men of the Revolutionary War. If you would like to hear him speak about interesting facts of American history Today he'll be talking about the Civil War and about strong women who fought alongside soldiers during the Revolutionary War. So I really hope you enjoy this podcast. Bye. Hi. So once again we have Andrew here today and for this episode he will be discussing the unsung heroes from the Civil War, and also talk about a few brave strong women that were very much involved with the America's Fight for Independence from brain. So Andrew, take it away.

Andrew: 1:35

All right. Thanks for having me back. I really appreciate it. Oh, you're

MizzyM: 1:38

Welcome. Yeah, so it was great to have you last time.

Andrew: 1:41

Oh, good. I'm so glad to be back. Um, yeah. So to, to get started here, I, I thought we'd talk about the Civil War first. So there's one individual in particular wanted to talk about. His name is Robert Smalls. Now Robert Smalls, he was a slave. And, um, not only was he a slave, you know, in the traditional sense like on a plantation slave, but he was also a slave in the Confederate navy. The, the. The Confederacy forced him into the Confederate Navy, and I'm not, I can't remember the date now is escaping me, but during the Civil War, he was in Charleston, uh, in, uh, Charleston Harbor in South Carolina, and he was on the, the Confederate ship that he served on. And there were other slaves on there as well. He wasn't the only one, but he, he was, he was one of the individuals on there, uh, individual slaves and at the time, all. um, majority of the crew or all the crew really, um, of white officers and enlist of men were ashore attending some sort of a function. They just weren't on board the ship. So they left the ship in the care of all the slaves that were on board, including Robert Smalls. Well, Robert Smalls, he had enough of slavery, just like basically everybody else at that point had. Um, so he kind of orchestrated, he orchestrated. Um, a takeover of the ship that he was on, and he really took command of the slaves that were on board with. Is they basically pulled up anchor from their, you know, pulled the ship's anchor up and just sailed the ship off. Now, it wasn't as easy to just sail the ship out of Charleston Harbor. You just, you couldn't do that. At the time. There was a confederate fort that guarded the harbor, and every ship that passed had to give some sort of a, you know, some sort of a verbal signal that they had to call out in order to safely pass by the confederate fort. Otherwise, if you didn't, the Confederate fort would fire upon you. Robert Smalls was, uh, wa was knowledgeable. He knew what the, the commands were, what the verbal commands were, because he spent a lot of time on the bridge of the ship where they, where they drove the ship from. So he spent a lot of time with the senior officers of the ship, including the commanding officer. So he was well aware of what the verbal signal was in order to get past the, um, the Confederate for. Problem is he does not look like the commanding officer. So I'm willing to bet is, you know, they were so close to the four as they were passed by, at least with a telescope or binoculars, that you could actually see the individual calling out these verbal signals. So that's his problem. He doesn't necessarily look like the, the commanding officer. So what Robert Smalls ended up doing is going into the commanding officer's state room. So it, uh, state room, just being the, the room where the commanding officer slept. you know, maybe took care of some work, some paperwork and things, things of that nature. He went into the commanding officer's state room, took out one of the uniforms for the commanding officer, put it on to help disguise him a little bit, and then when he, when he got to the, the point where they would have to start calling out the verbal signals to the fort in order to to pass by, he did so. But he did kind of with back turned, so you really couldn't see his face and just really kind of covered him up though. But he was wearing the commanding officer's uniform, called out the verbal signals. Fortunately that was enough for the, um, the soldiers in the Confederate for, and they allowed him to pass, allowed the ship to pass by on, on harms, you know, and then by a single shot at the ship as it was passing by. So now he makes it out there. Now he is in the open water. Now he is got the Union Navy to contend with, because the Union Navy at this point, pretty much the entire war, the Union Navy blockade the Confederacy. So he's got a blockade that he has to go up against. Now, the Union Navy just sees a Confederate ship coming out. They don't know what's going on in this Confederate ship. Well, fortunately, Robert Smalls and the other slaves on board were able to raise a white. And signal to they pro. I bet you there was a whole bunch of the, the slaves runaway now runaway slaves at this point on the deck of the ship, on the weather decks, just waving their hands like, don't fire us, don't fire at us. And luckily, the Union Navy did not fire. The Union Navy ends up boarding the ship and the slaves, Robert Smalls included, basically handed the ship over to the Union Navy. They explained the situation, what was going on. They basically, they're basically runaway slaves and we hear, here's the ship. You can have the ship. Now Robert Smalls was taken and all the other slaves were taken on board. The Union Navy ships. I'm not sure which ship in particular, but they were brought to New York City. There was a parade given in their honor for their heroics that day. Uh, Robert Smalls even got to meet President Lincoln and, uh, you know, talked about, you know, the, what he did that day and basically not only running away from slavery, but capturing a Confederate Navy ship and handing it over to the Union Navy. So that was a big win for the Union Navy of. Right. Uh, but then Robert Smalls went back into the Navy, but this time as a volunteer in the Union Navy, I stressed volunteer cause he was not forced to go in. Now he was, uh, he became an officer in the Union Navy. And I can't remember the, the, the name of his ship and the Union Navy is escaping me, but the Union Navy at this point is going to attack Charleston Harbor. Problem is, is that the, the Union Navy knows that there's mines all over Charleston Harbor. They just don't know where they are specifically in the harbor. Well, Robert Smalls knows where they are because he would have to navigate in out of the harbor all the time. So as a, as a former member of the Confederate Navy navigating in, uh, Charleston Harbor, he needed to know where the, the mines were in order to, uh, keep the Confederate Navy ships from colliding with the mines and. Ultimately sinking, you know, in the water because of the mines. So he knew exactly where they were. So he had all the, he had the, the perfect intelligence that the Union Navy needed in order to successfully conduct an attack in, in, um, on Charleston. Defeat that fort that, that confederate fort that was there, guard the, the harbor and to, um, um, avoid all the minds that were laid in the laid in the. So, um, he was a very successful in that endeavor. He was very instrumental in, uh, the attack there in Charleston, and there was also a attack later on. Um, it was a very, very brutal battle between the Confederacy and the Navy, you know, Navy battle and at one point the commanding officer of the ship that, that Roberts Smalls was on the union ship. Um, he kinda, the, the commanding officers kind of fell to the pressure at the moment. You know, being in this battle, being the command officer, he kind of fell to the pressure and just wasn't being a good commanding officer. He just, I don't dunno how to describe it. He kinda got scared and nervous. I, I would, I would. And just didn't really follow through with his responsibilities. Well, Robert Smalls stepped up and took command of the, of the ship and led a, led a, uh, successful battle against the Confederacy in that, in that instance, later on, Robert Smalls ended up being promoted to commanding officer in the Union Navy. He was the first black person to be to be in command of a US Navy ship. Wow. And then went on to, um, once the war was over, he survived the Civil War. The war was over. He went on to become a member of the US House of Representatives. He was one of 23. So the, the first 23 Black Americans to be elected to Congress. So the majority of those 23 were in the, in the US house. There was one in the Senate, but overall Congress altogether, he was one of, he was one of those first 23, and of those 23, 13 were former slaves. He was one of those 13 former slaves. Wow. He went on to be elected to the US House of Representatives and then went on to co-found the state g o p in South Carolina, well after the Civil War, so, oh my God. Wow. He, he has an amazing past. Um, I'm just hoping maybe one day we can get a movie made about it or I don't know if there's any book specific to Robert Smalls. I'm sure you could write a whole book just on his life in particular. Um, I'm not aware of any, but if anybody ever finds out a good book about Robert Smalls, let me know for.

MizzyM: 9:25

Oh yeah. I mean, that's, that's an incredible life story.

Andrew: 9:29

I don't think many people know about it at all. I never learned about it. I learned about it during 2020.

MizzyM: 9:36

Oh my gosh. Gosh.

Andrew: 9:37

Live on 2020. Yeah. Um, wow. That, that, that's a name that belongs in our history books for

MizzyM: 9:42

Oh, definitely. I mean, what an inspiration. And the courage that it took for him.

Andrew: 9:48

Yep. And to go back to keep fighting and to go back. He joined volunteering to join the Union Navy. Hmm. His knowledge was, was, uh, uh, very, very important. You know, like I said, with, uh, knowing where all the mines were in Charleston Harbor. To help take Charleston from the, from the Confederacy. And he, he had a lot of naval experiences in general because he had been in the Confederate Navy. He learned a lot of that from the, from being in the Confederate Navy. So he took that knowledge and applied it to the union to help, uh, defeat the Confederacy and ultimately help defeat slavery.

MizzyM: 10:17

Amazing. Good for South Carolina.

Andrew: 10:20

Right. I know he was a great guy to have. I would've, I would've podcast cast a vote for him for sure.

MizzyM: 10:24

Oh, I think, yeah. Many of us would've That's

Andrew: 10:28

wonderful for sure. But yeah, you can definitely look him up. Yeah. There's photographs of him, unlike the people in the last episode we talked about, um, Um, like James Armstead, Jack Cien, there's paintings of those individuals, but that was long before photographs. So there actually are photographs of Robert Smalls, so definitely Google, Robert Smalls and you can get some good photographs of him.

MizzyM: 10:48

Okay, so it's S M A L L S, right?

Andrew: 10:52

Smalls I believe. Yep. Yep. Okay. Smalls is like It is, yeah. I believe so. Um, okay.

MizzyM: 10:57

And is he also on that website that you spoke about earlier? Um, from last time the wall builder.

Andrew: 11:04

He might be on there, some, there might be a blog post about him on there. Mm-hmm. I know in one of the book, one of the other books I have from Wall Builders, they, uh, they, they specifically talk about him. So, um, it's not a whole book just about him, you know, maybe a handful of pages kind of briefly over, you know, telling the story of him. The, the book had a more, um, broader subject than just him, but. Yeah, there was definitely, I think you probably find a blog post there and you could probably find some, uh, at least a book on wall builders that talks about him.

MizzyM: 11:33

Yeah. Anything I find, um, in, um, looking up, uh, Robert Smalls, I will definitely post it alongside your podcast.

Andrew: 11:43

Mm-hmm. and, uh, so that way, you know, um, the listeners can be more aware and if they want, they can always read a little bit more about. Yeah, they can, uh, just in general for history in general, uh, for those who didn't see hear the last episode, I almost said, see the last episode. Those who didn't hear the last episode that I was on, I go to wallbuilders.com, great website. It's a nonprofit out in Texas that is dedicated to teaching America's forgotten history. They themselves, wall builders themselves has a massive, massive collection of historical documents, artifacts, even going back to around the time of the pilgrims. They have two lockets of George Washington's. I'm not sure how they managed to get two lockets of his hair, let alone just one. But they, um, they have just this huge, extensive collection of books, documents, manuscripts, artifacts, and that's where, where wall builders gets a lot of its knowledge from. So when they write books, detailing specific events, uh, specific people, well, how do they know all this? Because they have a lot of documents that they're able to just look at their own, in their own collection to get this, uh, gather this information from. So wallbuilders.com great, great website, great source of.

MizzyM: 12:51

yeah. I'll link up, um, that website again, you know, to this podcast also from last time. Awesome. Okay. So now you have some significant, exciting stories of women that had a large role, um, in a, I guess, How should I call it? A, a silent way or,

Andrew: 13:13

well, it wasn't so silent back then. It's silent now for sure, unfortunately. Okay. But, but it definitely wasn't a silent back then, that's for sure. Um, but they played a big role in the independence, you know, from Britain. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The Women in American Revolution, that's a book that I read that's a, it's, I got it from WallBuilders. No one at WallBuilders wrote it. Uh, the Women in the American Revolution was written by Janine Mun Bracken, B r a C k E N. Uh, very short book. It's not, it's not a big, it's not a long read at all. It's less than a hundred pages long, but it's jam packed. A lot of great information and people I've never even heard of. I've never heard of any of these stories in this. When I was growing up, so, you know, we obviously, we hear a lot about what men did in wars and in certain battles. Uh, we hear a lot about what, uh, various men did in the American Revolution, whether it be in the military or they were in the Continental Congress, you know, what have you. Um, but we never hear anything about the women. Women did unbelievable things. Everybody sacrificed. It wasn't just the men going out there to battle and they're the only ones sacrificing women. Made some massive sacrifices themselves. So, um, so I had the book here. I'm gonna just detail just a few of the stories cause there's, there's several in here. More than we have. Uh, then we have time to talk about. Sure. But one, one in particular was a woman named Deborah Sampson. Now Deborah Sampson was actually a member of the Continental Army. And Wow, she, and obviously, how can that be? She was a woman. Women weren't allowed to be in the military and that's true. They were not allowed to be in the military at the time, so she served under the name of Robert. So she pretended to be a man and served in the continental Army and she served. Uh, I wanna say a year and a half, a year and a half, two years, somewhere, right around there. She participated in some skirmishes, so she, she wasn't just sitting behind a desk doing administrative work. She actually participated in some battles. Nothing, nothing crazy like the Battle of Yorktown or Bunker Hill or anything like that, you know, for, you know, the battle of Fort Taega. None of those big battles that we hear about in our history books today. But she did participate in some, some, some battles for sure, and she went on to survive the. And when she survived, um, excuse me, when she, uh, after the war, she got married and. I think it was, I can't remember if it was after she got married or was shortly before she got married, but one thing that the Congress did at the time, after the, after Revolutionary War was over is they provided a pension to those, uh, those soldiers who served in the war. Well, it came time she was a soldier in the war, can she get a pension? So she submitted an application for a pension and the. Uh, Paul Revere, the Paul Revere actually wrote a letter on her, on her behalf Wow. To a member of Congress. Now, assuming this is a member of Congress, maybe Paul Revere personally knew, but a member of Congress on the list advocating on her behalf, saying, you know, basically, basically in nutshell the, the copy of the letter is in the book here, women in the American Revolution. But basically in nutshell, Paul Veer saying how amazing Deborah Sampson was or is, how patriotic she was, her sacrifices, and that she deserves to get a soldier's. So the Congress received her application. The Congress approved her application. She was the only woman that I know of who received a soldier's pension from the American Revolution. And then, like I said, she went on to Mary after the, after the revolution was over, she had, she had kids, I'm not sure how many, but she did have kids. And she died before her husband did. Mm-hmm. Well, at the time when soldiers died before their spouse, Usually women, you know, die before their wives. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, the wife could apply to get their husband's pension for the rest of the wife's life. So, um, you probably wasn't too much longer after the husband passed away that the wife would pass away, but, Um, the wives could apply to get their husband's pension for the rest of the wive's life. Well, the roles are reversed here. In this instance it was the wife getting the soldier's pension. She passes away her spouse. No, actually husband is still alive, so he applies for her pension to get a, in this case, you know, it was called a widow's pension back then, in this case, for him it would be a widow horse pension and. Um, he, like I said, she, she married after the American Revolution and when Congress was considering his application, part of the reason why they did approve it, part of the reason why they did is because they, they knew of how courageous, how patriotic Deborah Samson was. And they figured that someone so patriotic who loved her country so much would marry a man who felt the same. and that he, because that he also deserved her pension. So his was the only widowers pension that I know of given out at, at that time or ever. So, um, unbelievable. You know, the, you hear from the left, you hear, oh, evil patriarchy. Evil patriarchy. Well, it's not the full picture, right? You don't get the full picture when you get a history lesson from the left. I guarantee it. You're not getting the full picture. You may be getting some of the picture, but not the full picture. So

MizzyM: 18:18

amazing story.

Andrew: 18:20

Yeah. So she did, she did some great things. Uh, that's Deborah Sampson in a nutshell. Again, you can read about her in the book, women in the American Revolution. Uh, another woman who was incredibly brave. She, she kind of filled a soldier's role at one point, but she never did it as a man. Her name was, she's, she's known in history as Molly Pitcher, but her actual name is Mary Ludwig Hayes Macau. Huh Um, but she was known as Molly Pitcher and the reason why she was known as Molly Pitcher, I'm not sure where the Molly came from other than that, I guess it sounds sim semi close to Mary, I suppose, but the pitcher part comes from what she would do during battles. And she would help the artillery crews, the guys on the cannons, and she would go to nearby streams, ponds, brooks, whatever, buys, or, or, or well maybe some, a well at somebody's house and fill up pictures of water and bring it to the artillery crew, uh, excuse me, the artillery crews. And the reason that was important is because the time, the way the, the cannons were loaded is after the cannon was fired, there was most likely little burning embers inside the. And they was, was, it was always, all the cans were front load at the time. So what you had to do was shove the, um, the gunpowder cartridge. It was a big, big chunk of gunpowder all wrapped up. Shove that down into, uh, the bottom of the cannon. Well, if you're doing that, while there's still a little embers. Burning inside the cannon, you're most likely gonna set up the gunpowder while you're standing in front of the cannon, you're gonna kill yourself, right? So what they did was they had buckets of water and they would just take this big stick, kind of had like this, kinda like a towel sort of thing wrapped around the stick, dunk it in the water. Shove it down the cannon and bring it back out, and that would put out all the embers that might still be burning inside the cannon. So you had to have buckets of water when you were firing your cannons during battle. So she would go get those buckets of water and keep those full for the artillery crew so they can keep firing. Well, there was one battle in particular. Uh, let's see here. Lemme make sure I got the battle right. I got the book open, uh, the Battle of Mon Month in on June 28th, 1778. What Molly did, she was, instead of, she was getting the, the pictures of water like she had been before, but, um, the, this particular moment, this bigger battle, there was one member of the crew who was either wounded or killed. I can't remember what it was. So they were short, one person on the crew. So she stepped up and filled for his role, and so she's whatever role. you know, she took on the, on the artillery crew, she was filling that role and at one particular instance, she had her legs, according to a letter written by a man who was there. His name was Joseph Pun Martin, he was a soldier. He later wrote about the, you know, everything that he saw. And in one instance, she had her legs spread kind of far apart, one foot really far in front the other. She's taking a big giant step and she's just, Excuse me, she's standing still and an artillery, a British artillery round comes at her and it goes right between her legs. Oh my gosh. And she not spread her legs so far apart, and she was just doing it for whatever reason. Maybe she was trying to brace herself. She was maybe lifting something heavy. I'm not sure what she was doing it specifically other than helping the artillery group. But she had her legs spread far apart, and she actually had an artillery round go right through her leg. So close it actually damaged her clothes. But did not damage her physically, her actual physical body, just her clothes, right? So, uh, despite, you know, basically having a life flash before her eyes because she almost had her legs just basically taken clean off, uh, probably would've died instantly. She kept fighting, she kept participating in the battle. Wow.

MizzyM: 21:48

Um, wow. That's, that's, um, unbelievable. That's a hero. Yeah.

Andrew: 21:52

Yeah. That was the only battle I, that I know that she participated in as a member of their artillery crew. I'm not sure how many she, she participated in, you know, just getting pictures of water and keeping that water coming to their artillery crew so they can keep firing the cannons. So that in itself is incredibly important. But she, um, that was the only battle that I know of where she actually was a member of the artillery. Amazing. Right? So these are great stories. Why aren't we teaching these stories in school? It drives me insane.

MizzyM: 22:20

Oh, I know. I mean, do you know how many girls would be so inspired to hear things like that? I'm sure a actually, even boys too, but I'm just saying it's an, an added benefit, you know?

Andrew: 22:31

Right. Learning history in school as a, as a young girl, you know? Yeah. It wasn't just the boys having all the fun. The girls had fun too. The girls had lots of fun on this. So, um, here's another story. Now, this is not one particular woman. This is a group of women. So at Valley Forge, you know, as we, as we've learned in our history books, this is what kills me too. Cause we actually learned about Valley Forge in history. We still teach that. Fortunately, um, I haven't learned about it in a while in history class. So, You know, in public school history class. So I'm not sure the details in specific that we're going over, however, at least we are still teaching the, the, the story of Valley Forge and what went on there and how it was a horrible winner for our soldiers and the terrible conditions they were subjected to. Um, so the, the fact that we still teach Valley Forge kills me that we can't teach this one particular detail of Valley Forge, why we're not anyways, or why it's been for. Right. I'm sure that's why we're not teaching this cuz this has been forgotten, So I don't blame any, any history teacher nowadays not teaching it because they, they, they probably just don't know themselves. But there were, um, as we know how Valley Forges went, it was a brutal, brutal winter. We were not prepared for it. Supplies were low. You know, in terms of tents and proper shelter for the soldiers, it was absolutely awful. You know, they were getting rained on sled, on, snowed on. They had, um, they didn't have shoes. Many of 'em didn't have shoes. So if they were walking around camp, you could see their bloody footprints that they were leaving as they're walking through the snow. Um, uh, rumors and talk of Mutiny were going about all throughout the camp. I mean, Washington was really on the verge of having the entire army just revolt against. At least, uh, the army there at Valley Forge, which was basically the bulk or pretty much all of our continental army at the time. So he was, he was on the verge of just losing everything, not being able to hold together anymore. Well, one day there was, um, a cen Yeah, they had senten, they call him Century. So piece guy standing guard on the outer edge of the camp. You know, kind of out little ways. If any British were trying to make their way over to the camp, they can run and go warn the. um, the rest of the soldiers in the camp. So that was, that was the century's job. It was basically just, you know, standing guard. Well, suddenly a, um, I'll, I'll read this little excerpt here from the, uh, from the book. Let me see here. So suddenly a shout was heard from the sentinels or centuries who paced the outer lines at the same time. A Cade, I think that's, I'm think I'm saying that correctly. Came slowly through the snow up the valley. 10 women in carts, each cart drawn by 10 pairs of oxen. So these are some massive carts. Of course, they have to be pulled through the snow too, which was no easy feat, but 10 pairs of auction per cart. And bearing tons of meal and other supplies passed through the lines amid cheers that rent the air. Those devoted women had preserved the army and independence from that day, or excuse me, they preserved the army and independence from that day was assured. So this is a, um, a, uh, excerpt from what a historian wrote in another book. But those 10 women, we don't, I don't know their names. Their names aren't mentioned in here. It's possible their names have been lost over time. We, maybe no one knows who their, you know what their names were, um, but we at least know of their story. Not sure the details on what they did to gather up all these supplies. Did it cost them money? Were they basically all donations? How did they get the carts? How did they get the oxen? Were these people just donating all this to them or did they buy this or was it some of their stuff? I have no idea. but they were able to gather up, there's tons of all these supplies and you know, my shoes and food and proper shelter tents and things like that. Maybe some ammunition, some guns, some, you know, it's possible there too. But they were able to gather up enough supplies and basically it squashed all talk of mutiny within the camp. All talk of that was gone. The morale, the soldiers went through the roof and they basically were able to. Valley Forge that winter because of what those 10 women did. And You'all will never know what would've happened had they not gone. Obviously, we can't go back in time and stop them from going to see what would've happened, but I think it's very easy to argue that if those 10 women had not taken upon themselves to do what they did, gather up all those supplies for the Army, actually make it from point A to point B. I'm not sure how far they had to travel once they officially gathered everything up. maybe something, you know, something bad happened along the way. They, they couldn't make it. But if those 10 women had not done what they did, would the Army have survived Valley Forge? And if the Army did not survive Valley Forge, we would not have won our independence. So you can say that those women, what they did saved the revolution and really, um, um, played a very, very pivotal role in us winning our, I.

MizzyM: 27:24

Right. You know what? I was just thinking as you were going over all of these stories, um, I don't think there's ever been a president that's ever granted a medal of honor, you know, posthumously to these individuals.

Andrew: 27:40

That's a good point. Yeah. I think that's an excellent point. They, the women weren't in the military, so they couldn't get the Medal of honor. Deborah Sampson technically could. Yeah. Well, yeah, so lots of, lots of great stories here. And, uh, one thing too, it's really brief, uh, just a name. They don't go into great detail in this book. Cause I know we're, we we're running low on time here, but at the beginning of the book, it mentions the name of a woman named Katherine Goodar, g o o d a r d. She goes in Baltimore. She published the first signed copy of the Decoration of Independence. I never knew that.

MizzyM: 28:17

Wow. I didn't know that.

Andrew: 28:20

Yep. And a woman by the name of Betsy Hager, h a g a R. Uh, she was a blacksmith and helped repair weapons in canon for the colonial army. Oh, wow. I didn't know that either. So they just mentioned those names and they, they drafted and then all the members started to fixing their signatures to the, uh, to that document. After they voted, I think it was by August. I think it took all the way to the beginning of August before they all put their signature on it. Cause they all didn't sign it on July 4th, 1776. I don't think any of them signed it. July 4th, 1776. Cause they didn't have the copy ready to go. So my guess is when it, the way it says it here, she published the first signed copy. So after. The decoration was signed. It doesn't give a year either. When she did this, so after the declaration was signed, it was probably, you know, the word had gotten out that it was, it was done, all the signatures were on it. She, you know, they started publishing copies of the original, she probably published, in this case, it would've been the first, uh, copy of the Decoration of Independence with all the signatures on it. Wow. That's, that's how I'm interpreting that. Right. Okay. Yeah. And Baltimore's not too far from Philadelphia.

MizzyM: 29:27

right? That's true.

Andrew: 29:28

Yeah. They probably would've gotten, uh, gotten word there pretty soon after the, um, the vote had taken place and all the signatures were done August of 1776.

MizzyM: 29:37

Amazing. So once again, thank you so much for, uh, taking your time and just sharing all of this wonderful historical information.

Andrew: 29:50

Nope, not a problem. I love doing it. I love getting the word out here. This stuff is so important to know because like I said, Uh, the left loves to tell the history of the United States. They just tell sometimes a very skewed version of it, uh, leaving out giant gaps in the process all, and sometimes flat out just making things up. So I love getting the word out there. The books that I always cite from so people know the books I always cite from, like the Women in the American Revolution. Um, I cited, uh, well the books do I have, uh, setting the record Straight American History and Black and White. That's a wall Builder's book. All these books are very well written and very well sourced. So just for example in, uh, the study of the record, straight in American history and black and white, very short book, probably I think 140 ish pages, maybe 150 or so pages, somewhere around there. I might be off by a little bit, but it has several hundred sources, I think over 400 sources. It's, excuse me, cited in that one book alone. So wall builders, um, and all the authors that have books on wall builders do a fantastic job of sourcing their books and they give you all the sources right there in the back. So if you're ever curious, where do they know that from? How do they know this? Go to the back of the book and they'll tell you how they know.

MizzyM: 30:59

Unbelievable. Well, thank you once again, Andrew. I really appreciate it, and we'll have him back, um, at a later date to talk about some. Interesting topics, um, in history.

Andrew: 31:15

That's right. Topics I guarantee you will never have heard about in your history class. I can promise you that. All right, well thanks again,

MizzyM: 31:23

Andrew.

Andrew: 31:24

Take care, everybody. Thank you, fab. May appreciate it. Thank you.

MizzyM: 31:35

OK, bye.