The Eric Metaxas Show - #185 - Albin Sadar

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Albin Sadar joins Eric for a special American Revolution edition of Fun Facts Friday. Inspired by Eric’s book Revolution, they revisit some of the wildest and most moving stories of America’s founding, including the destruction of King George III’s statue in New York, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Nathan Hale’s sacrifice, Benedict Arnold’s brutal expedition through Maine, Henry Knox’s extraordinary mission, and George Washington’s legendary crossing of the Delaware.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:🪙 Grace Precious Metals: https://www.metaxasmetals.com/🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/0:00 Albin Sadar Joins2:00 Fun Facts Friday Begins4:38 Why Revolution Brings History To Life9:08 The Strange Story Of King George III’s Statue15:13 Nathan Hale And America’s First Spies17:00 What Really Happened On July 4, 1776?24:49 The Founders Risked Everything32:40 Benedict Arnold’s Brutal March To Canada36:09 Henry Knox And The Guns Of Ticonderoga- - -LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ericmetaxas#EricMetaxas #TheEricMetaxasShow #News #PoliticsChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

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Ladies and gentlemen, or as they say in the books bunny cartoon, ladies and a gentle of people is, it is now my joy to have as my guests for this program, Albin, Wait for it. Sadar. Let's get it now. Because there's so many Albans out there. Albin Sadar, welcome back. Great to see you. I salute you.

I salute you. It looks like you're wearing some sort of tricorn hat, something from the revolutionary era. What would possess you, Albin, to do such a thing? Well, it's obvious. I'm reading your book, of course, Revolution. My goodness. Oh, my book Revolution somehow has inspired you to wear a tricel. Trichorn hat. Well, I'm glad, and I hope it's inspiring others around the nation to wear tricorn hats.

Everyday tricorn hat. I have a nice one for Sunda's, of course. You do. Yeah, like the Colonious did, yeah. Well, I love that. You look like you're in a different place than you typically are. Have you moved? Well, we are in, my wife and I are in an extended stay place. I'm not going to tell you the location, but it's somewhere outside of Pittsburgh because we're in the process of closing on a house, all right? And I guess I can mention we're going to be moving to Mars PA. And I tell everybody, we're going to Mars, PA, we're going to get to Mars before Elon and for slightly less expensive money. By the way, since we're on the subject, Elon is never going to colonize Mars. It's the stupidest thing he's ever said. And he said some dumb things. He said many, many brilliant things,

more brilliant than I could ever hope to say. But the idea of colonizing Mars is, let me just say preemptively stupid. And we can't talk about that. So we're not going to talk about that. But Albin, seriously, you've been reading my book on The Revolution. You wanted to come on this program. Is this a fun fact's Friday episode? Is that what this is? It definitely is a fun fact. I've got the little Morocco's here. It's not expired pills this time. It's allergy relief from Sam's Club. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. So this is a Fun Facts Friday. I should have said that in the opener. You should have. This is a Fun Facts Friday.

I suppose inspired by the fact that you're reading my book on the American Revolution. And you have, instead of Maracas, not Morocco's, instead of Maracas, you have a pill, a jar. What is that? It's a pill bottle. It's plastic. A bottle of pills. A plastic bottle of pills. So are you going to sing the theme song? Is that what this is a prelude to? Yes, this is all about the theme song.

You can't have Fun Facts Friday without the theme song. And the only time people hear the theme song is with Fun Facts Friday. See, that's kind of a circular argument thing there. I get that. I get there's a tremendous logic to it. It's like a Mobius strip of logic. Please, please, we've really, we've dawdled long enough. We've dartled long enough.

Please let us begin. Come on and have some. Fun, fun, just for the fun of it. Tune into Arip Show, and you'll be in the know. You may learn something new and something untrue to. Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, bye, bye, bye, five, five, five, five, eight beer. I cannot believe it. I cannot believe it.

Thank you. Thank you. You are welcome. I have a supercentennial phone here, and I'm going to call the president. you know what, I better not, because he's dealing with the war, they tell me. But I really just, I want to tell the world that Fun Facts Friday has been inaugurated by that beautiful song. The lyrics of that song are written by either Bernie Taupin or Albin Seder.

I'm going to guess Albin Seder. I collaborated with him once. I met him in the restroom. We were washing our hands. I said, hey, how about some fun just for the fun of it? And suddenly a tune was born. I may see Bernie Toppin in Santa Barbara next week, but I won't go into that. Okay, Albin, I'm excited, you know, to talk about the American Revolution for obvious reasons.

I've written this book, but you've written a book titled Obvious, and I see a copy of it there. Obvious. But for obvious reasons, I am excited to talk about the Revolution, but you are reading the Revolution, and I'm excited about the fact that you're reading my book on The Revolution. So what did you want to share? I'm not really clear on what you wanted to share. Okay, I have so many fun facts. It's like every single page has something interesting.

I got a lot of short ones. I got a lot of big ones. I really want to get into your chapter called July 4th, 1776. But before I get there, I do want to say just something general about the book because I've been reading and reading and reading. And because I'm moving and moving and moving, I haven't had all the time I wanted to, finish it, but I just love, I just eat up every single page. In fact, I don't want the book to end.

And fortunately, it's as big as Bonhofer, 600 pages. So every time I read something, it's like, wow, this is great, this is great, what's going to happen next? I think, in fact, I think the best example is the battle of Brooklyn that you have in here, a chapter on that. I mean, it's so detail, it's so fascinating. And you kind of hang on every word. And here's what makes it so fascinating. you get transported back in time and you have eyewitness accounts. So it's not some kind of dry history. You have actual letters from soldiers and, you know, from the elites or from the commanders and from the, you know, people that live there at the time.

You have letters from Lucy Knox and from Abigail Adams. So the women who are talking about what it's like on the home front. So you are actually there moment by moment, step by step. All right. Now, listen, I want to be clear, ladies and gentlemen, I did not pay my friend Albin Seder to say these nice things about my book. And Alvin, you know me because we're friends. I'm not kidding.

It means so much to me to hear this because when I'm writing the book, you know, I am hoping that I can write a book that people can't put down. And they, you know, that's what you hope. But with a big book on the American Revolution, with the time constraints that I had writing it, I thought, who knows, I'll just do the best I can. The feedback has been spectacular. I mean, reading the Amazon reviews has amazed me.

honestly, truly thrilled me. But hearing it from you, because you wouldn't say this just to say it. So thank you for saying it and for appreciating the book that way, because both of us love history and we want to make others fall in love with history. It's actually, and in this case, it turns out it's very important history. We need to know this stuff. But thank you for that. Yeah, and I'm sure the, you know, the homeschoolers out there, every one of them should have

this book as their history for their history class of all the homeschool. We're actually, we're getting emails sent to us that homeschoolers are using it as a textbook. So I'm glad because I do feel like, you know, I put everything you need to know in the book. This is not, you know, uh, yeah. And again, what fascinates me, it's not dates and facts. I mean, of course it's all that. It has to be all of that. But it's a person. It's like, here's what it's like. I know this is maybe going a bridge too far, but it's like the Bible in a way that it's eyewitnesses accounts. It's not just somebody 100 years later, 200 years saying,

you know what I think happened or you know what must have happened? It's getting into the heads of people. They're talking about this is what actually happened. Eyewitness accounts. And so that's why it makes it so dang fascinating, if I may use that. Oh, by the way. You can't use the word fascinating, but dang is permissible. Well, I'll let it.

There's two words I learned, and one of them I wish I had not. Fufoura, which is one word that you use, which is kind of like sound and fury signifying nothing, but be shat. Now, I won't go any further on that word there. You didn't know what that word meant. Be shat. It's just the past tense of the present tense. But of the present tense. But Pufoura, I'm pretty sure I'm almost, in fact, I know that I use the word foo for raw in my biography of Martin Luther.

Okay. I also, I might have used the word folderall, but Fufra and Follerol are similar. But I'm pretty sure I used it in my book on Martin Luther. But yeah, sometimes there's no other word. You know, what are you going to, it's an important word. Well, anyway, so what did you want to talk? We build this as Fun Facts Friday. You sang the theme song.

Yes. And so my question is, what are some of these fun facts that you wanted to share with the group? Okay. I want to start off with a fun question. And, of course, you're going to probably know the answer of this and the people that have read the book. But why is there a metal tale of a horse on display in the New York Historical Society? There's a metal tale. I haven't.

I have an answer for that. Now, people who've read the book already know this, but I will, I'll say this to whet their appetite. And by the way, well, okay, here's what happened. I have to go back to the Stamp Act. 1765, the thing that really leads to the revolution is the British are taxing the colonists. The first big tax is the stamp tax. And the colonists say, no, we think this is wrong. And they do all kinds of things.

There are riots in the streets. They are, you know, tarring and feathering people. They're writing essays. They are boycotting British. They're doing everything they can. And they finally succeed in getting. getting Parliament to repeal the stamp tax. And it ends with, sorry, Ben Franklin gives testimony in front of parliament.

I guess it's early February of 1766 because they're really dealing with this in parliament that do we need to rescind or repeal the tax. So finally, they repeal the tax. Word gets across the ocean to America and the colonists lose their minds for joy. and they say, in their minds, they've won a war. They don't realize that they haven't even begun the war, but they think they've won a war, and they celebrate like crazy, and there's all kinds of celebrations.

One of the things they do to celebrate, in New York, they commission a monumental equestrian statue of George III. They are so grateful to George III, their king, that they commission some sculptor in England to create a monumental, 4,000 pound lead equestrian statue, which is a really an homage to

an ancient Roman equestrian statue. It's mentioned in the book. And that happens in 1766. Other people commissioned other statues and all this different kind of stuff. But that statue arrives in America, in New York, in 1770, and it is erected on a gigantic plinth down on Bowling Green in New

York City. Now the fence around the park where this was exists today. You can go there today. I have been there. You can touch the fence. It's the same fence. So they erect this glorious statue in 1766 to celebrate King George. And it's right there overlooking the water. And it's just, it's amazing. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So, oh, did you want to go on with her? Do what? I have to finish the story. So 1770, it arrived. and they erect it, we now know in 1776, we declare independence, and George Washington has the Declaration of Independence read aloud

on July 9th to the troops assembled not far from that statue. And when it's over, they want to do something. So about 50 soldiers and many others who follow them, go to this statue, which was erected in 1770, and they tear it down. They pull it down, they saw it, They cut it down, whatever. They put the whole thing, they cut the head off, and the head goes up to some tavern in the northern part of...

In Washington Heights, yeah. In Washington Heights. But the rest of this thing, 4,000 pounds of lead covered with gold is hauled down to the water, put on a boat, taken up to Norwalk, Connecticut, and then on Ox Cards taken up through Connecticut all the way up to Litchfield, where it's melted down into Musket, balls, 42,000 musket balls, but at some point on the journey, I think in Wilton, Connecticut, I think. Yeah, that's what you. Somebody decides to take a souvenir for themselves and they cut the tail. So it must be a gigantic tail, the lead tail of the horse.

They cut it off. And I don't know what happens. It's lost. It's discovered in a swamp. Yes. Yes. Sometime in the 20th century, it's discovered. They go, you know what this is?

This is the lead tail of the seven. 1770 statue that was torn down, da-da-da-da-da, and that tail was taken, and it's right across the park from where I'm sitting. And to this day, I have never seen it. So you've just reminded me, maybe I'll do it today. Maybe I'll take a cab ride today to the New York historical society to lay my peepers on the tail of that. I mean, I actually can't believe I haven't seen it. Yeah, no, it's so funny because I was like, is it still on display? So I, you know, through AI, I said, is it on display still? And it showed a picture of it.

So it's in there somewhere. It didn't show exactly where in the museum. Today or tomorrow, I'm going to go over there and see it. And I'm going to report back to you. I'm not kidding. I've been so busy that can you imagine that it's right over across the park and I have not seen it? So I'm going to see it. Yeah, that's incredible.

By the way, when I was at the Heinz Cultural Museum in Pittsburgh, a couple days after we arrived. And right before the 4th of July, I got a picture taken of me standing next to George Washington in his French and Indian War outfit because he fought on the side of the British in the French and Indian War and he was like that in his 20s or something when he did that. So I got a picture of myself with him

in his uniform as a British. What do you mean with him? I don't know if you realize, but he's dead. No. What are you talking about? Well, I know that things were falling off its face. No, but it was a statue of him, of course. Oh, it was a statue of him.

Okay. I just wanted to clear that up because this is fun fact Friday. We want to be real clear that you were standing in front of a statue of Washington dressed in his French and Indian war uniform. Yes, yes. And since we're on the subject, this was on July 9th, of course, in Washington was in there in New York. He was defending New York at the time. And we'll get into, I hope, Nathan Hale, because I do want to talk a little bit about Nathan Hale because that chapter on him reminded me. of course, of your book about the men, you know,

mighty men that you wrote about. Seven men. The seven men, yeah. And seven more men, the sequel, Seven More Men. Yeah. But it was, and it reminded, his character reminded me of a couple people, Bonhofer, of course, you know, taking a stand, you know, fighting for what he believed in and paying the ultimate price.

But also, I guess I thought a little bit about Charlie Kirk, about, because the words that his father spoke after Nathan Hale was. was killed. And what many people said was what might have been, what this man might have done. I mean, he inspired the nation by what he did. And I also have a fun fact about, you know, he was a spy. He was a civilian spy. And it wasn't until a couple years later that his very good friend from Yale started, what is it, the Culper spies two years after. Yes, Talmadge. Yeah. Benjamin Talmadge, who was basically Nathanale's closest friend, who figures prominently in my book, many times I quote him, Benjamin Talmadge. In fact, yeah, I want to read one of his quotes because he talks about, he's kind of inspiring,

not just Nathan Hale, to do great things, but he's inspiring us today to do something, to put things on the line for a nation that's in peril. So, but, but, so I want to get that to July 4th, as everybody knows pretty much, certainly your audience, July 2nd is when, They all voted for independence. And John Adams, of course, said July 2nd, that's going to be the one, fireworks and barbecues and baseball games, which aren't invented yet. But, you know, he said that's going to be the day of celebration. And you might be wondering, well, what happened between July 3rd and July 4th? Well, there was, you know, they had written up the declaration and they were editing it.

And to John Adams, who I think there's an argument that he was the fault. John Adams, not Jefferson, was the father. I mean, obviously I write about that in the book, that Adams doesn't get nearly, and he should be more famous, much more famous than Thomas Jefferson. And it was Samuel Adams, who was the father of the revolution itself. Correct. That's correct, yeah.

And of course, John Adams was, in a sense, but he took a back seat because he thought people thought of him as being obnoxious and like he wasn't, you know, and he gave it to Jefferson, who was a great writer because he wasn't the best speaker was Jefferson, but he was saying a poetic type of writer. And he wrote a document that wasn't some dry sort of like, it has a poetry about it, has a ring to it. And that's why it became, people can read it.

Like, commenters were like, this is interesting, you know. So it was so that what would happen though on the day of August 2nd, of course, is when they actually signed the document because it was. You see, this is, I'm, I'm happy reminding me of this because this is really important that we understand how this went down, right? That July 2nd is really the day that we should celebrate. That's the day that we voted for independence. Then we spend the next two days, Congress spends the third and the fourth debating the final text of the Declaration of Independence. So that really is finally or that is finalized at some point late in the day on July 4th.

fourth. So then they take this text and there's copies of it and it's sent out to George Washington and others and this and that. But then they send it to somebody in Philadelphia to do the formal, it's called the engrossed version. So the one that we've seen, the famous one written in that handwriting is the engrossed version. And that happens in the month of July. And it's not ready to be signed until roughly August 2nd. So that painting that we've all seen of them lining up to sign it, that actually happened on August 2nd, which nobody would believe that they signed it on August 2nd,

but yes, they did. Yeah. And the thing is Adams and also Jefferson lamented the fact that one fourth of what Jefferson had written out in committee, one fourth of it was cut out. And part of it was about freeing the Negro slaves at that time. So they wanted that all to be one complete thing because you can't say all men are created equal. You've often heard me talk about the golden triangle of freedom, that intersection of faith, virtue, and liberty.

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It's time to find the clarity you deserve. I have been saying this. I gave a speech on this, or was it yesterday or the day before I was in South Carolina, and I basically said 11. Now, this is amazing. 11 of the 13 colonies. 11 of the 13 colonies wanted to keep the paragraph condemning slavery in the Declaration of Independence. 11 of the 13.

You do the math. I don't know what the percentage is. They were blackmailed by South Carolina and Georgia. South Carolina and Georgia said, if you want us to be on board and you want this to be unanimous, you need to get rid of that paragraph. And you talk about a bitter pill to swallow. Yeah.

But most Americans don't know. We've all bought the lie of the 1619 project and all the denigration of the founders as pro-slavery. That's nonsense because, in fact, 11 of the 13 colonists, imagine, 11 of the 13 colonies said we want to keep the passage in the Declaration of Independence condemning Negro slavery. It's an amazing fact of history. And I'm glad that you reminded me of that because that actually that that puts the lie to this,

you know, crazy statement that that that our founders were big hypocrites. Clearly, that is not the case. And what's really important here is, well, why didn't they just sign it with 11 going a boy? That's, that's an overwhelming majority. But they had to show a face of unity. They had to be unanimous in the fact that they were declaring independence because Britain can use that as a wedge against them if they weren't all on board, right? In fact, that leads to that famous line when Hancock supposedly on that day or at some point

said, we must all, he said, we must all hang together. And he said, basically saying we must all be unanimous. And of course, Benjamin Franklin, in his great wit, says that, yes, we must all hang together or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. And this was absolutely true. This wasn't just some like, oh, that's kind of a funny little silly little thing. Yeah, it wasn't just some clever moment. Like they knew.

I mean, there's more to it and you read the chapter, but it really was a incredibly solemn, gloomy time as they're lining up to sign this thing. We think it was like a celebration. It was not a celebration. It was really a, it was an extraordinary moment of sober commitment to the truth, knowing you are in fact risking everything, including your very life. They knew this. And they had to joke about it. It was this gallows humor.

So, yeah. Yeah, one of the rotunda of the signer said something about to one of the skinny guys I forgot who they were. He said, like, look, for me, it's going to be quick when they hang me, basically for you,

you're going to be hanging their kicking and screaming or something. I mean, it's really, I mean, they had a level, lighten it up with a little bit of humor because it was that serious. In fact, I wrote an article back in Martin, the Blaze called

Americans founders risk the gallows, what are you willing to risk? Because what are we willing to risk today? Because we do have a crisis in America. If people haven't noticed yet, especially if... Well, this is precisely why I keep saying that everyone must know this information. As Americans, we owe a debt to the men of the revolution and to all those who have stood up for our liberties ever since. But like, this is serious. What they did, the least we can do is to know their story and to honor them by knowing their story. So thank you for bringing that up. There's a great chapter in here that really nails it. If you don't mind, I'd love to read this paragraph quickly that you wrote about that very thing. And what their thoughts were on at the time, it says much that these men were pampered, they were not pampered elites, blithely spinning their political ideologies from the comfort of an ivory tower

and leaving the suffering and the dying to their fellow soldiers, though there are many so-called revolutionaries in history who can be judged guilty of that crime, the men of the revolution cannot. Already in 1772, Samuel Adams had much to say about that. He said, quote, we have proclaimed to the world our determination to die free men rather than live as slaves. We have appealed to heaven, remember the flag that was developed back then. For the justice of our cause and in heaven we have placed our trust. And don't forget at the end of the Declaration of Independence, for the support of this declaration with firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, mentioned four times, by the way,

in the declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. And I'll tell you something, that leads me, of course, to somebody like a nascent. Hayle who did pledge that. And this guy, I'd love to, if I could, dovetail over to that. Yeah, well, I was going to say, Albin, that, you know, one of my goals, just to say about Nathan Hale, when I wanted to write this book, before I knew anything, I said, I want to write the greatest hits, like all the stuff that people need to know. And I said, I've got to tell the amazing story of Nathan Hale.

And I watched the PBS Ken Burns documentary on the Revolution 12 hours. I had to watch it, you know, and I say to people, miss it if you can. If you can't miss it, I understand. But if you can, try to miss it because it's 12 hours that you could spend maybe more profitably. And the reason I bring it up is because if you can believe it, the reason I wrote my book, I didn't realize it because my book was written by the time I watched this documentary, but they devote like 10 seconds to Nathan Hale, literally 10 seconds.

They go on and on and on and on for hours and hours and hours about the Native American tribes, which seems insane, which is insane. They devote 10 seconds to Nathan Hale, and they don't even refer to him heroically. They just kind of mention him as he's hanged as a spy, and that's it. I have to tell you, if anybody wants an antidote to the bummer PBS version, you can read my book or listen to my book on audio if you can't read. But I'm glad you brought up Nathan Hale because that's just one of the things that stuns me that they're Americans that don't know his story. It's almost unbelievable. Yeah, I'll tell you something. I had tears in my eyes like when I read the last chapters of Bonhoeffer, but in the last page of Nathan Hale, because I wrote down here a question because most people were like,

oh, he was a spy for the Americans. Wow, he must have been what a valuable asset they got and getting Nathan Hale. But in a sense, he was an unsecreturned. successful spy. Everything he did, it never got back to George Washington. And George Washington resented the fact that he was a civilian spy. And that's why two years later, they did the culper, the spy ring or something, because they needed professionals. And he wasn't a professional. He went around the countryside around New York, because that's where they were holed up. In New York, they felt like that was a key point in the battle that we got to defend New York. But he went around and he took notes about the British and he drew maps and he pretended he was just a school teacher, you know, walking the countryside, looking for work, you know, to teach kids and all that sort of stuff.

And then he made a blunder where the last morning before he was supposed to get on a boat back to Washington basically to report, he went into a bar and I guess we really don't know what happened there. But he thought he was talking to a compatriot rather than a loyalist. Well, it was an inn. I mean, just to be clear, it wasn't a bar. It was like he was just there having breakfast. And he was, the thing is, and his friends said this, he was, first of all, he was a profound Christian. Yes.

And there was something very innocent about him. And probably he was too innocent really to be successfully involved in being a spy. And that's what tripped him up. But what a beautiful human being. I mean, I have to say, it's funny you say it brought tears to your eyes because when I was writing the last part about his. father's letter. I get choked up. Yeah. I said,

I got to end my chapter with this because this says everything. This is the father of this unbelievably noble, beautiful, brilliant young man dealing with the fact that this boy has been taken from him. Yeah. It's so moving. It's so moving. But I'm glad you read it.

I just wanted to write a couple descriptions that people said about Nathan Hale. So you know that he wasn't just some yokel that said like, I think I'm going to go spy and become a because he wasn't that at all. He's very humble. Yes, very Christian. One Yale classmate wrote, no young man of his years put forth a fairer promise of future usefulness and celebrity. The fortunes of none were fostered more sincerely by the generous good wishes of his superiors. And one of his superiors, Dr. Ennis Munson said this. I thought this was kind of funny.

He said he had a personal beauty and grace of man or most of his. that were most charming. All the girls in New Haven were in love with him. And he kind of, he kind of told his daughters, you know, watch out. Don't get, you know, this is, even though, of course, he was just a stellar human being. He's one of those guys you would meet and instantly you were, you were taken in. And this I have to read because this is what his, his friend James Hillhouse said about him and was encouraging him to do great things, like because of the times demanded them. This is what he wrote, James Hillhouse wrote to Nathan in a letter. He said, liberty is our reigning topic, which loudly calls upon everyone to exert his talent and abilities to the utmost in

defending of it. Now is the time for heroes. Now is the time for great men to immortalize their names in the deliverance of their country and grace the annals of America with their glorious deeds. And there's another quote about how we as Christians, we should take, you know, because this is something else that comes up in your book, and I don't know if you realize this, but the word virtue keeps popping out on so many speeches and in so many pages where people are saying, like, we, you know, we need to be godly men and women in this cause because God will smile on those and bless those who are men and women that follow virtue. and godly character.

And that's why George Washington was charged and basically as the general because, and you have warts and all in this, that General Charles... Oh, Charles Lee and Eratio Gates, the two bums. I got to tell you, I discovered this doing my research album, and I didn't know this before. I was amazed

to discover that these are men, not men of character. And it's why they were not chosen to lead the Continental Army, even though they thought that should be my job. And they actually worked to undermine George Washington. It's amazing. I mean, anyway, I don't want to give it away. I hope people will read it.

But boy, oh, boy. But there was a point when, and by the way, this is another quick, fun fact. Oh, and I have so many great things here. Something about Benedict Arnold, which I think is so funny. When he went up, he was supposed to go from Maine to Canada because they felt that that was a route, of course, that the British could come down from the Canadian colonies or provinces up there. So Benedict Arnold said, we're going to go up there and we're going to fight the British,

you know, we're going to take the fight to them. We're going to go from Maine on upwards. But he stopped into the church where they had the body of George Whitfield, of course. And he preached this last— This is one of my favorite stories. And I told the story yesterday. I was preaching a sermon a few days ago, actually, sorry, in— in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in a church,

and I can't resist telling this amazing story. Go ahead. Yeah, well, you can tell if you want, but the funny thing is they go to the church, and in the basement, of course, is where they buried the body of George Whitfield because he had been preaching his last sermon, and he died.

He was preaching it in its non-Newport Bird. I'm sorry, Newportport. It's New Report. He preached his last sermon in 1770, and a few days later he dies. At the young age of 56, I mean, he just, like, wore himself out. And so a few days later, he dies and he's buried in the crypt beneath the pulpit.

So after the service in 1775 that Benedict Arnold and his 1,100 troops attend this amazing service in this church, Benedict Arnold and his officers say, can we see the crypt? Can we see the grave of Whitfield? They go down, see the grave of Whitfield. And they ask, can we take the coffin lid off? Who does that? Albin, we wouldn't do that. think we would. Yeah. No, we wouldn't.

No, after you're in, it's so crazy. I'm not going to take the lid off and take your collars and coughs. I don't know. They take the, they take the coffin lid off and little and and, and, and, unbeknownst to them, Woodfield had just been sleeping and he leaps up and grabs Benedict Johnnell by the throat. And it's a crazy story. People have to read the book. We won't get into it. No. But they think, let's just put it this way. They get a few relics and they think this is going to, like, It's a Catholic kind of thing, but they're not Catholic. They're Puritans or whatever they were. Protestants, certainly.

But they think this is going to help us in our cause. But immediately, the weather goes against them. Their rub goes against them. The battles go against them. Well, that's one of the most brutal. I said, I have to tell that story. The expedition, I mean, honestly, it pains me even to think about it. The expedition through Maine, through the wilds of Maine to Canada,

led by Benedict Arnold, it is one of the most difficult things to read about, what they went through, the hell that they suffered, it's incomprehensible, what they had to eat. They're eating candles. They're eating dogs. I mean, the whole thing is just beyond belief. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great chapter.

I mean, every chapter is itself enclosed in this really great stuff. And these are stories. Some of you haven't heard of, obviously. You've got a 600-page book that goes into all the details before and after and certainly during the revolution. But what's great is that each chapter itself just has such amazing facts. I posed another question. I wrote down this stuff in form of questions. You know, we all know that Fort Knox supposedly has all our gold, all of America's gold.

But was Fort Knox actually named after a person or a place? What is the name? What's the relevance of Fort Knox? And of course, Eric, you've got a whole chapter about Knox in the book, a guy named Henry. I mean, he's all through the book, but there is one, the biggest story of, I mean, yeah, for folks, if they haven't read the book yet, Henry Knox, what a character. You can't believe.

I mean, again, I had to write, I said, I've got to tell the story. And it's funny, Alvin, because in the acknowledgments page of the, of the book, I refer on the last paragraphs to my fifth grade history teacher, Mr. McDevitt, at the Beaverbrook School in Danbury, Connecticut. And I love that man. There's some people that you just, as a kid, you just love them and respect them. And he was such a great teacher. And I remember him all these years telling the story of Henry Knox getting the guns, the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga. This unbelievable. It's like, Hannibal crossing the Alps on elephants.

You can't believe he really did this. So I said, I've got to write a chapter that gives every detail of this monumental exploit that really, if it weren't for Henry Knox. So yes, Fort Knox is named for Henry Knox. He was the first secretary of war in the United States of America named by George Washington. He was there as a 19-year-old at the Boston Massacre. and I write about him as a 19-year-old at the Boston Massacre.

He tried to stop it. I mean, what an incredible figure. So he's another one of these great names in history that we, everybody, every American needs to know the story of the great Henry Knox and his wife, Lucy, who sacrificed, I mean, what they sacrificed,

every American needs to know, folks, he got to know this stuff. What they sacrificed, what they went through. Incredible. Yeah. Here's another question I had. What's the largest framed painting

in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the largest framed painting. Okay, all right. Now, I'm going to shock the crowd. Behind me is a painting, a profile of George Washington. I believe that painting of George Washington behind me is by the same painter who painted the painting to which you are referring.

Loitsa, a German painter who in 1851, painted the monumental crossing of the Delaware. I think is it Erwin Loitsa? I can't remember his first name, but this is a German painter, and it is so big. It's like 21 feet wide and 12 feet. It's just gigantic,

and it's not far from where I'm sitting right now in New York City. There are a lot of things that are not far from where you're sitting, that's for sure. You know, people know that they cross the Delaware, but why did they cross the Delaware? Some people might think, oh, well, a famous painting. He crossed the Delaware in the winter and that, you know, what city did they cross to?

And where did the battle take place when they crossed the Delaware? Well, they didn't cross to Trenton because they wanted to fool the enemy. So they crossed nine miles away from Trenton. But the idea was that they're going to cross the Delaware and they are going to march nine miles through the bitter cold. so cold that two soldiers sat down to rest on the march and froze to death. Those are the only two American casualties. It's unbelievable. They marched nine miles to Trenton to surprise the Hessians.

This is like one of the great turnarounds of the war. It was just an unbelievable moment. But it's the crossing of the Delaware that we think of, as you just were saying. Yeah. And the thing was, too, it was the day after. Christmas. So even though they got there late and they were trying to get there before dawn broke, they got there, there was still snowing and all that. And everybody, everybody, even today you would think like, nobody's going to fight when there's a snowstorm and it's freezing cold and the

army hasn't slept in three days and they haven't eaten in three days. We don't have to worry about the Americans coming the day after Christmas. We can sleep in. Well, that was a fatal mistake for many in that troop there that Washington. It was absolutely. It's a, but one of the great things in the war. And I, that's one of my favorite chapters in the book is that whole story because, I mean, first of all, the painting, I'm not going to go into it here, but oh my gosh, I write at length about that painting.

It's an amazing painting. And if you come to New York City, you know what I need to do, Alvin? Yeah. And you could help me in this. Sure. I need to put together a New York City revolution tour because there's so many things in New York city that you could visit. That painting is one of them.

The horse's tail at the New York Historical Society is another one. To go to the base of the Brooklyn Bridge and to see this is where they crossed to escape across the East River. This is the very place where that happened. There's so many things like that. Bowling Green and touched the fence at Bowling Green. Bowling Green. And you know what else is really crazy is that Thomas Payne, he didn't just write

common sense, he wrote the American crisis. But he wrote it while he was with Washington. Washington used his words to rally the troops a couple days before they did the crossing over to for the Battle of Trenton. But I actually use one of Thomas Paine's quotes in my blood, obvious, where... Wait a minute. You wrote a book? I get out of here. Really? It's obvious. I wrote a book. It's obvious. Is the title obvious? Yes. But this is the title. The honest. But this Thomas campaign quote is from the American crisis where he says, Now is the Time that tries men's souls. And he said tyranny.

This is great. He said, tyranny like hell is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious, the triumph. And Washington rallied the troops with those words before crossing the Delaware. It is, it's amazing. It's that there's so much. You're reminding me of stuff I forgot. I forgot about that, that Thomas Bain.

You know, this is months after he writes common sense, which basically galvanizes the entire the population of the 13 colonies to suddenly be for independence, which they hadn't been for. And then months later, while he is with

Washington's Ragtag Army, retreating through the jerseys south to the Delaware River, which is the border, with Pennsylvania in case anybody wants to know why the western border of Pennsylvania is so jagged it's because that's the Delaware River. And so as Thomas Payne is retreating with them, he's writing this essay and you're right, right before they decide to cross the Delaware, I think three days before Washington has this essay read to his troops. It's un... I mean,

talk about the power of the power of the pen. Wow. And it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's amazing. And I think in your, you're trooping around New York City, I think you should end it by everybody getting in a boat and crossing the Delaware. I think that would be. Exactly. Great only problems in Delaware is not near New York City, but I hear you. I hear what you're saying.

We only have 45 seconds left. I want to do another Fun Facts Friday with you, like almost immediately. But, Albin, I'll just let you have the last 40 seconds. Okay. Well, there's a couple quick ones I have. A woman disguised herself as a man. Her name was Deborah Samson. And she went into the fight in the war.

So she went as Robert Shirkliff. And she took a cannonball in her leg, but she didn't go to the doctor because he would discover, you're a woman. What are you doing? Women weren't supposed to fight. Now, wait a minute. That's not in my book, though. It isn't?

That's in my book? Well, I didn't get them. I don't remember putting that in my book. I think it's so appropriate that we would end on a confused note. That is so, Revolution 2. That's so perfect. Well, honestly, we are at a time, but I want to have you back because obviously there's just, and it's just so, I want to celebrate the super centennial by talking about the revolution, and I'm not going to stop and you're not going to stop. So we're going to have you back, if not next week, the week after that, we've just got to keep going.

Albin, thank you for being my guest. Thank you for your kind willingness to talk about the American Revolution and to praise my book in such beautiful language. I do appreciate that. Albin Sater, my friend, the author of Obvious, thanks for being my guest. Thank you, Eric. Today's show is brought to you by Grace Precious Metals. In an industry that can be confusing,

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