The Eric Metaxas Show - #188 - Christian Di Spigna

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Today's episode is from a recent Socrates in the City Conversation with Christian Di Spigna.

Welcome to Socrates in the city. The city in which we find ourselves today is Philadelphia. And not just Philadelphia. I am in Carpenter's Hall, the very site, mostly unchanged, of the first continental Congress, almost inconceivable when we think of the history and the historical figures that have been here from George Washington to Patrick Henry. Benjamin Franklin was brokering a deal with the French in the room next door. Just astonishing history.

As part of our Socrates in the City, Supercentennial 250th Revolutionary Series, I have the great joy and privilege now of interviewing Christian Despina, who is the author of an important book. It's called Founding Martyr, the Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's lost hero. Christian, congratulations and welcome. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I've interviewed you before, but now that I know what I know, having written my own book on the revolution, the figure of Joseph Warren is incomparable.

There is no one quite like him, and the fact that he is not very well known is astonishing. You have made a monumental effort to correct that serious wrong, and in my own book I do what I can, to a large extent, using what I discovered in your book. So I want to tell the whole story, I want you to tell the whole story, but before we begin in the beginning, what is the overview? If somebody says, you know, the nutshell version, so Dr. Joseph Warren, who's that? Yeah, the nutshell version of it in one sentence is before there was George Washington, there was Dr. Joseph Warren. And that's not to detract from Washington. I'm a huge Washington enthusiast, but there would be no United States of America without Dr. Joseph Warren. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that. And I'm sure we'll delve into

that a little bit more and substantiate that. But really, if that's the one sentence, before there was Washington, there was Warren. Well, there are a number of figures without whom there would absolutely be no United States of America. And we're indebted to them. And as part of trying to pay back some of that debt, we need to at least know who they are and know their stories. And you've gone a long way toward telling Dr. Joseph Warren's story.

I mean, it's a magnificent work you've done. So I have to ask you, how did it start? Because, I mean, the nutshell version, of course, of why we don't know who he is. He's killed at Bunker Hill. I want to get into that with you. Why most people don't know more about him. But what was it that originally piqued your interest in this monumental figure who is bizarrely little known? Yeah.

I mean, growing up in New York, for some reason, I had an odd fascination. with the mystique of Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, and I was in a secondhand bookstore and found a book from 1835 that had been published by his niece. In New York? No, this was in Rhode Island, and it was just happenstance. We had missed a ferry to block island, had two hours to kill, found this bookstore.

I came across this book, the owner didn't even know he had it, and it said stories about General Warren by a lady of Boston. I thought, I'll buy it, and 1835 it was published, and I read it, and I had marginally heard about Warren, And I just couldn't believe everything he had been responsible for. And I thought, you know, I don't understand why we don't know more about him. And then I think it was in 1997, there was a book published called Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fisher. And Warren is peppered throughout that book, but what was so great about that book at the end in all the appendixes,

he has these lists of all these groups and organizations throughout Boston. And Warren is listed more than anyone. And I just thought I don't understand how we don't know more about it. him and when I was an undergraduate at Columbia my senior thesis advisor I went to him and said hey I'd like to write about Dr. Joseph Warren and he said well who's that so I knew I was on to something and that's when it started it started when I was on an undergraduate at Columbia University so your senior thesis advisor says who's that right now I know Ivy League professors are ignorant because I've

experienced that firsthand but I am surprised by this level of ignorance It is sometimes just astonishing to the point of embarrassing when you realize how great and important someone it is and I didn't know who he was and most people know who he was, which is why I'm so grateful to you for the book because my hope is that if people read my book or when they read my book, it will pique their interest to go further

and I didn't have enough pages to go into to Joseph Warren. So he really is, we've already established a huge deal. Do you want to, before we go, you know, chronologically and start at the beginning, do you want to say more just generally about why he's so important? Yeah, I mean, he's involved in every major insurrectionary event in and around the town of Boston in the decade leading up to independent.

So name all the big buzzwords, right? Tea Party, Massacre, Stampback Riots. I mean, he's front and center or behind the scenes controlling the events. He's the main organizer of the Boston Tea Party, but you never hear his name associated with that, because while he wasn't physically dumping chests of tea into the harbor, he organized and orchestrated the whole event.

The best way we could put it is that I see him as the power broker of independence. He's advocating independence as early as 1768 when no one's talking about it. If anything, they're whispering it, but no one's being that bold and advocating it that early. It would be wrong for me not to say that over and over and over again, I kept thinking Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren are the giants. These two men, there is no American Revolution and no America without Samuel Adams and Joseph

Warren. They got everything started, and there should be monuments to them three. throughout the country. I mean, they knew each other, they worked together. Of course, Samuel Adams was much older. But it is just, it's extraordinary John Hancock's in there. So the short thing, which I referenced, is that because of his extreme courage, he puts himself forward.

He's killed at the beginning at Bunker Hill, which is, that's the short answer of why most people don't know who he is. So let's go back. Let's go to the beginning. Yeah. How does he start life? Who is he as a young man? How does he get his, how does he get to be the man that he becomes?

In a nutshell, it's education because he's the son of a humble farming family. His father is harvesting apple trees, but he gets into Harvard, 1755. And that becomes his social oasis. This is where he's meeting these future power brokers of the revolution, the sons of the these loyalists family, the Hutchinson's, the Hallowells, the Oliver's, and somehow he's able to move up in the ranks. At that time, Harvard College bases your student ranking on the social standing of your parents and their finances. So he's at the bottom of the... They still do, by the way. They still do, yes. So by the end, his senior year, he's rooming

with the top students in his class. He becomes very good friends with the Connecticut governor's son, Jonathan Trumbull. So by the end of his senior year, he is mingling and networking with the future powers that be in the Bay Colony. And part of the reason, of course, for this is that he's brilliant. He's an amazing, he's an amazing figure. And so you said his father was a farmer. And I'm trying to remember, does his father die falling from an apple tree? Yeah, it's the height of the Apple Harvest in October. Warren is back from Harvard on the first of six eventual vacations from Harvard for the year. So he's there when his father falls from that ladder, breaks his neck,

dies instantly, which is one of the reasons why it propels him towards a career in medicine. So he immediately, at 14 years old, is catapulted to the patriarch status of his family because he's got three younger brothers. His mother is now widowed. And so he sort of becomes the power figure in the family. but she encourages him to go back to Harvard to finish his studies. And we have to be clear, people went to college at a much younger age. Nathan Hale is 14 when he goes to Yale.

It was quite different. But so we'll keep going. So suddenly, as you say, he's catapulted into being the leader of the family, the patriarch somehow at age 14. Sounds crazy today. It does. Yeah. But what happens is there's no medical schools at the time.

So when he graduates and he decides to pursue a career in medicine, there's no medical schools in the colonies at this time. So what a student has to do is either he has to go to the glittering capitals in Europe, an apprentice with a doctor there. If you don't have money, you apprentice under someone who did go to Europe and then comes back to the colonies. And Warren chose wisely. He chose as his mentor and authority figure, Dr. James Lloyd.

And here's where we get this push and pull, right? Because everything we read says Samuel Adams is the father of the American Revolution. And Warren's kind of relegated to this subservient status. But when you think about it, Warren's a generation younger. He's sort of this dashing, handsome, younger figure. Adams has looked at as this kind of shabbly dressed rabble-rousing problem. He has a hand tremor. Warren is this young, bold figure.

and he's a Harvard gentleman. They both graduate Harvard, but what we don't see is that Warren helps bail Adams out of his financial crisis, and he gives him money. So we have to see these two on a little bit more of an equal footing, and again, it's not to detract anything away from Samuel Adams. But what we want to underscore is that Warren was not this tabular rasa that just Samuel Adams molds.

When he enters this orbit of Whig radicalism, He was already heavily entrenched in his philosophies and his radical outlook, and there's reasons for that. Okay, so I don't remember what year he was born. 1741. Okay, so he's born, right, he's born 1741, so he is, whatever, 15 or 20 years younger than Samuel Adams. He becomes a doctor, and I know that in the 1760s, he doesn't come out too quickly has a radical against the British because he has clients as a doctor on both sides of this conflict. That's what makes him so valuable because both sides are trying to get him converted to their side.

So he's good friends with Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor. Hutchinson helps settle the probate estate of his father when he dies. He appoints him as the almshouse physician for the town of Boston, where he earns over 1,000 pounds between 1769. in 1771. So he's getting all this financial patronage from these top loyalist leaders, right? He's treating the family of the Flucker family,

who's the royal secretary. He's treating his children. So again, when you look through those pages of his medical ledger, that's what gives you a keyhole into not only his professional life, but his personal life. Okay, so this is so interesting because you mentioned the Fluckers, and by the way, this is the family program,

so be careful. I was going to say I have to watch But let me tell you, the Flucker family, Lucy Flucker, marries Henry Knox. And Henry Knox is similar in that he has relationships on both sides because of his bookstore. Warren has relationships on both sides because of his medical practice, which is just so interesting to me that there's a moment where you can exist in that world. But at some point, it's heartbreaking when Lucy loses her family.

She has to side with her husband. And it's heartbreaking. And Joseph Warren similarly is he's in Boston society before you had to declare which side you're on. Right. And I think to his credit, his real mentor, in my opinion, is Dr. James. You know, Adams comes after, but it's Lloyd who's teaching him how to master the nuances of a bedside manner. When Lloyd comes back from Europe, he has the most up-to-date medical techniques and

they start practicing obstetrical care, which is usually handled by a midwife. They start doing smallpox inoculations. So this is what really catapults warrant to the top echelons in society because there's a horrific smallpox outbreak in 64 and he saves every single one of his patients, not one die under his watch. And this was a really nasty disease. As we know, if it didn't kill you, it left you scarred. It could blind you. This was front and center on the minds of the founders. We know Washington has the army inoculated. So this is a big thing. Because there's no hero, who are the heroes? And these were real vaccines, not jabs. Got to be clear. So this is interesting because

that I know that he inoculated the Adams, John Adams and Abigail and at some point, it seems that when John Quincy Adams was, I don't know, seven years old, he almost lost his finger in an accident, and Joseph Warren saves the finger. Do we know what that accident was? I couldn't find out. No, we don't. But I know that JQA mentions it during his presidency fondly. So, I mean, to underscore how close Warren was with the Adams, So everything written on Warren before I had written my book claim that all the direct descendants had vanished and died out in the 1800s, and I actually found direct descendants. It was like hitting the lottery. Of Joseph?

Of Joseph Warren. I became great friends with his fifth-grade grandson, and he brought me to the family farm that had the actual strain of apple trees that they had created. And they brought out all these material culture pieces. It was like hitting the lottery. excited and they brought out this silver porringer handle and it's it is a parringer so it's like a ladle almost yeah and we had the handle and usually they would give it as a gift for a baptism or christening and so john adams had given this to warren on the baptism of one of his children guess what i read that yesterday in your book uh because i was boning up for this interview and i i really was touched by that

that they were so close that John Adams would do this. All right, so Joseph Warren, another thing that's remarkable, we mentioned that he becomes the patriarch of the family at age 14 or something like that, but how young they were educated and how young, I write about James Thatcher, the surgeon during the Revolutionary War, he's 21. So we don't think of doctors being so young,

but he is doing all this in his 20s. This is before they invented eight-year medical school, whatever. So how old is he when he begins practicing as a doctor? So it would have been around 63. It's around the same age, 21, 22, and it's amazing this meteoric rise to power. Yeah. Because it really puts him on the map. And, you know, when we think about it in human terms, right, he's got patients.

He's making house calls. So he's there for the most intimate moments in people's lives, right? The death of a loved one, the birth of a child. So they start placing themselves not only under his medical care, but start to trust him. You know, he's canceling a lot of fees for people who are poor and indigent. And so he becomes this authority figure so beloved by the citizens or the subjects of the king. But he's such a beloved figure, and that's why it's such a tragedy what actually winds up happening. Well, what's interesting to me is that he is writing, in those days, in the mid-1760s, almost everybody is writing for the newspapers under pseudonyms.

And he's among them writing under pseudonyms. But he is pretty early on very bold in what he says. He's going right on the edge, just in the same way that Patrick Henry, who was in the room downstairs 252 years ago, Patrick Henry would do that verbally. He would say the thing that everybody's thinking, but nobody would dare say, but he would say it. I feel that way about Joseph Warren. He would write things that would raise eyebrows and cause trouble. And that happened with him early on.

He was not timid about his beliefs in liberty. Right. And he writes a couple of particularly virulent articles about the Royal Governor Francis Bernard, which helps. I was hoping you were going to go there, yes, yes. Which helps oust him from power and sends him back to England. Yeah. And this is, I believe it was 1769.

Correct. So again, when you start looking at this through this revolutionary lens, but it's the rebellion that leads to the resistance. It's really, to your point, it's Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, who was sort of this one-two punch of the revolution. I mean, and part of the reason, you know, because people say, well, then, how come I haven't heard of them?

You know, when I wrote my book on William Wilberforce people, how come I haven't heard of Wilberville? And there are reasons we haven't heard of these people. One of the reasons we haven't heard much about Samuel Adams or Joseph Warren is because they were so important and so dedicated to the, cause that they didn't care about preserving their letters and they wanted to destroy the evidence so that the cause could prevail.

And you talk about selflessness and devotion to the cause, that's a big part of the reason we don't know who Dr. Joseph Warren is because he actually cared about getting it done as opposed to being known for getting it done. I think you should write the sequel to this. Yeah. I mean, no, it's true because, you know, he's at the head of a vast intelligence network. So his nephew, decades later, writes that Warren destroys all his personal papers, because think about it. And we have to look at it again through an 18th century lens, not the 21st century mindset, because this predates Nathan Hale, this predates George Washington's Secret 6th.

So Warren establishes this spy network. And then when Washington arrives after Warren's death about 10 days later, he inherits this spy ring. And Warren is getting information filtered from every level of society. So again, it's one of the reasons why you don't hear much about them. I think they said the letters between John and Abigail Adams, if you stretch them out, they'd go like 300 miles or something. No, they would reach to the moon. Yeah.

There's nothing on Warren, and this is what made it so challenging. Yeah. Well, it's the same with George Washington that they burned all their letters, but it turns out most people have heard of George Washington. So it's kind of a different conversation. But, okay, so Joseph Warren, let's go chronologically before we get to, you know, the spies and the sending Paul Revere to Lexington and Concord and all that stuff. He is very vocal in print in the 1760s, so much so that he kind of gets almost in trouble. Because when you're criticizing Hutchinson as virulently as he does, he crossed some lines there.

Oh, yeah. But then when Hutchinson kind of pushes back, amazingly, Warren doubles down, and he says, I will not be silent, I will. I mean, he really is, he seems to have a, throw the caution to the wind attitude, that this is too important for us to be, to be cautious about, that if I die in this cause, so be it.

And part of that, you mentioned his father, I know that his father at some point, because I read it in your book, says to him something like, I'd rather that my son die a hero than live as a coward. And for a young man to hear that from someone he loves and respects, that goes deep. Yes. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons. And I don't want to say he threw caution into the wind. I think a lot of historians claim that Warren had some kind of weird.

death wish or wanted to die in battle, and nothing could be further from the truth, right? He's got four orphaned children. He's trying to protect them. He's writing letters about getting involved in more agricultural pursuits. And I don't want to jump ahead too far, but this definitely 100% has an effect on his mindset, and you can see it throughout his actions, throughout his life. Well, we're going to get to this. But so let's stick with it.

It's the 1760s. He is a popular, beloved, successful doctor, very successful. He is writing these incendiary letters into the newspapers of the day under these pseudonyms. At what point does he get married? So right after the smallpox epidemic subsides and he's kind of catapulted to this fame status, he marries the most eligible bachelorette in Boston. And that's in the fall of 1764. So he is 23.

He's 23. She's 18? Yeah. Okay. So he gets married and they have several children. And at some point fairly early on, I remember the year, she dies. 73. Okay.

So we can hold off chronologically. But so he's got this family. He's extremely busy. He's extremely involved. And I think, again, the Sons of Liberty, I mean, these heroes, Paul Revere, John, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, and a handful of others, they're making it all happen. I mean, they are, this is what John Adams calls the revolution before the revolution. They are busy.

It's impossible to think that he was a successful, busy doctor. kind of running all this other stuff. And I was fascinated in reading that in 1770, I guess it's in February when Christopher Sider or Sidel, the 11-year-old boy is killed, that, of course, Joseph Warren does the autopsy, Joseph Warren. I talk about that because a lot of people don't know about 10 days,

before the Boston Massacre of May 5th, 1770, there's this other event which kind of leads us to the tensions of the Boston Massacre. But say anything about that that you like. Yeah, so what's happening is these non-importation agreements are expiring. So what's happening, this is like an economic boycott against the mother country where they're not importing goods, they're not buying, and what happens is there's a couple of vendors and shopkeepers who start to break that early on. There's a protest outside one of the stores. stores, one of the loyalists tries to defend this shopkeeper. And that dude is a maniac.

Right, exactly. So he runs home, you know, the crowd is just pressing in. He goes to the top floor window, points his musket out, and starts firing shots. And he hits a couple of boys, and one is killed. And this is particularly poignant for Warren because he's just lost a child. So him and his wife have lost a child in infancy, so I can only imagine treating this young boy performing this autopsy. Trying to save this 11-year-old's life and failing, and then trying to save this young man, I guess he's 19 years old, trying to save his hand, and he can't really save

it completely. But everywhere you turn, Joseph Warren is there. Right. So things obviously heat up after the Boston Massacre, but he was involved in those autopsies, and that's obviously March 5th, 1770. And he is the one who brokers the deal with, I guess it's Hutchinson at this point, whatever, that, you know, if you get the troops out of Boston, we can have peace. But, I mean, again, he's right there. He's the one meeting with Hutchinson whom he's known all these years. After this, you know, you think everything is going to explode completely at that moment.

but he manages to help. And I think Hutchinson, you know, Hutchinson to me is a little bit of a tragic figure, but, you know, what they did to him during the Stampback riots in 64. I mean, that was just... I wrote about it, and I tell you, I don't weep literally, but, oh, my gosh, these mobs get up. I mean, it's just, you know, and the incredible thing is that Adams and Warren are controlling these mobs. You know, and that's the thing about Warren, right? He's not from the gentry, right?

He's not part of this upper echelon of society, and this is a highly socially stratified puritanical society in Boston. But it's like almost this quintessential rags to riches story where Warren rises from the sum, I think it was Peter Oliver that said he was a bare-legged milk boy furnishing the Boston market. So they're all being very condescending to him,

and what happens is, again, to restate this meteoric rise to this upper echelons of society, economically, politically, socially. And I think Hutchinson is holding out hope that Warren will come to the loyalists. And so that's why I kind of refer to him as this power broker because he is literally controlling and directing events in and around Boston. Yeah. You've often heard me talk about the Golden Triangle of Freedom, that intersection of faith, virtue, and liberty.

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That's 571-421-1253. It's time to find the clarity you deserve. Wow. Well, so, okay, the Boston Massacre happens. John Adams defends the soldiers really courageously and correctly. And so we think, well, maybe we'll be okay. We have a few years of sort of peace. What is going on with Joseph Warren between 1770 and 1773?

This is what everybody glosses over because John Adams is writing in his diary. I don't want to be involved in political pursuits anymore. Joseph Warren's trying to get him to come to the Green Dragon Tavern, where they're holding all these meetings. And Adam says, that way lies madness. John Hancock is getting more involved in his merchants' business. So you see these founding fathers start to fade away and settle into a groove

where it's not so much about rebellion. Let's keep the peace. And it's Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, who are pushing this political machine. They organized the committees of correspondence, so that there's this inter- and intra-communication network all up and down the northern and southern eastern seaboard. And they are the ones who keep pushing this agenda, keep talking about independence. And I think a lot of people forget that. Now, what drove them?

Because I know that Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren were men of deep Christian faith. It wasn't sort of just an identity. they took that very seriously. What was it that made them so dedicated when other people kind of thought, well, we can fade back a little, we can sit down for a couple of years. It's, we're okay. I think it starts with something called the land bank crisis. And this is a very convoluted, complicated issue that occurs in the late 1730s and early 1740s, where farmers and smaller merchants are trying to make paper notes. because there's not a lot of hard currency.

And what happens is the wealthy elite get upset about this, reach out to Parliament, and dissolve this land bank, and two of the most affected are Samuel Adams' father and Joseph Warren's grandfather. Okay, I knew about Samuel Adams' father and that he gets radicalized because the British elites are trying to screw his father. So that's when he gets very serious about this

and serious about his faith in the 1740s. I mean, you know, at the beginning of the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening. Jonathan Edwards, yeah. But I did not know that about Joseph Warren. And we didn't. And I found these documents. And when Warren's father dies, his grandfather sort of becomes this patriarchal figure to him.

He is financially ruined by these land bank suits. And you see all these newspaper articles where he's pleading for mercy from the courts for aid. He's selling off farm animals, clothing, personal possessions to pay off this land bank debt. And it financially ruins his family. And Joseph Warren grew up front and center, witnessing British Parliament, dipping their fingers into the colonist pockets. One of the big issues in the revolution

that I touch on in my book and that I saw is what we would call corruption, which is a moral issue. It's stealing. It's stealing. And the British elites were corrupt. And if you tasted it personally, as they did, it becomes personal.

But, you know, we don't want to reduce it. to like, oh, they had a personal vendetta. They saw injustice, more clearly, I guess, than many would have. More clearly than John Adams would have. So Joseph Warren and Samuel, so they keep this going. They keep ginning it up as possible. And then, of course, in 1773, the cynical act of parliament, like, hey, we can sell these Americans.

we can make them an offer they can't refuse. Really, really cheap tea. They're going to put aside their Christian principles. They're a bunch of hypocrites anyway, and that does not go well. No. And so the amazing thing about this is that both sides are leaning on Warren to try and broker some kind of peace. So Warren, all these tea party consignees who are given this power,

Warren either went to school with them, He's friends with them. They're patients of his. So Hutchinson's sons. So Warren, you know, and what people don't realize is Warren is very connected to the seaside population because he owns half of a wharf that he inherits from his wife's father. So he's involved with ship captains and sailors. I mean, he's involved in every rung of that social ladder in Boston.

So he's trying to broker a deal. You know, Francis Roch, who's one of the owners of one of the three T-ships, is a patient of his. John Rowe, another owner of one of the T-shapes, is a Masonic brother of his and a patient of his. So, again, when I say all roads lead through Warren, it's not an exaggeration. It really isn't. It's actually dizzying. Yeah. He's in the middle of everything.

So, yeah, the corruption right there that the British decide we're going to dump this cheap tea, not literally, on the Americans. and the figures in Boston say, absolutely not. We will not allow this. We don't care if it's cheap. There's a principle at stake. We actually believe in these principles. I didn't know that Joseph Warren

was even in the middle of that. Yeah. And so, again, he wasn't physically dumping chess of tea, but Warren is the grandmaster of Masons at this point. And so St. Andrew's Masonic Lodge, when you look at the list they produced of all the Tea Party participants, St. Andrew's Lodge, St. Andrew's Lodge, St. Andrew's Lodge.

They have a meeting at the Green Dragon Tavern, which is referred to as the headquarters of the American Revolution. They meet on December 16th, 1773, and they can't have the meeting because there's not a quorum, but they write the T-P, you know, the T-issue took up the Brethren's Time. So again, there's all these... What's the month again?

This is December, on the day of the T-Part. Okay, so they're trying to figure this out. There was a meeting on November 30th, 3rd, as well, and they said it was the tea issue that took up all the Brethren's time. So again, he's talking about this in every single. It's almost like a Venn diagram, right? He's sons of liberty, North End caucus, Masons. I mean, he's everywhere.

And so he is, again, in every situation trying to make this piece and not have this explosive situation. But when they realize the T's half to dock, it has to be unloaded from the ships. Right. that on December 13th, the 20-day rule expires. Exactly. And their goose is going to be cooked, so they got to do something by December 13th. Right.

It's coming to a head. Yeah. And then it explodes on the night of the 16th. And Warren is at Old South Meeting House. He's one of the speakers. But again, he's one of the speakers on the night that they're all gathered, like thousands of them. Exactly. Yes, he gives a speech.

And again, he's holding meetings with Richard Clark, who's one of the T-Cons. Sinis. He's holding meetings with Hutchinson. I mean, there's this, there's a whole kind of ruckus when Warren is meeting with Richard Clark and like a whole gang presses in on Clark and he has to close the door. I mean, it's becoming so explosive, you know something's going to happen. And so it's with his organizational skills and all his connections to these masons, to these sailors, to every rung of society that he is putting this all together because everyone trusts him. Well, to me, what's very interesting about the Tea Party is the tremendous fidelity to secrecy. Warren and Samuel Adams, I guess, are the ones that come up with this plan.

But they put the word out. No one can speak of this, and nobody speaks for decades. They keep their mouths shut for decades after this. It's so true, and it's amazing, because I don't think that could really happen today. in society, but everyone is so tight-lipped about it. And to your point, it's not for decades that people actually start, you hear murmurs about it or people speaking about it.

But, yeah, I mean, really throughout the whole 18th century, it's not, you don't know who the participants were. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it is. There's no trail. There's no paper trail. There's no, well, okay, so the Tea Party, of course, that sets the British, you know,

turns them upside down with rage and next thing you know they're kind of it's like that's when they decide no more Mr. Nice guy we're going to crush you and obviously that doesn't go very well for them ultimately

but that's when it starts so 1774 there was a meeting in this building that's a big deal that people from 13 colonies came to Philadelphia, you know, with horses, that sends a message to the world. Now, Joseph Warren was not there. He was home in Boston, obviously, but he had something to do with the Suffolk Resolves.

Man, if he had done nothing else, we would owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. So when they passed these coercive acts, the intolerable acts, one of them is that they closed the port of Boston on June 1st. 1774, which puts a stranglehold on Boston's economy. Warren writes this declaration of rights and grievances in September of 74, and on one of the lesser famous rides, he dispatches Revere to come here to Philadelphia, to Carpenter's Hall. And think of the distance that Revere, it's like 300 miles.

The ride into Lexington and the Conqueror is like 18 miles. Yeah, yeah. I think he made it in five or six days or something outrageous. And, you know, northern southern rivalry, nothing new to the Civil War, right? It's alive and while when these delegates assemble here in Carpenter's Hall, they're all looking at Boston as this upstart problem colony that's causing them issues. There's a lot of discord, a lot of vitriol. When a Revere arrives with these Suffolk resolves, they're read aloud, and the amazing thing is they're adopted unanimously, every single delegate.

So when people say, well, you know, none of the founders knew who Joseph Warren was, it's complete nonsense because they all knew who he was just from this document. And it really, when you read this document, it really is the precursor document to the Declaration of Independence. I always say, I mean, not to diss Thomas Jefferson, but he gets way, way, way too much credit. There are 10 versions of this thing, basically, you know, before 1776. one of the key ones is what Warren writes in the Suffolk Resolves and elsewhere. I mean, it's kind of, it's interesting. Yeah.

And it really kind of catapults the colonies really towards this path because between September of 74 and June of 75, this is the major, major movement of this rebellion. And Warren is front and center. And his power just continues to increase. It's influence continues to increase. Okay, so this takes us, of course, into 1775. The men who met in this building in 1774 are planning to meet again in Philadelphia in May of, I guess, yeah, I guess it's May of 75. But before that, something happens in Lexington and Concord.

We'll talk about Joseph Warren's role in the lead-up to Lexington and Concord. Right, and this is where we go back to this spy network. Yes. We know Revere is spying for him. There's a letter Revere writes where him and 30 plus mechanics are monitoring British troop movements. What is that term mechanics? Every time I read it, I read it in your book again yesterday.

It's basically like people on Revere's level, you know, silversmiths, goldsmiths, you know, shoemakers, cobbler, stave makers. Okay, so trades people and workers. Exactly, exactly. And so they're monitoring these British troop movements. And, you know, we've always heard that Thomas Gage's wife is feeding information to Warren, but it's not true. Yes. So what I think is that it was Lucy Flucker who's feeding information to Knox because her father, Thomas Flucker, holds the third highest position in the colony, right?

He's the royal secretary. Now, Knox's bookstore was on the same block where Warren grew up. Knox's mentor is good friends with Joseph Warren. Actually loans Warren money to make repairs on a house. So, you know, again, all these Venn diagrams, all these networks, all these connections. And so Warren is getting all this intelligence information filtered through him. You know, this stable boy giving him information. New information came to light in 2015 about Thomas Hutchinson's niece carrying intelligence reports

across the ferry with strict orders to deliver them to Dr. Joseph Warren, who at this point is now president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and head of the Committee of Safety. So in the middle of all this stuff, He couldn't be more busy. It's dizzying. When does his wife die? She dies in 73, and Warren starts to see another woman. They become engaged.

Her name is Mercy Scully. Right. And things are getting so heated in Boston, because let's not forget, Warren delivers too fiery Boston Massacre orations. And the second one in 75, all the British troops are threatening to assassinate anyone who delivers that oration. We have to say, so March 5th, 1770s of Boston, Massacre every year on that date or the date next to it, there would be a big, I don't know what you'd call it, not really a celebration, but they would commemorate the Boston Massacre and they would pick someone to give a fiery speech that, in a sense, never forget.

We're never going to forget. So Warren delivers, I guess, two of those in the course of five years. Right. I mean, it's amazing. And I know in 75, this is, he is like walking into the lion's dead. Oh, yeah. That's a great way to put it.

Yes. You know, he's already been accosted in the streets by soldiers who have knocked him down. And the British soldiers are literally talking to everyone, saying, anyone who delivers this oration, we will assassinate them or hang them. And no one wants to do it and warn volunteers. And just think about the nerve he had.

because before he delivers that oration that morning, he visits and treats six patients and then goes and delivers that fiery oration that people are writing about in the newspapers after that saying everybody was ready to join together and pick up arms and fight for the cause. And you mentioned in your book that he wore a toga. Yes. To underscore Republican principles tying us back to Rome and that this is a noble thing. but the British soldiers were arrayed around him sitting on the steps of because they had those the pulpit the pulpit would go up and they're they're heckling it's like it's like the

Gestapo in a German church heckling you know some of the pastors of that time who stood against the Nazis it's dangerous yeah oh and they said there was a story where one of the British soldiers you know holding these musket balls in his hand and showing them to warn So it's just, you know, again, you know, he delivers this 35 minute and passion speech that has everyone ready to just join that cause. Okay, so this is days before this lead up to Lexington and Concord. I mean, it's getting more tense by the day. Yeah, I mean, he's threatening to be hung. So, I mean, it gets so dangerous.

And again, we have this benefit of hindsight, but how did everybody know how it was going to turn out? Nobody knew. He's being threatened to be killed. so he sends his fiance and his four children out to Worcester, Massachusetts, under the care and protection of his friend, Dr. Elijah Dix, just to get them out of Dodge because he doesn't know what's going to happen. You know, he's basically walking around with a bullseye on his back. Today's show is brought to you by Grace Precious Metals.

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to April of 75. Anything happened in that month? Yes. He's gathering this intelligence, and when the reports are verified that the British will march, or the regulars, I should say, will be marching out to Lexington and Concord to find those arms. There's rumors about arresting. Nobody knows exactly what's happening. This is when Warren calls Revere and William Dawes to his office around 10 p.m. on the night of April 18, 1775, and dispatches them. I mean, that's an amazing moment, that it is this man, Joseph Warren, who summons Paul Revere and William Dawes and says, okay, I need you to go on a ride into the country, go. And, of course, most of us know that famous story. And, you know, Eric, that's the amazing thing.

When you look at all the primary source documents before the Longfellow poem, you don't hear about this midnight ride. they write about Warren, right? Because Warren's at the center of this. He's the hub, right? He is directing all these events. He's dispatching them. It's his intelligence that's setting this off. And let's think where the founding fathers are going.

They're coming here, right? So all the founding fathers, they're away. It's Warren, who's the on-the-ground leader directing these events. And what would have happened if he had not dispatched it? I mean, it's amazing, too, to think that. So obviously he dispatches Paul Revere and William Dawes and people are killed in Lexington and conquered and the British straggled back while they're being picked off.

But as that battle is going on on April 19th, Joseph Warren gets a gun and gets involved himself. He's involved. He's not just an armchair, he's not an armchair quarterback. Think about that, right? someone of his standing, instead of sitting at his desk and writing letters to... Like Horatio Gates would have done. Right.

He actually literally goes into the worst part of the fighting in monotomy, which is modern-day Arlington. And he's almost killed in the fighting. So he's not only treating wounded soldiers, but he almost gets killed himself when a British musketball knocks out his hairpin. His hair pin. That's kind of close. Very close. But, you know, it's almost like this. aura of invincibility starts to envelop Warren, much like Washington, when Washington writes

that famous letter saying, you know, when the bullets were whizzing by him, there was something charming in the sound. And again, people are starting to look at Warren like he's invincible. And that someone who's a leader who should not be at that battle is there fighting with them. So again, these people start to, this is where Warren starts to become the hero, because he's just not, he's not only making the orations and writing the articles. He's literally there in the action fighting side by side with these provincial soldiers. To make a statement as well, I mean, by doing that, he's telling you who he is and what he believes in, and that he's not afraid.

So his mother, of course, is very upset when she hears that her 34-year-old son was millimeters away from having his brains blown out. and so she remonstrates and tries to get him to promise, you're not going to do that anymore, right, Joseph? And what does he say? He says the quote is something like, wherever the battle will be, I will be there. Or wherever the fighting will be, I will be there. And we call this the 60 days, the period between Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill.

There's two skirmishes in between that, the Battle of Nautil's Island, the Battle of Graves Island. But he's involved in it. every single one. I mean, you never hear about those two that you just mentioned. No, not at all. Grape's Island and Nautil's Island. He's there.

So he's involved in Lexington and Concord. He's involved in those two things. And then of course, word goes out. I forgot to that he was friendly with Israel Putnam. I love that. Yeah. That he was friendly with Israel Putnam before, you know, because I knew that he had something to do with him at the Battle of Bunker Hill,

but that they knew each other before that. Also Arnold. Benedict Arnold. Yes. Yeah, Arnold comes to him right after Lexon Conquered with the idea to grab those cannon at Fort Taekondorola. Yes. And he approaches Warren as the president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and Warren

gets him arms, ammunition money, sends him on his way. And gives him a little too much gunpowder. Right. He goes up there, they meet with Ethan Allen, they get those cannon. And these are the cannon that break the siege of Boston in April, no, March of 76. Yeah. And they become friendly. Yeah.

Yeah. That's another story. Yeah. But so, okay, so he's in the middle of everything, which of course takes us to this moment. Now it's June, and his spies are telling him, hey, it looks like the British are going to try to bust out of the Boston Peninsula to take the high ground on the Charlestown Peninsula,

which we think of as bunker hill and breeds hill. I have to mention, if I can, before this, the founders are writing letters to him from here saying, what's the situation? What do you need from us? He writes a letter back saying, you need to establish a national army and appoint a generalissimo. And so weeks later, they form the Continental Army and appoint George Washington as commander-in-chief, and it's because of this letter that Joseph Warren writes. So that's the birth of the U.S. Army. So again, you know, when we say all these roads lead through Warren, it's not an exaggeration. And so Warren is appointed a major general on June 14th, 1775.

Same time, Washington is appointed commander-in-chief. He writes to them what's happening. June 16th, 1775, they see the British are preparing and starting. So they decide to take not the high ground of Breeds Hill, of Bunker Hill, but they decide to fortify on Breed's Hill. So they have a better purview of what's happening where they're coming across the Charles River. And then that's when all hell breaks Luke. Now, to be clear, before this happens, of course, Israel Putnam is up there and Prescott. But Warren, he's been kind of everywhere at once for the days beforehand, probably not sleeping.

And he gets a migraine headache. He's in Cambridge. Did he have a history of this? Yes, he did have a history of these migraine headaches, and his brother also later in life developed this condition. And we're not sure exactly what it was, but, you know, it was something with these headaches. And so he's suffering from this on the morning of June 17th. They bring him word that the British are starting to ferry across.

He gets on a horse, rides there, and meets Putnam. Now, think about this, right? So Putnam and Prescott are the two commanding officers besides Artemis Ward. They both defer command of the battle to Warren, who's a generation younger. These are grizzled French and Indian war veterans, right? He tells Putnam, I'm not here as a major general. I'm here to fight as a volunteer. Tell me where the worst part of the fighting is going to be,

and that's where I'll go. And he sends him to the redoubt on Breeds Hill, and Prescott sees him, and he does the same thing. And he said, General, I defer command of the battle to you. And Warren says, no, I'm here to fight as a volunteer. So it almost gives me chills to think. that when he arrives in this readout, they haven't sent reinforcements, they start hazying for him, saying Warren is here again, just like at Lexington and Concord.

They don't know what's going to happen as these British start, these assault charges. I mean, just keep in mind they have been completely humiliated at the battles of Lexington and Concord. And they view these provincials as cowards who were fighting almost like guerrilla-style warfare behind trees, stone walls. I think I mentioned in my book that he He shows up ready to fight in the thick of the fight, but he's dressed, somebody describes him as looking like Lord Falkland in his wedding suit. He looks, you know, regal.

And yet fights, I mean, the story, you know, many have heard the story, of course, that the British try, you know, once, twice. It's brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal, the third time, of course, our guys are running out of gunpowder, and you say in your book, Warren, he does not leave.

No. I don't know of many people who could commit to that with the resolve and the nerve that he had to see that they're being overrun because it's a bayonet charge. And now the Patriots are fighting with their fists, the butts of their muskets, they're throwing rocks,

And the British, you know, this is not, you know, to do a stereotype of an angry British soldier. They've been humiliated. They've been defeated. They don't know what's waiting for them. They don't know the provincials are out of gunpowder. So this turns into a blood rage. They've been humiliated. This battle produces the most casualties of any other battle throughout the entire American Revolution for the next eight years.

The officer corps of the British are decimated. It's more than half casualties. So these British soldiers are watching their officers being picked off by target practice. And the shame is that Warren is standing out because all the other provincial soldiers are wearing linen and cotton-colored frocks and shirts, but Warren is in this light-colored silk outfit. So he's easily identifiable. And so he fights to the end because there's only one route to retreat. And he stays in that readout until last seconds to make sure all his men get out.

Amazing, amazing heroism. So how is he killed? Talk about that. So he's run out of ammunition himself. We know he's gotten cut in the leg. So he's basically fighting with his sword, and British musket pistol hits him right in the face, exits the back of his head, and he's killed instantly. And that's where the nasty part comes in, because Warren has been a thorn in their sides for a decade. They all know who he is. And so we have soldiers who are writing these primary source

accounts saying that when the British scale those walls of the redoubt, they're stabbing the wounded patriots with their bayonets and then bashing in their brains with the butts of their muskets. So I'm not going to go as far as say there's two primary source accounts to talk about Warren being decapitated by British soldiers. We do know that his body was stripped of its clothing. He had a Bible, a family Bible in his pocket. They take all his possessions. They bury him in a shallow ditch, about three feet deep, along with two other soldiers, and just leave him there. And now people don't know what happened. All rumors are circulating. Did he get out? Was he taken prisoner? Was he killed? And then once Word reaches here at Carpenter's

Hall, you can imagine the vacuum and the emotions that the Founding Fathers have. And Washington gets word of this battle in New York City, and that's the turning point for him, when they're there's no going back. When he hears how the British killed and what they did to Warren, the die is cast at that point. Yeah, the brutality of the British, it's breathtaking and horrifying. And this is an early example of it. I think a lot of people couldn't believe that they had lost their, he was basically their

leader, and it was inconceivable. I know that I quote a letter from... Abigail Adams, it really was very hard for them to take that they had lost. He was 34 years old and he was their leader and he's gone. Yeah. And so again, not only the emotional component, but just the power vacuum this leaves, right? Because he is in charge of so many different organizations. And now when Washington arrives in Cambridge, he's not well known, right?

He's been a retired colonel of the Virginia Regiment for 18 years. He hasn't been involved in a successful campaign in almost two decades. And you see this by soldiers writing simply a new general arrive today. And to underscore that, when John Adams was here in 74 and meets Washington, he writes to Abigail and said, I met a man today by the name of George Washington. So again, Washington isn't the Washington, right? It's Boston 75, not the miraculous victory of Yorktown 1781. When Washington arrives, he has to fill Warren's shoes, right?

Warren's this educated gentleman, scholar, and physician. And I think that's sort of the push and pull here, that he spent his whole life healing and saving lives. And now when we see all these depictions of him, it's this fighting general. But it's just the problem is, is this one day overshadows 10 years of resistance activity. So now if he's remembered it at all, oh, he's the guy who gets killed at Bunker Hill. He's the founding martyr. Well, that's not a small thing to be a founding martyr, and that's the title of your book.

And it's appropriate because he was. And it is heartbreaking, but like many heartbreaking things, it's also beautiful. His nobility, everything about him. I know what happens to his kids and to the woman that he did not get to marry before he was killed. That's sad. in a way that he disappears and he hasn't been able to provide for his his fiancee and his four kids and that's where Arnold comes in right yeah letter from 1780 where and again we're not exonerating Arnold but for a man who

donates almost 3,000 pounds which is about 650,700 thousand dollars in today's currency from his own money to support Warren's orphans I mean I think we have to look at Arnold in a slightly different lens yeah that amount of just that act of generosity. And I think that's one of the reasons why maybe Warren isn't as well known because of this association with Arnold. But again, his two sons die early without children. He's got one surviving daughter who has one son, and that's where the current director says, they trace that lineage.

We just got a couple of minutes left. The legacy of Joseph Warren, I mean, people have written about him, you know, through the decades and centuries, but really until your book, he's been largely forgotten. And the more I know, the more I realize that's an injustice. And so I just want to say how grateful I am to you for the work you did. It's kind of a big deal to write a book. People say to me, how do you write your books? And I say, well, it depends on whose subjects you're writing about is

because you wrote about somebody. You had to do a lot of a really, original scholarship and research and digging that I didn't in most of my books. Where did you find a lot of this information? I mean, you really, you know, that's the work of a real historian, what you've done. I've always been a little bit of an archive rat, you know, which is funny because you do these years of solitary research, and then your publisher says, okay, now go out and go give talks everywhere. But it was a 20-year research process, and a lot of it was heartbreak, and I'm sure you know this, right?

You follow a lead down the rabbit hole and it ends with nothing. But then there were times where you would just, you know, I would compare it to hitting the lottery when you find a document or a piece of his missing medical ledger or a letter or something that just sheds light on his personal life because there's so little about it. But it was just, you know, I like to say he became a member of our family. You know, my daughter came to me one day when she was like four years old and said, Dad, why you always in there writing? Who are you writing about?

And, you know, so it's like he, this became a passion project for me. I love doing it. And when I met the descendants, they were so welcoming. And, you know, I became really close with all the family. What I didn't know is that not only is it a medical dynasty, eight generations of Harvard doctors, but there's been a warren descendant who's been a participant in every major American conflict from the Civil War to the present day,

eight West Point graduates, nine commissioned officers, six non-commissioned. These are from his four kids? This is all from his descendants. That's amazing. Yeah. And so West Point graduates, I know his sixth grade grandson was Greenberry Special Forces in Vietnam. I mean, it's just, you know, when you think about the legacy, it really is amazing, especially in Masonic circles and medical circles, military circles. He's got a big legacy at West Point.

It really is amazing how he continues to affect things 250 years later. And the cover of your book, which is a measure of the man, And he was able to afford a portrait by Copley, I guess it was, which is a beautiful painting of him. It's just so nice that we can actually look at his face and see what he looked like. Christian, I'm so grateful to you for the work you've done in bringing this book into existence and bringing the life of Warren to a larger audience. and I could never begin to compare what I do in terms of research. What you've done, you're a true historian,

and it can be really thankless. And I just want to say thank you for everyone, past, president, future, who are going to know about Warren. Because it's a gift to America, we need to know our story. And you have played a huge role. So on behalf of everybody who bumps into this,

stuff, I want to say thank you very much. No, I owe you a debt of gratitude myself, because this is a second time you've invited me to come talk about the book. You are much more well known than I am. And you giving me a platform to come here and talk about this and get people to know about it. I appreciate that more than you know.

Well, let me tell you, your book, I don't praise lightly. This is a monumental thing you have done, and it's so important. And I really am not believe me, I'm not just saying that. It is so important. So I'm just thrilled that as a result of the 250th anniversary, the Supercentennial, a lot of people are going to get to know who Joseph Warren is.

So thanks for being my guest. No, I really appreciate it. Good to see you again. Thank you.