All language subtitles for Thomas.Jefferson.2025.S01E03.Jefferson.at.War.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb

Previously on
"Thomas Jefferson"...

Jefferson writes
a letter called

"A Summary View of the Rights
of British America."

It's an outlay of everything
that the British government

and everything the king,
George III,

has kind of done wrong.

The British imposed
a series of taxes

that causes people
on both sides of the Atlantic

to reevaluate
that relationship

and think about who's
in charge.

At the Second
Continental Congress,

all the great leading lights
of the colonies are convening.

John Hancock appoints
a committee of five men

to draft a declaration
of American independence.

The glamorous work
is giving the speeches.

The hard work is
being delegated

to this younger Virginian
who wields a great pen

and is known for that.

And so Jefferson gets
drafted to be the draftsman.

What sets Jefferson apart
is the capacity

and the gift of articulation.

Nobody wrote better.

He mobilized
the English language

and sent it into battle.

And in this case,
it was the battle for an ethos

and an aspiration of liberty.

But as Jefferson
is talking about,

"All men are created equal,"
he's there with his wife's

enslaved half-brother.

The fact
that the core contradiction

of the idea that all men
are created equal,

and Jefferson being
a slave owner,

and that original sin
being baked in that cake

gnaws at us still.

But it ultimately
doesn't reduce its power.

Because signing
the Declaration was signing

your own death warrant.

They were subjects
of King George III.

And now they were rebels.

Now the hard work begins.

They need to win the war.

As the celebrations
of independence quiet

in the summer of 1776...

Reality sets in
for a new nation at war.

The story of the Revolution
is immensely more

complicated than
Declaration of Independence,

joyous new nation.

Debt, foreign relations,

relationships between the states, defense,

all of these things
were still unfolding.

In the summer of 1776,
just as Congress votes

in favor of independence
and adopts this declaration,

a 30,000-man expeditionary
force arrives in New York

to suppress this rebellion.

It's the largest expeditionary
force the British had ever

sent abroad to that point.

It's a massive army by the
standards of the 18th century.

At that point, Americans
are a ragtag conglomeration

of colonial militias.

How can we possibly accomplish
this in the face of one

of the mightiest armies
upon the globe?

The British capture
New York pretty easily.

They rout the Continental Army
at Brooklyn,

and then they end up
chasing Washington

and the Continental Army
up into Westchester

and then southwest
across New Jersey.

There's a great deal
of uncertainty

in the summer of 1776.

Because you've
got to remember,

a significant portion
of the citizenry

doesn't want independence
from Britain.

So you've got British loyalists
who aren't on board.

And they're your friends
and your neighbors,

and they're
actively cooperating

with the redcoats,
who are coming

to reassert their primacy.

The sentiment at the time
was a very profound

and intense mixture
of exultation and fear.

But while soldiers
are fighting and dying,

Jefferson doesn't partake
in the military, notably.

He tries to serve his state,

his attempted newfound nation
in other ways.

Jefferson's leadership
during the war

was in a more
civilian capacity.

The states have
to redraft their laws.

They can't use
their old colonial charters.

They have to start
from scratch.

Virginia is closest
to Jefferson's heart.

It's a place
of great importance

in this new
republican experiment.

Jefferson knew himself
and knew his strengths,

and so Jefferson comes back
from Philadelphia

to help redraft the laws
of Virginia.

Jefferson says,
this lawmaking is as important

as the war of Independence.

And when Washington's
at Valley Forge,

he might not be
thinking the same thing.

But he said,
this is the real work

because otherwise,
it doesn't matter.

And so he sets about reforming
and revolutionizing Virginia.

Prior to independence,

Virginia had a state church.

It was the Anglican church.

It wasn't very well attended,
necessarily,

but it was state supported
in the sense

that people's taxes
went to support

this religious establishment.

And it was his strong belief,
and he became really skeptical

in matters of religion,
that there shouldn't

be state-supported religion.

Jefferson was not
a conventional Christian

in any way.

He did not believe in the
divinity of Jesus of Nazareth.

He did not believe
in the Trinity.

He called those kinds
of theological arguments

"monkish superstition."

And so very early on,
Jefferson is interested

in the separation
of church and state,

because he thought, along
with Enlightenment thinkers,

the church had had too much
of an influence in Europe.

You know, as Englishmen,

they believed
in dieu et mon droit,

"God is my right,"
the motto of the royal family.

But Jefferson understands,
because he reads history,

that whenever religion and
the government get together,

it's bad.

It's bad for the people.

It's bad for the government.

It's also, by the way,
bad for the religion.

He writes that there should
be a wall of separation

between church and state.

Now, that wall
is doing two things.

Just as there shouldn't be
undue influence of religion

on the state,
there should not be

undue influence by the state
interfering with religion.

In 1777, Jefferson drafts

the Virginia Statute
for Religious Freedom,

a statement about both freedom
of conscience

and the principle
of separation

of church and state.

Though it will
not be written into law

for another seven years,

the statute is the basis
for what will become one

of the defining tenets
of the American government,

the First Amendment.

He says, this is what makes
us better than Europeans.

We're not forced
to pay taxes to support

a religious establishment.

And Jefferson's very,
very proud of this.

Virginia,
as he sees it, is first

in disestablishing religion.

The separation
of church and state

is a key indicator
of freedom for him,

but it is a rebellion
against orthodoxy.

And an orthodoxy has a general
tendency to impose itself

upon individual freedom
and especially freedom

of conscience, so you see
Jefferson waving the banner

of individual freedom
of conscience

against any imposition by
larger forces or orthodoxies.

And this is a really
important and powerful step,

and a big part of what
the country we know today

is supposedly about.

Jefferson's closest partner
in authoring the statute

for Separation
of Church and State

is newcomer to the Virginia
legislature, James Madison.

Madison is
the junior partner.

He's small.

He's brilliant.

He's a writer.

He's who Jefferson is
in closest contact with.

And Jefferson drafts Madison
into his camp over time.

Friendship was a very
important thing to Jefferson.

And Jefferson
and Madison were friends.

His political allies were not
just instrumental connections.

These were his people.

Between 1777 and 1778,
Jefferson and Madison

draft over a hundred bills
that go on to shape Virginian

and then federal laws.

But while Jefferson
toils over statutes,

the war begins to move south.

In the north,
the British focused

on occupying major cities,
Boston,

and New York,
and Philadelphia.

As the war moves south,
the British strategy changes.

The southern war
is guerrilla war.

It's a much more chaotic war.

And then, in 1779,
Thomas Jefferson

is voted in as the second
elected governor

of the New Commonwealth
of Virginia.

This is during the time
when the war is raging all

throughout the colonies
and is making its way

more directly to Virginia.

And at this point, thanks
to the "Summary View

of the Rights
of British America,"

he's an important political
figure in Virginia.

But Jefferson's
governorship is one

of the most controversial
periods of his life,

and certainly
of his public life.

And now,
Jefferson the enlightened,

naive young lawyer,
philosopher, would-be statesman

has a reality check.

Jefferson's sharpest weapon
has always been his intellect.

Now he's thrust into a place
he'd never imagined he'd be,

the front lines of war.

In the summer of 1779,

as Jefferson settles
into his role as governor,

the war begins to move south,

and the threat of violence
looms over Virginia.

The British had
been waging war

for five years at this point.

They're angry.

This war has been very
unpleasant for the British.

It hasn't gone very well.

It's one thing
to go into a country

and try to depose
a set of rulers.

It's another thing
to try to occupy

a large swath of territory.

Armies take.

They need food,
they need shelter, space.

They generate hostility
to their presence.

The British Army just couldn't
manage the process of being

an occupying force against
what was a much weaker power,

but had the home
field advantage.

So it's been a nasty,
intractable insurgency

in many respects.

And they've kind of
taken off the gloves.

But as Jefferson bears
the weight on his shoulders

for the responsibility
of protecting and defending

the Commonwealth of Virginia,
Jefferson and others just

do not believe that the enemy
is going to have

any effect on Virginia.

He says the war
is happening up north.

And he says Virginian farmers
need to return to business.

They need to return
to farming and the sustenance

of their families.

However, at the end of 1779
and the beginning of 1780,

British ships have been seen
off the coast of Virginia.

And he's slow
in reacting to that.

That year of 1779 to 1780,

Jefferson finally
begins to worry

about keeping the capital
in Williamsburg

because the enemy could
sail up the James River

and lay siege.

So they moved
the capital that spring

to much better defended ground
on the heights of Richmond.

But then they receive
information and knowledge

that the enemy is sailing up
the James River to Richmond.

His letters during this time
are calls for help.

He's trying to conscript
people back to his side.

He's saying,
we're being attacked.

We shall omit nothing
in our power for the support

of the troops,
but I must appraise you

that our means of supply
are not at present

what they have been,

so that they
may perhaps suffer,

though they shall not
if we can prevent it.

But Washington doesn't have
that many troops to spare

and doesn't quite say,
well, you're on your own,

but that's kind of
the implication.

And then on January 1, 1781,
1,600 British troops,

including an elite green coat
division under Benedict Arnold

known as Dragoons,
storm Richmond and wreak havoc

on the new capital city.

There are constant
British attacks,

a very fateful one
of which is led by the traitor

Benedict Arnold.

When the British come,
an enslaved man says

within ten minutes
there wasn't a white man

to be seen in town.

Everybody else had
scattered to the four winds.

Jefferson is struggling
to govern a society

that is falling apart
around him.

When British forces arrive,
the Virginia troops

don't stand a chance.

The invasion of Virginia is
an existential moment for him.

You have the most powerful army
in the world

in your neighborhood.

And from a quarry
as significant

as Thomas Jefferson,
there would be

immense personal insecurity
about falling

into the hands of the British.

And then Jefferson
himself is almost

captured by Arnold's forces.

The British officers said,
where is Governor Jefferson?

We are here
with these silver handcuffs

to take
Governor Jefferson prisoner.

But he escapes.

And the government
has to flee Richmond.

They go to Charlottesville.

Virginia's a mess.

Just over a week after
fleeing from Williamsburg

to Richmond,
Virginia officials are forced

to set up a new capital
in Charlottesville,

only 4 miles
from Jefferson's home.

For safety,
Jefferson takes the highest

ranking members of the
Virginia House of Delegates

in at Monticello.

He is living there
with his wife,

his nine-year-old daughter,
Martha,

and his three-year-old
daughter, Maria.

Jefferson,
during this entire period,

is wondering whether,
first and foremost,

we can still conduct
our government

out west in Virginia,
but what is going

to happen to my family, to me?

All of this turmoil,
all of this upheaving

is naturally going to have
an effect on their family...

And have an effect
on a young Mrs. Jefferson,

who is constantly pregnant.

We know that childbirth was
extremely difficult for her.

Over a period of ten years,

she gives birth
to six children.

Martha is the eldest.

The second child,
a little girl, Jane,

does not live very long.

The third child
is a little boy,

Peter, named
for Jefferson's father,

doesn't survive
but a few days.

Their fourth child is Maria.

She does survive infancy.

In the winter of 1781,
his wife had just

suffered the death
of their fifth child

and would be pregnant
with their sixth child.

Meanwhile, the British
troops continue moving west,

closer to Monticello.

The British dragoons seek
the capture of as many members

of the Virginia
House of Delegates

in Charlottesville, where
they know they are in hiding.

But certainly, the one who has
the highest price on his head

is the governor of
the Commonwealth of Virginia.

It's a chess match.

The British want to capture
the governor of Virginia.

Jefferson is the prize.

As British troops march
west through Virginia,

the threat
against Jefferson grows.

With each passing day,

the British
get closer and closer

to the new capital
in Charlottesville

and his home, Monticello.

So in May of 1781, he sends
a letter to George Washington.

It's another plea
to Washington for help.

Jefferson writes
to Washington,

the whole force of the enemy
within this state

I think is about 7,000 men.

Your excellency will judge
from this state of things

and from what you know
of your own country

what it may probably suffer
during the present campaign.

And the British continue to
attempt to capture Jefferson.

And then a man
named Jack Jouett,

who owns and operates
the tavern in Cuckoo, Virginia,

he overhears a number
of British dragoons

reveal themselves,
the more they consume,

of the orders
of British Lieutenant Colonel

Banastre Tarleton
to proceed westward

and seek the capture
of Governor Jefferson.

Jouett road
overnight 40 miles.

It's very much like
Paul Revere warning

that the British were going to
attack Lexington and Concord

five years before.

In fact,
it's a much longer ride.

And he arrives at Monticello
before the British do.

And Jouett forewarns them,
saying, gentlemen,

they may be
but a few moments behind me.

According to the legend,
Jefferson gave him

a glass of Madeira,
thanked him for his efforts.

But Jefferson didn't
leave right away.

He put his family
in a carriage,

sending them on their way down
to land that Jefferson owned

down near Lynchburg, Virginia.

But he waited to leave.

Taking his time,
Jefferson proceeds

very calmly to bury the state
papers below the floorboards

of his dining room.

And then finally,
at the last moment,

Jefferson sets off
on horseback.

And he rides to Montalto,
the taller mountain

just to the west
of Monticello.

Enslaved people had shoed
the horse shoes on backwards,

so that way when the horse
is running down the mountain,

it looks like
Jefferson is actually

running up the mountain.

And it confuses the British.

He rides up along
the side of the mountain.

And then he dismounts
from his horse

to look back at Monticello
through his spyglass.

And there they are.

When Jefferson
flees Monticello,

he leaves it in the hands
of his most trusted

enslaved family,
the Hemingses.

They storm Monticello.

And Martin Hemings, who is
Elizabeth Hemings' eldest son,

greets them at the front door
and refuses

to allow them entry,
and refuses to tell them

where Jefferson is.

Of course, they were going to
kill him if they had done so.

The captain
of the British dragoons

takes from his side saddle
a pistol...

Says, "You will tell me where
Governor Jefferson is,

or I will inflict
a mortal wound."

To which,
Hemings pulls his coat back,

replies, "Fire away."

But British troops
stormed past Hemings,

determined to find
the governor they assume

is still inside.

Below Martin Hemings,
in a secret panel,

is an enslaved person who has
gathered up all the silver

and all of the valuables
in the home,

and was keeping them
beneath the secret space.

So he can hear everything
that's happening.

And the story goes that it's
a couple of hours to a day

that this enslaved
man is below,

having kept all the valuables.

The Jefferson family tells the
story that that enslaved man

was such a loyal servant.

But read through the
African American perspective,

this man is keeping
himself safe, one.

And secondly, just in case
the British do actually end up

capturing Jefferson, say,
winning the Revolutionary War,

well, he has all
the silver in his hands.

After tearing
Monticello apart as they

search for Jefferson,
the British

realize they are too late.

Captain McLeod says,
"Come on, boys,

"I understand Jefferson
has the best stocked

wine cellar
in all of Virginia."

They all help themselves.

It happens to be

King George III's birthday,
June the 4th.

There might have been a toast.

They placed the wine bottles
in their satchels,

and they ride off.

Monticello is left intact.

But Jefferson,
whose second term as governor

ended two days prior,
is brutally criticized

for how he handled
the invasion.

The citizens of Virginia
think he's left his duty

at the moment of great peril.

He's totally disgraced.

The House of Delegates
launches an inquiry

into his actions
as governor of Virginia

in organizing
the defense of the state.

It's a low point
of his public life.

Washington sends him
a very thoughtful

and measured and kind letter,
saying, you're a good friend,

and your service was great.

And he more or less says,

you're being
unfairly criticized.

But part of being
a man in Virginia,

a man of that elite class,
meant showing physical bravery

and showing tenacity.

This is an honor culture,

and it was a very
military culture.

It's a culture
that valued military service.

This is why
these men fight duels.

This is why Washington
is so admired in this period,

and Jefferson
admired Washington.

But Jefferson's skills
didn't lie in that area.

And so he's presented
as a coward.

Jefferson leaves
his governorship

as a laughingstock.

The once-celebrated
revolutionary retreats back

to Monticello in disgrace.

By the fall of 1781,
the tides of war

begin to turn in favor
of the Americans,

as Spanish, Dutch,
and French forces

join the rebels in
their fight against Britain.

The war culminates
in Yorktown, Virginia.

British troops
under General Cornwallis

had set up a base at Yorktown.

But on September 28, 1781,

Washington's troops
and his French allies

placed Cornwallis' base
under siege.

After more than three weeks
of relentless battle,

the British surrender,

essentially ending
the Revolutionary War.

After the surrender
at Yorktown,

things are winding down.

The peril has passed
for the state.

Jefferson has
returned to Monticello.

His whole retreat
from Charlottesville

was looked on
with disdain by many

of his political opponents.

In December of 1781, he is
cleared by a board of inquiry

established by the House of Delegates,

but he never really feels
that he's off the hook.

I think what he learns
as a politician,

rooted in his wartime
service as governor,

is that circumstances
change very quickly,

and that it is
a foolhardy politician,

a foolhardy officeholder,

who stands
by a philosophical creed

in the face
of adverse circumstances.

After this inquiry
clears him,

he believes
he's exiting public life.

He's still got a bit
of a cloud over him.

And he's disillusioned.

Jefferson tells
the House of Delegates

that he has retired
from politics.

He retreats back to Monticello
to continue building

his estate and to care
for his two young daughters

and pregnant wife.

The fact
that Jefferson and Martha

got pregnant again
and again suggests

a healthy physical
relationship.

We have scraps
of evidence to suggest

that it was a very,
very close marriage,

seemingly a happy one.

Jefferson was often away.

But by comparison,
George Washington

leaves to go attend
the Continental Congress

in the spring of 1775
and doesn't come home again

for eight years.

The Second
Continental Congress,

Jefferson was
constantly going home,

to the point where people are
saying, hey, where are you?

And he constantly says,
"I want to be with my wife."

And even though she's
pregnant a significant amount

of that time,
she's highly competent

in running a household.

She understands how
to raise her daughters.

Also, Martha seems
to be very patient

because they build the first
Monticello in January of 1772,

but he can't stop
tinkering with it.

It's constant work.

And it must have
been incredibly difficult

to establish a family
in a building site.

Jefferson loved
reworking this house.

He says,
"Pulling down and putting up

is one
of my greatest passions."

He draws plan after plan,
working out what should

the sequence of rooms be,
where will his books be,

the size of his library?

He has a room
that's going to be a museum.

How will that fit
into the house?

Monticello was
a never-ending process.

He had to literally flatten
the top of the mountain

to build his house there.

He loves this place.

He loves that mountain.

And he's seeking to impose
his vision and his will on it.

Now, when I say
he's doing it, of course,

he's not doing that labor.

It's stunningly beautiful.

But it's also very much
a Virginia house in the way

it accommodates slavery.

It's really designed to put
slavery almost out of view.

Jefferson is hiding
the work of food and hygiene,

of laundry, of firewood,
in little staircases

and lateral passageways.

But we can actually
see children's imprints

in the bricks.

And that tells us
that these young hands

were put to work.

At Monticello,
you find yourself face to face

with Jefferson,
both what made him great

and also where he failed.

Monticello is a metaphor,
as a statement

that Jefferson
and the United States

is built on enslaved labor.

And this vision,
the story, can only be

this special and exquisite
if you can't see

what's happening underneath.

After the colonists
declare themselves free

from the tyranny
of British kings,

in the early 1780s,
many consider the rights

of the enslaved as well.

In the mid-Atlantic,
in places like New York

and Pennsylvania,
you have the start

of movements against slavery.

And even in places
like Virginia,

there was a thought
that slavery would over time

diminish in importance.

After the Revolution,
a number of slave owners

emancipate all of their slaves.

One of his own cousins,
Richard Randolph, did.

William Short did, a man
named William Ludwell Lee.

Jefferson knows many
of these people.

He's related to many
of these people.

Jefferson does not choose
to emancipate his slaves.

An enslaved man,
Israel Gillette Jefferson,

talks about when
he's within earshot

of a conversation
between Jefferson

and one of his good friends.

And his friend is basically
trying to convince Jefferson

that slavery needs
to be ended,

that the enslaved people
need to be freed.

He hears Jefferson struggle,

saying, yeah,
I know slavery is bad,

but I don't think
we can end it.

Imagine if you're
a young enslaved person

overhearing this conversation.

You can't say
he was just a man of his time

because other people
at his time

free those enslaved people.

But Jefferson does not know
how to undo all the things

that he wants from his perfect

and idyllic house
on a mountain.

Slavery is so essential to
his economic and social system

that even though
it's questioned,

it's very hard
to imagine extracting

oneself from that system.

After the war,
most of the founding fathers

continued to debate
the foundational principles

of the new union,
but Jefferson remains at home

with his family at Monticello.

While there, he establishes
a correspondence

with Francois Barbé-Marbois,
the secretary

of the French delegation
in Philadelphia.

Marbois sends Jefferson a set
of questions in an attempt

to learn more
about the new country.

Jefferson's responses
to these queries

are eventually compiled
and published

in what will become
his first book,

entitled "Notes
on the State of Virginia."

So the secretary
of the French delegation

asked Jefferson about
the landscape in Virginia,

the flora and the fauna

and what kind
of animals there are.

And then he says,
tell us about how

Native Americans live.

Tell us about what slavery
means to how people live.

The interesting thing
about Thomas Jefferson was

the way that he looked
at Native people and the way

that he looked
at African Americans

are really different.

"Notes on the State
of Virginia"

comes from Jefferson's view
of himself

as a kind of scientist,
but Jefferson always blurs

the line between what
he thinks of as observation

and what are truly
his opinions.

In the answer to the query
about Native Americans,

Jefferson starts out
with a bunch of charts.

This is the name
of this group,

this is how many
of them there are,

and it goes
on and on like that,

until all of a sudden,
he's off into speculation

about, first,
Native American culture,

but then their intelligence.

Native people of
the Old South, their farming,

from corn crops
and everything,

are quite impressive,
and probably better

than some white settlers
moving into the area.

And so they're almost
like the role models.

He writes,
"Their execution are

"much stronger than with us
because they

"are more exercised.

"I believe the Indian then
to be in body

and mind
equal to the white man."

So he says, they're the equal
sort of humanly of us.

They just have not
been civilized.

He claimed if they start
to speak English and live

like we do, at the cost
of their culture, of course,

they could become
the equal to whites.

There's the idea of already
being partially civilized

because of what they do.

They won't have to be taught,
where African Americans have

to be taught because
they're pulled, clearly,

out of their natural world and
then brought to the Americas.

But when he writes
about Black people

in "Noted on the State
of Virginia,"

he seems to traffic
in stereotypes.

He goes on for pages
about race.

He clearly believes
that Black people

are genetically, biologically
inferior to white people.

And he says this.

I advance it
that the Blacks,

whether originally
a distinct race

or made distinct
by time and circumstances,

are inferior to the whites

in the endowments
both of body and mind.

He also says
they're essentially

intellectually useless.

"Comparing them by their
faculties of memory, reason,

"and imagination,
it appears to me

"that in memory,
they are equal to the whites,

"in reason, much inferior,

"as I think one could
scarcely be found capable

"of tracing and comprehending
the investigations of Euclid,

"and that in imagination,

they are dull,
tasteless, and anomalous."

Jefferson's surrounded
by enslaved people

who learned to read and write.

He's surrounded
by enslaved people who trained

for a decade or more
to be French chefs,

enslaved people
with great skill.

And yet he writes in the "Notes
on the State of Virginia"

that to free enslaved people
would be like

to free children,
that they wouldn't be able

to take care of themselves.

And yet, everything in his life
is provided by the labor

of enslaved people.

We don't do ourselves
or Jefferson any favors

by glossing that over.

We do need to see
that Jefferson's views

on racial ranking
and alleged inferiority

were part of a culture
of thought

that prevailed
in the United States

for another century.

He did not believe
that Blacks and whites could

live together in harmony.

He says that we'll never
get over our prejudices.

They will never forgive us

for the things
that have been done.

"Deep rooted prejudices
entertained by the whites,

"10,000 recollections
by the Blacks of the injuries

"they have sustained
will probably never end

but in the extermination
of the one or the other race."

He had had the experience
with the Revolution of seeing

African American people join
the British forces to fight,

to fight
against the American colonists

for their own freedom.

And so
after the American Revolution

and the Revolutionary War,
he fears Black men.

People are quick
to hold on to the good words

that Jefferson wrote,
but they do not grapple

with the "Notes
on the State of Virginia.

It has been too easy
for people to say

Jefferson is a great success,

he did these things
for our nation,

he helped give us
this founding creed,

without grappling
with the duality of his legacy.

Part of history is not
excusing people for what they

believed in real time,
but understanding

that if even the best people
of a given era,

the most articulate people,
if even they could be

so woefully wrong
about such elemental things,

what are we missing
in our own time?

In the spring of 1782,
Jefferson is living

a quiet and peaceful life
at Monticello.

While he busies himself
with literature

and the ongoing construction
of his estate,

Martha gives birth to their
sixth child, Lucy Elizabeth.

But their domestic bliss
will be short-lived.

After giving birth
to a daughter, Lucy,

Martha Jefferson has severe
postpartum health problems

throughout the summer of 1782.

Martha Jefferson
suffered greatly

during that childbirth.

Her ensuing illness
is heartbreaking.

Jefferson is at her bed
incessantly,

day in, day out,

doing everything
he possibly can

to engage her
to continue to live.

They both have enjoyed
reading to one and the other

throughout the years
from Laurence Sterne's

"Life And Opinions
of Tristram Shandy."

There is a moment
when Mrs. Jefferson tried

to write a passage from it.

It's his wife's handwriting,

very, very faint.

It's hardly legible.

And then, in his very careful,
orderly script,

Thomas Jefferson picks up
where Martha left off.

Jefferson folded
that piece of paper.

He put it in an envelope that
included the locks of hair

of their deceased children.

Then, on September 6, 1782,
at the age of 33,

Martha Jefferson dies.

There is the belief
that he promised his wife

before she breathed her last
that he would

never marry again.

He has to be pulled away
from the bed.

He has to be
physically lifted up.

The daughter, Martha,
is so overwhelmed.

She's only ten years old.

And we know her aunt,
Mrs. Jefferson's sister,

Elizabeth Eppes,
is right there.

And she instructs
her niece, Martha,

"Go look after your father.

There's nothing
you can do now."

You must go
and look after the living.

He is grief stricken,
goes into, really,

a spiral of depression.

It was deep,
and it was long lasting.

Jefferson more or less shuts
down for weeks, or even months.

It's clear that he
didn't know what to do,

and people around him
didn't know what to do

to help him in this grief.

His daughters
and friends actually despair

for his life at that point,
they're so worried.

They tried to get
Jefferson to ride out

into his native woods
and fields on horseback.

That's his greatest pleasure.

And they continued
to lose him,

day in and day out.

The horse just meanders away

with hardly any attention
from him.

It is clear
that she held a very,

very deep place in his heart
that he never forgot.

I mean, death is
a constant in his life.

He's lost a lot of children.

But this is a blow
which is very, very difficult

for him to recover from.

Despite the criticism
he faced as governor,

Jefferson remains in high
standing among his friends

and colleagues.

Desperate to pull him out
of his depression,

they appeal to his affinity

for European luxury
and philosophy

and arrange for him to be sent
to France as a diplomat.

This is as much an attempt
to save their friend as it is

to try and serve the public.

He thinks he has retired
from public service.

He's told his friends
that he has.

The world he envisioned
with Martha was shattered.

But somewhere, he has to be
part of creating a new world.

And so he goes to France.

He's a widower
with three young children.

And there will be dramatic
changes in his personal life

during his time in Paris.

Jefferson's time in France
will redefine

his personal
and professional life.

He will thrive as a diplomat
and politician,

and develop a shocking
relationship

that will unexpectedly
transform not only

the next 40 years of his life,

but his enduring legacy today.