All language subtitles for [SubtitleTools.com] The.American.Revolution.2025.S01E03.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-RAWR

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The plan
laid down for our education

was entirely broken in upon
by the war.

Instead of morning lessons,
we were to knit stockings;

instead of embroidering,
to make homespun garments;

and in place of the music
of the harpsichord,

to listen to the loud,
clanging trumpet

and never-ceasing drum,

for in every direction
that we traveled--

and heaven knows we left but
little of Virginia unexplored--

we heard naught
but the din of war.

Our late peaceful country

now became a scene
of terror and confusion.

Betsy Ambler.

Maya Jasanoff: Our images
of the American Revolution

tend to be images of men in wigs
in wood-paneled rooms,

and that helps
to reinforce an image

of the American Revolution
as just a war about ideals.

I think that we really
do a disservice to... history

and to the experiences of
the people who lived through it

when we paper over the violence
of the American Revolution

with this set
of very idealized images

that we have
of the Founding Fathers

signing documents
in Philadelphia.

The United States
came out of violence.

I peeped out at the bay

and saw something resembling
a wood of pine trees trimmed.

I declare at my noticing this

that I could not
believe my eyes,

but judge you of my surprise
when, in about 10 minutes,

the whole bay
was full of shipping

as ever it could be.

I do declare that I thought
all London was afloat.

Private Daniel McCurtin.

On Saturday morning,
June 29, 1776,

Colonel Henry Knox,
whose artillery had convinced

the British to flee Boston,
was breakfasting

with his wife Lucy
on the second floor

of a commandeered mansion
at Number 1 Broadway

when he, too, spotted
the British ships

that Private McCurtin had seen

as they approached
New York Harbor unopposed.

My God,
you can scarcely conceive

of the distress and anxiety--
the city in an uproar,

the alarm guns firing,

the troops repairing
to their posts.

Martha Washington
and other officers' wives,

including Lucy Knox
and her infant daughter,

were sent away from the city
for their safety.

The Royal Navy
anchored off Staten Island

and began to disembark
some 10,000 British regulars.

Crowds of local Loyalists
cheered them

as they stepped ashore.

Stephen Conway: The Royal Navy,
as one contemporary put it,

was the "Canvas Wings
of the British State."

It enabled the British
to appear off the coastline

almost anywhere unhindered.

We expect a very bloody summer

at New York,
as it is here, I presume,

the grand efforts of the enemy
will be aimed,

and I am sorry to say
that we are not,

either in men or arms,
prepared for it.

George Washington.

By the summer of 1776,
the Revolution,

which began as a quarrel over
the rights of British subjects,

had become a war
for American independence,

and as that revolution spread
throughout the colonies,

thousands of Americans,
patriots and Loyalists alike,

would be driven
from their homes.

11-year-old Betsy Ambler
of Yorktown, Virginia,

and her family had been
among the earliest refugees.

Her mother suffered from what
Betsy called "a nervous malady."

In 1775,
the constant talk of war

and Yorktown's vulnerability
to an attack by water

had so terrified her mother
that her father decided

to move the family, Betsy said,

"and seek a safe retreat
for her."

The Amblers were more fortunate
than most displaced families.

They and their relatives
owned farms and plantations

worked by enslaved people
scattered across the state.

They settled first
in a small house

in the tiny village
of New Castle in Hanover County.

It was there that Betsy's mother
gave birth

to another daughter--Lucy.

Since Lucy "made her appearance
just after the declaration,"

Betsy recalled, their father
called her

"his only independent child."

Now a fully committed patriot,

Betsy's father
had lost his paid position

as Collector of Royal Customs,

and a Royal Navy blockade would
soon choke off the shipping

on which his profits
as a merchant had been made.

The war,
though it was to involve

my immediate family in poverty
and perplexity of every kind,

was for the foundation
of independence

and prosperity for my country,

and what sacrifice would not
an American, a Virginian,

at the earliest age, have made
for so desirable an end?

Betsy Ambler.

What to do
with this city puzzles me.

It is so encircled
with deep, navigable water

that whoever commands the sea
must command the town.

General Charles Lee.

George Washington
had assigned

a former British officer,
General Charles Lee,

to fortify New York City
and its surroundings.

The Patriot commanders feared

they could not hold the town
for long

but hoped to make
the British pay

the highest possible price
for its capture.

Since no one could say where or
when British attacks would come,

Washington had been forced
to scatter his army

and its 121 cannon
all around the harbor.

Rick Atkinson:
New York is an archipelago.

It's a confluence of islands.

It's a problem.

If you don't control

the naval approaches
in and around New York,

you cannot properly
defend New York.

New York was one
of the best natural harbors

on the Atlantic seaboard,
and although the town

still occupied
just a single square mile

at Manhattan's southern tip,
it was the second-largest city

in the newly created
United States

and the gateway
to the Hudson River.

If the British commander,
General William Howe,

could capture it,
his forces would be free

to ascend the river and
divide rebellious New England

from the rest of the states.

Nathaniel Philbrick:
This whole war, in many ways,

is a water campaign.

It's who controls the coast,

but it's also who controls
the rivers and the lakes.

This is where
the fighting would be,

wherever water
provided you with a way

to get into
the interior of the country.

Both the British
and the Americans

had considered New York
and the farming communities

that bordered it
to be Loyalist strongholds.

For weeks, Patriots
had prowled the streets,

roughing up Loyalists.

Thousands fled with what
belongings they could carry.

Hundreds more were arrested.

Several dozen were hauled away
to Simsbury, Connecticut,

and imprisoned
in an abandoned copper mine

70 feet below the Earth

that the Patriots called
the Catacomb of Loyalty.

A Committee for Detecting
and Defeating Conspiracies,

chaired by the attorney
John Jay,

held daily inquisitions.

40 men, including
the Mayor of New York City,

were jailed for plotting to
assassinate George Washington.

A member of Washington's
own personal guard

was found to be involved
and hanged

while 4 brigades of troops
looked on.

The city had been home to
25,000 people.

By the summer of 1776,

just 5,000 of them would remain,

and those Loyalists
left behind

had learned to keep
their opinions to themselves.

To see the vast number
of houses shut up,

one would think the city
almost evacuated.

Troops are daily coming in.

They break open the houses
they find shut up

to quarter themselves.

Necessity knows no law.

Continental soldiers
and militiamen from 10 states

continued to stream into town.

Eventually, there would be
more than 20,000 of them

in and around New York.

They moved
into abandoned houses,

tore up parquet floors
for firewood,

and hurled refuse
from the windows.

Despite a 10 P.M. curfew,
troops flocked to a warren

of West Side brothels built
on land owned by Trinity Church.

Customers called it
the Holy Ground.

On the afternoon of July 12th,
2 British warships

slipped their anchors
off Staten Island,

moved into the harbor
past the tip of Manhattan,

and began sailing
up the Hudson.

The cannon from the city

did but very little execution,
as not more than half the number

of the men belonging to them
were present.

The others were at their cups,

and at their usual
place of abode

on the Holy Ground.

Lieutenant Isaac Banks.

Later that same evening,

a still-larger British fleet,
more than 100 vessels,

began streaming
through the narrows

and into New York Harbor.

Its commander
was General William Howe's

elder brother
Vice Admiral Richard Howe.

Both had once expressed
sympathy for the colonists,

and both had been empowered
to negotiate with rebel leaders

and issue pardons in hopes
of avoiding further bloodshed,

but while the Admiral
was crossing the Atlantic,

Congress had declared
American independence.

We learned
the deplorable situation

of His Majesty's
faithful subjects,

that they were hunted after
and shot at

in the woods and swamps
to which they had fled

to avoid the savage fury
of the rebels.

We also heard that the Congress
had now announced the colonies

to be independent states.

That proclaims the villainy and
madness of these deluded people.

To my dear Betsey, my wife--

It is hard to be quite happy
when one full half, at least,

of both body and soul
is left at home,

but, believe it,
I am not more mortal here

in the neighborhood
of the British cannon

than I should be was I happy
in your peaceful, loving arms.

Till my God calls me,
I am immortal.

Philip Vickers Fithian.

Philip Vickers Fithian
of Cohansey, New Jersey,

was a newly married 28-year-old
Presbyterian clergyman,

recently appointed chaplain
of a militia brigade.

He was a graduate

of the College of New Jersey
at Princeton,

where his classmates
had included

Aaron Burr and James Madison.

After college,
he spent a year as a tutor

on a Virginia plantation,

where, seeing the inhuman
cruelty of slavery up close,

he introduced the owner's
children to the work

of the enslaved poet
Phillis Wheatley.

In New York, Fithian found
himself sleeping on the floor

of a Loyalist's abandoned home,

conducting prayer meetings
twice a day

and afterwards
visiting the hospitals

filled with men
dying from dysentery.

Amen.
Amen.

Here I must daily visit

among many
in a contagious disorder,

but I am not discouraged
nor dispirited.

I am willing to hazard
and suffer equally

with my countrymen
since I have a firm conviction

that I am in my duty.

Friederike Baer:
When we really take a look

at what these regiments
were like,

we see a lot of individuals
who are not carrying arms--

including women,
including children,

including servants,
medical personnel, chaplains--

and there are all kinds
of individuals there

that are essential parts
of these armies

that are doing
essential labor,

without whom, I think,
the army couldn't operate.

August 1st--

There is a report
pretty well confirmed

that near 40 sail of the enemy
came in this afternoon

and are joining the fleet.

We are all uncertain.

The ships
that came in that day

were straggling in
from a failed British expedition

in South Carolina.

The Royal governors
of the southern colonies,

who had all been driven to ships
anchored off their coasts,

continued to insist
that the rebellion

had been stirred up by only
a tiny minority of radicals,

that the overwhelmingly loyal
populace of their colonies

would take up arms
in support of the Crown,

provided help was sent.

In June, British warships had
converged on Charleston Harbor,

where their 262 guns

opened fire on a rebel fort
on Sullivan's Island.

More than 7,000 cannonballs
were fired.

Most that hit their target

were absorbed by the fort's
sturdy palmetto walls.

Within the fort,
Patriot Colonel William Moultrie

ordered his men
to "distress

in every shape
to the utmost of your powers."

They did.

They had just 31 guns,
but they proved deadly accurate,

toppling masts, riddling hulls,

blowing sailors
and sea captains apart.

The British flagship alone
was hit 70 times,

and 111 crewmen
were killed or maimed.

By evening,
the battered fleet pulled away.

"We never had such a drubbing
in our lives,"

one British sailor remembered.

It took 3 weeks to repair
the damage to their ships

before they made their way
back north

to join the forces
threatening New York.

The British would not
attempt to recapture

a southern colony again
for 2 1/2 years.

It seems to be the intention

of the White people
to destroy us as a people,

but I have a great many young
fellows that would support me,

and we are determined
to have our land.

Tsi'yu-gunsini.

In the summer of 1776,
Cherokee warriors

led by Tsi'yu-gunsini,
"Dragging Canoe" in English,

began attacking
frontier settlements

west of the Appalachians

on land now claimed
by Virginia and the Carolinas.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

had expressly barred colonists
from purchasing

or moving onto Indian lands
west of the Appalachians,

but British officials had been
powerless to enforce it

or to keep
some Native Americans,

including Dragging Canoe's
own father,

from leasing or selling land
to settlers and speculators.

Kathleen DuVal:
We think of the Revolution

as a war against empire,

but it very quickly becomes
a war for empire.

One war aim
of the American Revolution

is to take the Ohio Valley
and the South.

That's what Americans wanted.

The British government had kept
them from taking Native lands,

so for the Shawnees
and the Delawares,

Cherokees,
and many other people,

the American Revolution
was a war

to protect these places
against an enemy

they already knew quite well.

Our Shawnee nation,

from being a great people,
are now reduced to a handful.

The red people, who were once
masters of the whole country,

hardly possess ground enough
to stand on.

The lands where but lately
we hunted

are now thickly inhabited

and covered with forts
and armed men,

and wherever a fort appears,

there will soon be towns
and settlements.

DuVal: In May 1776,

a delegation of Shawnees,
Delawares, Anishinaabe,

and Haudenosaunee came
to the Cherokee town of Chote.

They said, "Enough is enough.

"We've had year after year

"of illegal settlement
coming onto our lands.

"Now a war has come

"that has divided those settlers
from their government.

This is the time to strike."

It is better to die like men

than to diminish away by inches.

The Cherokees have a hatchet.

Take it up and use it
immediately.

British agents
still in Indian country,

who had armed the Cherokees
to fight the rebels,

now urged them to be patient

and wait until British troops
could join them.

Dragging Canoe would not listen
to the British

or to the elders
of his father's generation,

who had urged diplomacy.

He rallied the young men
and went to war.

They killed and scalped
settlers in the Carolina

and Virginia backcountry,
burned their cabins and crops,

and drove off their livestock.

Colin Calloway:
The result is,

as the older chiefs
feared it would be,

that those American colonies

immediately send armies
into Cherokee country.

Some of the American leaders
actually say in as many words,

"This is just what
we were waiting for.

"Now we have justification

"for launching a full-scale
assault on the Cherokees

and to drive them out
and take their land."

Nothing will reduce

those wretches so soon
as pushing the war

into the heart of their country,

but I would not stop there.

I would never cease
pursuing them

while one of them remained
on this side of the Mississippi.

Thomas Jefferson.

DuVal: There are thousands
of militiamen in South Carolina,

North Carolina,
Virginia, Georgia

ready to join the Revolution,
ready to fight Britain,

but the British aren't there.

There are no British
there to fight.

Who's there to fight?
The Cherokees.

Some 6,000 militiamen

stormed through
Cherokee country.

They destroyed 36 towns,

including Dragging Canoe's
own village.

Philip Deloria: This is meant to
be instructive to other tribes.

"If you think you're gonna
keep a British alliance,

"guess what we're gonna do?

"We're gonna come
and burn everything.

"We're gonna destroy
your fields.

"We're gonna
destroy your corn.

"We're gonna destroy
all your stored-up food.

"We're gonna wage
total war on those people.

Let's teach all Native people
a lesson about what's coming."

In the end,
older Cherokee leaders

would sue for peace
and be forced to cede

another 5 million acres.

Maggie Blackhawk: The colonists
wanted to possess that land

exclusively, and it's a vision

that is Western,
as contrasted to Native people,

who had a more spiritual or more
engaged relationship to land.

Unlike his elders,

Dragging Canoe
would not surrender.

With hundreds of men
and their families,

he managed to escape westward

to settle along
the Chickamauga Creek

in what is now Tennessee,
where he remained defiant.

"I could not hear their talks
of peace," Dragging Canoe said.

"My thoughts and my heart
are for war."

Imperial powers were advancing

all across North America
in 1776--

Russia along the Alaska coast,

Spain in what became
San Francisco Bay,

the Lakota in the Black Hills,

and the Comanches
on the Southern Plains.

On August 12th
off Staten Island in New York,

Britain, the world's
greatest naval power,

landed 107 more ships.

Aboard them were 8,600
hired Hessian troops.

Everything about
the German soldiers

was intended to intimidate--

their tightly fitted uniforms

that made the wearers
seem bigger than they were,

the whiskers many grew when
most men were clean-shaven,

the helmets worn by
their grenadiers and fusiliers

that added a foot
to their height,

and the reputation for ferocity
so widespread

that some Americans
believed them cannibals

with a special taste for babies.

I think it is
an effective propaganda tool.

"They will plunder our homes.
They will burn our village.

They will rape our women."

These kind of portrayals
really show up frequently,

especially in
the spring of '76

before the first Germans
even set foot on American soil.

Peace will not
be restored in America

until the rebel army
is defeated.

Should the enemy offer battle
in the open field,

we must not decline it.

General William Howe.

General William Howe
and his brother Richard

were in joint command
of the largest

seaborne assault force
Britain had ever assembled--

24,000 soldiers,
including the 8,600 Hessians,

and 400 ships manned by some
10,000 sailors and marines.

At dawn on August 22nd,
4,000 British and Hessian troops

crossed the narrows
and came ashore at Gravesend

on the southeastern edge
of Long Island,

boatloads of assault troops.

The enemy
have now landed

on Long Island.

The hour is fast approaching
on which the honor and success

of this army and the safety
of our bleeding country depend.

George Washington.

More troops
continued to land.

Soon, more than 20,000 British,
Hessian, and Loyalist soldiers

occupied a tent city
that sprawled for 8 miles

just beyond the beach.

General Washington reminded
his men of the dismissive things

British officers
had said of them.

Now they would have a chance
to prove them wrong,

provided they remained cool
but determined.

Remember that you are free men

fighting for the blessings
of liberty,

that slavery
will be your portion

and that of your posterity

if you do not acquit yourselves
like men.

Washington knew
an attack was coming somewhere,

but he worried that the British
landing on Long Island

was merely a diversion,
and so he divided his army.

Most would stay in Manhattan,
while some 8,000 men,

many of them
ill-trained militia,

were posted on Long Island,

where Washington's
most trusted general,

Nathanael Greene
of Rhode Island,

had strengthened
the series of forts

and earthworks that ran
from Red Hook to Wallabout Bay.

Most of the defenses
were concentrated

near the lofty cliffs
closest to Manhattan

called Brooklyn Heights
after the tiny village

of Brooklyn that stood
just behind them.

Washington
and his generals believed

that if the British
were to seize that high ground,

their guns would
command the city,

much as rebel guns
had commanded Boston

and its harbor
earlier that year,

but Nathanael Greene had fallen
ill and was soon replaced

by Major General Israel Putnam
of Connecticut,

whose fighting spirit
was not matched

by strategic sense
or knowledge of the terrain.

Between the Brooklyn Heights
fortifications

and the British encampment
ran a rugged, forested ridge

called the Gowanus Heights.

4 passes cut in or around it--

Gowanus, Flatbush,
Bedford, and Jamaica.

With Washington's approval,
Putnam ordered 3,000 of his men

to dig in and hold the ridge
and 3 of the passes.

Unaccountably, the Jamaica Pass
remained virtually unguarded.

Washington makes a number
of serious tactical mistakes

when he's commander
of the American military

and none more serious
than at Long Island.

He'd been a surveyor.

He should have known
the value

of completely understanding

the ground that you're
trying to defend.

He doesn't.
He doesn't go and explore

the ground toward Jamaica,

which is the far end
of this glacial feature,

and doesn't recognize

that he can be outflanked
by the British.

The Battle
of Long Island began

in the early-morning hours
of August 27, 1776,

and it started with a skirmish
over watermelons.

Around midnight, Pennsylvania
pickets at the Red Lion Inn

on the far right
of the American lines

had dimly glimpsed two shadowy
figures in a melon patch.

They were British foragers

out in front of a large force
of redcoats

and hoping for a treat

before they were sent
against the enemy.

The Pennsylvanians
opened fire.

A few minutes later, a British
musket volley from the woods

sent the Americans
running back to camp.

With the British
attack underway,

General William Alexander
was ordered to organize a force

to try and stop it.

Alexander and 1,600 men

took up positions
south of a salt marsh

and mill pond
next to Gowanus Creek

as 5,000 British troops
advanced toward them.

With no trees or stone walls
for cover,

American and British forces
stood in line, European style,

and fired musket volleys
and artillery at one another.

"Both the balls and shells
flew very fast,"

a Maryland soldier remembered,

"now and then taking off
a head."

Meanwhile, in the center
of the American lines,

British cannonfire
ripped through the trees

above the ridgeline,
where several hundred troops

under New Hampshire
General John Sullivan

guarded the Flatbush
and Bedford passes.

Hessian and Highland regiments

advanced toward them
with fixed bayonets,

retreating several times
under furious American fire.

Watching from a fort
on Cobble Hill,

Washington was pleased
with the way

the fighting was going so far.

Both fronts
seemed to be holding,

but he also sent for
reinforcements from Manhattan.

Our sergeant major informed us

that the regiment was ordered
to Long Island.

It gave me a rather
disagreeable feeling,

as I was pretty well-assured

I should have to sniff
a little gunpowder.

The horrors of battle then
presented themselves to my mind

in all their hideousness.

"I must come to it now,"
thought I.

Joseph Plumb Martin.

Private
Joseph Plumb Martin

of the Connecticut militia was
just 15 years old that summer,

1 of 7 children
of a small-town minister

so quarrelsome, he could not
hold on to a congregation.

Martin had wanted to enlist
since Lexington and Concord.

On July 6, 1776, he remembered,

he'd taken "up the pen,

"loaded it
with the fatal charge [of ink],

" wrote my name.

ow I was a soldier in name
at least, if not in practice."

Before the boats carrying Martin
and his fellow soldiers

could cross the East River
to Brooklyn,

the tide of battle
had begun to turn.

The British attacks on
the American right and center,

which Washington's army seemed
to have thwarted,

had turned out to be
mere demonstrations

meant to occupy troops who
might otherwise have defended

against the main
British assault.

That would soon begin
on the American left.

The British had slipped through
the undefended Jamaica Pass.

12 hours earlier,
leaving their campfires burning

to confuse the Patriots,
General Henry Clinton

had led some 10,000 British
and German soldiers north

along a dirt road grandly called
the King's Highway.

They moved in silence,
guided by 3 Loyalist volunteers.

This is Clinton's idea.

He's persuaded Howe that
this is the right way to do it.

"Don't attack frontally.

"You don't want
another Bunker Hill.

Go around them,"

so he leads--
it's a better part of 10,000 men

in the dark of night
very quietly,

as quiet as 10,000 men

pulling artillery guns
with horses can be.

The plan
worked perfectly.

The British column,
nearly 2 miles long,

made it through the pass

and reached the village
of Bedford,

well behind American lines
and just 2 miles

from the main fortifications
on and around Brooklyn Heights.

General Clinton ordered 2 guns
fired in quick succession,

the signal for British troops

besieging the American
right and center

to move forward simultaneously,

trapping John Sullivan's men
in between.

Sullivan ordered his gunners to
turn their field pieces around

to fire at the enemy,
now rushing at them from behind,

but as they struggled to do so,

Hessian grenadiers
and Highland Scots

swarmed up and over
the Gowanus Heights,

firing and bayoneting
as they came.

It was a rout.

Blood, carnage, fire.

Many, many, we fear, are lost.

Such a dreadful din
my ears never before heard.

Philip Fithian.

Muskets are mostly
inaccurate beyond 80 yards

and hopeless beyond 120 yards,

so a lot of the killing
is done with a bayonet,

and the bayonet
is a nasty way to kill.

It's a nasty way to die.

This is really
eyeball to eyeball,

nose to nose.

It's very intimate,

and that kind of intimacy
is horrifying.

Hundreds of Americans
surrendered,

including General Sullivan.

"Their fear of the Hessian
troops was indescribable,"

the German commander
General Heister remembered.

When they caught

only a glimpse of us,
they surrendered immediately

and begged on their knees
for their lives.

I am surprised
that the British troops

have achieved so little
against these people.

We soon landed at Brooklyn.

We now began to meet
the wounded men,

another sight
I was unacquainted with,

some with broken arms,
some with broken legs,

and some with broken heads.

The fighting
Joseph Plumb Martin

was about to witness would prove

the last and bloodiest
of the day.

3 British columns were now
converging on General Alexander

and his men
on the American right.

He did his best to rally them,

but the number of attackers
steadily grew.

Alexander fell back,

and finally, rather than see
his command destroyed,

he urged his men to retreat
to the village of Brooklyn

across the tidal marshes
that flanked Gowanus Creek.

Such as could swim got across.

Those that could not swim sunk.

The British were pouring
the canister and grapeshot

upon the Americans
like a shower of hail.

Many of them were killed
in the pond

and more were drowned.

To provide cover
for his desperate men

and to occupy the British troops
firing at them

from inside and around
an old stone house,

Alexander led some 400 soldiers
from Maryland

into the enemy guns
again and again.

Fewer than a dozen of them
made it safely back

to the American lines.

Alexander himself
was forced to surrender.

"The slaughter was horrible,"
a Hessian chaplain wrote.

"I went over the battlefield
among the dead,

who mostly had been hacked
and shot all to pieces."

At least 200 Americans
had been killed,

and perhaps a thousand more
were captured.

Washington watched this final
carnage through his spyglass.

By noon, it was all over.

The British believed
they had won

what one general called
a "cheap and complete victory."

Washington's
heartbroken because

he recognizes instantly what
a catastrophe this has been.

The only saving grace is that
enough of them pull back

to form sort of an inner
defense around Brooklyn

that gives the British pause.

They pull back
within those defenses.

Now they've got their backs
to the East River.

Things are about as dire
as they could possibly be.

Washington and
the bulk of his battered army,

crowded now inside the defenses
on Brooklyn Heights,

expected that at any moment,
the British would mount

an all-out assault
aimed at destroying them.

General William Howe's officers

urged him to finish
what he had begun,

but instead of ordering
an assault, Howe stood down.

He knew his brother Richard's
fleet was about to enter

the East River and prevent the
rebels from escaping by water.

The Americans were astonished.

"General Howe is either
our friend or no general,"

Israel Putnam said.

"He had our whole army
in his power."

Meanwhile, a storm blew in

and continued off and on
for the next 2 days.

It kept Admiral Howe's fleet
from entering the East River.

By the middle of the second day,
Washington decided

to try to withdraw his army
to Manhattan.

Washington sends out orders
that every boat,

every fishing smack,
every canoe,

everything that floats
that can be found

be brought very secretly
and very quietly to the landing,

very close to where
Brooklyn Bridge now is

on the Brooklyn side.

To man
his mismatched flotilla,

he would call on 2 regiments

of seasoned mariners
and fishermen,

Black and White
and Native American,

from Massachusetts
coastal towns.

Colonel John Glover
of Marblehead

led one of the regiments.

As darkness fell,
Washington ordered his men

to begin moving silently
down from the Heights

to the ferry landing
regiment by regiment.

I seized my musket

and fell into the ranks.

We were strictly enjoined
not to speak or even cough.

All orders were communicated
in whispers.

Joseph Plumb Martin.

A providential breeze
comes up that allows them

to raise sails
and get across the East River,

and then an even more
providential fog rolls in,

and it obscures
what's happening.

All through the night,

John Glover and his men
from Marblehead

sailed or rowed or paddled
back and forth undetected,

ferrying more than 9,000 men
as well as horses, artillery,

and baggage wagons
to safety in Manhattan.

When dawn breaks,

the British realize
everyone's gone.

They see the last of the boats

disappearing across the river
in the traces of fog.

And they fire a few shots
pointlessly

at this retreating gaggle,
including Washington

in one of the last boats,

and the Americans escape
to Manhattan Island

and get away
to fight another day.

The Battle of Long Island

was the largest battle
of the American Revolution.

It had been a devastating defeat
for George Washington

and the Patriot cause,

but his army was still alive.

Braintree, Massachusetts--

The best accounts
we can collect from New York

assure us that our men
fought valiantly.

We are no ways dispirited here.

If our men are all drawn off
and we should be attacked,

you would find a race
of Amazons in America.

Abigail Adams.

Every army engaged
on either side in the Revolution

would be accompanied by
a moving village of civilians--

men, women, and children.

Most of the women
were soldiers' wives

who cared for the wounded
and washed and cooked

and mended for the troops.

Some sold provisions,
including rum.

George Washington
often resented

feeding all the women
and children,

but he also understood,
he said,

that he had somehow
to provide for them

"or lose by Desertion--
perhaps to the Enemy--

some of the oldest and best
Soldiers in the Service."

Women acted as spies,

and a handful
disguised themselves

and fought as men
until they were found out,

but most made their
contributions to the war effort

away from the battlefield.

Preston, Connecticut--

Dear husband, I hope that
I shall have the pleasure

of your company at home
this winter.

The anxieties of the mind
cannot be accounted for,

especially when ties
of flesh and blood bind them.

My only comfort now
is at present

in the dear, little pledges
of our love--our children.

When I see them,
I see my dear

when so glorious a cause
calls him from my arms.

My country, o my country.

Your affectionate wife
till death, Lois.

With sons and husbands
and fathers away,

some women turned their homes
into boarding houses

to pay the bills.

On farms, women already caring
for children and households

now slaughtered hogs,
cut and stacked firewood,

harvested wheat,
and brought it to market.

The men say
we have no business

with political matters,
it is not in our sphere,

but I won't have it thought
that we are capable

of nothing more
than minding the dairy,

visiting the poultry house,
and all such domestic concerns.

Our thoughts can soar aloft.

We can form conceptions
of things of higher nature.

Eliza Wilkinson.

Can you be surprised
that the Negroes

should endeavor
to recover their freedom

when they daily hear
at the tables of their masters

how much the Americans
are applauded

for the stand they are making
for theirs?

Jane Kamensky: The liberty talk
that proliferates

through British America

originates in coffee houses
and across dining tables.

It surfaces in letters
and in pamphlets.

Those pamphlets
are excerpted in newspapers

and travel
up and down the coast.

Even letters, like newspapers,
are read aloud,

so we know that
the language of liberty

is contagious and is leaky,
leaky in that

there are planter-class people
in Jamaica saying,

"You know, this stuff
is kind of hot,

"so watch it
when you're talking

"because you know all those
Black and Brown people

"who are standing, serving
around the edges of your room,

they have ears."

The signal
was to be given first

by discharging a gun
at Batchelors Hall Plantation.

They were then to rise
in general rebellion

and attack the several estates,

and put to death
all the White people they could.

Sam.

That same summer
of 1776 in Northwestern Jamaica,

enslaved men, women,
and children

living on 47 different
plantations

secretly conspired
to overthrow their enslavers,

hoping their rebellion would
spread across the whole island

and unite the people
of African descent living there,

including Igbos, Creoles,
and Coromantees.

The planned revolt
was an unintended consequence

of the American Revolution.

The American ban on trade
with the British

had denied enslaved Jamaicans
the food they needed to survive.

Then London ordered
almost half the soldiers

who policed the island
to sail northward

to strengthen General Howe's
forces in New York.

Their departure
was supposed to be the signal

for enslaved people to rise up,

but before the plot
could get underway,

a child was discovered
emptying his overseer's pistol

and was made to reveal
what he knew of the conspiracy.

The Royal governor
declared martial law.

The revolt was crushed.

135 people were put on trial.

17 were executed.

11 were beaten, and 45
were torn from their families

and deported to other islands...

but that
summer and fall,

there were other
sporadic uprisings

or rumors of uprisings
among enslaved workers

on other British islands--

Saint Kitts, Montserrat,
Antigua, Barbados--

all of them striking fear
in American slaveholders.

Vincent Brown: Slave rebellions
were usually unsuccessful,

so you wonder,
why would you fight?

Slavery was
so incredibly horrifying.

It was a regime
of terror, right,

that was very, very
difficult to withstand.

People can abuse, rape, torture,

murder enslaved persons
without consequences,

so if you just imagine
that situation

and that kind of desperation,
it becomes clearer

why, when given an opportunity,
you would fight against that.

On September 11, 1776,

3 delegates
of the Continental Congress--

John Adams of Massachusetts,

Edward Rutledge
of South Carolina,

and Benjamin Franklin
of Pennsylvania--

made their way to a Loyalist's
house on Staten Island

for a meeting with Admiral Howe,

who was hoping
to persuade the Congress

to negotiate a peace.

Howe did what he could
to reassure the delegates

that all could still be forgiven
if only the Americans

would abandon independence.

"If America should fall,"
he told the delegates,

" should feel and lament it
like the loss of a brother."

"e will do our utmost,"
Franklin answered,

"to save Your Lordship
that mortification."

"They met. They talked.
They parted,"

Admiral Howe's secretary said,

"and now nothing remains
but to fight it out."

There was no going back.

Howe apologized to his visitors
for wasting their time.

Christopher Brown:
The British government

throughout the first
few years of the war

really thought
that a show of force

would bring the majority
of Americans to their senses

and that the instigators,
the provocateurs,

the ones who were responsible
for the uprising

would be captured, killed,

or their neighbors
would just say, "Enough.

We don't actually want to go
to war with our own nation."

On our side,

the war should be defensive.

We should on all occasions
avoid a general action

or put anything to the risk
unless compelled

by a necessity into which
we ought never to be drawn.

George Washington.

Back in New York City,

Washington again expected
another British attack

and again didn't know where
or when it was likely to come,

so again he divided
what was left of his forces.

Leaving behind General Putnam
and some 3,500 men

to hold the city itself,

General Washington led
most of his troops north

toward the tiny village
of Harlem.

Militiamen were posted
along the East River

opposite Long Island.

Joseph Plumb Martin
found himself

with 500 Connecticut troops
at Kips Bay.

At the same time,
5 British frigates

sailed up the river and anchored
on the opposite shore.

At 11:00 in the morning
on September 15th,

they opened fire.

I thought my head would go

with the sound.

I made a frog's leap
for the ditch

and lay as still
as I possibly could

and began to consider which part
of my carcass was to go first.

We kept the lines till they
were almost leveled upon us,

when our officers gave
the order to leave.

As Martin
and his comrades ran,

4,000 enemy troops began
coming ashore at Kips Bay,

among them Hessians
who bayoneted

several wounded Americans
and mutilated the dead.

Our people were all militia,

and the demons of fear
and disorder seemed to take

full possession of all and
everything that day.

Then General Washington

seemed to appear out of nowhere,

ordering his stampeding men
to form a defensive line.

"Take the walls," he bellowed.
"Take the cornfield."

They kept running.

"Are these the men with which
I am to defend America?"

Washington was known for being
aloof, terse, stoical,

but, "Those who have seen him
strongly moved,"

a friend remembered,

could "bear witness
that his wrath was terrible."

He seemed stunned
and urged his horse forward

toward the oncoming Hessians.

An aide snatched
his horse's bridle

and led his commander
out of harm's way.

Colonel John Glover
and his regiment

from Marblehead, Massachusetts,
which had just made

Washington's escape
from Long Island possible,

rushed up and were able
to slow the British advance...

but many Patriots
did not stop running

until they reached the safety

of strongly fortified
American positions

on the plateau
known as Harlem Heights.

The British were slow to follow
the fleeing rebels.

General Howe wanted to wait
until thousands more troops

were ashore on Manhattan Island.

The delay gave General Putnam
time to lead his men north

out of New York City
to join Washington in Harlem.

The British entered
the abandoned city in triumph.

The King's forces

took possession of the place,
incredible as it may seem,

without the loss of a man.

A woman pulled down the rebel
standard upon the fort

and, after trampling it
underfoot

with the most contemptuous
indignation,

hoisted up in its stead
His Majesty's flag.

Ambrose Searle,
Secretary to Admiral Howe.

New York City becomes
the great British stronghold

of the American Revolution.

Once the Continental Army
is driven out,

the Patriots
don't want to stick around,

and they tend to go, too.

Meanwhile, the Loyalists
come into the city.

People stream in from
the countryside to take shelter,

and the city becomes
this kind of garrison town.

Hundreds of Loyalists
would formally reaffirm

their allegiance to George III
by signing a document

they called their
Declaration of Dependence.

Over the coming weeks,

more Loyalists
poured into the city,

now eager to take up arms
in the King's cause.

It is
the cause of truth

against falsehood,
of loyalty against rebellion,

of legal government
against usurpation.

In short, it is the cause
of human happiness.

Charles Inglis.

Over the course of the war,

as many as 50,000 Americans
volunteered to serve

in Loyalist militia companies

or in provincial units
attached to the British Army--

the King's American Regiment,
the Queen's American Rangers,

the Prince of Wales'
American Volunteers,

the Royal Highland Emigrants,
and the British Legion.

Everyone knew someone
who fought for the other side.

Even Benjamin Franklin's
son William,

the deposed
Royal Governor of New Jersey,

remained faithful to his king
and was imprisoned for it.

Had I been left to the dictates

of my own judgment,

New York should have been
lain in ashes.

To this end,
I applied to Congress

but was absolutely forbid.

Providence--or some good,
honest fellow--

has done more for us

than we were disposed
to do for ourselves.

George Washington.

September 21, 1776.

We are a good deal alarmed
at a fire

that must have spread amazingly,

for though we are
6 1/2 miles from the town,

we could see a pin on the ground
by the light of the blaze.

Loftus Cliffe.

New York City
was on fire.

The next morning, Irish-born
Lieutenant Loftus Cliffe,

who had already
survived 3 battles,

went for a walk through
the still-smoldering streets.

I cannot
paint the misery

of a very pretty town near
as large as Cork now reduced.

Two churches,
the governor's house,

and several other fine buildings
are in ruins,

being set afire
in different places at once

in the dead of last night.

Their design
was to destroy the town.

O Washington, what have you
to answer for?

The origins
of the fire remained a mystery,

but General Howe was convinced
it had been set by rebels,

and the next day when soldiers
brought before him

an American spy
captured behind British lines,

he showed no mercy.

Howe ordered
Captain Nathan Hale,

a member of an elite
espionage unit

organized by George Washington,

to be hanged
the following morning.

As he went to the gallows,
a British officer remembered,

Hale "behaved with great
composure and resolution."

Above his body,
British soldiers hung a sign

labeled, "George Washington,"
the man they all blamed

for setting fire
to New York City.

Alan Taylor: A lot is riding on
George Washington's performance

not only in the battlefield,

but in his relationship
with Congress

and his relationship
with the states,

his relationship
with his soldiers.

George Washington understands

that his role
is not just military.

It's also political.

He has to project dignity.

He has to project authority.

He has to also do this

while projecting
deference to Congress.

He cannot become a dictator.

We have been
sent into life at a time

when the greatest lawgivers
of antiquity

would have wished
to have lived,

when, before the present epocha,

had 3 millions of people
full power

and a fair opportunity
to form and establish

the wisest
and happiest government

that human wisdom can contrive.

John Adams.

As Washington
and Howe faced off

against one another
in New York,

in Philadelphia,
the Continental Congress

had been laboring to adopt
Articles of Confederation,

meant to formally bind
all 13 states together

while also guaranteeing
the independence of each,

a first tentative step

toward a permanent government
for the new United States.

When we think
about our American Revolution,

we, of course, think about
independence from Britain,

and that's a big deal,

but we also need to think about

this is the formation
of republican government,

and it's also the formation
of our union of our states,

and all 3 of those
were enormous gambles.

They were unprecedented.

There had never been
the foundation of a republic

out of a revolution...

and these 13 colonies

had had bitter rivalries
with one another,

and so forming a union
out of these states

was gonna be as difficult

as achieving independence
from Britain.

Congress debated
draft articles for weeks

on the first floor
of the Pennsylvania State House,

where they had just declared
independence in July.

They were held up
over a host of issues,

including apportionment,
boundary disputes,

taxation, and autonomy
of the individual states.

Congress was
a disputatious assembly

and not necessarily
an efficient assembly

through these years.

Yes, they are running a war.

Yes, they are founding
a nation,

but there's also a tremendous
amount of infighting.

There's a tremendous
amount of inertia.

There are more committees
than anyone could count,

and there were
secret committees.

For example, the first person
sent to France

to solicit aid from the French
for the Revolution

is sent without the knowledge
of the rest of Congress.

As John Jay will later say
to George Washington,

"There is as much intrigue
in Congress

"as there is at the Vatican,

and as little secrecy as there
is in a boarding school."

Meanwhile,
upstairs in the same building,

the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
held a convention of its own

to establish its government.

Similar meetings
were being held in other states.

All of the new constitutions
would guarantee

freedom of the press,
fair trials,

and due process under law
and made sure power rested

not with autocratic governors,
but with legislators

elected by propertied men.

Pennsylvania took things
a step further.

They created the most
egalitarian constitution

in the new United States
with a Bill of Rights

and a one-house legislature

elected by taxpaying workingmen
as well as property owners,

all of which worried many
of the delegates downstairs.

William Hogeland: Pennsylvania
had a radical constitution

where almost any White, free man
could vote and stand for office,

which had never happened before
pretty much anywhere.

People were committed to using
the revolution to make it

a real social revolution,
a real economic revolution,

and get free, working people--
men, White men--

a say in government, which was
a radical idea at the time.

John Adams wasn't for that.
Samuel Adams wasn't for that.

Richard Henry Lee
wasn't for that.

When John Adams
read that constitution,

his response was, quote,
"Good God!"

In the new
code of laws,

I desire you would
remember the ladies

and be more generous
and favorable to them

than your ancestors.

Do not put such unlimited power
into the hands of the husbands.

Remember, all men would be
tyrants if they could.

If particular care and attention
is not paid to the ladies,

we are determined
to foment a rebellion

and will not hold ourselves
bound by any laws

in which we have no voice
or representation.

Abigail Adams.

There will be no end of it.

New claims will arise.

Women will demand a vote.

Lads from 12 to 21

will think their rights
not enough attended to,

and every man
who has not a farthing

will demand an equal voice with
any other in all acts of state.

It tends to confound
and destroy all distinctions

and prostrate all ranks
to one common level.

John Adams.

It's a misconception
to think of the founders

as being pro-democracy,

but I think it's also
a misconception to think

that their failure
to be democratic

is some sort of flaw or error

or something they
just kind of missed.

They were very adamantly
opposed to democracy.

Democracy came to America,

with all of the problems
that came with it,

not as a direct purpose of
the American Revolution, really,

but as an unintended
consequence.

By the time Pennsylvania

had ratified its constitution,

the debates over
the Articles of Confederation

downstairs in Congress
had become so heated,

the prospect of compromise
seemed so remote

that the delegates agreed
to table the subject.

Frustrated and worried
about his sick wife,

Thomas Jefferson returned home
to Virginia,

the place he still called
"my country."

Camp near Kingsbridge--

Amidst all the distress and
ruins of this dreadful war,

I am yet alive and yours.

Our enemies pursue us close
from place to place.

I pray God daily that you,
my dear wife,

forever may you be happy.

Philip.

Days after writing
to his wife, Chaplain Fithian

fell victim to dysentery,
the disease that had killed

so many of the men whose last
moments he'd filled with prayer.

He was carried
to a hospital tent.

There was nothing
anyone could do.

October 8th--

This morning about 10:00,

Mr. Fithian closed his eyes
upon the things of time

and is gone
to a spiritual world.

Andrew Hunter.

News of the American
defeat on Long Island

at the end of August did not
reach London till October 10th.

It was greeted with
what one courtier called

"an extravagance of joy."

The King promised
General Howe a knighthood.

Now that the Americans had seen
how futile it was

to defy British regulars,

they would surely come to
their senses and sue for peace.

Not all Englishmen
shared that view.

London.

To the printer
of the "Public Advertiser"--

Sir, I find that the late
action at Long Island

has made a considerable
impression upon the Public;

the Friends of Ministry
thinking everything gained,

the Friends of America
everything lost.

Because the last action
was in our favor,

we think we are to succeed
in the next,

but liberty takes
a great deal of killing,

and the courage of freemen
is the same thing

on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Americans are daily
improving in Arms and in Hatred.

We see only
the Beginning of Sorrows;--

Benefit to neither--

Misery to both.

Ticonderoga appears to be

the last part of the world
that God made,

and I have some ground
to believe

it was finished in the dark,

that it was never intended

that man should live in it
is clear,

for the people who have
attempted to make any stay

have, for the most part,
perished

by pestilence or the sword.

General Anthony Wayne.

By the fall of 1776,

only half of the 11,000
Americans who manned Ticonderoga

and Crown Point
on Lake Champlain

were fit for duty.

The smallpox threat was lifting,

but thousands still suffered
from other diseases.

Morale was further weakened
by antagonism

among men from
the supposedly United States.

New Englanders brawled
with Pennsylvanians so often

that they had been sent
to the opposite shore

to set up a separate
fortification

on a hilltop
called Mount Independence.

After the American retreat
from Quebec City in early 1776,

a British drive down the Hudson
seemed inevitable.

Before British General
Guy Carleton's army

could even reach the Hudson,
he had to sail south

and seize the two American forts
at Crown Point and Ticonderoga,

and before he could do that,
he had to put together a fleet

at the lake's northern end.

That had taken months.

This water route is a corridor.

It's been called
the Warpath of Nations,

where Indian warriors
from Canada had raided

down the Champlain Valley,
down the Hudson River,

and so this was--
this was like an open door.

The Americans
had just 4 ships

with which to oppose
the British fleet.

Many more were needed.

Ticonderoga's commander,

a former British major
named Horatio Gates,

appointed his most enterprising
officer to get the job done.

Benedict Arnold
was still limping

from the wound
he'd received at Quebec

and was still angry
at having been accused

of stealing supplies during
the retreat from Montreal.

Gates had dismissed
Arnold's detractors.

"Men of little merit
are ever jealous

of those who have a great deal."

The enemy
will soon have

a considerable naval force.

I make no doubt of their
soon paying us a visit.

I beg that at least
100 good seamen

may be sent to me
as soon as possible.

Benedict Arnold.

Arnold transformed
the tiny settlement

of Skenesborough,
20 miles below Ticonderoga,

into a bustling shipyard.

He had hoped for a fleet
of at least 30 vessels

but had to settle for just 15.

I intend to come up as high

as Isle Valcour,
where is a good harbor

and where we shall
have the advantage

of attacking the enemy
in the open lake.

When the British
flotilla finally started south

on Lake Champlain,
Carleton commanded

nearly twice as many vessels
as Arnold did,

armed with more than twice
as many guns,

manned by 700 seasoned crewmen,

and carrying 10,000 British
and German troops

and 400 Native allies.

Arnold and his fleet
were waiting for them

in a cove hidden
behind Valcour Island.

As Carleton's fleet slid past,

4 American ships moved out onto
the lake to engage the British,

Arnold personally
directing the guns

of his flagship--
the "Congress."

By evening, the fleets
had fought to a standoff.

The Americans
had lost 2 vessels

but succeeded in blowing up
a British gunboat.

As darkness fell,
Carleton ordered his fleet

to keep the Americans trapped

so that he could destroy them
the following day...

but at 7:00,
while fog covered the lake

and Carleton and his officers
were dining below deck,

Arnold formed his battered ships
into a single line

and then ordered them
with muffled oars

and in complete silence

to glide slowly past
the British squadron.

When Carleton finally
caught up with them,

they began a running battle
that went on for 2 days.

British firepower
took a steady toll.

Arnold eventually
ordered his flagship

and 4 other vessels
run aground in Button Mould Bay

and set on fire.

He and his men escaped
into the forest.

When they reached Crown Point,

Arnold realized
the fortifications there

could not withstand
a serious British attack

and ordered them
burned to the ground.

"At 4:00 [in the] morning,
I reached ,"

Arnold recalled, "exceedingly
fatigued and unwell,

having been without sleep
or refreshment for near 3 days."

It has pleased Providence

to preserve General Arnold.

Few men ever met with so many
hairbreadth escapes

in so short a space of time.

Horatio Gates.

The battle was not
a victory for the Americans,

but it is one of the great
slugfests of naval warfare,

and it happens on a lake.

It convinced the British
that it was gonna be

much more difficult to take
Ticonderoga than they thought.

The American force
at Ticonderoga

had grown to 15,000,

and its fortifications
had been strengthened.

Carleton now believed
a long siege

would be needed to take it.

Then it began to snow.

Once the lake froze,

provisioning his forces
would be difficult,

and a retreat
would be impossible.

Carleton turned around
and withdrew,

eventually going
into winter quarters

at Quebec City
far to the north.

The British began
to plan a second,

more significant invasion
for the next spring.

The rebels have taken positions

upon amazing, strong hills
and works they have

all the way to Kingsbridge.

Their soldiers would rather
work than fight.

Ours would rather
fight than work,

but General Howe was determined

to not run our heads
against their works.

Loftus Cliffe.

For the better part
of a month,

Washington's and Howe's armies

warily faced one another
at Harlem Heights,

"as quiet," an American
lieutenant recalled,

"as if they were
a thousand miles apart."

With little to do,
soldiers on both sides

went into
the surrounding countryside,

where they plundered homes,
terrified civilians,

and then burned their houses
to cover up their crimes.

Plunder is more or less
an accepted part of warfare

in the 18th century.

The British, the Hessian,

and the American generals
all worry about that.

Washington worries about that.

His men plunder,
and he's like,

"Can you stop?
Please don't do this.

You're alienating the people."

"Militiamen,"
Washington complained
to Congress,

"were undisciplined,
disobedient,

"liable to run instead of fight,

'hurtful' to the cause."

To make matters worse,

the 12-month enlistments
in the Continental Army,

begun in Boston
the previous winter,

would soon be running out.

At the end of the year,
Washington would again

have to raise and train
a whole new army.

He understood that appeals
to patriotism alone

would no longer work.

When men are irritated

and the passions inflamed,

they fly hastily
and cheerfully to arms,

but after the first
emotions are over,

to expect that
they are influenced

by any other principle
than those of interest

is to look for what never did
and, I fear, never will happen.

Congress agreed
to authorize 88 new battalions.

The number each state
was to provide

depended on
their free populations.

The states would never come
close to meeting those goals.

The policy of Congress has been

the most absurd and ridiculous
imaginable,

pouring in militiamen
who come and go every month.

People coming from home
with all the tender feelings

of domestic life
are not sufficiently fortified

with natural courage to stand
the shocking scenes of war,

to march over dead men,

to hear without concern
the groanings of the wounded.

I say few men can stand
such scenes

unless steeled by habit
or fortified by military pride.

Nathanael Greene.

On October 11th,
150 vessels threaded their way

up the East River
and into Long Island Sound

with 4,000 British
and Hessian troops.

Their objective was to get
behind Washington's forces

in Northern Manhattan.

To avoid that, Washington
began a full-scale retreat,

following the west bank
of the Bronx River

for 18 miles north
toward the seat

of Westchester County--
White Plains.

By the time the British forces
got there on October 28th,

the American line stretched
for 3 miles through the village,

anchored on the right

by the lightly defended
Chatterton Hill.

General Howe
sent 2 columns up the slope.

Patriot militiamen
predictably scattered,

but the Continentals held.

As the British approached,
a Connecticut colonel

told his men,
"Fire at their legs.

"One man wounded
is better than a dead one,

"for it takes two more
to carry him off,

and there is 3 gone,"

but British artillery
took a fearful toll.

A cannonball cut down

Lieutenant Young's Platoon,
which was next to that of mine.

The ball first took the head
of Smith--a stout, heavy man--

and dashed it open.

Then it took off Chilson's arm.

It then took Taylor
across the bowels.

What a sight that was to see.

There was men
with their legs and arms

and guns and packs
all in a heap.

Private Elijah Bostwick.

At day's end,

Washington retreated
east of White Plains.

Again General Howe made only
a halfhearted effort to follow.

The British essentially
let Washington escape

once again.

Opportunities to just end this
war right now are being wasted.

Is it
through incapacity or by design

of our commander that
so many great opportunities

are let slip?

I am inclined
to adopt the latter.

Captain William Bamford.

There are moments
when General Howe in particular

seems to hold back
from delivering

the final knockout blow.

There's that feeling,

the very torn
and conflicted feeling,

about whether the Americans
are truly enemies

or misguided subjects
who need to be encouraged

to come back into the fold.

As Howe headed
back towards Manhattan,

Washington crossed the Hudson
and headed south.

He thought it most likely
that Howe planned

to race across New Jersey
and capture Philadelphia

before winter set in.

He had again
misjudged his adversary.

Howe actually wanted
to take 2 forts

on opposite sides of the Hudson

that blocked British ships
from going upriver--

Fort Lee in New Jersey

and Fort Washington
on Manhattan Island,

a crude, star-shaped earthwork
265 feet above the river.

Fort Washington
would come first.

British guns pounded the fort

and the long line of trenches
and redoubts that surrounded it.

The British troops who attacked
from the south and east

had comparatively little trouble
driving the defenders

back behind the fort's walls,

but Hessian troops
under the command

of General
Wilhelm von Knyphausen

coming at them from the north
had a much tougher task,

climbing a rocky hillside

covered by the tangled branches
of felled trees

and so steep that they
had to grab at bushes

to pull themselves up,

all under steady fire
from above.

Before us,

beside, and upon one another,

we saw our unfortunate
comrades shattered,

dead on the Earth
in their own blood.

Even the air
seemed filled with fear.

Lieutenant
Johann Friedrich von Bardeleben.

Margaret Corbin,

a Pennsylvania
artilleryman's wife,

was standing near her husband
when he was mortally wounded.

She stepped in and kept up
such deadly fire

that her position became
a target for Hessian guns.

Grapeshot eventually
hit her jaw and breast

and rendered her left arm
useless.

3 years later, she would
become the first woman

to receive a lifetime
disability pension

but at half the rate
wounded men received.

American muskets eventually
clogged from overuse.

The defenders fell back
and were forced to surrender,

nearly 3,000 men.

The British renamed
Fort Washington

Fort Knyphausen after
the victorious German general.

As the battered captives
made their 12-mile march south

to New York City,
British soldiers and Loyalists

lined the road,
jeering and cursing.

Officers were often paroled

after pledging
not to take up arms again,

but enlisted men
were given no such option.

Instead, they were prodded
into makeshift prisons

already overcrowded
with hundreds of prisoners

taken at Quebec, Long Island,
and Kips Bay.

There were no blankets,

little firewood,
and sometimes no food.

Rats scuttled over the muddy
straw that covered the floors.

The men's appearance in general

resembled dead corpses
more than living men.

Indeed, great numbers
had already arrived

at their long home,

and the remainder appeared far
advanced on the same journey.

Captain Jabez Fitch.

Thousands
of American prisoners would die

by the end of 1776.

By then, the British had begun
packing the prisoners

into disused transport ships
anchored in the East River.

Conditions there would prove
worse than those on land.

They die of exposure.
They die of malnutrition.

They die of disease--

smallpox, typhus,
typhoid, dysentery.

We have our own prison ships
near Albany,

where British soldiers
and Loyalists

are kept
in very awful conditions.

It's a deplorable part

of the story
of the American Revolution.

Early on November 20, 1776,

some 5,000 British
and Hessian troops

crossed the Hudson
and began struggling

up the slippery,
440-foot rock face

of the New Jersey Palisades,

so steep the Patriots had not
believed anyone could climb it.

The British commander
was General Charles Cornwallis,

who then ordered his men
to start marching south

toward Fort Lee, 6 miles away.

General Nathanael Greene
had already begun to evacuate it

when the enemy
took Fort Washington.

Now he ordered everyone
remaining to leave immediately.

The rebels fled
like scared rabbits.

Not a rascal of them
could be seen.

They have left some poor pork,

a few greasy proclamations,

and some of that scoundrel
"Common Sense" man's letters,

which we can read at our
leisure.

By evening,
Greene and most of his 2,000 men

managed to link up
with Washington's force

at New Bridge
on the Hackensack River.

They marched 2 abreast,

looked ragged, some without
a shoe to their feet

and most of them wrapped
in their blankets.

The next evening,
the British encamped

on the other side
of the Hackensack.

We could see their fires
about 100 yards apart

gleaming brilliantly
in the gloom of the night,

extending for more than a mile
along the river.

Reverend Theodore Roneyn.

As his army retreated
across the state,

followed by Cornwallis
with a far larger force,

Washington hoped somehow,
somewhere to offer battle,

but Cornwallis had orders
from General Howe

to avoid confrontation.

From Howe's vantage point,

there was no need
for another major battle.

The rebel army
was shrinking daily.

What one officer called
"the devil of desertion"

had infected Washington's ranks.

Men were simply drifting away
into the countryside.

When Washington
called upon the states

for 5,000 more troops,
he was met mostly by silence.

His aide-de-camp Joseph Reed

expressed the General's
continued frustrations.

When I look round
and see how few

of the numbers who talked
so largely of death and honor

are around me,
I am lost in wonder.

Your noisy Sons of Liberty
are, I find,

the quietest in the field.

To compound things,
Washington's second in command--

General Charles Lee,
who had been stationed

in Westchester County
with a sizable force--

responded to Washington's
repeated requests

to hurry to his aid
with one excuse after another.

Lee was scornful of Washington,

hoped someday to replace him
as commander in chief,

and saw himself as not subject
to Washington's orders.

On November 30th, the British
issued a proclamation

aimed at restoring their rule
in New Jersey.

Anyone willing to swear

"peaceable obedience
to His Majesty"

within 60 days would receive
"a free and General Pardon."

More than 3,000
New Jersey residents

took them up on the offer,

and hundreds answered the call
for Loyalists

to fight alongside
the British regulars.

New Jersey's Patriot
government fled,

but while General Howe
was offering pardons,

his soldiers were demanding
provisions from civilians.

Edward Lengel: The people
who were really at the sharp end

of the sword were the civilians,

and if you think from
the point of view of somebody,

say, a mother of a family--
who's on her farm,

you know that the very little
that you have to survive

can be destroyed in an instant.

Tories lead
the relentless foreigners

to the houses of their neighbors
and strip poor women

and children of everything
they have to eat or wear,

and after plundering them
in this sort,

the brutes often ravish
the mothers and daughters

and compel the fathers and sons
to behold their brutality.

Nathanael Greene.

As an army is advancing
and occupying new territories,

dreadful things happen.

We see lots of instances of rape
and sexual assault of women.

Sadly, this is not unusual
in all wars.

Mary Campbell
of Hunterdon County, New Jersey,

told a judge what British troops
had done to her.

Mary Campbell,

wife of Daniel Campbell,

sayeth that sometime in
December, a number of soldiers

belonging to the King
of Great Britain's army

came to the house of her father.

Two of them seized hold
of her arms

and dragged her out of the house
to an old shop

near the dwelling house,
broke open the door,

and pulled her in against
all her cries and entreaties

and swore if she did not
hold her tongue,

they would run her through
with a bayonet.

3 of said soldiers successively
had knowledge

of the body of this deponent,

she being 5 months
and upwards advanced

in her pregnancy at that time.

Her mark, Mary M. Campbell.

At Pennington,
16 women fled into the woods

to escape British soldiers,

only to be dragged back
and repeatedly assaulted.

Such behavior,
one British officer admitted,

was "calculated
to lose you friends

and gain you enemies."

It did, and people soon began
taking revenge.

New Jersey militiamen
took up arms again

less out of devotion
to the revolutionary cause

than out of anger
at what was being done

to them and their families.

It is now

very unsafe for us to travel
in New Jersey.

The peasants meet our men alone
or in small unarmed groups.

They have their rifles
hidden in the bushes

or ditches and the like.

When they see one or several
men belonging to our army,

they shoot them in the head,

then quickly hide their rifles
and pretend they know nothing.

Captain
Friedrich von Munchhausen.

No lads
ever show greater activity

in retreating than we have.

Our soldiers are
the best fellows in the world

at this business.

Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Webb.

Hackensack, Acquackanonk,

Newark, Spanktown,

New Brunswick,
Princeton, Trenton.

In 12 days, the Americans
fell back some 70 miles.

On December 2nd, Washington
began to take his army

across the Delaware River
into Pennsylvania.

The news continued to be bad
for the Patriot cause.

General Henry Clinton
landed 7,000 British

and Hessian regulars
at Newport, Rhode Island,

without firing a shot.

Like New York City
and New Jersey,

Rhode Island seemed likely lost.

British forces were now
just 60 miles from Philadelphia,

and the roads leading
out of the city

were choked
with frightened refugees.

Congress denied what it called
the "false and malicious" rumors

that it was planning
to leave town

and then fled to Baltimore.

General Charles Lee
had finally given in

to Washington's entreaties

and had been slowly leading
his force across New Jersey.

On the evening
of December 12th,

he slipped away
from his encampment

to an isolated tavern
in Basking Ridge.

A Loyalist tipped off
the British.

Dragoons surrounded the building
and seized

the Continental Army's
second in command.

One Hessian captain
was exultant--

"We have captured...
the only rebel general

whom we had cause to fear"--

but then General Howe abruptly
called off his campaign.

Winter was coming.

The Continental Congress
was on the run.

There would be plenty of time
the following year,

he was certain, to destroy what
was left of Washington's army

and permanently end
the rebellion.

While Howe and most of his army
withdrew to New York,

he left behind a chain
of 17 garrisons

stretching
from the Hudson to the Delaware.

Things can hardly
look darker than they look

for Washington and his army
and the hopes of the cause

in December of 1776.

As he gets into Pennsylvania

and he's looking back
across the Delaware River,

his options are very,
very limited.

He's been evicted
from New York.

His army is down
to maybe 3,000 men.

He writes his brother
at one point and says,

"I think the game
is pretty near up."

He doesn't let his men know that
he's feeling that despondent,

but he's feeling pretty glum.

But now his army
had begun to grow again.

General William Alexander,

who had been freed
from British captivity,

arrived with a thousand
ragged reinforcements.

A thousand Philadelphia
militia appeared.

General John Sullivan,
also exchanged,

brought in 2,000 more men

who had served under
the captured General Lee.

On December 22nd, the
16-year-old fifer John Greenwood

and some 600 other
New Englanders

also staggered into camp.

Washington's appeals for help

had reached all the way
to Ticonderoga,

and these men had been
on their way for nearly a month.

Washington now had
about 6,000 men fit for duty.

The question was
what he might do with them

in the 10 days remaining
before their enlistments ran out

and most of his best-trained
soldiers went home.

Our cause
is desperate and hopeless

if we do not take the
opportunity of the collection

of troops at present
to strike some stroke.

Delay with us is now equal
to total defeat.

Joseph Reed.

Washington decided
to strike the garrison

at Trenton, New Jersey,
manned by some 1,500 Hessians

under the command
of Colonel Johann Rall.

Most of the little town's
inhabitants had fled,

and their homes had been
turned into barracks.

Washington outlined a bold
and ambitious plan of attack

that called for
3 simultaneous crossings

of the ice-choked Delaware,

all to be launched
on Christmas night.

1,800 Pennsylvanians
and Rhode Islanders

were to cross downriver
near Bristol

and march toward a second
Hessian outpost at Burlington.

800 Pennsylvania militia were
to cross and hold the bridge

over Assunpink Creek and keep
the Hessians from escaping

once the battle began.

In the main attack,
Washington himself would lead

2,400 Continentals across
the river at McConkey's Ferry

and then begin the 9-mile march
south toward their target.

None knew
but the first officers

where we were a-going.

I never heard a soldier
say anything

nor ever saw him trouble himself

about where they led him
or where he was.

It was enough to know
that he must go

wherever the officer
commanded him.

Through fire and water,
it was all the same,

for it was impossible
to be in a worse condition

than what they were in.

John Greenwood.

Thomas Paine, who had
been with Washington's army

as it retreated
across New Jersey,

had just published a new essay
meant to restore sagging morale

called "The American Crisis."

By the time Washington's army
got underway on Christmas,

patriots up and down the river

had read
and been inspired by it.

These are the times
that try men's souls:

The summer soldier
and the sunshine patriot

will, in this crisis,

shrink from the service
of their country;

but he that stands by it NOW,

deserves the love and thanks
of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell,
is not easily conquered;

yet we have
this consolation with us,

that the harder the conflict,
the more glorious the triumph.

A freezing rain
began to fall at dusk

as the Americans clambered
into the ferry boats

and cargo vessels that made up

Washington's
hastily assembled fleet.

The river was fast-running

and filled with swirling,
jagged pieces of floe ice.

Somehow, Colonel John Glover

and his Massachusetts sailors
from Marblehead,

the same men who had rescued
Washington's army

after the Battle of Long Island
and stopped the British advance

following Kips Bay,
now managed to get

all 2,400 men, some 50 horses,

and 18 field pieces
across safely.

John Greenwood was among
the first to step ashore.

We had
to wait for the rest to cross,

so we began to pull down
the fences

and make fires
to warm ourselves,

for the storm came on so fast
that it rained, hailed,

and snowed and froze
and blew a hurricane,

so much so, when I turned
my face toward the fire,

my back was a-freezing.

By turning round and round,
I kept myself from perishing.

Washington
hoped that the landing

would be completed by midnight

so that his men
could reach Trenton before dawn,

but the last boat
did not scrape ashore

till 3:00 in the morning.

And though Washington
did not know it yet,

ice had prevented
the two other forces

from getting across the river.

If Trenton were to be taken,

it would be up
to Washington's force alone.

As he and his men
finally started toward the town,

the driving snow, fierce cold,
and hardship of hauling 18 guns

along a frozen, rutted road
slowed the advance.

When we halted in the road,

I sat down on a stump of a tree

and was so benumbed with cold,
I wanted to go to sleep.

And if I had, unnoticed,

I should have been frozen
to death without knowing it,

but, as good luck
always attended me,

Sergeant Madden came to me

and aroused me up and made me
walk about.

Two other soldiers
did fall asleep

and froze to death.

At a crossroads,
the column split in two.

Washington went
with Nathanael Greene

and turned left
for the Pennington Road.

John Sullivan and his men,
including John Greenwood,

continued to the right
along the River Road.

Each column reached
its assigned position

outside the still-dozing town
just before 8:00.

Nathanael Greene's men
began the attack,

charging out
of the snow-filled woods.

"The storm continued with great
violence," one officer recalled,

"but was in our backs

and consequently
in the faces of the enemy."

Hessian pickets
spotted them through the snow,

opened fire, then fell back

as remaining townspeople
watched in terror.

In the gray dawn came

the beating of drums
and the sound of firing.

The Hessian soldiers quartered
in our house hastily decamped.

All was uproar and confusion.

Martha Reed.

The German soldiers
formed up as best they could,

prepared to fight,

but Henry Knox had positioned
cannon and howitzers

at the upper end
of King and Queen Streets

that ran through
the heart of the town,

and when the German commander
Johann Rall mounted his horse

and ordered his men to charge
into them, Knox remembered,

"these ,
in the twinkling of an eye,

cleared the streets."

Some Hessians scattered.

Brief, fierce firefights
followed.

My mother
and we children

hid in the cellar to escape the
shots that fell about the house.

Our next-door neighbor
was killed on his doorstep,

and a bullet
struck the blacksmith

as he was in the act of closing
himself in his cellar,

and many other townspeople
were injured by chance shots.

As Nathanael Greene's column

drove through town
from the north,

John Sullivan's column
moved in from the south.

They made
a full fire right at us,

but I did not see
that they killed anyone.

Orders were given to charge
bayonets and rush on.

As we came within pistol shot,

they fired again
point blank at us.

We dodged,
and they did not hit a man.

Before they had time
to load again,

we were within 3 feet of them.

They broke in an instant

and ran like so many
frightened devils.

Colonel Rall
was shot from his horse,

mortally wounded.

Finally, they were driven

through the town
into an orchard beyond.

The poor fellows saw themselves
completely surrounded.

Henry Knox.

It was all over
in less than 45 minutes.

22 Hessians lay dead
or dying in the snow.

83 more were wounded.

900 were captured.

Just 2 Americans had died--

those frozen
before the battle began,

and only 5 were wounded,

including an artilleryman from
Virginia named James Monroe,

whose life was saved
when a local doctor

managed to stop the bleeding.

As the Hessian prisoners
were marched to Philadelphia,

Washington issued
a broadside declaring

that since
they were not volunteers,

but forced into this war,

they should be seen
not as enemies,

but as innocent people.

The Americans
decided very early on

to treat German prisoners well.

That is a strategic decision,

portraying these soldiers
as the innocent victims

of the contract of two despots.

They are being sent,
sold by their rulers for money

to fight in the war
that does not concern them.

In other words,
they are victims of tyranny,

kind of like we are.

Perhaps 1/4
of the 23,000 Hessian soldiers

who survived the war would
choose to stay on afterwards

and become citizens
of the new nation

they'd fought against creating,

and many of those
who returned home

would come back again,
this time with their families.

The small scale of our maps

deceived us.

As the word "America"
takes up no more room

than the word "Yorkshire,"
we seem to think

the territories they represent
are much of the same bigness,

though Charleston
is as far from Boston

as London from Venice.

We have undertaken a war
against farmers and farmhouses

scattered through
a wild waste of continent.

Philadelphia--

This affair has given new life
and spirits to the cause

and has lowered the crests
of the Tories in this place,

who looked upon the matter
as settled

and were hourly expecting
the King's troops

to arrive without molestation.

Things begin to wear
a better aspect.

General Washington's army
has now become respectable.

Reverend David Griffith.

Washington's army
may have become respectable,

but it was still
about to disintegrate.

The Continental regiments
from New England--

his most disciplined,
most seasoned soldiers--

were all planning to go home
in just 5 days,

leaving him with 1,400 men
with which to face

what he feared would be
a swift reprisal from the enemy.

He now had to persuade
as many of them as he could

to remain with him
at least a little longer.

On New Year's Eve at Trenton,

Washington asked that all
his depleted regiments assemble

so that he could speak to them.

He praised his men for their
courage, one sergeant recalled,

and "in the most affectionate
manner entreated us to stay,"

but when he finished,

and the drums beat
for volunteers,

not a single man
stepped forward.

Washington spoke again.

My brave fellows,

you have done
all I asked you to do

and more than can
reasonably be expected,

but your country is at stake,

your wives, your houses,
and all that you hold dear.

You have worn yourselves out
with fatigue and hardships,

but we know not
how to spare you.

If you will consent to stay
only one month longer,

you will render that service
to the cause of liberty

and to your country,
which you probably never can do

under any other circumstances.

The present
is emphatically the crisis

which is to decide our destiny.

"This time,"
the sergeant remembered,

"the soldiers felt
the force of the appeal.

"One said to another,
'I will remain if you will.'

"A few stepped forward,

"and their example
was immediately followed

by nearly all
who were fit for duty."

In the end, more than half
the New England troops

agreed to fight on for 6 weeks.

On New Year's Day 1777,

supplemented
by scattered militia

and 4 fresh regiments of
Continentals from Pennsylvania,

George Washington again
commanded some 6,500 men.

John Greenwood
was not among them.

I had the itch then so bad

that my breeches
stuck to my thighs,

and I had a hundred lice
on me.

I told my lieutenant
I was going home.

Says he, "My God, you are not,
I hope, going to leave us,

"as you are the life
and soul of us.

You are to be promoted."

I told him I would not stay
to be a colonel.

20 months earlier,
14-year-old John Greenwood

had walked all the way
from Maine to Massachusetts

and joined the American cause,
hoping it would somehow help him

get back to his parents
in British-occupied Boston.

Now he would tramp
more than 300 miles back home,

where his father saw to it

that the boy's clothes
were baked in the oven,

and he himself
was fumigated with sulfur

before he could
re-enter the home

he'd yearned for
for so long.

For now, the Revolution would
have to go on without him,

but it would go on,

thanks to the sacrifices he
and his fellow soldiers had made

and the victory they had won

when no victory
had seemed possible.

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