All language subtitles for [SubtitleTools.com] The.American.Revolution.2025.S01E06.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-RAWR

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Jane Kamensky, voice-over:
I think to believe in America

rooted in
the American Revolution

is to believe in possibility.

That, to me,
is the extraordinary thing

about the Patriot side
of the fight.

I think everybody on every side,
including people

who were denied even
the ownership of themselves,

had the sense of possibility
worth fighting for.

The American Revolution
changed the world.

It's not just about
the birth of the United States.

It has ramifications
across the globe,

so studying
the American Revolution,

understanding it,

and putting it
in a global context, I think,

is vitally important
for us to understand

why we are where we are now.

Our country was thrown

into great confusion by
the long continuance of the war.

The churches in Virginia
were almost entirely shut up,

and its holy ordinances
unobserved.

Most of our men
were engaged in the war.

Our town had now become
a garrison.

Betsy Ambler.

Betsy Ambler
of Yorktown, Virginia,

had been 10 when the war began.

She was now 15 and had lived
most of the intervening years

away from home.

By the spring of 1780,

she was back in Yorktown
with her family.

Life there had changed.

The most populated parts
of Virginia all lay within reach

of the Royal Navy and any troops
the British might land.

Governor Thomas Jefferson
and the Virginia Assembly

chose to move the capital from
nearby Williamsburg to Richmond,

and, since Betsy Ambler's father

had been appointed
to the state government,

her family would have to leave
Yorktown again.

George Washington had long known

that Yorktown
was particularly vulnerable.

As early as 1777, he had warned
a Virginia militia commander

against stationing troops there.

I can by no means think

it would be prudent to have

any considerable stationary
force at Yorktown.

Being upon a narrow
neck of land,

it would be in danger
of being cut off.

The enemy might very easily
throw up a few ships

and land a body of men there who
would oblige them to surrender.

In late May of 1780,

shortly after
the British capture

of Charles Town, South Carolina,
an elite Loyalist group

of green-clad cavalry
and mounted infantry

called the British Legion
were in hot pursuit

of Continental soldiers
fleeing north.

Their commander was
a 25-year-old English officer--

Banastre Tarleton,

handsome, rakish, ruthless,

and determined to make himself
a celebrated soldier.

"Tarleton," wrote the British
chronicler Horace Walpole,

"boasts of having
butchered more men

and lain with more women
than anybody" in the army.

Tarleton caught up
with the rebels

near the North Carolina border,
a region called the Waxhaws,

and demanded they surrender.

You will order
every person under your command

to pile his arms in one hour.

If you are rash enough
to reject these terms,

the blood be upon your head.

The Patriots chose to fight.

Tarleton's men
quickly overwhelmed them.

Some who dropped their weapons
and asked for quarter

received none.

"They refused my terms,"
Tarleton wrote.

"I have cut 170 officers
and men to pieces."

He may have destroyed
the last Continental force

in South Carolina,
but he had also helped inspire

local Patriots to oppose
British occupation.

When they went into battle
over the coming months,

many would be eager to deal out

what they called
"Tarleton's Quarter"

to any Loyalist unlucky enough
to fall into their hands.

Vincent Brown: That war
in South Carolina is bloody.

It's a guerrilla conflict.

It's sometimes brother
against brother

in this backwoods warfare.

It's an ugly, ugly,
ugly conflict,

and if one wants
a national origin story

that's clean and neat

and tells you very clearly
who the good guys are

and who the bad guys are,
the American Revolution

in South Carolina
is not that story.

Christopher Brown: The British
government was very good

at seizing and occupying cities.

Newport, Philadelphia, New York,
Charles Town, Savannah--

these are the kind of main ports

that throughout the war
Britain could secure,

but holding those places
were not holding America.

Pacifying an entire countryside
is an entirely different task

than seizing
strategic positions.

General Charles Cornwallis

had been left in charge
in the South with clear orders

from General Henry Clinton
back in New York.

He was not to move on
to North Carolina and Virginia

until South Carolina
was completely pacified.

It was to be the first
full-scale military occupation

of an entire colony
in North America.

From Charles Town,
British troops

quickly occupied posts
in a great arc

from Savannah and Augusta
in Georgia

through the village
called Ninety Six to Camden

and then to Georgetown, 60 miles
up the coast from Charles Town.

When the British take
the decision to move the war

decisively to the South,

I think they're trying
to exploit the fact that

there are smaller numbers
of White colonists

and larger numbers of slaves
in those territories

and the colonists
will be more vulnerable.

Their property, slaves,

we need not seek.

It flies to us,
and famine follows.

Their trade we can annihilate,

and when an army
cannot find subsistence,

on what hope
shall a people resist?

Major John Andre.

I determined to go
to Charles Town

and throw myself into the hands
of the English.

They received me readily,

and I began to feel
the happiness of liberty,

of which I knew nothing before.

Boston King.

I have been robbed

and deserted by my slaves.

I would sell some of my Negroes,
but the slaves in this country

in general have behaved
so infamously,

their value is so trifling

that it must be absolute ruin
to sell at this time.

Eliza Lucas Pinckney.

At his
headquarters in New York,

General Clinton
continued to believe

most South Carolinians
were Loyalists.

He had insisted that Patriots
swear allegiance to the Crown

or be considered as enemies
and treated accordingly.

Those who did swear allegiance
were swiftly disillusioned

as their Loyalist neighbors
began to settle old scores.

Those "insurgents"
who refused the oath

and dared to take up
arms against the King,

Tarleton told
General Cornwallis,

"don't deserve" leniency

and would get none
from him or his men.

The oath of allegiance
was really going too far

because it obliged them
to publicly identify

as on the British side,

but I think the fundamental
problem is that the British

are reluctant to restore
civil government

in the territories they occupy.

They maintain
military government,

and, of course, that reinforces
the American claim

that the British are set
on imposing despotism

on the colonies.

Times began to be troublesome,

and people began to divide
into parties.

Those that had been
good friends in times past

became enemies.

They began to watch each other
with jealous eyes.

James Collins.

16-year-old
James Collins lived

on his family's farm just below
the North Carolina border.

His father Daniel
was an Irish immigrant

who loathed the British
and encouraged his son

to become a collector of news,

a spy, reporting
on his Loyalist neighbors.

Christopher Brown: One of the
things that happens in wartime

is, people who
are really good politicians,

they create binaries.

You're either with us
or you're against us.

The fact of the matter is,

in real life,
that's actually not true.

There's often
more than two possibilities.

There were a lot of people
in 13 colonies

who actually didn't care
that much about the outcome.

They just wanted it over.

The British
are heavily reliant

on recruiting Loyalists
as soldiers,

and Loyalists
are often very embittered...

and, of course,

if you've got soldiers
who are keen on revenge,

they're not the ideal
instruments of pacification.

On June 22, 1780,

James Collins' father
was among the men gathered

at a tiny settlement
called Brown's Crossroads,

summoned there
by Captain Christian Huck,

a Loyalist with a well-earned
reputation for cruelty.

He was there to administer
the Oath of Allegiance.

Captain Huck
stunned the crowd by warning

that "even if the rebels
were as thick as the trees

"and Jesus Christ
would come down and lead them,

he [would still] defeat them."

His audience, Presbyterians all,
considered that blasphemy.

We must fight, James' father
said as soon as he got home,

"or submit and be slaves."

He went off to join the Patriot
militia the next morning.

James went, too,
carrying an ancient shotgun.

For the next few weeks,
Christian Huck continued

to burn homes, menace women,
and murder rebels.

In July, after he took
a Patriot family hostage,

the Collinses' militia
caught up to him

and killed him
along with many of his men.

New volunteers were now
swelling Patriot ranks.

By early August,
Cornwallis had to admit

that the whole country
he had claimed to have pacified

is in an absolute state
of rebellion.

Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock,

Blue Savannah
and Black Mingo Creek,

Tearcoat Swamp
and Halfway Swamp,

Horse Shoe and Quinby Bridge--

the battles and skirmishes
that would take place

in South Carolina
between 1780 and 1781,

102 of them by one count,

would yield nearly 1/5
of all the battlefield deaths

suffered
during the entire war...

and nearly all those
American casualties

would come at the hands
of other Americans.

Maya Jasanoff:
Violence is radicalizing.

It is polarizing,

and it happens in the Revolution

to people on both sides
of the equation

that when they are victims
of violence,

they will then become
perpetrators of violence.

There was
no one about in the streets,

only a few sad and frightened
faces in the windows.

I talked to some
of the principal citizens,

informing them that
this was but the vanguard

of a much larger force
on the way

and that our King
had decided to uphold them

with all his power and strength.

General Rochambeau.

On July 11, 1780,

5 French warships
and a host of transport vessels

had emerged from the fog
that blanketed the harbor

at Newport, Rhode Island,

and some 4,600 officers and men

under the Comte de Rochambeau
came ashore.

Rhode Islanders still remembered

that the last French fleet
that came had abandoned them,

and Protestant residents
weren't sure

if these Catholic foreigners had
come to help or conquer them...

but when the French commander
promised that his men

would pay for everything
they needed in silver coin,

not worthless Continental paper,
a French officer remembered,

"their countenances
brightened...

at this mention of hard money."

The next day, General Rochambeau
wrote to Washington,

"Here we are, sir,
at your orders."

Meanwhile, Congress, without
consulting George Washington,

had now appointed
General Horatio Gates,

the hero of Saratoga,

commander of the whole
Southern Department.

In late July, he and
several aides rode into a camp

of 1,200 Continentals
from Maryland and Delaware

that stretched
along the deep river

at Cox's Mill in North Carolina.

Gates' objective
was Camden, South Carolina,

a British outpost
and supply depot

in the center of the state.

When he reached Rugeley's Mill,
12 miles north of Camden,

Gates had convinced himself

that he had 7,000 soldiers
at his disposal.

In fact, he had
just over 3,000 men,

Continentals and militia,

and by then,
Cornwallis had reached Camden

with reinforcements.

At 10 P.M. on the night
of August 15, 1780,

Gates started south
toward Camden.

By sheer coincidence,
Cornwallis chose

to lead his men north
on the same sandy road

that evening,
hoping to surprise Gates.

At about 2 A.M. on August 16,

mounted scouts
from the two armies collided.

There was a brief
exchange of fire.

They separated
and prepared for battle.

At dawn, Cornwallis
followed the British custom

of placing his best troops
on his right.

Gates, who was himself

an ex-British officer

and should have known better,

unaccountably assigned

his least experienced men

to face them--

militiamen,
many of whom

had never
been in combat.

As the Patriots
tried to form their lines,

a long, red wall
of chanting British regulars

began storming toward them.

The militia broke and ran.

I confess I was among
the first that fled.

The cause of that I cannot tell

except that everyone I saw
was about to do the same.

I threw away my gun.

Private Garrett Watts.

Continentals on
the right did hold for a time.

Gates' second in command,
General Johann de Kalb,

a Bavarian-born volunteer,

was shot, slashed,
and bayoneted again and again

but managed to order
one counterattack after another

until he was finally knocked
to the ground, mortally wounded.

His men too began to run.

General Gates
witnessed none of this.

Shortly after
the shooting began,

he had fled the battlefield
on horseback

and stayed on the run
until he reached

Hillsborough, North Carolina,
180 miles away.

The defeat at Camden
and the story of Gates' flight

ruined his reputation.

When it came time
to name a successor,

Congress would defer
to George Washington.

Although South Carolina
was not pacified,

General Cornwallis was impatient
to invade North Carolina,

the next step on the road
to the biggest prize--Virginia

and what he hoped would be
the total subjugation

of the Southern states.

Iris de Rode: Washington's
reputation in France

is an interesting one.

In France, he is revered.
He is admired.

People love George Washington

in ways that sometimes seems
exaggerated, but it's true.

They admire him not just
because he's a general

and they respect
the military side,

but it's more that he's a symbol
for a Republican leader.

For the French,
Washington became a symbol

of what was possible
in an egalitarian world

where even a farmer
could become a general,

so they admire him for that
military talent that he had,

which was not based on
aristocracy, titles, or money.

He was there
because of his talent.

On September 21, 1780,

Washington
and 4 of his closest aides

met in Hartford, Connecticut,

with General Rochambeau
and his entourage.

The French army
remained in Newport.

Washington's army
was arrayed around New York.

For two days,
the allied commanders discussed

what steps they might take
together to defeat the British.

Washington and Rochambeau agreed

that the most important
objective

was still New York City,

but before an assault
could take place,

they would need to have
naval superiority

and a far larger combined army.

Washington begged Rochambeau
to ask his king for more help.

Rochambeau said he would try.

I have observed in this war

we have sometimes
been in the south

when we should have been
in the north

and oftener in the north

when we should have been
in the south,

but should we ever possess
the Hudson River,

we can reduce
the northern provinces.

General Henry Clinton.

On September 25,
Washington and his staff

inspected the fortifications
at West Point on the Hudson.

They were scheduled to dine
with the general

whom Washington had just
appointed commander of the fort,

one of his best soldiers--
Benedict Arnold.

Washington had been startled

by what poor condition
the fortifications were in

and concerned that Arnold
had not been there to greet him.

He was not
at his headquarters, either,

when his commander
arrived for dinner.

No one
could give me any information

where he was.

The impropriety of his conduct

when he knew I was to be there
struck me very forcibly.

I had not the least idea
of the real cause.

That evening,
when his trusted aide

Alexander Hamilton
brought him a bundle of papers,

Washington discovered
the real cause.

Benedict Arnold--
the commander of West Point,

the place Washington considered

the most important post
in America--

had deserted and fled
to the British that morning.

Worse still, he had planned
to surrender the fort

and all the men stationed in it
to the enemy.

Few soldiers had contributed
more to the Revolutionary cause

than Benedict Arnold.

Time and again, he had exhibited
extraordinary initiative

and bravery on the battlefield

and was severely wounded twice--
at Quebec and Saratoga.

Nathaniel Philbrick:
He had done all these miracles

on the battlefield,
but he was not seeing

any of the recognition
he believed he deserved.

"Why am I doing this?
I've lost my personal finances.

I've destroyed my body.
For what?"

Two years earlier,
Washington had made Arnold

military commander
in Philadelphia.

It had not gone well.

He used his position to profit

from the sale of confiscated
Loyalist property.

He had also settled
into the same mansion

the British commander
had occupied

and was accused
of being far too close

to wealthy merchants suspected
of Loyalist sympathies.

While Arnold
is in the midst

of this terrible frustration
in Philadelphia,

he falls in love with a young
woman named Peggy Shippen,

whose family
is of Loyalist sympathies,

who had gotten to know
the British officers

during the British occupation
of Philadelphia quite well,

and one of them
was a Major Andre,

who, just as it so happened,

would become the head
of the British spy network,

and whether or not
Peggy was the one

who made this all happen,

soon after the two of them
are married,

Arnold begins to make overtures
to the British.

In the strictest secrecy,

he began to communicate
through Major John Andre

that he'd gone to war
only to redress

legitimate American grievances,
not independence,

and had been appalled
when Congress allied itself

with Catholic France,
which he believed

was the enemy of liberty
and Protestantism.

He now volunteered to enlist
in the King's service,

either as an officer
in the British Army

or by cooperating
on some concerted plan

to sabotage
the Revolutionary cause.

For 17 months, coded messages
had gone back and forth

before a concrete plan
could be agreed upon.

Arnold was to persuade
Washington

to give him command
of West Point

and all the American outposts
on the Hudson

and then weaken their defenses
so that General Clinton's forces

could sail up the river
and take them all.

In exchange,
Arnold was to be made a general

in the British service,
and paid 20,000 British pounds

plus £500 a year
for the rest of his life.

Clinton's forces were poised
to move up the Hudson.

All that then remained
was for Andre and Arnold

to meet and work out
a few final details.

Andre had explicit orders.

He was not to cross
into rebel territory,

dress as a civilian,
or carry any papers.

He disobeyed all 3,

and on his way back
to the British lines,

Andre was captured
by 3 New York militiamen

with incriminating documents
hidden in his stockings

in Benedict Arnold's
handwriting.

This came as a
devastating blow to Washington,

and it was a blow
to the American people

to realize
that one of their own,

one of their own
that had been a great hero,

could make this decision
to turn on all of them.

He was the last person
Washington ever thought

would have betrayed him.

Because
Major Andre had been captured

in civilian clothes,
he was hanged as a spy.

Arnold, who managed to escape,
got his commission

and was given command
of a regiment made up

of Loyalists and deserters
from the Continental Army

called the American Legion.

Since the fall of Lucifer,

nothing has equaled
the fall of Arnold.

He will now sink as low
as he had been high before,

and as the devil made war
upon heaven after his fall,

so I expect Arnold
will upon America.

Should he ever fall
into our hands,

he will be a sweet sacrifice.

General Nathanael Greene.

General Cornwallis'
planned invasion

of North Carolina would be
a 3-pronged assault.

On the right, a column would
seize the port of Wilmington,

ensuring that supplies
could flow smoothly inland

from the coast.

In the center,
Cornwallis would himself lead

the bulk of his army toward
the tiny town of Charlotte,

then just a crossroads
and a courthouse.

On the left,
Major Patrick Ferguson

and perhaps a thousand Loyalists
were to guard his flank

and try to rally more men
from the backcountry.

Ferguson,
a Scottish-born career soldier

who directed his men in battle
with a silver whistle,

led his Loyalist force
across the border

into western North Carolina.

He released rebel prisoners
and sent them

over the Blue Ridge Mountains
with a message

for those Patriots who called
themselves the Overmountain Men,

the settlers who had defied
the 1763 proclamation

forbidding them
to occupy Indian lands.

A British victory
was inevitable,

Ferguson told them,

and every man
who laid down his arms

would be treated
gently and justly...

but the frontiersmen
did not believe him.

News of Tarleton's cruelty and
Loyalist abuses was still fresh.

Instead of surrendering,

they came swarming over
the mountains after Ferguson,

who realized he was in trouble,
changed course,

and moved towards Charlotte.

Along the way,
he issued a proclamation

meant to rally Loyalists.

Gentlemen,
if you choose to be pissed upon

forever and ever by a set
of mongrels, say so at once

and let your women
turn their backs upon you

and look out for real men
to protect them.

If you wish or deserve to live
and bear the name of man,

grasp your arms in a moment
and run to camp.

The Backwater-men have crossed
the mountains.

Edward Lengel:
That's the wrong tone to take

when you're communicating

with these backcountry
over-the-mountain men,

these Scots-Irish settlers.

Just inside
South Carolina,

Ferguson unaccountably
decided to make a stand

on a hill grandly named
King's Mountain.

Nearly a thousand
Patriot militia--

half Overmountain Men

and half from the Virginia
and Carolina backcountry,

including James Collins--
were right behind him.

Each leader
made a short speech

in his own way to his men,

desiring every coward
to be off immediately.

Here, I confess, I would have
willingly been excused.

On October 7, 1780,

as they waited for the signal
to start up the hillside,

Collins recalled, each man
threw 4 or 5 musket balls

into his mouth to stave off
thirst and speed reloading.

The Patriots attacked
with terrifying ferocity.

They appeared like
so many devils

from the infernal regions.

They were the most
powerful-looking men

ever beheld--
tall, raw-boned, and sinewy

with long, matted hair,

such men as were never before
seen in the Carolinas.

Drury Mathis.

As the Patriots
closed in on the summit,

Ferguson continued to ride
from point to point,

waving his saber,
blowing his whistle,

trying to get his Loyalists
to hold on.

Several balls
slammed into him at once.

He tumbled from his saddle,
his foot caught in the stirrup,

and he was dragged
back and forth along the ground

until his men
could grab the reins.

Ferguson had been
the only British soldier

in the battle that day.

Everyone else on both sides
was an American.

The Loyalists surrendered.

The dead
lay in heaps on all sides

while the groans of the wounded
were heard in every direction.

"Great God," said I,

"Is this the fate of mortals?

Was it for this cause that man
was brought into the world?"

We proceeded to bury the dead,
but it was badly done.

The hogs in the neighborhood
gathered into the place

to devour the flesh of men,
and the wolves became so plenty

that it was dangerous
for anyone to be out at night.

Private James Collins.

After Kings Mountain,

Patriots murder
many of their captives.

If they see somebody
among the captives

who gives them
a dirty look, they'll say,

"Oh, I know that guy.

"He burned a farm
just over the next hill,

"and he killed
somebody's family.

Let's string him up,"

and so all kinds of atrocities
take place.

Fight back!

When Cornwallis
learned that the Patriots

had annihilated
a thousand-man Loyalist force,

he pulled his army
out of Charlotte

and headed back
into South Carolina.

The women of America,

animated
by the purest patriotism,

are sensible of sorrow
at this day

in not offering more
than barren wishes

for the success
of so glorious a Revolution.

If opinion and manners did not
forbid us to march to glory

by the same paths as the men,
we should at least equal

and sometimes surpass them
in our love for the public good.

Esther Reed.

In Philadelphia,
a prominent woman

named Esther Reed
had published a pamphlet

which called upon all women
to forego luxuries

and instead raise funds
to help the soldiers.

They collected
300,000 Continental dollars,

hoping to split it
among the troops.

George Washington
vetoed that idea.

They would just
buy rum, he said.

What they needed were shirts.

The women would make
more than 2,000 of them.

And see the spirit catching

from state to state.

America will not wear chains

while her daughters
are virtuous.

Abigail Adams.

Rick Atkinson:
It's quite primitive,

the conditions their soldiers
are living in.

A belief in the cause

keeps you putting one foot
in front of the other,

but that does not keep you warm.

It does not cool you down
in the summer.

It does not feed you,
so it's a constant struggle

just day to day
exclusive of battle.

We never
stood upon such perilous ground.

Our troops are poorly clothed,
badly fed, and worse paid.

They have not seen
a paper dollar

in the way of pay
for nearly 12 months.

General Anthony Wayne.

On New Year's Day 1781,

fueled by rum
and righteous indignation,

some 1,500 Pennsylvania
Continentals encamped

near Morristown, New Jersey, mutinied.

They killed two officers
who tried to stop them,

seized 6 cannon,

and began marching
toward Philadelphia

to confront Congress
with their grievances,

but before the mutineers
could get there,

the Pennsylvania legislature
intervened

and agreed to most
of their demands,

including the promise
of full back pay

and the choice of leaving
the army or re-enlisting.

No one was to be punished.

Half the men left the army.

The rest re-enlisted.

3 weeks later, when 3 New Jersey
regiments also mutinied,

Washington ordered New England
troops to surround them.

The men were assembled
and made to look on

as a firing squad
of their fellow mutineers

was forced to execute
two of the ringleaders.

Washington realized
the only thing he could do

was to take them down
with terrible brutality.

This was Washington's moment
of having to end this

in a very summary fashion.

"Every thing is now quiet,"

Washington wrote afterwards,

but he feared that
unless some way were found

to pay and clothe
and supply his men,

there would be
still more mutinies.

Be assured that day
does not follow night

more certainly than it brings
with it some additional proof

of the impracticality of
carrying on the war without aid.

We are at the end of our tether.

Now or never, deliverance
must come.

Richmond, Virginia.

War in itself, however distant,
is indeed terrible,

but when brought
to our very doors,

the reflection
is indeed overwhelming.

What a gloomy time
do I look forward to.

Already our gentlemen
begin to apprehend

that the enemy
will advance into the country.

If they do, God knows
what will become of us.

Betsy Ambler.

Virginia's Patriots
weren't ready

to resist an invasion.

Men were refusing conscription.

Wealthy planters had exempted
themselves, their sons,

and overseers from serving
because, they claimed,

they needed to stay home
to keep their slaves in line.

"The Rich wanted the Poor
to fight for them,"

one farmer recalled,

"to defend their property

they refused
to fight for themselves."

Then, in January of 1781,

Loyalist troops,
British regulars,

and German soldiers
sailed into Chesapeake Bay

and up the James River.

Their commander
was Benedict Arnold,

now a brigadier general
in the British Army

and eager to demonstrate his
newfound devotion to the Crown.

He and half his men
marched toward Richmond,

the new state capital.

At the sight of Arnold's men,

Virginia militiamen,
many without arms, melted away.

Many years later,
an enslaved member

of Governor Jefferson's
household remembered

that "in 10 minutes, not a White
man was to be seen in Richmond."

My mother was so scared,

she didn't know whether
to stay indoors or out.

The British formed in line and
marched up with drums beating.

It was an awful sight.

Seemed like the day
of judgment was come.

Isaac Granger.

Arnold's men
burned warehouses

filled with salt and tobacco
and seized 2,200 small arms,

nearly 40 cannon,
and 503 hogsheads of rum.

Even printing presses were,
in Arnold's words,

"purified by the flames."

He and his men then moved
back down the James,

pillaging as they went,

and settled in for the rest
of the winter at Portsmouth,

near the mouth
of the Chesapeake,

where they could be supported
by the Royal Navy.

To send
Benedict Arnold to Virginia

was sending the man Washington
most despised to his home state,

and what Washington did
was send the officer

that he trusted, in many ways,
the most, Lafayette,

to contain this treasonous dog.

"Should
fall into your hands,"

Washington told
the Marquis de Lafayette

when he ordered him south
to protect Virginia,

"you will execute...
the punishment due

his treason...
in the most summary way."

South Carolina.

When I left the Northern Army,
I expected to find

in this Southern Department
a thousand difficulties

to which I was a stranger,
but the embarrassments

far exceed
my utmost apprehension.

I have but a shadow of an army.

Nathanael Greene.

I think Nathanael Greene
is the unsung hero

of the American Revolution.

Without Nathanael Greene
in the South grinding it out

battle after battle
in the war-torn South,

the Revolution
could have easily been lost.

After the disaster at Camden,

George Washington
had sent Nathanael Greene

to replace the disgraced
Horatio Gates

as commander of what was left
of the southern army.

"I think I am giving you
a General,"

Washington told
a South Carolina congressman,

"but what can a General do
without men,

without arms, without clothing,
without provisions?"

Greene's forces were outnumbered
by more than two to one.

Nonetheless, he decided
to divide his small army.

"It makes the most of my
inferior force," he explained,

"for it compels my adversary
to divide his."

Greene himself and most of his
men marched into South Carolina

to a camp near Cheraw
on the Pee Dee River.

Meanwhile, Daniel Morgan
led what Greene called

his "Flying Army" west "to annoy
the enemy in that quarter"

and "spirit up the people."

In response, Cornwallis
sent Banastre Tarleton

after Daniel Morgan.

Morgan had hoped
to get his men safely back

across the broad river
before facing his pursuer,

but Tarleton was soon
within 5 miles.

Morgan chose to make a stand
at the Cowpens,

a rolling meadow 500 yards long
and almost as wide

on which herdsmen grazed their
cattle on the way to market.

He expected Tarleton to lead
a headlong charge into his ranks

and planned to take advantage
of his rash opponent.

Daniel Morgan
was a master tactician.

His planning
for the Battle of Cowpens

is really brilliant in the way
that he draws Tarleton

into a trap.

Morgan knew
that his less-reliable militia,

faced with an onrushing enemy,
would likely break and run,

so he would try to turn
that weakness into a strength.

For the next day's battle,
he would arrange his men

in 3 lines 150 yards apart.

Militiamen would man
the first two.

Morgan ordered them to fire
just two volleys each

into the oncoming enemy and then
retreat behind the third line,

manned by seasoned Continentals.

He hoped the enemy,
convinced the militia

were running away again,
would charge

and suddenly find themselves
under deadly fire

from his most
experienced fighters

hidden behind a rise.

Morgan spent the night
before the battle

building
the militia's confidence.

He went among the volunteers,

told them to keep
in good spirits

and the day would be ours.

"Just hold up your head, boys.

Two fires," he would say,
"and you're free,

"and then when you return
to your homes,

"how the old folks
will bless you

and the girls kiss you
for your gallant conduct."

Major Thomas Young.

Morgan's recognition
of them and their recognition

of Morgan as this
crusty backwoodsman

who's just like them

gives them a confidence
and an ability to think clearly

and to follow orders in a way

that they would not have
done this for anybody else.

About sunrise
on the 17th of January 1781,

the enemy came in full view.

The sight--to me, at least--
seemed somewhat imposing.

They halted for a short time

and then advanced rapidly,
as if certain of victory.

Private James Collins.

The first line
of militia managed to pick off

a few regulars and then,
following orders, fell back.

When the enemy came within
50 yards of the second line,

the militia fired
two volleys into them,

a "heavy
& galling fire,"

Morgan
remembered,

that felled 2/3

of Tarleton's
infantry officers,

but, just
as Tarleton

had assumed
it would,

the second line

appeared to
fall apart, too.

The British
stepped up their pace,

eager to catch the
fleeing militia.

Surely,
Tarleton thought,

the battle
was nearly won.

His men raced up a slope
and at its crest

suddenly found themselves
face to face

with the third line

and under what a Continental
officer remembered

as a "very destructive fire
which they little expected."

This time, it was the Patriots
who charged with bayonets,

emitting
a blood-curdling war cry

they had adapted
from Native warriors,

a yell that would reverberate

on Southern battlefields
for decades.

Morgan rode up in front

and, waving his sword,
cried out,

"Give them one more fire,
and the day is ours."

We then advance briskly.

They began to throw down their
arms and surrender themselves.

Private James Collins.

Meanwhile,
American cavalry

attacked the enemy's rear,
"shouting and charging,"

one Patriot said, "like madmen."

The British line broke.

It was all over in 35 minutes.

The British lost 300 men
killed or wounded.

525 more were taken prisoners.

Tarleton managed to get away,
but Daniel Morgan was exultant.

"I have Given him," he said,
"a devil of a whipping."

News of Tarleton's defeat
stunned General Cornwallis.

Nearly a third of his army
was now lost.

He set out to catch
the rebel force.

Two months later,

at the Battle of Guilford
Courthouse in North Carolina,

Nathanael Greene tried the same
tactics against Cornwallis

that Morgan had used
against Tarleton.

At first, the strategy
seemed to work.

Cornwallis' left
began to buckle.

If Greene had had reserves,
he might have prevailed.

He had no reserves.

Cornwallis won the battle,
but he had lost another 500 men.

When the news eventually
reached Britain,

the leader of the opposition
in Parliament was unimpressed.

"Another such victory," he said,

"would destroy
the British army."

Cornwallis and his exhausted men
staggered east to Wilmington.

He had had enough
of the Carolinas.

Cornwallis decided to defy
his orders from General Clinton

and lead his army north
to link up

with British and Loyalist
forces already in Virginia.

I cannot
help expressing my wishes

that the Chesapeake
may become the seat of war,

even, if necessary,

at the expense
of abandoning New York.

Until Virginia
is in a manner subdued,

our hold of the Carolinas
must be difficult,

if not precarious.

Lord Cornwallis.

On April 25, 1781,

Cornwallis began
his northward march.

Word of his disobedience
would not reach

Clinton's headquarters in
New York for more than a month.

"My wonder at this move...
will never cease,"

Clinton wrote
when he heard the news,

"but has made it.

And we shall say no more
but to make the best of it."

The seat of war is chiefly

in the southern states,
and there our enemies

by victories and defeats
are wasting daily.

Our own American affairs
wear a more pleasing aspect.

Maryland has acceded
to the Confederation

at the very time when Britain
is deluding herself

with the idea that
we are crumbling to pieces.

Abigail Adams.

In early 1781,
Maryland became the last state

to ratify
the Articles of Confederation.

Almost 5 years after declaring
their independence,

the United States finally had
the kind of confederation

they thought they wanted,

but it was just an alliance,
not a central government.

All laws were left
to the individual states,

including those
governing slavery,

which was still legal
everywhere...

but now there were people
in all parts of America

looking to abolish it.

They would have their
first successes in the North.

Christopher Brown: It's in
this moment that the first

antislavery organizations
begin to take shape,

especially in those places
where slavery

is not terribly important to
the social and economic order--

Pennsylvania,

Massachusetts,

Connecticut.

Annette Gordon-Reed:
It's easier in the North,

where there are fewer
Black people.

The sort of traditional things
to say is that

the South was a slave society

and the North was a society
with slaves.

Bernard Bailyn:
Before the Revolution,

slavery was never
a major public issue.

There were people

who spoke against it

and gave good reasons

to what evil it was,

but it was not

a major public issue.

After the Revolution,

there never was a time
when it wasn't.

In 1780,

Pennsylvania's
Gradual Emancipation Act

had said that anyone born
into slavery in that state

after the act's adoption

automatically became free at 28,

but any man, woman, or child

enslaved before its passage

remained enslaved

to the end of their lives

unless they bought

their freedom or had

their owner grant it to them.

Any time,

any time while I was a slave,

if one minute's freedom
had been offered to me

and I'd been told I must die
at the end of that minute,

I would have taken it

just to stand one minute
on God's earth a free woman.

I would.

When an enslaved woman
in Western Massachusetts

called Mumbet was struck by her
mistress with a kitchen shovel,

she had stalked from the house
and refused to return.

Her owner went to court
to get her back.

Mumbet's lawyer convinced
an all-White jury

that since the preamble

to the new Massachusetts
state constitution

declared all men
"free and equal"

and since his client
was a human being,

she should be free.

The Massachusetts
Supreme Court agreed.

Mumbet changed her name
to Elizabeth Freeman

and lived nearly 50 years
in Stockbridge,

serving her neighbors
as a healer, nurse, and midwife.

Her gravestone in a Stockbridge
cemetery reads,

"She was born a slave...

yet in her own sphere
she had no superior nor equal."

By the time of her death

in 1829,

all the states from New Jersey

north to New England had called

for the abolition of slavery,

but it would take
another generation

and a still more terrible war

to end it everywhere
in the United States.

There are few
generals that have run oftener

than I have done,

but I have taken care
not to run too far

and commonly have run
as fast forward as backward

to convince our enemy
that we were like a crab

that could run either way.

Nathanael Greene.

One by one,
all across the Lower South,

British outposts
either surrendered to Patriots

or were abandoned--

Fort Watson, Camden,

Orangeburg, Fort Motte,

Fort Granby, Fort Galphin,

Georgetown, Augusta.

General Greene fought
3 full-scale battles

with the British--
at Hobkirk Hill,

Ninety Six, and Eutaw Springs--
and lost them all,

but he inflicted
such heavy casualties each time

that the enemy
was forced to withdraw

closer and closer
to Charles Town.

"We fight," Greene said,

"get beat, rise,
and fight again."

He couldn't have done it
without local Patriot militias.

Francis Marion's outfit
eluded British cavalry

by hiding in the swamp
so successfully

that Banastre Tarleton said,

"s for this old fox,

the Devil himself
could not catch him."

As Britain's grip
on the region weakened,

the anarchy that had
characterized the backcountry

for months spiraled into chaos.

Partisans on both sides
seemed bent

on being more cruel
than those on the other.

They tortured
and murdered captives,

burned homes
and flogged their owners,

raped women
and hanged their husbands.

Gangs of bandits held up
travelers and plundered farms.

With us in the North,

the difference is little more
than a division of sentiment.

But here, they prosecute
each other

with little less
than savage fury.

You can have no idea
of the distress and misery

that prevail in this quarter.

Nathanael Greene.

By the end
of the summer of 1781,

the British would be penned up
in just 3 coastal towns

in the Carolinas and Georgia--

Wilmington, Charles Town,
and Savannah.

London's Southern strategy
was falling apart.

The King has decided that

the principal objective
of his arms in America

during the war with the English
is to drive them

from the Gulf of Mexico and
the banks of the Mississippi,

which should be considered
as the bulwark

of the vast empire of New Spain.

Bernardo de Gálvez--

the bold, young governor
of Spanish Louisiana--

saw an opportunity
in the American Revolution

to take back West Florida
for his king,

even before Spain
had entered the war in 1779.

Kathleen DuVal:
Bernardo de Gálvez

had big ambitions for Spain,

and he had big ambitions
for himself.

He believed that
war against Britain

would be his chance
to push Spanish colonies

even farther into North America,
past Louisiana,

into the rest of the Gulf Coast,
the Appalachians,

perhaps most
of Eastern North America.

As soon
as Gálvez heard Spain

had officially entered the war,
he left New Orleans

and rallied an army
that reflected

the extraordinary diversity
of the Gulf Coast--

Spaniards, Frenchmen,
Acadians, Irishmen,

Black and biracial men
from Africa and the Americas,

Choctaws, Houmas, Alabamas,

men from Mexico, Puerto Rico,
Cuba, Hispaniola,

and a handful of volunteers
from the United States.

DuVal: Gálvez began
to take British posts.

He took Baton Rouge, Natchez,

and then sailed with his militia

and took the post of Mobile.

By the spring of 1781,

Gálvez's only objective left
in British West Florida

was its capital
and stronghold--Pensacola.

It was defended by local
Black and White militiamen;

British, German,
and Loyalist soldiers;

and hundreds of Choctaws,
Chickasaws, and Muscogee Creeks

who opposed
any imperial expansion

that threatened their lands
in the southeastern interior.

Gálvez landed his army
and began a siege.

For a month and a half,
Spanish guns edged closer

and closer to the heart
of the British defenses.

Finally, on May 8, 1781,

a shell hit the British
gunpowder magazine.

The explosion killed
almost a hundred men,

mostly Loyalist troops,

and blew a wide hole
in the fort's walls.

Gálvez's men poured
through the gap,

and within hours, the British
commander surrendered.

Spanish rule was restored
in West Florida

and with it Spanish control
of the Gulf of Mexico.

DuVal: West Florida is
the first nonrebelling colony

that Britain loses.

After the Spanish victory
at Pensacola,

many, many people in Britain
think it's time

to stop this war
before it gets any worse.

Britain was
more alone than ever,

at war with the Netherlands now

as well as with France
and Spain,

and its West Indian islands and
Gibraltar in the Mediterranean

were under attack.

To London, North America
mattered less and less,

and General Clinton in New York
could do little more

than make sure that city
remained in British hands.

de Rode: The British stronghold
is in New York.

It's where they won
the battle in 1776

against George Washington,
which is one of the reasons

George Washington
really wants to take New York,

because he feels very humiliated
by that specific battle,

so for him since that time,
it became almost an obsession.

"If we take New York,
we're gonna win this war."

When word came
that French warships

and more French troops
would arrive on the East Coast

sometime that summer, Washington
and Rochambeau met again

in Connecticut to discuss
where the fleet might, in fact,

do the most good--
at New York or in Virginia,

where Cornwallis was now headed.

Washington
still favored New York.

Rochambeau told him that he
preferred to leave the decision

to the Comte de Grasse,
the admiral now commanding

the French fleet
in the Caribbean,

but in private letters
to de Grasse,

Rochambeau argued that
blockading the Chesapeake

should take precedence.

In the meantime, Rochambeau
marched his more than 4,000 men

from Newport
to join Washington's army

in Westchester County, New York.

The French were stunned
by what they saw.

I cannot too often repeat

how astonished I have been
at the American Army.

It is inconceivable that troops
nearly naked, badly paid,

and composed of old men,
Negroes, and children

should march so well.

The Rhode Island Regiment

includes many Negroes,
and that regiment

is the most neatly dressed,
the best under arms,

and the most precise
in its maneuvers.

As American and French
soldiers probed British defenses

around New York, Washington
waited for Admiral de Grasse

to pick his target--
New York or Virginia.

On May 20, 1781,

Lord Cornwallis arrived
at Petersburg, Virginia.

He commanded some 7,000 British,
German, and Loyalist troops.

Benedict Arnold
was not among them.

He had been recalled
to New York and would eventually

sail for England,
never to see his country again.

Cornwallis first tried to hunt
down the Marquis de Lafayette,

who had been harassing
British forces in Virginia,

but Lafayette
managed to slip away.

You can be
entirely calm with regard

to the rapid marches
of Lord Cornwallis.

Let him march
from St. Augustine to Boston.

What he wins in his front
he loses in his rear.

His army will bury itself

without requiring us
to fight him.

Cornwallis unleashed
two raiding parties

into the heart of Virginia.

250 horsemen,
commanded by Banastre Tarleton,

were ordered to try to capture
Thomas Jefferson

and the Virginia Assembly,
now meeting at Charlottesville,

where Tarleton managed to seize
several legislators,

including Daniel Boone
from Kentucky County,

but with only moments to spare,

Jefferson escaped his
would-be captors on horseback.

Such terror and confusion.

What an alarming crisis is this.

We were off in a twinkling.

The nearer the mountains,
the greater the safety

was the conclusion,

so on we traveled
through byways and brambles.

Betsy Ambler's family
was on the run, too,

eventually finding
temporary sanctuary

on a friend's
backcountry plantation.

After 3 mostly fruitless weeks

spent marching
through the backcountry,

Cornwallis and his men started
southeast towards Williamsburg.

Some 4,500 ex-slaves
now trailed along behind.

By bringing the war
into Virginia,

Cornwallis had provided
the largest body

of Black people in North America
the possibility of freedom.

Among those who threw in
their lot with the British

were 23 from
Thomas Jefferson's estates

and 16 from George Washington's
Mount Vernon.

Gordon-Reed: What do you do?

Do you stay, or do you take
a chance at your freedom

and leave your family?

How many people can go with you?

Sometimes whole families
left together.

I would imagine
it being frightening

but also a sense of hope
because the system

that they were in
may be destroyed

and that they may have
an opportunity for freedom.

Has the God
who made the White man

and the Black left any record

declaring us
a different species?

Are we not sustained
by the same power,

supported by the same food,
hurt by the same wounds,

pleased with the same delights,

and propagated
by the same means?

And should we not then
enjoy the same liberty

and be protected
by the same laws?

Some consider us as much
property as a house or a ship

and think how anxious we must be

to raise ourselves
from this degrading state.

James Forten.

James Forten
was born free in Philadelphia.

At 9, he had been in the crowd
at the Pennsylvania State House

that heard
the Declaration of Independence

read to the public
for the very first time.

Forten took the promise
of the Declaration to heart

and never questioned whether
its self-evident truths

applied to him.

Now, in the summer of 1781,

Forten was 14, old enough
to fight for his country.

With his mother's permission,
he went down to the docks,

signed on to a privateer,
and set out to sea.

Forten was one of 20 men and
boys of color in a crew of 200.

For privateers eager
to attract volunteers,

race was no barrier.

His first voyage was a triumph,

but the second was a disaster.

His ship was overtaken and
captured by a British warship.

Once aboard, the captain's son
befriended him,

and the captain
offered to release him

if he were willing to sail
with the boy to England.

Forten refused.

He could not turn his back
on his country.

Instead, he joined hundreds
of American prisoners

huddled below decks aboard
the notorious British

prison ship the "Jersey" moored
in the East River off Brooklyn--

dark, fetid, rife with disease.

Meanwhile,
starting in June 1781,

Cornwallis began
to receive a series

of contradictory communications
from General Clinton

back in New York City.

First, Cornwallis was to send
nearly half his forces

north to New York,
which Clinton still believed

Washington's most likely target.

Then Clinton changed his mind.

Cornwallis was now to send
those same troops

to the Delaware Bay,
where they might sail north

and threaten Philadelphia.

Finally, with his men
aboard boats in Portsmouth

and ready to sail,

Cornwallis was to forget
moving them north at all.

Instead, he was to locate
and fortify

a deep-water,
year-round port in Virginia

suitable for the Royal Navy's
largest warships.

Cornwallis' engineers
recommended Yorktown.

He arrived there
on August 2, 1781.

On August 14, Washington learned

that the French fleet
under Admiral de Grasse

was on its way
to the Chesapeake, not New York.

Matters having now
come to a crisis

and a decisive plan
to be determined on,

I was obliged to give up
all idea of attacking New York.

de Rode: George Washington
is a realistic military man

who knows when to not attack,

and so with the advice
of the French

that had much more
experience in warfare,

he listens to them and decides
to march to the South.

Then word arrived
from Lafayette

that Cornwallis was establishing
his army at Yorktown.

If the French Navy
could command the Chesapeake

and keep the British fleet out,
Lafayette wrote,

"the British Army would,
I think, be ours."

But before Washington
could move his army south,

some way had to be found
to pay his men.

Congress was broke.

My personal credit,

which, thank heaven,
I have preserved

through all the tempests
of the war,

has been substituted for that
which the country has lost.

I am now striving to transfer
that credit to the public.

Robert Morris.

Washington
turned to an old friend,

the richest man in America--
Robert Morris.

Morris had again and again
used his own money

to supply the Continental Army.

He had also used public funds
for personal speculations

and made millions
in government contracts.

William Hogeland: Robert Morris
was a war profiteer

and mingled public and private
funds with unabashed abandon,

and without him,
it's not clear at all

that the Revolution
would have been won

or even would have been fought
very long because

he did front his own money
to keep the army in the field.

People said he financed
the American Revolution.

That's largely true.

Critics of Morris said that
the Revolution financed him,

and that's true, too.

Now Morris
combined his own funds

with borrowed Spanish gold
and silver to pay the men.

Each of us received

a month's pay.

This was the first
that could be called money

which we had received as wages
since the year '76.

Joseph Plumb Martin.

Leaving
4,000 Continentals behind,

the French and American armies
began to make their way south

in 3 great columns on August 18.

The campaign was an enormous
undertaking and a great gamble.

In order to keep Cornwallis
from escaping by sea,

French naval forces
from both the Caribbean

and Newport, Rhode Island,
would have to elude

British warships patrolling
the Atlantic coast

and enter the Chesapeake Bay.

At the same time, thousands
of French and American troops,

who could not speak
one another's language,

would have to continue
to make their way together

some 450 miles
from Westchester County

to Virginia
in the heat of summer.

de Rode: It's hot and humid,

and, as the French write,
"infested by mosquitoes,"

and so this
is a very complicated march.

You have to think
of thousands of men

marching through
these little roads.

They have to create bridges.

They have to get obstacles
out of the way,

and we're not talking
just about men marching.

We have a lot of animals
behind them.

In order to not walk
in the middle of the day,

they start in the middle
of the night,

so it's pitch dark.

You're walking on little paths,
probably quite muddy,

and you just walk,

and then for a few hours later,
you have to stop

because you have to create
your new encampment.

You get some food, which
often arrived way too late.

To deceive the British
into thinking

that he was planning
an amphibious assault

on Staten Island or Sandy Hook,
Washington had made sure

that false documents
suggesting an imminent attack

fell into British hands.

Washington
is able to convince Clinton

that he is going to attack
New York.

It's a brilliant series
of deceptive maneuvers

that Washington
is able to pull off.

By the time Clinton
realizes that Washington

is not going after him
but is on his way south,

Washington is in Philadelphia.

At Yorktown,
Cornwallis hated

the kind of defensive war
he was being asked to oversee

and considered the port

and Gloucester across the river
"dangerous posts,"

since neither commanded
the surrounding countryside.

He'd started
by fortifying Gloucester.

The work had gone slowly.

He and his men expected
a British fleet to arrive

in the York River any day,

but they now heard
upsetting rumors

that a French fleet
"had left the West Indies

and was approaching
the coast of North America."

By late summer, work had begun

on the fortifications
at Yorktown itself.

Meanwhile, at Portsmouth,

where some of Cornwallis' men
remained,

smallpox was ravaging
the former slaves

who had followed
the British army there.

What should be done,

the commander at Portsmouth,
wrote Cornwallis,

"with the hundreds... that
are dying by scores every day?"

It is shocking
to think of the state

of the Negroes,
but we cannot bring a number

of sick and useless ones
to this place.

I leave it to your humanity
to do the best you can for them,

but on your arrival here,
we must adopt some plan

to prevent an evil
which will certainly produce

some fatal distemper
in the army.

Lord Cornwallis.

Portsmouth
was evacuated,

and the troops joined
Cornwallis' army at Yorktown.

It was from there,
on the morning of August 30,

that Captain Johann Ewald looked
out toward the Chesapeake Bay.

I could detect
3 heavy vessels in the distance.

We soon had news
that the 3 vessels

which lay before our noses
were French.

Admiral de Grasse
was now lying at anchor

just inside the narrow entrance
to the Chesapeake Bay

between Cape Charles
and Cape Henry.

The Chesapeake
is a huge bay,

but its point of access
is the two capes.

It's very narrow,
and anyone who can control that

controls this huge body
of water.

On the morning
of September 5,

a dispatch rider caught up
with George Washington

near Head of Elk, Maryland,

with the good news that
the French fleet had arrived.

That same day, though, sailors
aboard de Grasse's flagship

spotted sails approaching
from the north.

They were 19 British ships
sent from New York

with orders to find and destroy
the French fleet.

de Grasse might have stayed
where he was,

blocking entrance to the bay,
but if he had done so,

the 8 French ships,
loaded with heavy siege guns

that were on their way
from Newport,

would have been kept
out of the Chesapeake.

de Grasse moved out into the
open sea to confront his enemy.

The two fleets
maneuvered for 6 hours.

Commanders scattered sand
across their decks

to absorb the sailors' blood
they knew was about to be shed.

At 4:00 in the afternoon,
they opened fire.

The broadsides
continued until dark.

The result
was a standoff,

but the British vessels
got the worst of it

and were forced
to limp back to New York.

Meanwhile, the French squadron
from Newport

carrying the heavy siege guns
had slipped unnoticed

into the bay,

and, avoiding Cornwallis'
defenses at Yorktown,

sailed up the James River,

and Washington
and Rochambeau's armies

were arriving at Williamsburg.

Cornwallis was trapped.

From the very beginning,
Washington recognized

that this war was going to end
when the stars aligned.

He's been waiting for this,

and he snatches at it.

We prepared to move down

and pay our old acquaintance
the British a visit.

I doubt not that their wish

was not to have so many of us
come at once,

as their accommodations
were rather scanty.

They thought the fewer,
the better.

We thought
the more, the merrier.

Joseph Plumb Martin.

On September 28, 1781,
at 5 A.M.,

the French and American armies,
now 18,000 strong,

started toward Yorktown.

The allies established
a crescent-shaped encampment

around the town--

the French on the left,
the Americans on the right.

Washington and Rochambeau
set up headquarters

just a few hundred yards apart.

The two commanders
rode forward to reconnoiter.

Washington had long understood
Yorktown's strategic limitations

and the hole the British
had dug for themselves.

800 to 1,000 yards from Yorktown

stood an outer line
of trenches and redoubts,

their bases bristling
with abatis,

sharpened logs
meant to repel invaders.

Black laborers
could be seen struggling

to complete an inner ring
around the town.

Swamps and marshy creeks made
a direct assault impractical.

The allies didn't have time
to starve the defenders, either.

The French fleet was due
to return to the Caribbean

within weeks.

A traditional, European-style
siege seemed to be the answer.

Washington left its planning
to the French.

The Americans
were "totally ignorant

of the operations
of a siege," Rochambeau said.

He had taken part in 14 of them.

At dawn on September 30,
French and American troops

edged cautiously toward
the outermost British defenses,

expecting stiff resistance.

Instead, they found them empty.

Cornwallis, outnumbered 3 to 1,

had pulled his men
back into town.

Cornwallis
makes a fatal mistake.

He's exhausted. He's depressed.

A commander who otherwise
is very effective

is just not at his best.

For 5 days and nights,
allied soldiers worked

to transform the abandoned
British positions

into their own strongholds
and to bring up the artillery,

equipment, and entrenching tools
needed to dig

their first parallel trench
and begin the siege.

British artillery
hurled shot and shells

at the Americans and Frenchmen
as they worked.

Sarah Osborn, the wife
of a New Jersey corporal,

was one of the women
who carried beef, bread,

and hot coffee to the men
as they dug.

One day, she remembered,
George Washington happened by

and asked her
if she wasn't afraid

of the British cannonballs.

"No," she said,

"It would not do for the men
to fight and starve, too."

When the parallel was complete,

it stretched
for more than a mile,

a trench 10 feet wide
and nearly 4 feet deep.

At 3:00 in the afternoon
on October 9,

the French opened fire.

Two hours later,
Washington was given the honor

of touching off
the first American cannon.

All along
the allied lines,

cannon and mortars
began firing into Yorktown.

The remainder of the night

passed in a dreadful slaughter.

Several parts of the garrison
were in flames on this night,

and the whole discovered
a view awful and tremendous.

Bartholomew James.

It was as if one witnessed

the shock of an earthquake.

3,600 shot by the enemy
were counted in this 24 hours.

These were fired at the city
into our lines

and against
the ships in the harbor.

Private Johann Conrad Doehla.

By the night
of October 11,

the allies had begun digging
a second parallel,

but before the noose
could be tightened completely,

two enemy redoubts,
Numbers Nine and Ten,

had to be taken.

The American target
was redoubt Number Ten.

The men were
from Lafayette's force.

Alexander Hamilton
was in command.

Joseph Plumb Martin
and his company led the way.

We advanced
beyond the trenches

and lay down on the ground
to await the signal.

Our watchword was "Rochambeau,"

a good watchword, for being
pronounced "Rochambeau,"

it sounded,
when pronounced quick,

like "Rush on, boys."

When the signal was given,

Martin and his fellow soldiers
rushed forward.

Right behind them came
Rhode Islanders,

including many free Black men
or former slaves.

The moment they reached
the abatis,

the redoubt's defenders
began firing down into them.

But there was no stopping us.

I forced a passage at a place
where I saw our shot

had cut away some of the abatis.

While passing, a man at my side
received a ball in his head

and fell under my feet,
crying out bitterly.

The fort was taken and all quiet
in a short time.

Lafayette sent
a dispatch to a French officer

in the column assigned
to capture Redoubt Number 9,

saying his men were
in his redoubt.

"Where are you?"

"Tell the Marquis
I am not in mine,"

the French officer replied,
"but will be in 5 minutes."

There was no mercy that night.

Complaints and groans
could be heard everywhere.

Someone called out here,
another there,

begging to be killed
for the love of God,

as the redoubt was strewn
with the dead and wounded,

so much so that
we had to walk on them.

Georg Daniel Flohr.

The allies
lost no time

in rolling their big guns
into both redoubts

and opening fire on Yorktown.

Friederike Baer:
It was absolutely horrific.

There was no moment to rest.

There was no place to hide.

For days, there was
continuous bombardment.

Cornwallis knew
his cause was hopeless,

but he could not seem to bear
what Banastre Tarleton called

"the mortification
of a surrender."

At about 10:00 in the morning

on October 17, 1781,

a drummer boy appeared
on a British parapet,

beating his drum,

the signal that Cornwallis
wished to negotiate.

When the thunder of the guns
drowned out the drumming,

an officer climbed up
next to the boy

and waved a white handkerchief.

He might have
beat away till doomsday

if he had not been sighted
by men on the front lines,

but when the firing ceased,

I thought I had never heard
a drum equal to it,

the most delightful
music to us all.

Ebenezer Denny.

The Battle of Yorktown was over.

The Patriots and their
French allies had won.

The world would never
be the same.

Surrender negotiations
went on for a day and a half.

Cornwallis wanted his British
and German soldiers

free to sail home.

Washington refused.

He recalled
the disrespectful way

Patriot General Benjamin Lincoln
and his men had been treated

after the fall of Charles Town.

Until a formal
peace was reached,

the surrendering soldiers were
to remain in the United States

as prisoners of war.

Cornwallis had little choice
but to agree.

As the British and Germans
marched out

of what was left of Yorktown--
their flags cased,

their numbers reduced
by wounds and disease--

they had orders
to avoid even looking

at the victorious Americans.

Only the French,
they'd been told,

were worthy opponents.

Washington and Rochambeau
waited on horseback.

Lord Cornwallis
was nowhere to be seen.

He claimed to be ill,
but, as a professional soldier,

he may simply have been
too humiliated

at having to surrender his army
to a group of rebels

to make an appearance.

Cornwallis' second in command,
General Charles O'Hara,

stood in for him
and tried to surrender his sword

to General Rochambeau.

Rochambeau refused to accept it.

"We are subordinate
to the Americans," he said.

"General Washington
will give you orders."

Washington
wouldn't accept it, either.

He passed O'Hara on
to his second in command,

Benjamin Lincoln,
who formally accepted the sword

and then handed it back,
as custom dictated.

The ultimate humiliation--

not only having
to surrender to the Americans,

but having to surrender

to the second in command
of the Americans.

With what soldiers
in the world

could one do what was done
by these men?

One can perceive
what an enthusiasm

which these poor fellows
call liberty can do.

Who would have thought
a hundred years ago

that out of this
multitude of rabble

would arise a people
who could defy kings?

Johann Ewald.

This is a blow,
my Lord, which gives me

the most serious concern,
as it will, in its consequences,

be exceedingly detrimental
to the King's interest

in this country.

Henry Clinton.

When
the Prime Minister, Lord North,

finally heard about
the surrender at Yorktown

5 weeks after it happened,
he staggered around

as if he'd been hit
by a musket ball,

waving his arms
and crying out again and again,

"Oh, God, it is all over."

In a speech to Parliament,
King George III said

that, while recent events in
Virginia had been "unfortunate,"

he remained determined
to fight on

"to restore my deluded subjects
to that happy

and prosperous condition
which they formerly derived

from... obedience to the laws,"

but Britain had grown
weary of the war.

More than 30,000 British,
German, and Loyalist troops

had lost their lives
in North America.

The British national debt
had doubled.

Other battlefields
seemed more important--

in the Caribbean,

where they would soon destroy
Admiral de Grasse's fleet;

in the Mediterranean,
where they still held Gibraltar;

and in India,

where they continued
to expand their empire.

On February 27, 1782,
Parliament voted to halt

all offensive activity
in North America.

Lord North's government fell.

Alan Taylor: Could they
have kept the war going

from a purely
military perspective?

Sure, but politically,
the will to fight vanishes,

so the pro-war administration
is toppled,

and the King is forced
to accept a new government

with a new political coalition
that is committed to negotiating

a peace settlement
with the American rebels.

Alas,
what remains of Yorktown now,

what had given it
its high privilege,

that of being accessible
from every quarter,

proved its greatest misfortune.

Its excellent harbor rendered it
the port of all others

most favorable
for an invading enemy.

Too soon did they
avail themselves of it,

and this Eden became desolate.

Betsy Ambler.

Betsy Ambler
and her family

never returned to Yorktown,

settling permanently
in Richmond.

Not long after the surrender,

slaveholders began turning up
at Yorktown,

eager to reclaim
the surviving runaways

who had fled to the British.

Washington set up
two fortified posts

where slaves were
to be kept under guard

until their owner
came to claim them.

Patriot troops were encouraged
to help track them down.

"The Negroes looked condemned,"
one militiaman remembered,

"for the British had promised
them their freedom."

5 enslaved people
captured at Yorktown

were returned
to Thomas Jefferson.

Two more, both women,
were returned

to George Washington's
Mount Vernon.

Washington's army
soon moved north.

Rochambeau's men marched
up to Boston the following year

and sailed away.

Cornwallis' defeated men
were marched to prison camps

in the interior.

Eager to get them back,
Parliament finally recognized

captured Americans
as prisoners of war.

Redcoats and rebels alike
could expect to be exchanged.

Jennifer Kreisberg:

After 7 months of suffering

aboard the prison ship
the "Jersey,"

James Forten was released,
emaciated but lucky to be alive.

He walked all the way home
to Philadelphia from New York,

most of the way barefoot.

He astonished his mother
on arrival.

She had long since
given him up for dead.

After the war, Forten
would build a great fortune

making sails for
the American merchant fleet

and use part of those earnings

to fund
the abolitionist movement.

When decades later,
a friend urged him to apply

for one of the pensions
being granted to war veterans,

Forten refused.

"I was a volunteer, sir,"
he said.

He didn't want money.
He wanted citizenship.

Our country
asserts for itself the glory

of being the freest
upon the surface of the globe.

She proclaimed freedom
to all mankind.

The brightness
of her glory was radiant,

but one dark spot
still dimmed its luster.

So much is doing in the world

to ameliorate
the condition of mankind,

and the spirit of freedom
is marching with rapid strides

and causing tyrants to tremble.

May America awake
from the apathy

in which she has long slumbered.

She must sooner or later fall in

with the irresistible current
in the cause of liberty.

James Forten.

Loyalists knew
the war was lost,

and the question
for them became,

"What's gonna happen
to us next?"

and--given the violence,
this insurgency,

counterinsurgency,
back and forth,

down-and-dirty fighting
in the countryside--

Loyalists had
every reason to fear

that now that the Patriots
were in charge,

they were gonna find themselves

on the rough end
of recriminations.

Everywhere,
Patriots were seeking revenge

on men and women who had
once been their neighbors

and fellow subjects of the King.

"The mob," one Loyalist wrote,

"now reigns...
fully and uncontrolled."

In Georgia, Patriots
hunted down and killed Loyalists

who had sought sanctuary
in the swamps.

Other Loyalists were exiled
and their property confiscated.

I cannot say
I look back with regret

at the part I took
from motives of loyalty,

from love to my country
as well as duty to my sovereign,

and, notwithstanding
my sufferings,

I would do it again
if there was occasion.

John Peters.

John Peters
and his wife Ann

settled in Nova Scotia.

Most Loyalists would choose
to stay despite the danger

and take their chances,

hoping to resume their old lives
in the new country,

but thousands decided to leave.

They huddled together
in the last British strongholds

of New York City,
Charles Town, and Savannah,

waiting for ships to be found
to take them away.

In an incredible
gesture at the end

of the American Revolution,
the British government

offers continuing protection
to American Loyalists,

and I don't know of any other
precedent for this kind

of mass evacuation of civilians
organized by a government,

and particularly
by the military,

with a view to helping
these refugees get started

with a new life somewhere else
outside the place

that they had always
called home.

General Guy Carleton,
who had replaced Henry Clinton

as commander of British forces,
was expected to move

more than 30,000 troops
with their mountains of supplies

as well as 60,000 Loyalists
and 15,000 enslaved people

out of the United States.

Carleton began that summer
with Savannah.

Some 3,000 Whites
and perhaps 5,000 Blacks

sailed to other
British colonies.

Charles Town was next--

almost 11,000 people,
Black and White.

Most of them ended up
in Jamaica and the Bahamas.

Only New York remained
in British hands.

Meanwhile, in Paris,
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams,

John Jay, and Henry Laurens

were trying to work out
a permanent peace.

Ignoring their instructions
to include the French,

whose assistance had ensured
their astonishing victory,

the American envoys
decided to negotiate alone

with British emissaries.

"Let us be honest and grateful
to France," John Jay said,

"but let us think
for ourselves."

They had a draft treaty
within a week.

Its terms were generous
to the Americans,

so generous they would cause
the new British government

to fall, as well.

It declared the 13 former
colonies "to be free,

Sovereign
and independent states"

and set expansive boundaries,
stretching all the way

from the Great Lakes to Florida

and from the Appalachians
westward to the Mississippi,

a territory larger than England,
France, and Spain put together.

British troops
were to be withdrawn

with "all convenient Speed"
and were barred,

the agreement said, from
"carrying away any Negroes

or other Property
of the American Inhabitants."

This provisional treaty
was signed by the American

and British negotiators
on November 30, 1782.

A final comprehensive treaty

would not come
for another 9 months.

Joseph Ellis: There's
a consensus at the end

among the negotiators,
including the Brits,

that we're witnessing the
creation of an American empire.

de Rode: Some people would say
the British lost the war,

but then they won the aftermath,
and France lost that period.

They could not
reinvent themselves

in order to prevent
their collapse.

The promise of the American
Revolution was, of course,

a promise of democracy,
of equality, of liberties,

of all these new concepts
at a time where in Europe,

there were only monarchies.

The republic had won
against the monarchy.

It inspired many.

The American Revolution would be

the opening signal for more than
two centuries of revolution,

first in Europe,
then in the Caribbean,

South America, Asia, and Africa.

The ideas
are very powerful.

When they're talking
about liberty,

when they're
talking about equality,

when they're talking
about opportunity,

the freedom from oppression,

the American Revolutionary
movement served as a model

for other societies and
communities around the world.

But in early 1783
at the Continental Army's

winter encampment
at Newburgh, New York,

things were not going well.

An unsigned manifesto
began circulating

among Washington's officers
openly calling for a mutiny.

If peace really came,
they would refuse to disarm

and be free to use the army
to force Congress and the states

into providing the back pay
they were owed.

On March 15, at a meeting to
hear more about the conspiracy,

officers heard horse's hooves.

The door flew open.

Washington
and his aides entered.

The general stepped
to the lectern.

He spoke for 20 minutes,
urging his officers

to resist drowning
"our rising empire in blood."

Most shifted in their seats, unconvinced.

Then Washington asked
if he could read a letter

from a Virginia congressman

who had pledged support
for the army.

He stumbled
over the first words, paused,

and pulled a pair of spectacles
from his coat.

Gentlemen, you must pardon me.

I have grown gray
in your service

and now find myself
growing blind.

The rest of the letter
didn't matter.

Many officers, hard men
made harder still by battle,

were openly weeping.

The mutiny was over
before it could begin.

The unparalleled perseverance

of the armies
of the United States,

through almost every possible
suffering and discouragement

for the space of 8 long years,

was little short
of a standing miracle.

George Washington.

As the Continental
Army began to disband,

Washington tried again
to persuade Congress

to provide his men with at least
3 months' back pay in cash,

but the best they could do
was issue

a blizzard
of paper certificates,

vaguely promising
to redeem them one day.

Some of the soldiers
went off for home

the same day their fetters
were knocked off.

Others stayed and got their
final settlement certificates,

which they sold to procure
decent clothing

and money sufficient
to enable them

to pass with decency
through the country

and to appear
something like themselves

when they arrived
among their friends.

I was among those.

When the country had drained
the last drop of service

it could screw
out of the poor soldiers,

we returned to drift
like old, worn-out horses.

Joseph Plumb Martin.

That group of people
are ordinary Americans,

below the level of ordinary,

and they won the war
because they never left.

They stayed. That was it.

They refused to leave,
and, um...

um...

you can sound pretty patriotic,

but I don't think you can be
patriotic enough about them.

We had lived together
as a family of brothers

for several years--had shared
with each other the hardships,

dangers, and sufferings
incident to a soldier's life;

had sympathized with each other
in trouble and sickness--

and now we were
to be parted forever,

as unconditionally separated as
though the grave lay between us.

By the spring of 1783,
more than 30,000 Loyalists

and almost as many British
and German troops

still remained in New York City,

all waiting for ships
to take them away,

so many people
that General Carleton

could not tell George Washington

precisely when
they would all be gone.

Soldiers shipped out
for home or the West Indies.

Some Loyalists planned to sail
to Quebec or the Bahamas,

but the overwhelming majority--

nearly 30,000 American
men, women, and children--

resolved to begin
their new lives

like John and Ann Peters had,
to the north in Nova Scotia.

Of the more than 3,000
Black people

who had also found sanctuary
in New York,

half were considered
the property of Loyalists

and so would have to accompany
their owners

wherever they chose to go...

but most of the rest
were runaways,

like Harry Washington,

who had been the property
of George Washington,

and Boston King, who had been
promised that if they fled

their Patriot owners,
they would be free.

That freedom
now seemed in peril.

Peace was restored
between America

and Great Britain, which issued
universal joy among all parties

except us
who had escaped from slavery

and taken refuge
in the English army,

for a report prevailed
at New York that all slaves

were to be delivered up
to their masters.

This dreadful rumor
filled us all

with inexpressible
anguish and terror,

especially when we saw
our masters coming

and seizing upon their slaves
in the streets of New York

or even dragging them
out of their beds.

Many of the slaves
had very cruel masters

so that thoughts
of returning home with them

embittered life to us.

For some days, we lost
our appetite for food,

and sleep
departed from our eyes.

Boston King.

From his headquarters
up the Hudson,

George Washington
continued to insist

every runaway be returned
to his or her owner.

General Carleton refused.

"National Honour,"
he told Washington,

required him to make good
on official British pledges

made to persons
of "any complexion."

The English
had compassion upon us

in the day of distress.

In consequence of this,

each of us received

a certificate

from the commanding officer

at New York,

which dispelled all our fears.

Carleton decreed
that any enslaved person

who had left a Patriot owner
and served

behind the British lines
for 12 months was free.

Disputes between runaways
and owners or slave catchers

determined to return them
to slavery were adjudicated

by a committee of 4 British
officers and 3 Americans

who met weekly at
Fraunces Tavern on Pearl Street.

I came from Virginia.

I was with Lord Dunmore,

washing and ironing
in his service.

I came with him to New York

and was in service with him
till he went away.

My master came for me.

I told him
I would not go with him.

He took my money
and stole my child from me

and sent it to Virginia.

Judith Jackson.

Judith Jackson won
the right to go to Nova Scotia,

but she stayed on in New York,

frantically trying
to recover her daughter

until she was forced
to sail without her.

There were more
tense moments at dockside.

Before any vessel carrying
Black passengers, slave or free,

could leave New York,
British and American inspectors

demanded to see
their certificates

and entered their names
and descriptions

in separate ledgers...

Rhiannon Giddens:

but once underway,
Boston King, Harry Washington,

and all the hundreds
of other free persons

the British allowed
to sail north were filled,

as King wrote,
"with joy and gratitude."

In the end, Nova Scotia
proved cold and unforgiving.

Black refugees
were not made welcome.

Both men would eventually join

nearly 1,200 other
African Americans

who emigrated again, this time
to Sierra Leone in West Africa,

where they founded
a new British colony

with a new capital city
they called Freetown.

If we had
the means of publishing

to the world the many acts
of treachery and cruelty

committed by them
on our women and children,

it would appear that
the title of Savages would

with much greater justice
be applied to them than to us.

Old Smoke.

The 150,000
Native Americans who lived

in the vast territory
that was now the United States

were not so much as mentioned
in the treaty.

We were struck
with astonishment

at hearing we were forgot.

We could not believe it
possible such firm friends

and allies could be
so neglected by England,

whom we had served
with so much zeal and fidelity.

Thayendanegea, Joseph Brant.

The losers in
the negotiation of Paris

are the Native Americans.

I mean, it would be hard-pressed
to say that they'd be better off

if the British had won,
but they probably would have.

The contributions
Native Americans had made

to winning American independence
would soon be forgotten, too,

including Oneidas, Tuscaroras,
Delawares, Catawbas,

and the Indian community
at Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

In this late war,
we have suffered much.

Our blood has been
spilled with yours,

and many of our young men

have fallen by the side
of your warriors.

Almost all those places
where your warriors

have left their bones,
there our bones are seen also.

Philip Deloria: The
Stockbridge Indians, their home,

their land is gonna go away.

They're not gonna be able
to hold on to that,

and they are moved to New York.

Then they end up in Wisconsin.

Like so many tribes, right,

they end up being kicked around
and moved from place to place.

This is, of course,
the story of Native people

relative to the United States.

Beloved men and warriors

of the United States,

we, the women
of the Cherokee Nation,

now speak to you.

We are mothers
and have many sons,

some of them warriors
and beloved men.

Our cry is all for peace.

This peace must last forever.

Let your women hear our words.

There would be no peace.

As the United States
moved inexorably westward,

Native nations would
continue to fight

for their independence
for another century.

Native Americans
would not become citizens

of the United States until 1924,

and their struggle to remain
sovereign would never end.

At 1:00 in the afternoon
on November 25, 1783,

George Washington--
"straight as a dart,"

an eyewitness recalled,
"and as noble as he could be"--

led a procession of soldiers
and civilians down Bowery Lane

and Queen Street,
west across Wall Street,

and then down Broadway.

The British were finally gone.

Washington was back in the city

he had been forced
to abandon in 1776.

New Yorkers celebrated for days
with illuminations,

bonfires, and fireworks...

and now George Washington
had one more duty to perform.

He would ride
to Annapolis, Maryland,

where the Confederation Congress
was now meeting,

and formally resign
his commission.

He knew
what he was doing.

He walks away from power.

He's not gonna be a Cromwell.
He's not gonna be a Caesar.

He's not gonna be what
Napoleon is gonna become.

He could have easily
become dictator head,

and he had no interest
in that whatsoever.

Accompanied
by two military aides

and his enslaved companion
William Lee,

Washington set out
right away for Mount Vernon,

hoping to be home
for Christmas Eve.

These are the times

that tried men's souls,
and they are over,

and the greatest and completest
Revolution the world ever knew

gloriously and happily
accomplished.

As United States, we are equal
to the importance of the title,

but otherwise we are not.

Our union
is the most sacred thing

and that which every man should
be most proud and tender of.

Our great title is Americans.

Thomas Paine.

The war had brought
the states together,

but peace soon threatened
to tear them apart.

Small states continued
to fear large ones.

Northern and Southern states
jockeyed for dominance

and quarreled over borders.

Vermonters had already declared
themselves a separate republic.

North Carolina's Overmountain
settlers were seeking to secede

and form their own state
called Franklin.

Elsewhere, farmers
turned to violence

to protest state taxes
they considered unreasonable.

In Massachusetts,
protest became insurrection,

Shays' Rebellion put down

only after former comrades
in arms fired on each other.

A "cloud of evils,"
George Washington wrote,

"was threatening
the tranquility of the Union."

Our situation is truly delicate

and critical.

On the one hand,
we stand in need

of a strong Federal Government
founded on principles

that will support the prosperity
and union of the states.

On the other, we have
struggled for liberty

and made lofty sacrifices
at her shrine,

and there are still many among
us who revere her name too much

to relinquish the rights of man
for the dignity of government.

Mercy Otis Warren.

The new Congress,

created by
the Articles of Confederation,

was toothless,
saddled with colossal debts,

and incapable
of collecting taxes

with which to pay them off.

Christopher Brown:
It's not hard to imagine at all

Britain, France,
and Spain picking off

individual states to create
sort of commercial alliances

or political alliances
and military alliances,

as client states,
and all kinds of things.

Sounds crazy,
but it's no more crazy

to have actually created
a federal government

that would actually work,
and famously,

a lot of British observers
throughout the 1780s--

"Just give them a few years.
It's all gonna fall apart."

One of the lessons
Washington learned

during the American Revolution
is that without

a powerful central government,
nothing effective could happen.

The frustrations he experienced

trying to get these 13 colonies
to work in unison

and failing every time
in the Continental Congress

taught him that
something had to change.

In late May 1787,

55 delegates met in Philadelphia
to draw up a constitution.

Nearly half owned slaves.

30 had served in the war.

George Washington
lent his prestige

by agreeing to preside
over the convention.

4 months later,
they had hammered out

a 4-page document.

To devise a government

that the American people
could agree to live under

demanded historic compromises--

some creative, some tragic.

The Constitution
delineated which powers

fell to the central government

and which remained
with the states,

a system of shared sovereignty
they called federalism.

The architects
of the Constitution

divided the federal government
into 3 branches--

the legislative, executive,
and judicial--

in a delicate balance
by which each was meant

to check the others
to ensure against overreach

that could result in tyranny.

They feared that a demagogue
might incite citizens

into betraying
the American experiment.

Alexander Hamilton was concerned
that an "unprincipled" man

would "mount
the hobby horse of popularity"

and "throw things
into confusion."

"In a government like ours,"
he would write,

no one is "above the law."

I wish the Constitution
which is offered

had been made more perfect,
but I sincerely believe

it is the best that could
be obtained at this time,

and as a constitutional door is
opened for amendment hereafter,

the adoption of it is,
in my opinion, desirable.

They were
trying to create

a system in which you could have

a sufficiently powerful
government

that could work properly
for its own people

and the great powers
of the world

and still retain the freedoms
of the individual,

and that is the great issue

that runs all the way
through the Revolution.

It's a struggle
between the possibilities

of power and of liberty.

In order for
the Constitution to take effect,

the individual states
had to ratify it.

That would foster
one of the most extensive

public debates in history.

Gordon-Reed: The people who
created the American Revolution

and created the American nation

assumed that Americans
would be involved,

that they would be
active citizens, not subjects.

Being a citizen requires
the kind of participation

in the democracy
that keeps it vibrant.

In the end,
all 13 states

did ratify the Constitution,

but before consenting to live

under the new
federal government,

the American people
wanted to enshrine the liberties

they had won in the Revolution.

The Constitution was almost
immediately amended

with a Bill of Rights
guaranteeing freedom of worship

and the separation
of church and state,

freedom of speech and assembly,

the right to keep and bear arms,

trial by jury,

and a ban on cruel
and unusual punishment.

James Madison,
who wrote the Bill of Rights,

called the Constitution "nothing
more than the draft of a plan,

"nothing but a dead letter,

"until life and validity
were breathed into it

by the voice of the people."

Vincent Brown: The idea that
government derives its authority

from the consent of the governed
was pretty radical.

It's still pretty radical.

If we take the words of
the Declaration of Independence,

written by Thomas Jefferson--
"All men--"

let's say men, women--

"are created
free and equal," right--

Jefferson clearly didn't take
that seriously as a slaveholder,

but I do,

and I think it's incumbent
on all of us

to take those words
from Jefferson

and make them real
in our own lives,

even if they weren't
real in his.

When the time came
to choose the first president

under the Constitution,

George Washington
was the only choice

and won the vote
of every single elector.

He was inaugurated
in New York City

on April 30, 1789.

John Adams,
the first vice president,

thought the chief executive
should have a royal,

or at least a princely, title,
but for Washington,

President of the United States
was honor enough...

and when he left
the presidency in 1797,

King George himself
paid tribute.

By surrendering first
his military

and then his political power,
he said,

George Washington
had made himself

"the greatest character
of the age."

Our government daily acquires

strength and stability.

The union is complete.

Nothing hinders our being a very
happy and prosperous people,

provided we have wisdom rightly
to estimate our blessings

and hearts to improve them.

Abigail Adams.

Rhiannon Giddens:

I will not believe
our labors are lost.

I shall not die without a hope

that light and liberty
are on steady advance.

And even should the cloud
of barbarism and despotism

again obscure the science
and liberties of Europe,

this country remains
to preserve and restore

light and liberty to them.

In short, the flames kindled
on the 4th of July, 1776,

have spread over
too much of the globe

to be extinguished by
the feeble engines of despotism.

Thomas Jefferson.

America
is predicated on an idea

that should act as a pole star
for us to provide true north,

telling us what it is that
we think we can do as a people.

The perpetual challenge
of the American experiment

is to draw on those
aspirational ideals

and make them our own,

hand them off to our children
and our grandchildren,

and to use that
as a propulsion system

for being the nation
that those forebears

thought we could become.

The American war is over,

but this is far
from being the case

with the American Revolution.

On the contrary,

nothing but the first act
of the great drama is closed.

It remains yet to establish
and perfect

our new forms of government.

Patriots, come forward!

Your country
demands your services.

Hear her proclaiming,
in sighs and groans,

in her governments,
in her finances,

in her trade,
in her manufactures,

in her morals,
and in her manners,

"The Revolution is not over!"

Benjamin Rush.