All language subtitles for The.American.Revolution.2025.S01E02.1080p.HEVC.x265-MeGusta[EZTVx.to]

Major funding for "the
American revolution"

was provided by the better angels society

and its members Jeannie
and Jonathan lavine

with the crimson lion foundation

and the blavatnik family foundation.

Major funding was also
provided by David m. Rubenstein,

the Robert d. And Patricia
e. Kern family foundation,

the Lilly endowment,

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Stephen a. Schwarzman,

and Kenneth c. Griffin
with Griffin catalyst.

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the pew charitable trusts,

Gilbert s. Omenn and Martha a. Darling,

the park foundation,

and by better angels society members:

Gilchrist and Amy berg,
Perry and Donna golkin,

the michelson foundation,
Jacqueline b. Mars,

the kissick family foundation,
Diane and hal brierley,

John h.N. Fisher and Jennifer Caldwell,

John and Catherine debs,

the fuller ton family charitable fund,

and these additional members.

"The American revolution"

was made possible with support

from the corporation
for public broadcasting,

and viewers like you. Thank you.

The American revolution caused

an impact felt around the world.

The fight would take
ingenuity, determination,

and hope for a new tomorrow
to turn the tide of history

and set the American story in motion.

What would you like the power to do?

Bank of america.

Before dawn on may 10th, 1775...

less than a month after
Lexington and Concord...

some 85 new englanders rowed across

the southern end of lake champ la in,

keeping silent, muskets primed.

Their objective was a dilapidated,

star-shaped fortress called ticonderoga,

built by the French 20 years earlier

and now occupied by 50 British soldiers

and 24 women and children.

If they could capture it,
they might be able to stop

British troops from
attacking from the north;

to provide American
forces with a staging area

should they ever
choose to invade Canada;

and to take possession
of dozens of artillery pieces

that the rebel forces ringing
Boston desperately needed.

The men slipped silently onto the shore.

The British surrendered without a shot.

So did the 9 redcoats
stationed at crown point,

a smaller outpost nearby.

The Americans had two commanders.

One was colonel Ethan Allen,

the hard-drinking leader of
the "green mountain boys,"

a band of vigilantes who
had spent years defending

their settlements in the Vermont region

of Northwestern new England

against new yorkers
who also claimed the land.

The other was a newly
promoted 34-year-old

Connecticut militia colonel.

He was descended from a distinguished

new England family that
had fallen on hard times.

Able but arrogant, sensitive to slights,

he would become one of the
most important commanders

of the American revolution.

His name was Benedict Arnold.

Once it's a shooting war,

as with Lexington
and Concord, it's a war.

There's no doubt about that.

But independence was
not, in any way, officially

on the table as a goal of
the Americans at that point.

The idea of independence
was still controversial.

The official position
was that the fight was

essentially for redress, for

"let's get back to the
way things used to be.

Back when things were
good, when you left us alone."

The blood shed at
Lexington and Concord

had deepened the
divisions among Americans

from Georgia to New Hampshire.

"Loyalists," those who
remained faithful to the crown

and hoped his majesty's
troops would soon restore

law and order, dismissed
those whose sympathies

lay with the militiamen
surrounding Boston as "rebels."

The "rebels" called
themselves "patriots"...

or "whigs" after British champions

of constitutionally guaranteed rights...

and vilified their loyalist
neighbors as "tories."

The term "patriot" is a very old one

that pre-exists the revolution.

It applies to people
who believe that they are

the defenders of Liberty against power.

Now, "rebel" is a term
that the British will use,

and the loyalists will
use, to apply to the people

who call themselves the "patriots."

So, to be a rebel means
that you are rejecting

the legitimate authority of your sovereign,

king George III of the British empire.

That we are divorced is to me very clear.

The only question is
concerning the proper time

for making an explicit
declaration in words.

Some people must have
time to look around them,

before, behind, on the
right hand, and on the left,

then to think, and
after all this, to resolve.

Others see at one intuitive glance

into the past and the future,

and judge with precision at once.

But remember you can't make 13 clocks

strike precisely alike at the same second.

John Adams.

I think the greatest misconception

about the American
revolution is that it was

something that unified Americans

and that it was just a war of
Americans against the British.

It leaves out the reality that it was

a civil war among Americans.

I tremble at the thoughts of war;

but of all wars, a civil war!

Our all is at stake.

Sarah Mifflin.

In the spring of 1775,

a Philadelphia woman
named Sarah Mifflin

wrote to a British officer
who had been her friend

before the shooting began.

He had suggested that the whole thing

was just a minor disagreement.

It is not a quibble in politics.

It is this plain truth, which the
most ignorant peasant knows,

that no man has a
right to take their money

without their consent.

I know this, that as
free I can die but once,

but as a slave I shall
not be worthy of life.

Sarah Mifflin.

Some 20,000 militiamen from towns

all over Massachusetts... and
from Connecticut, New Hampshire,

and Rhode Island as well...

had poured into the
series of impromptu camps

that kept the British caged in Boston.

They were united in
their anger at the redcoats

but very little else.

They were militiamen,
not professional soldiers,

expected to meet immediate crises,

not take part in prolonged campaigns.

Few had uniforms.

Many had never been more
than 50 miles from home.

Their first loyalty was to the
towns from which they came

and the neighbors whom they
had elected as their officers.

Once the shooting
stopped and it became clear

that the British were
not going to attack them,

they began drifting
home to plant their crops.

In overall charge of this
dwindling, disorganized force

was general artemas ward,

the commander of the
Massachusetts militia.

From his headquarters in
Cambridge, he understood

that if there were to be any
hope of holding their own

against the British, he
needed a paid, recruited army...

and he needed it fast.

Wherever you go, we
will be by your sides.

Our bones shall lie with yours.

We are determined never to
be at peace with the redcoats

while they are at variance with you.

If we are conquered,
our lands go with yours.

But if we are victorious,
we hope you will help us

to recover our just rights.

Captain Solomon uhhaunauwaunmut.

Among the troops who
arrived in Cambridge

was a company of native Americans

from stock bridge, Massachusetts.

Stockbridge is a
community of multiple tribes,

which has a long history
of surviving colonization,

in part through adopting christianity

and adopting certain kinds
of strategic ways of being

in relation with colonists.

They come over from
western Massachusetts

and they're part of the siege of Boston.

Most indigenous powers stay relatively

on the sidelines of the conflict

during the early years.

But many native
communities, particularly those

who have lived with
settlers for generations,

come to share loyalties and sensibilities.

And so, many decide
that it's in their best interest

to join the revolutionary forces

and take up arms
against the British empire.

The presence of the stock bridge men

among the rebels,
general Thomas Gage,

the commander-in-chief
of the British army

in North America, said,
freed him to call upon

other native Americans to join his forces

and fight for the crown.

Enslaved new englanders
were not recruited by either side.

The Massachusetts
provincial congress insisted

it was engaged in a struggle for freedom

from British "slavery."

Enlisting them, it said,
would be "inconsistent."

But free African-Americans
were welcome...

and at least 35 and perhaps
as many as 50 men of color

had fought at Lexington and Concord

and more would soon be engaged

in the next, far bigger
battle with the British.

Black, white, and
native American soldiers

would serve in
regiments more integrated

than American forces would be
again for almost two centuries.

What?! 10,000 peasants keep

5,000 king's troops shut up!

Well, let us get in, and
we'll soon find elbow room.

General John burgoyne.

On may 25th, 1775, a royal Navy frigate

threaded its way into Boston harbor.

Aboard were British reinforcements

and 3 major generals.

John burgoyne was the showiest

and the most self-assured of the three.

A playwright as well as a soldier,

eager always for advancement,
he was dismissive of the rebels

besieging Boston, whom he called

a "rabble in arms,
flushed with insolence."

Henry Clinton had spent 6
boyhood years in New York,

where his father had
been the royal governor.

He was soft-spoken, retiring, insecure.

William howe had once
expressed sympathy

with the American cause,
but he now saw an opportunity

to burnish his reputation as a soldier.

They had been sent
to bolster general Gage,

whom the king's ministers
now saw as overly timid.

The commanders all
agreed that if they could seize

the heights at Dorchester
and charlestown,

they could break the rebel siege.

There are two pieces of high ground

that the British have to worry about.

One is Dorchester heights.

And the other is the high ground

on the charlestown peninsula,

including bunker hill and breed's hill.

If you put Cannon on either
the charlestown peninsula

or on Dorchester heights,
you would be able to bombard

British forces in Boston.

The British decide that they are going to

seize charlestown first.

The patriots got wind of the plan,

and colonel William Prescott
was ordered to seize and fortify

bunker's hill, the highest prominence

on the charlestown peninsula.

As Prescott and his
men got there, however,

it was somehow decided
that they should instead

build their fort on the
crest of another, lower hill

that came to be called breed's hill.

But it was within range
of both the warships

in the harbor and a British
battery in Boston's north end.

Prescott's men went to
work with picks and shovels

trying to make as little noise as possible

so as not to alert the British.

But when dawn broke
on June 17th, 1775,

the redoubt was only half-finished.

A 20-gun British Navy ship
opened fire on the hilltop.

A cannonball tore the head
off a private named Asa pollard.

To steady his men, Prescott leaped onto

the unfinished parapet and
bellowed at the warships,

"hit me if you can!"

British general howe was certain

that the hill would "easily be carried."

As soon as the
mid-afternoon tide came in,

howe would personally
accompany a large force

to the eastern tip of the
charlestown peninsula.

The British stepped up their cannonade,

the roar so loud it rattled
windows in brain tree,

10 miles away, where
Abigail Adams wondered

whether "the day... perhaps
the decisive day... is come,"

she wrote, "on which the
fate of america depends."

Prescott rushed to
strengthen his left flank,

ordering some of his men to dig a ditch

and form a 165-foot breastwork

and assigning others to strengthen

a rail-and-stone fence that
ran all the way down to the bluff

overlooking the mystic river beach.

Looking up at the American positions,

general howe believed
the hill could be taken

by what was called
a "turning" movement.

While one column assaulted
the redoubt from the left

and another, led by howe himself,

attacked the rail fence head-on,

a third would slip along the
undefended mystic river beach,

get behind the rebels, turn
their line, and destroy them.

Such attacks had worked well

against disciplined armies in Europe.

No one expects that a bunch of

country farmers with
muskets are going to hold off

a trained army who have orders

from an actual general in Boston.

There is a real disbelief that
a bunch of ragtag colonists

are going to manage to hold their own

against trained soldiers.

When the column on the
left neared charlestown

and came under fire from Americans

hidden in abandoned buildings,

British ships set the town ablaze

with incendiary shells.

Then, at around half past 3,

howe's redcoats started
up the right side of the hill.

Tall, fearsome grenadiers
formed the first rank;

behind them came the foot infantry.

But the men had to dismantle
wooden fences and stone walls

that blocked their climb.

Their uniforms were
woolen. The sun was hot.

And, like the anxious new
englanders waiting for them

on the hilltop, some
had never been in battle.

The notion that the British army

is this battle-tested,
experienced force, they're good.

There's no doubt about
it. Their officers are good.

They're very disciplined,
for the most part.

But they are as scared
and as new to this

as the Americans are.

As howe's force continued their ascent,

British light infantry on the far right

started their flanking maneuver
along the narrow beach,

bent on getting behind
the American defenses,

sure they could get there unopposed.

But colonel John
stark of New Hampshire

and 60 of his militiamen
were waiting for them.

He had seen that the beach
was open to a flanking attack

and directed his men
to build a barricade.

When the British got within range,

the patriots opened fire.

The light infantry disintegrated.

The New Hampshire men kept firing

until the stunned survivors

began to retreat toward their boats.

Behind them lay nearly
100 dead and wounded,

lying, stark recalled, "as
thick as sheep in a fold."

Meanwhile, at the top of breed's hill,

Prescott and his officers
reassured their men:

The redcoats could never reach them

if they held their fire till they came close.

90 yards out, a stone wall
stopped the grenadiers.

As they laid down their arms

and worked to tear apart the wall,

the patriots fired their muskets.

British officers urged their
men to keep advancing.

Instead, the soldiers
stayed where they were

and tried to shoot back.

The Americans had
cover. The British had none.

The redcoats broke and
retreated down the slope.

General howe let his lines regroup,

then ordered them back up the hill,

in hopes of driving
through the gap between

the breastwork and the rail fence.

He would go with them.

This time, the patriots behind the fence

waited till the grenadiers
got within 50 yards

before opening fire.

It was hard to miss.
Scores of British soldiers fell,

dead, dying, screaming in pain.

They deliberately target

the British officers and
they can recognize them

in part because they're
all wearing red coats, right,

but the officers are
wearing coats that are almost

vermillion in hue because they can afford

the more expensive dyes
that make those coats pop.

The British, frankly, think this is unfair.

Trying to target officers,

there's something unseemly about it.

But the Americans are not going to stop

throughout the whole war.

The Americans cheered,

hoping general howe had had enough.

Every one of his staff
officers is killed or wounded.

Howe will come back down
the hill, unharmed, remarkably.

But he's got blood all over his stockings

from the men who've been
shot on either side of him.

The teenage fifer John greenwood

had been away that day.

When he heard the guns,

he hurried back to rejoin his regiment.

Everything seemed to be

in the greatest terror and confusion.

I felt very much frightened
and would have given the world

if I had not enlisted for a soldier.

Then, I saw a negro man,

wounded in the back of his neck.

I saw the wound very plain

and the blood running down his back.

I asked him if it hurt him much

as he did not seem to mind it.

He said no, and that he
was only a-going to get

a plaster put on it and meant to return.

Immediately, you cannot conceive
what encouragement it gave me.

I began to feel from that
moment brave and like a soldier.

John greenwood.

From the Boston
waterfront, townspeople,

including John
greenwood's brother Isaac,

watched as British soldiers

rowed wounded
regulars from charlestown.

They were "obliged," he said,

"to bail the blood out like water."

And when they started back
toward charlestown again

with fresh troops, "the
soldiers," Isaac remembered,

"looked as pale as death
when they got into the boats,

"for they could plainly
see their brother redcoats

mowed down like grass."

At the bottom of breed's hill,
general howe was determined

to come at the
Americans one more time.

Up above, colonel
Prescott knew his men had

little powder left and
that many of their muskets

were fouled from so much firing.

This time, in order to
make each shot count,

he insisted his men wait until

their targets were within 30 yards.

"As fast as the front man was shot down,

the next stepped forward into his place,"

one militiaman recalled.

"It was surprising how
they would step over

their dead as though they
had been logs of wood."

"We fired till our
ammunition began to fail,"

another militiaman remembered,

"then our firing began to slacken...

and at last it went out like an old candle."

British marines with bayonets

began climbing over the parapets.

Some Americans hurled rocks

or swung their muskets like clubs.

Others clawed their way
out of the redoubt and ran.

It was all over in a matter of minutes.

The patriots had been
driven from breed's hill.

115 Americans had been
killed and another 305 wounded.

The British succeed in that they drive

the Americans off of the
charlestown peninsula.

They take breed's hill.
They take bunker hill.

But it has been a, a pyrrhic
victory of the first order.

It's 4 of the most awful hours of combat

in American military history.

There are 1,000 British
casualties that day.

There are 220-some British dead.

40% of the attacking
force was killed or injured.

40%.

That's horrendously high casualty rate.

It is the highest casualty
rate for the British army

until the first day of the somme in 1916.

It is unbelievably bloody.

And that has a really profound impact.

"The loss we have sustained,"

general Gage admitted, "is
greater than we can bear."

During the final struggle,

two prominent men had been killed.

As major John pitcairn
encouraged his British marines

to climb over the walls,

he'd been shot through the chest

and fell, dying, into the arms of his son.

He was so hated by new englanders

because he had led the
British troops at Lexington green

that at least 4 different men
would subsequently claim

to have fired the fatal shot.

Dr. Joseph Warren, the president

of the Massachusetts
provincial congress,

whom the British considered
the most "incendiary"

of all the rebel leaders,

had insisted on joining the
men defending breed's hill

and was shot in the head.

The British officer in
charge of the burial detail

boasted that they had
"stuffed the scoundrel

"with another rebel into one hole

and there he and his seditious
principles may remain."

Saturday gave us a dreadful specimen

of the horrors of civil war.

You may easily judge
what distress we were in

to see and hear englishmen
destroying one another.

God Grant the blood
already spilt may suffice.

But this we cannot reasonably expect.

Reverend Andrew eliot.

When the news of the
battle... remembered as

the battle of bunker hill...

eventually made its way to
London, the king proclaimed

"the deluded people" of
america were in a state

of "open and avowed rebellion."

Anyone who now aided
their cause was a traitor.

General Gage had been right...
the rebellion would never be

crushed without overwhelming force.

But Gage was soon called home,
replaced as commander-in-chief

by general William howe.

For almost 3 years, howe
would lead the struggle

to try to put down the rebellion...

and carefully avoid ordering
any more frontal assaults

against entrenched Americans.

Britain, at the expense of

3 millions, has killed 150
Americans this campaign,

which is 20,000 pounds a head.

And at bunker's hill, she
gained a mile of ground.

During the same time, 60,000 children

have been born in america.

From these data, calculate
the time and expense

necessary to kill us all,

and conquer our whole territory.

Benjamin Franklin.

Unhappy it is to reflect

that a brother's sword
has been sheathed

in a brother's breast,

and that the once happy
and peaceful plains of america

are either to be drenched with
blood or inhabited by slaves.

Sad alternative!

But can a virtuous man
hesitate in his choice?

George Washington.

On July 2nd, 1775,
private Phineas Ingalls

of and over, Massachusetts,
noted in his diary

that it "rained" and that

"a new general from Philadelphia"

had arrived in Cambridge.

That new general was
George Washington of Virginia,

the commander of the continental army

the congress in
Philadelphia had just created.

His arrival meant that the
new England war in which

Phineas Ingalls and his
fellow militiamen had joined

was about to become an American war.

Washington is a figure toward whom

people naturally turn for leadership.

It is clear, by the time
the continental army

is signed into being in
the late spring of 1775,

that its commander-in-chief
can be nobody else.

There's something about his presence

that makes him the inescapable choice.

The second continental congress

had been meeting since may,

and it was obvious from the first

that 43-year-old George Washington

would command its new army.

He had led troops during
the French and Indian war,

and he was from Virginia,

the wealthiest and
most populated colony.

New England delegates, eager to ensure

that colony's support for the war,

favored naming a virginian.

Washington was also one
of america's richest men,

the beneficiary of the work of
scores of indentured servants

and more than 100 enslaved
people at his plantation

on the potomac river... mount Vernon.

They grew tobacco and
wheat, corn and flax and hemp,

milled flour, distilled whiskey,

caught, salted, and sold fish.

And to the west, he had amassed

tens of thousands of
acres of Indian lands.

Washington has this vision of the future

in which... America's
future is not to the east,

not towards Europe.

It's to the west.

He does see the future
and the next century

as something in which
we should focus on

the consolidation of the continent.

What defines his early career

is an amazing focus, a
ruthless and intense focus,

on his own interests,
which makes him exactly like

every other member of his class.

It's just that he became
George Washington.

Washington considered
outward evidence

of ambition unseemly,

but his appearance alone made
him stand out in Philadelphia.

"He was about 6'3"
when the average height

of the men he would lead
into battle was around 5'7",

and he alone among the delegates

appeared each day dressed as a soldier.

Washington will remain, I
think, endlessly fascinating.

Partly because he was so mysterious,

so reserved in his manner, frequently,

and didn't give up a lot of
what was going on in his gut.

He was naturally a person

who created space around himself,

and pity anybody that enters
that space that's not invited.

Martha gets into that space.

Lafayette gets into that space.

Maybe Hamilton gets into that space.

He has so much martial dignity

in his deportment that
you would distinguish him

to be a general and a soldier
from among 10,000 people.

There is not a king in
Europe that would not look like

a "valet de chambre" by his side.

Benjamin rush.

He's got a brain built for executive action.

He's willing to take responsibility.

He's got an adhesive memory.

He is, according to Thomas Jefferson,

the greatest horseman of his age.

He's built to lead other
men in the dark of night,

which is a rare and valuable
trait in any commander.

I am now embarked

on a tempestuous ocean,
from whence, perhaps,

no friendly harbor is to be found.

Washington accepted
that he and his army

would be subordinate to the
civilian control of congress,

but he did not yet see
himself as a revolutionary.

He still hoped to lead what
he called "a loyal protest,"

as if George III might
somehow overrule parliament

and restore the rights of British colonists.

On his way to Cambridge,
he met a dispatch rider

who carried a letter that
told of the terrible bloodletting

that had taken place on breed's hill.

He shows up in Cambridge
in early July, 1775,

as a virginian commanding,

almost exclusively,
new England militiamen.

He doesn't know what to make of them;

they don't know quite
what to make of him.

He has nothing good to say
about new englanders, privately.

They're almost from different countries.

But his job is to take this gaggle,

this cluster of militia forces,

and to form them into a national army.

Washington thought
he'd be commanding

a 20,000-man force;

in fact, he had fewer than
14,000 men fit for service.

He was assured he would have
15 tons of precious gunpowder;

there were just 5.

On August 6th, a company
of 96 riflemen from Virginia

arrived, concrete
evidence that Americans

beyond new England
would volunteer to fight.

They had marched nearly
500 miles in 3 weeks.

Their leader was captain Daniel Morgan,

a big, brawling one-time
wagoner whose back bore the scars

of a lashing he'd received
during the French and Indian war

after he'd knocked unconscious

a British officer who had insulted him.

More riflemen soon followed,
from Pennsylvania and Maryland

as well as more virginians.

Their rifles were far more
accurate than the smooth-bore

muskets most patriots used;

their grooved barrels spun a ball,

making it fly straighter and truer.

A British soldier would
call them "the most fatal

widow-and-orphan makers in the world."

But the riflemen were also frontiersmen.

They sounded different
from new englanders,

dressed differently,
disliked discipline of any kind.

So what's going to
come out of this revolution

is attempts to create an
American national identity.

And somebody like George
Washington becomes

quite eloquent in trying
to persuade people,

"you're not carolinians,"
"you're not new yorkers,"

"you're not new englanders."
"We're all Americans."

Always at Washington's side,

throughout the revolution,
was William Lee,

the enslaved servant he had

brought with him from mount Vernon.

I think we have to
understand Washington

as both the figurehead without whom

American Liberty
would not have survived.

At the same time, he's an enslaver of

317 men, women, and children.

He acted as an enslaver in
the ways that enslavers did.

He bought and sold people.

He broke up families.

Do not look for gilded
statues of marble men.

They were not that and neither are we

and neither is anybody at all.

Washington was impatient,
eager to get at the enemy.

In September, he proposed mounting

a water-borne attack on Boston.

His officers talked him out of it.

Washington has got a lot to learn.

Because he's been out
of uniform for 16 years,

there's a lot he does not know.

He knows very little about artillery.

He knows very little about fortification.

He knows nothing about
continental logistics.

So, he brings a stack of books with him.

Typically, Washington,

before he would make a big decision,

would canvass his major
generals as to what to do.

And inevitably, he would do

whatever Nathanael Greene suggested.

General Nathanael
Greene of Rhode Island,

a quaker who came to
see pacifism as impractical

in the face of what he called
"this business of necessity,"

hoped the British might make
a move so that the Americans,

he said, could "sell them another hill"

"at the same price" as they
had paid taking breed's hill.

But the British didn't
dare mount an attack

on Washington's forces, either.

The memory of the
last battle was too fresh.

The standoff would
continue for another 6 months.

In Boston, soldiers and
civilians alike suffered.

There was too little firewood:

Regulars ripped pews from churches

and demolished whole
houses trying to keep warm.

Of 40 transport vessels dispatched from

England and Ireland
to provision the town,

32 never made it... blown
off-course by unfavorable winds

all the way to the west
indies or seized by patriots.

What, in god's name, are
ye all about in England?

Have you forgot us?

For we have not had
a vessel for 3 months

with any sort of supplies.

And, therefore, our miseries
are become manifold.

British officer.

In 1770, I built a house, dam,

saw, and grist mills on the
west side of the Connecticut river.

Here I was in easy circumstances,

and as independent
as my mind ever wished.

John Peters.

Before the war,
Yale-educated John Peters

had been the most respected
man in the small settlement

of more town in Vermont, where he lived

with his wife Ann and their children.

In 1774, his neighbors had
picked him to represent them

in the first continental congress.

But when Peters got to Philadelphia

and sensed the other delegates

"meant to have a serious rebellion,"

he refused to take part and left for home.

On the way back, suspicious
patriots detained him 4 times...

in wet hers field, Hartford, Springfield,

and finally in more town itself,

where "another mob
threatened to execute him,"

he remembered, "as
an enemy to congress."

His own father, a colonel
in Connecticut's rebel militia,

urged his fellow patriots
to use "severity" on his son

to make him "a friend to america."

The mob again and again visited me.

They confined me to
the limits of the town

and threatened me with death

if I transgressed their orders.

Even then, Peters refused to betray

his "king and conscience."

Instead, he put his head down

and hoped to stay out of the fight.

I little thought the troubles would be

so great, or if they
did, would last so long.

I endeavored to be
quiet, but it would not do.

The madness of the
people was daily growing.

Lake champ la in is this
90-mile-long teardrop

that extends from the Canadian border

down almost to the Hudson river.

If you controlled lake
champ la in, you controlled

the most obvious entry point
into New York from the north,

and into Canada from the south.

Everything else is wilderness.

The Americans saw an opportunity.

If they could take Montreal,
if they could take Quebec,

and have command of the St. Lawrence,

they would have the British
right where they wanted them.

In the late summer of 1775,

some 1,200 New York
and new England troops

assembled on the ile aux noix,

just inside the province of Quebec.

Their commander Richard
Montgomery had orders

from the continental congress
to "take immediate possession"

of the British Garrison at Montreal

and then keep moving north.

The ultimate goal was
to eliminate the province

as a military threat and perhaps adopt it

as the 14th American colony.

They did not expect much opposition:

There were just 700 British
regulars in the whole province.

Now George Washington called
for a complementary expedition

through the forests of the
Maine province of Massachusetts

to surprise and capture Quebec city

on the St. Lawrence river.

To lead it, Washington
chose Benedict Arnold.

Benedict Arnold is the finest

tactical commander on either side

in the first couple of years of the war.

He's conspicuously gifted in
being able to motivate men,

tactically, under difficult circumstances,

to do what he wants them to do.

Arnold had emerged from the capture of

fort ticonderoga with a mixed reputation:

He had quarreled with rival officers

and become so incensed at
having his expenses questioned

that he simply left the
militia and went home.

But after his wife died, he left his 3 sons

with his sister and joined
Washington's continental army.

"An idle life under my
present circumstances,"

he told a friend, "would
be but a lingering death."

Quebec, Washington
believed, was certain to be

"very easy prey."

But "not a moment's time
is to be lost," he added.

The Americans were not hostile

to the concept of empire.

On the contrary, they
were great enthusiasts for it.

They called it the "continental army"

and the "continental
congress" for a good reason.

They had ambitions to
incorporate Canada, Florida,

and the whole of the
continent of North America.

On September 25th, from a boatyard

on the kennebec river in Maine,

Benedict Arnold and his 1,100-man force

set out for Canada.

Failure to punish the people

of the 4 new England governments

for their many rebellious
and piratical acts,

only encouraged them
to go to greater lengths.

I determined to destroy some
of their towns and shipping.

Vice admiral Samuel graves.

In October, vice admiral Samuel graves,

commander-in-chief of his majesty's

north American station,

announced he planned
to lay waste to the ports

of marble head, Salem,
cape Ann, Ipswich,

new bury port, Portsmouth,
saco, falmouth, machias.

All of them were bases
from which privateers...

patriot raiders...
menaced British shipping.

Graves dispatched lieutenant
Henry mowat and 4 warships

to carry out his orders.

Mowat began with falmouth...
now Portland, Maine.

Mowat gave the nearly
2,000 townspeople

two hours, he said, to "remove
without delay the human species"

before the bombardment began,

then agreed to reconsider
provided the townspeople

turned over all their arms and gunpowder

by the following morning.

When they didn't,
British ships opened fire.

The cannonade went
on for more than 7 hours,

firing more than 3,000 rounds of shot

and hollow balls filled
with combustible material.

In mid-afternoon, landing
parties rowed ashore.

They hurled torches into
the doors and windows

of homes and shops.

News of falmouth's
destruction spread fast.

Ports up and down the coast
braced for the next attack.

Washington and congress
had both already begun

arming ships to seize enemy
cargoes to supply the army.

Now congress voted to
commission 13 frigates

for a new continental Navy.

To have a Navy in the late 18th century

was to have a fleet of
ships that were the most

sophisticated machines
in the world at that time.

They were very expensive.
And they required all sorts of

economic power and
technology to create.

Great Britain had that.
The colonies really didn't.

And, so, to go against
this huge naval power

was kind of an insane
task to even contemplate.

The most successful patriot commander

was John manley, a sea
captain from marble head.

He managed to seize 7 British vessels

before the end of the year,

including an ordnance ship, its hold filled

with 100,000 flints, 2,000 muskets,

and 30,000 cannonballs...

all of it badly needed
by the continental army.

British admiral graves
ultimately decided against

attacking any more ports.

But the damage was done.

The savage and brutal
barbarity of our enemies

is a full demonstration that there is not

the least remains of virtue,

wisdom, or humanity in the British.

Therefore, we expect soon to break off

all kind of connection with britain,

and form into a grand republic
of the American united colonies.

"The new England chronicle."

In every human breast,

god has implanted a principle,
which we call love of freedom.

It is impatient of oppression,
and pants for deliverance.

I will assert, that the
same principle lives in us.

Phillis wheatley.

George Washington made his

Cambridge headquarters
in the handsome home

of a loyalist who had fled to England.

One morning, not long
after he had moved in,

he noticed a 6-year-old African-American

named darby vassall
swinging on the gate.

Vassall remembered saying
he had been born in the house

and his parents had worked there.

Washington urged him to come inside

and get something to eat;

he had plenty of chores for him to do.

When darby asked what
sort of wages he could expect,

Washington thought
the question impertinent

and "unreasonable."

Darby vassall lived to be a very old man

and, when asked, he liked
to say that in his experience,

George Washington
"was no gentleman,"

since he'd expected
a boy to work for free.

Washington was also
shocked to see black soldiers

encamped alongside
their white neighbors.

Unconvinced they could
ever make good soldiers,

Washington persuaded the
Massachusetts provincial congress

to enlist no more of them,

though dozens had fought on breed's hill.

I think that Washington was concerned

about what it might mean
for slavery and slave holding.

I think he was alert to the ways

that it could end up
eroding the institution.

Enslaved African-Americans constituted

just 2% percent of the
population of new England,

but 40% of virginians
were held as slaves,

and planters like Washington
lived in constant fear

that they would rise up against them...

as enslaved people had risen up

on the British island of Jamaica

3 times in the last 15 years.

When you make men slaves

you deprive them of half their virtue,

and compel them to live
with you in a state of war.

Are there no dangers
attending this mode of treatment?

Are you not hourly in
dread of an insurrection?

Olaudah equiano.

The growing talk of "Liberty"

had appealed to those
who had the least of it

and craved it most.

From new England to south
Carolina, enslaved people

offered to help the British if
they were granted freedom.

In November of 1775,
Virginia's royal governor

lord dunmore, who
had been forced to flee

with some 300 soldiers,
sailors, and loyalists

to ships anchored in
the chesapeake bay,

issued a proclamation
that seemed to confirm

the slaveholders' worst nightmares.

It promised freedom to any
enslaved man owned by a rebel

who was willing to take up arms

and help suppress the uprising.

Britain is the biggest
slave-trading nation on earth.

Nevertheless, the British
believe that if they can

convince enough slaves
to abandon their masters

in the south, to take up arms against

the American rebels, that
this is a manpower pool

that can also derange the economies

of the southern states.

It's not that the British are anti-slavery,

by any means, in the 1770s, right?

Their colonies in the Caribbean

are their most profitable
colonies in the Americas.

They are firmly committed to slavery.

But, opportunistically,
when they think that they can

encourage slaves to rise
up against rebelling colonists,

they'll do so.

For enslaved people,

this was a way of
getting out of a situation

that seemed intractable.

And it gave them an impetus
to get involved in all of this.

In the sort of chaos of war,
they found an opportunity,

a way to escape their situation.

"The Virginia gazette."

Be not then, ye negroes,

tempted by this proclamation
to ruin yourselves.

Whether you will profit
by my advice, I cannot tell.

But this I know, that
whether we suffer or not,

if you desert us, you most certainly will.

Dunmore's proclamation helped drive

southern slaveholders to
the side of the revolutionaries.

Edward Rutledge of south
Carolina spoke for many:

Lord dunmore's proclamation
tends "in my judgment",

"more effectually to
work an eternal separation

"between Great Britain and the colonies

than any other expedient."

Dunmore says that he only wants

the slaves of rebels to join him.

Not clear exactly how
you can tell them apart,

or whether there's any
kind of census going on

of who do you belong to.

Dunmore was not an abolitionist;

he did not free any of
the 57 human beings

he held in slavery himself;

the patriots would capture them all

and sell them to fund their cause.

Wednesday.

Last night after going to
bed, Moses, my son's man,

Joe, Billy, postillion, John,

mulatto Peter, Tom, panticore,

Manuel, and Lancaster Sam
all ran away to lord dunmore.

Landon Carter.

Now runaways streamed
to the governor's ships,

silently slipping along
the rivers and tidal creeks

that opened into the chesapeake bay.

87 men, women, and children

from a single Virginia
plantation fled to dunmore.

Ran off last night from the subscriber:

A negro man named Charles,

who is a very shrewd, sensible fellow,

and can both read and write.

There is reason to believe
he intends an attempt

to get to lord dunmore.

His elopement was from
no cause of complaint,

or dread of whipping

but from a determined resolution
to get Liberty, as he conceived.

"The Virginia gazette."

"There is not a man among them,"

George Washington's
farm manager warned him,

"but would leave us if they believed

"they could make their escape.

Liberty is sweet."

He was right.

The first enslaved person
to escape mount Vernon

was named Harry Washington.

Born somewhere near The
Gambia river in west Africa,

he was captured,
carried across the ocean,

and, in 1763, purchased
by George Washington.

Freedom was never far from his mind.

In 1771, he had tried to escape

but was caught and brought back.

4 years later, he saw his chance.

Following lord dunmore's proclamation,

Harry Washington knew that
this would be an opportunity,

and he joined the British

against the people who
had once owned him.

George Washington called lord dunmore

a "monster," and an "arch-traitor

to the rights of humanity."

If that man is not crushed

before spring, he will become

the most formidable enemy america has.

His strength will increase, as a snowball,

by rolling, and faster.

Nothing less than
depriving him of life or Liberty

will secure peace to Virginia.

George Washington.

Scores of runaways were
caught and brutally punished;

some were killed, others sold off

to compensate their enslavers.

But some 800 men would make
it to dunmore's growing fleet,

along with roughly the same
number of women and children.

Men found fit for duty were
enlisted in a special unit

called "dunmore's Ethiopian regiment."

They were commanded by
white officers but paid a wage

for the first time in their lives.

The proclamation has
had a wonderful effect.

The negroes are flocking
in from all quarters.

And had I but a few more men here,

I would march
immediately to williamsburg,

by which I should soon compel
the whole colony to submit.

Lord dunmore.

Bolstered by reinforcements,

dunmore occupied Norfolk
and ordered a stockade built

at the great bridge
over the Elizabeth river

to block the only road
to town from the south.

Some 700 patriots
dug in across the river,

and on December 9, 1775,

when dunmore's troops
charged across the bridge

to dislodge them,

more than 100 of his men,
black and white, were killed.

"They fought, bled, and
died like englishmen,"

one man remembered.

Dunmore's makeshift
army... including what was left

of the Ethiopian
regiment... fled back to sea.

With them went scores
of loyalist families

from in and around Norfolk,

most of them dunmore's fellow Scots.

He now commanded a
floating city... including rafts

on which the poorest
struggled to survive.

Dunmore's proclamation

turns the conflict, in
Virginia, into a genuine crisis.

But it does help clarify differences, right?

It establishes that there
is one side of this conflict

that is unevenly committed to slavery.

And then there's another side, our side,

which is fully committed to it.

And for some patriots,
that's all they need to know.

It creates a sense that
this is an existential conflict

in a way that it had not before.

These lords of themselves,

these kings of me, these
demigods of independence.

It has been proposed that
the slaves should be set free,

an act which, surely, the lovers of Liberty

cannot but commend.

How is it that we hear
the loudest yelps for Liberty

among the drivers of negroes?

Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Connecticut wants no
Massachusetts man in her corps;

Massachusetts thinks there is
no necessity for a Rhode islander

to be introduced into hers.

Could I have foreseen what I have,

and am like to experience,
no consideration upon earth

should have induced me
to accept this command.

Now George Washington faced

for the first time the problem

that would haunt him again and again:

When enlistments expired
at the end of the year,

most of his army was
simply going to melt away.

To fill out his ranks,
Washington persuaded

the governors of Massachusetts
and New Hampshire

to send him a total of 5,000 militiamen.

The newcomers were so sullen,
veteran soldiers called them

the "long-faced people."

Washington asked
congress if Indian units

could serve in his army.

While they debated the issue,

many native people did join the ranks.

5 sons of a mohegan woman
named Rebecca Tanner

would die fighting for the patriots

over the course of the war.

In December, Washington
changed his mind

about enlisting African-Americans.

His desperate need
for men was part of it.

But there were also appeals
from black veterans themselves

or from their officers.

"It has been represented
to me," Washington wrote

to the continental congress,
"that the free negroes who have

"served in this army are
very much dissatisfied

at being discarded."

They could now re-enlist.

Washington brings to Cambridge

the "hard no" of a Virginia planter.

But he is also willing to revise himself.

To think about the whole
of the potential fighting force

and whether black men
can play a role within it.

I think many people, most
people from his station,

would have started where he started

and have gone no further.

So, I think he does
have a sort of flexibility

as a commander, which is the only thing

that the commander of an
insurrectionary force can have.

Though the decision
remained unpopular,

by the end of the war, some
5,000 African-Americans

had served in the continental army.

A lot of these decisions
about who to fight for,

who to align with, are
deeply, deeply local.

They're not necessarily
about high ideals at all, right?

So, when people think
there's an opportunity

with the British, they may align with

and run off to British lines.

But when the patriot
army kind of opens its ranks

to black people, there
are lots of black people

who think they can gain
advantage, concession,

and even, one day, some
status from fighting for the patriots.

It's not a question of
who the good guys are

and who the bad guys are.

It's what can I get from
making this decision,

right now, in this place, at
this time, among these people.

Washington's new army... an ill-assorted

mix of soldiers who'd
decided to stay on, raw recruits,

and short-term militiamen...
now numbered around 8,000 men.

But only 2/3 were fit for duty.

Those men were still
cold, still poorly armed,

still poorly paid... but also still able

to keep the British trapped in Boston.

It is not in the pages of history

perhaps to furnish a case like ours.

To maintain a post within
musket shot of the enemy

for 6 months together, without powder,

and at the same time to disband
one army and recruit another,

within that distance of
20-odd British regiments,

is more than probably
ever was attempted.

At the most moderate computation,

this rebellion will cost Great Britain

10 millions of treasure and 20,000 lives.

What then, in the name of wonder,

is the object of the war?

Are we to throw away so
much treasure and so many lives

to gain a point which, when gained,

is not worth 1% on our money?

The "public advertiser."

In the British parliament, there are

debates taking place.

There are people lining up on one side

who say, "you know,
we ought to actually."

"Grant the colonies more autonomy.

"We ought to loosen the strictures

"that we've placed on them.

"We ought to think about ways

that they might be represented."

The war in North America

was not universally popular in England.

The colonies were 3,000 miles away.

The theater of war would be far larger

than any the British army
had ever encountered before.

It was sure to be costly and bloody

and likely to be prolonged.

The army chief and England's

most distinguished naval commander

would both refuse to take part in the war.

The lord mayor and
aldermen of the city of London

appealed to the king to reconsider.

It was far better to give the Americans

their "rights and liberties," they said,

than impose "the dreadful
operations of your armaments."

But the new secretary
of state for america,

lord George germain,

remained determined
to crush the rebellion...

and to do it with a
single, all-out campaign.

If the war dragged on,
king George himself feared

that britain's old catholic
enemies, France and Spain,

might be persuaded to
support the rebel cause.

The rebellious war now levied

is become more
general, and is manifestly

carried on for the purpose of establishing

an independent empire.

The object is too important,

the spirit of the British nation too high,

the resources with which god
hath blessed her too numerous,

to give up so many colonies

which she has planted
with great industry,

nursed with great tenderness,
and protected and defended

at much expense of blood and treasure.

King George was not an ogre.

He was not a tyrant.

Contrary to the stereotype that
most Americans have of him,

he's actually a pretty extraordinary man.

He was a very great
constitutional monarch.

In fact, in 1775, he declares,

"I'm fighting the war of the legislature."

In other words, he's
fighting for parliament's rights

over the American colonies.

Not his own rights, parliament's rights.

But once the war starts, he sees himself

as the commander-in-chief
with a responsibility to make sure

the war is run efficiently and effectively.

The British Navy was
the largest on earth,

but the all-volunteer British
army numbered fewer than

50,000 officers and men on paper.

And it was still smaller in reality,

just 1/3 of the size of the French army,

and scattered across the
world from Ireland to India,

the mediterranean to the Caribbean.

"Unless it rains men in red
coats," one official warned,

"I know not where we are
to get all we shall want."

The British should have recognized that

this was going to be extremely difficult

and perhaps unwinnable conflict.

They were confident of two things.

They had invincible military power.

And, therefore, there was no
need for them to compromise.

And secondly, that any
compromise of sovereignty,

of parliament's sovereignty,
was going to encourage

independence on the
part of the Americans.

They had a kind of "domino" theory:

If we lose American
colonies, then we lose Canada,

then we lose the Caribbean.

So that George III and
his ministers really believe

that nothing less than the
future of the British empire

is at stake.

Our commander, Arnold,
was of a remarkable character.

Brave and beloved by the soldiery,

he possessed great
powers of persuasion.

Private John Joseph Henry.

Benedict Arnold and his men had made

slow progress on their
way up the kennebec river

as part of the American
invasion of Canada.

Their provisions had been
packed into 220 flat-bottomed

"bateaux," built for them at
George Washington's orders.

All Arnold knew about the forests

his men were about to penetrate

came from a crude
15-year-old British map

that seemed to suggest
Quebec city was 180 miles away

and could be reached in just 20 days.

The real distance turned
out to be 270 miles.

Nothing could have
prepared Arnold for the ordeal

he and his men were about to endure.

The kennebec turned
out to be punctuated

by waterfalls and rapids.

Submerged rocks tore
the bottoms of their boats.

Within 72 hours, 1/4 of their provisions

were lost or ruined.

In the mornings, wet
clothes were glazed with ice,

one man wrote, thick as a pane of glass.

On the 10th day, Arnold began
rationing the remaining food...

just salt pork and flour.

It snowed on the 19th day

and rained relentlessly
for days afterwards.

Then, it snowed again.

America is this huge continent.

There's tornadoes, there's hurricanes,

there's winter storms.

Turns of weather that we know
are coming for weeks on end

hit the people of the 18th century

completely by surprise.

They're not just fighting each other.

In a profound way, they are fighting

the American climate and
geography and topography.

This is a difficult place to conduct a war.

After a month of hardship,

the officer leading the
battalion that had been

bringing up the rear
declared the mission suicidal,

turned his 300 men around,

and started for home with
many of the remaining provisions.

Arnold's men were now
forced to subsist on candles,

tree bark, and soup
made by boiling rawhide.

One company killed and ate

their captain's new found land dog.

Of the 1,100 men who
set out from Cambridge,

more than 1/3 had turned back,
been escorted home as invalids,

or died along the way.

Finally, 45 days after
setting off... not 20...

Arnold's men saw the spires
and walls of Quebec city

looming across the St. Lawrence river.

No one, particularly the British,

can believe that suddenly they are there.

Arnold, because of this,
would have a reputation now.

He would be known as
the "American Hannibal"

for his ability to move
men over mountains,

to achieve seemingly impossible things.

Meanwhile, American forces led by

general Montgomery
had easily taken Montreal.

Then, with 300 of his men,

Montgomery set out
along the St. Lawrence

to meet up with Arnold.

Together, they planned
their assault on Quebec city.

They realize that they've
got a hard decision to make.

We either attack now, or many
of our men are going to leave.

Their enlistments are up. They're cold.

It's mid-winter in Canada.

There were only some
300 British regulars

stationed in the fortified city.

So, general guy car let on,
the royal governor of Canada,

ordered every able-bodied
man within its walls

to prepare for battle.

Anyone who refused had to
leave or be prosecuted as a spy.

The city's ramparts were soon
guarded by some 1,800 men.

The American plan
called for two small, noisy

diversionary feints to
draw defenders away

from the attack's real targets.

Meanwhile, Arnold and
his men would circle around

Quebec city from the north,

while general Montgomery
would approach from the south.

Together, they would storm
the citadel's steep walls.

Dear father, if you receive

this letter, it will be the last

this hand will ever write you.

Heaven only knows what will be my fate.

But whatever it may be, I cannot resist

the inclination I feel to
assure you that in this cause

I feel no reluctance to venture a life,

which I consider as only lent to be used

when my country demands it.

Your very affectionate
son, John MacPherson.

The storm was outrageous.

Covering the locks of our
guns with the lapels of our coats

and holding down our
heads... We ran in single file.

John Joseph Henry.

The Americans launched their attack

at 4 in the morning on
December 31st, 1775,

under the cover of a howling blizzard.

Many men had pinned
to their hats slips of paper

with the words, "Liberty or death."

Everything went wrong.

The diversionary attacks fooled no one.

Arnold's men came under merciless fire

from the ramparts above...
and the enemy had placed

formidable barricades in their way.

When a ricocheting bullet
fragment tore through.

Arnold's left leg, he had
to be carried back to camp.

Captain Daniel Morgan
of Virginia took over.

He managed to lead his
men past one barricade

only to be blocked by another.

He tried 4 times to scale
it, then decided to wait

for Montgomery and
his men to break through.

But Montgomery never made it.

Within moments of
making his way into the city,

he, John MacPherson,
and 11 others were killed.

The enemy, having the advantage

of the ground in front, a
vast superiority of numbers,

and dry and better arms,

gave them an irresistible power.

About 9:00 A.M., it
was apparent to all of us

that we must surrender.

John Joseph Henry.

30 Americans lay dead.

389 were taken prisoner,
including Daniel Morgan.

Arnold, though badly
wounded, was not captured

and vowed to try to take the city again

before it could be reinforced.

I have no thoughts of leaving

this proud town, until I
first enter it in triumph.

Providence which has carried
me through so many dangers,

is still my protection.

Benedict Arnold.

I am more and more convinced

that man is a dangerous creature,

and that power, whether
vested in many or a few,

is ever grasping, and like
the grave cries give, give.

You tell me of degrees
of perfection to which

humane nature is capable
of arriving, and I believe it,

but at the same time lament
that our admiration should arise

from the scarcity of the instances.

When I consider these
things, I feel anxious for the fate

of our monarchy, or democracy,
or whatever is to take place.

Abigail Adams.

On new year's day,
1776, George Washington

ordered a new "continental union" flag

raised atop prospect hill
overlooking occupied Boston.

The British union Jack still filled

its upper left-hand corner.

But its 13 red and white stripes, he said,

were intended as a "compliment
to the united colonies."

With the exception of the city of Boston,

patriots now controlled
each of the 13 colonies.

Several other royal
governors had, like dunmore,

fled to ships offshore.

But people within the colonies
remained deeply divided.

Some of the free population
favored independence.

Others were appalled at the thought of

breaking with the king.

Abandoning britain, one virginian wrote,

would "dissolve the bands
of religion, of oaths, of laws",

"of language, of blood,
which hold us united

under the influence
of the common parent."

Still others remained "disaffected,"

favoring neither side,
hoping somehow to carry on

with their lives while
their fellow-Americans...

suspicious of their
neutrality... fought things out.

But events were changing minds.

What happened in the run-up

to all of this gave people a sense

that they might be able
to make it on their own.

They were different from
the people in Great Britain.

They realized that
they were moving apart.

If we must erect an independent
government in america,

a republic will produce
strength, hardiness, activity,

courage, fortitude, and enterprise.

But there is so much rascality, so much

venality and corruption, so
much avarice and ambition,

such a rage for profit and commerce

among all ranks and degrees
of men, even in america,

that I sometimes doubt whether
there is public virtue enough

to support a republic.

John Adams.

The leaders of the American revolution

need popular support.

The leaders of the American revolution

are going to have to make promises

that there's going to be
greater social mobility;

there's going to be greater
respect for common people;

there is going to be
broader political participation

in the future than there
has been in the colonial past

by loosening up structures of authority,

including structures of religious authority.

If you're making this
revolution and you need

the support of thousands of
common people, men and women,

what's in it for them?

Up to the 18th century,
people assumed that

everything will always remain the same.

But the idea that you could take charge

and change your culture,

that's what... that's
the fundamental basis

of the enlightenment,
that man can be changed.

The sun never shined on
a cause of greater worth.

'Tis not the affair of a city, a country,

a province, or a kingdom,
but of a continent.

Everything that is right or
natural pleads for separation.

Every spot of the old world
is overrun with oppression.

Freedom hath been
hunted round the globe.

O! Receive the fugitive,
and prepare in time

an asylum for mankind.

We have it in our power to
begin the world over again.

A situation similar to the
present hath not happened

since the days of Noah until now.

The birthday of a new world is at hand.

Thomas paine.

On January 9th, 1776,
a slender pamphlet titled

"common sense" was
published in Philadelphia...

the most important
pamphlet in American history.

It was signed simply "an englishman."

Its author, a recent
newcomer to america,

was 38-year-old Thomas paine.

The son of a quaker
corset-maker and his anglican wife,

paine had failed at
his father's profession,

lost his first wife and
their child in childbirth,

been fired from his post as tax collector,

endured the collapse of a
second childless marriage,

and had seen his possessions
auctioned off to pay his debts.

During his 8-week voyage from britain,

he'd contracted typhus, and
when his ship reached Philadelphia,

he had to be carried off, half-dead.

But paine was a master with words,

skillfully weaving the latest
enlightenment philosophy

with biblical references
that everyone knew.

And he was a violent foe
of aristocracy and monarchy.

It's a much more radical document

than anything that had preceded it.

"Common sense" takes off

like an accelerant through the colonies.

Everyone reads it.

Excerpts from "common
sense" appeared

in newspapers throughout the colonies.

The pamphlet would sell
tens of thousands of copies.

It is an unprecedented bestseller.

With the exception of
the Bible in the colonies,

no book has been read as
widely as "common sense" is.

It was a wholesale attack

on the entire world of
britain, political, cultural.

And it's in slam-bang prose.

No American pamphleteer
wrote that kind of

really tough extreme language.

It just made people listen

and made people think at
a time when the congress

would never have thought of
attacking the king, personally,

king George III, the "crown of England."

They were always like,
"he's not really getting it.

"It's parliament that's our problem.

The king needs to help us."

He just called the king a "beast," in print.

He was the working-class intellectual.

His politics were radically
Democratic, in many ways.

And that made him different
from the other famous founders.

Hereditary succession

is an insult and an
imposition on posterity.

For all men being originally
equals, no one by birth

could have a right to
set up his own family

in perpetual preference
to all others forever.

One of the strongest natural proofs

of the folly of hereditary right in kings

is that nature disapproves it,

otherwise she would not so
frequently turn it into ridicule

by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Thomas paine.

That pamphlet did stir people's minds

about the possibility of
a different kind of world.

"Common sense" struck a string

which required a touch to make it vibrate.

The country was ripe for
independence, and only needed

somebody to tell the people so.

Private ashbel green.

Some of the founders, and others,

thought this is the moment
we can start over again.

We can actually begin the world anew.

And it must have been, you
know, wildly exciting at the time.

And I think it still excites us, that we are

the product of a revolutionary moment

where the world turned upside down.

My countrymen will come

reluctantly into the idea of independency.

I find "common sense" is
working a wonderful change

in the minds of many men.

George Washington.

Not all minds were changed.

Hannah griffitts, the Philadelphia poet

who in 1768 had urged American women

to boycott British goods, was horrified.

The idea that to reform the empire

by not buying tea or imported cloth

would lead to this crazy
question of independence

was an impossible thing
for her to countenance.

Paine is where a lot of people
get on the revolutionary road.

It's where she gets off.

For some Americans,
"common sense" confirmed

their worst fears.

Vermont loyalist John Peters,
who continued to receive

death threats from his patriot neighbors,

had reached a breaking point.

Often mobbed and once imprisoned

by the malcontents, I quitted

my family, property, and offices,

and fled to Canada, to
avoid personal danger

and to support the British
cause against its enemies.

The want of guns is so great

that no trouble or expense
must be spared to obtain them.

Washington has got Boston surrounded.

The problem is, he doesn't
have the big guns necessary

to make the British in
Boston really feel threatened.

He's got some artillery, but not enough.

They tend to be smaller field guns.

He knows that at ticonderoga,

which is several hundred miles away,

there are more than 80 British
guns that have been captured by

Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen.

And he tells Henry
Knox, "go to ticonderoga,

bring back whatever you can."

Henry Knox was a big,
amiable, 25-year-old

Boston bookseller who
had learned all he knew

about artillery and military engineering

from volumes he'd stocked in his shop

and from his service
in the Boston militia.

He'd earned Washington's
admiration for overseeing

the construction of
fortifications at roxbury.

Washington, who's got a very good eye

for subordinate talent,
recognizes that this guy,

he doesn't even have
a uniform at the time,

has something about him that
Washington finds appealing,

and the potential that
Henry Knox evinces

is something that Washington
recognizes immediately.

Before setting out, Knox wrote a letter

to his pregnant wife
Lucy, who had fled Boston,

leaving her loyalist
parents and siblings behind.

Keep up your spirits, my dear girl,

and don't be alarmed when
I tell you that the general

has ordered me to go to the westward

as far as ticonderoga.

Don't be afraid, there
is no fighting in the case.

I am going upon business only.

Henry Knox.

Knox made his way to the captured forts

and found 55 guns worth transporting...

39 field pieces, 14
mortars, and two howitzers...

all weighing more than 64 tons.

Knox's task was somehow to move them

300 miles down into the Hudson valley,

across the berkshires,
and all the way to Boston.

He had horses and ox
teams haul the guns overland

to the northern end of lake George.

From there, a small
fleet of barges and boats

ferried them more than 30
miles against howling winds

to fort George at the southern end.

I have made 42 exceeding strong sleds

and have provided 80 yoke of oxen

to drag them as far as Springfield,

where I shall get fresh
cattle to carry them to camp.

We shall have a fine fall of snow,

which will make the carriage easy.

Henry Knox.

The snow for which Knox hoped

proved unpredictable,
sometimes too light

for his sleds to glide over,

sometimes too heavy
for them to move at all.

Crossing the berkshires,
oxen hauled the Cannon

up and over mountains so
tall that from their summits,

Knox remembered, "we
might almost have seen

all the kingdoms of the earth."

Wherever they went,
farmers and townspeople

turned out to see them.

We reached west field, Massachusetts,

and found that very few, even
among the oldest inhabitants,

had ever seen a Cannon.

We were great gainers by this curiosity.

For while they were employed
in remarking upon our guns,

we were with equal pleasure
discussing the qualities

of their cider and whiskey.

John p. Becker.

As the ox train lumbered on,

Knox hurried ahead alone to Cambridge.

He reported to Washington
that over the next few weeks,

all the artillery he'd been promised

would be at his disposal.

When the last of Knox's Cannon
reached Washington's army,

England's hold on Boston was doomed.

It's one of the most
extraordinary expeditions

in American military history.

He appears back in Cambridge,
says, "boss, I'm here."

"I've brought back 50 guns.

"They're parked right outside of town.

They're available
whenever you need them."

Washington says, "you're my man."

And he puts Knox in
charge of continental artillery.

On the night of march 4th, 1776,

some 3,000 men and 300 teams

worked to put 20 or more heavy guns

in place on Dorchester heights.

March 5th.

This morning at daybreak,
we discovered two redoubts

on the hills on Dorchester point,

and two smaller works on their flanks.

They were all raised during the night,

with an expedition
equal to that of the genie

belonging to Aladdin's wonderful lamp.

From these hills they
commanded the whole town,

so that we must drive
them from their post,

or desert the place.

Unwilling to sacrifice any more men,

general howe decided to leave Boston

for halifax in Nova Scotia,
where he hoped to regroup.

With him went 10,000
soldiers and their dependents

as well as 1,100 loyalist
men, women, and children

who would have to build
new lives in a new place.

Among them were Henry Knox's in-laws.

"I have lost," his wife Lucy wrote,

"my father, mother, brother, and sisters."

How horrid is this war?

Brother against brother and
the parent against the child.

Who were the first
promoters of it, I know not.

But god knows.

And I fear they will feel
the weight of his vengeance.

Tis pity, the little time we
have to spend in this world,

we cannot enjoy
ourselves and our friends,

but must be devising
means to destroy each other.

Lucy Knox.

With the evacuation of
Boston, no British Garrison

now remained anywhere
in the rebellious colonies.

I think it surprises everybody

that the patriots are
having some successes.

So much so that everyone's
convinced that it's either

the support of god or
the virtue of the cause

that is helping them win.

One of their favorite metaphors
is the battle of Jericho.

They're sure that all it takes

is for this army that has right on its side

to show up and blow a trumpet,

and the walls are just going to fall down.

Some Americans
believed the war was over.

The Massachusetts legislature
thanked George Washington

for his service and wished him

"peace and satisfaction
of mind" in his retirement.

But Washington knew better.

He informed congress that he would

"immediately repair to New York,
with the remainder of the army."

He was sure that howe's
next move would be to attack

that strategically important port.

By mid-April, 1776,
he and his wife Martha,

and several members of their household,

were in residence there.

Meanwhile, congress sent
a Connecticut businessman

named Silas deane to Paris

to secretly buy munitions and supplies...

and to look into the possibility

of forging an alliance with France.

Two questions, really,
conjoin at this point.

One question is, if we're going to

make ourselves independent,

if we're going to
somehow create a nation,

which is a truly novel
and destabilizing concept,

how are we going to do
that? We have absolutely

no means with which to do so.

So, we will have to enlist
the aid of a foreign power.

And then comes the
question of a declaration.

And the question is,
which needs to happen first.

Independence is the only bond

that can tie and keep us together.

Every day convinces us of its necessity.

Instead of gazing at each other

with suspicious or doubtful curiosity,

let each of us hold out to his neighbor

the hearty hand of friendship.

And let no other name be
heard among us, than those of

a good citizen; An
open and resolute friend;

and a virtuous supporter
of the rights of mankind,

and of the free and
independent states of america.

Thomas paine.

Language cannot describe,

nor imagination paint,
the scenes of misery

the soldiery endure,

continually groaning and
calling for relief, but in vain.

The most shocking of all spectacles

was to see a large barn crowded
full of men with this disorder,

many of which could
not see, speak, or walk.

Dr. Lewis beebe.

That spring, colonists on both sides

of the fighting were
ravaged by a common enemy:

"Variola major"... smallpox.

Highly infectious, the virus had scarred,

blinded, or killed hundreds
of thousands in North America

over the past 2 1/2 centuries.

The American revolution coincided

with a continent-wide epidemic
that would last for 7 years

and take some 100,000
more lives... black, white,

as well as native American.

When armies are
marching back and forth,

this is prime environment
for the spread of diseases.

And one of the largest,

or at least best documented,
smallpox epidemics,

and it may be epidemics, plural,

happens at the time of
the American revolution.

Smallpox was the dread
disease of humanity.

There were just two
weapons against smallpox:

Isolating its victims to keep
them from infecting others

or inoculating the still
unaffected by deliberately

implanting live virus into an incision

in hopes that the
infection they contracted

would neither prove
fatal nor infect anyone else

before it conferred immunity.

George Washington
knew the disease firsthand;

he'd been permanently
scarred by it as a young man.

But he initially rejected
inoculation for his soldiers:

If he imposed it
universally, his whole army

would have been
incapacitated for weeks;

if he employed it piecemeal

and just one still-infectious
inoculated soldier

was released too early,

he might infect his whole company.

Instead, anyone showing
smallpox symptoms

was isolated in a special hospital

with guards posted to keep visitors out.

Meanwhile, aboard lord dunmore's

floating city in the chesapeake bay,

the men of his Ethiopian
regiment and their families,

packed together on
small, segregated vessels,

were without immunity
and not inoculated

until the disease was
already raging among them.

So was typhus.

The fever has proved
a very malignant one

and has carried off an incredible number

of our people, especially the blacks.

Had it not been for this horrid disorder,

I am satisfied I should
have had 2,000 blacks

with whom I should have had no doubt

of penetrating into
the heart of this colony.

Lord dunmore.

In late may, dunmore
moved his ramshackle fleet

north to Gwynn's island,
lured there by the presence

of some 400 cows with which he hoped

to help feed his followers.

But smallpox and typhus came with him.

Runaways continued to
find their way to dunmore,

6 or 8 a day... and died almost as fast.

Eventually, under fire from

Virginia militiamen onshore,

dunmore and his fleet would be forced

to sail away from the island.

They left behind hundreds

of sick African-American
men, women, and children.

A virginian who reached
the island a day or two later

never forgot what he saw.

On our arrival, we
were struck with horror

at the number of dead bodies,

in a state of putrefaction,

without a shovelful of earth upon them;

others gasping for life;

and some had crawled
to the water's edge,

who could only make known
their distress by beckoning to us.

Such a scene of cruelty
my eyes never beheld;

for which the authors never
can make atonement in this world.

Dunmore's experiment in emancipation

had ended in disaster.

But over the 7 years
of fighting that followed,

tens of thousands of enslaved people

would flee to the British,

believing that the king's representatives

were more likely than the revolutionaries

to fulfill their hopes for Liberty.

Opting for freedom is a gamble.

And it makes people
take all kinds of risks.

The notion that you
would be in a situation

where your children, and
your children's children,

and your children's children's
children would be enslaved,

I can understand wanting
to risk death to prevent that.

That same spring, smallpox would end

the American dream of
capturing Canada, as well.

For more than 4 months,

Benedict Arnold, now
promoted to general,

had continued to blockade Quebec city,

hoping he could mount a
successful second assault

before spring
temperatures thawed the ice

blocking the St. Lawrence,

and the British could
land reinforcements.

But by may, nearly
half of those Americans

who remained were sick.

Then, royal Navy warships
and transports arrived,

filled with thousands of fresh troops...

and thousands more were on the way.

The Americans took flight.

British forces, led by
general guy car let on

and general John
burgoyne, pursued them...

soon supported by
native American allies.

For us, my people living
on the St. Lawrence,

the British rallied us and said,

"we've got Americans invading.

They're going to kill all of you."

We sent 100 of our
warriors to help the British

drive the Americans
out of the Montreal area.

One by one, the Americans
abandoned their outposts.

Reinforcements added to their numbers,

but 3/4 of the newcomers
had no immunity to smallpox.

The road ran alongside

of the river opposite the city of Montreal,

and we could plainly see the red-coated

British soldiers on the other shore.

So close were they upon
us that if we had not retreated

as we did, all would have been prisoners,

for they were in
numbers as 6-to-our-one,

and we, moreover, nearly half-dead

with sickness and
fatigue and lack of clothing.

John greenwood.

The young fifer John greenwood

was among those reinforcements

when Arnold ordered his
men to abandon Montreal.

Nearly 2,000 fell ill.

Eventually they
crowded onto ile aux noix,

waiting their turn to be
ferried south on lake champ la in

to crown point and ticonderoga.

20 to 60 men fell ill every
day, and 15 to 20 died.

Two great pits were dug

in which the dead were
heaped each evening,

one man recalled,

"with no other covering but
the rags in which they died."

By the end of June, 10 months

after the American
invasion of Canada began,

it was over.

12,000 Americans had taken part.

Some 5,000 of them had been killed,

wounded, taken prisoner,
died of disease, or deserted.

The survivors were now encamped

back on the shores of lake champ la in

where the campaign had started.

Our army at crown point is
an object of wretchedness

to fill a human mind with horror.

Our misfortunes in Canada are enough

to melt a heart of stone.

The smallpox is 10 times more terrible

than britons, Canadians,
and Indians together.

John Adams.

"Our affairs are hastening to a crisis,"

John Hancock, the president
of the continental congress.

Warned, "and the
approaching campaign"

"will in all probability

determine forever the fate of america."

France had by now quietly pledged

to provide some arms and money...

but open support would
require the congress

to cut all ties to britain.

"Every day," John
Adams wrote to a friend,

independence "rolls in
upon us like a torrent."

On may 15th, congress
called upon all 13 colonies

to form their own governments.

By adopting new
constitutions, the colonies would

turn themselves into sovereign states.

The next day, delegates
learned that the British,

desperate and without European allies,

had hired thousands of foreign troops

to help crush the rebellion.

Some German princes had
agreed to provide them... for a price.

Most came from hessen-kassel
and hessen-hanau,

so the Americans would
call them all "hessians."

"O britons," one Rhode
islander lamented,

"how art you fallen
that you hire foreigners

to cut your children's throats."

The British nation have proceeded

to the last extremity.

And we should expect a
severe trial this summer,

with britons, hessians, Indians, negroes,

and every other butcher
the gracious king of britain

can hire against us.

Josiah bartlett, New Hampshire.

The Americans are using

the British government's decision

to hire foreign soldiers

in the war against British subjects,

if they look at this as a
civil war to some extent.

They're using this as a tool

to rile up resistance against britain,

to mobilize men to, basically,

take up arms against these invaders,

and ultimately to support independence.

On June 7th, Richard
Henry Lee of Virginia

introduced resolutions
in congress declaring that

"these united colonies are & of right

"ought to be free & independent states

absolved from all allegiance
to the British crown."

Meanwhile, a letter to a
Pennsylvania newspaper

signed only "republicus"

declared that it was time
for independent Americans

"to call themselves by some name"...

and proposed the
"United States of America."

A 5-man committee was
named to produce a document

setting forth the reasons for making

such a momentous decision.

33-year-old Thomas Jefferson of Virginia

was assigned to write the first draft.

He would draw from
Aristotle, Cicero, John Locke,

and the Virginia declaration of rights,

written by his friend George Mason.

But his goal, he said,
was to distill what he called

"an expression of the American mind."

He worked in a rented
room on market street,

fueled by cups of tea brought to him

by his 14-year-old
valet, Robert hemings...

the son of an enslaved
servant, Elizabeth hemings,

and Jefferson's father-in-law.

When in the course of human events,

it becomes necessary for one people

to dissolve the political bands

which have connected
them with another,

and to assume among
the powers of the earth

the separate and equal station

to which the laws of nature

and of nature's god entitle them,

a decent respect to
the opinions of mankind

requires that they
should declare the causes

which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal;

that they are endowed by their creator

with certain inalienable rights;

that among these are life, Liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness.

Everything that we believe in

comes out of the revolution.

Our ideas of Liberty, equality,

it's the defining event of our history.

"All men are created equal."

That is the most famous
and important phrase

in our history.

If we don't celebrate it, we have

no reason to be a people.

And Lincoln knew that.

And that's why he says,
"all honor to Jefferson."

Thomas Jefferson was
proposing something

altogether new and radical in the world.

It was the American
people's "right," he argued,

it was "their duty"... to "throw off" tyranny

and learn to govern themselves.

That to secure these rights,

governments are instituted among men,

deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed,

that whenever any form of government

becomes destructive of these ends,

it is the right of the people
to alter or to abolish it,

and to institute new government,

laying its foundation on such principles

and organizing its powers in such form,

as to them shall seem most likely

to effect their safety and happiness.

Since no one had
authority over anyone else

by birthright, Jefferson was affirming

that all legitimate power came
from the people themselves...

even if he, the owner of
hundreds of human beings,

could never make that
truth a reality in his own life.

His relationship to
slavery is foundational.

From the beginning to
the end, this institution

bounded his life, even
though he knew it was wrong.

How could you know
something is wrong and still do it?

Well, that is the human
question for all of us.

The declaration of independence,

we remember it, primarily,
from its opening preamble,

the most famous
sentences in our history,

quoted ever since as a mandate

for expanding Liberty for other people.

But most of the document
is something else.

It is a list of crimes allegedly
committed by the king.

That means that when the patriot leaders

decide that they want independence,

then they must persuade
their people in the colonies,

now states, that the king
has forfeited his just authority.

The purpose of the
declaration of independence

is to declare the king
is no longer sovereign.

Throughout history, most
people had been subjects,

living under authoritarian rule.

"All experience hath
shewn," Jefferson wrote,

"that mankind are
more disposed to suffer,

while evils are suffer able."

George III himself, not the
parliament, was now the enemy.

The declaration denounced him

as "unfit to be the ruler of a free people,"

guilty of 18 "injuries and usurpations,"

all meant to establish, it
read, "absolute tyranny."

It charged that he had invaded
"the rights of the people,"

sent "swarms of
officers to harass" them,

imposed a standing army in peacetime,

levied taxes without
the colonists' consent,

and was now waging war against them.

Dunmore's proclamation
had deepened fears

of slave uprisings,

and reports that the governor of Canada

had enlisted native people
to resist the invasion there

further inflamed congress.

In the 18th and final
charge against the king,

Jefferson did all he
could to exploit their fury.

He has excited domestic
insurrections amongst us

and has endeavored to bring on

the inhabitants of our frontiers,

the merciless Indian savages,

whose known rule of warfare

is an undistinguished destruction

of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

Proclaiming the equality of "all men"

was a genuinely revolutionary idea,

but that equality was not yet
extended to native Americans,

enslaved or free blacks,
the poor, or any woman.

Jefferson's original list of
"injuries" had also included

the charge that George III
was somehow responsible

for the Atlantic slave trade.

He called it "cruel war
against human nature itself."

The other delegates
refused to adopt that charge.

The declaration of
independence was formally

ratified on July 4th, 1776...

just 1,337 words that
ended with the phrase,

"we mutually pledge to each other

our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor."

When Rhode Island
delegate Stephen Hopkins,

who had palsy, signed the document,

he is said to have remarked,

"my hand trembles,
but my heart does not."

It was first read aloud
to a cheering crowd

in the state house yard
at Philadelphia on July 8th.

It was soon published in 29 newspapers,

and greeted by parades and
celebratory volleys of gunfire

throughout the newly United States.

Boston, Massachusetts...

when colonel crafts
read the proclamation,

great attention was given to every word,

and every face appeared joyful.

The king's arms were taken
down from the state house

and every vestige of
him from every place

in which it appeared
and burned in king street.

Thus ends royal authority in this state,

and all the people shall say, "amen."

Abigail Adams.

On July 9th, in New York,

general Washington ordered
the declaration read to his troops.

Hearing the list of
George III's alleged crimes

so angered the men
that a number of them

raced down Broadway to bowling green,

tied ropes to the statue of the king,

and pulled it to the ground.

Pieces of the shattered statue
were dispatched by wagon

to litchfield, Connecticut,
where patriots melted

the gilded lead into
bullets... 42,088 of them.

Far to the north at fort ticonderoga,

the battered survivors of
the failed invasion of Canada

were assembled so that the declaration

could be read to them.

When it was over, an eyewitness said,

"the language of every
man's countenance was,

"now we are a people;

we have a name among
the states of the world."

Among those who heard the declaration

read at ticonderoga was
private lemuel haynes,

a free African-American
from granville, Massachusetts.

He understood right
away what it might mean

for people like him... and
wrote an essay entitled:

"Liberty further extended."

Liberty is a Jewel which
was handed down to man

from the cabinet of heaven.

It hath pleased god to
make "of one blood all nations

of men for to dwell upon
the face of the earth."

And as all are of one
species, therefore, we may

reasonably conclude that
Liberty is equally as precious

to a black man as it is to a white one,

and bondage equally as intolerable

to the one as it is to the other.

The declaration of independence

was deeply significant
to people at the margins.

It gave them a space of moral argument.

It gave them a space of legal argument

that could be leveraged to
reshape United States democracy

and become a part of it.

And we are going to
push every lever we had

to be able to make this democracy real,

and to make these visions, these values,

real rather than hypocritical.

London, "the gentleman's magazine."

The American declaration
reflects no honor

upon either the erudition
or honesty of its authors.

"We hold," they say, "these
truths to be self-evident.

That all men are created equal"?

Every plowman knows that
they are not created equal.

It certainly is no reason
why the Americans

should turn rebels.

King George was
determined that the Americans

not be permitted to break away.

He believes, and his
senior ministers believe,

that this slippery slope of
an American insurrection

will only lead to

the dissolution of the British empire.

The sun never sets
on the British empire.

That phrase was coined in 1773.

And George is determined
it's never going to set

as long as he is the monarch.

And the king had sent a great fleet

to New York... with thousands of troops...

to prevent that from ever happening.

Next time on "the American
revolution"... New York.

Washington makes a
number of tactical mistakes,

none more serious than at long island.

Women continue to be at
the heart of the resistance.

If our men are all drawn off

and we should be attacked,

you would find a race
of Amazons in america.

And the reality of war.

The United States came out of violence.

When "the American
revolution" continues next time.

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The American revolution caused

an impact felt around the world.

The fight would take
ingenuity, determination,

and hope for a new tomorrow
to turn the tide of history

and set the American story in motion.

What would you like the power to do?

Bank of america.

Major funding for "the
American revolution"

was provided by the better angels society

and its members Jeannie
and Jonathan lavine

with the crimson lion foundation

and the blavatnik family foundation.

Major funding was also
provided by David m. Rubenstein,

the Robert d. And Patricia
e. Kern family foundation,

the Lilly endowment,

and by better angels society members:

Eric and Wendy schmidt,
Stephen a. Schwarzman,

and Kenneth c. Griffin
with Griffin catalyst.

Additional support was provided by

the Arthur vining Davis foundations,

the pew charitable trusts,

Gilbert s. Omenn and Martha a. Darling,

the park foundation,

and by better angels society members:

Gilchrist and Amy berg,
Perry and Donna golkin,

the michelson foundation,
Jacqueline b. Mars,

the kissick family foundation,
Diane and hal brierley,

John h.N. Fisher and Jennifer Caldwell,

John and Catherine debs,

the fuller ton family charitable fund,

and these additional members.

"The American revolution"

was made possible with support

from the corporation
for public broadcasting,

and viewers like you. Thank you.