All language subtitles for The.American.Revolution.2025.S01E04.1080p.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
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Stephen a. Schwarzman,

and Kenneth c. Griffin
with Griffin catalyst.

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the pew charitable trusts,

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and by better angels society members:

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Jacqueline b. Mars,

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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.

Mankind have ever been so prone

to yield implicit
obedience to that authority

to which they have
long been accustomed

that there are few
examples of resistance,

unless the wanton abuse of
power has rendered it necessary.

When this is the case,

the feelings of the man
and the patriot are awakened,

and both the peasant and
the statesman are urged

to struggle even in blood.

No suffering which britain can inflict

will reduce america to submission.

The thunder of their artillery
may lay waste the cities,

but the spirit of the
people is unconquerable.

Mercy Otis Warren.

We think about the kind of anti colonial,

insurgent uprisings,

independence movements
of the 20th century,

and think of those as being
sort of the third world fighting back

against the sort of
imperial colonial powers.

You don't always recognize the fact

that the United States
actually started that.

England is the natural enemy of France.

She is an enemy at
once grasping, ambitious,

unjust, and perfidious.

The invariable and
most cherished purpose

in her politics has been, if
not the destruction of France,

at least her overthrow and her ruin.

Charles gravier, comte de vergennes.

The comte de vergennes,
the French foreign minister,

was determined to avenge
his country's humiliating defeat

in the seven years' war.

He had already persuaded Louis xvi

to open French ports
to American merchants

for the selling of American goods

and the buying of French ones,

and even to provide some funds

with which the Americans could
purchase guns and ammunition,

provided they did so in secret.

The French needed to
reorganize their army.

They were reforming their Navy.

So they did start to send
clandestine weapons,

they started to send money,
they started to send uniforms

to the "insurgents" in america

because they didn't want
to have an open warfare

against the British at the time, yet.

At the end of 1776, the
continental congress had sent

70-year-old Benjamin Franklin,

the most widely admired
American on earth,

to try to talk France into
providing much more help.

Franklin understood that the Americans

could not compete with
the British army and Navy

unless France entered the war,

and that the French would not dare do so

unless the Americans
showed that they could win.

The last time he had
heard from america,

prospects did not look bright.

The "declaration of independence"

had proved American seriousness,

but the invasion of
Canada had been a disaster,

and British forces had defeated
Washington on long island,

then driven him out of New York City.

After a secret meeting
with vergennes in Paris

in January of 1777,

Franklin promised that if
France and its ally Spain

were to join the Americans,
britain would be reduced

to a state of "weakness and humiliation."

But continuing reports
of American defeats

were not encouraging,

and vergennes refused to meet again.

He also feared that the
thirteen former colonies

would never come together as a nation.

Publicly, Franklin remained optimistic,

but privately, he was anxious
for better news from home

that might persuade the French
to join the American revolution.

Those who live under arbitrary power

do nevertheless approve
of Liberty and wish for it.

'Tis a common observation
here that our cause is

the cause of all mankind,

and that we are fighting for their Liberty

in defending our own.

Though Benjamin
Franklin did not yet know it,

George Washington's
army had stunned the British

and lifted patriot spirits

by taking the Garrison
at Trenton, New Jersey,

on the day after Christmas 1776.

Though the rebels seem to be ignorant

of the precision, order,
and even of the principles

by which large bodies are moved,

they possess some of the requisites

for making good troops,

such as extreme cunning, great industry,

and a spirit of enterprise
upon any advantage.

Though it was once
the fashion of this army

to treat them in the
most contemptible light,

they are now become a formidable army.

Lieutenant William Harcourt.

But now the British
were on the move again.

General William howe sent
general Charles cornwallis

and some 9,000 redcoats and hessians

to recapture Trenton

and trap the rebel army
against the Delaware river.

Washington decided to
fight rather than retreat.

To do otherwise, he said,

would be to destroy the "dawn of hope."

On January 2, 1777,

he posted 1,000 men along
the road from Princeton,

a college town twelve miles away,

with orders to slow
cornwallis' column until evening.

The patriots contested
every inch of ground

as they fell back through Trenton

to join most of Washington's army

arrayed on the south side
of the as sun pink creek.

At dusk, when the advance
guard of cornwallis' column

started across the lone stone
bridge over the as sun pink,

American artillery opened up on them

with what Henry Knox proudly
called "great vociferation."

Three times, the redcoats
tried to cross the bridge.

Three times, American
fire hurled them back.

Perhaps one hundred Americans
would be killed or wounded

before darkness fell,

but the British lost three times as many.

Cornwallis called a halt.

His forces still
outnumbered Washington's,

and the creek was fordable upstream.

"We'll go over," cornwallis
reportedly told his commanders,

"and bag him in the morning."

Washington ordered a small detachment

to stay on their hillside that night,

tending campfires and
banging entrenching tools

to make the enemy
believe they were digging in.

Meanwhile, the rest of his
army would slip silently away,

following unguarded back
roads to get behind cornwallis

and attack his rear guard at Princeton.

At dawn, two British
regiments on their way

to reinforce cornwallis saw Americans

marching toward them.

The British "were as much astonished,"

patriot general Henry Knox
would write to his wife Lucy,

"as if an army had dropped
perpendicularly upon them."

The British fired their Cannon,

then charged with fixed bayonets.

The American commander,
general Hugh Mercer's, horse

was shot out from under him.

He fought with his
sword as long as he could

before being mortally
wounded by British bayonets.

His men began to fall back.

Washington once again
galloped to the front,

ignoring the bullets flying all about him,

exhorting his men to stand and fight.

One of his aides covered his eyes,

fearful of seeing his
commander shot from his saddle.

He's really lucky.

Bullets are going all around him,

everybody else is dying,
he's never scratched.

He assumes he's
never going to be killed.

Now, there's probably a lot of
people in war that assume that

and they get killed.

And we never hear about them.

He doesn't believe in god
in the total Christian sense,

but he believes in Providence.

Providence. He really
thinks the gods, or god,

is on our side and his side.

Washington's men held.

Veteran continentals joined them.

Now it was the
Americans' turn to charge.

"I never saw men" look
"so furious as they did,"

one remembered.

The fate of this extensive continent

seemed suspended by a single thread.

But happy for us,
happy for unborn millions,

that we had a general who
knew how to take advantage,

and by a masterful maneuver

frustrated the designs of the enemy.

Lieutenant Samuel Shaw.

George Washington
was no military colossus.

He was no Frederick
the great or Napoleon.

His natural instincts, I think,

were to preserve the Americans intact

so they could fight another day.

But this caution

was occasionally
complemented by boldness.

For the most part, Washington
saw his primary task

as holding the continental army together,

because it represented the rebellion.

Without the continental army,
there would be no United States.

Seventy Americans had
been killed or wounded

in the battle of Princeton,

but the enemy had lost another 450...

killed, wounded, or captured.

By the time cornwallis realized

Washington had fooled him at
as sun pink creek that morning,

it had been too late to catch him.

And when he and the rest of his army

reached Princeton that evening,

Washington and his
army had vanished again.

Everyone was so frightened
that it was completely forgotten

even to obtain information about
where the Americans had gone.

But the enemy now had
wings, and, it was believed,

had flown to the
mountains of morristown.

Captain Johann ewald.

Morristown, New Jersey, a tiny village

in the heart of the thickly
forested watchung mountains,

would be Washington's
winter headquarters

for the next five months.

It was out of reach of the British Navy

but well suited for raiding British outposts

and for keeping an eye out

for a British advance from New York.

Most of the troops who had
offered to stay after Trenton

went home as soon as
their reenlistment was up.

By the end of January,

Washington had fewer than
3,000 continentals in his camp.

But encouraged by patriot victories

at Trenton and Princeton

and angered by the
excesses of British occupation,

New Jersey militiamen
now rallied to him.

They are actuated by resentment now.

And resentment
coinciding with principle is

a very powerful motive.

John Adams.

Whenever British foraging parties

ventured from their outposts,
patriots attacked them...

At maidenhead and quibbletown,
bound brook and Drake's farm,

piscataway and English neighborhood,

and at least 50 other places.

That winter, more British
and hessian troops were killed

fighting over forage
than would fall in battle.

The British lost men who
were not easily replaced.

The rebel loss was soon repaired

by drafts from the militia.

It inured them to hardships,
and it emboldened them

to look a British or a
hessian soldier in the eye,

whose very face would
make a hundred of them run

after the battle of Brooklyn.

Justice Thomas Jones.

And now New Jersey
loyalists found themselves

the targets of vengeful patriots.

At morristown, patriots
hanged two loyalist officers,

and got 33 of their men to
enlist in the continental army

by threatening to hang them, too.

General howe's hope
of pacifying the state

had brought civil war instead.

If one thinks of this as a British empire

and British subjects,

who are contending for their rights, right,

then it's a civil war.

Then it's family against family,

sometimes brother against brother.

It's hard to tell who the good guys are

and who the bad guys are.

This is a predicament
that is incredibly fraught

and incredibly difficult
for people to sort out.

This inability to really figure out

who is the enemy here is a problem.

They're marching
through the countryside,

and they don't know.

"This farm, is this
farm... are these loyalists?

"Are there rebels in there?

Are they going to shoot
at us out of the window,"

which does happen.

Who do you trust?

The frequent attacks forced the British

to abandon most of
their New Jersey outposts.

Winter would end in
frustration and failure.

The next will be a trying campaign.

And as all that is dear and valuable

may depend upon the issue of it,

let us have a respectable army,

such as will be competent
to every exigency.

George Washington.

Spring was coming.

Armies would soon
be again on the move.

And Washington wanted to be ready

for whatever the British
were planning next.

Congress had come
back to Philadelphia,

but while they were in exile in Baltimore,

it had become clear

that expecting delegates
to make instant decisions

about the battlefield was impractical.

They had voted to
Grant general Washington

total control over his army
for a period of six months

and authorized him
to imprison without trial

suspected loyalists or anyone
who refused to supply his army.

Some delegates had feared
that affording Washington

such powers would make him a dictator,

betraying the principles

for which they were
supposed to be fighting.

General Nathanael Greene
sought to reassure them.

I can see no evil nor danger

to the states in delegating
such powers to the general.

There was never a man who
might seem more safely trusted,

nor a time when there was a louder call.

Most of Washington's
new recruits signed on

for three years and a ten-dollar bonus,

but those who signed up
for the duration of the war

were promised a twenty-dollar bonus,

and 100 "free" acres of Indian
land when the war was over.

When we think about what was offered

to the continental soldier,

Indian land at the end of it all...

that land hasn't been
taken, ceded, bought.

That land is still Indian land, right?

It tells you that the entire
revolution is premised

on the future possibility.

These soldiers were different

from the men who had rallied
after Lexington and Concord.

Most of them had been
farmers and artisans,

propertied men with taxes
to pay, creditors to appease,

crops to sow and harvest.

From now on, the continental army

would be made up predominantly
of the poorest of the poor...

jobless laborers and landless tenants,

second and third sons
without hope of an inheritance,

debtors and British deserters,

indentured servants and apprentices,

felons hoping to win
pardons for their service,

immigrants from Ireland,
and immigrants from Germany,

or their descendants who
had never learned English.

John Adams had worried
that only "the meanest, idlest",

"most intemperate and
worthless men" in america

could ever be persuaded
to serve more than a year.

But victory would be
impossible without them.

When patriotic speeches and free rum

failed to attract enough recruits,

some states instituted drafts.

Names were drawn from a
hat. Married men were exempted.

Propertied draftees
wanting to avoid service

could hire substitutes
at fees to be negotiated

with their replacements.

Epping, New Hampshire,

managed to avoid sending
any of its men to war

by paying men from
neighboring villages to go.

South Carolina advertised

for "vagrants and idle
disorderly persons."

Thousands of African
Americans, enslaved and free,

served alongside whites
in units from new England

all the way south to Georgia.

Some volunteered, some were drafted.

Many stood in for
their gun-shy enslavers.

Connecticut and Rhode
Island would later promise

enslaved recruits their
freedom when the war ended.

From 1777 onward,
the American revolution,

begun in part to defend the
interests of property-owners,

would be fought

mostly by men who owned
little or no property at all.

Montreal.

Two deserters from the
rebel country informed me

that my property had been seized,

and that my wife and the children

had been turned out of my house

and sent off through
the woods, snowstorms,

and bad roads.

John Peters.

To escape persecution
and fight for his king,

the Vermont loyalist John
Peters had fled to Canada in 1776,

leaving behind his wife
Ann and their six children.

After his defection,
patriots seized his home

and evicted his family.

Carrying their infant son,

Ann Peters managed to get everyone

all the way to lake champ la in,

where they were spotted by a British boat

and carried north to a
rendezvous with John.

They were "naked and dirty,"
he remembered, but safe.

In the weeks that followed,

John Peters began to
recruit American loyalists

for a new regiment...
the queen's loyal rangers.

He would command it, and his
now-15-year-old son, John Jr.,

would be among the first to sign up.

The smallpox has made

such headway in every
quarter that I find it impossible

to keep it from spreading
through the whole army.

As fresh recruits made their way

into the continental army camps,
some carried with them smallpox,

the scourge that had
threatened the army

from the beginning of the revolution.

Washington had always
resisted ordering inoculation,

because it took men
out of action for weeks.

But now he decided to run the risk.

I have determined

not only to inoculate
all the troops now here

that had not had smallpox

but shall order the doctors
to inoculate the recruits

as fast as they come in.

The British troops were
less vulnerable to smallpox

because they had
been exposed more to it

in Scotland and Ireland and England.

Washington made a decision that

to serve in the continental army,

you had to first undergo inoculation.

And that was probably

the single most important
military decision he made.

Private Joseph plumb Martin reenlisted

and received his inoculation that spring

along with 400 other
Connecticut recruits

at a continental army supply depot

at peek skill in the Hudson highlands.

He had been just 15

when he first joined
the Connecticut militia.

After enduring combat, cold, hunger,

and a bout of near-fatal illness,

Martin had decided he'd had enough

and left his militia regiment in December.

But life on his grandparents'
farm soon bored him,

and when local draftees thought
he might be talked into serving

in their place in the continental army,

they began bidding against one another.

I thought I might as well endeavor

to get as much for my skin as I could.

I forget the sum.

They were now freed
from any further trouble,

at least for the present,
but I was again a soldier.

By the middle of may,

Washington's force at
morristown had grown

to nearly 12,000 men.

There is a clock calm

at this time in the political
and military hemispheres.

The surface is smooth
and the air serene.

Not a breath, nor a wave.

No news, nor noise.

John Adams.

By what means, may I ask,

do you expect to conquer america?

If you could not effect it in the summer,

when our army was less than yours,

nor in the winter, when we had none,

how are you to do it?

You cannot be so insensible

as not to see that we have
two-to-one the advantage of you,

because we conquer by a
drawn game and you lose by it.

Thomas paine.

In London, lord George germain,

the secretary of state for america,

was embarrassed by how
long the war was taking

and concerned about growing
opposition to it in parliament.

Germain found the setbacks
at Trenton and Princeton

"extremely mortifying,"

thought sir guy carleton's failure

to capture fort ticonderoga the
previous Autumn inexcusable,

believed the howe brothers'
repeated offers of pardons

to rebels "sentimental,"

and insisted they instead
force Americans to undergo

what he called

"a lively experience of
losses and sufferings."

Running of the war largely comes down

to lord George germain,

who is coordinating and orchestrating

military operations from britain.

In logistical terms,

fighting a war 3,000 miles
from the home islands was

a major enterprise in
the days of sailing ships.

When the British government

gets information about what's
happening on the ground,

they're already weeks out of date.

And then they're issuing orders for things

that will happen two to
three months in the future.

You can think about what that means

for actually making decisions.

General John burgoyne, a
dashing favorite of the king,

had persuaded germain
to place him in charge

of an army in Canada,

promising to succeed in a
second invasion of the colonies,

where general car let on had failed.

I do not conceive any expedition

can be so formidable to the enemy

or so effectual to close the war

as an invasion from
Canada by ticonderoga.

Burgoyne proposed a
three-pronged attack.

He would lead an army
south to seize ticonderoga

and then move on to take Albany;

to the west, a smaller diversionary force

would advance via lake Ontario
and the mohawk river valley,

rallying support among Indians
and loyalists as they went;

finally, sir William howe
was to lead his army

up the Hudson from New York

to complete the juncture
of the three forces,

isolating new England.

General howe had other plans.

I am fully persuaded

the principal army should act offensively

to get possession of Philadelphia,

where the enemy's chief
strength will certainly be collected.

The rebels are at present buoyed up

by hopes of assistance from France.

If that door were shut by any means,

it would, in my opinion,
put a stop to the rebellion.

In 18th-century European wars,

the capture of an enemy's capital city

usually brought the war to a close.

Of course, america had no capital city

in the sense of Paris in
France or London in britain.

But it did have Philadelphia,

which was seen as the political
headquarters of the rebellion.

Howe became obsessed
with the capture of Philadelphia

and the defeat of Washington's army.

Because lord germain
had failed to reconcile

the two incompatible strategies,

his two commanders...
howe and burgoyne...

would plan two distinct campaigns

in which neither would support the other.

There would be no
rendezvous on the Hudson.

But burgoyne was so sure of success

that even before he set sail,

he had bet the opposition
leader in parliament

a size able sum that he
would "be home victorious"

"by Christmas day" 1777.

If the frenzy of hostility should remain,

the messengers of justice and of wrath

await them in the field,

and devastation, famine,
and every concomitant horror

that a reluctant but indispensable

prosecution of military
duty must occasion.

By the time he reached Quebec,

burgoyne had convinced himself

that thousands of native Americans

would join his army.

In fact, no more than 500
men answered his call...

mohawks, algonquins,
abenakis, and wyandots...

drawn from seven villages
along the St. Lawrence river.

They joined him for many reasons:

To seek the honors of war,

to receive British goods
in payment of their service,

and out of an eagerness
to settle old scores

with the hated people
they called bostonians.

The Hudson river valley,
the mohawk river valley,

the adirondack
mountains, lake champ la in,

and up to the St. Lawrence river valley,

that's been the battlefield

for the colonial powers for centuries.

And our people were swept up in it,

and a lot of what
happened had more to do

with what kings and queens
in Europe were deciding.

A major chess
tournament happened here,

and we were the pawns.

On June 20, 1777,

burgoyne's enormous army began
moving south on lake champ la in.

Scores of birch bark canoes

paddled by native Americans came first.

They were followed
by royal Navy warships

and 200 bateaux

carrying more than 6,500
British and German regulars,

loyalist troops, and
French-speaking Canadians,

along with a number of
children and hundreds of women.

Fort ticonderoga, on
the West Side of the lake,

was burgoyne's first target.

It was now linked by a floating bridge

to a separate hilltop
fortification on the east side

called mount independence.

Determined to take both outposts,

burgoyne sent forces down
each side of the lake by land.

He expected he would have
to mount a full-scale siege,

but a British officer quickly spotted

a fatal flaw in the rebel defenses.

About a mile southwest of ticonderoga

stood a hill that overlooked both forts.

It remained undefended.

If British guns could be
hauled to the high ground,

both fort ticonderoga
and mount independence

would be completely exposed.

When astonished
patriots spotted redcoats

peering down from the hill
on the afternoon of July 5th,

American general Arthur St. Clair

ordered both fortifications abandoned.

The next morning, British
troops raised the king's colors

above fort ticonderoga.

The Americans fled in two directions,

with burgoyne's men right behind them.

After hours of tramping in the heat,

those patriots heading
east called a temporary halt

at a tiny deserted frontier
settlement called hubbardton.

The morning after our retreat,

orders came very early
for the troops to refresh

and be ready for marching.

Some were eating, some were cooking,

and all in a very unfit posture for battle.

Then there was a cry:
"The enemy are upon us!"

Ebenezer Fletcher, 2nd New Hampshire.

Ebenezer Fletcher
was a sixteen-year-old

from new Ipswich, New Hampshire.

As the menacing line of
redcoats moved closer,

firing volleys as they came,

the 2nd New Hampshire fired
back and then began to seek cover.

Many of our party
retreated into the woods.

I made shelter for myself
and discharged my piece.

But before I had time to reload it,

I received a musket ball
in the small of my back

and fell with my gun cocked.

Elsewhere, the fighting intensified.

In the fierce combat that followed,

the Americans more than held their own

against some of britain's

best-trained professional soldiers.

In the end, the British
won, but they were too tired

to pursue the retreating Americans.

Though in great pain,

ebenezer Fletcher decided to escape;

he slipped away into the forest,

eluded hungry wolves
and bands of loyalists,

and eventually made it home
to new Ipswich, New Hampshire.

Once he healed, he
would return to serve out

his three-year enlistment
in the continental army.

It does me no injury for my neighbor

to say there are twenty gods or no god.

It neither picks my
pocket, nor breaks my leg.

Most of the revolutionaries

belonged to protestant denominations,

but there were catholics
and Jews among them, too,

as well as muslims,

whose faith had crossed
the Atlantic on slave ships.

Central to the philosophy

of some of the most influential
creators of the United States

was their belief in a supreme being

but one who did not
interfere in the affairs of men

or distinguish between faiths.

They were deists,

and they believed it was
each individual's responsibility

to lead a virtuous life, which
could only come from tolerance

the pursuit of happiness.

The revolutionaries believed

that the American people
would have to be educated.

Without education, there could
be no virtue in the populace,

and without virtue in the populace,

the government would fail.

Republics are based on authority
coming from the bottom up,

not like monarchies from the top down.

So you require an educated, virtuous...

they use that term over and over,

drawing it from antiquity...

virtuous population to sustain
a republican government.

Our sister states of Pennsylvania

and New York have long subsisted

without any established religion at all.

They have made the happy discovery

that the way to silence religious disputes

is to take no notice of them.

Let us, too, give this experiment fair play.

Thomas Jefferson.

To lord germain,

I have the honor to inform your lordship

that the enemy were
dislodged from ticonderoga

and mount independence,
and were driven,

on the same day, beyond
skenesborough on the right

and to hubbardton on the left.

General John burgoyne.

The armies had been
moving at a dizzying pace.

Burgoyne's forces had reached
skenesborough by July 9th,

but they had now outrun
their gigantic supply train.

Burgoyne decided to
send his guns by water,

south on lake George.

But his men were to march

through the woods to fort Edward

on the east bank of the
Hudson just 23 miles away.

General Philip schuyler,

commander of the continental
army's northern department,

sent axmen into the woods

to slow burgoyne's overland advance.

He would let the forest fight for him.

The narrow path between
skenesborough and fort Edward

ran along a twisting
stream called wood creek.

The Americans felled trees

every few feet on both sides of the road

so that their tangled branches
made the path impassable;

they also destroyed
some 40 crude Bridges

that crossed and recrossed the creek

and used boulders to flood the
boggy ground that surrounded it.

It would take burgoyne's
men three exhausting weeks

to turn the path into a road
their wagons could navigate.

And he was still a long way
from his main objective... Albany.

O the American war!

I heard, I saw, I felt,
smelled, and tasted its woes

for ninety-two long months:

Famines, sores,
sicknesses, plagues, battles;

houses ransacked and
burned; Towns depopulated;

gardens made graves.

Roger lamb.

Among the men in burgoyne's army was

Irish-born corporal Roger lamb,

who kept his memories alive
in watercolors and in print.

By now, 400 more native Americans

from the Great Lakes...

fox, me nominee, ojibwe,
potawatomi, sauk, and ho-chunk...

had joined burgoyne.

His Indian allies attacked
retreating patriot forces.

In one instance, they killed 22
men and scalped their corpses

to terrify those sent
out in search of them.

This strikes a panic in our men

which is not to be wondered at,

when we consider the hazards they run

by being fired at from quarters,

and the woods so thick

they can't see three yards before them,

and then to hear the cursed war whoop,

which makes the woods ring for miles.

General John glover.

Settlers were attacked, too,

with little regard for their loyalties.

A young woman named Jane mccrea,

on her way to meet her
loyalist fiancé, was killed.

And when her scalp was
brought into burgoyne's camp,

he threatened to hang the perpetrator.

We don't really know
much about Jane mccrea.

She seems to have
had reddish-brown hair

and been an average person.

But very quickly, Jane
mccrea becomes a blonde

and she has very long, beautiful hair.

And she's pure and fair.

And she's been plucked
out of life right in her prime.

It was just too captivating and tragic

and scary a thing.

That became part of the
propaganda aspect of the war.

It was used against us.

What happens is the
American propagandists

are not simply attacking Indians;

they're using it to attack
the British themselves

and British policy.

It's that the British
sponsor Indian warfare

that kills Jane mccrea,

and that becomes a
very, very powerful piece

of cultural argument.

Hundreds of patriot soldiers

continued to flee southward.

By the end of July 1777,

most of what was left of the
American forces in the area

had withdrawn to saratoga,

a small cluster of
houses north of Albany.

To general Washington,
our army is weak in numbers.

I foresee that all this part of the country

will soon be in their power

unless we are speedily
and largely reinforced.

General schuyler.

Washington had been shocked

to learn of ticonderoga's fall,

but he also shared
Nathanael Greene's view

that "general burgoyne's triumphs"

"may serve to bait his vanity

and lead him on to his total ruin."

To try to bring on that ruin,

Washington took a calculated risk

and sent some of his
best officers north...

general Benedict Arnold,
whose "conduct and bravery"

he greatly admired, as well
as colonel Daniel Morgan

and his sharpshooting
frontiersmen from Virginia.

General Washington is
certainly a most surprising man,

one of nature's geniuses,

a heaven-born general
if there is any of that sort.

That a negro-driver should,

with a ragged banditti
of undisciplined people,

the scum and refuse
of all nations on earth,

so long keep a British general at bay...

it is astonishing.

It is too much.

Nicholas cresswell.

Burgoyne remained confident
he would capture Albany.

He assured lord
germain that the obstacles

the patriots were placing
in the path of his army

were merely acts of
"desperation and folly."

He had once hoped to join
forces with general howe

on the Hudson river,

but howe was already
headed for Philadelphia.

General howe can't go
overland through New Jersey

because the Americans
are strong enough

that they could really harass the column

that he has to send down there.

So, he decides to send his force by ship.

With favorable winds,

it should have taken the
fleet a little over a week.

But winds died or blew the wrong way.

Lightning storms split
masts and ripped sails.

Water and provisions ran low.

Instead of trying to sail
up the Delaware river

under patriot guns,

the British would go still further south

and approach Philadelphia
via the chesapeake bay.

I wish we could but fix upon their object.

Their conduct is really so mysterious

that you cannot reason upon it

so as to form any certain conclusions.

When Washington finally got word

that the British had
entered the chesapeake,

he realized where they were headed

and hurried his army
to defend Philadelphia.

I think there can be no doubt

that howe aims at this place.

He gives us an opportunity
of exerting the strength

of all the middle states against him,

while New York and new
England are destroying burgoyne.

Now is the time.

Never was so good an
opportunity for my countrymen

to turn out and crush

that vaporing, blustering bully to atoms.

John Adams.

By early August, general
burgoyne was in trouble.

He had reached the
Hudson at fort Edward,

but he was still 50 miles from Albany.

He would press on,

but to do that, he
needed more provisions.

When he heard that
only a handful of militia

were guarding a sizable
rebel depot at bennington,

he ordered nearly 800
men... British, German,

native-American, French-Canadian,

and loyalist troops... to seize it.

The men spoke at least
five different languages.

Their commander, lieutenant
colonel fried rich baum,

was certain his disciplined
forces had nothing to fear

from what he called "uncouth militia."

Baum does not know English.

He doesn't really know the terrain.

There is some confusion
about where they're going,

who they're dealing with.

They go out towards bennington,

and they are met by a
large number of Americans

that had assembled there that
they just had not anticipated.

There were far more than
"a handful" of militiamen;

some 1,800 new
englanders and new yorkers

were waiting for them.

Four miles west of bennington,

colonel baum spread
his force in a wide arc

with two strong points...
a hastily-built redoubt

atop a forested 300-foot hill in the center,

manned by British and German troops,

and a second redoubt on a less lofty hill

defended by John Peters, who
had led his queen's loyal rangers

south from Canada

back to near his old home in Vermont.

On August 16th, at 3:00 in the afternoon,

the patriot commander,
John stark of New Hampshire...

a hard-fighting veteran

of breed's hill, Trenton, and Princeton...

sent his men forward.

The Germans were quickly
outflanked and outnumbered.

Baum urged his dragoons

to try to cut their way out
through the swarming militia.

Moments later he fell, mortally wounded.

Meanwhile, in and
around the loyalist redoubt,

old friends battled one another.

As the rebels were coming up,

I observed a man fire
at me, which I returned.

He loaded again as
he came up crying out,

"Peters, you damned
Tory, I have got you."

I saw that it was a rebel
captain, Jeremiah post,

an old schoolfellow and
playmate and a cousin of my wife's.

He rushed on me with his bayonet,

which entered just below my left breast

but was turned by the bone.

Though his bayonet was in my body,

I felt regret at being
obliged to destroy him.

Colonel John Peters,
queen's loyal rangers.

All afternoon, the battle
went back and forth.

The patriots eventually prevailed.

Wounded and with his son by his side,

John Peters led the
survivors of his regiment

back to burgoyne's army.

Few of colonel baum's
men escaped death, injury,

or capture.

Prisoners were packed into
the bennington meeting house,

many badly wounded.

They were in all stages of suffering,

and some were dying.

Some of their fellow soldiers
who were less seriously wounded

would go to a dying comrade,
and, kneeling by his side,

would clasp their
hands, bow their heads,

and swaying their bodies up and down,

would mutter prayers
in their own language.

And when death came to
him, they would pass to another.

At bennington,

burgoyne had lost
nearly 15% of his army,

and he had accomplished nothing.

Assurances about the near universality

of loyalist sentiments were dead wrong.

The country now abounds

in the most active and
most rebellious race

of the continent, and
hangs like a gathering storm

upon my left.

Resolved that the flag
of the United States

be thirteen stripes,
alternate red and white,

that the union be thirteen
stars, white in a blue field,

representing a new constellation.

During a short meeting

devoted mostly to fiscal matters,

the continental congress
had called for a new flag

to represent their new country.

But two years later,

the committee of congress
overseeing the army

still regretted that there was
as yet no "national standard."

Some militia companies and privateers

designed their own banners

and had their wives and
daughters make them.

Although artists often
included the stars and stripes

in their postwar romantic renderings

of revolutionary events,

it is not known ever
actually to have been flown

by the continental
army above a battlefield,

nor does anyone know
who made the first one.

We know the Indians now to have

the highest notions of Liberty
of any people on earth...

a people who will never
consider consequences

when they think their
Liberty likely to be invaded,

though it may end in their ruin.

George croghan.

The haudenosaunee
was a centuries-old union

comprised of the six nations...

seneca, cayuga, onondaga,

tuscarora, oneida, and mohawk.

Each was allowed to
act in its own interest,

but they were expected to act together

in matters affecting them all.

They likened their confederacy
to a "great longhouse."

The senecas were the
keepers of its western door,

the mohawks... the eastern door.

At the center was onondaga,

where representatives met
around the great council fire.

Normally you hammer things
out until everybody says, "ok,

this is what we will do."

And that had endured, right?

Battered and bruised and bombarded

through colonial wars
and all the rest of it.

That had endured.

And then the revolution occurs.

For us, the mohawk people,
it was survival. Period.

And you didn't know
which side was going to be

the best choice.

We kind of gravitated mostly
to the British because they

had kind of won our
respect, beating the French,

and pretty much having our interests

when they dealt with
the regular colonists.

The disturbances in america

give great trouble to all our nations.

The mohawks, our particular nation,

have on all occasions
shown their zeal and loyalty

to the great king.

Thayendanegea.

No mohawk man identified more closely

with the British than thayendanegea,

who was also known as Joseph brant.

His sister Molly had married

the British superintendent
of Indian affairs,

and her connections helped brant
make his name among the English.

He had fought for the crown in
the French and Indian war at 15,

attended an English mission school,

and, in 1776, traveled to London,

where he reaffirmed his
people's loyalty to britain

in an audience with king George III.

Many of the Indian
people in this time are

kind of anonymous to us in some ways

because we don't have
accurate representations of them,

but one of the major
exceptions is Joseph brant,

who had his portrait painted
not once but many, many times.

This is the 18th century.

Not just anybody got
their portrait painted.

To have your portrait painted
multiple times was unusual.

I think he controlled his space.

"I confound your stereotypical
images of savage Indians."

Brant had fought against the patriots

at the battle of long island,

then began traveling from town
to town within the six nations,

urging the young men to join him.

It was imperative, he
told them, to "defend"

our "lands and Liberty against the rebels"

"who, in a great measure,
began the rebellion

to be sole masters of the continent."

But suspicious of the
way brant seemed to move

between the Indian and British
worlds, more traditional leaders

resented this minor chief's
ambition to lead them into war,

and preferred to hold
back until it seemed clear

britain was headed for victory.

And so, when brant
assembled his armed volunteers,

only a handful were from the six nations.

Perhaps 80% of them
were loyalist settlers

disguised as Indians.

In early August, brant's
men were with British forces

as they initiated the second
part of burgoyne's grand scheme

to seize the Hudson and cut
off the new England states.

They started by laying
siege to fort stanwix,

a patriot outpost far
west on the mohawk river,

a crucial meeting place that
connected the Great Lakes

with the east.

The British had believed

the fort was only thinly
defended and in disrepair.

Actually, it was held by
some 600 continental soldiers,

and they had been
strengthening the fortifications

at the urging of some oneidas,

who made their homes in the valley

and did not share Joseph
brant's enthusiasm for the crown.

The American revolution

was about to plunge the
once-united six nations

into a civil war of their own.

Many oneidas were
closer to the Americans.

Some are intermarried.

Oneida people were, in many cases,

surrounded by American colonists.

When an 800-man patriot militia column

commanded by general
Nicholas herkimer reached oriska,

an oneida settlement on oriskany creek

just eight miles from the
embattled fort stanwix,

sixty oneida chiefs and
warriors joined them.

They were ready to fight
alongside their white neighbors

and help thwart the British invasion.

Joseph brant and his
men were waiting for them,

alongside hundreds of other
mohawks, senecas, and loyalists.

On the morning of August 6, 1777,

as herkimer's long
column filed into a ravine

and began splashing across a stream,

loyalists fired from above,

while hundreds of native Americans

allied with the British ran
down among the startled men,

wielding tomahawks,
clubs, and scalping knives.

It was a slaughter. It was
horrific what happened.

And even the native people
who survived the war said

they'd never experienced
anything like that.

Perhaps as many as
400 patriot militia lay dead,

including some 30 of their oneida allies.

Almost 100 of the British forces
had been killed or wounded,

65 of whom were Indians.

The mohawks and senecas
were accustomed to warfare

that yielded far fewer
casualties, and were stunned.

There, I have seen the
most dead bodies all over it

that I never did see, and never will again.

I thought, at the time,

the bloodshed a stream running
down on the descending ground.

And yet some living crying for help,

but have no mercy on
to be spared of them.

Chain breaker.

We look back on the battle of oriskany

as one of those points where the
longhouse seemed to be burning...

the all-time worst-case scenario,

where we're actually
killing each other in combat.

For what? For what?

For somebody else can claim our land?

Fort stanwix continued to hold out.

British artillery proved too light

to damage the fort's reinforced walls.

Then word came that
general Benedict Arnold

and a large force of continentals

were on their way to break the siege.

Britain's native American
allies decided to go home.

They wanted time to mourn their dead.

Without them, the cause was lost.

The British withdrew
their remaining forces

and returned to Canada.

The other army
burgoyne had once hoped

would meet him at
Albany would not be there.

Meanwhile, general Horatio
gates, the new commander

of the continental army's
northern department,

was methodically gathering his forces

near the village of
saratoga to stop burgoyne.

Philadelphia is the
asylum of the disaffected.

The very air is contagious.

The quakers in general are
wolves in sheep's clothing.

And while they shelter themselves

under the pretext of
contentious scruples,

they are the more dangerous.

Philip schuyler.

Philadelphia may have been the place

where the patriots were trying
to form a national government,

but its citizens were deeply divided.

I think one of the really great examples

of the difficulties of any
kind of sort of neutral place

is what happens to the quakers
over the course of the war.

The quakers are famously pacifist.

And that's not good enough
in revolutionary america.

When the first anniversary

of American independence
was celebrated

in the city that July,

patriots had called upon homeowners

to place candles in their windows

as a symbol of fidelity to the cause.

Thomas and Sarah Fisher's
home on second street

remained dark that evening,

and suffered fifteen broken windows.

The fishers were quakers
and therefore officially neutral.

Their faith, one believer
explained, held that

"setting up and putting down
of kings and governments

is god's peculiar prerogative."

Patriots routinely raided
their shops and warehouses

to supply the continental army.

But the fishers were defiant:

They would not accept
continental money

or pay any tax that supported the war,

and they refused to
denounce king George III.

On August 23rd, the
fishers rode out to stenton,

Sarah's family's country
estate near germanton.

On the road, we heard
the disagreeable news

that Washington's army
is to march that way.

We met numbers of
wagons and light horsemen,

and, on our getting to stenton,

found general Washington's bodyguard

had taken possession of our house.

They behaved civil, were very quiet.

And Washington appeared
extremely grave and thoughtful.

On August 24th,
Washington paraded his men

through the streets of Philadelphia.

He hoped to persuade its citizens

that his army would
be able to defend them.

Many in the crowd cheered;
Others remained stone-faced.

Among the officers riding
alongside Washington that day

was a frenchman,

Marie-Joseph Paul yves
roch Gilbert du motier...

the Marquis de Lafayette.

Congress had just made
him a major general.

He was just nineteen years old.

The welfare of america is

intimately bound up with
the happiness of humanity.

She is going to become

the deserving and sure
refuge of virtue, of honesty,

of tolerance, of equality,
and of a tranquil Liberty.

Lafayette comes
without a word of English

but just with a sense that
the American continent is

the continent on which
he will make his name,

on which he stakes his glory,

and with a willingness to essentially do

anything that needs to be done

for the sake of American independence.

Europe was momentarily at peace,

and Lafayette was just
one of many young officers...

from France, Bavaria,
prussia, and Poland...

all eager to show what they could do

on the battlefield in the new world.

But Lafayette stood out.

He was so rich, he bought the ship

in which he and a dozen
other would-be officers

had crossed the ocean.

The young man's military
experience was minimal,

but his father had been
killed by British artillery

when he was two.

"To injure England is to
serve my country," he said.

And he was determined to
become a real major general,

commanding a division of his own.

To George Washington,
Lafayette was interesting.

He had personal money
with him that he could invest

to buy uniforms, to buy supplies.

He had a very important
network at the French court

because he was, himself,
from a very powerful family.

So, if he could advocate

for the cause of the
American revolution in France,

it could create very important
support from versailles.

Washington liked him from the first,

but would not consider
giving him a command

until he had seen how he fared in battle.

Until then, he said,
Lafayette was to join his staff,

to consider himself
part of his military family.

I feel in a most painful
situation between hope and fear.

There must be fighting
and very bloody battles, too,

I apprehend.

Why is man called humane
when he delights so much

in blood, slaughter, and devastation?

Even those who are
styled civilized nations

think this little spot worth
contending for, even to blood.

Abigail Adams.

On August 25th, after five
miserable weeks at sea,

general howe's 16,000-man
army finally began to disembark

near the mouth of the
elk river in Maryland.

This is in the middle of the summer.

It's broiling hot.

These men have been
on the ships for weeks.

The horses are dying by the scores.

But they disembark at the
head of the chesapeake bay.

And now they're looking
for the Americans.

Almost every movement of the war

in North America is an act of enterprise,

clogged with innumerable difficulties.

A knowledge of the country,

intersected, as it everywhere is,

by woods, mountains,
waters, or morasses,

cannot be obtained with
any degree of precision.

General William howe.

To block the enemy's
advance on Philadelphia,

George Washington
interposed his 14,000-man army

along brandy wine creek,
some 30 miles west of the city.

The bulk of his force
guarded Chad's Ford,

prepared to face
howe's army in the open.

Washington made sure his men
understood what was at stake.

If the enemy is overthrown,
the war is at an end.

One bold stroke

will free the land from
devastations and burnings.

If we behave like men, this
campaign will be our last.

General howe,

now encamped near the
village of kennet square,

was eager for a climactic battle, too.

He didn't think he could
end the rebellion at one blow,

but if he could destroy
Washington's army

and then seize Philadelphia,

he would surely make
that objective much easier.

His plan was to divide his
army and flank Washington's,

just as he had on long
island the previous summer.

A little less than half his force,

commanded by the
German general knyphausen,

was to move toward Chad's Ford

and keep Washington's
army pinned down there,

braced for an all-out attack.

Meanwhile, the rest
of general howe's force,

led by general cornwallis
and howe himself,

would move north as quietly as possible

to attack the right flank of the rebel army.

That attack was to be the signal

for knyphausen at Chad's Ford
to storm across the brandy wine.

If all went as planned,

general howe would be able
to trap Washington's army

between the two forces.

Washington, again,
misreads the ground.

He has made tactical
errors earlier in the war

at the battle of long island,

and he makes another
one at brandy wine.

He believes that there are
no fords up brandy wine creek

that the British can get across securely

to outflank the Americans.

That's not true. There are fords
up there. The British find them.

The British are well-informed.

There are a number of loyalists
who are acting as guides;

they're providing
information about the terrain,

about the topography, about,
"here on the map is where you

can get around these
American positions."

At daybreak on September 11, 1777,

generals howe and cornwallis
set out on what would be

a twisting seventeen-mile march
to get behind the Americans.

A dense morning fog
screened their movements.

General knyphausen and
his column began moving east

soon after,

along the great post
road toward Chad's Ford.

Forward elements of the American army

had felled trees across the road.

Riflemen hidden in the woods
fired into the enemy's ranks.

American guns across the
creek lobbed shells among them.

But by mid morning,

knyphausen's men had driven
the American advance troops

back across the brandy wine,

ready to storm across the
creek when the signal was given.

At his headquarters, general
Washington was unsure

what was happening.

And so, he settled in for
what he believed would be

an all-out frontal assault
across Chad's Ford,

just as howe wanted him to.

Meanwhile, howe and cornwallis' men

had waded across two
waist-deep fords far upstream

and marched for hours in
intense heat without a break.

The weary British and German troops

halted on the bare slopes
of Osborne's hill to rest.

They stayed there long enough
for Washington to finally learn

of the coming attack on his
flank and order three brigades

to leave their positions along the river

and form a defensive line at another hill

on which the Birmingham
meeting house stood:

John Sullivan's men from
Maryland and Delaware,

William Alexander's from
Pennsylvania and New Jersey,

and Adam Stephen's
virginians... some 3,000 soldiers.

At around 4:00 in the afternoon,

howe ordered his much
larger force forward

in three perfectly disciplined columns.

American marksmen fired
into them from an apple orchard.

American artillery
tore through their ranks.

The redcoats kept coming.

Sullivan's brigade broke and ran,

but the others held firm.

There was a most infernal
fire of Cannon and musketry,

the most incessant shouting.

"Incline to the right!" "Incline to the left!"

"Halt!" "fire!" "Charge!"

The balls plowing up the ground.

The trees crackling over one's head.

The branches riven by the artillery.

The leaves falling as in
Autumn by the grapeshot.

A battle like brandy wine
saw suffering at every corner.

It was a hellscape in
so many different ways.

Cannonballs ripping through the forest;

splinters killing men,
just taking off arms, legs.

The outnumbered
Americans were driven back

five times, and five times
managed to surge forward again

before they finally broke.

Had general Nathanael
Greene and his reinforcements

not raced some four miles
in less than forty-five minutes

to cover their retreat, it
might have become a rout.

Back at Chad's Ford,
the sound of the fighting

on Birmingham hill had been the signal

for general knyphausen

to send his army streaming
across the brandy wine.

The remaining patriots could not hold.

Washington ordered a retreat.

Night fell.

General howe lamented
that if he had more time,

he could have brought about
the rebel army's "total overthrow."

The Americans, only by the
grace of darkness, get away.

The British can't chase
them any further in the dark.

It's a serious defeat for the Americans.

It is going to open the
gateway toward Philadelphia.

We experienced another drubbing.

But we did, I think, as
well as could be expected.

I saw not a despairing look,

nor did I hear a despairing word.

We had our solacing words
always ready for each other:

"Come, boys, we shall
do better another time."

Such was the spirit of the times.

Captain Enoch Anderson.

The spirit of the times was not universal,

as Washington's beaten
army stumbled through the dark.

Hundreds of men melted
away into the countryside

and headed home,

making an accurate count
of casualties impossible.

But more than 1,000 Americans

are thought to have been
killed, wounded, or taken captive

during the battle of brandy wine,

roughly twice as many casualties
as the British had suffered.

Our Americans,

after holding firm for considerable time,

were finally routed.

While I was trying to rally them,

the English honored
me with a musket shot,

which wounded me slightly in the leg.

But the wound is nothing.

The ball hit neither bone nor nerve,

and all I have to do for it is
to lie on my back for a while.

Marquis de Lafayette.

I needed all my courage and tenderness

to keep my resolution
of following my husband.

Besides the perils of
the sea, I was told that we

would be exposed to
be eaten by the savages,

and that people in america
lived upon horse flesh and cats.

Baroness friederike riedesel.

When German general
fried rich Adolph riedesel

left Europe in 1776

to join general burgoyne's
northern campaign,

he had left his pregnant wife
and two small daughters at home.

But as soon as she could,
after her third daughter was born,

baroness riedesel crossed
the Atlantic with all three girls.

In mid-August, she
caught up with her husband

and burgoyne's army at fort Edward.

In the beginning, all went well.

We cherished the sweet
hope of a sure victory

and of coming into the promised land.

And when on the passage
across the Hudson,

general burgoyne exclaimed,
"the English never lose ground,"

our spirits were greatly exhilarated.

On September 13, 1777,

two days after Washington's defeat

at the battle of the brandy wine,

general burgoyne's army in New York

began streaming across
the Hudson near saratoga

on a bridge of boats covered with planks.

Officers and men, women,
children, horses, cattle,

wagons, field-pieces...

it took three days for it all to cross.

Waiting for them some 10
miles south of saratoga were

general Horatio gates' 6,900 continentals

and 1,300 militia,

dug in along bemis
heights, a broad plateau

anchored on the right
by the Hudson river

and sheltered on the left
by craggy wooded bluffs.

Colonel tadeusz kosciuszko,

a Polish volunteer for the Americans,

had chosen the site and laid
out brigade encampments,

breastworks, and artillery emplacements

all along the heights for 3/4 of a mile.

Patriot Cannon commanded
the river road to Albany.

Officers had a clear
view of the rough terrain

across which the British
would have to march...

deep ravines and dense woods,

broken here and there by
half-cleared farmers' fields.

Most of burgoyne's native
scouts had left him by now,

so while he knew the Americans
were somewhere ahead of him,

he had no way of knowing
how many they were

or precisely how they were positioned.

On September 19th,
he resolved to find out

and then try to drive
through the rebel lines.

He divided his force into three columns.

Scottish general Simon
Fraser, with nearly 3,000 troops,

set out to pinpoint his enemy's flank,

hoping to locate high ground

from which to fire on the rebels.

2,200 soldiers under
German general riedesel

approached along the river road.

Burgoyne himself led
the middle column...

some 1,700 soldiers... to assault

what he guessed was the
center of the American lines.

Watching from bemis heights,

general gates was content to wait.

This was his first battlefield command,

and he was a careful, cautious man.

Both Fraser's and
riedesel's columns stalled,

but burgoyne's men managed
to make it through the forest

to a clearing named Freeman's farm,

where general Benedict Arnold
and Daniel Morgan's riflemen

went out to engage them.

General burgoyne
asks for reinforcements.

Riedesel, who's a very fine commander,

immediately sends some
reinforcements up from the river

to hit the Americans in
the American right flank.

And this successfully stops
the American momentum.

This first battle of saratoga,
the battle of Freeman farm,

it's a draw, basically.

You can say that the
British have been successful

in that they have held onto the ground,

but for the most part, it's inconclusive.

Burgoyne had not located
the main rebel positions

on bemis heights, and had lost 591 men,

nearly twice as many
as the patriots had lost,

and, unlike general gates,

burgoyne had no realistic
prospect of replacing them.

I was an eyewitness of the whole affair

and shivered at every shot,
for I could hear everything.

I saw a great number of wounded.

And what was still more harrowing,

they even brought three of
them into the house where I was.

Imagine what a battlefield
looks like after a battle.

It has a lot of bodies. It
has a lot of blood and Gore.

And it was the job of women

to go in and take care of those bodies,

to clean them up, to
identify them, if they could,

to see over the burial of bodies.

Part of the work of war
is dealing with death.

Although we repulsed them with loss,

we ourselves were much weakened.

The bodies of the slain

were scarcely covered with the Clay.

And the only tribute of
respect to fallen officers

was to Bury them by themselves,

without throwing them
in the common grave.

So destruction comes with rapid wings,

and ruin rushes on like a whirlwind

to sweep the best officers,

and sometimes almost entire battalions,

from their strongest foundations.

Roger lamb.

Harassed and exhausted

by perpetual change from bad to worse,

my poor afflicted mother

consented to go beyond
the mountains to Winchester.

It was indeed a new world to us...

rude and wild as nature had made it.

Betsy ambler.

Betsy ambler and her
family from yorktown, Virginia,

had been on the move
since the war began,

trying to find a place

that suited her mother's frail health

and was safe from the British.

For decades, Winchester, Virginia,

in the shenandoah valley,

had been an important way station

on the great wagon
road that settlers followed

through the back country
from Philadelphia

to the carol in as.

Because it was so far inland,
Winchester served new purposes:

It was a relatively safe place

for storing military supplies and materiel;

a safe haven for refugees;

and a place to house prisoners of war.

Suspected loyalists were
often exiled to Winchester, too.

We not unfrequently made acquaintance

with agreeable men who
were condemned to banishment

in this dreary place on
account of "disaffection,"

as it was called, to the
great cause of Liberty.

Amongst those proscribed,

genteel quakers from
Philadelphia were numerous.

One of those quakers was
Sarah Fisher's husband Thomas.

As British troops
advanced on Philadelphia,

congress and the local authorities

had convinced themselves that
he and seven other wealthy quakers

were communicating with the enemy.

They had them arrested,

and when they again
refused to swear allegiance

to the new government,
loaded them into wagons

and sent them off under
guard to Winchester.

Now alone in Philadelphia,
Sarah Fisher had two small boys

to care for and was nearly
eight months' pregnant.

I feel forlorn and desolate,

and the world appears
like a dreary desert,

almost without any
visible protecting hand

to guard us from the
ravenous wolves and lions

that prowl about for prey,

seeking to devour
those harmless innocents

that don't go hand-in-hand with them

in their cruelty and rapine.

Her husband's only
crime, Sarah Fisher said,

was that he saw himself
as a subject of britain.

But she was cheered to see
that rebels and their sympathizers,

including all the members
of the continental congress,

were now fleeing the city

in fear of the enemy's approach

after the American defeat at brandy wine.

People in very great confusion,

some flying one way and some another,

as if not knowing where
to go or what to do.

Wagons rattling, horses
galloping, women running,

children crying, delegates flying,

and altogether the
greatest consternation,

fright, and terror that can be imagined.

George Washington still hoped somehow

to keep the British from
occupying Philadelphia.

He ordered general Anthony
Wayne and his Pennsylvania division

to attack the rear of the advancing army.

But local loyalists alerted general howe

that Wayne and his men were
camped near the paoli tavern,

and he sent 1,700
soldiers to deal with them.

As they approached through the woods

on the night of September 20th,

they were ordered to remove
the flints from their muskets

for fear someone's gun would go off

and alert the sleeping rebels.

They fixed bayonets and
exploded out of the trees

with what a British officer remembered:

"Such a cheer as made the wood echo."

The light infantry bayoneted

every man they came up with.

And the cries of the
wounded formed altogether

one of the most dreadful
scenes I ever beheld.

Every man that fired
was instantly put to death.

Lieutenant Martin hunter.

At least 53 patriots
were stabbed to death,

and more than 200 were
wounded or captured.

Americans would remember
it as the paoli massacre.

Washington gave up hope
of holding Philadelphia.

Six days after the massacre,
September 26, 1777,

general cornwallis led
3,000 victorious British troops

into Philadelphia.

About 10 o'clock, the
troops began to enter.

A band of music played a tune,

which I afterwards
understood was called

"god save great George our king."

Then followed the
soldiers, no wanton levity,

or indecent mirth,

but a gravity well becoming
the occasion on all their faces.

Sarah Fisher.

General howe,

with 8,000 more troops
camped in germanton,

made his headquarters at stenton,

Sarah Fisher's country home

that had only a few weeks
before been occupied

by George Washington.

At brandy wine, general
howe had repeated the tactics

that had won the battle of long island.

Now Washington hoped to
repeat his successful surprise attack

on Trenton by hitting howe
at germanton in early October.

Washington's plan was
ambitious and complicated.

Success would depend on
dividing his 11,000-man force

into four separate columns

to undertake miles-long marches at night

on poorly marked roads so
as to arrive simultaneously

on the town's northern
and western edges

at precisely 5 A.M. on October 4th.

Then, at dawn, they
were to storm into town

on four different roads.

It would be the first time
during the revolution that

Washington dared hurl his army

against the main British force.

John Sullivan's and
Anthony Wayne's columns

swiftly swept aside British
pickets north of the town.

Wayne's men found themselves

face-to-face with the British light infantry,

the same soldiers who had massacred

so many of their comrades
at paoli just two weeks earlier.

Our people pushed
on with their bayonets

and took ample vengeance
for that night's work.

The rage and fury of the soldiers

were not to be restrained.

The Americans continued

to push the British
back through the town,

driving them from one
fenced yard to the next.

Fortune smiled on our arms.

The enemy were broke,
dispersed, and flying in all quarters.

We were in possession
of their whole encampment.

In the face of the advancing Americans,

British lieutenant
colonel Thomas musgrave

ordered half his regiment...
between 100 and 120 soldiers...

to duck inside the largest
house in germanton,

the home of Benjamin chew,

the loyalist ex-chief
justice of Pennsylvania.

Its walls were two feet thick.

Musgrave directed his
men to block the door

and ground-floor windows with furniture.

Downstairs, his men
were to bayonet anyone

who dared try to enter

while others fired into the passing rebels

from the upstairs windows.

Washington is advised, "bypass them.

Go around them. Isolate them.
Keep the momentum going."

But Henry Knox insisted

that the house had
to be taken right away.

"It would be unmilitary," he said,

"to leave a castle in our rear."

Washington agreed.

Artillery blew in the front door

and damaged statuary in the garden,

but bounced harmlessly off the walls.

Continentals from New Jersey
repeatedly stormed the house

and were cut down on
the lawn and front steps.

As the siege at the chew house went on,

the bulk of the American
force streamed past,

continuing to drive the British back.

A patriot victory seemed likely.

About this time came on
perhaps the thickest fog

known in the memory of man,

which, together with the smoke,

brought on almost midnight darkness.

It was not possible to
distinguish friend from foe

at five yards distance.

When the men who had
penetrated the farthest

heard the furious gunfire still
coming from the chew house,

they believed the enemy had
somehow gotten behind them.

Now it was the patriots
who began to fall back.

General cornwallis himself
led the counterattack.

His troops freed musgrave's
men from the chew house

and drove the Americans
back along the roads

they'd followed into town.

The British had won... Again.

I rode over the battlefield,

and with surprise and
admiration approached the house,

which the brave colonel
musgrave had defended.

During the battle, some thirty defenders

were killed and wounded.

I counted seventy-five dead Americans.

The rooms of the house
were riddled by cannonball

and looked like a slaughterhouse

because of the blood splattered around.

There, the entire
English army was saved.

Johann ewald.

For the Americans, what
had been a sure victory...

it looked like they were
going to drive the British

back into Philadelphia...
becomes a fairly significant defeat.

Washington gets away again,

but there are hundreds of casualties.

The British capture
quite a few Americans.

And what had been a glorious morning

turns into a very grim evening.

Reporting to congress,

Washington tried to put
the best face he could

on his humiliating defeat.

Upon the whole, it may be said

the day was rather
unfortunate than injurious.

We sustained no material loss of men

and brought off all our
artillery, except one piece.

The enemy are nothing
the better by the event.

And our troops, who are
not in the least dispirited by it,

have gained what all young
troops gain by being in actions.

He is very good at, I think,

the key tactic for an
insurrectionary force,

which is living to fight another day,

and successfully plays a long game

of just not being crushed.

Washington's not a
great field commander,

but he's resilient,

and he understands the
kind of war he's fighting.

At some point, he reaches the insight...

and it's a basic insight...
he doesn't have to win.

The British have to win.

He only has not to lose.

The colonies had grown up

under constitutions of
government so different,

there was so great a variety of religions,

they were composed of
so many different nations,

their customs, manners, and habits

had so little resemblance,

their intercourse had been so rare,

and their knowledge of
each other so imperfect

that to unite them in the
same principles of theory

and the same system of action,

was certainly a very difficult enterprise.

John Adams.

After fleeing Philadelphia,

the continental congress reconvened

in a small county courthouse
in York, Pennsylvania.

The delegates had taken

just 27 days of discussion
the previous year

to declare American independence,

but it would take them 526 days

to fashion the articles of confederation.

They were meant in part
to demonstrate to France

that the thirteen former colonies

could act effectively together,

but the result was not a government.

They needed to have
a way to pay for wars;

they needed to run wars.

They needed to possess native lands;

they needed to redistribute those lands.

But the articles had so
much political compromise

that it wasn't a functional
centralized government.

By design,

the articles of confederation
were weak and constrained.

Each state remained

a more or less independent
republic jealously guarding

its own sovereignty and freedom.

Congress had no power
to tax, which meant

it couldn't pay the soldiers
in the continental army.

And before the articles
could even become operative,

they needed to be
ratified by all the states.

That would take another 39 months.

The armies were so near

that not a night passed without firing.

No foraging party could be made

without great detachments to cover it.

I do not believe either officer or soldier

ever slept during that interval.

General John burgoyne.

For eighteen days

after the battle of Freeman's
farm near saratoga,

the American and British armies
strengthened their defenses

and skirmished constantly
but remained precisely

where they had been
when the shooting stopped.

Meanwhile, loyalist refugees

continued to stream
into the British camp,

forcing burgoyne to
reduce rations by a third.

Desertions, especially among
German troops, Rose so fast

that baron riedesel promised
his soldiers ten guineas

for every would-be
deserter they brought back

and five guineas if he
had to be shot for resisting.

At 11:00 in the morning on October 7th,

burgoyne led some
1,500 men out of his camp

and formed a long, thin line

across two unharvested wheat fields

just west of Freeman's farm,

redcoats on the right,
Germans in the center,

elite British grenadiers on the left.

While some of his men
harvested the wheat

his encampment desperately needed,

burgoyne and several of his officers

climbed onto the roof of a
log cabin with spyglasses,

trying to see if there was
a way around the rebel left.

Tall trees blocked them
from seeing anything useful,

but Americans patrolling
the no man's land saw them.

Shots were exchanged.

From bemis heights,

general gates now ordered
Daniel Morgan's corps

and brigadier general
Enoch poor's brigades

to attack the British on both flanks.

British general Fraser was killed.

The redcoats crumbled.

Then Benedict Arnold
galloped onto the battlefield.

He seemed to be everywhere,

leading a charge
against the British center,

racing between the armies

through a swarm of musket
balls to rally another regiment

so that they could sweep the defenders

from two fortified cabins.

He urged the exhausted men on

to seize a redoubt manned by
some 200 German grenadiers.

You cannot conceive how men looked.

And at first it appeared to me

that if the order came for
us to march, I could not do it.

Nathaniel bacheller.

But when Arnold gave the order,

bacheller and his comrades
climbed to their feet

and moved forward again,

shouting as they rushed
toward the front of the redoubt.

Arnold rode around it,
forced his way inside,

and demanded that
its defenders surrender.

Most did surrender or fled,

but one fired a musket ball
that shattered Arnold's left leg,

the same leg that had
been wounded at Quebec

two years before, and killed
his horse, which fell on him.

Unable to move, Arnold
continued to shout orders

until the fighting died down

and he could be carried from the field.

"Arnold was our fighting general,"

one of his men remembered.

"He was as brave a man as ever lived."

I think it's safe to say

that Benedict Arnold should be regarded

as the hero of saratoga.

It was really an
aggressive move at the end

that sealed the victory for the Americans.

The British stumbled back to saratoga,

carrying their wounded with them.

October 10th... saratoga.

A frightful cannonade began,

principally directed against the house

in which we had sought shelter,

probably because the enemy believed

that all the generals
made it their headquarters.

Alas! It harbored none but
wounded soldiers or women.

We were finally obliged
to take refuge in a cellar.

My children laid down on the earth

with their heads upon my lap.

My own anguish prevented
me from closing my eyes.

Eleven cannonballs
went through the house,

and we could plainly hear
them rolling over our heads.

One poor soldier, whose leg
they were about to amputate,

had the other leg taken
off by another cannonball

in the very middle of the operation.

Militiamen continued to
stream into gates' army,

its numbers now swollen to 17,000.

By October 13th, the Americans

had burgoyne's army
completely surrounded.

Every hour,

the position of the
army grew more critical

and the prospect of
salvation grew less and less.

Even for the wounded,
no spot could be found

which could afford them a safe shelter.

The sick and wounded
would drag themselves along

into a quiet corner in the
woods, and lie down to die.

General riedesel.

Saratoga was a body blow to the British.

It was clear that all
of the old assumptions,

that the British army
was a professional force

that would sooner or later

prevail over the amateurish Americans,

all those assumptions were undermined.

The amateurish Americans
had actually beaten the British.

For the British, this was
not just a military defeat;

it was a psychological blow

of very considerable proportions.

That afternoon, burgoyne
gathered his staff.

They were trapped,
without food or forage.

They voted to begin
negotiations with general gates.

For three days, messages
flew back and forth

between the camps.

During the time of the cessation

of arms, a soldier in the 9th regiment

named Maguire came
down to the bank of the river

with a number of his
companions, who engaged

in conversation with a party of Americans

on the opposite shore.

Maguire suddenly darted like lightning

from his companions,
and resolutely plunged

into the stream.

At the very same moment,
one of the American soldiers,

seized with a similar
impulse, resolutely dashed

into the water from the opposite shore.

The wondering soldiers
on both sides beheld them

eagerly swim towards the
middle of the river, where they met.

They hung on each
other's necks and wept.

They were brothers.

One was in the British and the other

in the American service, totally ignorant

until that hour that they were engaged

in hostile combat
against each other's life.

Roger lamb.

On the morning of October 17th,

gates' generous terms were accepted.

He and burgoyne met
between their respective lines

and shook hands.

Burgoyne presented his sword to gates...

who handed it back, as
dictated by military custom.

To his dying day, burgoyne
would blame others

for his defeat... lord
germain, general howe,

his loyalist German and native allies...

everyone but himself.

All the army gave up

and surrendered themselves
prisoners of war to our men.

Such a thing was never heard of.

Such a sight was never seen before,

so many men giving in to us.

Exult, Americans and
rejoice and praise the lord,

who hath done wonderful things for you.

Ezra tilden.

An entire British army had been forced

to lay down its arms...
one lieutenant general,

two major generals, three brigadiers,

350 commissioned and staffed officers,

5,900 other ranks, and
some 600 women and children.

Along with them, the Americans
seized 30 artillery pieces,

60 wagons, 1,500
swords, 3,400 bayonets,

and 4,600 muskets and rifles.

Burgoyne's Canadian
and loyalist auxiliaries

were to be permitted to make
their way north to Canada,

while more than 6,000
British and German prisoners

were to be marched to Boston
and sent home from there

to Europe, pledged never to return.

But when they got there,
they learned that congress

had refused to ratify gates'
agreement with burgoyne.

After months housed
in makeshift camps,

they were sent south.

I never had the least idea

that the creation produced
such a sordid set of creatures

in human figure... poor,
dirty, emaciated men,

great numbers of women,
who seemed to be the beasts

of burden, and children,
some very young infants

who were born on the road.

Hannah winthrop.

The prisoners would
eventually be marched

more than 600 miles to
charlottesville, Virginia,

and still later to other camps in Virginia,

Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

Many died.

Hundreds escaped.

Some would rejoin the
British army at New York;

others joined the continental army

or simply disappeared into the populace.

By the time the remaining
prisoners from saratoga

were released in 1783,

only a few of the 6,000 would be left.

Everything is almost gone

of the vegetable kind, butchers
obliged to kill fine milk cows.

One woman walked two miles
out of town only for an egg.

Such is the dreadful
situation we are reduced to.

Sarah Fisher.

At first, Philadelphia loyalists

had welcomed British
troops into their city.

But as it grew colder
that Autumn, homeowners

would be forced to take
officers into their homes,

whether they wanted to or
not and, as Sarah Fisher wrote,

there were soon "very bad accounts"

"of the licentiousness
of the English officers

deluding young girls."

Sarah Fisher felt especially
isolated and alone,

but she soon gave
birth to a baby daughter,

whom she named Hannah,
after her late mother.

American patrols made foraging

in the surrounding countryside
dangerous for British troops.

Provisions grew increasingly scarce.

Prices soared.

General howe had to find
a way for the royal Navy

to ferry food, supplies, and equipment

up the Delaware river to Philadelphia.

American forces occupied
two forts... fort Mifflin

on mud island, and fort Mercer

at red bank on the New Jersey side.

For weeks, the British
worked to destroy them.

The besieged Americans,
Thomas paine wrote,

had nothing "to cover
them but their bravery."

Joseph plumb Martin had
been among the last Americans

to evacuate fort Mifflin.

Every private soldier in an army

thinks his particular services
as essential to carry on the war

he's engaged in, as the services
of the most influential general.

And why not?

What could officers
do without such men?

Nothing at all.

Great men get great
praise, little men nothing.

Both forts fell.

The Delaware was now
open to British shipping.

Howe's army could safely
spend the winter in Philadelphia.

In December, George
Washington would lead his army

into winter quarters, a
hilly, wooded, remote place

northwest of Philadelphia
called valley forge.

In France, Benjamin
Franklin had heard little of what

was happening in america
for seven long weeks.

Then, on December 4th,

a rider clattered into his courtyard,

shouting he had important news.

Franklin hurried out to greet him.

"Sir," he asked, "is Philadelphia taken?"

"Yes, sir," the courier answered.

Franklin, dejected,
turned to go back inside.

"But, sir," the rider said.

"I have greater news than that.

"General burgoyne and his whole army

are prisoners of war."

Just a few months
earlier, Franklin had written

that only "a small
matter" would be needed

to bring France into the war with britain.

Clearly, the surrender
of an entire British army

was a large matter.

The comte de vergennes,
the French foreign minister,

whose newly rebuilt Navy
was now ready for war,

saw the victory at saratoga
and the former colonies'

tentative steps toward
forming a central government

as the best evidence so far
that a French-American alliance

might defeat the British.

Louis xvi agreed.

"America is triumphant," he said,

"and England beaten."

Burgoyne's surrender at saratoga

is a crushing blow, and
it impresses the French.

But the French are also impressed

by George Washington's survival.

He's still hanging in there.

His army is still fighting.

The British may force
their way into Philadelphia,

but they have not destroyed
Washington's army.

It's quite a risk to send your army to fight

with an army that might never win.

But there's more to the
story, because the French

are not just waiting for the victory.

They're waiting for their
own army to be ready.

Finally, their Navy was
ready, their army was ready.

They were strong enough
again and felt confident

that this was the right
moment to join the rebels.

In Paris, on February 6, 1778,

French and American commissioners

would sign two treaties.

The first recognized the independence

of the United States of
america and established

commercial relations
between the two countries.

The second, the treaty of alliance,

promised full support
for the American cause

from the French army and
Navy, as well as its treasury.

The importance of the French alliance,

just in entirely practical terms,

we're talking about what would today be

$25 billion to $30 billion in aid.

We're talking about a war effort

that the colonies could not
have provided for themselves.

And the idea that a foreign
power bankrolled that effort

and that it would have
impossible without them,

that's the chapter we don't
like to think too much about

because our sense of our
independence is that it's

something that we achieved on our own.

Although it would be nearly three months

before the news crossed the Atlantic,

an uprising among British
subjects in North America

was about to ignite another global war.

Next time on "the American revolution"...

Winter at valley forge.

This army must inevitably
starve or disperse

in order to obtain subsistence.

Alliances are formed...

The new United States represents

an existential threat.

And the French enter the war.

Britain knows that

Spain and the Netherlands may be next.

The stakes are big in this war.

When "the American
revolution" continues next time.

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The American revolution caused

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The fight would take
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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.