All language subtitles for The.American.Revolution.2025.S01E05.1080p.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.

Additional support was provided by

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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.

I have of late lost a great
many intimate friends.

The numbers of fine young
men from 15 to 5 and 20

with loss of limbs hurts
me beyond conception,

and I every day curse Columbus

and all the discoverers
of this diabolical country.

In what manner the parliament
will act on this occasion

we cannot conceive.

Major John bowater.

You cannot... I venture to say,

you cannot conquer america.

My lords, in 3 campaigns,

we have done nothing
and suffered much.

You may swell every
expense and every effort,

pile and accumulate every assistance

you can buy or borrow,

traffic and barter with every
little pitiful German prince

that sells and sends his subjects

to the shambles of a foreign country.

Your efforts are forever
vain and impotent.

If I were an American,
as I am an englishman,

while a foreign troop
was landed in my country,

I never would lay down my
arms... never, never, never.

William pitt, Earl of chatham.

The American revolution is,

on the one hand, an intensely local war,

and, on the other
hand, a great global war.

As a global war, the American revolution

continues the series
of wars among empires

for the prize of North America.

Britain, Spain, France are all seeking

some form of victory or advantage...

But the beginning of 1778,

the rebellious United States' cause

is at the thread end

of its ability to continue to exist.

There comes a soldier,

his bare feet are seen
through his worn-out shoes,

his legs nearly naked
from the tattered remains

of an only pair of stockings,

his breeches not sufficient
to cover his nakedness.

His whole appearance pictures a
person forsaken and discouraged.

Dr. Albigence Waldo, surgeon,
first Connecticut infantry.

The weary continentals
whom George Washington led

into winter quarters at valley forge

in December of 1777,

were, a visitor, said, just
"a skeleton of an army."

They'd been fighting
and marching for months,

but many hadn't been paid since August.

Nearly 3,000 of them
were officially unfit for duty.

Over the next 6 months,
2,500 soldiers would die,

mostly from typhus, typhoid,
influenza, and dysentery.

Clothing was so scarce
that when a man died,

what was left of his uniform was
washed and carefully preserved

so that another member of his unit

might be at least a little warmer.

I am now convinced

that unless some great
change takes place,

this army must inevitably
be reduced to one or the other

of these things... starve,
dissolve, or disperse

in order to obtain subsistence
in the best manner they can.

George Washington,
headquarters at the valley forge.

Valley forge took its name
from an abandoned ironworks

that stood at the
intersection of a small creek

and the schuylkill river

some 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Washington himself called
it "a dreary kind of place,"

but he chose it because it was
close enough to Philadelphia

to move quickly against British foragers

when they dared venture out of the city

and far enough from it to
make surprise attacks unlikely.

Pennsylvania legislators complained

that instead of
withdrawing to valley forge,

Washington should
be about the business

of recapturing Philadelphia.

I can assure those gentlemen

that it is a much easier
and less distressing thing

to draw remonstrances
in a comfortable room

by a good fireside than
to occupy a cold, bleak hill

and sleep under frost and
snow without clothes or blankets.

It would give me infinite
pleasure to afford protection

to every individual and
to every spot of ground

in the whole of the United States.

Nothing is more my wish,

but this is not possible
with our present force.

George Washington.

I'd experienced what I thought

sufficient of the hardships
of military life the year before,

but we were now absolutely
in danger of perishing,

and that too in the midst
of a plentiful country.

Joseph plumb Martin.

Private Joseph plumb
Martin had survived

the battles of long island, kips bay,

the disaster at germantown,
and the siege of fort Mifflin,

and he was still just 17.

Now huddled in tattered
canvas tents at valley forge,

soldiers went for days with
nothing to eat but fire cakes...

just flour and water baked on hot stones.

Several days went by when
many soldiers had no food at all.

There was talk of mutiny.

The apparatus of war
supporting the army

has come unglued.

All of these support functions

that help keep an army
thriving, keep it healthy,

have really begun to implode.

Congress, still in exile
in York, Pennsylvania,

told Washington to
commandeer food and fodder

from the surrounding
countryside, but he resisted,

worried it might turn
civilians against the cause.

Instead, he tried to purchase
everything his men needed,

but the steady depreciation
of continental currency

made that problematic.

Nothing like the
American revolutionary war

had been fought.

No public project like it
had been undertaken before,

and it was incredibly expensive.

What happens with a paper currency

if it isn't well-supported
and isn't handled properly is,

it depreciates wildly
against gold and silver.

It was useless as a currency,

and in that sense, the
congress went broke.

The British army, on the contrary,

has lots of hard cash,
and lots of Americans

who are not politically
interested one way or the other

see opportunities for
commercial benefit...

selling products,

selling goods and
services to the British army.

Washington's army was dwindling again.

Men simply went home.

Hundreds enlisted in loyalist regiments.

Others joined roving outlaw bands

that looted isolated farmhouses.

Still others made their way
to Philadelphia to surrender,

hoping they would be treated
better as prisoners of war

than as soldiers at valley forge.

Washington's officers were leaving, too.

The number of resignations

in the Virginia line is induced by officers

finding that every man
who remains at home

is making a fortune
whilst they are spending

what they have in the
defense of their country.

Thomas Nelson.

Over the coming months,

more than 500 of Washington's
officers would resign.

To add to his troubles,
some members of congress

and a handful of commanders
had begun whispering

that he had proved himself
weak and indecisive in battle.

If the revolution were to
succeed, some argued,

command of the continental
army should pass to Horatio gates,

who had recently accepted the surrender

of an entire British army at saratoga.

I did not solicit this command,

but accepted it after much entreaty.

As soon as the public gets
dissatisfied with my service,

I shall quit the helm
with as much satisfaction

and retire to a private
station with as much content

as ever the weariest pilgrim felt

upon his safe arrival in the holy land.

George Washington.

Until that moment came,

Washington would work tirelessly,

first to maintain, and
then to improve his army.

Shelter came first.

He ordered the men to cut down trees,

dismantle farmers'
outbuildings and fences,

and bang together row
upon row of log huts,

perhaps 2,000 of them,
each one 14 by 16 feet

and meant to house 12 men.

Valley forge would for a time

be the fourth largest city in america...

20,000 men, women, and
children from all 13 states.

For many, English was
not their native language.

They spoke German, Irish, Scots,

Welsh, Dutch, Swedish, French,

mohican, oneida,
wolof, kikongo, and more.

Nearly 10% were African American,

most of whom served alongside
whites in integrated regiments.

Some 60 men were enrolled in
a brand-new all-black company

belonging to the first
Rhode Island regiment.

The state legislature promised
those who were enslaved

their freedom at war's end and
pledged to pay compensation

to those whose property they had been.

Among the native
American soldiers and scouts

at valley forge were tuscaroras,
oneidas, as well as mohicans

and wappingers from
stock bridge, Massachusetts.

The hundreds of women
who lived among the soldiers

did the men's laundry,
nursed the sick and wounded,

and cared for an unknown
number of children.

When men went to war, they were gone

and so was whatever
pay they were going to get,

and many women just
could not survive on their own,

and so it was actually
better for everybody

when women traveled with the armies.

Martha Washington joined
her husband at valley forge.

At least 8 servants... men
and women, white and black,

enslaved and free... lived
alongside the Washingtons

in a stone house they
rented from the family

of the mill owner who had built it.

8 of general Washington's closest aides

were crowded in there, as well,

among them, two especially
idealistic young officers

in their early 20s...

John laurens and the
Marquis de Lafayette.

As soon as Lafayette arrived,

he starts to look around and get inspired

by everything he sees, and he's young,

and he's excited to be in this new country

in what, to him, is the new world,

and he's going to
explore and understand.

He really starts to believe in the cause

for equalities, for liberties.

John laurens of south Carolina

was the son of Henry laurens,

the current president of congress

and one of the biggest slave
traders in North America.

From valley forge, the young
laurens wrote to his father.

I would solicit you to seed me

a number of your
able-bodied men slaves

instead of leaving me a fortune.

I would bring about a twofold good.

First, I would advance those
who are unjustly deprived

of the rights of mankind,

and I would reinforce
the defenders of Liberty

with a number of gallant soldiers.

My dearest friend and father,

I hope that my plan
for serving my country

and the oppressed negro
race will not appear to you

the chimera of a young
mind, but a laudable sacrifice

of private interest to
justice and the public good.

John laurens.

Henry laurens rejected
his son's proposal.

Freeing some slaves, he said,
would simply "render slavery

more irksome to those
who remained in it."

In February, the bad
conditions at valley forge

grew still worse.

Some 1,000 soldiers would
sicken and die that month.

I was called to relieve a
soldier thought to be dying.

He was an Indian, an excellent soldier.

He has fought for those very people

who disinherited his forefathers.

Having finished his pilgrimage,

he was discharged from
the war of life and death.

His memory ought to be respected

more than those rich
ones who supply the world

with nothing better than money and vice.

Dr. Albigence Waldo.

Desperate to feed his hungry men,

Washington now organized
what was called the great forage,

more than 1,500 men in all,

to scour the countryside
in eastern Pennsylvania,

western New Jersey,
Delaware, and Maryland,

seizing whatever they could find

and handing out promissory
notes in exchange.

The militia and some
regular troops on one side,

and loyalist refugees with
the englishmen on the other,

were constantly roving about,

plundering and destroying everything

in a barbarous manner.

Everywhere distrust, fear, hatred

and abominable
selfishness were met with.

Reverend nils Collin.

Nils Collin was a Swedish missionary

sent to america to serve as rector

of the Swedish church in
swedesboro, New Jersey.

Since he considered himself a
subject of the Swedish monarch,

his conscience would not
allow him to swear allegiance

to the British king or to ally
himself with the patriot cause.

He vowed to remain neutral,

but bands of American
and British soldiers

and their sympathizers took
turns occupying the town,

seizing livestock and provisions,

and punishing those
who stood in their way.

Many members of the congregation

suffered injury in various
ways by this frenzy.

Dr. Otto's house was burnt
down by loyalist refugees.

James Stillman lost most of his cattle.

Sutherland, a scotch man,
together with a young Swede,

hendrickson, were taken
to New York as prisoners.

On the opposite side, the
militia pillaged the following...

Jacob and Anders Jones,
who had traded with the English;

a sea captain, jan Cox,
whose beds were cut up

and his China, tea tables,
and bureaus smashed.

From all this it is apparent

how terrible this civil war raged,

party hatred flamed in
the hearts of my people.

Some would not go to church
because the sight of their enemy

aroused the memory of
the evils they had suffered.

Nils Collin.

Given the choice to
fight for the patriot cause

or join the British effort
to suppress the patriots,

most people stood to the side.

Most people tried to let it pass.

They tried to get out of the way.

It's common individuals,

ordinary individuals asking the question

that I think we all ask
about politics every day...

"what does this have to do with me?"

Girls at the age of 12 and 13

require a mother's care.

A girl of 13, left without an advisor

and fancying herself a woman,

stands on a precipice
that trembles beneath her.

Betsy ambler.

Betsy ambler and her
younger sister Mary

spent that winter in Winchester, Virginia.

They were left with an aunt
and uncle while their parents

and little sisters headed
southeast to avoid the cold.

Betsy spent much of her
time trying to win the attention

of "charming young..."
Continental "officers."

"Here," she said, "was a fine
field open for a romantic girl."

Early in the spring, our
good father returned.

And though he treated
us himself as children,

he saw that we had
been considered of an age

to attract too much attention.

Betsy ambler.

The ambler family would be reunited,

and they would be returning to yorktown,

what Betsy called her
"beloved birthplace."

Her father's finances had
been hit hard by the war.

He and his two daughters
had to make the long,

dusty trip home in a wagon, not a coach.

"We were rather ashamed of
our cavalry," Betsy remembered.

The only possible good

from the entire change in
our circumstances was that

we were made
acquainted with the manner

and situation of our country,

which we otherwise
should never have known.

We were forced to industry

and to endeavor by amiable
and agreeable conduct

to make amends for the loss of fortune.

Betsy ambler.

When the amblers
finally got to yorktown,

they settled not

in "our former mansion," she recalled,

but in a much smaller
house on the edge of town.

My imagination frequently recurs

to that enchanting spot
situated on a little eminence

overlooking a smiling
Meadow, where a gentle stream

meandering round the sloping hill

was lost in one of the
noblest rivers in our country.

Here, my sister and
myself often wandered,

gathering wildflowers to adorn our hair,

till we almost fancied ourselves heroines.

Betsy ambler.

Washington had this really interesting

quality of being able to
project authority and confidence

and allowing that to spill out into others,

so that they acquired
authority and confidence

by being in his orbit.

I think he had the effect of pulling out

some of the best in the
people who were around him.

To provide his army

with the reliable logistical
support it desperately needed,

Washington insisted
that congress appoint

as quartermaster general
the officer he trusted most...

Nathanael Greene, but
Greene was a fighting general.

He knew there was more combat ahead

and wanted to be in on
what he called "the mischief."

Greene says, nobody in history

has ever heard of a "quartermaster."

He doesn't want the
job, but he takes the job.

Like Washington, he's got a brain

built for executive action,

and he's good at
being the quartermaster.

Thanks to Nathanael Greene's

mastery of logistics and
Washington's appeals

to state governors, by
the end of march 1778,

herds of cattle and sheep
were plodding toward valley forge

from several directions,
along with wagon trains

filled with everything from barrels of nails

to brand-new uniforms and
crates of bayonets and muskets.

Now that his men were better
fed, clothed, and equipped

and their ranks were
swelling as fresh recruits,

recalled regulars, and
returning convalescents

all converged on valley forge,

Washington wanted every man
in his newly reorganized army

to undergo formal military training

to end what he called the
confusion that had too often

undercut its performance
on the battlefield.

The man he picked to oversee that task

was a newcomer to america...
fried rich Wilhelm ludolf gerhard

August Heinrich ferdinand Von steuben.

Never before or since have I had

such an impression of the
ancient fabled god of war

as when I looked on the baron.

The trappings of his horse,

the enormous holsters of his pistols

all seemed to favor the idea.

He seemed to me a perfect
personification of Mars.

Private ashbel green.

Steuben claimed to be a baron,

a lieutenant general
in the prussian army,

and a close aide to Frederick the great.

He really was a baron,
though a penniless one,

and he had served in
Frederick's headquarters

for a time, but his army career in Europe

had been cut short by an accusation

that he had taken
familiarities with young boys.

In america, he said, he wanted to put

his "talents in the arts of war
in the service of a republic."

Steuben was hot-tempered,
and his English

was initially limited to a
single word... "goddamn."

When some movement

or maneuver was not
performed to his mind,

he began to swear in
German, then in French,

and then in both languages together.

When he had exhausted
his artillery of foreign oaths,

he would call to his aides,

"come and swear for me in English.

These fellows won't do what I bid them."

Peter Stephen du ponceau.

Baron Von steuben is
really a comical figure

when he arrives at camp.

The men make fun of him,
but he is a man who you need

pulling the men together

and giving them a sense
of common purpose.

After the men have drilled
with him for a little while,

they stop laughing.

But for all his bluster,

steuben grasped the character
of the men he was to work with.

"The genius of this nation
is not to be compared...

With the prussians,
Austrians or French,"

he wrote to an old friend back home.

"You say to your soldier,
'do this, ' and he does it,"

but here, "I am obliged to say",

"'this is the reason why
you ought to do that, '

and then he does it."

Steuben taught the men to march

at a "common step"
of 75 paces a minute

and a "quick step" of 120 paces,

to move in columns rather
than straggle in single file,

to shift into battle line and
back again when under fire,

to load and fire musket
volleys more quickly,

and to become proficient
with the bayonet,

the weapon that had once terrified them

when in British or hessian hands.

As skills improved, so did morale.

By spring, the danger
of mutiny had eased.

So had the mutterings about
Washington's leadership.

He was, it was clear,

indispensable to the cause of Liberty.

That year, a German-language almanac

published in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,

would call Washington
des landes vater...

"the country's father."

He was the glue that
held people together.

These 13 colonies had to come together,

and he was the person to do it.

We would not have had
a country without him.

I don't know, actually.
I mean, you know...

god, I can't believe I'm saying
this because I'm not a huge fan

of "great man" theories of history

or explanations of history,
but let's put it this way.

It's easy to see the American
effort for independence

failing without Washington's leadership.

After midnight on April 23, 1778,

31 sailors and marines

from the 20-gun continental
Navy sloop "ranger,"

tossing in the Irish sea,
climbed into two longboats

and began rowing toward
the port of whitehaven

on the western coast of England.

Their Scottish-born commander
knew these waters well.

He'd begun his seafaring career there

as a 13-year-old apprentice
seaman named John Paul Jr.

In the intervening years, he
had sailed aboard slave ships,

risen to command merchant vessels,

and then, after killing a
crewman, fled to america.

There, he changed his
name to John Paul Jones

and volunteered to join the
fledgling continental Navy.

I resolved to make the greatest efforts

to bring to an end the barbarous ravages

to which the English turned in america

by making good fire
in England of shipping.

John Paul Jones.

When Jones' men reached
the whitehaven wharf,

they found more than 200
vessels moored in its harbor.

As Jones worked to get a fire going

aboard a boat loaded with coal,

angry townspeople
raced to the waterfront.

I stood between them and the ship of fire

with a pistol in my hand
and ordered them to retire,

which they did with precipitation.

The flames had already
caught the rigging

and begun to ascend the main mast.

It was time to retire.

John Paul Jones.

Jones and his men
made it back to the ranger

and sailed away.

The next day,

they engaged a British
warship, the "Drake,"

and after a battle that
Jones remembered

as "warm, close, and
obstinate," captured it and its crew

and brought it into the
French port of brest.

Jones understood his impact
on British public opinion.

Mothers began warning
their children to be good,

or the fearsome "pirate" John
Paul Jones would get them.

What was done is sufficient to show

that not all their boasted Navy
can protect their own coasts

and that the scenes of distress
which they have occasioned

in america may soon be
brought home to their own doors.

John Paul Jones.

What a miraculous change
in the political world...

the government of France
an advocate for Liberty,

espousing the cause of protestants,

and risking a war to
secure their independence;

britain at war with america,
France in alliance with her.

These, my friend, are
astonishing changes.

Elbridge Gerry.

It had taken nearly 3 months for word

of the new military alliance
with France to reach Washington.

The French would be
sending soldiers and the fleet.

His army would no longer be alone.

"This... great...
Glorious... news," he said,

"must put the independency of america

out of all manner of dispute."

Washington was eager now

to test his newly disciplined
army against the enemy.

The enemy imagined Philadelphia

to be of more importance
to us than it really was

and to that belief added the absurd idea

that the soul of all
america was centered there

and would be conquered there.

Thomas paine.

The British, German, and loyalist troops

penned up in Philadelphia
had had a hard winter, too.

They had subsisted on half-rations.

Wounded troops occupied
every public building in town

except the state house,

where the declaration of
independence had been signed,

which was crowded
with patriot prisoners.

1777 had ended badly for the British.

General burgoyne had surrendered
an entire army at saratoga.

General howe might have
occupied Philadelphia,

and his subordinates still held
New York City and Newport,

but they controlled little else,

and now, with the French joining the war,

britain would be required to defend

all its imperial holdings...

in India, Africa, Ireland,
the mediterranean

and the Caribbean, as
well as in North America.

The French decide to enter the war,

and that changes everything for britain.

Britain knows that Spain and
the Netherlands may be next.

Suddenly, those 13
colonies that were rebelling

are kind of the small potatoes of the war.

They could lose their
profitable plantation islands.

They could lose Jamaica.

The stakes are big in this war,

and the 13 colonies have
become just a tiny corner of it.

Lord north, the British prime minister,

dispatched peace commissioners
to america that spring,

armed with a series of concessions

aimed at ending the fighting,

everything the Americans
had been demanding for years.

All they had to do was
renounce independence.

What they're offering is basically terms

that would have been
acceptable to the colonists

in 1774 or 1775.

Congress would not hear of it.

The very idea of dependence,

its president, Henry laurens,
said, "is inadmissible."

British negotiators
responded with a warning.

Americans could now
expect far harsher treatment

than any they had yet received,

and they had appointed
a new commander

to deliver that treatment.

On the 10th of may,

sir Henry Clinton arrived at Philadelphia,

relieving sir William howe
as commander in chief.

Captain Johann ewald.

Henry Clinton is a
formidable military officer.

He's had a lot of combat experience,

but he's a very, very difficult personality.

He's easily aggrieved.

He carries his grievances
and grudges with him.

He will be the British
commander in chief longer

than any other general
in the American revolution,

for 4 years.

General Henry Clinton, who
had been fighting in america

since bunker's hill, had
hoped to be relieved.

Instead, he would be
asked to do at least as much

as his predecessor had been asked to do

and to do it with far fewer men.

His new orders were to
send 8,000 of his soldiers

to protect British interests
in Florida and the Caribbean.

He was to leave the
rest of the new England

and mid-Atlantic states in
patriot hands for the most part

and eventually mount seaborne assaults

on the 4 southern colonies.

Clinton concluded he
first had to get his army

back to New York, which
meant evacuating Philadelphia

that had been taken
just 9 months earlier.

Most of his men, he decided,
would have to march to New York.

He had too few ships
to carry his entire army

as well as some 3,000 loyalists

now eager to leave with him.

All of the loyal inhabitants

who had taken our
protection lamented that they

now had to give up all their property.

Brave people who have rendered
such good service to the king

are being left behind.

God alone knows what
will happen to them.

Johann ewald.

Philadelphia has its
population turned inside out

a couple of different
times in the revolution.

New York City has its
population turned around,

a kind of back-and-forth of loyalist

and patriot residents,
depending on which army

is in charge, and when an army leaves,

the population that
had come in order to live

under their protection
have to sort of fumble

and figure out what it is
that they're going to do next.

Philadelphia, June 18th.

This morning when we arose,

there was not one redcoat to be seen.

Colonel Gordon and some
others had not been gone

a quarter of an hour before
the Americans entered the city.

Elizabeth drinker.

To act as military
governor of Philadelphia,

George Washington selected
general Benedict Arnold,

still suffering from war wounds so severe

that he could not mount a horse.

He was to restore order
and preserve tranquility.

Philadelphia was now
almost unrecognizable.

Retreating redcoats had looted homes,

desecrated churches,
felled orchards for firewood,

and in the houses they
had used as barracks,

cut holes in the floor to serve as privies.

Returning patriot refugees were enraged

at what had been done to their city

and were eager to punish anyone

who had collaborated with the occupiers.

The homes and property
of scores of accused tories

would be confiscated.

23 men were tried for treason.

Two quakers were hanged.

Philadelphia was divided

between the loyalists and the patriots,

who were at each other's throats.

It would have required someone
of great tact and sympathy

to keep the lid on this city.

That was not Arnold.

By June 18, 1778,
most of Clinton's army

was in New Jersey and had
begun its march toward New York,

some 90 miles away.

They moved in two great columns...

more than 18,000 soldiers,

nearly 2,000 noncombatants,
46 artillery pieces,

and 5,000 horses.

The next morning, George
Washington led his army

out of valley forge for
the first time in months

and began shadowing the
British as they moved east,

looking for an opportunity to strike.

Washington has decided

that he is not going to
directly intercept this column,

which is very strong.

He wants to Nick at them
and... and peck at them

from the rear and make
life miserable for them

and watch for an opening.

Once again, New Jersey militia

made the British passage
as painful as possible,

felling trees across the
roads, destroying Bridges,

flooding streams to
make fording difficult,

and picking off individual
soldiers by ambush.

The whole province was in arms,

following us with Washington's army,

constantly surrounding us on our
marches and besieging our camps.

Each step cost human blood.

Johann ewald.

The weather added to their misery...

heat that soared above 90 degrees,

sudden downpours that
turned Sandy roads into bogs,

followed by dense humidity,
swarms of mosquitoes,

and still more heat.

20 British soldiers died of
heat exhaustion on a single day.

As many as 500 men are
thought to have deserted

during the march,
most of them hessians,

blending into German-speaking
communities nearby.

On the morning of June 24, 1778,

Americans otherwise disconnected

by the vastness of their continent

witnessed an otherworldly phenomenon

at roughly the same time
as the moon eclipsed the sun.

Indians and Spanish colonists

in Mexico and Texas saw it first.

When it reached Spanish
New Orleans and British mobile,

the flags of empire
flew in sudden darkness

for more than 4 minutes.

The total eclipse lasted even longer

for the muscogee creeks
on the chattahoochee river

and for the "maroon"
communities of self-emancipated

former slaves hidden in
the great dismal swamp.

When mid-morning darkness descended

on the Virginia capital at williamsburg,

"lightening buggs were seen as at night."

The same darkness briefly
enveloped Washington's army

as it followed the British into New Jersey.

"Had this happened upon
such an occasion in "olden time,"

private Joseph plumb
Martin remembered,

"it would have been considered ominous,

either of good or bad fortune,
but we took no notice of it."

Martin had been detached
from his Connecticut regiment

and assigned to join
fast-moving light infantry

with orders to follow the
enemy closely enough

to capture stragglers
and welcome deserters.

The day after the eclipse,

Clinton decided to head
east towards Sandy hook,

a loyalist stronghold
from which royal transports

could ferry his men to New York.

He merged his two
divisions into one column,

and, he recalled, hoping that
"Mr. Washington might possibly

"be induced to commit himself" to battle,

"the elite of my army between him

and my... To defend it from insult."

He put general Charles cornwallis

in charge of that force.

At hope well, Washington
convened a council of war.

General Nathanael
Greene, back in the field,

was eager for a fight.

If we suffer the enemy to pass

through the jerseys without
attempting anything upon them,

I think we shall ever regret it.

People expect something from
us, and our strength demands it.

Nathanael Greene.

But most commanders urged caution.

Major general Charles Lee...
Washington's second in command,

captured two years before
and only recently exchanged...

was especially adamant in his opposition.

Sending Americans
against British regulars

would be "criminal," he said,

but when Washington
decided to send forward

4,500 troops anyway, Lee insisted

seniority required that he lead them.

If he weren't given command,

he said, he would be "disgraced."

Washington relented and ordered Lee

to follow cornwallis' elite rearguard

and look for an opportunity to attack.

The British left their encampment

around monmouth court
house well before dawn

on Sunday, June 28th.

By mid-morning, Lee's men had formed

west of the British line, trying piecemeal

to attack and dislodge cornwallis' forces.

All their efforts proved futile.

As the patriots struggled

in the increasingly brutal heat,

Clinton sent an entire
division to reinforce cornwallis.

More than 10,000 British, German,

and loyalist troops counterattacked.

Things go south in a
hurry for the Americans.

Lee loses control, and
the next thing you know,

this American advance
guard, the vanguard

that's supposed to
be attacking, is fleeing.

They're confused.

They begin falling back,
but then Washington appears.

The knowledge of his
presence causes the retreat

to stop instantaneously
without even having said a word.

Those who witnessed this
moment said that it was like

a bolt of electricity
shot through the forces

once they realized that
Washington was there.

His presence stopped the retreat.

His fine appearance on horseback,

his calm courage gave him the air

best calculated to excite enthusiasm.

He rode all along the lines
amid the shouts of the soldiers,

cheering them by his voice and example.

Marquis de Lafayette.

Washington gives some orders.

The men get back into line...

And they face down the British attack,

and they don't break.

Fire!

General steuben's training had paid off.

The British launched
a series of assaults.

General Henry Clinton himself
led one of them, sword in hand.

Colonels Alexander
Hamilton and Aaron burr

both had horses shot
out from under them,

but the Americans held.

Washington places
his defenses in a way

that stops the British assault.

He's got good ground for his artillery.

He's hammering the British.

The artillery duel
continued for two hours.

Infantry on both sides sought
whatever cover they could.

With the thermometer at 96,

what could be done in a hot pine barren

loaded with everything
that the poor soldier carries?

It breaks my heart that I was obliged

under those cruel
circumstances to attempt it.

General Henry Clinton.

Finally, at around 3:45,

Clinton ordered a stop to the firing.

With his supply train now well on its way

towards Sandy hook and safety,

he reluctantly began to
withdraw his exhausted troops.

Washington's men were worn out, too.

The heat, Joseph plumb
Martin remembered,

was like "the mouth of ...Oven."

It was generally understood the battle

was to be renewed at the dawn of day,

but at the dawn of day, I
heard the shout of victory...

"the British are gone."

Dr. William read.

The battle of monmouth had left

some 362 of Washington's
men and 411 of Clinton's

dead, wounded, or missing.

Corpses, swollen and
blackening in the heat,

sprawled everywhere.

Both sides claimed victory.

Clinton's column reached Sandy hook

without serious interruption
and embarked for staten island.

His objective was to
get his army to New York,

and he had done so...

But when the fighting ended,
Washington's men held the field.

"It is glorious for america,"

a New Jersey colonel wrote his wife.

At least one British officer
admitted his army had endured

"a handsome flogging."

Although there would be fierce
fighting and many skirmishes

in new England and
the mid-Atlantic states,

monmouth would be the last
major battle fought in the north

during the American revolution...

And it would be more than 3
years before George Washington

would personally lead
his troops into battle again.

What he learns over
the course of the war

is that there are other ways
to perform his leadership

that's not actually by doing
something big and bold

but that waiting and holding
back and containment

can also be a way of
showing his strength.

Cruel as this war has been

and separated as I am on account of it

from the dearest connection in life,

I would not exchange my
country for the wealth of the indies,

or be any other than an American.

Abigail Adams.

One of the great blessings
here is how much time

John spends in Philadelphia
with Abigail back in Massachusetts

because from that, we
have really the most detailed,

richest correspondence
of the revolutionary years.

In the summer of 1778,
Abigail and John Adams

were apart, as they almost
always were during the war.

She was at their home in
brain tree, Massachusetts,

managing the household,

and he was newly arrived in Paris,

sent by congress to
join Benjamin Franklin

and the American delegation to France.

There, on the fourth of July,
Adams and Franklin hosted

a modest celebration
on the second anniversary

of American independence.

We had the honor of the company

of all the American gentlemen
and ladies in and about Paris

with a few of the French
gentlemen in the neighborhood.

They were not ministers
of state, nor ambassadors,

nor princes, nor Dukes,
nor peers, nor marquises,

nor cardinals, nor
archbishops, nor bishops.

John Adams.

Thousands of miles west
of Paris in Philadelphia,

where the continental congress
had just returned from exile,

general Benedict Arnold
presided over a feast

and entertainment for the city's political,

military, and merchant leaders.

They were interrupted
by what one of them called

"a crowd of the vulgar" outside

mocking the pretensions of the wealthy.

I think the American revolution

creates an idea that there is
no class in the United States,

that we, in our founding moment,
decided to do away with that.

It's not true.

There have always been wide varieties

in wealth and power in the United States,

and there were more opportunities

in the colonies than
there were in Europe,

but some of the opportunity,

some of the promise
of the United States,

is built on slavery and taking native land.

Late the same evening of July 4th,

in the heart of the
continent, Virginia militia

under lieutenant colonel
George Rogers Clark

reached British-held kaskaskia,

a mostly French-speaking
village on the Mississippi river.

Ready!

In the dead of night,

Clark's men overwhelmed
the town's defenses.

The next morning, he notified

the terrified townspeople
that the king of France

had joined the Americans.

Clark guaranteed they
would be free to practice

their catholic faith, since all religions

would be tolerated in america,

provided they agreed to bow

to the authority of the United States.

It was a bloodless start
to what would become.

Clark's bloody campaign
to conquer Indian country

east of the Mississippi.

The French fleet Washington
had been waiting for

finally appeared off New York

in the week after independence day...

12 ships of the line, 4 frigates,

and over 4,000 French
marines, all commanded

by vice admiral Charles
Henri, comte d'estaing,

a veteran of warfare against
britain in India and sumatra.

D'estaing is a French aristocrat.

He considers himself quite superior

to these American "ragtag"
army and is looking at them

and thinks, "how am I gonna
work with these people?"

Because he thought,
"I'm the French admiral.

I know what to do here,
so they better listen to me."

Washington hoped a coordinated attack

with this new French
force could trap Clinton

in New York, take back the city,

and, by so doing, persuade britain

that further prosecution
of the war was hopeless.

Because d'estaing
had convinced himself

that his heaviest ships
would run aground

trying to enter New York
harbor, he decided to move

against the British Garrison at
Newport, Rhode Island, instead.

It was to be a coordinated assault

with American ground forces
under general John Sullivan,

but neither commander
spoke the other's language.

Sullivan, the son of
Irish indentured servants,

loathed aristocrats like
the French commander,

who, in turn, found
Sullivan crude and inept.

It all went wrong.

Without informing the
French, Sullivan advanced

a day earlier than had been planned.

When a British fleet appeared offshore,

d'estaing sailed out to do battle...

But a howling storm scattered

and seriously damaged both fleets.

18th-century warfare is
mainly based on the weather.

You could have no alternative.

If there is a big storm coming in,

you can't do anything besides
getting just wiped away.

Admiral d'estaing had to
go for repairs in Boston.

The French, in essence,

leave the Americans in the lurch.

Sullivan is barely able
to extract his forces

from what could have
been a catastrophe.

The first joint French-American
operation had failed.

Once the repairs
were finished in Boston,

d'estaing would set sail
for the French west indies

without even bothering to tell
Washington he was leaving.

French ships would be
available to the Americans

only during the late
summer and early fall,

when hurricanes
threatened the Caribbean.

The American revolution
was important to France

only when its successes
deepened britain's failures

and Washington knew he could not win

the decisive battle without French help.

Anti-French feeling
runs so high after this

that Lafayette said he
never at any point in the war

felt that his life was at so much risk

as it was when he walked
down the streets of Boston

after this catastrophe at Rhode Island.

He thought he was gonna be strung up.

I, with some of my comrades

who were in the battle of
white plains in the year '76,

saw a number of the graves
of those who fell in that battle.

Some of the bodies had
been so slightly buried

that the dogs or hogs or both
had dug them out of the ground.

Here were hessian skulls.

Poor fellows!

They were left unburied in a foreign land.

They had perhaps as
near and dear friends

to lament their sad destiny

as the Americans who
laid buried near them.

They should have kept at home.

Joseph plumb Martin.

By the fall of 1778,

Washington's army
was arrayed in an arc

from middlebrook, New
Jersey, to danbury, Connecticut.

He would remain within striking
distance of New York City,

determined to recapture the place

he had been forced to abandon in 1776.

For months, his and Clinton's armies

had probed one another's lines.

On a single summer
afternoon near kings bridge,

a Maryland patrol
ambushed a German unit,

killing 6 and wounding 6 more,

and loyalist cavalry
ambushed and hacked to death

most of the stock bridge
Indians who had been

with Washington's army since 1775.

They "have fought and bled
by our side," Washington said.

"We consider them as
our friends and brothers."

On the great road from
New York to Boston,

not a single solitary traveler was visible

from week to week or
from month to month.

The world was motionless and silent.

Chaplain Timothy Dwight.

Before the revolution,
Westchester county in New York

had been one of the
wealthiest in the colonies,

but for nearly two years now, it had been

a part of what was called
the "neutral ground,"

uncontrolled by either army

but plundered by both again and again.

Roving bands of lawless
raiders prowled the countryside

rustling livestock, extorting cash,

looting and burning
homes, raping women.

This year has not been a
very glorious one to america.

Our enemies, however,
have nothing to boast of

since they have not gained
one inch of territory more

than they possessed a year ago

and are at least
Philadelphia out of pocket.

What the winter may produce I know not.

I wish it would give us
peace but do not expect it.

Abigail Adams.

It's pretty clear the British

are not gonna win the
war in new England.

They're not gonna get
enough popular support,

probably not gonna win the war

in the middle Atlantic region either.

The great potential place

where their relatively
more reduced forces

can have more leverage is the south,

so the goal is just see
what you can retain.

You probably can't keep
all of these 13 colonies.

Maybe you can keep the
most valuable of these colonies.

The southern colonies are
seen as an integrated part

of an economic system that generates

great power and wealth for britain,

so keeping the southern colonies

with their ability to provision
the west Indian islands,

and particularly their
plantation economies,

is seen as a vital British interest,

and that, more than anything else,

is why the war shifts
to the south from 1778.

After general Clinton
learned the French fleet

had sailed away from Boston,
he prepared for the invasion

of the south that London
had ordered him to undertake.

Another reason that the British pursue

a southern strategy after saratoga is that

they assume that there are
many more loyalists in the south

who will come to their aid.

There was also, of course,

the question of the enslaved population.

A great majority of the inhabitants

of north and south
Carolina are loyal subjects.

It is also well known that
the principal resources

for carrying on the rebellion
are drawn from the labor

of an incredible multitude of negroes

in the southern colonies.

But the instant that the
king's troops are put in motion

in those colonies, these poor slaves

would be ready to rise
upon their rebel masters.

Moses kirkland.

So the southern
strategy was to recapture

the southern colonies one by one,

starting with Georgia,
and move up the coast,

and in each place, they
hoped to put loyalists in charge,

and that way, the British army
could continue moving north.

From New York, general Clinton sent

a squadron south to
try to capture Savannah,

the capital of Georgia
and its only city of any size.

With the help

of an African American
river pilot named Sampson,

the British fleet sailed
up the Savannah river

and began disembarking below the city

at dawn on December 29, 1778.

Some 700 continental troops
and 150 local militia were waiting.

The British commander
saw that a direct assault

was certain to be bloody.

Then quamino Dolly,
an elderly enslaved man,

led part of the British
force through a swamp

that allowed them to get
behind the startled Americans

and open fire.

The patriots panicked.

British troops chased
them through the town.

83 Americans were killed
and 30 more drowned

trying to swim across
the yamacraw creek.

453 surrendered.

The British lost just 7 dead.

Over the weeks that followed,
the British captured Augusta

and reimposed royal rule in Georgia.

"I have," their commander boasted,

"ripped one star and one
stripe from the rebel flag."

My disposition always active,

I could not content myself at home

while my fellow countrymen

were fighting the battles of my country.

John greenwood.

In January of 1779, the
teenaged fifer John greenwood

decided to try something new.

He would sign onto a Boston privateer,

hoping both to strike
more blows at the British

and to make a fortune for himself.

He chose the 18-gun,
130-man "cumberland"

because its commander
was captain John manley,

who had been the most
successful sea raider

in the continental Navy for years

and who was now a civilian
only because there were

too few naval vessels for
him to have one to command.

The Americans have
no Navy to speak of.

Congress asks that 13 frigates be built.

None of those frigates
really get into action

in a meaningful way.

The British have 400 warships.

What the Americans
do have are privateers.

Privateers made warfare
a for-profit endeavor,

and so you had countless
sailors in new England

and up and down the coast, volunteering

to go out in privateers,
take British vessels,

and make them money
from what they got from them.

Profits from privateering attracted

a host of revolutionary leaders,

including generals Nathanael Greene,

Henry Knox, and George
Washington himself.

Investors shared the profits
from the sale of captured cargo

with the officers and
men who took them,

like the crew of the "cumberland,"

John greenwood's ship.

Every ship had the right or took it

to wear what kind of fancy
flag the captain pleased.

Captain manley's flag
was a very singular one,

with a pine tree painted
green and under the tree

the representation of a large
rattlesnake cut into 13 pieces,

then in large black letters, "join or die."

John greenwood.

Over the course of the revolution,

some 1,700 American privateers

are thought to have prowled the seas,

capturing nearly 2,000 British vessels.

John greenwood and
the "cumberland" set out

for the Caribbean, the most
profitable hunting ground.

Americans had already seized
so many British merchant ships

that they had reduced
the sugar trade by 2/3.

The "cumberland's"
voyage went smoothly at first.

They easily commandeered a British ship

loaded with soldiers and wine.

A few days later, they came within sight

of the port of Bridgetown
on the island of Barbados...

But the next morning, a British
Navy frigate called the "pomona"

bore down on them with
36 guns and a crew of 300.

British cannonballs

tore through the
"cumberland's" sails and rigging.

One shot went "through
and through" the hull,

greenwood remembered,
causing the whole ship to shudder.

There was nothing
else to do but surrender.

The Americans spent 5 grim months

in the Bridgetown jail
before they were exchanged.

John greenwood would serve
on at least 4 more privateers

before the revolution ended.

He was captured and
imprisoned 3 more times

and somehow survived it all.

After the war, John greenwood

would become a
prominent Manhattan dentist.

His most celebrated patient
was his old commander,

George Washington, for
whom he fashioned dentures

of human and horse's teeth
and ivory from a hippopotamus.

You ask me,

"can the enemy continue
to prosecute the war?"

I answer, "can we carry
on the war much longer?"

Certainly, no.

The true point of light,
then, in which to place

and consider this matter is

not simply whether Great
Britain can carry on the war,

but whose finances... theirs or ours...

is most likely to fail.

George Washington.

General Washington spent
the first 5 weeks of 1779

in Philadelphia, summoned
there by congress.

It was not a happy visit.

"I never was much...
Afraid of the enemy's arms,"

Washington wrote a friend,

but he did fear that people
were wearying of the war

that had gone on for 4 years
and still had no end in sight,

and congress seemed mired, he said,

in "party disputes and personal quarrels."

The value of continental
currency was melting

"like snow before a
hot sun," he complained,

so that "a wagon load of
money will scarcely purchase

a wagon load of provisions."

On both the north American side

and on the British side,
there is an exhaustion

that is settling in and an
economic reality for both...

the American side, the
question of coming up

with the resources every
year to be able to fight the war...

uniforms, guns, paying the men,

replacing the ones who die,
replacing the ones who desert.

Britain has the money,

but it starts to look a little
bit like a sunk-cost problem.

"Are we going to continue to pour money

into an effort when
there's no end in view?"

One of the critical ways by which

the revolutionary war
was funded was debt.

There were a number
of ways to raise money,

but the best ways were to borrow,

so you had to go to lenders,
largely a merchant class,

but also planters and even
some prosperous farmers.

It was a bit of a risky speculation

because getting paid back
and getting your interest paid

would depend upon winning
this extremely unlikely war.

Nonetheless, that was a pretty good way

of raising money to fight the revolution,

and it created an entire
class of American lenders

with strong interests in creating

a very strong government
because that was the only way

they could see themselves
getting paid their interest.

Shall we at last become the victims

of our own abominable lust of gain?

Forbid it, heaven. Forbid it all.

Our cause is noble.

It is the cause of mankind,

and the danger to it
Springs from ourselves.

George Washington.

When we took up the hatchet
and struck the virginians,

our nation was alone
and surrounded by them,

and after we had lost
some of our best warriors,

we were forced to leave our towns,

and now we live in the
grass as you see us,

but we are not yet conquered.

Dragging canoe.

Indian country is a mosaic

of multiple indigenous
nations, each one of whom

is pursuing its own interests

and its own foreign policy.

In the Ohio river valley,

the delawares and their shawnee allies

had a long, contentious history

with their expansionist neighbors.

When the revolution began,

both nations struggled to stay out of it,

but after Virginia
militiamen violated a truce,

most shawnees sided with the British.

In 1778, white eyes,
a Delaware war chief

who leaned toward
supporting the United States,

went to Pittsburgh to
negotiate with the Americans.

The resulting treaty of fort pitt

seemed like a landmark agreement.

The fort pitt treaty

is a really formal, legalistic document.

An article near the end of the treaty says,

"and by the way, when this is all over,

"Indians can have a
state like other states,

and the Delaware"... this is
the treaty with the Delaware...

"the Delaware will be
the head of the state,"

and so it's making this
very interesting promise

of the possibility that
Indian people could be

part of the American republic.

White eyes was made a
colonel in the continental army

and accompanied an
American expedition

against the British at fort Detroit...

But somewhere along the
way, patriot militiamen killed him.

With his death, the Americans
had lost their best Indian ally

in the Ohio country,

and the promise of
the treaty was forgotten.

In a council at Detroit, a
delegation of shawnees

and delawares promised
the British that they

would take up the
tomahawk, "sharpen" it,

"and strike against our common enemy."

The British have been
telling them all along,

"don't trust the Americans
because the Americans

are out to take your land and to kill you."

I always knew they were for open war

but never before could get

a proper excuse for exterminating them.

To excel them in barbarity
is the only way to make war

and gain a name among the Indians.

The cries of the widows and
the fatherless on the frontiers

required their blood from my hands.

George Rogers Clark.

George Rogers Clark is

an Indian fighter and an Indian hater.

He imagines himself
as sort of seeking justice

for white settlers who've
died on the frontier

at the hands of native people,
and he imagines himself

as sort of the avenging
angel of these communities.

There is, to be sure, lots of
violence in this back country,

in part because white
settlers are squatting

on native territory.

In February of 1779,

Clark led his virginians
east from the Mississippi

to take British outposts
and destroy any Indians

who dared support the enemy.

His first target was fort vincennes

on the wabash river
in what is now Indiana.

There, he had 4 bound
Indian captives lined up

in full view of the fort
and then hacked to death.

Clark warned that if
vincennes did not surrender,

all its defenders would
suffer the same fate.

The British commander gave up.

Then Clark sent an
ultimatum to any Indians

tempted to make war
on American settlers.

I don't care whether you are

for peace or war, as I glory in war.

This is the last speech
you may ever expect.

The next thing will be the tomahawk,

and you may expect in 4 moons
to see your women and children

given to the dogs to eat

while those nations that
have kept their words with me

will flourish and grow

like the Willow trees on the riverbanks.

George Rogers Clark.

Your "name strikes
terror to both English"

"and Indians," one of
Clark's captains told him,

but "if there's not a stop
put to killing Indian friends,

we must expect to have all foes."

Clark would not listen.

Native people from the smoky mountains

to the Great Lakes were
now coming together

to forget former quarrels

and unite against the United States.

Most native Americans recognize that

the new United States represents

an existential threat to them,

their way of life, and their sovereignty,

so it makes sense for Indian people...

for most Indian people...
to side with the British

as the best bet to preserve
their own independence

and protect their land.

By the spring of 1779,
hundreds of people,

Indians and settlers, had
been killed in the west.

There's a randomness to this, as well.

"Those Indians killed
some people over there,

so we're gonna kill these Indians,"

but they didn't have
anything to do with it,

so you never quite know
who's gonna come after you,

and you never know what the logic is,

and there's, most of the
time, not a logic about

why kill that person
and not kill this person,

so it's very uncertain kind of terrain,

and I think it breeds

an intense kind of
violence that happens here.

A shawnee boy named tecumseh,

one of the war's many refugees,

would never forget the devastation

that the American revolution
had brought to his country,

but for him and his people,

the revolution was just one chapter

in their struggle for independence.

That war would rage on for decades.

If the enemy have it in their power

to press us hard this campaign,

I know not what may
be the consequence.

George Washington.

Like Washington,

British general Clinton
was stretched thin, too,

and could only take small-scale actions.

In may of 1779, he ordered raids

in the chesapeake bay to
destroy Virginia shipyards,

dry docks, and tobacco warehouses.

17 ships were needed just to
carry the loot back to New York.

A few weeks later, he dispatched ships

to sail up the Hudson
and capture two forts...

at stony point and verplanck's point.

The ease with which those forts fell

convinced Washington
to strengthen fortifications

10 miles to the north

at a narrow curve in the
river called west point.

Washington believed west point

"the most important post in america."

The Polish engineer
colonel tadeusz kosciuszko

was given the task of designing a series

of interlocking fortifications
on both sides of the river.

An enormous chain weighing 65 tons

and covered by gun
batteries at both ends

had been installed to
block hostile passage.

In early July, Clinton
ordered another expedition

against the patriot privateering

that had taken such a
toll on British shipping,

burning nor walk,
Fairfield, and new haven.

It had been more than a year
since the battle of monmouth.

Washington remained
eager to take back New York,

but he didn't have the men or the ships.

Still, he understood it would be damaging

to his army's reputation if he
did not strike back somewhere,

so on the night of July 15th, he
ordered general Anthony Wayne

and a hand-picked force of 1,350 men

to attack stony point on the Hudson.

Under the cover of darkness, they took it.

"The fort & Garrison are
ours," Wayne reported

back to Washington
at 2:00 in the morning.

"Our officers & men behaved like men

who were determined to be free."

Meanwhile, when
enslaved African Americans

from new England to
Georgia learned that summer

that general Clinton had
issued a proclamation

promising "refuge" within
the British army to "any negro"

who was "the property
of a rebel," many of them

began to see the British
flag as a symbol of hope.

Like lord dunmore before
him, Clinton was no abolitionist.

He decreed that any black
man captured while serving

with the rebel army
was to be sold as a slave,

and the profit divided among his captors.

The British commander's
motives were exclusively military...

to strip rebels of their human "property"

and assemble a big
workforce to support his army...

But for many black
Americans, their war was about

ending slavery for
themselves, their children,

and their children's children.

We know that about 15,000 black people

actually joined the British or
ran away to the British lines

versus about 5,000 ultimately
entering the patriot cause,

and that's because, for many
of those enslaved people,

the British represented freedom.

The patriots did not.

That's a hard story to tell to Americans.

Fire!

In June 1779, king Carlos III of Spain

joined France in the
war against England.

His goal was to recapture for his empire

everything Spain had lost to britain

during the seven years'
war and to add to it, as well,

including Gibraltar, the
British-held spit of land

that controlled the narrow
entrance to the mediterranean.

For the Spanish king,
like the French king,

the American revolution was
useful only to undercut britain.

This is not about securing
American independence.

This is about cutting britain's
economic commercial might

down to size, but it's risky, though,

especially for Spain,
because Spain has a empire

in the Americas that looks

a little bit like britain's
north American empire

only much larger and many,
many, many more people.

And so you encourage

a colonial independence
movement in the British empire,

who's to say your own people
won't get the same idea?

Given the sudden
widening of the global war,

the opposition in parliament
called upon king George

to direct measures for
restoring peace to america.

He would not hear of it.

The present contest with america

I cannot help seeing as the most serious

in which any country was ever engaged.

Step by step, the demands
of america have risen.

Independence is their object.

Should america succeed in
that, the west indies must follow.

Ireland must soon be a separate state.

Then this island would
be reduced to itself

and soon would be a poor island indeed.

King George III.

"London morning post."

John Paul Jones
resembles a Jack o' lantern

to mislead our mariners
and terrify our coasts.

He's no sooner seen than lost.

John Paul Jones was now
in command of another ship...

a slow, battered French merchant vessel.

He fitted it out with 40 old French guns,

gathered a 320-man crew
from 8 different countries,

and renamed it the "bonhomme Richard"

after the French version
of Benjamin Franklin's

"poor Richard's almanack."

In August, the "Richard"
and several smaller warships

sailed all the way around the British isles

in search of merchant prizes.

Jones took 17 ships,
captured 100 British sailors,

and locked them up below his decks.

Late in the afternoon
on September 23rd,

just off the chalk cliffs
of flamborough head,

Jones caught up with a convoy
of some 40 British supply ships.

He signaled his squadron
to form a line of battle.

When they failed to respond,
the "bonhomme Richard" alone

engaged the "serapis,"

the larger of the two
royal Navy escort ships.

Commanded by Richard
Pearson, a veteran sailor,

the British vessel was a
fast, new 44-gun frigate.

As the battle began,
hundreds of English villagers

lined the cliffs, hoping to see

a British man-of-war
destroy the dreaded rebel

they called "pirate Jones."

A British broadside caused Cannon

on the "Richard's" lower gun
deck to explode, killing men

and putting the rest of
the battery out of action.

At one point, the "serapis"
rammed the "Richard."

Their rigging became entangled,

and before the British
ship could break free,

Jones ordered his men
to throw grappling hooks,

locking the two ships
together gun port to gun port.

Their crews fired into each
other at point-blank range.

The "bonhomme Richard"
took the worst of it...

half the crew dead or wounded,
fires raging everywhere,

decks slippery with blood,

seawater rushing in through
holes blasted in the hull...

but then a sailor high
in the "Richard's" rigging

managed to lob a grenade

down the main hatchway
of the British ship.

It set off explosions

from one end of the
"serapis" to the other.

Half its crew were dead or wounded.

Captain Pearson surrendered.

Jones clambered
aboard the British warship

and sailed it into neutral Dutch waters.

The "bonhomme
Richard" sank the next day.

In Paris, John Paul
Jones was hailed as a hero.

He met Louis xvi and his
queen, Marie antoinette,

and when he heard that George III

had knighted captain
Pearson for fighting so valiantly,

Jones was unimpressed.

"Should I have the good
fortune to fall in with him again,"

he said, "I'll make him a lord."

We do not mean to let the enemy

penetrate into our
country, for we well know

that as far as they set their foot,

they will claim the country is conquered.

Old smoke.

Back in the summer of 1777,

the British and their mohawk
and seneca allies had prevailed

over their enemies in their
ambush near oriskany creek.

Over the months that followed,
New York and Pennsylvania

saw raid after raid,
skirmish after skirmish.

Patriots drove loyalists from their homes.

Loyalists and their Indian
allies burned settlements

at cherry valley and
in the Wyoming valley.

Hundreds died on both sides.

It has gotten to the
point where Washington

is under intense pressure from congress,

from the state of New York,
from the state of Pennsylvania,

to do something about it,

and because the war has
kind of gone fallow in the north

after monmouth, he agrees
that he will put together

a punitive expedition against the Indians

led by one of his major
generals, John Sullivan,

to drive them away from the frontier.

One of the things that I think is always

on Washington's mind during
this war is the end of the war,

so Washington basically realizes,

"we're gonna win independence
because France is in the war,

"Spain's in the war, and
we need to make sure

"that we can present a legitimate

and robust claim to western land."

One of the foundational
truths of American history

is that this is a nation
built on Indian land,

and Washington would not dispute that,

I think, for a minute.

Washington's orders to general Sullivan

in may of 1779 had been
clear and uncompromising.

The immediate objects
are the total destruction

and devastation of their settlements

and the capture of as many prisoners

of every age and sex as possible.

It will be essential to ruin
their crops now in the ground

and prevent their planting more

that the country may
not merely be overrun,

but destroyed.

You will not by any means
listen to any overture for peace

before the total ruin of
their settlements is affected.

George Washington.

The continental army
invaded from 3 sides.

In early August,

colonel Daniel brodhead
led 600 men northward

from fort pitt to destroy
the seneca villages

along the upper allegheny river.

Sullivan and 3 continental
brigades started north

along the susquehanna,
while another moved west

from the mohawk valley.

At the end of the month
their combined forces...

4,500 men... began marching north.

They don't find destitute villages

or scattered villages of savage people.

They find what, to them, are undoubtedly

easily recognizable prosperous villages.

They're cedar-planked
buildings, multiple-story buildings,

often with chimneys,
often with glass windows.

These people have material wealth

that they've accumulated over the years,

and they have houses
that look like something

that people on the eastern
seaboard would inhabit.

On August 29th,

some 600 senecas,
mohawks, cayugas, delawares,

and loyalists tried to halt the
invasion and were defeated.

We sent out a small party

to look for some of the dead Indians.

They found them and
skinned two of them

from their hips down for boot legs...

one pair for the major,
the other for myself.

Lieutenant William bar ton.

Our brigade destroyed

about 150 acres of the
best corn that I ever saw...

some of the stalks grew 16 feet high...

besides great quantities of
beans, potatoes, pumpkins,

cucumbers, squash, and watermelons,

and the enemy looking
at us from the hills.

Lieutenant erkuries beatty.

There is something so cruel

in destroying the
habitations of any people,

however mean they may be,

that I might say the
prospect hurts my feelings.

Dr. Jabez camp field.

When some soldiers
asked general Sullivan

if he wouldn't at least
spare fruit orchards

that had taken years to grow, he refused.

"The Indians," he said, "shall
see that there is malice enough

"in our hearts to destroy everything

that contributes to their support."

The Sullivan expedition
ends up mapping New York

for future settlement.

Everybody kind of
moves through New York

and says, "wow. These
apple orchards are so great",

"these cornfields are so fantastic,

"I'm coming back here
at the end of this," right?

And so in many ways, it is
not only a military campaign.

It's a scouting expedition
for future settlement.

The troops torched village after village...

Catherine's town, apple town,
cayuga town, kanadaseaga,

canandaigua, honeoye.

By then, Sullivan was within
miles of little beard's town,

which he had been told was
the grand capital of Indian country.

Little beard's town was
the home of Mary jemison,

who had been adopted
years earlier by senecas

after her Irish parents had
been killed during a raid.

He was about to march to our town

when our Indians resolved
to give him battle on the way.

They sent all the women
and children into the woods.

And then, well-armed, they set out

to face the conquering enemy.

Mary jemison.

A scouting party of 26 continentals,

guided by an oneida scout

and commanded by
lieutenant Thomas Boyd,

was advancing ahead of the
main column on September 13th,

when they stumbled into a
seneca and loyalist ambush.

16 men were encircled.
14 were killed and scalped.

Boyd and another man were captured.

The next day,

Sullivan's main army
reached little beard's town.

On entering the town, we found the body

of lieutenant Boyd and another rifleman

in a most terrible, mangled condition.

They was both stripped
naked and their heads cut off.

Erkuries beatty.

Sullivan's men buried

what was left of their companions,

looted and burned all 128 dwellings

in little beard's town,

and then spent 8 hours
methodically uprooting

and destroying crops.

By the end, Sullivan
reported to Washington

that his army had
burned a total of 40 towns.

Farther to the west,

colonel brodhead
had destroyed 10 more.

Most of the seneca
refugees made their way

to fort niagara on lake Ontario,

where some 5,000 men,
women, and children

belonging to a host of nations
huddled together in muddy camps.

We of the six nations have been

much cast down by the
great loss we have sustained.

But yet we do not despair.

We are determined to persevere
in the cause we have engaged in.

We hope to be able to survive the winter,

and then we mean once
more to meet our enemies

and see whether we are to live or die.

And if such is the will of the great spirit,

we will leave our bones

with those of the rest of our brethren,

rather than evacuate our country

or give our enemies room
to say we fled from them.

Twethorechte.

The damage patriot campaigns
did to seneca, cayuga,

onondaga, and mohawk homelands
was profound and permanent.

Some haudenosaunee would
come to call George Washington

"the town destroyer"

and would remember
the American revolution

as "the whirlwind."

In the late summer of 1779,
both George Washington

and British general
Henry Clinton believed

that the long-awaited
all-out American assault

on British-occupied New York City

could finally be just weeks away.

Each had learned that the French fleet

was sailing back north
from the west indies.

Neither was sure where it was headed.

Clinton ordered all
British troops to withdraw

from occupied Newport to
strengthen New York's defenses.

Washington readied
plans for a siege of the city

and called upon 5 neighboring states

to provide him with more militia,

but French admiral
d'estaing never came.

Instead, he appeared at the
mouth of the Savannah river

with 32 warships to join
forces with southern patriots

who had already retaken Augusta

and were eager to
recapture the rest of Georgia.

Aboard were 4,000 French troops,

including 750 "free men of color,"

black and mixed-race troops

from what would one day be called Haiti.

While d'estaing waited
for his American allies

to join the siege, he surrounded
Savannah with heavy artillery

and demanded its surrender.

The outnumbered British
refused, stalling for time

until reinforcements of
their own could reach the city.

As they braced for an attack,
redcoats and loyalist troops

and scores of Savannah's
free and enslaved residents

had time to complete two
defensive lines around the city.

After continentals and patriot militiamen

arrived from Charleston,

d'estaing led a direct
assault on October 9th.

Some Americans became
mired in a rice field.

French troops in white
uniforms proved easy targets.

British guns sent grapeshot,
nails, and chunks of iron

tearing through the attackers.

The ditch, a British officer remembered,

was chock full of their dead.

For the French-American alliance,

it is quite the defeat.

People do lose their
trust in the availabilities

of the French to help the Americans.

They were very happy to have
signed an alliance with them,

but the first campaigns,
plural, completely failed.

D'estaing, who had been wounded twice,

sailed away to France.

The American commander
general Benjamin Lincoln

limped back to
patriot-controlled Charleston.

You know the importance of Charleston.

It is the bond that binds 3 states

to the authority of congress.

If the enemy possessed
themselves of this town,

there will be no living for honest patriots.

David ramsay.

The winter of 1779-1780,

probably the harshest
winter in North America

in the 18th century.

New York harbor froze over solidly.

You could drag Cannon

from the tip of Manhattan
island to staten island.

You could cross the
Hudson river on foot,

and the winter was all the worse

in upstate New York for the Indians.

That winter was the most severe

that I have witnessed
since my remembrance.

The snow fell about 5
feet deep and remained so.

Almost all the game
upon which we depended

perished and reduced
us almost to starvation.

Mary jemison.

For general Washington
and most of his army

at winter quarters in and
around morristown, New Jersey,

the temperature rarely Rose above zero.

It was "cold enough to cut a man in two,"

Joseph plumb Martin remembered.

The winter in New Jersey at morristown

was worse than valley forge.

The enthusiasm for the war
had begun to wane years before,

and it continued to wane each year.

We were absolutely literally starved.

I did not put a single morsel
into my mouth for 4 days

except a little black birch bark.

I saw several of the men roast
their old shoes and eat them,

and I was afterwards informed
that some of the officers

killed and ate a favorite little dog

that belonged to one of them.

Joseph plumb Martin.

To add to their misery,

the men of Joseph plumb
Martin's 8th Connecticut regiment

had not been paid for months.

By spring, they had had enough.

The men now saw no other alternative

but to starve to death
or break up the army.

This was a hard matter for
the soldiers to think upon.

They were truly patriotic.

They loved their country,

and they had already suffered
everything short of death

in its cause.

What was to be done?

The 4th and 8th Connecticut regiments

planned to desert.

When a colonel tried
to talk them out of it,

someone stabbed him with a bayonet.

A Pennsylvania regiment
was rushed in to surround them,

and its colonel managed to
talk the men into staying on.

In the end, Martin wrote,
"we were unwilling to desert

"the cause of our
country when in distress.

We knew her cause involved our own."

This is the most important
hour britain ever knew.

If we lose it, we shall
never see such another.

Henry Clinton.

It had now been 21 months

since general Clinton was
ordered to take the carol in as.

On the day after Christmas 1779,

leaving enough of a force
behind to defend New York,

Clinton finally sailed
south for Charleston.

Every farthing of the
wealth in south Carolina

is built on the back of slavery.

That's one of the reasons
why south Carolina

and the other southern
states have robust militias.

It is not to repel foreign invaders.

It's to suppress potential
slave insurrections.

Charleston was one of the largest cities

in the United States,
home to 12,000 people,

half of them enslaved.

If it could be captured,
the British believed,

a loyalist majority in the carol in as

would rally to the crown.

Charleston has resisted
British attacks before.

There's a sense of
confidence that it'll be able

to resist British attacks again.

Americans are almost
delusional about it.

They don't look the facts in the face

of how vulnerable Charleston really is.

The geography is impossible.

Charleston is really out on a limb.

The British are gonna cut this place off,

and they're gonna capture it.

Congress, instead of
recognizing this fact,

they keep sending more and
more men to defend Charleston.

They send the best that
the continental army has.

It's a mistake.

Some 30 miles southwest of the city

on February 11, 1780, Clinton
began landing his troops.

As the British army
marched toward Charleston,

first hundreds, then thousands

of enslaved men, women, and children

fled their plantations to join them.

It would be more than a
month before Clinton's forces

could form a line a mile and a half north

of the rebel fortifications and
begin a European-style siege.

More British troops from
New York and Savannah

would swell the British
army to more than 10,000,

roughly twice as large as the force

with which patriot
general Benjamin Lincoln

hoped somehow to defend the city.

Desperate for reinforcements,

Lincoln suggested arming
enslaved men and was told no.

Whites feared giving
weapons to black people,

and, besides, slave owners
did not want their property

killed or maimed in battle.

Militia from the back country
were also reluctant

to come to the crowded city.

They feared smallpox and
were unmoved by the plight

of planters and merchants
whose wealth and political power

they had long resented.

On April 1, 1780, the
British began constructing

the first of a series of parallels,

sequential support trenches
that would allow them

to inch closer and closer to the city.

A week later, British
warships forced their way

into Charleston harbor
and took command of it.

General Clinton called
upon the rebels to surrender

in order to save the town and its people

from what he called
"havock and desolation."

General Lincoln refused.

Fire!

The British opened fire.

The Americans fired back.

Fire!

The guns would continue
day and night for a month.

As each blasted at the
other, the British parallels

moved closer to the
American lines... 800 yards...

450 yards... 250.

There was no escape.

General Lincoln asked
that his surrendering men

be granted the usual honors of war,

but general Clinton refused:

Rebels deserved no such honors.

When Charleston falls, it's a body blow

to the revolution and
to the American cause.

It's a humiliation because
we've lost not only Charleston,

but we've lost some of the
best troops that we have,

and the British in their surrender terms

really drive home that humiliation.

It was the worst defeat
suffered by the patriots

during the revolution.

An entire army was captured,

5,618 men by Clinton's count,

including Benjamin
Lincoln and 6 other generals,

along with more than 300 Cannon,

376 barrels of gunpowder,
and 5,916 muskets.

Hundreds of south carolinians
streamed into the occupied city

from the countryside,

eager now to swear
allegiance to the crown.

To lord germain...

with the greatest pleasure,
I report to your lordship

that the inhabitants
from every quarter declare

their allegiance to the king,
and offer their services in arms

in support of his government.

In many instances, they
have brought prisoners,

their former oppressors or leaders,

and I may venture to
assert that there are few men

in south Carolina who
are not either our prisoners

or in arms with us.

Henry Clinton.

General Clinton and 4,000 troops

returned to New York, leaving
general Charles cornwallis

in command of the southern theater.

A few more such victories,
British commanders believed,

and the loyalty to the crown

of all the southern colonies
would be reconfirmed.

"The English lion," a
German officer wrote,

"has awakened from his sleep."

Unless congress is vested with powers

competent to the great
purposes of war, our cause is lost.

We can no longer
drudge on in the old way.

I see one head gradually
changing into 13.

I see one army branching into thirteen...

and am fearful of the consequences of it.

George Washington.

Next time on "the American revolution"...

The shock of treason.

He was the last person

Washington ever thought
would have betrayed him.

The south explodes in battle.

It's sometimes brother against brother

in this backwoods warfare.

It's an ugly conflict.

And a new nation rises.

Who would have thought

that out of this multitude of rabble

would arise a people
who could defy kings?

Don't miss the conclusion of

"the American revolution" next time.

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The American revolution caused

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