All language subtitles for The American Revolution S01E03.en

I peeped out at the bay

and saw something resembling a wood of
pine trees, trimmed.

I declare at my noticing this that I
could not believe my eyes.

But judge you of my surprise, when in
about ten minutes

the whole bay was full of shipping, as
ever it could be.

I do declare that I thought all London
was afloat -

Private Daniel McCurtin.

- On Saturday morning, June 29th,
1776,

Colonel Henry Knox,

whose artillery had convinced the
British to flee Boston,

was breakfasting with his wife, Lucy,

on the second floor of a commandeered
mansion

at No 1 Broadway,

when he too spotted the British ships
that Private McCurtin had seen

as they approached New York Harbor
unopposed.

- My God, you can scarcely conceive of
the distress and anxiety.

The city in an uproar, the alarm guns
firing,

the troops repairing to their posts.

- The Royal Navy anchored off Staten
Island

and began to disembark some 10,000
British regulars.

Crowds of local loyalists cheered them
as they stepped ashore.

- The Royal Navy, as one contemporary
put it,

was the canvas wings of the British
state.

It enabled the British to appear

off the coastline almost anywhere,
unhindered.

- We expect a very bloody summer at
New York,

as it is here I presume the grand
efforts of the enemy will be aimed.

And I am sorry to say that we are not,
either in men or arms,

prepared for it -

George Washington.

- By the summer of 1776,

the revolution, which began as a
quarrel over the rights

of British subjects, had become a war
for American independence.

And as that revolution spread
throughout the colonies,

thousands of Americans, patriots and
loyalists alike,

would be driven from their homes.

- The war, though it was to involve my
immediate family

in poverty and perplexity of every
kind,

was for the foundation of independence

and prosperity for my country.

And what sacrifice would not an
American, a Virginian,

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

Betsy Ambler.

- What to do with this city puzzles
me.

It is so encircled with deep,
navigable water

that whoever commands the sea must
command the town -

General Charles Lee.

- George Washington had assigned a
former British officer,

General Charles Lee,

to fortify New York City and its
surroundings.

The patriot commanders feared they
could not hold the town for long,

but hoped to make the British pay the
highest possible price

for its capture.

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

Washington had been forced to scatter
his army

and its 121 cannon all around the
harbour.

- New York is an archipelago. It's a
confluence of islands.

It's a problem.

If you don't control the naval
approaches in and around New York,

you cannot properly defend New York.

- New York was one of the best natural
harbours on the Atlantic seaboard,

and although the town still occupied

just a single square mile at
Manhattan's southern tip,

it was the second largest city in the
newly created United States

and the gateway to the Hudson River.

If the British commander, General
William Howe,

could capture it, his forces would be
free to ascend the river

and divide rebellious New England from
the rest of the states.

Continental soldiers and militiamen
from ten states

continued to stream into town.

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

in and around New York.

They moved into abandoned houses,

tore up parquet floors for firewood
and hurled refuse from the windows.

Despite a 10pm curfew, troops flocked
to a warren

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

Customers called it the Holy Ground.

On the afternoon of July 12th, two
British warships

slipped their anchors off Staten
Island,

moved into the harbour, past the tip
of Manhattan,

and began sailing up the Hudson.

- The cannon from the city did but
very little execution,

as not more than half the number of
the men belonging to them

were present.

The others were at their cups and at
their usual place of abode -

on the Holy Ground -

Lieutenant Isaac Bangs.

- Later that same evening, a still
larger British fleet,

more than 100 vessels, began streaming
through the narrows

and into New York Harbor.

Its commander was General William
Howe's elder brother,

Vice Admiral Richard Howe.

Both had once expressed sympathy for
the colonists,

and both had been empowered to
negotiate

with rebel leaders and issue pardons

in hopes of avoiding further
bloodshed.

But while the Admiral was crossing the
Atlantic,

Congress had declared American
independence.

- We learnt the deplorable situation
of His Majesty's faithful subjects -

that they were hunted after and shot
at in the woods and swamps

to which they had fled to avoid the
savage fury of the rebels.

We also heard that the Congress had
now announced

the colonies to be independent states.

That proclaims the villainy and
madness of these deluded people.

- The ships that came in that day were
straggling in

from a failed British expedition in
South Carolina.

The royal governors of the southern
colonies,

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

continued to insist that the rebellion
had been stirred up

by only a tiny minority of radicals,

that the overwhelmingly loyal populace
of their colonies

would take up arms in support of the
Crown,

provided help was sent.

In June, British warships had
converged on Charleston Harbor,

where their 262 guns opened fire

on a rebel fort on Sullivan's Island.

More than 7,000 cannonballs were
fired.

Most that hit their target were
absorbed

by the fort's sturdy palmetto walls.

Within the fort,

Patriot Colonel William Moultrie
ordered his men

to "distress the enemy in every shape
to the utmost of your powers".

They did.

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

toppling masts, riddling hulls,

blowing sailors and sea captains
apart.

The British flagship alone was hit 70
times,

and 111 crewmen were killed or maimed.

By evening, the battered fleet pulled
away.

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

one British sailor remembered.

It took three weeks to repair the
damage to their ships

before they made their way back north

to join the forces threatening New
York.

The British would not attempt to
recapture a southern colony again

for two and a half years.

- It seems to be the intention of the
white people

to destroy us as a people.

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

and we are determined to have our land
-

Tsi'yu-gunsini.

- In the summer of 1776, Cherokee
warriors,

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

began attacking frontier settlements
west of the Appalachians

on land now claimed by Virginia and
the Carolinas.

The royal proclamation of 1763 had
expressly barred colonists

from purchasing or moving onto Indian
lands

west of the Appalachians,

but British officials had been
powerless to enforce it

or to keep some Native Americans,

including Dragging Canoe's own father,

from leasing or selling land to
settlers and speculators.

- Our Shawnee Nation, from being a
great people,

are now reduced to a handful.

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

hardly possess ground enough to stand
on.

The lands where but lately we hunted
are now thickly inhabited

and covered with forts and armed men.

- We think of the revolution as a war
against empire,

but it very quickly becomes a war FOR
empire.

One war aim of the American Revolution

is to take the Ohio Valley and the
South.

That's what Americans wanted.

In May 1776, the delegation of
Shawnees, Delawares,

Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee came to
the Cherokee town of Chota.

They said, "Enough is enough.

"We've had year after year

"of illegal settlement coming onto our
lands."

- British agents, still in Indian
country,

who had armed the Cherokees to fight
the rebels,

now urged them to be patient

and wait until British troops could
join them.

Dragging Canoe would not listen to the
British

or to the elders of his father's
generation,

who had urged diplomacy.

He rallied the young men and went to
war.

GUNSHOTS

They killed and scalped settlers

in the Carolina and Virginia
backcountry,

burned their cabins and crops and
drove off their livestock.

- The result is, as the older chiefs
feared it would be,

that those American colonies
immediately send armies

into Cherokee country.

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

"This is just what we were waiting
for."

- Some 6,000 militiamen stormed
through Cherokee country.

They destroyed 36 towns, including
Dragging Canoe's own village.

- This is meant to be instructive to
other tribes.

If you think you're going to keep a
British alliance,

guess what we're going to do?

We're going to come and burn
everything.

We're going to destroy your fields.
We're going to destroy your corn.

We're going to destroy all your
stored-up food.

We're going to wage total war on those
people.

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

- Peace will not be restored in
America

until the rebel army is defeated.

Should the enemy offer battle in the
open field,

we must not decline it -

General William Howe.

- General William Howe and his brother
Richard

were in joint command of the largest
seaborne assault force

Britain had ever assembled -

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

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

At dawn on August 22nd,

4,000 British and Hessian troops
crossed the narrows

and came ashore at Gravesend,

on the southeastern edge of Long
Island -

boatloads of assault troops.

- The enemy have now landed on Long
Island.

The hour is fast approaching on which
the honour and success

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

George Washington.

- Washington knew an attack was coming
somewhere,

but he worried that the British
landing on Long Island

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

Most would stay in Manhattan,

while some 8,000 men, many of them
ill-trained militia,

were posted on Long Island, where
Washington's most trusted general,

Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island,

had strengthened the series of forts
and earthworks

that ran from Red Hook to Wallabout
Bay.

Most of the defences were concentrated

near the lofty cliffs closest to
Manhattan,

called Brooklyn Heights,

after the tiny village of Brooklyn
that stood just behind them.

Washington and his generals believed

that if the British were to seize that
high ground,

their guns would command the city,
much as rebel guns

had commanded Boston and its harbour
earlier that year.

But Nathanael Greene had fallen ill
and was soon replaced

by Major General Israel Putnam of
Connecticut,

whose fighting spirit was not matched
by strategic sense

or knowledge of the terrain.

Between the Brooklyn Heights
fortifications

and the British encampment ran a
rugged, forested ridge

called the Gowanus Heights.

Four passes cut in or around it -

Gowanus, Flatbush, Bedford and
Jamaica.

With Washington's approval,

Putnam ordered 3,000 of his men to dig
in

and hold the ridge and three of the
passes.

Unaccountably, the Jamaica Pass
remained virtually unguarded.

- Washington makes a number of serious
tactical mistakes

when he's commander of the American
military,

and none more serious than at Long
Island.

He'd been a surveyor.

He should have known the value of
completely understanding

the ground that you're trying to
defend.

He doesn't. He doesn't go and explore
the ground toward Jamaica,

which is the far end of this glacial
feature,

and doesn't recognise that he can be
outflanked by the British.

- The Battle of Long Island began in
the early morning hours

of August 27th, 1776,

and it started with a skirmish over
watermelons.

Around midnight, Pennsylvania pickets
at the Red Lion Inn,

on the far right of the American
lines,

had dimly glimpsed two shadowy figures
in a melon patch.

They were British foragers, out in
front of a large force of redcoats

and hoping for a treat before they
were sent against the enemy.

GUNFIRE

The Pennsylvanians opened fire.

A few minutes later, a British musket
volley

from the woods sent the Americans
running back to camp.

With the British attack under way,
General William Alexander

was ordered to organise a force to try
and stop it.

Alexander and 1,600 men took up
positions

south of a salt marsh and mill pond
next to Gowanus Creek,

as 5,000 British troops advanced
toward them.

With no trees or stone walls for
cover,

American and British forces stood in
line European-style

and fired musket volleys and artillery
at one another.

Both the balls and shells flew very
fast,

a Maryland soldier remembered,

"Now and then taking off a head."

Meanwhile, in the centre of the
American lines,

British cannon fire ripped through the
trees above the ridge line,

where several hundred troops,

under New Hampshire General John
Sullivan,

guarded the Flatbush and Bedford
passes.

Hessian and Highland regiments
advanced toward them

with fixed bayonets, retreating
several times

under furious American fire.

Watching from a fort on Cobble Hill,

Washington was pleased with the way
the fighting was going so far.

Both fronts seemed to be holding.

But he also sent for reinforcements
from Manhattan.

- Our sergeant major informed us that
the regiment was ordered

to Long Island. It gave me a rather
disagreeable feeling,

as I was pretty well assured

I should have to sniff a little
gunpowder.

The horrors of battle then presented
themselves to my mind

in all their hideousness.

I must come to it now, thought I -

Joseph Plumb Martin.

- Before the boats carrying Martin and
his fellow soldiers

could cross the East River to
Brooklyn,

the tide of battle had begun to turn.

The British attacks on the American
right and centre,

which Washington's army seemed to have
thwarted,

had turned out to be mere
demonstrations,

meant to occupy troops who might
otherwise have defended

against the main British assault.

That would soon begin on the American
left.

The British had slipped through the
undefended Jamaica Pass.

12 hours earlier, leaving their
campfires burning

to confuse the patriots,

General Henry Clinton had led some
10,000 British and German soldiers

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

They moved in silence, guided by three
loyalist volunteers.

- This is Clinton's idea.

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

Don't attack frontally - you don't
want another Bunker Hill.

Go around them.

So he leads...the better part of
10,000 men, in the dark of night,

very quietly, as quiet as 10,000 men

pulling artillery guns with horses can
be.

- The plan worked perfectly.

The British column, nearly two miles
long,

made it through the pass and reached
the village of Bedford,

well behind American lines, and just
two miles

from the main fortifications on and
around Brooklyn Heights.

GUNFIRE

General Clinton ordered two guns fired
in quick succession -

the signal for British troops
besieging the American right

and centre to move forward
simultaneously,

trapping John Sullivan's men in
between.

Sullivan ordered his gunners to turn
their field pieces around

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

But as they struggle to do so, Hessian
grenadiers

and Highland Scots swarmed up and over
the Gowanus Heights,

firing and bayoneting as they came.

It was a rout.

GUNFIRE

- Blood, carnage, fire.

Many, many, we fear, are lost.

Such a dreadful din my ears never
before heard -

Philip Fithian.

- Muskets are mostly inaccurate beyond
80 yards

and hopeless beyond 120 yards.

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

and a bayonet is a nasty way to kill.

It's a nasty way to die.

This is really eyeball to eyeball,
nose to nose.

It's very intimate.

And that kind of intimacy is
horrifying.

- Hundreds of Americans surrendered,
including General Sullivan.

"Their fear of the Hessian troops was
indescribable,"

the German commander, General Heister,
remembered.

- When they caught only a glimpse of
us,

they surrendered immediately

and begged on their knees for their
lives.

I am surprised that the British troops

have achieved so little against these
people.

- GUNFIRE

SCREAMING, ARTILLERY FIRE

Three British columns were now
converging on General Alexander

and his men on the American right.

He did his best to rally them,

but the number of attackers steadily
grew.

Alexander fell back, and finally,

rather than see his command destroyed,

he urged his men to retreat to the
village of Brooklyn,

across the tidal marshes that flanked
Gowanus Creek.

- Such as could swim got across.

Those that could not swim sunk.

The British were pouring the canister
and grapeshot

upon the Americans like a shower of
hail.

Many of them were killed in the pond,
and more were drowned.

- To provide cover for his desperate
men

and to occupy the British troops
firing at them

from inside and around an old stone
house,

Alexander led some 400 soldiers from
Maryland into the enemy guns,

again and again.

Fewer than a dozen of them made it
safely back to the American lines.

Alexander himself was forced to
surrender.

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

"I went over the battlefield among the
dead,

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

At least 200 Americans had been killed

and perhaps 1,000 more were captured.

Washington watched this final carnage
through his spyglass.

By noon, it was all over.

- Washington is heartbroken

because he recognises instantly what a
catastrophe this has been.

The only saving grace is that enough
of them pull back

to form sort of an inner defence
around Brooklyn

that gives the British pause.

They pull back within those defences.

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

Things are about as dire as they could
possibly be.

- Washington and the bulk of his
battered army,

crowded now inside the defences on
Brooklyn Heights,

expected that at any moment the
British would mount

an all-out assault aimed at destroying
them.

General William Howe's officers urged
him

to finish what he had begun, but
instead of ordering an assault,

Howe stood down.

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

and prevent the rebels from escaping
by water.

The Americans were astonished.

"General Howe is either our friend or
no general," Israel Putnam said.

"He had our whole army in his power."

Meanwhile, a storm blew in and
continued off and on

for the next two days.

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

By the middle of the second day,
Washington decided to try

to withdraw his army to Manhattan.

- Washington sends out orders that
every boat,

every fishing smack, every canoe,
everything that floats

that can be found, be brought - very
secretly, very quietly -

to the landing very close to where
Brooklyn Bridge now is,

on the Brooklyn side.

- As darkness fell,

Washington ordered his men to begin
moving silently

down from the heights to the ferry
landing,

regiment by regiment.

- I seized my musket and fell into the
ranks.

We were strictly enjoined not to speak
or even cough.

All orders were communicated in
whispers -

Joseph Plumb Martin.

- A providential breeze comes up that
allows them to raise sails

and get across the East River,

and then an even more providential fog
rolls in

and it obscures what's happening.

When dawn breaks, the British realise
everyone's gone.

They see the last of the boats
disappearing

across the river in the traces of fog,

and they fire a few shots pointlessly

at this retreating gaggle,

including Washington one of the last
boats.

And the Americans escape to Manhattan
Island

and get away to fight another day.

- The Battle of Long Island

was the largest battle of the American
Revolution.

It had been a devastating defeat for
George Washington

and the Patriot cause,

but his army was still alive.

On September 11th, 1776,

three delegates of the Continental
Congress -

John Adams of Massachusetts,

Edward Rutledge of South Carolina

and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania
-

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

for a meeting with Admiral Howe,

who was hoping to persuade the
Congress to negotiate a peace.

Howe did what he could to reassure the
delegates

that all could still be forgiven if
only the Americans

would abandon independence.

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

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

"We will do our utmost," Franklin
answered,

"to save Your Lordship that
mortification."

"They met, they talked, they parted,"

Admiral Howe's secretary said,

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

There was no going back.

Howe apologised to his visitors for
wasting their time.

- The British government, throughout
the first few years of the war,

really thought that a show of force

would bring the majority of Americans
to their senses

and that the instigators, the
provocateurs,

the ones who were responsible for the
uprising,

would be captured, killed,

or their neighbours would just say,
"Enough.

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

- On our side, the war should be
defensive.

We should on all occasions avoid a
general action

or put anything to the risk unless
compelled by a necessity

into which we ought never to be drawn
-

George Washington.

- Back in New York City,

Washington again expected another
British attack

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

so again he divided what was left of
his forces.

Leaving behind General Putnam and some
3,500 men

to hold the city itself, General
Washington led most

of his troops north, toward the tiny
village of Harlem.

Militia men were posted along the East
River, opposite Long Island.

At the same time, five British
frigates

sailed up the river and anchored on
the opposite shore.

At 11 o'clock in the morning, on
September 15th,

they opened fire.

GUNFIRE

- I thought my head would go with the
sound.

I made a frog's leap for the ditch

and lay as still as I possibly could.

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

when our officers gave the order to
leave -

Joseph Plumb Martin.

- As Martin and his comrades ran,

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

among them Hessians, who bayoneted
several wounded Americans

and mutilated the dead.

- Our people were all militia,

and the demons of fear and disorder
seemed

to take full possession of all and
everything that day.

- Then General Washington seemed to
appear out of nowhere,

ordering his stampeding men to form a
defensive line.

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

They kept running.

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

Washington was known for being aloof,
terse, stoical,

but those who have seen him strongly
moved, a friend remembered,

could bear witness that his wrath was
terrible.

The British were slow to follow the
fleeing rebels.

General Howe wanted to wait until
thousands more troops

were ashore on Manhattan Island.

The delay gave General Putnam time to
lead his men north

out of New York City, to join
Washington in Harlem.

The British entered the abandoned city
in triumph.

- The King's forces took possession of
the place,

incredible as it may seem, without the
loss of a man.

A woman pulled down the rebel standard
upon the fort,

and after trampling it underfoot

with the most contemptuous
indignation,

hoisted up in its stead His Majesty's
flag -

Ambrose Searle, secretary to Admiral
Howe.

- Over the course of the war, as many
as 50,000 Americans

volunteered to serve in loyalist
militia companies

or in provincial units attached to the
British Army.

The King's American regiment, the
Queen's American Rangers,

the Prince of Wales American
volunteers,

the Royal Highland Emigrants and the
British Legion.

Everyone knew someone who fought for
the other side.

Even Benjamin Franklin's son, William,

the deposed royal governor of New
Jersey,

remained faithful to his king and was
imprisoned for it.

As Washington and Howe faced off
against one another in New York,

in Philadelphia, the Continental
Congress

had been labouring to adopt Articles
of Confederation,

meant to formally bind all 13 states
together

while also guaranteeing the
independence of each.

GAVEL BANGS

- These 13 colonies had bitter
rivalries with one another,

and so forming a union out of these
states

was going to be as difficult as
achieving independence from Britain.

- There's a tremendous amount of
infighting,

there's a tremendous amount of
inertia.

There are more committees than anyone
could count.

And there were secret committees.

For example, the first person sent to
France to solicit aid

from the French for the revolution is
sent without the knowledge

of the rest of Congress.

As John Jay will later say to George
Washington,

"There is as much intrigue in Congress
as there is at the Vatican

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

- It's a misconception to think of the
founders as being pro-democracy,

but I think it's also a misconception
to think

that their failure to be democratic is
some sort of flaw or error,

or something they just kind of missed.

They were very adamantly opposed to
democracy.

Democracy came to America,

with all of the problems that came
with it,

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

but as an unintended consequence.

- CHURCH BELL RINGS

News of the American defeat on Long
Island at the end of August

did not reach London until October
10th.

It was greeted with what one courtier
called

"an extravagance of joy".

The King promised General Howe a
knighthood.

Now that the Americans had seen how
futile it was

to defy British regulars,

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

Not all Britons shared that view.

- London. "To the printer of the
Public Advertiser.

"Sir, I find that the late action at
Long Island has made

"a considerable impression upon the
public;

"the Friends of Ministry, thinking
everything gained,

"the friends of America, everything
lost..."

"Because the last action was in our
favour,

"we think we are to succeed in the
next,

"but liberty takes a great deal of
killing,

"and the courage of free men is the
same thing"

"on both sides of the Atlantic.

"The Americans are daily improving in
arms and in hatred.

"We see only the beginning of sorrows
- benefit to neither,

"misery to both."

- The rebels have taken positions upon
amazing strong hills

and works they have all the way to
King's Bridge.

Their soldiers would rather work than
fight.

Ours would rather fight than work.

But General Howe was determined to not
run our heads

against their works - Loftus Cliffe.

- For the better part of a month,

Washington's and Howe's armies warily
faced one another

at Harlem Heights.

"As quiet," an American lieutenant
recalled,

"as if they were 1,000 miles apart."

The 12-month enlistments in the
Continental Army,

begun in Boston the previous winter,

would soon be running out.

At the end of the year, Washington
would again

have to raise and train a whole new
army.

He understood that appeals to
patriotism alone

would no longer work.

- When men are irritated and the
passions inflamed,

they fly hastily and cheerfully to
arms.

But after the first emotions are over,

to expect that they are influenced by
any other principle

than those of interest

is to look for what never did

and I fear never will happen.

- On October 11th, 150 vessels
threaded their way

up the East River and into Long Island
Sound,

with 4,000 British and Hessian troops.

Their objective was to get behind
Washington's forces

in northern Manhattan.

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

following the west bank of the Bronx
River

for 18 miles north toward the seat of
Westchester County -

White Plains.

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

the American lines stretched for three
miles through the village,

anchored on the right by the lightly
defended Chatterton Hill.

General Howe sent two columns up the
slope.

Patriot militiamen predictably
scattered,

but the Continentals held.

As the British approached,

a Connecticut colonel told his men,
"Fire at their legs.

"One man wounded is better than a dead
one,

"for it takes two more to carry him
off, and there is three gone."

But British artillery took a fearful
toll.

- A cannonball cut down Lieutenant
Young's platoon,

which was next to that of mine.

The ball first took the head of Smith
-

a stout, heavy man - and dashed it
open.

Then it took off Chilson's arm.

It then took Taylor across the bowels.

What a sight that was to see,

those men with their legs and arms and
guns and packs all in a heap -

Private Elisah Bostwick.

- At day's end, Washington retreated
east of White Plains.

Again, General Howe made only a
half-hearted effort to follow.

- Is it through incapacity or by
design of our commander

that so many great opportunities are
let slip?

I am inclined to adopt the latter -
Captain William Bamford.

- There are moments when General Howe
in particular

seems to hold back from delivering the
final knockout blow.

There's that feeling,

the very torn and conflicted feeling,

about whether the Americans are truly
enemies or misguided subjects

who need to be encouraged to come back
into the fold.

- As Howe headed back towards
Manhattan,

Washington crossed the Hudson and
headed south.

He thought it most likely that Howe
planned to race across New Jersey

and capture Philadelphia before winter
set in.

He had again misjudged his adversary.

Howe actually wanted to take two
forts,

on opposite sides of the Hudson,

that blocked British ships from going
upriver -

Fort Lee in New Jersey

and Fort Washington on Manhattan
Island,

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

Fort Washington would come first.

British guns pounded the fort and the
long line of trenches

and redoubts that surrounded it.

The British troops who attacked from
the south and east

had comparatively little trouble

driving the defenders back behind the
fort's walls.

But Hessian troops, under the command

of General Wilhelm von Knyphausen,

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

climbing a rocky hillside

covered by the tangled branches of
felled trees

and so steep that they had to grab at
bushes to pull themselves up,

all under steady fire from above.

- Before us, beside and upon one
another,

we saw our unfortunate comrades
shattered,

dead on the earth in their own blood.

Even the air seemed filled with fear -

Lieutenant Johann Friedrich von
Bardeleben.

- Margaret Corbin, a Pennsylvania
artilleryman's wife,

was standing near her husband when he
was mortally wounded.

She stepped in and kept up such deadly
fire

that her position became a target for
Hessian guns.

Grapeshot eventually hit her jaw and
breast

and rendered her left arm useless.

Three years later, she would become
the first woman

to receive a lifetime disability
pension.

American muskets eventually clogged
from overuse.

The defenders fell back and were
forced to surrender,

nearly 3,000 men.

The British renamed Fort Washington

Fort Knyphausen, after the victorious
German general.

Early on November 20th, 1776,

some 5,000 British and Hessian troops

crossed the Hudson and began
struggling up the slippery

440-foot rock face of the New Jersey
Palisades,

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

The British commander was General
Charles Cornwallis,

who then ordered his men to start
marching south

toward Fort Lee, six miles away.

General Nathanael Greene had already
begun to evacuate it

when the enemy took Fort Washington.

Now he ordered everyone remaining to
leave immediately.

- The rebels fled like scared rabbits.

Not a rascal of them could be seen.

They have left some poor pork, a few
greasy proclamations,

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

which we can read at our leisure.

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

managed to link up with Washington's
force

at New Bridge on the Hackensack River.

- They marched two abreast, looked
ragged,

some without a shoe to their feet

and most of them wrapped in their
blankets.

The next evening, the British encamped

on the other side of the Hackensack.

We could see their fires about 100
yards apart,

gleaming brilliantly in the gloom of
the night,

extending for more than a mile along
the river -

Reverend Theodore Ronan.

- As his army retreated across the
state,

followed by Cornwallis with a far
larger force,

Washington hoped somehow, somewhere,
to offer battle,

but Cornwallis had orders from General
Howe to avoid confrontation.

From Howe's vantage point, there was
no need for another major battle.

The rebel army was shrinking daily.

What one officer called "the devil of
desertion"

had infected Washington's ranks.

Men were simply drifting away into the
countryside.

When Washington called upon the states
for 5,000 more troops,

he was met mostly by silence.

His aide-de-camp, Joseph Reed,

expressed the General's continued
frustrations.

- When I look around and see how few
of the numbers

who talked so largely of death and
honour are around me,

I am lost in wonder.

Your noisy sons of liberty are, I
find, the quietest in the field.

- No lads ever show greater activity
in retreating than we have.

Our soldiers are the best fellows in
the world at this business -

Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Webb.

- Hackensack, Acquackanonk.

Newark, Spanktown,

New Brunswick, Princeton,

Trenton.

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

On December 2nd, Washington began to
take his army

across the Delaware River into
Pennsylvania.

The news continued to be bad for the
Patriot cause.

General Henry Clinton landed 7,000
British and Hessian regulars

at Newport, Rhode Island without
firing a shot.

Like New York City and New Jersey,
Rhode Island seemed likely lost.

British forces were now just 60 miles
from Philadelphia,

and the roads leading out of the city
were choked

with frightened refugees.

Congress denied what it called the
false and malicious rumours

that it was planning to leave town...

..and then fled to Baltimore.

Then, General Howe abruptly called off
his campaign.

Winter was coming, the Continental
Congress was on the run.

There would be plenty of time the
following year, he was certain,

to destroy what was left of
Washington's army

and permanently end the rebellion.

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

he left behind a chain of 17
garrisons,

stretching from the Hudson to the
Delaware.

- Things can hardly look darker than
they look for Washington's army

and the hopes of the cause in December
of 1776.

As he gets into Pennsylvania and he's
looking back across

the Delaware River, his options are
very, very limited.

He's been evicted from New York.

His army is down to maybe 3,000 men.

He writes his brother at one point and
says,

"I think the game is pretty near up."

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

but he's feeling pretty glum.

- But now his army had begun to grow
again.

General William Alexander, who had
been freed from British captivity,

arrived with 1,000 ragged
reinforcements.

1,000 Philadelphia militia appeared.

General John Sullivan, also exchanged,

brought in 2,000 more men.

On December 22nd, some 600 other New
Englanders

also staggered into camp.

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

The question was what he might do with
them in the ten days remaining

before their enlistment ran out

and most of his best trained soldiers
went home.

- Our cause is desperate and hopeless.

If we do not take the opportunity of
the collection of troops

at present to strike some stroke,

delay with us is now equal to total
defeat -

Joseph Read.

- Washington decided to strike the
garrison at Trenton, New Jersey,

manned by some 1,500 Hessians under
the command of Colonel Johann Rall.

Most of the little town's inhabitants
had fled

and their homes had been turned into
barracks.

Washington outlined a bold and
ambitious plan of attack

that called for three simultaneous
crossings

of the ice-choked Delaware -

all to be launched on Christmas night.

1,800 Pennsylvanians and Rhode
Islanders

were to cross downriver near Bristol

and march toward a second Hessian
outpost at Burlington.

800 Pennsylvania militia were to cross
and hold the bridge

over Assunpink Creek

and keep the Hessians from escaping
once the battle began.

In the main attack, Washington himself
would lead

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

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

Thomas Paine, who had been with
Washington's army

as it retreated across New Jersey, had
just published a new essay

meant to restore sagging morale called
The American Crisis.

By the time Washington's army got
under way on Christmas,

Patriots up and down the river had
read and been inspired by it.

- These are the times that try men's
souls.

The summer soldier and the sunshine
Patriot will, in this crisis,

shrink from the service of their
country.

But he that stands by it now,

deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily
conquered.

Yet we have this consolation with us,

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

- A freezing rain began to fall at
dusk as the Americans clambered into

the ferry boats and cargo vessels

that made up Washington's hastily
assembled fleet.

Washington hoped that the landing
would be completed by midnight

so that his men could reach Trenton
before dawn.

But the last boat did not scrape
ashore till 3.00 in the morning,

and though Washington did not know it
yet,

ice had prevented the two other forces

from getting across the river.

If Trenton were to be taken,

it would be up to Washington's force
alone.

As he and his men finally started
toward the town,

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

along a frozen, rutted road slowed the
advance.

- When we halted in the road, I sat
down on a stump of a tree

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

And if I had unnoticed, I should have
been frozen to death

without knowing it.

But, as good luck always attended me,

Sergeant Madden came to me and roused
me up

and made me walk about.

- Two other soldiers did fall asleep
and froze to death.

At a crossroads, the column split in
two.

Each column reached its assigned
position

outside the still dozing town just
before eight o'clock.

SOLDIERS SHOUT

Nathanael Greene's men began the
attack,

charging out of the snow-filled woods.

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

"but was in our backs

"and consequently in the faces of the
enemy."

GUNFIRE, SHOUTING

Hessian pickets spotted them through
the snow, opened fire,

then fell back as remaining
townspeople watched in terror.

- In the grey dawn came the beating of
drums and the sound of firing.

The Hessian soldiers quartered in our
house hastily decamped.

All was uproar and confusion -

Martha Reid.

- The German soldiers formed up as
best they could, prepared to fight,

but Henry Knox had positioned cannon
and howitzers

at the upper end of King and Queen
Streets

that ran through the heart of the
town.

And when the German commander, Johann
Rall, mounted his horse

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

these guns, in the twinkling of an
eye, cleared the streets.

Some Hessians scattered,

brief, fierce firefights followed.

- My mother and we children hid in the
cellar to escape the shots

that fell about the house.

Our next door neighbour was killed on
his doorstep,

and a bullet struck the blacksmith as
he was in the act

of closing himself in his cellar.

And many other townspeople were
injured by chance shots.

- As Nathanael Greene's column drove
through town from the north,

John Sullivan's column moved in from
the south.

- Finally, they were driven through
the town into an orchard beyond.

The poor fellows saw themselves
completely surrounded -

Henry Knox.

- It was all over in less than 45
minutes.

22 Hessians lay dead or dying in the
snow.

83 more were wounded.

900 were captured.

Just two Americans had died -

those frozen before the battle began.

And only five were wounded,

including an artilleryman from
Virginia named James Monroe,

whose life was saved when a local
doctor managed to stop the bleeding.

As the Hessian prisoners were marched
to Philadelphia,

Washington issued a broadside

declaring that since they were not
volunteers but forced into this war,

they should be seen not as enemies but
as innocent people.

- The Americans decided very early on
to treat German prisoners well.

That is a strategic decision,

portraying these soldiers as the
innocent victims

of the contract of two despots.

They're being sent - sold - by their
rulers for money,

to fight in the war that does not
concern them.

In other words, "They are victims of
tyranny,

"kind of like we are."

- The small scale of our maps deceived
us

as the word "America" takes up no more
room than the word "Yorkshire".

We seem to think the territories they
represent

are much of the same bigness,

though Charleston is as far from
Boston as London from Venice.

We have undertaken a war against
farmers and farmhouses

scattered through a wild waste of
continent.

- BELL TOLLS

- Philadelphia.

This affair has given new life and
spirits to the cause,

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

who looked upon the matter as settled,
and were hourly expecting

the King's troops to arrive without
molestation.

Things begin to wear a better aspect.

General Washington's army has now
become respectable -

Reverend David Griffith.

- Washington's army may have become
respectable,

but it was still about to
disintegrate.

The continental regiments from New
England,

his most disciplined, most seasoned
soldiers,

were all planning to go home in just
five days,

leaving him with 1,400 men with which
to face

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

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

to remain with him at least a little
longer.

On New Year's Eve at Trenton,

Washington asked that all his depleted
regiments assemble

so that he could speak to them.

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

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

But when he finished and the drums
beat for volunteers,

not a single man stepped forward.

Washington spoke again.

- My brave fellows,

you have done all I asked you to do

and more than can reasonably be
expected.

But your country is at stake,

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

You have worn yourselves out with
fatigue and hardships.

But we know not how to spare you.

If you will consent to stay only one
month longer,

you will render that service to the
cause of liberty

and to your country, which you
probably never can do

under any other circumstances.

The present is emphatically the crisis

which is to decide our destiny.

- This time, the sergeant remembered,

"The soldiers felt the force of the
appeal.

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

"A few stepped forward, and their
example was immediately followed

"by nearly all who were fit for duty."

In the end, more than half the New
England troops

agreed to fight on for six weeks.

On New Year's Day, 1777,

supplemented by scattered militia and
four fresh regiments

of Continentals from Pennsylvania,

George Washington again commanded some
6,500 men.

For now, the revolution would go on.