All language subtitles for The American Revolution S01E04.en

"Mankind have ever been so prone to
yield implicit obedience to

"that authority to which they have
long been accustomed

"that there are few examples of resistance,

"unless the wanton abuse of power has
rendered it necessary.

"When this is the case,

"the feelings of the man and the
patriot are awakened,

"and both the peasant and the statesman

"are urged to struggle, even in blood.

"No suffering which Britain can inflict

"will reduce America to submission.

"The thunder of their artillery may
lay waste the cities,

"but the spirit of the people is
unconquerable."

Mercy Otis Warren.

- "England is the natural enemy of
France.

"She is an enemy at once grasping,

"ambitious, unjust and perfidious.

"The invariable and most cherished
purpose in her politics has been,

"if not the destruction of France, at
least her overthrow and her ruin."

Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes.

- The comte de Vergennes, the French
Foreign Minister,

was determined to avenge his country's

humiliating defeat in the Seven Years'
War.

He had already persuaded Louis XVI to
open French ports

to American merchants

for the selling of American goods and
the buying of French ones,

and even to provide some funds with
which the Americans

could purchase guns and ammunition,

provided they did so in secret.

- The French needed to reorganise
their army.

They were reforming their navy.

So they did start to send clandestine
weapons.

They start to send money.

They start to send uniforms

to the "insurgents" in America

because they didn't want to have

an open warfare against the British at
the time, yet.

- At the end of 1776,

the Continental Congress had sent
70-year-old Benjamin Franklin,

the most widely admired American on
Earth,

to try to talk France into providing
much more help.

Franklin understood that the Americans
could not compete

with the British Army and Navy unless
France entered the war,

and that the French would not dare do
so

unless the Americans showed that they
could win.

The last time he had heard from
America,

prospects did not look bright.

The Declaration of Independence had
proved American seriousness,

but British forces had defeated
Washington on Long Island...

..then driven him out of New York
City.

After a secret meeting with Vergennes
in Paris in January of 1777,

Franklin promised that if France and
its ally Spain

were to join the Americans,

Britain would be reduced to a state of
weakness and humiliation.

But continuing reports of American
defeats

were not encouraging,

and Vergennes refused to meet again.

He also feared that the 13 former
colonies

would never come together as a nation.

Publicly, Franklin remained
optimistic,

but privately, he was anxious for
better news from home

that might persuade the French to join
the American Revolution.

- "Those who live under arbitrary
power do nevertheless approve

"of liberty and wish for it.

"'Tis a common observation here

"that our cause is the cause of all
mankind,

"and that we are fighting for their
liberty in defending our own."

- Though Benjamin Franklin did not yet
know it,

George Washington's army had stunned
the British

and lifted patriot spirits by taking
the garrison at Trenton, New Jersey,

on the day after Christmas, 1776.

- "Though the rebels seem to be
ignorant of the precision, order,

"and even of the principles by which
large bodies are moved,

"they possess some of the requisites
for making good troops,

"such as extreme cunning, great
industry,

"and a spirit of enterprise upon any
advantage.

"Though it was once the fashion

"of this army to treat them in the
most contemptible light,

"they are now become a formidable
army."

Lieutenant William Harcourt.

- But now the British were on the move
again.

General William Howe sent General
Charles Cornwallis

and some 9,000 Redcoats and Hessians
to recapture Trenton

and trap the rebel army against the
Delaware River.

Washington decided to fight rather
than retreat.

"To do otherwise," he said, "would be
to destroy the dawn of hope."

On January 2nd, 1777,

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

a college town 12 miles away,

with orders to slow Cornwallis's
column until evening.

The Patriots contested every inch of
ground

as they fell back through Trenton to
join most of Washington's army,

arrayed on the south side of the
Assunpink Creek.

At dusk, when the advance guard of
Cornwallis's column

started across the lone stone bridge
over the Assunpink...

CANNON FIRE

..American artillery opened up on them

with what Henry Knox proudly called
"great vociferation."

Three times, the Redcoats tried to
cross the bridge.

Three times, American fire hurled them
back.

Perhaps 100 Americans would be killed

or wounded before darkness fell...

..but the British lost three times as
many.

Cornwallis called a halt.

His forces still outnumbered
Washington's,

and the creek was fordable upstream.

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

"and bag him in the morning."

Washington ordered a small detachment

to stay on their hillside that night,

tending campfires and banging
entrenching tools

to make the enemy believe they were
digging in.

Meanwhile, the rest of his army

would slip silently away,

following unguarded back roads

to get behind Cornwallis

and attack his rear guard at
Princeton.

At dawn, two British regiments on

their way to reinforce Cornwallis

saw Americans marching toward them.

"The British were as much astonished,"

Patriot General Henry Knox would write
to his wife, Lucy,

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

CANNON FIRE

The British fired their cannon,

then charged with fixed bayonets.

The American commander, General Hugh
Mercer's horse,

was shot out from under him.

He fought with his sword as long as he
could

before being mortally wounded by
British bayonets.

His men began to fall back.

Washington once again galloped to the
front,

ignoring the bullets flying all about
him,

exhorting his men to stand and fight.

One of his aides covered his eyes,

fearful of seeing his commander shot
from his saddle.

- He's really lucky.

Bullets are going all around him.
Everybody else is dying.

He's never scratched.

He assumes he's never going to be
killed.

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

and they get killed, and we never hear
about them.

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

but he believes in providence,
providence.

He really thinks the gods or God is on
our side and his side.

- Washington's men held.

Veteran Continentals join them.

Now it was the Americans, turn to
charge.

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

- "The fate of this extensive
continent

"seemed suspended by a single thread.

"But, happy for us,

"happy for unborn millions

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

"by a masterful manoeuvre,

"frustrated the designs of the enemy."

Lieutenant Samuel Shaw.

- George Washington was no military
colossus.

He was no Frederick the Great or
Napoleon.

His natural instincts, I think, were
to preserve the Americans

intact so they could fight another
day.

But this caution was occasionally
complemented by boldness.

For the most part, Washington saw his
primary task

as holding the Continental Army
together

because it represented the rebellion.

Without the Continental Army, there
would be no United States.

- 70 Americans had been killed

or wounded in the Battle of Princeton,

but the enemy had lost another 450,

killed, wounded, or captured.

By the time Cornwallis realised
Washington

had fooled him at Assunpink Creek that
morning,

it had been too late to catch him.

And when he and the rest of his army
reached Princeton that evening,

Washington and his army had vanished
again.

- "Everyone was so frightened

"that it was completely forgotten even
to obtain information

"about where the Americans had gone.

"But the enemy now had wings,

"and, it was believed, had flown to
the mountains of Morristown."

Captain Johann Ewald.

- Morristown, New Jersey,

a tiny village in the heart of the
thickly forested Watchung Mountains,

would be Washington's winter
headquarters

for the next five months.

It was out of reach of the British
Navy,

but well suited for raiding British
outposts

and for keeping an eye out for a
British advance from New York.

Most of the troops who had offered to
stay after Trenton

went home as soon as their
re-enlistment was up.

By the end of January,

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

But, encouraged by Patriot victories
at Trenton and Princeton,

and angered by the excesses of British
occupation,

New Jersey militiamen now rallied to
him.

- "They are actuated by resentment
now,

"and resentment coinciding with
principle

"is a very powerful motive."

John Adams.

- Whenever British foraging parties
ventured from their outposts,

Patriots attacked them.

At Maidenhead and Quibbletown,

Bound Brook and Drake's Farm,

Piscataway, and English Neighbourhood,

and at least 50 other places.

That winter, more British and Hessian
troops

were killed fighting over forage than
would fall in battle.

GUNFIRE

- "The British lost men who were not
easily replaced.

"The rebel loss was soon repaired by
drafts from the militia.

"It inured them to hardships, and it
emboldened them to look

"a British or a Hessian soldier in the
eye,

"whose very face would make 100 of
them run

"after the Battle of Brooklyn."

Justice Thomas Jones.

- And now, New Jersey Loyalists

found themselves the targets of
vengeful Patriots.

At Morristown, Patriots hanged two
Loyalist officers

and got 33 of their men to enlist

in the Continental Army by threatening
to hang them too.

General Howe's hope of pacifying the
state

had brought civil war instead.

- If one thinks of this as a British
Empire

and British subjects who are

contending for their rights, right?

Then it's a civil war,

then it's family against family,

sometimes brother against brother.

It's hard to tell who the good guys
are and who the bad guys are.

This is a predicament that is
incredibly fraught

and incredibly difficult for people to
sort out.

- The frequent attacks forced the
British

to abandon most of their New Jersey
outposts.

Winter would end in frustration and
failure.

- "The next will be a trying campaign.

"And as all that is dear and valuable

"may depend upon the issue of it,

"let us have a respectable army,

"such as will be competent to every
exigency."

George Washington.

- Spring was coming.

Armies would soon be again on the
move.

And Washington wanted to be ready

for whatever the British were planning
next.

Most of Washington's new recruits
signed on for three years

and a $10 bonus.

But those who signed up for the
duration of the war

were promised a $20 bonus

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

- When we think about what was offered
to the Continental soldier,

Indian land at the end of it all,

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

That land is still Indian land, right?

It tells you that the entire
revolution is premised

on the future possibility.

- These soldiers were different from

the men who had rallied after
Lexington and Concord.

Most of them had been farmers and
artisans,

propertied men with taxes to pay,
creditors to appease,

crops to sow and harvest.

From now on, the Continental Army
would be made up

predominantly of the poorest of the
poor,

jobless labourers and landless
tenants,

second and third sons without hope of
an inheritance,

debtors and British deserters,

indentured servants and apprentices,

felons hoping to win pardons for their
service,

immigrants from Ireland and immigrants
from Germany,

or their descendants who had never
learned English.

Thousands of African Americans,
enslaved and free,

served alongside whites in units

from New England all the way south to
Georgia.

Some volunteered.

Some were drafted.

Many stood in for their gun-shy
enslavers.

Connecticut and Rhode Island would
later promise

enslaved recruits their freedom when
the war ended.

From 1777 onward, the American
Revolution,

begun in part to defend the interests
of property owners,

would be fought mostly by men

who owned little or no property at
all.

By the middle of May,

Washington's force at Morristown had
grown to nearly 12,000 men.

- "By what means, may I ask, do you
expect to conquer America?

"If you could not effect it in the
summer,

"when our army was less than yours,

"nor in the winter when we had none,

"how are you to do it?

"You cannot be so insensible as not to
see that we have

"two to one the advantage of you.

"Because we conquer by a drawn game,

"and you lose by it."

Thomas Paine.

- In London, Lord George Germain, the
Secretary of State for America,

was embarrassed by how long the war
was taking

and concerned about growing opposition
to it in Parliament.

Germain found the setbacks at Trenton
and Princeton

extremely mortifying,

believed the Howe brothers' repeated
offers of pardons

to rebels sentimental,

and insisted they instead

force Americans to undergo what he
called,

"a lively experience of losses and
sufferings."

- Running of the war largely comes
down to Lord George Germain,

who is coordinating and orchestrating
military operations

from Britain.

In logistical terms,

fighting a war 3,000 miles from the
home islands

was a major enterprise in the days of
sailing ships.

- General John Burgoyne, a dashing
favourite of the King,

had persuaded Germain to place him in
charge of an army in Canada.

- "I do not conceive any expedition
can be so formidable to the enemy

"or so effectual to close the war

"as an invasion from Canada by
Ticonderoga."

- But General Howe had other plans.

- "I am fully persuaded the principal
army should act offensively

"to get possession of Philadelphia,

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

"The rebels are at present buoyed up
by hopes of assistance from France.

"If that door were shut by any means,
it would,

"in my opinion, put a stop to the
rebellion."

- In 18th-century European wars,

the capture of an enemy's capital city

usually brought the war to a close.

Of course, America had no capital city

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

But it did have Philadelphia, which
was seen

as the political headquarters of the
rebellion.

Howe became obsessed with the capture
of Philadelphia

and the defeat of Washington's army.

- Because Lord Germain had failed to
reconcile

the two incompatible strategies,

his two commanders, Howe and Burgoyne,

would plan two distinct campaigns

in which neither would support the
other.

- "If the frenzy of hostility should
remain,

"the messengers of justice and of
wrath await them in the field.

"And devastation, famine,

"and every concomitant horror that a
reluctant

"but indispensable prosecution of
military duty must occasion."

- By the time he reached Quebec,

Burgoyne had convinced himself that
thousands

of Native Americans would join his
army.

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

Mohawks, Algonquins, Abenakis and
Wyandots,

drawn from seven villages along the St
Lawrence River.

They joined him for many reasons.

To seek the honours of war,

to receive British goods in payment of
their service,

and out of an eagerness to settle old
scores with

the hated people they called
Bostonians.

Fort Ticonderoga, on the west side of
the lake,

was Burgoyne's first target.

It was now linked by a floating bridge

to a separate hilltop fortification on
the east side,

called Mount Independence.

Determined to take both outposts,

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

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

but a British officer quickly spotted

a fatal flaw in the rebel defences.

About a mile south-west of Ticonderoga

stood a hill that overlooked both
forts.

It remained undefended.

If British guns could be hauled to the
high ground,

both Fort Ticonderoga and Mount
Independence

would be completely exposed.

When astonished Patriots spotted
Redcoats peering down from the hill

on the afternoon of July 5th,

American General Arthur Sinclair

ordered both fortifications abandoned.

- "To Lord Germain,

"I have the honour to inform your
lordship

"that the enemy were dislodged from
Ticonderoga and Mount Independence."

General John Burgoyne.

- By now, 400 more Native Americans
from the Great Lakes,

Fox, Menominee, Ojibwe, Potawatomi,
Sauk, and Ho-Chunk,

had joined Burgoyne.

His Indian allies attacked retreating
Patriot forces.

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

to terrify those sent out in search of
them.

- "This strikes a panic in our men,

"which is not to be wondered at when
we consider the hazards

"they run by being fired at from
quarters.

"And the woods so thick they can't see
three yards before them.

"And then to hear the cursed war
whoop,

"which makes the woods ring for
miles."

General John Glover.

- Settlers were attacked, too,

with little regard for their
loyalties.

A young woman named Jane McCrea,

on her way to meet her Loyalist
fiance, was killed.

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

he threatened to hang the perpetrator.

- We don't really know much about Jane
McCrea.

She seems to have had reddish-brown
hair and been an average person.

But very quickly, Jane McCrea becomes
a blonde,

and she has very long, beautiful hair,

and she's pure and fair,

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

- It was just too captivating and
tragic and scary a thing -

that became part of the propaganda
aspect of the war.

It was used against us.

- What happens is the American
propagandists

are not simply attacking Indians.

They're using it to attack the British
themselves

and British policy.

It's that the British sponsor Indian
warfare that kills Jane McRae.

And that becomes a very, very powerful
piece of cultural argument.

- The Patriots fled south.

And by the end of July, 1777,

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

had withdrawn to Saratoga,

a small cluster of houses north of
Albany.

- "To General Washington,

"our army is weak in numbers.

"I foresee that all this part of the
country will soon be in their power

"unless we are speedily and largely
reinforced."

General Schuyler.

- Washington had been shocked to learn
of Ticonderoga's fall,

but he also shared Nathanael Greene's
view

that General Burgoyne's triumphs may
serve

to bait his vanity and lead him on to
his total ruin.

To try to bring on that ruin,
Washington took a calculated risk

and sent some of his best officers
north.

General Benedict Arnold,

whose conduct and bravery he greatly
admired,

as well as Colonel Daniel Morgan

and his sharpshooting frontiersmen
from Virginia.

- "General Washington is certainly a
most surprising man,

"one of nature's geniuses.

"A heaven-born general, if there is
any of that sort.

"That a Negro driver should,

"with a ragged banditti of
undisciplined people,

"the scum and refuse of all nations on
Earth"

"so long keep a British general at
bay.

"It is astonishing.

"It is too much."

Nicholas Cresswell.

- Burgoyne remained confident he would
capture Albany.

He assured Lord Germain that the
obstacles

the Patriots were placing

in the path of his army were merely
acts

of desperation and folly.

He had once hoped to

join forces with General Howe on the
Hudson River,

but Howe was already headed for
Philadelphia.

- General Howe can't go overland
through New Jersey

because the Americans are strong
enough

that they could really harass

the column that he has to send down
there.

So he decides to send his force by
ship.

- With favourable winds,

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

but winds died or blew the wrong way.

Lightning storms split masts and
ripped sails.

Water and provisions ran low.

Instead of trying to sail up the
Delaware River under Patriot guns,

the British would go still further
south

and approach Philadelphia via the
Chesapeake Bay.

- "I wish we could but fix upon their
object.

"Their conduct is really so mysterious

"that you cannot reason upon it so as
to form any certain conclusions."

- When Washington finally got word
that the British

had entered the Chesapeake, he
realised where they were headed

and hurried his army to defend
Philadelphia.

On August 24th,

Washington paraded his men through the
streets of Philadelphia.

He hoped to persuade its citizens

that his army would be able to defend
them.

Many in the crowd cheered.

Others remained stone-faced.

Among the officers riding

alongside Washington that day was a
Frenchman,

Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert
du Motier,

the Marquis de Lafayette.

Congress had just made him a major
general.

He was just 19 years old.

- "The welfare of America is
intimately bound up

"with the happiness of humanity.

"She is going to become the deserving
and sure refuge of virtue,

"of honesty, of tolerance of equality,

"and of a tranquil liberty."

- To George Washington, Lafayette was
interesting.

He had personal money with him

that he could invest to buy uniforms,
to buy supplies.

He had a very important network at the
French court

because he was himself from a very
powerful family.

So if he could advocate for the cause
of the American Revolution

in France, it could create very
important support from Versailles.

- Washington liked him from the first,
but would not consider giving him

a command until he had seen how he
fared in battle.

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

to consider himself part of his
military family.

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

"There must be fighting and very
bloody battles, too, I apprehend."

Abigail Adams.

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

General Howe's 16,000-man army

finally began to disembark near the
mouth of the Elk River in Maryland.

- This is in the middle of the summer.

It's broiling hot.

These men have been on the ships for
weeks.

The horses are dying by the scores.

But they disembark at the head of the
Chesapeake Bay,

and now they're looking for the
Americans.

- "Almost every movement of the war in
North America

"is an act of enterprise clogged with
innumerable difficulties.

"A knowledge of the country,

"intersected as it everywhere is by
woods, mountains, waters or morasses

"cannot be obtained with any degree of
precision."

General William Howe.

- To block the enemy's advance on
Philadelphia,

George Washington interposed his
14,000 man army along

Brandywine Creek, some 30 miles west
of the city.

The bulk of his force guarded Chadds
Ford,

prepared to face Howe's army in the
open.

Washington made sure his men
understood what was at stake.

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

"One bold stroke will free the land
from devastations and burnings.

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

- General Howe, now encamped near the
village of Kennett Square,

was eager for a climactic battle, too.

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

But if he could destroy Washington's
army and then seize Philadelphia,

he would surely make that objective
much easier.

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

just as he had on Long Island the
previous summer.

A little less than half his force,

commanded by the German General
Knyphausen,

was to move toward Chadds Ford

and keep Washington's army pinned down
there,

braced for an all-out attack.

Meanwhile, the rest of General Howe's
force,

led by General Cornwallis and Howe
himself,

would move north as quietly as
possible

to attack the right flank of the rebel
army.

That attack was to be the signal for
Knyphausen

at Chadds Ford to storm across the
Brandywine.

If all went as planned, General Howe
would be able

to trap Washington's army between the
two forces.

- Washington again misreads the
ground.

He has made tactical errors earlier in
the war

at the Battle of Long Island,

and he makes another one at
Brandywine.

He believes that there are no fords up
Brandywine Creek that the British

can get across securely to outflank
the Americans.

That's not true.

There are fords up there.

The British find them. The British are
well-informed.

There are a number of Loyalists who
are acting as guides,

who are providing information about
the terrain,

about the topography, about,

"Here on the map is where you can

"get around these American positions."

- At daybreak on September 11th, 1777,

Generals Howe and Cornwallis set out
on what would be a twisting

17-mile march to get behind the
Americans.

A dense morning fog screened their
movements.

General Knyphausen and his column
began moving east soon after,

along the Great Post road toward
Chadds Ford.

Forward elements of the American army
had felled trees across the road.

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

American guns across the creek lobbed
shells among them.

But by mid-morning,

Knyphausen's men had driven the
American advanced troops

back across the Brandywine,

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

At his headquarters,

General Washington was unsure what was
happening,

and so he settled in for what he
believed would be

an all-out frontal assault across
Chadds Ford,

just as Howe wanted him to.

Meanwhile, Howe and Cornwallis's men
had waded across

two waist-deep fords far upstream

and marched for hours in intense heat
without a break.

The weary British and German troops
halted on

the bare slopes of Osborne's Hill to
rest.

They stayed there long enough

for Washington to finally learn of the
coming attack on his flank,

and order three brigades to leave
their positions along the river

and form a defensive line at another
hill

on which the Birmingham Meetinghouse
stood.

John Sullivan's men from Maryland and
Delaware.

William Alexander's from Pennsylvania
and New Jersey.

And Adam Stephen's Virginians.

Some 3,000 soldiers.

At around 4pm in the afternoon,

Howe ordered his much larger force
forward

in three perfectly disciplined
columns.

American marksmen fired into them from
an apple orchard.

American artillery tore through their
ranks.

GUNFIRE

The Redcoats kept coming.

Sullivan's brigade broke and ran,

but the others held firm.

- "There was a most infernal fire of
cannon and musketry.

"The most incessant shouting.

"'Incline to the right. Incline to the
left.'

"Halt! Fire! Charge!

"The balls ploughing up the ground.

"The trees crackling over one's head.

"The branches riven by the artillery.

"The leaves falling, as in autumn, by
the grapeshot."

- A battle like Brandywine saw
suffering at every corner.

It was a hellscape in so many
different ways.

Cannonballs ripping through the
forests.

Splinters killing men,

just taking off arms, legs.

- The outnumbered Americans were
driven back five times,

and five times managed to surge
forward again

before they finally broke,

Had General Nathanael Greene and his
reinforcements

not raced some four miles

in less than 45 minutes to cover their
retreat,

it might have become a rout.

Back at Chadds Ford,

the sound of the fighting on
Birmingham Hill had been

the signal for General Knyphausen

to send his army streaming across the
Brandywine.

The remaining Patriots could not hold.

Washington ordered a retreat.

Night fell.

General Howe lamented that, if he had
more time,

he could have brought about the rebel
armies' total overthrow.

- The Americans,

only by the grace of darkness,

get away.

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

It's a serious defeat for the
Americans.

It is going to open the gateway toward
Philadelphia.

- "We experienced another drubbing.

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

"I saw not a despairing look, nor did
I hear a despairing word.

"We had our solacing words always
ready for each other.

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

"Such was the spirit of the times."

Captain Enoch Anderson.

- The spirit of the times was not
universal,

as Washington's beaten army stumbled
through the dark.

Hundreds of men melted away into the
countryside and headed home,

making an accurate count of casualties
impossible.

But more than 1,000 Americans are
thought to have been killed,

wounded, or taken captive during the
Battle of Brandywine,

roughly twice as many casualties as
the British had suffered.

- "Our Americans, after holding firm

"for considerable time, were finally
routed.

"While I was trying to rally them,

"the English honoured me with a musket
shot,

"which wounded me slightly in the leg.

"But the wound is nothing.

"The ball hit neither bone nor nerve,

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

Marquis de Lafayette.

- On September 13th, 1777,

two days after Washington's defeat at
the Battle of the Brandywine,

General Burgoyne's army in New York

began streaming across the Hudson near
Saratoga

on a bridge of boats covered with
planks.

Officers and men, women, children,
horses,

cattle, wagons, field pieces.

It took three days for it all to
cross.

Waiting for them some ten miles south
of Saratoga

were General Horatio Gates's 6,900
Continentals and 1,300 militia,

dug in along Bemis Heights,

a broad plateau anchored on the right
by the Hudson River

and sheltered on the left by craggy,
wooded bluffs.

Colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko,

a Polish volunteer for the Americans,

had chosen the site and laid out
brigade encampments,

breastworks, and artillery
emplacements

all along the Heights for three
quarters of a mile.

Patriot cannon commanded the river
road to Albany.

Officers had a clear view of the rough
terrain

across which the British would have to
march.

Deep ravines and dense woods,

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

Most of Burgoyne's native scouts had
left him by now.

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

he had no way of knowing how many they
were

or precisely how they were positioned.

On September 19th,

he resolved to find out and then try
to drive through the rebel lines.

He divided his force into three
columns.

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

set out to pinpoint his enemy's flank,

hoping to locate high ground from
which to fire on the rebels.

2,200 soldiers under German General
Riedesel

approached along the river road.

Burgoyne himself led the middle
column,

some 1,700 soldiers,

to assault what he guessed was the
centre of the American lines.

Watching from Bemis Heights, General
Gates was content to wait.

This was his first battlefield
command,

and he was a careful, cautious man.

Both Fraser's and Riedesel's columns
stalled,

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

to a clearing named Freeman's Farm,

where General Benedict Arnold and
Daniel Morgan's riflemen

went out to engage them.

GUNFIRE

- General Burgoyne asks for
reinforcements.

Riedesel, who's a very fine commander,

immediately sends some reinforcements
up from the river

to hit the Americans in the American
right flank.

And this successfully stops American
momentum.

This first Battle of Saratoga, the
Battle of Freeman's Farm,

it's a draw, basically.

You can say that the British have been
successful

in that they have held on to the
ground.

But for the most part, it's
inconclusive.

- Burgoyne had not located the main
rebel positions on Bemis Heights,

and had lost 591 men,

nearly twice as many as the Patriots
had lost.

And unlike General Gates,

Burgoyne had no realistic prospect of
replacing them.

On September 26th, 1777,

General Cornwallis led 3,000
victorious British troops

into Philadelphia.

General Howe, with 8,000 more troops
camped in Germantown,

made his headquarters at Stenton.

At Brandywine, he had repeated the
tactics

that had won the Battle of Long
Island.

Now, Washington hoped to repeat his
successful surprise attack

on Trenton by hitting Howe at
Germantown in early October.

Washington's plan was ambitious and
complicated.

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

into four separate columns

to undertake miles' long marches at
night

on poorly marked roads,

so as to arrive simultaneously on the
town's northern and western

edges at precisely 5am on October 4th.

Then, at dawn, they were to storm into
town on four different roads.

It would be the first time during the
revolution

that Washington dared hurl his army

against the main British force.

GUNFIRE, SHOUTING

Wayne's men found themselves
face-to-face

with the British Light Infantry.

- "Our people pushed on with their
bayonets.

"The rage and fury of the soldiers
were not to be restrained.

"Fortune smiled on our arms.

"The enemy were broke, dispersed,

"and flying in all quarters.

"We were in possession of their whole
encampment."

- The Americans continued to push the
British back through the town,

driving them from one fenced yard to
the next.

A Patriot victory seemed likely.

- About this time came on perhaps the
thickest fog known

in the memory of man,

which, together with the smoke,

brought on almost midnight darkness.

It was not possible to distinguish
friend from foe

at five yards distance.

- Now, it was the Patriots who began
to fall back.

General Cornwallis himself led the
counterattack

and drove the Americans back along the
roads

they'd followed into town.

The British had won - again.

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

looked like they were going to drive
the British back into Philadelphia,

becomes a fairly significant defeat.

Washington gets away again,

but there are hundreds of casualties.

The British capture quite a few
Americans.

And what had been a glorious morning

turns into a very grim evening.

- Reporting to Congress,

Washington tried to put the best face
he could

on his humiliating defeat.

- "Upon the whole,

"it may be said the day was rather
unfortunate than injurious.

"We sustained no material loss of men,

"and brought off all our artillery

"except one piece.

"The enemy are nothing the better by
the event,

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

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

- Washington's not a great field
commander,

but he's resilient...

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

At some point, he reaches the insight,
and it's a basic insight -

he doesn't have to win.

The British have to win.

He only has not to lose.

- "The armies were so near that not a
night passed without firing.

"No foraging party could be made
without great detachments

"to cover it.

"I do not believe either officer or
soldier ever slept

"during that interval.

General John Burgoyne.

- For 18 days after the Battle of
Freeman's Farm near Saratoga,

the American and British armies
strengthened their defences

and skirmished constantly,

but remained precisely where they had
been when the shooting stopped.

At 11 in the morning on October 7th,

Burgoyne led some 1,500 men out of his
camp,

and formed a long, thin line

across two unharvested wheat fields

just west of Freeman's Farm.

Redcoats on the right, Germans in the
centre,

elite British Grenadiers on the left.

While some of his men harvested the
wheat

his encampment desperately needed,

Burgoyne and several of his officers
climbed onto the roof

of a log cabin with spy glasses,

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

Tall trees blocked them from seeing
anything useful.

But Americans patrolling the no-man's
land saw them.

Shots were exchanged.

From Bemis Heights,

General Gates now ordered Daniel
Morgan's corps

and Brigadier General Enoch Poor's
brigades

to attack the British on both flanks.

British General Fraser was killed.

The Redcoats crumbled.

Then Benedict Arnold galloped onto the
battlefield.

He seemed to be everywhere,

leading a charge against the British
centre,

racing between the armies through a
swarm of musket balls

to rally another regiment so that they
could sweep the defenders

from two fortified cabins.

He urged the exhausted men on to seize
a redoubt

manned by some 200 German grenadiers.

- "You cannot conceive how men looked,

"and at first, it appeared to me that
if the order came

"for us to march, I could not do it.

Nathaniel Batchelder.

- But when Arnold gave the order,

Batchelder and his comrades climbed to
their feet

and moved forward again,

shouting as they rushed toward the
front of the redoubt.

Arnold rode around it, forced his way
inside,

and demanded that its defenders
surrender.

Most did surrender or fled.

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

and killed his horse, which fell on
him.

Unable to move, Arnold continued to
shout orders

until the fighting died down and he
could be carried from the field.

"Arnold was our fighting general," one
of his men remembered.

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

- I think it's safe to say that
Benedict Arnold

should be regarded as the hero of
Saratoga.

It was really an aggressive move at
the end

that sealed the victory for the
Americans.

- The British stumbled back to
Saratoga,

carrying their wounded with them.

- "October 10th. Saratoga.

"A frightful cannonade began,
principally directed

"against the house in which we had
sought shelter,

"probably because the enemy believes
that all the generals

"made it their headquarters.

"Alas, it harboured none but wounded
soldiers or women.

"We were finally obliged to take
refuge in a cellar.

"My children lay down on the earth
with their heads upon my lap.

"My own anguish prevented me from
closing my eyes.

"11 cannonballs went through the
house,

"and we could plainly hear them
rolling over our heads.

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

"had the other leg taken off by
another cannonball

"in the very middle of the operation.

Baroness Frederika Riedesel.

- Militiamen continued to stream into
Gates's army,

its numbers now swollen to 17,000.

By October 13th,

the Americans had Burgoyne's army
completely surrounded.

- "Every hour, the position of the
army grew more critical

"and the prospect of salvation grew
less and less.

"Even for the wounded, no spot could
be found

"which could afford them a safe
shelter.

"The sick and wounded would drag
themselves along into a quiet corner

"in the woods and lie down to die."

General Riedesel.

- Saratoga was a body blow to the
British.

It was clear that all of the old
assumptions

that the British Army was a
professional force

that would sooner or later prevail
over the amateurish Americans,

all those assumptions were undermined.

The amateurish Americans had actually
beaten the British.

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

it was a psychological blow of very
considerable proportions.

- That afternoon, Burgoyne gathered
his staff.

They were trapped without food or
forage.

They voted to begin negotiations with
General Gates.

For three days, messages flew back and
forth between the camps.

On the morning of October 17th,

Gates's generous terms were accepted.

He and Burgoyne met between their
respective lines and shook hands.

Burgoyne presented his sword to Gates,

who handed it back, as dictated by
military custom.

To his dying day, Burgoyne would blame
others for his defeat -

Lord Germain, General Howe,

his Loyalist, German, and Native
allies.

Everyone but himself.

- "All the army gave up and
surrendered themselves

"prisoners of war to our men.

"Such a thing was never heard of.

"Such a sight was never seen before.

"So many men giving in to us.

"Exult, O Americans, and rejoice and
praise the Lord

"who hath done wonderful things for
you."

Ezra Tilden.

- An entire British Army had been
forced to lay down its arms.

Burgoyne's Canadian and Loyalist
auxiliaries

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

while more than 6,000 British and
German prisoners

were to be marched to Boston.

The prisoners would eventually be
marched more than 600 miles

to Charlottesville, Virginia,

and still later to other camps

in Virginia, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania.

Many died.

Hundreds escaped.

Some would rejoin the British Army at
New York.

Others joined the Continental Army,

or simply disappeared into the
populace.

By the time the remaining prisoners
from Saratoga

were released in 1783,

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

HORSES' HOOVES CLIP

- "Everything is almost gone of the
vegetable kind.

"Butchers obliged to kill fine milk
cows.

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

"Such is the dreadful situation we are
reduced to.

Sarah Fisher.

- At first, Philadelphia Loyalists had
welcomed British troops

into their city,

but as it grew colder that autumn,

homeowners would be forced to take
officers into their homes

whether they wanted to or not.

And as Sarah Fisher wrote,

there were soon very bad accounts of
the licentiousness

of the English officers deluding young
girls.

American patrols made foraging in the
surrounding countryside

dangerous for British troops.

Provisions grew increasingly scarce.

Prices soared.

General Howe had to find a way for the
Royal Navy

to ferry food supplies and equipment
up the Delaware River

to Philadelphia.

American forces occupied two forts -

Fort Mifflin on Mud Island,

and Fort Mercer at Red Bank

on the New Jersey side.

For weeks, the British worked to
destroy them.

Both forts fell.

The Delaware was now open to British
shipping.

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

In December, George Washington would
lead his army

into winter quarters,

a hilly, wooded, remote place
north-west of Philadelphia,

called Valley Forge.

In France, Benjamin Franklin had heard
little of what was happening

in America for seven long weeks.

Then on December 4th, a rider
clattered into his courtyard,

shouting he had important news.

Franklin hurried out to greet him.

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

"Yes, sir," the courier answered.

Franklin, dejected, turned to go back
inside.

"But, sir," the rider said,

"I have greater news than that.

"General Burgoyne and his whole army
are prisoners of war."

Just a few months earlier,

Franklin had written that only a small
matter would be needed

to bring France into the war with
Britain.

Clearly, the surrender of an entire
British Army was a large matter.

The comte de Vergennes, the French
Foreign Minister,

whose newly rebuilt navy was now ready
for war,

saw the victory at Saratoga and the
former colonies'

tentative steps toward forming a
central government

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

might defeat the British.

Louis XVI agreed.

"America is triumphant," he said,

"and England beaten."

- It's quite a risk to send your army
to fight with an army

that might never win.

But there's more to the story,

because the French are not just
waiting for the victory,

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

Finally, their navy was ready,

their army was ready, they were strong
enough again

and felt confident that this was the
right moment to join the rebels.

- In Paris on February 6th, 1778,

French and American commissioners
would sign two treaties.

The first recognised the independence

of the United States of America

and established commercial relations
between the two countries.

The second, the Treaty of Alliance,

promised full support for the American
cause

from the French army and navy,

as well as its treasury.

Although it would be nearly three
months before the news crossed

the Atlantic, an uprising among
British subjects in North America

was about to ignite another global war.