All language subtitles for The American Revolution S01E06.en

The American Revolution changed the world.

It's not just about the birth of the United States.

It has ramifications across the globe.

So studying the American Revolution,

understanding it and putting it in a
global context,

I think is vitally important

for us to understand why we are
where we are now.

I think to believe in America,

rooted in the American Revolution,
is to believe in possibility.

That, to me,

is the extraordinary thing about the
Patriot side of the fight.

I think everybody on every side,

including people who were denied even

the ownership of themselves...

..had the sense of possibility worth
fighting for.

- In late May of 1780, shortly after

the British capture of Charleston,
South Carolina,

an elite Loyalist group of green-clad
cavalry

and mounted infantry called the
British Legion

were in hot pursuit of Continental
soldiers fleeing north.

Their commander was a 25-year-old
English officer,

Banastre Tarleton. Handsome, rakish,

ruthless and determined to make
himself a celebrated soldier.

Tarleton, wrote the British chronicler
Horace Walpole,

boasts of having butchered more men

and lain with more women than anybody
in the army.

Tarleton caught up with the rebels
near the North Carolina border,

a region called the Waxhaws, and
demanded they surrender.

- "You will order every person

"under your command to pile his arms
in one hour.

"If you are rash enough to reject
these terms,

"the blood be upon your head."

- The Patriots chose to fight.

Tarleton's men quickly overwhelmed
them.

Some who dropped their weapons and
asked for quarter received none.

"They refused my terms," Tarleton
wrote.

"I have cut 170 officers and men to
pieces."

He may have destroyed the last
Continental force in South Carolina,

but he had also helped inspire local
Patriots

to oppose British occupation.

When they went into battle over the
coming months,

many would be eager to deal out what
they called Tarleton's quarter

to any Loyalists unlucky enough to
fall into their hands.

- The British government was very good
at seizing and occupying cities.

Newport, Philadelphia, New York,
Charleston, Savannah -

these are the kind of main ports that
throughout the war,

Britain could secure.

But holding those places were not
holding America.

Pacifying an entire countryside is

an entirely different task than
seizing strategic positions.

- General Charles Cornwallis had been
left in charge in the South

with clear orders from

General Henry Clinton back in New
York.

He was not to move on to North
Carolina and Virginia

until South Carolina was completely
pacified.

It was to be the first full-scale
military occupation of

an entire colony in North America.

- When the British take the decision

to move the war decisively to the
South,

I think they're trying to exploit

the fact that there are smaller
numbers of white colonists

and larger numbers of slaves in those
territories,

and the colonists will be more
vulnerable.

- "I determined to go to Charleston

"and throw myself into the hands of
the English.

"They received me readily, and I began
to feel the happiness

"of liberty, of which I knew nothing
before." Boston King.

- At his headquarters in New York,

General Clinton continued to believe

most South Carolinians were Loyalists.

He had insisted that Patriots swear
allegiance to the Crown

or be considered as enemies and
treated accordingly.

Those who did swear allegiance were
swiftly disillusioned,

as their Loyalist neighbours began to
settle old scores.

Those insurgents who refused the oath

and dared to take up arms against the
King,

Tarleton told General Cornwallis,
don't deserve leniency

and would get none from him or his
men.

- The oath of allegiance was really
going too far,

because it obliged them to publicly
identify as on the British side.

But I think the fundamental problem is
that the British are reluctant

to restore civil government in the
territories they occupy.

They maintain military government.

And of course, that reinforces the
American claim

that the British are set on imposing
despotism on the colonies.

- One of the things that happens in
wartime

is people who are really good
politicians, they create binaries.

You're either with us or you're
against us.

The fact of the matter is, in real
life,

that's actually not true.

There's often more than two
possibilities.

There are a lot of people in 13
colonies

who actually didn't care that much
about the outcome.

They just wanted it over.

- The British are heavily reliant on
recruiting Loyalists as soldiers,

and Loyalists are often very
embittered.

And, of course, if you've got soldiers
who are keen on revenge,

they're not the ideal instruments of
pacification.

- On June 22nd, 1780,

at a tiny settlement called Brown's
Crossroads,

Captain Christian Huck,

a Loyalist with a well-earned
reputation for cruelty,

was there to administer the oath of
allegiance.

Captain Huck stunned the crowd

by warning that even if the rebels
were as thick as the trees

and Jesus Christ would come down and
lead them,

he would still defeat them.

His audience, Presbyterians all,
considered that blasphemy.

For the next few weeks, Christian Huck

continued to burn homes, menace women
and murder rebels.

In July, after he took a Patriot
family hostage,

the militia caught up to him and
killed him,

along with many of his men.

New volunteers were now swelling
Patriot ranks.

By early August, Cornwallis had to
admit

that the whole country is "in an
absolute state of rebellion".

- "There was no-one about in the
streets,

"only a few sad and frightened faces
in the windows.

"I talked to some of the principal
citizens,

"informing them that this was but the
vanguard

"of a much larger force on the way,

"and that our King had decided to
uphold them

"with all his power and strength."

General Rochambeau.

- On July 11th, 1780,

five French warships and a host of
transport vessels

had emerged from the fog that
blanketed the harbour

at Newport, Rhode Island, and some
4,600 officers and men

under the Comte de Rochambeau came
ashore.

Protestant residents weren't sure

if these Catholic foreigners had come
to help or conquer them.

But when the French commander promised
that his men would pay

for everything they needed in silver
coin,

not worthless Continental paper, a
French officer remembered

"their countenances brightened... at
this mention of hard money."

The next day, General Rochambeau wrote
to Washington,

"Here we are, sir, at your orders."

On September 25th, Washington and his
staff inspected

the fortifications at West Point on
the Hudson.

They were scheduled to dine with the
general

whom Washington had just appointed
commander of the fort,

one of his best soldiers, Benedict
Arnold.

Washington had been startled by

what poor condition the fortifications
were in

and concerned that Arnold had not been
there to greet him.

He was not at his headquarters,
either,

when his commander arrived for dinner.

- "No-one could give me any
information where he was.

"The impropriety of his conduct

"when he knew I was to be there struck
me very forcibly.

"I had not the least idea of the real
cause."

- That evening, when his trusted aide
Alexander Hamilton

brought him a bundle of papers,

Washington discovered the real cause.

Benedict Arnold, the commander of West
Point,

the place Washington considered the
most important post in America,

had deserted and fled to the British
that morning.

Worse still, he had planned to
surrender the fort

and all the men stationed in it to the
enemy.

Few soldiers had contributed more to
the Revolutionary cause

than Benedict Arnold.

Time and again, he had exhibited
extraordinary initiative

and bravery on the battlefield and was
severely wounded twice.

- He had done all these miracles on
the battlefield,

but he was not seeing any of the
recognition

he believed he deserved.

Why am I doing this? I've lost my
personal finances.

I've my destroyed my body. For what?

- Two years earlier,

Washington had made Arnold military
commander in Philadelphia.

It had not gone well.

He used his position to profit from

the sale of confiscated Loyalist
property.

He had also settled into the same
mansion

the British commander had occupied,

and was accused of being far too close

to wealthy merchants suspected of
Loyalist sympathies.

- While Arnold is in Philadelphia,

he falls in love with a young woman
named Peggy Shippen,

whose family is of Loyalist
sympathies,

who had gotten to know the British
officers

during the British occupation of
Philadelphia quite well,

and one of them was a Major Andre,

who, just as it so happened,

would become the head of the British
spy network,

and whether or not Peggy was the one
who made this all happen,

soon after the two of them are
married,

Arnold begins to make overtures to the
British.

- In the strictest secrecy,

he began to communicate through Major
John Andre

that he'd gone to war

only to redress legitimate American
grievances,

not independence, and had been
appalled

when Congress allied itself with
Catholic France,

which he believed was the enemy of
liberty and Protestantism.

He now volunteered to enlist in the
King's service,

either as an officer in the British
Army

or by cooperating on some concerted
plan

to sabotage the Revolutionary cause.

For 17 months,

coded messages had gone back and forth

before a concrete plan could be agreed
upon.

Arnold was to persuade Washington to
give him command of West Point

and all the American outposts on the
Hudson

and then weaken their defences

so that General Clinton's forces could
sail up the river

and take them all.

In exchange,

Arnold was to be made a general in the
British service,

and paid 20,000 British pounds

plus £500 a year for the rest of his
life.

Andre had explicit orders.

He was not to cross into rebel
territory,

dress as a civilian or carry any
papers.

He disobeyed all three,

and on his way back to the British
lines,

Andre was captured by three New York
militiamen

with incriminating documents hidden in
his stockings

in Benedict Arnold's handwriting.

- This came as a devastating blow to
Washington,

and it was a blow to the American
people

to realise that one of their own,

one of their own that had been a great
hero,

could make this decision to turn on
all of them.

- "Since the fall of Lucifer, nothing
has equalled the fall of Arnold.

"He will now sink as low as he had
been high before,

"and as the devil made war upon heaven
after his fall,

"so I expect Arnold will upon America.

"Should he ever fall into our hands,
he will be a sweet sacrifice."

General Nathanael Greene.

- General Cornwallis' planned invasion
of North Carolina

would be a three-pronged assault.

On the right, a column would seize the
port of Wilmington,

ensuring that supplies could flow
smoothly inland from the coast.

In the centre, Cornwallis would
himself lead the bulk of his army

toward the tiny town of Charlotte,

then just a crossroads and a
courthouse.

On the left, Major Patrick Ferguson
and perhaps a thousand Loyalists

were to guard his flank and try to
rally more men from the backcountry.

Ferguson, a Scottish-born career
soldier

who directed his men in battle with a
silver whistle,

led his Loyalist force across the
border

into western North Carolina.

He released rebel prisoners

and sent them over the Blue Ridge
Mountains

with a message for those Patriots

who called themselves the Overmountain
men,

the settlers who had defied the 1763
proclamation

forbidding them to occupy Indian
lands.

A British victory was inevitable,
Ferguson told them,

and every man who laid down his arms
would be treated gently and justly.

But the frontiersmen did not believe
him.

News of Tarleton's cruelty and
Loyalist abuses was still fresh.

Instead of surrendering,

they came swarming over the mountains
after Ferguson,

who realised he was in trouble,

changed course and moved toward
Charlotte.

Along the way, he issued a
proclamation

meant to rally Loyalists.

- "Gentlemen, if you choose to be
pissed upon forever and ever

"by a set of mongrels, say so at once,

"and let your women turn their backs
upon you

"and look out for real men to protect
them.

"If you wish or deserve to live and
bear the name of men,

"grasp your arms in a moment and run
to camp.

"The Backwater-men have crossed the
mountains."

- That's the wrong tone to take

when you're communicating with these
backcountry

over-the-mountain men, these
Scots-Irish settlers.

- Just inside South Carolina,

Ferguson unaccountably decided to make
a stand

on a hill grandly named Kings
Mountain.

Nearly 1,000 Patriot militia - half
Overmountain men

and half from the Virginia and
Carolina backcountry -

were right behind him.

On October 7th, 1780,

the Patriots attacked with terrifying
ferocity.

- "They appeared like so many devils
from the infernal regions.

"They were the most powerful-looking
men ever beheld -

"tall, raw-boned and sinewy, with
long, matted hair,

"such men as were never before seen in
the Carolinas."

Drury Mathis.

- As the Patriots closed in on the
summit,

Ferguson continued to ride from point
to point,

waving his sabre, blowing his whistle,

trying to get his Loyalists to hold
on.

Several balls slammed into him at
once.

He tumbled from his saddle.

Ferguson had been the only British
soldier

in the battle that day.

Everyone else on both sides was an
American.

The Loyalists surrendered.

- "The dead lay in heaps on all sides

"while the groans of the wounded were
heard in every direction.

"'Great God,' said I, "'Is this the
fate of mortals?

"'Was it for this cause that man was
brought into the world?'"

Private James Collins.

- After Kings Mountain, Patriots
murder many of their captives.

If they see somebody among the
captives

who gives them a dirty look,

they'll say, "Oh, I know that guy.

"He burned a farm just over the next
hill,

"and he killed somebody's family.

"Let's string him up,"

and so all kinds of atrocities take
place.

- When Cornwallis learned

that the Patriots had annihilated a
thousand-man Loyalist force,

he pulled his army out of Charlotte
and headed back into South Carolina.

- "South Carolina. When I left the
Northern Army,

"I expected to find in this Southern
Department

"a thousand difficulties to which I
was a stranger.

"But the embarrassments far exceed my
utmost apprehension.

"I have but a shadow of an army."

Nathanael Greene.

- I think Nathanael Greene is the
unsung hero

of the American Revolution.

Without Nathanael Greene in the South
grinding it out

battle after battle in the war-torn
South,

the Revolution could have easily been
lost.

- George Washington had sent Nathanael
Greene

as commander of what was left of the
southern army.

"I think I am giving you a general,"

Washington told a South Carolina
congressman.

"But what can a general do without
men, without arms,

"without clothing, without
provisions?"

Greene's forces were outnumbered by
more than two to one.

Nonetheless, he decided to divide his
small army.

"It makes the most of my inferior
force," he explained,

"for it compels my adversary to divide
his."

Greene himself and most of his men
marched into South Carolina

to a camp near Cheraw on the Pee Dee
River.

Meanwhile, Daniel Morgan led what
Greene called

his "Flying Army" west

"to annoy the enemy in that quarter"
and "spirit up the people."

In response,

Cornwallis sent Banastre Tarleton
after Daniel Morgan.

Morgan chose to make a stand at the
Cowpens,

a rolling meadow 500 yards long and
almost as wide

on which herdsmen grazed their cattle
on the way to market.

He expected Tarleton to lead a
headlong charge into his ranks

and planned to take advantage of his
rash opponent.

- Daniel Morgan was a master
tactician.

His planning for the Battle of Cowpens

is really brilliant in the way that he
draws Tarleton into a trap.

- Morgan knew that his less reliable
militia,

faced with an onrushing enemy, would
likely break and run,

so he would try to turn that weakness
into a strength.

For the next day's battle,

he would arrange his men in three
lines, 150 yards apart.

Militiamen would man the first two.

Morgan ordered them to fire just two
volleys each

into the oncoming enemy and then
retreat behind the third line,

manned by seasoned Continentals.

He hoped the enemy, convinced the
militia were running away,

would charge and suddenly find
themselves under deadly fire

from his most experienced fighters,
hidden behind a rise.

- "About sunrise on the 17th of
January 1781,

"the enemy came in full view.

"The sight, to me at least, seemed
somewhat imposing.

"They halted for a short time

"and then advanced rapidly, as if
certain of victory."

Private James Collins.

- The first line of militia managed to
pick off a few regulars and then,

following orders, fell back.

When the enemy came within 50 yards of
the second line,

the militia fired two volleys into
them,

a "heavy and galling fire", Morgan
remembered,

that felled two thirds of Tarleton's
infantry officers,

but just as Tarleton had assumed it
would,

the second line appeared to fall apart
too.

The British stepped up their pace,
eager to catch the fleeing militia.

Surely, Tarleton thought, the battle
was nearly won.

His men raced up a slope, and at its
crest,

suddenly found themselves face to face
with the third line,

and under what a Continental officer
remembered as

a "very destructive fire which they
little expected."

This time it was the Patriots who
charged with bayonets,

emitting a blood-curdling war cry

they had adapted from Native warriors,

a yell that would reverberate

on Southern battlefields for decades.

- "Morgan rote up in front and, waving
his sword,

"cried out, 'Give them one more fire,
and the day is ours.'

"We then advanced briskly.

"They began to throw down their arms
and surrender themselves."

Private James Collins.

- It was all over in 35 minutes.

The British lost 300 men killed or
wounded.

525 more were taken prisoners.

Tarleton managed to get away, but
Daniel Morgan was exultant.

"I have given him," he said, "a devil
of a whipping."

News of Tarleton's defeat stunned
General Cornwallis.

Nearly a third of his army was now
lost.

- "There are few generals that have
run oftener than I have done,

"but I have taken care not to run too
far

"and commonly have run as fast forward
as backward

"to convince our enemy that we were
like a crab

"that could run either way."

Nathanael Greene.

- One by one, all across the Lower
South,

British outposts either surrendered to
Patriots or were abandoned -

Fort Watson, Camden, Orangeburg,

Fort Mott, Fort Granby, Fort Galphin,

Georgetown, Augusta.

General Greene fought three full-scale
battles

with the British - at Hobkirk Hill,
Ninety Six and Eutaw Springs -

and lost them all, but he inflicted
such heavy casualties each time

that the enemy was forced to withdraw

closer and closer to Charleston.

"We fight," Greene said, "get beat,
rise and fight again."

As Britain's grip on the region
weakened,

the anarchy that had characterised the
backcountry for months

spiralled into chaos.

Partisans on both sides seemed bent on
being

more cruel than those on the other.

They tortured and murdered captives,

burned homes and flogged their owners,

raped women and hanged their husbands.

Gangs of bandits held up travellers
and plundered farms.

- "With us in the North,

"the difference is little more than a
division of sentiment.

"But here, they prosecute each other
with little less than savage fury.

"You can have no idea of the distress
and misery

"that prevail in this quarter."

Nathanael Greene.

- By the end of the summer of 1781,
the British would be penned up

in just three coastal towns in the
Carolinas and Georgia -

Wilmington, Charleston and Savannah.

London's Southern strategy was falling
apart.

Britain was more alone than ever,

at war with the Netherlands now as
well as with France and Spain,

and its West Indian islands

and Gibraltar in the Mediterranean
were under attack.

To London, North America mattered less
and less,

and General Clinton in New York could
do little more than

make sure that city remained in
British hands.

- The British stronghold is in New
York.

It's where they won the battle

in 1776 against George Washington,

which is one of the reasons George
Washington

really wants to take New York,

because he feels very humiliated by
that specific battle,

so for him, since that time, it became
almost an obsession.

"If we take New York, we're going to
win this war."

- When word came that French warships
and more French troops would arrive

on the East Coast sometime that
summer,

Washington and Rochambeau met in
Connecticut

to discuss where the fleet might in
fact do the most good -

at New York or in Virginia, where
Cornwallis was now headed.

Washington still favoured New York.

Rochambeau told him that he preferred
to leave the decision

to the Comte de Grasse,

the admiral now commanding the French
fleet in the Caribbean,

but in private letters to De Grasse,

Rochambeau argued that blockading the
Chesapeake

should take precedence.

In the meantime, Rochambeau marched
his more than 4,000 men

from Newport to join Washington's army

in Westchester County, New York.

The French were stunned by what they
saw.

- "I cannot too often repeat

"how astonished I have been at the
American Army.

"It is inconceivable that troops,
nearly naked, badly paid,

"and composed of old men, Negroes and
children,

"should march so well."

- On May 20th, 1781, Lord Cornwallis
arrived at Petersburg, Virginia.

He commanded some 7,000 British,
German and Loyalist troops.

After three mostly fruitless weeks

spent marching through the
backcountry,

Cornwallis and his men started
southeast towards Williamsburg.

Some 4,500 ex-slaves now trailed along
behind.

By bringing the war into Virginia,

Cornwallis had provided the largest
body of black people

in North America the possibility of
freedom.

Among those who threw in their lot
with the British

were 23 from Thomas Jefferson's
estates

and 16 from George Washington's Mount
Vernon.

- What do you do? Do you stay, or do
you take

a chance at your freedom and leave
your family?

How many people can go with you?

Sometimes whole families left
together.

I would imagine it being frightening,

but also a sense of hope,

because the system that they were in

may be destroyed

and that they may have an opportunity
for freedom.

- Cornwallis began to receive a series
of contradictory communications

from General Clinton back in New York
City.

First, Cornwallis was to send nearly
half his forces north to New York.

Then Clinton changed his mind.

Instead, he was to locate and fortify

a deep-water year-round port in
Virginia

suitable for the Royal Navy's largest
warships.

Cornwallis' engineers recommended
Yorktown.

He arrived there on August 2nd, 1781.

On August 14th, Washington learned
that the French fleet

under Admiral De Grasse

was on its way to the Chesapeake, not
New York.

- "Matters having now come to a crisis

"and a decisive plan to be determined
on,

"I was obliged to give up all idea of
attacking New York."

- George Washington is a realistic
military man

who knows when to not attack,

and so, with the advice of the French

that had much more experience in
warfare,

he listens to them and decides to
march to the South.

- Then word arrived from Lafayette

that Cornwallis was establishing his
army at Yorktown.

"If the French Navy could command the
Chesapeake

"and keep the British fleet out,"
Lafayette wrote,

"the British Army would, I think, be
ours."

Leaving 4,000 Continentals behind,

the French and American armies began
to make their way south

in three great columns on August 18th.

- It's hot and humid, and as the
French write,

"infested by mosquitoes."

You have to think of thousands of men

marching through these little roads.

They have to create bridges.

They have to get obstacles out of the
way.

We have a lot of animals behind them.

In order to not walk in the middle of
the day,

they start in the middle of the night,

so it's pitch dark.

And you just walk.

- To deceive the British into thinking

that he was planning an amphibious
assault

on Staten Island or Sandy Hook,

Washington had made sure that false
documents

suggesting an imminent attack fell
into British hands.

- It's a brilliant series of deceptive
manoeuvres

that Washington is able to pull off.

By the time Clinton realises

that Washington is not going after him

but is on his way south, Washington is
in Philadelphia.

- By late summer, work had begun

on the fortifications at Yorktown
itself.

On the morning of August 30th,

Captain Johann Ewald looked out toward
the Chesapeake Bay.

- "I could detect three heavy vessels
in the distance. We soon had news

"that the three vessels which lay
before our noses were French."

- Admiral De Grasse was now lying at
anchor

just inside the narrow entrance to the
Chesapeake Bay

between Cape Charles and Cape Henry.

- The Chesapeake is a huge bay,

but its point of access is the two
capes.

It's very narrow, and anyone who can
control that

controls this huge body of water.

- On the morning of September 5th,

a dispatch rider caught up with George
Washington

near Head of Elk, Maryland,

with the good news that the French
fleet had arrived.

That same day, though, sailors aboard
De Grasse's flagship

spotted sails approaching from the
north.

They were 19 British ships sent from
New York

with orders to find and destroy the
French fleet.

De Grasse might have stayed where he
was,

blocking entrance to the bay,

but if he had done so, the eight
French ships,

loaded with heavy siege guns that were
on their way from Newport,

would have been kept out of the
Chesapeake.

De Grasse moved out into the open sea
to confront his enemy.

The two fleets manoeuvred for six
hours.

Commanders scattered sand across their
decks

to absorb the sailors' blood they knew
was about to be shed.

At four in the afternoon, they opened
fire.

The broadsides continued until dark.

The result was a stand-off,

but the British vessels got the worst
of it

and were forced to limp back to New
York.

Meanwhile, the French squadron from
Newport,

carrying the heavy siege guns, had
slipped unnoticed into the bay,

and avoiding Cornwallis' defences at
Yorktown,

sailed up the James River, and
Washington and Rochambeau's armies

were arriving at Williamsburg.

Cornwallis was trapped.

- From the very beginning, Washington
recognised

that this war was going to end when
the stars aligned.

He's been waiting for this

and he snatches at it.

- "We prepared to move down

"and pay our old acquaintance the
British a visit.

"They thought the fewer the better. We
thought the more the merrier."

Joseph Plumb Martin.

- On September 28th, 1781 at 5am, the
French and American armies,

now 18,000 strong, started toward
Yorktown.

The allies established a crescent-
shaped encampment around the town -

the French on the left, the Americans
on the right.

At dawn on September 30th, French and
American troops

edged cautiously toward the outermost
British defences,

expecting stiff resistance.

Instead, they found them empty.

Cornwallis, outnumbered three to one,

had pulled his men back into town.

- Cornwallis makes a fatal mistake.
He's exhausted. He's depressed.

A commander who otherwise is very
effective

is just not at his best.

- At three in the afternoon on October
9th,

the French opened fire.

Two hours later, Washington was given
the honour

of touching off the first American
cannon.

All along the Allied lines,

cannon and mortars began firing into
Yorktown.

- "It was as if one witnessed the
shock of an earthquake.

"3,600 shot by the enemy were counted
in this 24 hours.

"These were fired at the city into our
lines

"and against the ships in the
harbour."

Private Johan Conradt Euler.

- It was absolutely horrific.

There was no moment to rest.

There was no place to hide.

For days, there was continuous
bombardment.

- At about 10:00 in the morning on
October 17th, 1781,

a drummer appeared on a British
parapet, beating his drum,

the signal that Cornwallis wished to
negotiate.

When the thunder of the guns drowned
out the drumming,

an officer climbed up next to the
soldier

and waved a white handkerchief.

- "He might have beat away till
doomsday

"if he had not been sighted by men on
the front lines.

"But when the firing ceased,

"I thought I had never heard a drum
equal to it.

"The most delightful music to us all."

Ebenezer Denny.

- The Battle of Yorktown was over.

The Patriots and their French allies
had won.

The world would never be the same.

Surrender negotiations went on for a
day and a half.

As the British and Germans marched out
of what was left of Yorktown,

Washington and Rochambeau waited on
horseback.

Lord Cornwallis was nowhere to be
seen.

He claimed to be ill, but as a
professional soldier,

he may simply have been too humiliated

at having to surrender his army to a
group of rebels

to make an appearance.

Cornwallis' second in command, General
Charles O'Hara,

stood in for him

and tried to surrender his sword to
General Rochambeau.

Rochambeau refused to accept it.

"We are subordinate to the Americans,"
he said.

"General Washington will give you
orders."

Washington wouldn't accept it either.

He passed O'Hara onto his second in
command,

Benjamin Lincoln, who formally
accepted the sword

and then handed it back, as custom
dictated.

- So the ultimate humiliation,

not only having to surrender to the
Americans,

but having to surrender to

the second in command of the
Americans.

- "With what soldiers in the world
could one do

"what was done by these men?

"One can perceive what an enthusiasm

"which these poor fellows call liberty
can do."

Johann Ewald.

- "This is a blow, my Lord,

"which gives me the most serious
concern,

"as it will, in its consequences,

"be exceedingly detrimental to the
King's interest in this country."

Henry Clinton.

- In a speech to Parliament, King
George III said that,

while recent events in Virginia had
been "unfortunate",

he remained determined to fight on

"to restore my deluded subjects to
that happy and prosperous condition

"which they formerly derived from
obedience to the laws."

But Britain had grown weary of the
war.

More than 30,000 British, German and
Loyalist troops

had lost their lives in North America.

The British national debt had doubled.

Other battlefields seemed more
important -

in the Caribbean, where they would
soon destroy

Admiral de Grasse's fleet.

In the Mediterranean, where they still
held Gibraltar.

And in India,

where they continued to expand their
empire.

On February 27th, 1782,

Parliament voted to halt

all offensive activity in North
America.

Lord North's government fell.

Not long after the surrender,

slaveholders began turning up at
Yorktown,

eager to reclaim the surviving
runaways

who had fled to the British.

Washington set up two fortified posts

where slaves were to be kept under
guard

until their owner came to claim them.

Patriot troops were encouraged to help
track them down.

Cornwallis' defeated men

were marched to prison camps in the
interior.

Eager to get them back, Parliament
finally recognised

captured Americans as prisoners of
war.

Redcoats and rebels alike could expect
to be exchanged.

Everywhere, Patriots were seeking
revenge on men and women

who had once been their neighbours and
fellow subjects of the King.

"The mob," one Loyalist wrote, "now
reigns fully and uncontrolled."

In Georgia, Patriots hunted down and
killed Loyalists

who had sought sanctuary in the
swamps.

Other Loyalists were exiled and their
property confiscated.

- In an incredible gesture at the end
of the American Revolution,

the British government offers
continuing protection

to American Loyalists,

and I don't know of any other
precedent

for this kind of mass evacuation of
civilians

organised by a government,

and particularly by the military,

with a view to helping these refugees
get started

with a new life somewhere else

outside the place that they had always
called home.

- Meanwhile, in Paris, Benjamin
Franklin, John Adams,

John Jay and Henry Laurens

were trying to work out a permanent
peace.

Ignoring their instructions to include
the French,

whose assistance had ensured their
astonishing victory,

the American envoys decided

to negotiate alone with British
emissaries.

"Let us be honest and grateful to
France," John Jay said.

"But let us think for ourselves."

They had a draft treaty within a week.

Its terms were generous to the
Americans,

so generous they would cause the new

British government to fall as well.

It declared the 13 former colonies to
be free,

sovereign and independent states, and
set expansive boundaries

stretching all the way from the Great
Lakes to Florida

and from the Appalachians westward to
the Mississippi,

a territory larger than England,
France and Spain put together.

British troops were to be withdrawn
with

all convenient speed and were barred,

the agreement said, from carrying away
any Negroes

or other property of the American
inhabitants.

This provisional treaty was signed by

the American and British negotiators
on November 30th, 1782.

A final comprehensive treaty would not
come for another nine months.

- Some people would say the British
lost the war

but then they won the aftermath,

and France lost that period.

They could not reinvent themselves in
order to prevent their collapse.

The promise of the American Revolution
was, of course,

a promise of democracy, of equality,
of liberties,

of all these new concepts,

at a time where in Europe there were
only monarchies.

A republic had won against the
monarchy.

It inspired many.

- "The unparalleled perseverance of
the armies of the United States,

"through almost every possible
suffering and discouragement

"for the space of eight long years

"was little short of a standing
miracle."

George Washington.

As the Continental Army began to
disband,

Washington tried again to persuade
Congress

to provide his men with at least three
months' back pay in cash.

But the best they could do was issue a
blizzard of paper certificates

vaguely promising to redeem them one
day.

- "When the country had drained the
last drop of service,

"it could screw out of the poor
soldiers,

"we returned to drift like old, worn
out horses."

Joseph Plumb Martin.

- That group of people, or ordinary
Americans,

they won the war because they never
left.

They stayed. That was it. They refused
to leave.

And, um...

Uh...

You can sound pretty patriotic,

but I don't think you can be patriotic
enough about them.

- "We had lived together as a family
of brothers for several years,

"and now we were to be parted forever,

"as unconditionally separated as
though the grave lay between us."

- By the spring of 1783, more than
30,000 Loyalists

and almost as many British and German
troops

still remained in New York City,

all waiting for ships to take them
away.

Of the more than 3,000 black people

who had also found sanctuary in New
York,

half were considered the property of
Loyalists

and so would have to accompany their
owners wherever they chose to go.

But most of the rest were runaways,
like Harry Washington,

who had been the property of George
Washington,

and Boston King, who had been promised

that if they fled their Patriot owners
they would be free.

That freedom now seemed in peril.

- "Peace was restored between America
and Great Britain,

"which issued universal joy among all
parties, except us

"who had escaped from slavery

"and taken refuge in the English
Army."

"Though report prevailed at New York

"that all slaves were to be delivered
up to their masters,

"this dreadful rumour filled us all

"with inexpressible anguish and
terror."

Boston King.

- From his headquarters up the Hudson,

George Washington continued to insist

every runaway be returned to his or
her owner.

General Carleton refused. "National
honour,"

he told Washington, "required him to
make good on

"official British pledges made to
persons of any complexion."

- "The English had compassion upon us
in the day of distress.

"In consequence of this, each of us
received

"a certificate from the commanding
officer at New York

"which dispelled all our fears."

- Boston King, Harry Washington

and all the hundreds of other free
persons

the British allowed to sail north were
filled,

as King wrote, with joy and gratitude.

In the end, Nova Scotia proved cold
and unforgiving.

Black refugees were not made welcome.

Both men would eventually join nearly
1,200 other

African Americans who emigrated again,

this time to Sierra Leone in West
Africa,

where they founded a new British
colony

with a new capital city they called
Freetown.

The 150,000 Native Americans

who lived in the vast territory that
was now the United States

were not so much as mentioned in the
treaty.

- "We were struck with astonishment at
hearing we were forgot.

"We could not believe it possible such
firm friends and allies

"could be so neglected by England,

"whom we had served with so much zeal
and fidelity."

Thayendanegea, Joseph Brant.

- The losers in the negotiation of
Paris are the Native Americans.

I mean, it would be hard pressed to
say that they'd be better off

if the British had won, but they
probably would have.

- As the United States moved
inexorably westward,

Native nations would continue

to fight for their independence for
another century.

Native Americans would not become
citizens of

the United States until 1924,

and their struggle to remain sovereign
would never end.

The British were finally gone.

Washington was back in the city he had
been forced to abandon in 1776.

New Yorkers celebrated for days with
illuminations,

bonfires and fireworks.

And now George Washington had one more
duty to perform.

He would ride to Annapolis, Maryland,

where the Confederation Congress was
now meeting,

and formally resign his commission.

- He knew what he was doing. He walks
away from power.

He's not going to be a Cromwell, he's
not going to be a Caesar,

he's not going to be what Napoleon is
going to become.

He could have easily become dictator
head,

and he had no interest in that
whatsoever.

- "These are the times that tried
men's souls,

"and they are over -

"and the greatest and completest
revolution the world ever knew

"gloriously and happily accomplished.

"As United States, we are equal to the
importance of the title.

"But otherwise we are not.

"Our Union is the most sacred thing,

"and that which every man should be
most proud and tender of.

"Our great title is Americans."

Thomas Paine.

- In late May 1787,

55 delegates met in Philadelphia to
draw up a constitution.

Nearly half owned slaves.

30 had served in the war.

George Washington lent his prestige

by agreeing to preside over the
convention.

Four months later, they had hammered
out a four-page document.

To devise a government

that the American people could agree
to live under

demanded historic compromises,

some creative, some tragic.

The Constitution delineated which
powers

fell to the central government and
which remained with the States,

a system of shared sovereignty they
called federalism.

The architects of the Constitution
divided the federal government

into three branches - the legislative,

executive and judicial,

in a delicate balance by which each
was meant to check the others

to insure against overreach that could
result in tyranny.

- "I wish the Constitution which is
offered

"had been made more perfect,

"but I sincerely believe it is

"the best that could be obtained at
this time."

"And as a constitutional door is
opened for amendment hereafter,

"the adoption of it is, in my opinion,
desirable."

- They were trying to create a system

in which you could have a sufficiently
powerful government

that could work properly for its own
people

and the great powers of the world,

and still retain the freedoms of the
individual.

And that is the great issue

that runs all the way through the
Revolution.

It's a struggle between

the possibilities of power and of
liberty.

- All 13 states did ratify the
Constitution,

but before consenting to live under
the new federal government,

the American people wanted

to enshrine the liberties they had won
in the Revolution.

The Constitution was almost
immediately amended

with a Bill of Rights, guaranteeing
freedom of worship

and the separation of church and
state,

freedom of speech and assembly,

the right to keep and bear arms,

trial by jury and a ban on cruel and
unusual punishment.

When the time came to choose

the first President under the
Constitution,

George Washington was the only choice

and won the vote of every single
elector.

He was inaugurated in New York City on
April 30th, 1789.

John Adams, the first vice president,

thought the chief executive

should have a royal or at least a
princely title,

but for Washington,

President of the United States was
honour enough.

And when he left the presidency in
1797,

King George himself paid tribute.

By surrendering first his military

and then his political power, he said,

"George Washington had made himself
the greatest character of the age."

- America is predicated on an idea

that should act as a pole star for us
to provide true north,

telling us what it is that we think we
can do as a people.

The perpetual challenge of the
American experiment

is to draw on those aspirational
ideals

and make them our own,

hand them off to our children and our
grandchildren,

and to use that as a propulsion system

for being the nation that those
forebears thought we could become.

- "The American war is over.

"But this is far from being the case
with the American Revolution.

"On the contrary,

"nothing but the first act of the
great drama is closed.

"It remains yet to establish

"and perfect our new forms of
government.

"Patriots, come forward. Your country
demands your services.

"Hear her proclaiming in sighs and
groans.

"In her governments, in her finances,
in her trade,

"in her manufactures, in her morals
and in her manners,

"'The revolution is not over.'"

Benjamin Rush.