The American Revolution PBS Documentary Episode 3

The American Revolution
A Film By
Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein & David Schmidt

The Times That Try Men’s Souls (July 1776 – January 1777)

VIDEO

TRANSCRIPT

Announcer: Major funding for "The American Revolution" was provided by The Better Angels Society and its members Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine with the Crimson Lion Foundation and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Major funding was also provided by David M. Rubenstein, the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Family Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and by Better Angels Society members: Eric and Wendy Schmidt, Stephen A. Schwarzman, and Kenneth C. Griffin with Griffin Catalyst. Additional support was provided by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha A. Darling, the Park Foundation, and by Better Angels Society members: Gilchrist and Amy Berg, Perry and Donna Golkin, The Michelson Foundation, Jacqueline B. Mars, the Kissick Family Foundation, Diane and Hal Brierley, John H.N. Fisher and Jennifer Caldwell, John and Catherine Debs, The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund, and these additional members. "The American Revolution" was made possible with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Viewers Like You. Thank You. Announcer: The American Revolution caused an impact felt around the world. The fight would take ingenuity, determination, and hope for a new tomorrow to turn the tide of history and set the American story in motion. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America. Voice: The plan laid down for our education was entirely broken in upon by the war. Instead of morning lessons, we were to knit stockings; instead of embroidering, to make homespun garments; and in place of the music of the harpsichord, to listen to the loud, clanging trumpet and never-ceasing drum, for in every direction that we traveled-- and heaven knows we left but little of Virginia unexplored-- we heard naught but the din of war. Our late peaceful country now became a scene of terror and confusion. Betsy Ambler. [Men shouting] ♪ Maya Jasanoff: Our images of the American Revolution tend to be images of men in wigs in wood-paneled rooms, and that helps to reinforce an image of the American Revolution as just a war about ideals. I think that we really do a disservice to...history and to the experiences of the people who lived through it when we paper over the violence of the American Revolution with this set of very idealized images that we have of the Founding Fathers signing documents in Philadelphia. The United States came out of violence. ♪ [Sea gulls crying] Voice: 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 10 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. ♪ Narrator: On Saturday morning, June 29, 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 Number 1 Broadway when he, too, spotted the British ships that Private McCurtin had seen as they approached New York Harbor unopposed. [Bell ringing] Voice: 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. [Henry Knox] Narrator: Martha Washington and other officers' wives, including Lucy Knox and her infant daughter, were sent away from the city for their safety. 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. Stephen Conway: 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. ♪ Voice: 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. ♪ ♪ Narrator: 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. 11-year-old Betsy Ambler of Yorktown, Virginia, and her family had been among the earliest refugees. Her mother suffered from what Betsy called "a nervous malady." In 1775, the constant talk of war and Yorktown's vulnerability to an attack by water had so terrified her mother that her father decided to move the family, Betsy said, "and seek a safe retreat for her." The Amblers were more fortunate than most displaced families. They and their relatives owned farms and plantations worked by enslaved people scattered across the state. They settled first in a small house in the tiny village of New Castle in Hanover County. It was there that Betsy's mother gave birth to another daughter--Lucy. Since Lucy "made her appearance just after the declaration," Betsy recalled, their father called her "his only independent child." Now a fully committed patriot, Betsy's father had lost his paid position as Collector of Royal Customs, and a Royal Navy blockade would soon choke off the shipping on which his profits as a merchant had been made. Voice: 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. ♪ Voice: 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. Narrator: 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 harbor. Rick Atkinson: 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. Narrator: New York was one of the best natural harbors 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. Nathaniel Philbrick: This whole war, in many ways, is a water campaign. It's who controls the coast, but it's also who controls the rivers and the lakes. This is where the fighting would be, wherever water provided you with a way to get into the interior of the country. [Splash] Narrator: Both the British and the Americans had considered New York and the farming communities that bordered it to be Loyalist strongholds. For weeks, Patriots had prowled the streets, roughing up Loyalists. Thousands fled with what belongings they could carry. Hundreds more were arrested. Several dozen were hauled away to Simsbury, Connecticut, and imprisoned in an abandoned copper mine 70 feet below the Earth that the Patriots called the Catacomb of Loyalty. [Gavel bangs] A Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies, chaired by the attorney John Jay, held daily inquisitions. 40 men, including the Mayor of New York City, were jailed for plotting to assassinate George Washington. A member of Washington's own personal guard was found to be involved and hanged while 4 brigades of troops looked on. [Sandbag thumps, rope creaks] The city had been home to 25,000 people. By the summer of 1776, just 5,000 of them would remain, and those Loyalists left behind had learned to keep their opinions to themselves. Voice: To see the vast number of houses shut up, one would think the city almost evacuated. Troops are daily coming in. They break open the houses they find shut up to quarter themselves. Necessity knows no law. [Unidentified Loyalist] Narrator: Continental soldiers and militiamen from 10 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 10 P.M. 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, 2 British warships slipped their anchors off Staten Island, moved into the harbor past the tip of Manhattan, and began sailing up the Hudson. [Cannonfire] Voice: 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 Banks. Narrator: 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. [Men shouting] Voice: We learned 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. [Ambrose Serle] ♪ Voice: To my dear Betsey, my wife-- It is hard to be quite happy when one full half, at least, of both body and soul is left at home, but, believe it, I am not more mortal here in the neighborhood of the British cannon than I should be was I happy in your peaceful, loving arms. Till my God calls me, I am immortal. Philip Vickers Fithian. Narrator: Philip Vickers Fithian of Cohansey, New Jersey, was a newly married 28-year-old Presbyterian clergyman, recently appointed chaplain of a militia brigade. He was a graduate of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, where his classmates had included Aaron Burr and James Madison. After college, he spent a year as a tutor on a Virginia plantation, where, seeing the inhuman cruelty of slavery up close, he introduced the owner's children to the work of the enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley. In New York, Fithian found himself sleeping on the floor of a Loyalist's abandoned home, conducting prayer meetings twice a day and afterwards visiting the hospitals filled with men dying from dysentery. Amen. Amen. Voice: Here I must daily visit among many in a contagious disorder, but I am not discouraged nor dispirited. I am willing to hazard and suffer equally with my countrymen since I have a firm conviction that I am in my duty. [Fithian] Friederike Baer: When we really take a look at what these regiments were like, we see a lot of individuals who are not carrying arms-- including women, including children, including servants, medical personnel, chaplains-- and there are all kinds of individuals there that are essential parts of these armies that are doing essential labor, without whom, I think, the army couldn't operate. Voice: August 1st-- There is a report pretty well confirmed that near 40 sail of the enemy came in this afternoon and are joining the fleet. We are all uncertain. [Fithian] Narrator: 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. [Cannonfire] 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 3 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 2 1/2 years. ♪ [Insects chirping] Voice: 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. ♪ Narrator: 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. Kathleen DuVal: 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. The British government had kept them from taking Native lands, so for the Shawnees and the Delawares, Cherokees, and many other people, the American Revolution was a war to protect these places against an enemy they already knew quite well. Voice: 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, and wherever a fort appears, there will soon be towns and settlements. [Shawnee Delegate] DuVal: In May 1776, a delegation of Shawnees, Delawares, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee came to the Cherokee town of Chote. They said, "Enough is enough. "We've had year after year "of illegal settlement coming onto our lands. "Now a war has come "that has divided those settlers from their government. This is the time to strike." Voice: It is better to die like men than to diminish away by inches. The Cherokees have a hatchet. Take it up and use it immediately. [Shawnee Delegate] Narrator: 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. [Flames crackling] They killed and scalped settlers in the Carolina and Virginia backcountry, burned their cabins and crops, and drove off their livestock. Colin Calloway: 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. "Now we have justification "for launching a full-scale assault on the Cherokees and to drive them out and take their land." ♪ Voice: Nothing will reduce those wretches so soon as pushing the war into the heart of their country, but I would not stop there. I would never cease pursuing them while one of them remained on this side of the Mississippi. Thomas Jefferson. ♪ DuVal: There are thousands of militiamen in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia ready to join the Revolution, ready to fight Britain, but the British aren't there. There are no British there to fight. Who's there to fight? The Cherokees. Narrator: Some 6,000 militiamen stormed through Cherokee country. They destroyed 36 towns, including Dragging Canoe's own village. Philip Deloria: This is meant to be instructive to other tribes. "If you think you're gonna keep a British alliance, "guess what we're gonna do? "We're gonna come and burn everything. "We're gonna destroy your fields. "We're gonna destroy your corn. "We're gonna destroy all your stored-up food. "We're gonna wage total war on those people. Let's teach all Native people a lesson about what's coming." ♪ Narrator: In the end, older Cherokee leaders would sue for peace and be forced to cede another 5 million acres. Maggie Blackhawk: The colonists wanted to possess that land exclusively, and it's a vision that is Western, as contrasted to Native people, who had a more spiritual or more engaged relationship to land. Narrator: Unlike his elders, Dragging Canoe would not surrender. With hundreds of men and their families, he managed to escape westward to settle along the Chickamauga Creek in what is now Tennessee, where he remained defiant. "I could not hear their talks of peace," Dragging Canoe said. "My thoughts and my heart are for war." ♪ Imperial powers were advancing all across North America in 1776-- Russia along the Alaska coast, Spain in what became San Francisco Bay, the Lakota in the Black Hills, and the Comanches on the Southern Plains. On August 12th off Staten Island in New York, Britain, the world's greatest naval power, landed 107 more ships. Aboard them were 8,600 hired Hessian troops. Everything about the German soldiers was intended to intimidate-- their tightly fitted uniforms that made the wearers seem bigger than they were, the whiskers many grew when most men were clean-shaven, the helmets worn by their grenadiers and fusiliers that added a foot to their height, and the reputation for ferocity so widespread that some Americans believed them cannibals with a special taste for babies. Baer: I think it is an effective propaganda tool. "They will plunder our homes. They will burn our village. They will rape our women." These kind of portrayals really show up frequently, especially in the spring of '76 before the first Germans even set foot on American soil. [Sea gulls crying] Voice: 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. Narrator: 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. Voice: The enemy have now landed on Long Island. The hour is fast approaching on which the honor and success of this army and the safety of our bleeding country depend. George Washington. ♪ Narrator: More troops continued to land. Soon, more than 20,000 British, Hessian, and Loyalist soldiers occupied a tent city that sprawled for 8 miles just beyond the beach. General Washington reminded his men of the dismissive things British officers had said of them. Now they would have a chance to prove them wrong, provided they remained cool but determined. Voice: Remember that you are free men fighting for the blessings of liberty, that slavery will be your portion and that of your posterity if you do not acquit yourselves like men. [Washington] ♪ Narrator: 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 defenses 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 harbor 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. 4 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 3 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 recognize that he can be outflanked by the British. Narrator: The Battle of Long Island began in the early-morning hours of August 27, 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 underway, General William Alexander was ordered to organize 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 center of the American lines, British cannonfire ripped through the trees above the ridgeline, 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. [Fife playing] Voice: 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. [Gunfire] 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. Narrator: Private Joseph Plumb Martin of the Connecticut militia was just 15 years old that summer, 1 of 7 children of a small-town minister so quarrelsome, he could not hold on to a congregation. Martin had wanted to enlist since Lexington and Concord. On July 6, 1776, he remembered, he'd taken "up the pen, "loaded it with the fatal charge [of ink], "[and] wrote my name. [N]ow I was a soldier in name at least, if not in practice." 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 center, 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 3 Loyalist volunteers. ♪ Atkinson: 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-- it's a 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. Narrator: The plan worked perfectly. The British column, nearly 2 miles long, made it through the pass and reached the village of Bedford, well behind American lines and just 2 miles from the main fortifications on and around Brooklyn Heights. [2 cannon shots] General Clinton ordered 2 guns fired in quick succession, the signal for British troops besieging the American right and center 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 struggled 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. Voice: Blood, carnage, fire. Many, many, we fear, are lost. Such a dreadful din my ears never before heard. Philip Fithian. [Gunfire] Atkinson: Muskets are mostly inaccurate beyond 80 yards and hopeless beyond 120 yards, so a lot of the killing is done with a bayonet, and the 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. Narrator: Hundreds of Americans surrendered, including General Sullivan. "Their fear of the Hessian troops was indescribable," the German commander General Heister remembered. Voice: 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. [Heister] ♪ Voice: We soon landed at Brooklyn. We now began to meet the wounded men, another sight I was unacquainted with, some with broken arms, some with broken legs, and some with broken heads. [Martin] Narrator: The fighting Joseph Plumb Martin was about to witness would prove the last and bloodiest of the day. [Gunfire and shouting] ♪ 3 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. Voice: 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. [Martin] Narrator: 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 a thousand more were captured. Washington watched this final carnage through his spyglass. By noon, it was all over. The British believed they had won what one general called a "cheap and complete victory." Atkinson: Washington's heartbroken because he recognizes instantly what a catastrophe this has been. The only saving grace is that enough of them pull back to form sort of an inner defense around Brooklyn that gives the British pause. They pull back within those defenses. Now they've got their backs to the East River. Things are about as dire as they could possibly be. Narrator: Washington and the bulk of his battered army, crowded now inside the defenses 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." [Thunder, raining] Meanwhile, a storm blew in and continued off and on for the next 2 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 and very quietly to the landing, very close to where Brooklyn Bridge now is on the Brooklyn side. Narrator: To man his mismatched flotilla, he would call on 2 regiments of seasoned mariners and fishermen, Black and White and Native American, from Massachusetts coastal towns. Colonel John Glover of Marblehead led one of the regiments. As darkness fell, Washington ordered his men to begin moving silently down from the Heights to the ferry landing regiment by regiment. Voice: 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. ♪ Atkinson: 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. ♪ Narrator: All through the night, John Glover and his men from Marblehead sailed or rowed or paddled back and forth undetected, ferrying more than 9,000 men as well as horses, artillery, and baggage wagons to safety in Manhattan. Atkinson: When dawn breaks, the British realize everyone's gone. They see the last of the boats disappearing across the river in the traces of fog. [Cannonfire] And they fire a few shots pointlessly at this retreating gaggle, including Washington in one of the last boats, and the Americans escape to Manhattan Island and get away to fight another day. ♪ Narrator: 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. ♪ [Birds chirping] Voice: Braintree, Massachusetts-- The best accounts we can collect from New York assure us that our men fought valiantly. We are no ways dispirited here. If our men are all drawn off and we should be attacked, you would find a race of Amazons in America. Abigail Adams. ♪ Narrator: Every army engaged on either side in the Revolution would be accompanied by a moving village of civilians-- men, women, and children. Most of the women were soldiers' wives who cared for the wounded and washed and cooked and mended for the troops. Some sold provisions, including rum. George Washington often resented feeding all the women and children, but he also understood, he said, that he had somehow to provide for them "or lose by Desertion-- perhaps to the Enemy-- some of the oldest and best Soldiers in the Service." Women acted as spies, and a handful disguised themselves and fought as men until they were found out, but most made their contributions to the war effort away from the battlefield. Voice: Preston, Connecticut-- Dear husband, I hope that I shall have the pleasure of your company at home this winter. The anxieties of the mind cannot be accounted for, especially when ties of flesh and blood bind them. My only comfort now is at present in the dear, little pledges of our love--our children. When I see them, I see my dear when so glorious a cause calls him from my arms. My country, o my country. Your affectionate wife till death, Lois. ♪ Narrator: With sons and husbands and fathers away, some women turned their homes into boarding houses to pay the bills. On farms, women already caring for children and households now slaughtered hogs, cut and stacked firewood, harvested wheat, and brought it to market. Voice: The men say we have no business with political matters, it is not in our sphere, but I won't have it thought that we are capable of nothing more than minding the dairy, visiting the poultry house, and all such domestic concerns. Our thoughts can soar aloft. We can form conceptions of things of higher nature. Eliza Wilkinson. ♪ Voice: Can you be surprised that the Negroes should endeavor to recover their freedom when they daily hear at the tables of their masters how much the Americans are applauded for the stand they are making for theirs? [John Purrier] [Rhiannon Giddens singing "Dean Cadalan Samhach"] ♪ Jane Kamensky: The liberty talk that proliferates through British America originates in coffee houses and across dining tables. It surfaces in letters and in pamphlets. Those pamphlets are excerpted in newspapers and travel up and down the coast. Even letters, like newspapers, are read aloud, so we know that the language of liberty is contagious and is leaky, leaky in that there are planter-class people in Jamaica saying, "You know, this stuff is kind of hot, "so watch it when you're talking "because you know all those Black and Brown people "who are standing, serving around the edges of your room, they have ears." [Giddens continues singing "Dean Cadalan Samhach"] Voice: The signal was to be given first by discharging a gun at Batchelors Hall Plantation. They were then to rise in general rebellion and attack the several estates, and put to death all the White people they could. Sam. ♪ Narrator: That same summer of 1776 in Northwestern Jamaica, enslaved men, women, and children living on 47 different plantations secretly conspired to overthrow their enslavers, hoping their rebellion would spread across the whole island and unite the people of African descent living there, including Igbos, Creoles, and Coromantees. The planned revolt was an unintended consequence of the American Revolution. The American ban on trade with the British had denied enslaved Jamaicans the food they needed to survive. Then London ordered almost half the soldiers who policed the island to sail northward to strengthen General Howe's forces in New York. Their departure was supposed to be the signal for enslaved people to rise up, but before the plot could get underway, a child was discovered emptying his overseer's pistol and was made to reveal what he knew of the conspiracy. The Royal governor declared martial law. The revolt was crushed. 135 people were put on trial. 17 were executed. 11 were beaten, and 45 were torn from their families and deported to other islands... [Giddens singing "Angola"] Narrator: but that summer and fall, there were other sporadic uprisings or rumors of uprisings among enslaved workers on other British islands-- Saint Kitts, Montserrat, Antigua, Barbados-- all of them striking fear in American slaveholders. Vincent Brown: Slave rebellions were usually unsuccessful, so you wonder, why would you fight? Slavery was so incredibly horrifying. It was a regime of terror, right, that was very, very difficult to withstand. People can abuse, rape, torture, murder enslaved persons without consequences, so if you just imagine that situation and that kind of desperation, it becomes clearer why, when given an opportunity, you would fight against that. ♪ [Birds chirping] Narrator: On September 11, 1776, 3 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." "[W]e 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 apologized to his visitors for wasting their time. Christopher Brown: 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 neighbors would just say, "Enough. We don't actually want to go to war with our own nation." ♪ Voice: 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. Narrator: 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. Militiamen were posted along the East River opposite Long Island. Joseph Plumb Martin found himself with 500 Connecticut troops at Kips Bay. At the same time, 5 British frigates sailed up the river and anchored on the opposite shore. At 11:00 in the morning on September 15th, they opened fire. [Cannonfire] Voice: 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 and began to consider which part of my carcass was to go first. We kept the lines till they were almost leveled upon us, when our officers gave the order to leave. [Martin] Narrator: 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. Voice: Our people were all militia, and the demons of fear and disorder seemed to take full possession of all and everything that day. [Martin] [Gunfire] Narrator: 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." He seemed stunned and urged his horse forward toward the oncoming Hessians. An aide snatched his horse's bridle and led his commander out of harm's way. Colonel John Glover and his regiment from Marblehead, Massachusetts, which had just made Washington's escape from Long Island possible, rushed up and were able to slow the British advance... [Gunfire] but many Patriots did not stop running until they reached the safety of strongly fortified American positions on the plateau known as Harlem Heights. 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. Voice: 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. Jasanoff: New York City becomes the great British stronghold of the American Revolution. Once the Continental Army is driven out, the Patriots don't want to stick around, and they tend to go, too. Meanwhile, the Loyalists come into the city. People stream in from the countryside to take shelter, and the city becomes this kind of garrison town. Narrator: Hundreds of Loyalists would formally reaffirm their allegiance to George III by signing a document they called their Declaration of Dependence. Over the coming weeks, more Loyalists poured into the city, now eager to take up arms in the King's cause. [Fifes and drums playing] Voice: It is the cause of truth against falsehood, of loyalty against rebellion, of legal government against usurpation. In short, it is the cause of human happiness. Charles Inglis. Narrator: 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. [Distant cannonfire] Voice: Had I been left to the dictates of my own judgment, New York should have been lain in ashes. To this end, I applied to Congress but was absolutely forbid. Providence--or some good, honest fellow-- has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves. George Washington. [Flames crackling] Voice: September 21, 1776. We are a good deal alarmed at a fire that must have spread amazingly, for though we are 6 1/2 miles from the town, we could see a pin on the ground by the light of the blaze. Loftus Cliffe. Narrator: New York City was on fire. The next morning, Irish-born Lieutenant Loftus Cliffe, who had already survived 3 battles, went for a walk through the still-smoldering streets. Voice: I cannot paint the misery of a very pretty town near as large as Cork now reduced. Two churches, the governor's house, and several other fine buildings are in ruins, being set afire in different places at once in the dead of last night. Their design was to destroy the town. O Washington, what have you to answer for? [Cliffe] Narrator: The origins of the fire remained a mystery, but General Howe was convinced it had been set by rebels, and the next day when soldiers brought before him an American spy captured behind British lines, he showed no mercy. Howe ordered Captain Nathan Hale, a member of an elite espionage unit organized by George Washington, to be hanged the following morning. As he went to the gallows, a British officer remembered, Hale "behaved with great composure and resolution." Above his body, British soldiers hung a sign labeled, "George Washington," the man they all blamed for setting fire to New York City. ♪ Alan Taylor: A lot is riding on George Washington's performance not only in the battlefield, but in his relationship with Congress and his relationship with the states, his relationship with his soldiers. George Washington understands that his role is not just military. It's also political. He has to project dignity. He has to project authority. He has to also do this while projecting deference to Congress. He cannot become a dictator. ♪ Voice: We have been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to have lived, when, before the present epocha, had 3 millions of people full power and a fair opportunity to form and establish the wisest and happiest government that human wisdom can contrive. [Gavel bangs] John Adams. ♪ Narrator: As Washington and Howe faced off against one another in New York, in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress had been laboring to adopt Articles of Confederation, meant to formally bind all 13 states together while also guaranteeing the independence of each, a first tentative step toward a permanent government for the new United States. ♪ Taylor: When we think about our American Revolution, we, of course, think about independence from Britain, and that's a big deal, but we also need to think about this is the formation of republican government, and it's also the formation of our union of our states, and all 3 of those were enormous gambles. They were unprecedented. There had never been the foundation of a republic out of a revolution... [Gavel bangs] and these 13 colonies had had bitter rivalries with one another, and so forming a union out of these states was gonna be as difficult as achieving independence from Britain. [Gavel banging rapidly] Narrator: Congress debated draft articles for weeks on the first floor of the Pennsylvania State House, where they had just declared independence in July. They were held up over a host of issues, including apportionment, boundary disputes, taxation, and autonomy of the individual states. Congress was a disputatious assembly and not necessarily an efficient assembly through these years. Yes, they are running a war. Yes, they are founding a nation, but there's also 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." ♪ Narrator: Meanwhile, upstairs in the same building, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania held a convention of its own to establish its government. Similar meetings were being held in other states. All of the new constitutions would guarantee freedom of the press, fair trials, and due process under law and made sure power rested not with autocratic governors, but with legislators elected by propertied men. Pennsylvania took things a step further. They created the most egalitarian constitution in the new United States with a Bill of Rights and a one-house legislature elected by taxpaying workingmen as well as property owners, all of which worried many of the delegates downstairs. William Hogeland: Pennsylvania had a radical constitution where almost any White, free man could vote and stand for office, which had never happened before pretty much anywhere. People were committed to using the revolution to make it a real social revolution, a real economic revolution, and get free, working people-- men, White men-- a say in government, which was a radical idea at the time. John Adams wasn't for that. Samuel Adams wasn't for that. Richard Henry Lee wasn't for that. When John Adams read that constitution, his response was, quote, "Good God!" ♪ Voice: In the new code of laws, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation. Abigail Adams. Voice: There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man who has not a farthing will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions and prostrate all ranks to one common level. John Adams. Hogeland: 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. Narrator: By the time Pennsylvania had ratified its constitution, the debates over the Articles of Confederation downstairs in Congress had become so heated, the prospect of compromise seemed so remote that the delegates agreed to table the subject. Frustrated and worried about his sick wife, Thomas Jefferson returned home to Virginia, the place he still called "my country." [Birds chirping] ♪ Voice: Camp near Kingsbridge-- Amidst all the distress and ruins of this dreadful war, I am yet alive and yours. Our enemies pursue us close from place to place. I pray God daily that you, my dear wife, forever may you be happy. Philip. Narrator: Days after writing to his wife, Chaplain Fithian fell victim to dysentery, the disease that had killed so many of the men whose last moments he'd filled with prayer. He was carried to a hospital tent. There was nothing anyone could do. ♪ Voice: October 8th-- This morning about 10:00, Mr. Fithian closed his eyes upon the things of time and is gone to a spiritual world. Andrew Hunter. ♪ [Bells tolling] Narrator: News of the American defeat on Long Island at the end of August did not reach London till 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 Englishmen shared that view. ♪ Voice: 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 favor, we think we are to succeed in the next, but liberty takes a great deal of killing, and the courage of freemen 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 Public Advertiser] Voice: Ticonderoga appears to be the last part of the world that God made, and I have some ground to believe it was finished in the dark, that it was never intended that man should live in it is clear, for the people who have attempted to make any stay have, for the most part, perished by pestilence or the sword. General Anthony Wayne. Narrator: By the fall of 1776, only half of the 11,000 Americans who manned Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain were fit for duty. The smallpox threat was lifting, but thousands still suffered from other diseases. Morale was further weakened by antagonism among men from the supposedly United States. New Englanders brawled with Pennsylvanians so often that they had been sent to the opposite shore to set up a separate fortification on a hilltop called Mount Independence. After the American retreat from Quebec City in early 1776, a British drive down the Hudson seemed inevitable. Before British General Guy Carleton's army could even reach the Hudson, he had to sail south and seize the two American forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and before he could do that, he had to put together a fleet at the lake's northern end. That had taken months. Calloway: This water route is a corridor. It's been called the Warpath of Nations, where Indian warriors from Canada had raided down the Champlain Valley, down the Hudson River, and so this was-- this was like an open door. Narrator: The Americans had just 4 ships with which to oppose the British fleet. Many more were needed. Ticonderoga's commander, a former British major named Horatio Gates, appointed his most enterprising officer to get the job done. Benedict Arnold was still limping from the wound he'd received at Quebec and was still angry at having been accused of stealing supplies during the retreat from Montreal. Gates had dismissed Arnold's detractors. "Men of little merit are ever jealous of those who have a great deal." Voice: The enemy will soon have a considerable naval force. I make no doubt of their soon paying us a visit. I beg that at least 100 good seamen may be sent to me as soon as possible. Benedict Arnold. Narrator: Arnold transformed the tiny settlement of Skenesborough, 20 miles below Ticonderoga, into a bustling shipyard. He had hoped for a fleet of at least 30 vessels but had to settle for just 15. Voice: I intend to come up as high as Isle Valcour, where is a good harbor and where we shall have the advantage of attacking the enemy in the open lake. [Arnold] Narrator: When the British flotilla finally started south on Lake Champlain, Carleton commanded nearly twice as many vessels as Arnold did, armed with more than twice as many guns, manned by 700 seasoned crewmen, and carrying 10,000 British and German troops and 400 Native allies. Arnold and his fleet were waiting for them in a cove hidden behind Valcour Island. [Cannonfire] As Carleton's fleet slid past, 4 American ships moved out onto the lake to engage the British, Arnold personally directing the guns of his flagship-- the "Congress." [Gunfire] By evening, the fleets had fought to a standoff. The Americans had lost 2 vessels but succeeded in blowing up a British gunboat. As darkness fell, Carleton ordered his fleet to keep the Americans trapped so that he could destroy them the following day... ♪ but at 7:00, while fog covered the lake and Carleton and his officers were dining below deck, Arnold formed his battered ships into a single line and then ordered them with muffled oars and in complete silence to glide slowly past the British squadron. ♪ When Carleton finally caught up with them, they began a running battle that went on for 2 days. British firepower took a steady toll. Arnold eventually ordered his flagship and 4 other vessels run aground in Button Mould Bay and set on fire. He and his men escaped into the forest. When they reached Crown Point, Arnold realized the fortifications there could not withstand a serious British attack and ordered them burned to the ground. [Flames crackling] "At 4:00 [in the] morning, I reached [Ticonderoga]," Arnold recalled, "exceedingly fatigued and unwell, having been without sleep or refreshment for near 3 days." Voice: It has pleased Providence to preserve General Arnold. Few men ever met with so many hairbreadth escapes in so short a space of time. Horatio Gates. Philbrick: The battle was not a victory for the Americans, but it is one of the great slugfests of naval warfare, and it happens on a lake. It convinced the British that it was gonna be much more difficult to take Ticonderoga than they thought. Narrator: The American force at Ticonderoga had grown to 15,000, and its fortifications had been strengthened. Carleton now believed a long siege would be needed to take it. Then it began to snow. Once the lake froze, provisioning his forces would be difficult, and a retreat would be impossible. Carleton turned around and withdrew, eventually going into winter quarters at Quebec City far to the north. The British began to plan a second, more significant invasion for the next spring. [Digging] [Man grunts] Voice: The rebels have taken positions upon amazing, strong hills and works they have all the way to Kingsbridge. 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. Narrator: 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 a thousand miles apart." With little to do, soldiers on both sides went into the surrounding countryside, where they plundered homes, terrified civilians, and then burned their houses to cover up their crimes. Baer: Plunder is more or less an accepted part of warfare in the 18th century. The British, the Hessian, and the American generals all worry about that. Washington worries about that. His men plunder, and he's like, "Can you stop? Please don't do this. You're alienating the people." Narrator: "Militiamen," Washington complained to Congress, "were undisciplined, disobedient, "liable to run instead of fight, 'hurtful' to the cause." To make matters worse, 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. [Shouting] Voice: 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. [Washington] Narrator: Congress agreed to authorize 88 new battalions. The number each state was to provide depended on their free populations. The states would never come close to meeting those goals. Voice: The policy of Congress has been the most absurd and ridiculous imaginable, pouring in militiamen who come and go every month. People coming from home with all the tender feelings of domestic life are not sufficiently fortified with natural courage to stand the shocking scenes of war, to march over dead men, to hear without concern the groanings of the wounded. I say few men can stand such scenes unless steeled by habit or fortified by military pride. Nathanael Greene. ♪ Narrator: 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. [Cannonfire] By the time the British forces got there on October 28th, the American line stretched for 3 miles through the village, anchored on the right by the lightly defended Chatterton Hill. [Gunfire] General Howe sent 2 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 3 gone," but British artillery took a fearful toll. Voice: 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. There was men with their legs and arms and guns and packs all in a heap. Private Elijah Bostwick. Narrator: At day's end, Washington retreated east of White Plains. Again General Howe made only a halfhearted effort to follow. Baer: The British essentially let Washington escape once again. Opportunities to just end this war right now are being wasted. Voice: 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. ♪ Conway: 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. [Horse neighs] Narrator: 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 2 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 265 feet above the river. Fort Washington would come first. [Cannonfire] 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. Voice: 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. Narrator: 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. 3 years later, she would become the first woman to receive a lifetime disability pension but at half the rate wounded men received. 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. As the battered captives made their 12-mile march south to New York City, British soldiers and Loyalists lined the road, jeering and cursing. Officers were often paroled after pledging not to take up arms again, but enlisted men were given no such option. Instead, they were prodded into makeshift prisons already overcrowded with hundreds of prisoners taken at Quebec, Long Island, and Kips Bay. ♪ There were no blankets, little firewood, and sometimes no food. Rats scuttled over the muddy straw that covered the floors. Voice: The men's appearance in general resembled dead corpses more than living men. Indeed, great numbers had already arrived at their long home, and the remainder appeared far advanced on the same journey. Captain Jabez Fitch. Narrator: Thousands of American prisoners would die by the end of 1776. By then, the British had begun packing the prisoners into disused transport ships anchored in the East River. Conditions there would prove worse than those on land. Atkinson: They die of exposure. They die of malnutrition. They die of disease-- smallpox, typhus, typhoid, dysentery. We have our own prison ships near Albany, where British soldiers and Loyalists are kept in very awful conditions. It's a deplorable part of the story of the American Revolution. ♪ Narrator: Early on November 20, 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, 6 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. ♪ Voice: 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. [British officer] ♪ Narrator: 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. Voice: They marched 2 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 Roneyn. Narrator: 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. Voice: When I look round and see how few of the numbers who talked so largely of death and honor are around me, I am lost in wonder. Your noisy Sons of Liberty are, I find, the quietest in the field. [Joseph Reed] ♪ Narrator: To compound things, Washington's second in command-- General Charles Lee, who had been stationed in Westchester County with a sizable force-- responded to Washington's repeated requests to hurry to his aid with one excuse after another. Lee was scornful of Washington, hoped someday to replace him as commander in chief, and saw himself as not subject to Washington's orders. On November 30th, the British issued a proclamation aimed at restoring their rule in New Jersey. Anyone willing to swear "peaceable obedience to His Majesty" within 60 days would receive "a free and General Pardon." More than 3,000 New Jersey residents took them up on the offer, and hundreds answered the call for Loyalists to fight alongside the British regulars. New Jersey's Patriot government fled, but while General Howe was offering pardons, his soldiers were demanding provisions from civilians. [Pounding on door] Edward Lengel: The people who were really at the sharp end of the sword were the civilians, and if you think from the point of view of somebody, say, a mother of a family-- who's on her farm, you know that the very little that you have to survive can be destroyed in an instant. [Glass shattering] Voice: Tories lead the relentless foreigners to the houses of their neighbors and strip poor women and children of everything they have to eat or wear, and after plundering them in this sort, the brutes often ravish the mothers and daughters and compel the fathers and sons to behold their brutality. Nathanael Greene. Conway: As an army is advancing and occupying new territories, dreadful things happen. We see lots of instances of rape and sexual assault of women. Sadly, this is not unusual in all wars. Narrator: Mary Campbell of Hunterdon County, New Jersey, told a judge what British troops had done to her. Voice: Mary Campbell, wife of Daniel Campbell, sayeth that sometime in December, a number of soldiers belonging to the King of Great Britain's army came to the house of her father. Two of them seized hold of her arms and dragged her out of the house to an old shop near the dwelling house, broke open the door, and pulled her in against all her cries and entreaties and swore if she did not hold her tongue, they would run her through with a bayonet. 3 of said soldiers successively had knowledge of the body of this deponent, she being 5 months and upwards advanced in her pregnancy at that time. Her mark, Mary M. Campbell. ♪ Narrator: At Pennington, 16 women fled into the woods to escape British soldiers, only to be dragged back and repeatedly assaulted. Such behavior, one British officer admitted, was "calculated to lose you friends and gain you enemies." It did, and people soon began taking revenge. New Jersey militiamen took up arms again less out of devotion to the revolutionary cause than out of anger at what was being done to them and their families. [Gunshot] Voice: It is now very unsafe for us to travel in New Jersey. The peasants meet our men alone or in small unarmed groups. They have their rifles hidden in the bushes or ditches and the like. When they see one or several men belonging to our army, they shoot them in the head, then quickly hide their rifles and pretend they know nothing. Captain Friedrich von Munchhausen. ♪ ♪ Voice: 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. Narrator: 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" rumors that it was planning to leave town and then fled to Baltimore. General Charles Lee had finally given in to Washington's entreaties and had been slowly leading his force across New Jersey. On the evening of December 12th, he slipped away from his encampment to an isolated tavern in Basking Ridge. A Loyalist tipped off the British. Dragoons surrounded the building and seized the Continental Army's second in command. One Hessian captain was exultant-- "We have captured... the only rebel general whom we had cause to fear"-- but 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. Atkinson: Things can hardly look darker than they look for Washington and his 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. ♪ Narrator: But now his army had begun to grow again. General William Alexander, who had been freed from British captivity, arrived with a thousand ragged reinforcements. A thousand Philadelphia militia appeared. General John Sullivan, also exchanged, brought in 2,000 more men who had served under the captured General Lee. On December 22nd, the 16-year-old fifer John Greenwood and some 600 other New Englanders also staggered into camp. Washington's appeals for help had reached all the way to Ticonderoga, and these men had been on their way for nearly a month. Washington now had about 6,000 men fit for duty. The question was what he might do with them in the 10 days remaining before their enlistments ran out and most of his best-trained soldiers went home. Voice: 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 Reed. Narrator: 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 3 simultaneous crossings of the ice-choked Delaware, all to be launched on Christmas night. [Drums beating rhythmically] 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 9-mile march south toward their target. Voice: None knew but the first officers where we were a-going. I never heard a soldier say anything nor ever saw him trouble himself about where they led him or where he was. It was enough to know that he must go wherever the officer commanded him. Through fire and water, it was all the same, for it was impossible to be in a worse condition than what they were in. John Greenwood. ♪ Narrator: 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 underway on Christmas, patriots up and down the river had read and been inspired by it. Voice: 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. [Paine] Narrator: 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. ♪ The river was fast-running and filled with swirling, jagged pieces of floe ice. Somehow, Colonel John Glover and his Massachusetts sailors from Marblehead, the same men who had rescued Washington's army after the Battle of Long Island and stopped the British advance following Kips Bay, now managed to get all 2,400 men, some 50 horses, and 18 field pieces across safely. John Greenwood was among the first to step ashore. Voice: We had to wait for the rest to cross, so we began to pull down the fences and make fires to warm ourselves, for the storm came on so fast that it rained, hailed, and snowed and froze and blew a hurricane, so much so, when I turned my face toward the fire, my back was a-freezing. By turning round and round, I kept myself from perishing. [Greenwood] Narrator: 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. Voice: 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 aroused me up and made me walk about. [Greenwood] Narrator: Two other soldiers did fall asleep and froze to death. At a crossroads, the column split in two. Washington went with Nathanael Greene and turned left for the Pennington Road. John Sullivan and his men, including John Greenwood, continued to the right along the River Road. Each column reached its assigned position outside the still-dozing town just before 8:00. [Men shouting] 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] Hessian pickets spotted them through the snow, opened fire, then fell back as remaining townspeople watched in terror. Voice: In the gray 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 Reed. ♪ Narrator: 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. Voice: My mother and we children hid in the cellar to escape the shots that fell about the house. Our next-door neighbor 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. [Martha Reed] [Gunshot] Narrator: As Nathanael Greene's column drove through town from the north, John Sullivan's column moved in from the south. Voice: They made a full fire right at us, but I did not see that they killed anyone. Orders were given to charge bayonets and rush on. As we came within pistol shot, they fired again point blank at us. We dodged, and they did not hit a man. Before they had time to load again, we were within 3 feet of them. They broke in an instant and ran like so many frightened devils. [Greenwood] Narrator: Colonel Rall was shot from his horse, mortally wounded. Voice: Finally, they were driven through the town into an orchard beyond. The poor fellows saw themselves completely surrounded. Henry Knox. ♪ Narrator: 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 2 Americans had died-- those frozen before the battle began, and only 5 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. ♪ Baer: 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 are 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. Narrator: Perhaps 1/4 of the 23,000 Hessian soldiers who survived the war would choose to stay on afterwards and become citizens of the new nation they'd fought against creating, and many of those who returned home would come back again, this time with their families. ♪ Voice: 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. [British commentator] [Bells ringing] Voice: 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. Narrator: 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 5 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. ♪ Voice: 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. [Washington] ♪ Narrator: "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 6 weeks. On New Year's Day 1777, supplemented by scattered militia and 4 fresh regiments of Continentals from Pennsylvania, George Washington again commanded some 6,500 men. John Greenwood was not among them. ♪ Voice: I had the itch then so bad that my breeches stuck to my thighs, and I had a hundred lice on me. I told my lieutenant I was going home. Says he, "My God, you are not, I hope, going to leave us, "as you are the life and soul of us. You are to be promoted." I told him I would not stay to be a colonel. [Greenwood] Narrator: 20 months earlier, 14-year-old John Greenwood had walked all the way from Maine to Massachusetts and joined the American cause, hoping it would somehow help him get back to his parents in British-occupied Boston. Now he would tramp more than 300 miles back home, where his father saw to it that the boy's clothes were baked in the oven, and he himself was fumigated with sulfur before he could re-enter the home he'd yearned for for so long. For now, the Revolution would have to go on without him, but it would go on, thanks to the sacrifices he and his fellow soldiers had made and the victory they had won when no victory had seemed possible. ♪ [Drum beating rhythmically] [Rhiannon Giddens humming "Amazing Grace"] ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Hmm ♪ ♪ Mm-hmm ♪ ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm mm mm ♪ ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ Announcer: Next time on "The American Revolution." Brandywine... Nathaniel Philbrick: Brandywine was a hellscape in so many ways. Announcer: Germantown... and the pivotal battle of Saratoga. [Gunfire and shouting] Native peoples are divided. Darren Bonaparte: We're killing each other. For what? So somebody else can claim our land? Announcer: and the strategy of a general. Joseph Ellis: Washington reaches the insight-- he doesn't have to win. He only has not to lose. Announcer: When "The American Revolution" continues next time. ♪ Announcer: Scan this QR code with your smart device to dive deeper into the story of "The American Revolution" with interactives, games, classroom materials, and more. ♪ Announcer: "The American Revolution" DVD and Blu-ray, as well as the companion book and soundtrack, are available online and in stores. The series is also available with PBS Passport and on am*zon Prime Video. ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ [Bagpipes stop, drums continue] ♪ ♪ Announcer: The American Revolution caused an impact felt around the world. The fight would take ingenuity, determination, and hope for a new tomorrow to turn the tide of history and set the American story in motion. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America. Announcer: Major funding for "The American Revolution" was provided by The Better Angels Society and its members Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine with the Crimson Lion Foundation and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Major funding was also provided by David M. Rubenstein, the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Family Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and by Better Angels Society members: Eric and Wendy Schmidt, Stephen A. Schwarzman, and Kenneth C. Griffin with Griffin Catalyst. Additional support was provided by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha A. Darling, the Park Foundation, and by Better Angels Society members: Gilchrist and Amy Berg, Perry and Donna Golkin, The Michelson Foundation, Jacqueline B. Mars, the Kissick Family Foundation, Diane and Hal Brierley, John H.N. Fisher and Jennifer Caldwell, John and Catherine Debs, The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund, and these additional members. "The American Revolution" was made possible with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Viewers Like You. Thank You.

URL
https://www.pbs.org/video/the-american-revolution-episode-3-the-times-that-try-mens-souls/