richardmurray

The 2,000 I don't know if Schrumpfts 2,000 dollar check will come in BUT I do think this is a perfect chance to talk about what happens if it does happen. For example New York City has a possible three million black folks. Let us say, a third are children. so, two million adults. If each adult gives one dollar of their $2,000 that is two million dollars. Now what does the black populace in NYC need? Maybe they could vote on it? Now before you get excited lets be honest, few have the clout to get that many Black adults in NYC behind an initiative. the tribal issues exist and it is simply not easy. But, the idea has wings in a lesser way. Any black person in any black group , for example the black members of one mosque the black members of one church the black members of the party of abraham lincoln in one city the black members of the party of andrew jackson in one city the black alumni for any college in one city can all pool a single dollar together and do something with the collected funds. To what end, you will need a voting system, where people who placed a dollar get the chance to place their desired collective action. And then have a boring, long but very even process for each pooler's collective action through a simple yeah or neah on the action from the entire poolers body, so each idea gets to be voted on by every member, yes or no. The idea that won the most yeahs gets done. If a draw a the top. Another round of voting where each idea gets voted on , yes or no, by each pooler. If two rounds go with the same draw result, then the poolers who made the idea, get to amend their idea. And vote again, the added details should lead to an imbalance and if still a tie, amend again. Yes in a better scenario , someone black with enough connections calls for a million man march and millions of black men go to this place and each leave a dollar and then vote in a truly even way to use the money. But the conditions don't favor that. But, i think every black church or mosque can do it. And even if the results are small the real goal is for black collectives to do something... KWanzaa is coming up and a tenet is collective work and responsibility. The timing couldn't be better. PArtially Inspired by this dialog https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/12056-african-christians-african-american-christians/#findComment-77851 POST URL https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/12059-2000-million-people-marches/ PRIOR EDITION https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/586-economic-corner-27-11122025/ NEXT EDITION https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/605-economic-corner-29-11302025/ COMMENTARIES COMMENT @ProfD Well concerning my suggestion in the original post, the needs can't be identified first cause the money is reliant on an unknown. The organization can come first and then if the money comes then, the gathering of funds, ala trust, and then those who have placed funds in the trust can vote, ala what I stated in the larger post, I don't know if you read it. but that is the point of Universal BAsic Income, it is just welfare, just expanded. Consumerism isn't evil, it is what the usa has always been, starting wiith the white murdering colonist. Remember, the british colonies had become a huge buyer, consumer, not a producer, but a consumer. the best producing colonies were in the caribbean with over 90% black populations which led to them all having a different phenotypical history to the english colonies n north america, having a white european populace , ever growing, became big consumers. I recall france did stimulus checks and it was all used, the french were wiser in that they gave guidelines for where to spend. but the usa from a financial philosophy perspective historically likes to allow a freer market, that is how financial cheating and other things can thrive, it is up to the individual in the usa, against france's communalist, government guided economy through the fiscal capitalist free market. @Pioneer1 nyc 80s white businessmen's fiscal culture isnt about planning, it is about shark hunting, short term gains. shark hunting is buying things, breaking them up and selling them into the market, crows work. that is what the socialist financial models never have. This is why too big to fail was huge, cause the usa did a piss poor variant of socialism in saving the banks. they saved the banks like in a socialist model but unlike a socialist model didn't demand they plan, so the banks haven't improved. And short terms gains isn't about seriousness, in schrumpfts case they are wild gambits. they shake things up which was his original premise and I don't he has ever left that position. I apologize for confusing you. This is a one time thing, but I think as this is the economic corner. that if he succeeds this is a huge step to universal basic income becoming in some form or fashion. Cause if he can do it once, he can do it again and the next president can as well and with the executive order culture reaching new heights, all the precedence is present for it to become something that happens at a greater frequency. well... gimmick, the usa is over three hundred and fifty million people. half of that is one hundred and seventy five million so if that is the count of adults two thousand multiplied by one hundred and seventy five million is three hundred and fifty billion dollars. I don't see 350,000,000,000 as a gimmick. I think you and Profd have a very low view of others financially, that I don't have. I never forget one winter past, real cold, and a homeless person asked for money and I gave it cause i had it to give. And a black person of you and profd's philosophical race said I shouldn't have did that cause that person will spend it on liquor. And I replied to them that i didn't give the money as a test or because I judged or critiqued them in any way, I gave the money because I could and I wanted to, the way in which they use it is up to them, and considering it is cold, I think it wise to warm your belly with liquor if you live in the cold. I have always found the voice of black people like you and profd who chime in that helping others, especially black folk, shouldn't be done, to be very ugly. If you don't want to help other black people. Don't. I have no problem with that. But chiming in that people shouldn't be helped because you feel they are unwarranted based on your critique of them or your evaluation of what they will do... well ok. You two plus the many other blacks I have heard do it are free to do it, I have no problem with none of you doing it, but it is an ugly act. That kind of talk in the village needs to be stated for what it is, ugly. I don't think so, like the stimulus checks this is meant to go wide. I will say this, SCrumpft wants this to go wide, I Think the problem is the congress... the congress in the usa is a mess in terms of what is produces legislatively. IT rarely is well constructed and all to often has alot of dysfunctional complexity to maintain agendas against the purposes of the laws. I think many of the limits and exemptions may happen but largely because of two things 1. the multipheonotypical naysayers to UBI. For some reason many in government fear UBI. I have listened to their arguments and none hold water. The non black naysayers talk about the merit of work but the usa wasn't built on the merit of work it was built on murdering others for land and enslaving other human beings. the northern colonies were extremely poor compared to the southern. the northern colonies were the most eager to cede from the english empire as they were poorest in north america+caribbean in terms of wealth making and could use to not pay taxes to england, but virginia to the carolinas were only interested for the opportunity to avoid taxation and gain more money. Hard work had nothing to do with it. The black naysayers talk about their pseudo prescient view that people will spend the money negatively which has no basis in truth. All the people in the usa who had home bills to pay or children to feed spent some or all of each stimulus on bills and care. homeless and other very fiscally poor people don't have homes or others to care for usually, so they spent as they wanted. but commerce is not bad, usa business retained all that money so it wasn't wasted it was fueled right back into the economy of the usa. which is the point of welfare, the impoverished get to feed themselves , the market gets fuel. 2. the donkeys, the part of andrew jackson were the ones who stopped the stimulus checks from continually coming. They felt it wasn't feasible which is interesting cause the donkeys love government spending. The problem with stimulus checks is the donkeys can't use stimulus checks for favors of big firms. the thousands to millions of homeless people getting stimulus checks going to the liquor store, buying a sandwich , maybe a new pair of shoes isn't influencing big business through government spending. But spending money on the affordable care act, which then goes to insurance companies, is an example of how to influence the big firms. So I can see the donkeys trying to stop it though with the shutdown result I imagine a number of donkeys may disregard schumer and others which will make it easy to happen. COMMENT @ProfD Even point, our experiences are different, we are two strangers, you don't know me and i don't know, we both have levels of assumption ,but our experiences have clearly led to varying perspectives. par the course, I dont' think so. when a person says that giving money to another person will be wasted in their opinion and they are opposed to it, even when the money will not be there own, I see my position as in even response to your words which are said similar. @Troy well the post wasn't about what individuals would do but what will a group do , each a portion of their funds. Now if either had said they wouldn't put their dollar in the pot to the stated concept then fine. I have no problem with that. But that wasn't an element of their discourse. It was from Profd The net benefit is zero especially if folks are going to spend it on BS instead of investing it in something that actually makes more money from Pioneer Low intelligence people are easily "bought off" with cheap gifts and trinkets, while more intelligent people look at the LONG TERM aspect and what offers the most benefit in the long run. I think my response was even to both. What does either of those projections serve a group action as I suggested? And I will be blunt, I have been blessed to be around many types of Black people, various generations, various religious associations, various language types... being a black kid in NYC depending on where in the Black woods you live can be very open to how varying black people can be. And so I have always heard black people talk like profd + pioneer when it comes to the qualities of other black people or when it comes to how other black people behave from their view, when it comes to how other black people whom they view lesser than or negatively in some fashion should be treated. and... I have never cared for it. I have also always heard black people not talk like profd + pioneer when it comes to said similar values or perspectives or judgements. Many black people are not going to act or behave the way any one black person thinks, but when a group action is called, that isn't just about a black individuals views, or when one sees another black person helping another black person, that isn't about what said one would do, it is about two others. And I have witnessed black individuals in a group offline, chime in just like those two, when all in a group were asked to help and the projections of the philosophical peers to profd or pioneer offline were... didn't help. You think UBI will be a distribution of wealth? I don't think so. It is welfare, expanded but welfare. Like the stimulus checks that money will mostly go into paying bills. well, as the discourse in my post in this forum have proven, even a small set of black people can't even come to a collective accepted position on what reparations is defined as for Black DOSers let alone how it shall be implemented. Are Black DOSers owed reparations? 100% historical fact, financially. Are reparations that Black DOSers owed beyond money? 100% true too. But, absent collective acceptance , the Black DOS populace in the usa can's decide what reparations is, and it has to be decided on first before it can be implemented. It can't be what Profd wants or pioneer wants or Rich wants or Troy wants. It has to be what the group wants. And thank you Troy , cause this economic corner, outside my intentions has reinforced the truth of Reparations problems in the Black populace in the USA. If four black men : me you Profd Pioneer have this much collective unacceptance on financial matters, how can the tens of millions of black people in the usa find a collective acceptance with reparations? @Pioneer1 whichever answer is the worst in your mind, pick it. COMMENT @Troy but in the testing program out west for the UBI , i forget the name of the town and i think it even has a black representative, years back at least, the UBI doesn't work by distributing funds, the government prints the money and gives it. The US Military allows the USA to print money and not worry about collection. @Pioneer1 not based on your own definitions but if another doesn't share your definitions then yes. I have never said or felt i have all the answers, if i did why communicate in this very forum. But, based on how black people like me and others define things, black people like you or profd are wrong in this case. I have publicly admitted you or profd have spoken truth or generated erudition before. I didn't refer to mamdani. I confused you and I apologize. when I spoke of group action I wasn't speaking in reference to him and I am not a mamdani supporter.

A question was raised about religion adherents of different tribes in the village, the following was my reply hahah @Pioneer1 namaste:) never all:) In your experience it seems black people who are , what some call, devout, gardless to the religion they adhere to, fit a lifestyle model you accept as positive. ok At the end of the day with the tens of millions of black people in the usa alone, the experiences black people have with religions or the religious, gardless of their adherences, is a wide thing. IT isn't hard to find a black person whose had a very negative experience with someone who calls themselves devout. Now you can argue, as you suggest in your comment, that the issue is who is devout who is in the spirit of a particular religion. But, I will argue history proves that argument, while honest, one that only manifest as an unending rabbit hole in terms of results. @ProfD The fiscally wealthy rarely have a personal adherence of zeal for any religion... while they use the communal influence or financial halls of religious clerics and their places of worship to potent effects. The fiscally poor tend to have a personal adherence for a religion... while they rarely use the churchs halls or communal ability to improve their finances. Since you are a Statian I can see the logic of your separation of church and state position to the religiously devout in the black populace. But I don't think the answer needs to be exoduses from religion as much as changes into how the fiscal poor relate to religion. As any harlemite knows , harlem is full of churches, and every sunday all the black church members whose kin used to live in harlem and used church funds to aid their particular church group have a higher level of fiscal wealth, ala the Black one percent. But, the fiscal poor who will chagrin speaking ill of god and use the churches midweek, spend most of their time laboring, to make ends meet, to buy food, they don't use the church for non spiritual affairs. The fiscal poor need to embrace the church as a place of commerce, cause the fiscally wealthy arguably, use the church too much as a place of commerce, and yes I know jesus overthrew the money changers.. but, anyway I end with, as you are also an individualist, your solutions speak to that line of thinking. but as I am a communalist, I have to say the clerics, preachers/pastors/imams are really most to blame over members of the flock, cause they have the power and have a better crowd to influence their financial behavior or how they live through various places of worship. And you have given me a good addiiton for an edition of the Economic Corner I am formulating, I have some others editions I have already written up completely but thank you. @harry brown the questions of who is worse among the abused? who is worse among the inheritors of a negative culture? are valid for the history book but dysfunctional for getting results. The question is, how do religious populaces, gardless to the religion , improve their positive functionality internally plus externally? Specifically, to the global black village how do the black populaces in what I will call the six religious zones, improve: USa+Canada South of the USA [Caribbean+Mexico+South America] Continent [ Africa] Asia [Iran to the Phillipines] Europe Australia+ Oceania Blacks in Australia+Oceania , like the aborigine who are first peoples to australia while also black, don't have a religious issue simply because the abuse they have survived and are still under is quite potent. In my eyes, they are still in the enslaved phase of the Black history book. PRe Slavery/Slavery[Complete and then Jim Crow]/Integration The aborigine is in a Jim Crow phase. Yes, they are not completely enslaved but the shackles are there, australia mocks the aborigine as a free peoples. Blacks in Asia , like the habshi or kalo in india , the negrito who are also first peoples of asia while also black, the kokuchin in japan are in the jim crow phase. The problem with Black Asians in Asia is that outside White European power, they have to also deal with White Asian power so it is a double. Yes, they are not completely shackled in irons, but they are in late 1800s jim crow, which even by white european accounts was worse than complete enslavement. Yes even though slavery is illegal in jim crow [jim crow eras defining aspect], whites historically use legal means to make so many legal non physical shackles it is from a functional perspective harder. because while blacks can fight to illegalize slavery, it is hard illegalizing negatively engineered fiscal environments. Blacks in Africa are in the jim crow phase, the end of colonialization was the boundary in africa between the complete slavery phase and the jim crow slavery phase. But like in asia, Jim crow of africa is hard. Because yes, black countries exist but their entire design is a jim crow. And because of that, and the fact that unlike in the other continents where an integration era will eventually come, the next era after jim crow has to be a black power phase so it is very challenging to get from a jim crow country to a black power country. South of the USA has a form of integration. The legacy of the conquistador, the east india company, the caribbean black states, is south of the USA historically has been better for blacks in terms of opportunity, and arguably still is. BUt, south of the usa is very tied to the idea of clans, lineages. I argue if a black person has money south of the usa they will deal with less restrictions than in the usa. But, the black populace south of the USA never had the jim crow battle because they already had a form of the integration so once complete enslavement ended they were into said form of integration. Europe never had a robust slavery phase. And because blacks are the most minor in Europe , they have a form of integration. The problem in Europe is unlike the USA which allows for individualism to bind varying peoples, European countries don't have that. And, they are also not in the same place culturally when it comes to multiracial situations. so, I argue europe is as good as it will get until the EU goes from an articles of confederation form to a constitution form. Right now the EU is an articles of confederation style so they have a union without military bite and absent the desire to bond tighter, and the USA doesn't help because Europeans like history and they can see that the constitution dwindled states cultures in the usa such that now, whereas each state in the usa was supposed to be self sufficient, they all are welfare states to the federal government in modernity so... The USA as First People lands before 1492 was pre slavery, from 1492 to 1980 in which the usa went from white european colonies to indepenent white european colonies in a egal union was the slavery era [ complete from 1492 to 1965 jim crow from 1965 to 1980] and then integration which is the only phase in which the usa existed at the beginning is from 1980 to today. So, what is my point? any slavery situation deletes the discussion between variants of black christians because black people are enslaved. So, of the six regions that leaves three. USA+Canada Europe South of the USA Now in those three regions where does religion sit? In South of the USA , religion is powerful. Religious communities have real power. The separation of church and state does not exist, don't let anyone fool you. The zeal or fanatacism possible in South of the USA is the kind that burns the vestial virgins alive, if you know your Roman imperial history. So I will make south of the USA exempt from your argument, not cause black people are enslaved, but because the potency of religion is too strong to treat like something that can be easily bent or allow for peaceful discourse. In Europe, the french would say the religion of the state has replaced religions and this is a parademographic truth. part demograph, image of the people, truth. what do i mean? The sad reality of religion in Europe is immigrants brought a fervor to religion that has hurt the religion of the state. One of the most negative legacies or heritages of the white european imperial era which I argue we are at the end of is the religiosity in humanity. White european empires [muslim + christian] forced religion onto those they conquered , used religion to control those they conquered, even before they conquered them or after they lost total control such that religion is embedded in many human populaces. Such that when they immigrated to europe, they were never going to join the religion of the state. Now, in time I think the religion of the state will win out, but it needs more time in europe. to that end, blacks in england and france whose bloodlines were before the second white european imperial war commonly called world war 2 tended to mulatto themselves such that they are usually disconnected to the post world war 2 immigrant populaces whose quantity allowed for a maintenance of phenotype. So in europe, the equivalent to Black DOSers are smaller in quantity but also have become a mulatto demographic. they are like the coloreds in south africa, not white or black but at this time their own branch. So the religious of the modern black immigrants are only amongst themselves , they don't have descended of enslaved variant in Europe of any significant size. LAstly, that leaves the USA:) So after eliminating three because black people in said regions are still enslaved. One through the religious environment not allowing for a religious tolerances. One through the lack of a comparable Black Descended of Enslaved populace, it leaves the USA+ Canada. In the USA + Canada who are worse adherents of religion Black Descended of Enslaved of Black Modern Immigrants post 1965 ? Honestly I don't think either can stand on a hill above the other. But how can both improve , I have some ideas. What they both have in common is a big place in their community. The reality is the Black 1% in the USA today are tied to churches. It isn't an accident that Obama was a member of a church in his rise. Nearly all Black DOSers or Black people with influence in the DOS part of the black populace in the usa has some ties to a black church. The reality is the Black 1% in each country in Africa are tied to religious groups. Every knows if you want something done, go to the religious groups in any African country and that will help gets things quicker than the fiscal marketplace. Build a church, build a mosque and the pastors or imams will find allies for your cause through the bureaucracy of the country. It isn't an accident that Malcolm + MLK were never the leaders of the most prominent organizations representing their particular religious molds: the nation of islam + the southern black christian leadership conference. IT was because malcolm + MLK had a pan black view to the black populace even as men who were both preachers to a particular religion, even though their backgrounds were quite varied. MAlcolm was the son of a Garveyite Christian Homesteader. The Black Homesteaders were about owning land, but also isolation from whites. Not total separation but isolation, they didn't trust integrated communities, and the Garveyites were the best black financial movement in Black history in the USA or the white european colonies that preceded it. So Malcolm came from a pan black communal financial independence heritage. The nation of islam was and is an isolationist religious group within the black populace. If you are not a member of the nation of islam, even while black, the nation of islam probably will not help you. MLK was a nepo baby, the son of the son of a preacher, the wealthiest black family in the local region. We blacks forget that the black church in each black community in the the usa was usually the fiscal center or fiscal wealthiest. Adam Clayton Powell jr, Abysinnian BAptist Church has the oldest Black money in harlem. Their eldership is a very powerful group. Remember the elders of the Abysinnian Baptist Church told Adam CLayton Powell jr who was the son of a preacher who was the son of a preacher at the same church that he had to stop his wife Hazel scott from touring and making more money than him and even though he was a member of the house of representatives, he did what they said and hael scott... battled but eventually gave in to the pressures. But MLK gardless of his background, didn't embrace the bootstrap, I got mine get yours, blacks are hurting blacks more philosophies that many or most black pastors had and maybe still have today. Sequentially, MAlcolm nor MLK were ever head of the most important organizations in guiding the larger religious communities they were the face of. So, I see two issues with Black religious groups whether Descended of enslaved or modern immigrant in the USA. 1. They have to both be about Pan Black, helping another black person has to not be contingent on them joining your church or mosque. ... I will even add the Black Jews as another who have a very proselytizing position. When you look at Historical Black Colleges, or the financially wealthy black churches it is clear, they don't mind helping black as long as black is a member. That has to change, and change from within... so... 2. They have to also be brave. I haven't yet found the list of black church leaders who voted on what the black church should emit to the larger black populace in the fist few years after the war between the states ended. I heard it was one vote that led to the black church going nonviolent, but the historical value is clear regardless of the exact names of the people or their scenarios. The stance to integration the black church had since 1865 wasn't the most positive functional stance black people needed before 1980. I argue the homesteaders strategy was the most positive functional stance for the black churches to take pre 1980, but...I also know that Frederick Douglass , Ida B Well and others weren't keen on homesteading. They wanted to integrate. and so it was an internal battle in the black populace and the black side that favored what was safer about whites won over the side that favored what was better for blacks. Nothing is easy, it is cheap to judge from 2025 on 1865 so I will not suggest cowardice or the simplicity of hindsight on them. But, the results are here. The black places of worship have to be brave. And lets be blunt, the history of the USA proves, many Blacks or non Blacks in the USA talk a big talk about adhering to the law , and bootstraps until they are financially needy and then they show their true colors and kill and cheat and harm many others for their sole gain. And if they don't get caught and find financial footing go right back to their adhering to the law feces. Again, The black places of worship have to be brave. I never forget all sharpton saying that when he started his movement various black groups came about looking to swing him their way, he chose the nonviolent integration path through influence from coretta scott king, but to his credit he didn't say the other paths were wrong, he said he made a choice. URL to comment https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/12056-african-christians-african-american-christians/#findComment-77851

Mufasa has yet to come out but what can be gathered from the end of the year. The highest grossing films, top ten, made in 2024 were all continuations of a prior film in some fashion, and that includes mufasa, if it has similar financial results. The market outside the usa embraces cartoon films more. Films from the usa that display a distinctly usa cultural appeal don't have wings outside the usa. The far east asian [China/Taiwan/South Korea/Russian] market stands alone as a rival to the usa domestic market. To restate, a film can do well domestically in south korea/China/taiwan/russia and not do well outside either and be listed in the highest grossing films, just like films of the usa. The chinese films make up the majority of the films in the far east asian and they cover a range of styles, not overwhelmed by one genre, but comedy seems to be the link between all the entries from the four sources in the far east asian group. All but one film was made in the usa. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_in_film ] Discounting the chinese market , if you compare USA based revenue to outside USA based revenue, which films have differences in position [ https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2024/ ] Advantage to market outside the usa Alien Romulus, out of the picture in the usa 10th outside the usa , difference of INF , anti usa Joker Folie a deux out of the picture in the usa 17th outside the usa , difference of INF , anti usa Garfield movie out of the picture in the usa 18th outside the usa , difference of INF , anti usa Detective COnan out of the picture in the usa 20 th outside the usa , difference of INF , anti usa Venom the last dance 16th in the usa 8th outside the usa, difference of eight, anti usa Gladiator 2, 14th in the usa 9th outside the usa, difference of five, anti usa Dune part 2 is 7th in the usa while 4th outside the usa, diffference of three, anti usa Godzilla Kong new empire is 9th in the usa and 6th outside the usa, difference of three, anti usa Kung Fu panda 4 is 10th in the usa while 7th outside the usa , difference of three, anti usa Kingdom of the planet of the apes, 12th in the usa 11th , outside the usa, difference of one, anti usa The Wild Robot 15th in the usa 14th outside the usa, difference of one, anti usa Advantage to market in the usa Twisters is 8th in the usa and out of the picture outside the usa, difference of INF , pro usa GHostbusters frozen empire 18th in the usa out of the picture outside the usa, difference of INF, pro usa Wicked is 4th in the usa while 15th outside the usa, difference of eleven, pro usa Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is 6th in the usa while 16th outside the usa, difference of ten, pro usa A quiet place day one 17th in the usa 19th outside the usa, difference of two, pro usa Bad Boy ride or die 11th in the usa 12th outside the usa, difference of one, pro usa Chinese produced films, are dispersed throughout. It seems china has the only domestic market that can truly provide revenue to challenge the wealth possible in the usa. [ https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2024 ] LAst edition https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11358-economiccorner003/ POST URL https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11377-economiccorner004/ PRIOR EDITION https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/597-economic-corner-3-december-8th-2024/ NEXT EDIITON https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/141-economic-corner-5-january-4th-2025 /

A writer for the Home Box Office show The Watchman said he didn't comprehend why writers write stories assuming another season. That truth can be applied to many government officials. From Eric Adams city of yes, to Nancy Pelosi's affordable care act elected officials in modernity love policies that extend beyond their time in office. The fiscal question of value to the economic corner, is the financial wisdom in policy that assumes government officials in the future will support the policy as intended or at all. I argue policy with fiscal actions beyond a time of office is one hundred percent financially inappropriate. Why? it is a financial gamble. And gambling is never the best financial strategy. The proof is, all the actions Biden is taking to use up money or place money for certain projects in the bureaucracy may not work. ARTICLE The last actions the Biden administration will take before Trump takes over the White House By FATIMA HUSSEIN, MATTHEW DALY and COLLIN BINKLEY Updated 5:24 AM EST, November 15, 2024 WASHINGTON (AP) — Biden administration officials are working against the clock doling out billions in grants and taking other steps to try to preserve at least some of the outgoing president’s legacy before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. “Let’s make every day count,” President Joe Biden said in an address to the nation last week after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded defeat to Trump in the presidential race. Trump has pledged to rescind unspent funds in Biden’s landmark climate and health care law and stop clean-energy development projects. “There’s only one administration at a time,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters at a news conference Thursday. “That’s true now, and it will also be true after January 20th. Our responsibility is to make good use of the funds that Congress has authorized for us and that we’re responsible for assigning and disbursing throughout the last three years.” But Trump will control more than the purse strings come January. His administration also can propose new regulations to undo some of what the Biden administration did through the rule-making process. Here are some of the moves the Biden administration is taking now: Getting infrastructure spending out the door Biden administration officials hope that projects funded under the $1 trillion infrastructure law and $375 billion climate law will endure beyond Biden’s term and are working to ensure that money from the landmark measures continues to flow. On Friday, Buttigieg announced over $3.4 billion in grants for projects designed to improve passenger rail service, help U.S. ports, reduce highway deaths and support domestic manufacturing of sustainable transportation materials. ”We are investing in better transportation systems that touch every corner of the country and in the workers who will manufacture materials and build projects,″ he said. “Communities are going to see safer commutes, cleaner air and stronger supply chains that we all count on.″ Speeding up environmental goals Announcements of major environmental grants and project approvals have sped up in recent months in what White House officials describe as “sprinting to the finish” of Biden’s four-year term. The Environmental Protection Agency recently set a nationwide deadline for removal of lead pipes and announced nearly $3 billion to help local water systems comply. The agency also announced that oil and gas companies for the first time will have to pay a federal fee if they emit dangerous methane above certain levels. The Energy Department, meanwhile, announced a $544 million loan to a Michigan company to expand manufacturing of high-quality silicon carbide wafers for electric vehicles. The loan is one of 28 deals totaling $37 billion granted under a clean-energy loan program that was revived and expanded under Biden. “There is a new urgency to get it all done. We’re seeing explosions of money going out the door,” said Melinda Pierce, legislative director of the Sierra Club. Biden and his allies ”really want to finish the job they started.” Ukraine aid Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters this week that Biden wants to “spend down the authority that Congress has allocated and authorized before he leaves office. So we’re going to work very hard to make sure that happens.” The Biden administration would have to rush $7.1 billion in weapons — $4.3 billion from the 2024 supplemental and $2.8 billion that is still on the books in savings due to the Pentagon recalculating the value of systems sent — from the Pentagon’s stockpiles in order to spend all of those funds obligated before Trump is sworn in. There’s also another $2.2 billion available to put weapons systems on long-term contracts. However, recent aid packages have been much smaller in size, around $200 million to $300 million each. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said the funds are already obligated, which should make them harder to take back because the incoming administration would have to reverse that. Pressure to quickly confirm judicial picks Another priority for the White House is getting Senate confirmation of as many federal judges as possible before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The Senate this week voted 51-44 to confirm former prosecutor April Perry as a U.S. District Court judge in northern Illinois. More than a dozen pending judicial nominees have advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee; eight judicial nominations are awaiting committee votes and six are waiting for committee hearings. Trump has urged Republicans to oppose efforts to confirm judicial nominees. “No Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership,” he wrote on social media site X on Nov. 10, before congressional Republicans chose their new leaders. Student loan forgiveness The Education Department has been hurrying to finalize a new federal rule that would cancel student loans for people who face financial hardship. The proposal — one of Biden’s only student loan plans that hasn’t been halted by federal courts — is in a public comment period scheduled to end Dec. 2. After that, the department would have a narrow window to finalize the rule and begin carrying it out, a process that usually takes months. Like Biden’s other efforts, it would almost certainly face a legal challenge. Additionally, the Biden administration has room to speed up student loan cancellation for people who were already promised relief because they were cheated by their colleges, said Aaron Ament, an Education Department official for the Obama administration and president of the National Student Legal Defense Network. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona could decide that case and others rather than hand them off to the Trump administration, which is expected to be far friendlier to for-profit colleges. “It’s a no-brainer,” Ament said. “There’s a good number of cases that have been sitting on Cardona’s desk. It’s hard to imagine that those would just be left untouched.” Trump has not yet said what he would do on student loan forgiveness. However, he and Republicans have criticized Biden’s efforts. https://apnews.com/article/elections-trump-transition-biden-tax-spending-2c27fb2239640fdb667f274215b712fa Prior Episode Economic Corner 2 Post URL https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11358-economiccorner003/ Prior Edition https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/596-economic-corner-2-december-7th-2024/ Next Edition

Steven Zhang was the president of a football club called Inter Milan. What he did matters for one reason. His situation exposes the low quality of ownership in humanity. A set of sport steams signed a contract to make their own league, it has alot of precedent. But only one club made sure it had a provisional clause to exit the contract upon conditions unfavorable to the club. The question heading this post is the key, please answer in comments. Josep Bartomeu- the now legally fallen former president of FC Barcelona for his financial activities. Andrea Agnelli the now excommunicado former president of Juventus because he signed said contract in my view. The glazers, inheritors of first allied, who own Manchester United, the Red sox owners who own Liverpool, stan kroenke married to a walton who own Arsenal, United Arab Emirates royals who own manchester city, Florentino Perez, the president of Real Madrid is an gambler. The russian Roman Abramovic the owed owner of chelsea, he was owed over a billion by the firm he created. A various set of owners accepted a contract that bound their firms to an action absent any provisions to exit. People will speak f greed but Zhang signed it to. Isn't Zhang as greedy, but what does greed have to do with positive fiscal quality actions. I say nothing Zhang didn't want to risk money. The articles below state the simple truth , the sponsors to the clubs were not told of the contract, and the breach of contract with the sponsors is imminent. And all but one president was smart enough to protect his firm while being greedy. Like the NBA who didn't make a provision for streaming for assessing a bidder and thus allowed discovery channel to sue them for absent streaming they could bid equally to am*zon I think, the soccer clubs presidents minus one have acted terribly as fiscal operators with teams of lawyers. I really wonder the management of many very wealthy sporting organizations. Many poor people suggest the rich are genius or collected with extreme organization, but these events prove otherwise. Zhang demanded a clause say if any sponsor of Inter Milan disagree to the deal , Inter Milan can exit with no penalty. No one can defend financial dysfunction like signing a contract that you can't get out. That is like black people who couldn't read contracts with whites in the usa. immediately after the war between the states. Zhang showed Greed but how can greed lead you to risk your own money. I thought greed meant you wanted more wealth but didn't want to lose wealth. So the financial league will have to exist at some point between the clubs involved as they signed the contract , one hundred and twenty pages absent a clause for them to get out. And comprehend some of these clubs vote for their president. So Real MAdrid or FC Barcelona if a president doesn't want it or ask the fans to vote to stay in the financial league, it is null and void because of former presidents binding the club forever into this agreement. The clubs who are owed by usa folk or just fiscally wealthy people that didn't have a clause seem willing to risk their clubs. For if the sponsors sue for breach of contract... it can be the death of the clubs who signed. The clubs like Bayern Munich owned by Qatari ultra billionaires plus Bayern Munich owed in the german system, said no cause neither of them were willing to sing the fate of their clubs absent a positive environment. And when the financial league became public the environment went very negative. Fans all over europe rioted or marched against the clubs . Other clubs like West Ham in England spoke against them. Sponsors to clubs or leagues publicly spoke against. But none of the signers outside one could leave cause their owners//presidents wealthy people were ignorant/stupid/inefficient/self harming/ or similar and didn't make a clause or clauses to their own protection to save their money. THESE ARTICLES or FRAGMENTS CITE MY POINT Why Inter are the only team that formally quit the Super League ByLorenzo Bettoni Mar 4, 2022 13:39 Inter have officially abandoned the Super League project thanks to a clause included in their contract with the organizers of the breakaway competition. The Nerazzurri were part of the 12 elite European clubs that announced the Super League less than a year ago. It collapsed within 48 hours with Premier League giants quitting the project, followed by Inter, Milan and Atletico Madrid. Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona are still involved and the Old Lady’s President Andrea Agnelli insisted yesterday that the Super League ‘did not fail.’ However, he added that the contracts signed one year ago are still valid for 11 of those 12 clubs. “UEFA knew that I as Juventus president was working on something different,” said Agnelli. “The Super League is a collective work of 12 teams, not one person. Twelve clubs signed a 120-page contract and it is still binding for 11 of those clubs.” According to COPE, Inter are the only team that has formally managed to quit the competition. The Serie A champions had a clause that allowed them to pull away from the project if it didn’t gain the support of all of their sponsors. https://football-italia.net/inter-quit-super-league-thanks-to-contract-clause/ … Fans are opposed to the new league, and aren’t interested in watching it Our snap poll shows just how strongly fans feel, with nearly eight in ten (79%) of those who follow football opposed to the new league, including over two thirds (68%) who “strongly oppose” the ESL’s creation. Opposition is highest among fans of the left-behind Premier League teams, with 88% of those following a team outside the big six opposed to the European Super League, compared to 76% of fans of the big six themselves. Only 14% of football fans are in favour of the new league. Even among fans of the big six set to be part of the ESL, fewer than a fifth (19%) support of its creation. As well as being opposed to the new league’s creation, only a fifth of those who follow football (21%) expressed an interest in watching ESL matches when the season begins. While some three in ten supporters of the English sides taking part (31%) are interested in watching, two thirds (68%) are not. Among fans of Premier League teams outside the big six, interest is even lower, with only 13% interested in watching compared to eight in ten (83%) who are not interested in tuning in. In fact, three quarters of fans (76%) would rather their team not join the European Super League, including a similar proportion of those who support one of the big six clubs acting as founding members (74%). Chairman of the European Super League, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has said the new competition would “help football at every level” and their “responsibility as big clubs is to respond to [fan’s] desires”. However, fans don’t see the creation of the European Super League as being either motivated by what fans want to see, nor as good for lower level clubs. The vast majority of football followers think that the 12 founding clubs have been motivated more by financial gain (89%), with just 3% thinking that the creation of the European Super League is being driven more by fan’s desires, while some 5% think both motivations have played a part. … https://yougov.co.uk/sport/articles/35361-snap-poll-football-fans-overwhelmingly-reject-euro All six English football clubs that joined the European Super League have failed to formally leave it, amid claims by organisers that the competition will “eventually relaunch in modified form”. The so-called big six stated that they were withdrawing from the ESL after its launch backfired in April. However, the clubs — Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea — remain co-owners and shareholders of a holding company in Spain with clubs from Spain, France and Italy. Several of the clubs acknowledged yesterday they were still part of the European Super League Company but said they were determined to leave. Yet two senior sources close to the venture claim there is “no mechanism” for them to withdraw, and that the league is waiting to be relaunched in modified form. They said all 12 of the original breakaway clubs had to agree unanimously to dissolve the entity and that any club leaving unilaterally faced unlimited fines. Organisers believe the owners of the clubs accept that the football world faces a financial crisis exacerbated by Covid-19 and that in due course they will relaunch a compromise version of the Super League. “The owners know this is not the end — it’s just the beginning,” a senior source said. “We will resume dialogue, whether this year or next year. It’s just financial gravity. Football can’t survive in its current form.” Florentino Pérez, the president of Real Madrid, has said the 12 clubs that joined the league have “binding contracts”. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus have not abandoned it. Arsenal said: “We have been absolutely clear we are withdrawing from the ESL. This is subject to a legal process which is under way.” Manchester United said: “The club has no intention to revisit the Super League concept. Any suggestion otherwise is simply an attempt to mislead our fans.” When the ESL plan was rushed out at the end of April, the government threatened legislation to block it. After an intense backlash from fans and the media, nine clubs — the six English sides, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Athletico Madrid — dropped out, leaving Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus. The three clubs have said they are within their rights to form a new competition, as a result of which they would withdraw from the Uefa-run Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League. Uefa and Fifa, the European and world governing bodies, united in opposition to the Super League, saying that the participating teams would be banned from their domestic leagues and their players from international competition. Super League representatives believe that Uefa and Fifa are breaching EU competition laws by preventing the clubs from breaking away. A case has been filed with the European Court of Justice with the aim of establishing whether the two governing bodies do indeed have the exclusive right to organise competitions. The hearing could take up to two years. A source close to the Super League said: “It’s our belief we will win that case based on precedent in other sports and it will pave the way for the Super League to eventually relaunch in a modified form.” https://www.thetimes.com/article/football-super-league-is-not-dead-just-resting-gbrp00dpv Economic Corner 001 POST URL https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11353-economiccorner002/ PRIOR EDITION https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/595-economic-corner-1-december-3rd-2025/ NEXT EDITION https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/597-economic-corner-3-december-8th-2024/

So Musk bought Twitter to make it a legally private data source that is being grown real time by the public users to his own private modern, circa 2025 , computer system commonly while falsely called an Artificial Intelligence, xai. The money he loaned to buy twitter he presented this to them in some way or form. Alot of data today is behind various paywalls, literally as in terms of service or legally through lawsuits if accessed. So getting data that is not only of a heavy quantity while still being added into plus private to all other data acquirers is priceless. Even if former twitter losses social media market share its value to growing xai is on course to making losses with x smaller than revenue earned from xai , potentially of a varying scale. Question: What will the ability of offline devices software having the generative functionality of OpenAI+ChatGPT+MidJourney aside the data of the google search engines internal encyclopedia have on humans? At some point devices will exist that don't need to be connected to the world wide web, which is in the internet , for the software inside said devices to exhibit the combined functionality plus base data content of multiple services of the most potent computer programs accessible online today, circa 2024. That moment will be a watershed in terms of online or world wide web usage. CITATIONS Segment Critics said Musk 'overpaid' for Twitter. Thanks to Trump and xAI, it could actually be a steal. ... Not only has X served as Musk's political megaphone — it has also been a lucrative source of training data for one of the billionaire's other ventures, xAI, a startup that has rocketed to a $50 billion valuation in 16 months. [ https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-xai-startup-valuation-history-chart-2024-11 : POSTSCRIPTA- segment] That fresh valuation means xAI has surpassed Musk's purchase price for X. It came with a $5 billion funding round, which The Wall Street Journal reported was backed by the Qatar Investment Authority and Sequoia Capital. [ https://www.businessinsider.com/xai-value-twitter-funding-elon-musk-x-2024-11 ] Musk launched xAI in July 2023 as a springboard to get in the AI race. He had cofounded and then left OpenAI over differences with its CEO, Sam Altman. The startup has made up significant ground on its rivals by using X as a source of third-party data, one of the key avenues for training large language models. [ https://www.businessinsider.com/generative-ai-wall-scaling-laws-training-data-chatgpt-gemini-claude-2024-11 ] In late 2023, Musk blocked other organizations from scraping X's data for free — but gave xAI continued access. That gave xAI a crucial boost. [ https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/08/x-updates-its-terms-to-ban-crawling-and-scraping/ : POSTSCRIPTB- segment] ... Though the number of X users has been falling, Musk said in May that it had 600 million monthly active users. "This is a level that neither OpenAI nor any other third party can access, or at least not as easily, which provides a huge competitive edge and therefore makes xAI a valuable company," Keenan-O'Malley added. Wired reported last year that access to 0.3% of X's data would cost about $500,000 annually. [ https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-data-api-prices-out-nearly-everyone/ ; title: Twitter’s $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone ; subtitle : Tiers will start at $500,000 a year for access to 0.3 percent of the company’s tweets.~] "Clearly X's or indeed any social-media platform's data is valuable," Advika Jalan, the head of research at MMC Ventures, told BI. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/critics-said-musk-overpaid-for-twitter-thanks-to-trump-and-xai-it-could-actually-be-a-steal/ar-AA1v6Ojy?ocid=socialshare POSTSCRIPTA It took OpenAI, last valued at $157 billion in October, about nine years to reach the $50 billion milestone, according to PitchBook data. ... Elon Musk, starting with a team of 12 people in July 2023, did it in less than a year and a half. POSTSCRIPTB The new terms, which are effective from September 29, ban any kind of scraping or crawling without “prior written consent.” [ https://x.com/en/tos ] NOTE: crawling or scraping the Services in any form, for any purpose without our prior written consent is expressly prohibited. The previous version of the terms allowed crawling in accordance with robots.txt. “NOTE: crawling the Services is permissible if done in accordance with the provisions of the robots.txt file, however, scraping the Services without our prior consent is expressly prohibited,” it read. In the last few months, Twitter has also altered its robots.txt file — a file that gives instructions to robot crawlers about what parts of the site they are permitted to visit — to remove instructions for all crawler bots apart from Google. In 2015, Twitter confirmed that it had a firehose deal in place with Google to surface tweets in search results. It is not clear if the nature or terms of that deal have changed under the new management. We have reached out to Google to understand if the search giant has an agreement in place. We will update the story if we hear back. X has also altered the robots.txt file to disallow crawlers to get information such as likes and retweets related to specific posts. It also bars robots from looking at an account’s likes, media and photos. Earlier this month, X changed its privacy policy to state it might use public data to train AI models. Musk has previously noted during a Twitter space that xAI, a company founded in July, would use public data such as tweets to train its models. X’s new privacy policy also has provisions for the collection of biometric data of users along with education and job history. POST URL https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11346-economiccorner001/ Next Edition https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/596-economic-corner-2-december-7th-2024/ Economic Corner anniversary https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q="economic corner"&type=calendar_event&quick=1&nodes=7&search_and_or=or&search_in=titles&sortby=newest Most viewed edition above 210 https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/165-economic-corner-09-media-properties-dictate-01282025/ above 200 https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/167-economic-corner-11-what-should-you-see-after-a-deepseek-01282025/ search https://aalbc.com/tc/search/?&q="economic corner"&type=calendar_event&quick=1&search_min_views=210&nodes=7&search_and_or=or&search_in=titles&sortby=newest

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The American Revolution A Film By Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein & David Schmidt The Most Sacred Thing (May 1780 – Onward) 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. ♪ Jane Kamensky, voice-over: 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. ♪ 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. [Gunfire and shouting] ♪ Voice: Our country was thrown into great confusion by the long continuance of the war. [Church bell ringing] The churches in Virginia were almost entirely shut up, and its holy ordinances unobserved. Most of our men were engaged in the war. Our town had now become a garrison. Betsy Ambler. ♪ Narrator: Betsy Ambler of Yorktown, Virginia, had been 10 when the war began. She was now 15 and had lived most of the intervening years away from home. By the spring of 1780, she was back in Yorktown with her family. Life there had changed. The most populated parts of Virginia all lay within reach of the Royal Navy and any troops the British might land. Governor Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Assembly chose to move the capital from nearby Williamsburg to Richmond, and, since Betsy Ambler's father had been appointed to the state government, her family would have to leave Yorktown again. ♪ George Washington had long known that Yorktown was particularly vulnerable. As early as 1777, he had warned a Virginia militia commander against stationing troops there. ♪ Voice: I can by no means think it would be prudent to have any considerable stationary force at Yorktown. Being upon a narrow neck of land, it would be in danger of being cut off. The enemy might very easily throw up a few ships and land a body of men there who would oblige them to surrender. [Washington] ♪ ♪ Narrator: In late May of 1780, shortly after the British capture of Charles Town, 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. Voice: 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. [Tarleton] [Gunfire] 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 Loyalist unlucky enough to fall into their hands. ♪ Vincent Brown: That war in South Carolina is bloody. It's a guerrilla conflict. It's sometimes brother against brother in this backwoods warfare. ♪ It's an ugly, ugly, ugly conflict, and if one wants a national origin story that's clean and neat and tells you very clearly who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, the American Revolution in South Carolina is not that story. [Brass band playing "The British Grenadiers"] ♪ Christopher Brown: The British government was very good at seizing and occupying cities. Newport, Philadelphia, New York, Charles Town, 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. Narrator: 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. ♪ From Charles Town, British troops quickly occupied posts in a great arc from Savannah and Augusta in Georgia through the village called Ninety Six to Camden and then to Georgetown, 60 miles up the coast from Charles Town. 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. Voice: Their property, slaves, we need not seek. It flies to us, and famine follows. Their trade we can annihilate, and when an army cannot find subsistence, on what hope shall a people resist? Major John Andre. ♪ Voice: I determined to go to Charles Town 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. Voice: I have been robbed and deserted by my slaves. I would sell some of my Negroes, but the slaves in this country in general have behaved so infamously, their value is so trifling that it must be absolute ruin to sell at this time. Eliza Lucas Pinckney. Narrator: 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 neighbors 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. Conway: 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. [Chickens clucking] Voice: Times began to be troublesome, and people began to divide into parties. ♪ Those that had been good friends in times past became enemies. They began to watch each other with jealous eyes. James Collins. Narrator: 16-year-old James Collins lived on his family's farm just below the North Carolina border. His father Daniel was an Irish immigrant who loathed the British and encouraged his son to become a collector of news, a spy, reporting on his Loyalist neighbors. [Horse whinnies] Christopher Brown: 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 were a lot of people in 13 colonies who actually didn't care that much about the outcome. They just wanted it over. Conway: 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. ♪ Narrator: On June 22, 1780, James Collins' father was among the men gathered at a tiny settlement called Brown's Crossroads, summoned there by Captain Christian Huck, a Loyalist with a well-earned reputation for cruelty. He was there to administer the Oath of Allegiance. [Men shouting] Narrator: 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. We must fight, James' father said as soon as he got home, "or submit and be slaves." He went off to join the Patriot militia the next morning. James went, too, carrying an ancient shotgun. ♪ 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 Collinses' 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 he had claimed to have pacified is in an absolute state of rebellion. [Cannon fires] Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock, Blue Savannah and Black Mingo Creek, Tearcoat Swamp and Halfway Swamp, Horse Shoe and Quinby Bridge-- the battles and skirmishes that would take place in South Carolina between 1780 and 1781, 102 of them by one count, would yield nearly 1/5 of all the battlefield deaths suffered during the entire war... [Cannon fires] and nearly all those American casualties would come at the hands of other Americans. [Cannon fires] Maya Jasanoff: Violence is radicalizing. It is polarizing, and it happens in the Revolution to people on both sides of the equation that when they are victims of violence, they will then become perpetrators of violence. ♪ Voice: 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. Narrator: On July 11, 1780, 5 French warships and a host of transport vessels had emerged from the fog that blanketed the harbor at Newport, Rhode Island, and some 4,600 officers and men under the Comte de Rochambeau came ashore. Rhode Islanders still remembered that the last French fleet that came had abandoned them, and 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." ♪ Meanwhile, Congress, without consulting George Washington, had now appointed General Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga, commander of the whole Southern Department. In late July, he and several aides rode into a camp of 1,200 Continentals from Maryland and Delaware that stretched along the deep river at Cox's Mill in North Carolina. Gates' objective was Camden, South Carolina, a British outpost and supply depot in the center of the state. When he reached Rugeley's Mill, 12 miles north of Camden, Gates had convinced himself that he had 7,000 soldiers at his disposal. ♪ In fact, he had just over 3,000 men, Continentals and militia, and by then, Cornwallis had reached Camden with reinforcements. At 10 P.M. on the night of August 15, 1780, Gates started south toward Camden. By sheer coincidence, Cornwallis chose to lead his men north on the same sandy road that evening, hoping to surprise Gates. [Shouting and gunfire] At about 2 A.M. on August 16, mounted scouts from the two armies collided. There was a brief exchange of fire. They separated and prepared for battle. [Gunfire ends] At dawn, Cornwallis followed the British custom of placing his best troops on his right. Gates, who was himself an ex-British officer and should have known better, unaccountably assigned his least experienced men to face them-- militiamen, many of whom had never been in combat. As the Patriots tried to form their lines, a long, red wall of chanting British regulars began storming toward them. The militia broke and ran. [Shouting and gunfire] Voice: I confess I was among the first that fled. The cause of that I cannot tell except that everyone I saw was about to do the same. I threw away my gun. Private Garrett Watts. [Cannon fires] Narrator: Continentals on the right did hold for a time. Gates' second in command, General Johann de Kalb, a Bavarian-born volunteer, was shot, slashed, and bayoneted again and again but managed to order one counterattack after another until he was finally knocked to the ground, mortally wounded. His men too began to run. ♪ General Gates witnessed none of this. Shortly after the shooting began, he had fled the battlefield on horseback and stayed on the run until he reached Hillsborough, North Carolina, 180 miles away. ♪ The defeat at Camden and the story of Gates' flight ruined his reputation. When it came time to name a successor, Congress would defer to George Washington. ♪ Although South Carolina was not pacified, General Cornwallis was impatient to invade North Carolina, the next step on the road to the biggest prize--Virginia and what he hoped would be the total subjugation of the Southern states. [Horse whinnies] [Fife and drums playing] Iris de Rode: Washington's reputation in France is an interesting one. In France, he is revered. He is admired. People love George Washington in ways that sometimes seems exaggerated, but it's true. They admire him not just because he's a general and they respect the military side, but it's more that he's a symbol for a Republican leader. For the French, Washington became a symbol of what was possible in an egalitarian world where even a farmer could become a general, so they admire him for that military talent that he had, which was not based on aristocracy, titles, or money. He was there because of his talent. Narrator: On September 21, 1780, Washington and 4 of his closest aides met in Hartford, Connecticut, with General Rochambeau and his entourage. The French army remained in Newport. Washington's army was arrayed around New York. For two days, the allied commanders discussed what steps they might take together to defeat the British. ♪ Washington and Rochambeau agreed that the most important objective was still New York City, but before an assault could take place, they would need to have naval superiority and a far larger combined army. Washington begged Rochambeau to ask his king for more help. Rochambeau said he would try. [Bird screeches] Voice: I have observed in this war we have sometimes been in the south when we should have been in the north and oftener in the north when we should have been in the south, but should we ever possess the Hudson River, we can reduce the northern provinces. General Henry Clinton. ♪ Narrator: On September 25, 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. Voice: 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. [Washington] ♪ Narrator: 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-- at Quebec and Saratoga. Nathaniel Philbrick: 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 destroyed my body. For what?" Narrator: 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. ♪ Philbrick: While Arnold is in the midst of this terrible frustration 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. Narrator: 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 defenses 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. Clinton's forces were poised to move up the Hudson. All that then remained was for Andre and Arnold to meet and work out a few final details. Andre had explicit orders. He was not to cross into rebel territory, dress as a civilian, or carry any papers. He disobeyed all 3, and on his way back to the British lines, Andre was captured by 3 New York militiamen with incriminating documents hidden in his stockings in Benedict Arnold's handwriting. ♪ Philbrick: This came as a devastating blow to Washington, and it was a blow to the American people to realize 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. He was the last person Washington ever thought would have betrayed him. Narrator: Because Major Andre had been captured in civilian clothes, he was hanged as a spy. Arnold, who managed to escape, got his commission and was given command of a regiment made up of Loyalists and deserters from the Continental Army called the American Legion. ♪ Voice: Since the fall of Lucifer, nothing has equaled 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. ♪ ♪ Narrator: General Cornwallis' planned invasion of North Carolina would be a 3-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 center, 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... [Splashing] 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 realized he was in trouble, changed course, and moved towards Charlotte. Along the way, he issued a proclamation meant to rally Loyalists. Voice: 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 man, grasp your arms in a moment and run to camp. The Backwater-men have crossed the mountains. [Ferguson] ♪ Edward Lengel: That's the wrong tone to take when you're communicating with these backcountry over-the-mountain men, these Scots-Irish settlers. ♪ Narrator: Just inside South Carolina, Ferguson unaccountably decided to make a stand on a hill grandly named King's Mountain. Nearly a thousand Patriot militia-- half Overmountain Men and half from the Virginia and Carolina backcountry, including James Collins-- were right behind him. ♪ Voice: Each leader made a short speech in his own way to his men, desiring every coward to be off immediately. Here, I confess, I would have willingly been excused. [Collins] Narrator: On October 7, 1780, as they waited for the signal to start up the hillside, Collins recalled, each man threw 4 or 5 musket balls into his mouth to stave off thirst and speed reloading. [Gunfire] The Patriots attacked with terrifying ferocity. [Whooping and gunfire] Voice: 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. [Whistle blowing] Narrator: As the Patriots closed in on the summit, Ferguson continued to ride from point to point, waving his saber, blowing his whistle, trying to get his Loyalists to hold on. Several balls slammed into him at once. He tumbled from his saddle, his foot caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged back and forth along the ground until his men could grab the reins. [Horse whinnies] Ferguson had been the only British soldier in the battle that day. Everyone else on both sides was an American. [Shouting and gunfire] The Loyalists surrendered. ♪ Voice: 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?" ♪ We proceeded to bury the dead, but it was badly done. The hogs in the neighborhood gathered into the place to devour the flesh of men, and the wolves became so plenty that it was dangerous for anyone to be out at night. Private James Collins. Lengel: 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. Man: Fight back! Narrator: 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. [Horse whinnies] ♪ Voice: The women of America, animated by the purest patriotism, are sensible of sorrow at this day in not offering more than barren wishes for the success of so glorious a Revolution. If opinion and manners did not forbid us to march to glory by the same paths as the men, we should at least equal and sometimes surpass them in our love for the public good. Esther Reed. ♪ Narrator: In Philadelphia, a prominent woman named Esther Reed had published a pamphlet which called upon all women to forego luxuries and instead raise funds to help the soldiers. ♪ They collected 300,000 Continental dollars, hoping to split it among the troops. George Washington vetoed that idea. They would just buy rum, he said. What they needed were shirts. The women would make more than 2,000 of them. Voice: And see the spirit catching from state to state. America will not wear chains while her daughters are virtuous. Abigail Adams. [Wind blowing] Rick Atkinson: It's quite primitive, the conditions their soldiers are living in. A belief in the cause keeps you putting one foot in front of the other, but that does not keep you warm. It does not cool you down in the summer. It does not feed you, so it's a constant struggle just day to day exclusive of battle. Voice: We never stood upon such perilous ground. Our troops are poorly clothed, badly fed, and worse paid. They have not seen a paper dollar in the way of pay for nearly 12 months. General Anthony Wayne. ♪ Narrator: On New Year's Day 1781, fueled by rum and righteous indignation, some 1,500 Pennsylvania Continentals encamped near Morristown, New Jersey, mutinied. They killed two officers who tried to stop them, seized 6 cannon, and began marching toward Philadelphia to confront Congress with their grievances, but before the mutineers could get there, the Pennsylvania legislature intervened and agreed to most of their demands, including the promise of full back pay and the choice of leaving the army or re-enlisting. No one was to be punished. Half the men left the army. The rest re-enlisted. 3 weeks later, when 3 New Jersey regiments also mutinied, Washington ordered New England troops to surround them. The men were assembled and made to look on as a firing squad of their fellow mutineers was forced to execute two of the ringleaders. Philbrick: Washington realized the only thing he could do was to take them down with terrible brutality. ♪ This was Washington's moment of having to end this in a very summary fashion. [Gunshot] Narrator: "Every thing is now quiet," Washington wrote afterwards, but he feared that unless some way were found to pay and clothe and supply his men, there would be still more mutinies. [Wind blowing] Voice: Be assured that day does not follow night more certainly than it brings with it some additional proof of the impracticality of carrying on the war without aid. We are at the end of our tether. Now or never, deliverance must come. [Washington] [Wind blowing] ♪ Voice: Richmond, Virginia. War in itself, however distant, is indeed terrible, but when brought to our very doors, the reflection is indeed overwhelming. What a gloomy time do I look forward to. Already our gentlemen begin to apprehend that the enemy will advance into the country. ♪ If they do, God knows what will become of us. Betsy Ambler. Narrator: Virginia's Patriots weren't ready to resist an invasion. Men were refusing conscription. Wealthy planters had exempted themselves, their sons, and overseers from serving because, they claimed, they needed to stay home to keep their slaves in line. "The Rich wanted the Poor to fight for them," one farmer recalled, "to defend their property [while] they refused to fight for themselves." Then, in January of 1781, Loyalist troops, British regulars, and German soldiers sailed into Chesapeake Bay and up the James River. Their commander was Benedict Arnold, now a brigadier general in the British Army and eager to demonstrate his newfound devotion to the Crown. ♪ He and half his men marched toward Richmond, the new state capital. At the sight of Arnold's men, Virginia militiamen, many without arms, melted away. ♪ Many years later, an enslaved member of Governor Jefferson's household remembered that "in 10 minutes, not a White man was to be seen in Richmond." Voice: My mother was so scared, she didn't know whether to stay indoors or out. The British formed in line and marched up with drums beating. It was an awful sight. Seemed like the day of judgment was come. Isaac Granger. ♪ Narrator: Arnold's men burned warehouses filled with salt and tobacco and seized 2,200 small arms, nearly 40 cannon, and 503 hogsheads of rum. Even printing presses were, in Arnold's words, "purified by the flames." ♪ He and his men then moved back down the James, pillaging as they went, and settled in for the rest of the winter at Portsmouth, near the mouth of the Chesapeake, where they could be supported by the Royal Navy. Philbrick: To send Benedict Arnold to Virginia was sending the man Washington most despised to his home state, and what Washington did was send the officer that he trusted, in many ways, the most, Lafayette, to contain this treasonous dog. Narrator: "Should [Arnold] fall into your hands," Washington told the Marquis de Lafayette when he ordered him south to protect Virginia, "you will execute... the punishment due [for] his treason... in the most summary way." ♪ Voice: 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. ♪ Narrator: After the disaster at Camden, George Washington had sent Nathanael Greene to replace the disgraced Horatio Gates 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." ♪ [Horse whinnies] In response, Cornwallis sent Banastre Tarleton after Daniel Morgan. Morgan had hoped to get his men safely back across the broad river before facing his pursuer, but Tarleton was soon within 5 miles. ♪ 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. Narrator: 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 3 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 again, would charge and suddenly find themselves under deadly fire from his most experienced fighters hidden behind a rise. ♪ Morgan spent the night before the battle building the militia's confidence. Voice: He went among the volunteers, told them to keep in good spirits and the day would be ours. "Just hold up your head, boys. Two fires," he would say, "and you're free, "and then when you return to your homes, "how the old folks will bless you and the girls kiss you for your gallant conduct." Major Thomas Young. ♪ Lengel: Morgan's recognition of them and their recognition of Morgan as this crusty backwoodsman who's just like them gives them a confidence and an ability to think clearly and to follow orders in a way that they would not have done this for anybody else. [Rooster crows] Voice: 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. [Shouting and gunfire] Narrator: 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 & galling fire," Morgan remembered, that felled 2/3 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." [Cannon fires] 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. [Men whooping] Voice: Morgan rode up in front and, waving his sword, cried out, "Give them one more fire, and the day is ours." [Sword clangs] We then advance briskly. They began to throw down their arms and surrender themselves. Private James Collins. Narrator: Meanwhile, American cavalry attacked the enemy's rear, "shouting and charging," one Patriot said, "like madmen." The British line broke. 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. He set out to catch the rebel force. Two months later, at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina, Nathanael Greene tried the same tactics against Cornwallis that Morgan had used against Tarleton. [Gunfire] At first, the strategy seemed to work. Cornwallis' left began to buckle. If Greene had had reserves, he might have prevailed. He had no reserves. Cornwallis won the battle, but he had lost another 500 men. [Gunshot] When the news eventually reached Britain, the leader of the opposition in Parliament was unimpressed. "Another such victory," he said, "would destroy the British army." Cornwallis and his exhausted men staggered east to Wilmington. He had had enough of the Carolinas. Cornwallis decided to defy his orders from General Clinton and lead his army north to link up with British and Loyalist forces already in Virginia. Voice: I cannot help expressing my wishes that the Chesapeake may become the seat of war, even, if necessary, at the expense of abandoning New York. Until Virginia is in a manner subdued, our hold of the Carolinas must be difficult, if not precarious. Lord Cornwallis. Narrator: On April 25, 1781, Cornwallis began his northward march. Word of his disobedience would not reach Clinton's headquarters in New York for more than a month. "My wonder at this move... will never cease," Clinton wrote when he heard the news, "but [Cornwallis] has made it. And we shall say no more but to make the best of it." ♪ Voice: The seat of war is chiefly in the southern states, and there our enemies by victories and defeats are wasting daily. ♪ Our own American affairs wear a more pleasing aspect. Maryland has acceded to the Confederation at the very time when Britain is deluding herself with the idea that we are crumbling to pieces. Abigail Adams. Narrator: In early 1781, Maryland became the last state to ratify the Articles of Confederation. Almost 5 years after declaring their independence, the United States finally had the kind of confederation they thought they wanted, but it was just an alliance, not a central government. ♪ All laws were left to the individual states, including those governing slavery, which was still legal everywhere... ♪ but now there were people in all parts of America looking to abolish it. They would have their first successes in the North. ♪ Christopher Brown: It's in this moment that the first antislavery organizations begin to take shape, especially in those places where slavery is not terribly important to the social and economic order-- Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Annette Gordon-Reed: It's easier in the North, where there are fewer Black people. The sort of traditional things to say is that the South was a slave society and the North was a society with slaves. Bernard Bailyn: Before the Revolution, slavery was never a major public issue. There were people who spoke against it and gave good reasons to what evil it was, but it was not a major public issue. After the Revolution, there never was a time when it wasn't. Narrator: In 1780, Pennsylvania's Gradual Emancipation Act had said that anyone born into slavery in that state after the act's adoption automatically became free at 28, but any man, woman, or child enslaved before its passage remained enslaved to the end of their lives unless they bought their freedom or had their owner grant it to them. ♪ Voice: Any time, any time while I was a slave, if one minute's freedom had been offered to me and I'd been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it just to stand one minute on God's earth a free woman. I would. [Elizabeth Freeman (Mumbet)] Narrator: When an enslaved woman in Western Massachusetts called Mumbet was struck by her mistress with a kitchen shovel, she had stalked from the house and refused to return. Her owner went to court to get her back. Mumbet's lawyer convinced an all-White jury that since the preamble to the new Massachusetts state constitution declared all men "free and equal" and since his client was a human being, she should be free. The Massachusetts Supreme Court agreed. Mumbet changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman and lived nearly 50 years in Stockbridge, serving her neighbors as a healer, nurse, and midwife. Her gravestone in a Stockbridge cemetery reads, "She was born a slave... yet in her own sphere she had no superior nor equal." ♪ By the time of her death in 1829, all the states from New Jersey north to New England had called for the abolition of slavery, but it would take another generation and a still more terrible war to end it everywhere in the United States. ♪ ♪ Voice: 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. Narrator: One by one, all across the Lower South, British outposts either surrendered to Patriots or were abandoned-- Fort Watson, Camden, Orangeburg, Fort Motte, Fort Granby, Fort Galphin, Georgetown, Augusta. [Cannon fires] General Greene fought 3 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 Charles Town. "We fight," Greene said, "get beat, rise, and fight again." ♪ He couldn't have done it without local Patriot militias. Francis Marion's outfit eluded British cavalry by hiding in the swamp so successfully that Banastre Tarleton said, "[A]s for this old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him." ♪ As Britain's grip on the region weakened, the anarchy that had characterized the backcountry for months spiraled 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 travelers and plundered farms. Voice: 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. ♪ Narrator: By the end of the summer of 1781, the British would be penned up in just 3 coastal towns in the Carolinas and Georgia-- Wilmington, Charles Town, and Savannah. London's Southern strategy was falling apart. ♪ Voice: The King has decided that the principal objective of his arms in America during the war with the English is to drive them from the Gulf of Mexico and the banks of the Mississippi, which should be considered as the bulwark of the vast empire of New Spain. [Bernardo de Gálvez] ♪ Narrator: Bernardo de Gálvez-- the bold, young governor of Spanish Louisiana-- saw an opportunity in the American Revolution to take back West Florida for his king, even before Spain had entered the war in 1779. Kathleen DuVal: Bernardo de Gálvez had big ambitions for Spain, and he had big ambitions for himself. He believed that war against Britain would be his chance to push Spanish colonies even farther into North America, past Louisiana, into the rest of the Gulf Coast, the Appalachians, perhaps most of Eastern North America. Narrator: As soon as Gálvez heard Spain had officially entered the war, he left New Orleans and rallied an army that reflected the extraordinary diversity of the Gulf Coast-- Spaniards, Frenchmen, Acadians, Irishmen, Black and biracial men from Africa and the Americas, Choctaws, Houmas, Alabamas, men from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Hispaniola, and a handful of volunteers from the United States. ♪ DuVal: Gálvez began to take British posts. He took Baton Rouge, Natchez, and then sailed with his militia and took the post of Mobile. Narrator: By the spring of 1781, Gálvez's only objective left in British West Florida was its capital and stronghold--Pensacola. ♪ It was defended by local Black and White militiamen; British, German, and Loyalist soldiers; and hundreds of Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Muscogee Creeks who opposed any imperial expansion that threatened their lands in the southeastern interior. ♪ Gálvez landed his army and began a siege. For a month and a half, Spanish guns edged closer and closer to the heart of the British defenses. [Cannon fires] Finally, on May 8, 1781, a shell hit the British gunpowder magazine. [Explosion] The explosion killed almost a hundred men, mostly Loyalist troops, and blew a wide hole in the fort's walls. Gálvez's men poured through the gap, and within hours, the British commander surrendered. Spanish rule was restored in West Florida and with it Spanish control of the Gulf of Mexico. ♪ DuVal: West Florida is the first nonrebelling colony that Britain loses. After the Spanish victory at Pensacola, many, many people in Britain think it's time to stop this war before it gets any worse. ♪ Narrator: 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. de Rode: 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 gonna win this war." ♪ Narrator: When word came that French warships and more French troops would arrive on the East Coast sometime that summer, Washington and Rochambeau met again 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 favored 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. ♪ Voice: 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. [Cromot du Bourg] Voice: The Rhode Island Regiment includes many Negroes, and that regiment is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers. [Ludwig von Closen] ♪ Narrator: As American and French soldiers probed British defenses around New York, Washington waited for Admiral de Grasse to pick his target-- New York or Virginia. ♪ On May 20, 1781, Lord Cornwallis arrived at Petersburg, Virginia. He commanded some 7,000 British, German, and Loyalist troops. Benedict Arnold was not among them. He had been recalled to New York and would eventually sail for England, never to see his country again. ♪ Cornwallis first tried to hunt down the Marquis de Lafayette, who had been harassing British forces in Virginia, but Lafayette managed to slip away. Voice: You can be entirely calm with regard to the rapid marches of Lord Cornwallis. Let him march from St. Augustine to Boston. What he wins in his front he loses in his rear. His army will bury itself without requiring us to fight him. [Lafayette] ♪ Narrator: Cornwallis unleashed two raiding parties into the heart of Virginia. 250 horsemen, commanded by Banastre Tarleton, were ordered to try to capture Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Assembly, now meeting at Charlottesville, where Tarleton managed to seize several legislators, including Daniel Boone from Kentucky County, but with only moments to spare, Jefferson escaped his would-be captors on horseback. ♪ Voice: Such terror and confusion. What an alarming crisis is this. We were off in a twinkling. The nearer the mountains, the greater the safety was the conclusion, so on we traveled through byways and brambles. [Ambler] ♪ Narrator: Betsy Ambler's family was on the run, too, eventually finding temporary sanctuary on a friend's backcountry plantation. ♪ After 3 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. Gordon-Reed: 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. ♪ Voice: Has the God who made the White man and the Black left any record declaring us a different species? Are we not sustained by the same power, supported by the same food, hurt by the same wounds, pleased with the same delights, and propagated by the same means? And should we not then enjoy the same liberty and be protected by the same laws? ♪ Some consider us as much property as a house or a ship and think how anxious we must be to raise ourselves from this degrading state. James Forten. Narrator: James Forten was born free in Philadelphia. At 9, he had been in the crowd at the Pennsylvania State House that heard the Declaration of Independence read to the public for the very first time. Forten took the promise of the Declaration to heart and never questioned whether its self-evident truths applied to him. ♪ Now, in the summer of 1781, Forten was 14, old enough to fight for his country. With his mother's permission, he went down to the docks, signed on to a privateer, and set out to sea. Forten was one of 20 men and boys of color in a crew of 200. For privateers eager to attract volunteers, race was no barrier. ♪ His first voyage was a triumph, but the second was a disaster. His ship was overtaken and captured by a British warship. ♪ Once aboard, the captain's son befriended him, and the captain offered to release him if he were willing to sail with the boy to England. Forten refused. He could not turn his back on his country. [Gulls squawking] Instead, he joined hundreds of American prisoners huddled below decks aboard the notorious British prison ship the "Jersey" moored in the East River off Brooklyn-- dark, fetid, rife with disease. [Bell rings] ♪ Meanwhile, starting in June 1781, 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, which Clinton still believed Washington's most likely target. Then Clinton changed his mind. Cornwallis was now to send those same troops to the Delaware Bay, where they might sail north and threaten Philadelphia. Finally, with his men aboard boats in Portsmouth and ready to sail, Cornwallis was to forget moving them north at all. 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 2, 1781. ♪ On August 14, Washington learned that the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse was on its way to the Chesapeake, not New York. ♪ Voice: 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. [Washington] de Rode: 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. Narrator: 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." But before Washington could move his army south, some way had to be found to pay his men. Congress was broke. [Horse whinnies] Voice: My personal credit, which, thank heaven, I have preserved through all the tempests of the war, has been substituted for that which the country has lost. I am now striving to transfer that credit to the public. Robert Morris. Narrator: Washington turned to an old friend, the richest man in America-- Robert Morris. Morris had again and again used his own money to supply the Continental Army. He had also used public funds for personal speculations and made millions in government contracts. William Hogeland: Robert Morris was a war profiteer and mingled public and private funds with unabashed abandon, and without him, it's not clear at all that the Revolution would have been won or even would have been fought very long because he did front his own money to keep the army in the field. People said he financed the American Revolution. That's largely true. Critics of Morris said that the Revolution financed him, and that's true, too. ♪ Narrator: Now Morris combined his own funds with borrowed Spanish gold and silver to pay the men. Voice: Each of us received a month's pay. This was the first that could be called money which we had received as wages since the year '76. Joseph Plumb Martin. [People cheering] Narrator: Leaving 4,000 Continentals behind, the French and American armies began to make their way south in 3 great columns on August 18. ♪ The campaign was an enormous undertaking and a great gamble. ♪ In order to keep Cornwallis from escaping by sea, French naval forces from both the Caribbean and Newport, Rhode Island, would have to elude British warships patrolling the Atlantic coast and enter the Chesapeake Bay. At the same time, thousands of French and American troops, who could not speak one another's language, would have to continue to make their way together some 450 miles from Westchester County to Virginia in the heat of summer. [Horse nickers] de Rode: It's hot and humid, and, as the French write, "infested by mosquitoes," and so this is a very complicated march. 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, and we're not talking just about men marching. 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. You're walking on little paths, probably quite muddy, and you just walk, and then for a few hours later, you have to stop because you have to create your new encampment. You get some food, which often arrived way too late. Narrator: 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. ♪ Philbrick: Washington is able to convince Clinton that he is going to attack New York. It's a brilliant series of deceptive maneuvers that Washington is able to pull off. By the time Clinton realizes that Washington is not going after him but is on his way south, Washington is in Philadelphia. [Gulls squawking] Narrator: At Yorktown, Cornwallis hated the kind of defensive war he was being asked to oversee and considered the port and Gloucester across the river "dangerous posts," since neither commanded the surrounding countryside. He'd started by fortifying Gloucester. The work had gone slowly. He and his men expected a British fleet to arrive in the York River any day, but they now heard upsetting rumors that a French fleet "had left the West Indies and was approaching the coast of North America." By late summer, work had begun on the fortifications at Yorktown itself. Meanwhile, at Portsmouth, where some of Cornwallis' men remained, smallpox was ravaging the former slaves who had followed the British army there. What should be done, the commander at Portsmouth, wrote Cornwallis, "with the hundreds...that are dying by scores every day?" Voice: It is shocking to think of the state of the Negroes, but we cannot bring a number of sick and useless ones to this place. ♪ I leave it to your humanity to do the best you can for them, but on your arrival here, we must adopt some plan to prevent an evil which will certainly produce some fatal distemper in the army. Lord Cornwallis. ♪ Narrator: Portsmouth was evacuated, and the troops joined Cornwallis' army at Yorktown. ♪ It was from there, on the morning of August 30, that Captain Johann Ewald looked out toward the Chesapeake Bay. Voice: I could detect 3 heavy vessels in the distance. We soon had news that the 3 vessels which lay before our noses were French. [Ewald] Narrator: Admiral de Grasse was now lying at anchor just inside the narrow entrance to the Chesapeake Bay between Cape Charles and Cape Henry. Philbrick: 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. [Horse whinnies] Narrator: On the morning of September 5, 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 8 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 maneuvered for 6 hours. Commanders scattered sand across their decks to absorb the sailors' blood they knew was about to be shed. ♪ At 4:00 in the afternoon, they opened fire. [Cannon fire continues] The broadsides continued until dark. [Man shouts] Narrator: The result was a standoff, 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' defenses at Yorktown, sailed up the James River, and Washington and Rochambeau's armies were arriving at Williamsburg. Cornwallis was trapped. Lengel: From the very beginning, Washington recognized that this war was going to end when the stars aligned. He's been waiting for this, and he snatches at it. Voice: We prepared to move down and pay our old acquaintance the British a visit. I doubt not that their wish was not to have so many of us come at once, as their accommodations were rather scanty. They thought the fewer, the better. We thought the more, the merrier. Joseph Plumb Martin. ♪ Narrator: On September 28, 1781, at 5 A.M., 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. Washington and Rochambeau set up headquarters just a few hundred yards apart. ♪ The two commanders rode forward to reconnoiter. Washington had long understood Yorktown's strategic limitations and the hole the British had dug for themselves. ♪ 800 to 1,000 yards from Yorktown stood an outer line of trenches and redoubts, their bases bristling with abatis, sharpened logs meant to repel invaders. ♪ Black laborers could be seen struggling to complete an inner ring around the town. ♪ Swamps and marshy creeks made a direct assault impractical. The allies didn't have time to starve the defenders, either. The French fleet was due to return to the Caribbean within weeks. A traditional, European-style siege seemed to be the answer. Washington left its planning to the French. The Americans were "totally ignorant of the operations of a siege," Rochambeau said. He had taken part in 14 of them. ♪ At dawn on September 30, French and American troops edged cautiously toward the outermost British defenses, expecting stiff resistance. Instead, they found them empty. Cornwallis, outnumbered 3 to 1, had pulled his men back into town. Lengel: Cornwallis makes a fatal mistake. He's exhausted. He's depressed. A commander who otherwise is very effective is just not at his best. Narrator: For 5 days and nights, allied soldiers worked to transform the abandoned British positions into their own strongholds and to bring up the artillery, equipment, and entrenching tools needed to dig their first parallel trench and begin the siege. ♪ British artillery hurled shot and shells at the Americans and Frenchmen as they worked. [Men shouting] Sarah Osborn, the wife of a New Jersey corporal, was one of the women who carried beef, bread, and hot coffee to the men as they dug. One day, she remembered, George Washington happened by and asked her if she wasn't afraid of the British cannonballs. "No," she said, "It would not do for the men to fight and starve, too." [Distant explosion] When the parallel was complete, it stretched for more than a mile, a trench 10 feet wide and nearly 4 feet deep. ♪ At 3:00 in the afternoon on October 9, the French opened fire. Two hours later, Washington was given the honor of touching off the first American cannon. [Man shouting] Narrator: All along the allied lines, cannon and mortars began firing into Yorktown. ♪ Voice: The remainder of the night passed in a dreadful slaughter. Several parts of the garrison were in flames on this night, and the whole discovered a view awful and tremendous. Bartholomew James. Voice: 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 harbor. Private Johann Conrad Doehla. ♪ Narrator: By the night of October 11, the allies had begun digging a second parallel, but before the noose could be tightened completely, two enemy redoubts, Numbers Nine and Ten, had to be taken. The American target was redoubt Number Ten. The men were from Lafayette's force. Alexander Hamilton was in command. Joseph Plumb Martin and his company led the way. ♪ Voice: We advanced beyond the trenches and lay down on the ground to await the signal. Our watchword was "Rochambeau," a good watchword, for being pronounced "Rochambeau," it sounded, when pronounced quick, like "Rush on, boys." [Martin] [Cannon fires] Narrator: When the signal was given, Martin and his fellow soldiers rushed forward. Right behind them came Rhode Islanders, including many free Black men or former slaves. ♪ The moment they reached the abatis, the redoubt's defenders began firing down into them. ♪ Voice: But there was no stopping us. I forced a passage at a place where I saw our shot had cut away some of the abatis. While passing, a man at my side received a ball in his head and fell under my feet, crying out bitterly. The fort was taken and all quiet in a short time. [Martin] ♪ Narrator: Lafayette sent a dispatch to a French officer in the column assigned to capture Redoubt Number 9, saying his men were in his redoubt. "Where are you?" "Tell the Marquis I am not in mine," the French officer replied, "but will be in 5 minutes." [Cannon fires] Voice: There was no mercy that night. Complaints and groans could be heard everywhere. Someone called out here, another there, begging to be killed for the love of God, as the redoubt was strewn with the dead and wounded, so much so that we had to walk on them. Georg Daniel Flohr. Narrator: The allies lost no time in rolling their big guns into both redoubts and opening fire on Yorktown. Friederike Baer: It was absolutely horrific. There was no moment to rest. There was no place to hide. For days, there was continuous bombardment. [Shells whooshing] ♪ Narrator: Cornwallis knew his cause was hopeless, but he could not seem to bear what Banastre Tarleton called "the mortification of a surrender." ♪ [Snare drum playing] At about 10:00 in the morning on October 17, 1781, a drummer boy 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 boy and waved a white handkerchief. Voice: 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. [Snare drum continues] Narrator: 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. Cornwallis wanted his British and German soldiers free to sail home. Washington refused. He recalled the disrespectful way Patriot General Benjamin Lincoln and his men had been treated after the fall of Charles Town. Until a formal peace was reached, the surrendering soldiers were to remain in the United States as prisoners of war. Cornwallis had little choice but to agree. ♪ As the British and Germans marched out of what was left of Yorktown-- their flags cased, their numbers reduced by wounds and disease-- they had orders to avoid even looking at the victorious Americans. Only the French, they'd been told, were worthy opponents. 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 on to his second in command, Benjamin Lincoln, who formally accepted the sword and then handed it back, as custom dictated. ♪ Conway: The ultimate humiliation-- not only having to surrender to the Americans, but having to surrender to the second in command of the Americans. ♪ Voice: 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. Who would have thought a hundred years ago that out of this multitude of rabble would arise a people who could defy kings? Johann Ewald. [Church bell ringing] Voice: 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. Narrator: When the Prime Minister, Lord North, finally heard about the surrender at Yorktown 5 weeks after it happened, he staggered around as if he'd been hit by a musket ball, waving his arms and crying out again and again, "Oh, God, it is all over." ♪ 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. ♪ Some 50,000 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 27, 1782, Parliament voted to halt all offensive activity in North America. Lord North's government fell. Alan Taylor: Could they have kept the war going from a purely military perspective? Sure, but politically, the will to fight vanishes, so the pro-war administration is toppled, and the King is forced to accept a new government with a new political coalition that is committed to negotiating a peace settlement with the American rebels. ♪ Voice: Alas, what remains of Yorktown now, what had given it its high privilege, that of being accessible from every quarter, proved its greatest misfortune. Its excellent harbor rendered it the port of all others most favorable for an invading enemy. Too soon did they avail themselves of it, and this Eden became desolate. Betsy Ambler. Narrator: Betsy Ambler and her family never returned to Yorktown, settling permanently in Richmond. ♪ 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. ♪ "The Negroes looked condemned," one militiaman remembered, "for the British had promised them their freedom." ♪ 5 enslaved people captured at Yorktown were returned to Thomas Jefferson. Two more, both women, were returned to George Washington's Mount Vernon. ♪ Washington's army soon moved north. Rochambeau's men marched up to Boston the following year and sailed away. ♪ Cornwallis' defeated men were marched to prison camps in the interior. Eager to get them back, Parliament finally recognized captured Americans as prisoners of war. Redcoats and rebels alike could expect to be exchanged. Jennifer Kreisberg: [Vocalizing "Amazing Grace"] After 7 months of suffering aboard the prison ship the "Jersey," James Forten was released, emaciated but lucky to be alive. ♪ He walked all the way home to Philadelphia from New York, most of the way barefoot. He astonished his mother on arrival. She had long since given him up for dead. ♪ After the war, Forten would build a great fortune making sails for the American merchant fleet and use part of those earnings to fund the abolitionist movement. When decades later, a friend urged him to apply for one of the pensions being granted to war veterans, Forten refused. "I was a volunteer, sir," he said. He didn't want money. He wanted citizenship. ♪ Voice: Our country asserts for itself the glory of being the freest upon the surface of the globe. She proclaimed freedom to all mankind. The brightness of her glory was radiant, but one dark spot still dimmed its luster. So much is doing in the world to ameliorate the condition of mankind, and the spirit of freedom is marching with rapid strides and causing tyrants to tremble. May America awake from the apathy in which she has long slumbered. She must sooner or later fall in with the irresistible current in the cause of liberty. James Forten. Jasanoff: Loyalists knew the war was lost, and the question for them became, "What's gonna happen to us next?" and--given the violence, this insurgency, counterinsurgency, back and forth, down-and-dirty fighting in the countryside-- Loyalists had every reason to fear that now that the Patriots were in charge, they were gonna find themselves on the rough end of recriminations. [Pounding on door] Narrator: Everywhere, Patriots were seeking revenge on men and women who had once been their neighbors and fellow subjects of the King. "The mob," one Loyalist wrote, "now reigns... fully and uncontrolled." [Gunshots and shouting] In Georgia, Patriots hunted down and killed Loyalists who had sought sanctuary in the swamps. ♪ Other Loyalists were exiled and their property confiscated. ♪ Voice: I cannot say I look back with regret at the part I took from motives of loyalty, from love to my country as well as duty to my sovereign, and, notwithstanding my sufferings, I would do it again if there was occasion. John Peters. [Church bell ringing] Narrator: John Peters and his wife Ann settled in Nova Scotia. Most Loyalists would choose to stay despite the danger and take their chances, hoping to resume their old lives in the new country, but thousands decided to leave. They huddled together in the last British strongholds of New York City, Charles Town, and Savannah, waiting for ships to be found to take them away. Jasanoff: 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 organized 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. Narrator: General Guy Carleton, who had replaced Henry Clinton as commander of British forces, was expected to move more than 30,000 troops with their mountains of supplies as well as 60,000 Loyalists and 15,000 enslaved people out of the United States. Carleton began that summer with Savannah. Some 3,000 Whites and perhaps 5,000 Blacks sailed to other British colonies. Charles Town was next-- almost 11,000 people, Black and White. Most of them ended up in Jamaica and the Bahamas. Only New York remained in British hands. ♪ 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 30, 1782. A final comprehensive treaty would not come for another 9 months. ♪ Joseph Ellis: There's a consensus at the end among the negotiators, including the Brits, that we're witnessing the creation of an American empire. ♪ de Rode: 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. The republic had won against the monarchy. It inspired many. Narrator: The American Revolution would be the opening signal for more than two centuries of revolution, first in Europe, then in the Caribbean, South America, Asia, and Africa. Baer: The ideas are very powerful. When they're talking about liberty, when they're talking about equality, when they're talking about opportunity, the freedom from oppression, the American Revolutionary movement served as a model for other societies and communities around the world. ♪ Narrator: But in early 1783 at the Continental Army's winter encampment at Newburgh, New York, things were not going well. An unsigned manifesto began circulating among Washington's officers openly calling for a mutiny. If peace really came, they would refuse to disarm and be free to use the army to force Congress and the states into providing the back pay they were owed. [Approaching hoofbeats] On March 15, at a meeting to hear more about the conspiracy, officers heard horse's hooves. [Horse whinnies] The door flew open. Washington and his aides entered. The general stepped to the lectern. ♪ He spoke for 20 minutes, urging his officers to resist drowning "our rising empire in blood." Most shifted in their seats, unconvinced. ♪ Then Washington asked if he could read a letter from a Virginia congressman who had pledged support for the army. He stumbled over the first words, paused, and pulled a pair of spectacles from his coat. Voice: Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind. [Washington] ♪ Narrator: The rest of the letter didn't matter. Many officers, hard men made harder still by battle, were openly weeping. The mutiny was over before it could begin. ♪ Voice: The unparalleled perseverance of the armies of the United States, through almost every possible suffering and discouragement for the space of 8 long years, was little short of a standing miracle. George Washington. Narrator: As the Continental Army began to disband, Washington tried again to persuade Congress to provide his men with at least 3 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. ♪ Voice: Some of the soldiers went off for home the same day their fetters were knocked off. Others stayed and got their final settlement certificates, which they sold to procure decent clothing and money sufficient to enable them to pass with decency through the country and to appear something like themselves when they arrived among their friends. I was among those. ♪ 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. ♪ Ellis: That group of people are ordinary Americans, below the level of ordinary, and they won the war because they never left. They stayed. That was it. They refused to leave, and, um... um... you can sound pretty patriotic, but I don't think you can be patriotic enough about them. ♪ Voice: We had lived together as a family of brothers for several years--had shared with each other the hardships, dangers, and sufferings incident to a soldier's life; had sympathized with each other in trouble and sickness-- and now we were to be parted forever, as unconditionally separated as though the grave lay between us. [Martin] ♪ [Gulls squawking] Narrator: 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, so many people that General Carleton could not tell George Washington precisely when they would all be gone. Soldiers shipped out for home or the West Indies. Some Loyalists planned to sail to Quebec or the Bahamas, but the overwhelming majority-- nearly 30,000 American men, women, and children-- resolved to begin their new lives like John and Ann Peters had, to the north in Nova Scotia. 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. ♪ Voice: 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, for a report prevailed at New York that all slaves were to be delivered up to their masters. This dreadful rumor filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror, especially when we saw our masters coming and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New York or even dragging them out of their beds. Many of the slaves had very cruel masters so that thoughts of returning home with them embittered life to us. For some days, we lost our appetite for food, and sleep departed from our eyes. Boston King. Narrator: 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." Voice: 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. [King] ♪ Narrator: Carleton decreed that any enslaved person who had left a Patriot owner and served behind the British lines for 12 months was free. Disputes between runaways and owners or slave catchers determined to return them to slavery were adjudicated by a committee of 4 British officers and 3 Americans who met weekly at Fraunces Tavern on Pearl Street. ♪ Voice: I came from Virginia. I was with Lord Dunmore, washing and ironing in his service. I came with him to New York and was in service with him till he went away. My master came for me. I told him I would not go with him. He took my money and stole my child from me and sent it to Virginia. Judith Jackson. ♪ Narrator: Judith Jackson won the right to go to Nova Scotia, but she stayed on in New York, frantically trying to recover her daughter until she was forced to sail without her. ♪ [Man shouts] Narrator: There were more tense moments at dockside. Before any vessel carrying Black passengers, slave or free, could leave New York, British and American inspectors demanded to see their certificates and entered their names and descriptions in separate ledgers... Rhiannon Giddens: [Vocalizing "Dean Cadalan Samhach"] ♪ Narrator: but once underway, 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. Voice: If we had the means of publishing to the world the many acts of treachery and cruelty committed by them on our women and children, it would appear that the title of Savages would with much greater justice be applied to them than to us. Old Smoke. Narrator: 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. Kreisberg: [Vocalizing "Grief"] Voice: 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. ♪ Narrator: The contributions Native Americans had made to winning American independence would soon be forgotten, too, including Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Delawares, Catawbas, and the Indian community at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. ♪ Voice: In this late war, we have suffered much. Our blood has been spilled with yours, and many of our young men have fallen by the side of your warriors. ♪ Almost all those places where your warriors have left their bones, there our bones are seen also. [Stockbridge petitioners] ♪ Philip Deloria: The Stockbridge Indians, their home, their land is gonna go away. They're not gonna be able to hold on to that, and they are moved to New York. Then they end up in Wisconsin. Like so many tribes, right, they end up being kicked around and moved from place to place. This is, of course, the story of Native people relative to the United States. ♪ Voice: Beloved men and warriors of the United States, we, the women of the Cherokee Nation, now speak to you. We are mothers and have many sons, some of them warriors and beloved men. Our cry is all for peace. ♪ This peace must last forever. Let your women hear our words. [Delegation of Cherokee Women] [Drum and rattle playing] Narrator: There would be no peace. 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. ♪ ♪ At 1:00 in the afternoon on November 25, 1783, George Washington-- "straight as a dart," an eyewitness recalled, "and as noble as he could be"-- led a procession of soldiers and civilians down Bowery Lane and Queen Street, west across Wall Street, and then down Broadway. [Fireworks pop and crackle] 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... [Fireworks continue] 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. [Trumpet playing "Amazing Grace"] Ellis: He knew what he was doing. He walks away from power. He's not gonna be a Cromwell. He's not gonna be a Caesar. He's not gonna be what Napoleon is gonna become. He could have easily become dictator head, and he had no interest in that whatsoever. ♪ Narrator: Accompanied by two military aides and his enslaved companion William Lee, Washington set out right away for Mount Vernon, hoping to be home for Christmas Eve. ♪ Voice: 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. [Drum roll] Narrator: The war had brought the states together, but peace soon threatened to tear them apart. Small states continued to fear large ones. Northern and Southern states jockeyed for dominance and quarreled over borders. Vermonters had already declared themselves a separate republic. North Carolina's Overmountain settlers were seeking to secede and form their own state called Franklin. [Gunfire] Elsewhere, farmers turned to violence to protest state taxes they considered unreasonable. In Massachusetts, protest became insurrection, Shays' Rebellion put down only after former comrades in arms fired on each other. A "cloud of evils," George Washington wrote, "was threatening the tranquility of the Union." ♪ Voice: Our situation is truly delicate and critical. On the one hand, we stand in need of a strong Federal Government founded on principles that will support the prosperity and union of the states. On the other, we have struggled for liberty and made lofty sacrifices at her shrine, and there are still many among us who revere her name too much to relinquish the rights of man for the dignity of government. Mercy Otis Warren. ♪ Narrator: The new Congress, created by the Articles of Confederation, was toothless, saddled with colossal debts, and incapable of collecting taxes with which to pay them off. Christopher Brown: It's not hard to imagine at all Britain, France, and Spain picking off individual states to create sort of commercial alliances or political alliances and military alliances, as client states, and all kinds of things. Sounds crazy, but it's no more crazy to have actually created a federal government that would actually work, and famously, a lot of British observers throughout the 1780s-- "Just give them a few years. It's all gonna fall apart." Philbrick: One of the lessons Washington learned during the American Revolution is that without a powerful central government, nothing effective could happen. The frustrations he experienced trying to get these 13 colonies to work in unison and failing every time in the Continental Congress taught him that something had to change. ♪ Narrator: 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. ♪ 4 months later, they had hammered out a 4-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 3 branches-- the legislative, executive, and judicial-- in a delicate balance by which each was meant to check the others to ensure against overreach that could result in tyranny. They feared that a demagogue might incite citizens into betraying the American experiment. Alexander Hamilton was concerned that an "unprincipled" man would "mount the hobby horse of popularity" and "throw things into confusion." "In a government like ours," he would write, no one is "above the law." [Bell rings] Voice: 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. [Washington] Bailyn: 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. ♪ Narrator: In order for the Constitution to take effect, the individual states had to ratify it. That would foster one of the most extensive public debates in history. ♪ Gordon-Reed: The people who created the American Revolution and created the American nation assumed that Americans would be involved, that they would be active citizens, not subjects. Being a citizen requires the kind of participation in the democracy that keeps it vibrant. ♪ Narrator: In the end, 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. James Madison, who wrote the Bill of Rights, called the Constitution "nothing more than the draft of a plan, "nothing but a dead letter, "until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people." ♪ Vincent Brown: The idea that government derives its authority from the consent of the governed was pretty radical. It's still pretty radical. If we take the words of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson-- "All men--" let's say men, women-- "are created free and equal," right-- Jefferson clearly didn't take that seriously as a slaveholder, but I do, and I think it's incumbent on all of us to take those words from Jefferson and make them real in our own lives, even if they weren't real in his. ♪ Narrator: 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 30, 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 honor enough... [People cheering] 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." ♪ Voice: Our government daily acquires strength and stability. The union is complete. ♪ Nothing hinders our being a very happy and prosperous people, provided we have wisdom rightly to estimate our blessings and hearts to improve them. Abigail Adams. Rhiannon Giddens: [Vocalizing "Amazing Grace"] Voice: I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance. ♪ And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism. Thomas Jefferson. ♪ Atkinson: 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. ♪ Voice: 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ 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. ♪ 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-6-the-most-sacred-thing/ DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original. In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. URL https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

The American Revolution A Film By Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein & David Schmidt The Soul of All America (December 1777 – May 1780) 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. [Cannon fire] ♪ Voice: I have of late lost a great many intimate friends. The numbers of fine young men from 15 to 5 and 20 with loss of limbs hurts me beyond conception, and I every day curse Columbus and all the discoverers of this diabolical country. In what manner the Parliament will act on this occasion we cannot conceive. Major John Bowater. ♪ Voice: You cannot--I venture to say, you cannot conquer America. My lords, in 3 campaigns, we have done nothing and suffered much. [Gavel bangs] You may swell every expense and every effort, pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow, traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign country. Your efforts are forever vain and impotent. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms-- never, never, never. [Men shouting] William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. [Gavel bangs] ♪ [Distant cannon fire] ♪ [Fife and drums playing] Jane Kamensky: The American Revolution is, on the one hand, an intensely local war, and, on the other hand, a great global war. As a global war, the American Revolution continues the series of wars among empires for the prize of North America. Britain, Spain, France are all seeking some form of victory or advantage... ♪ but the beginning of 1778, the rebellious United States' cause is at the thread end of its ability to continue to exist. ♪ Voice: There comes a soldier, his bare feet are seen through his worn-out shoes, his legs nearly naked from the tattered remains of an only pair of stockings, his breeches not sufficient to cover his nakedness. His whole appearance pictures a person forsaken and discouraged. Dr. Albigence Waldo, surgeon, First Connecticut Infantry. ♪ Narrator: The weary Continentals whom George Washington led into winter quarters at Valley Forge in December of 1777, were, a visitor, said, just "a skeleton of an army." They'd been fighting and marching for months, but many hadn't been paid since August. Nearly 3,000 of them were officially unfit for duty. Over the next 6 months, 2,500 soldiers would die, mostly from typhus, typhoid, influenza, and dysentery. Clothing was so scarce that when a man died, what was left of his uniform was washed and carefully preserved so that another member of his unit might be at least a little warmer. ♪ Voice: I am now convinced that unless some great change takes place, this army must inevitably be reduced to one or the other of these things-- starve, dissolve, or disperse in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can. George Washington, headquarters at the Valley Forge. ♪ Narrator: Valley Forge took its name from an abandoned ironworks that stood at the intersection of a small creek and the Schuylkill River some 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Washington himself called it "a dreary kind of place," but he chose it because it was close enough to Philadelphia to move quickly against British foragers when they dared venture out of the city and far enough from it to make surprise attacks unlikely. Pennsylvania legislators complained that instead of withdrawing to Valley Forge, Washington should be about the business of recapturing Philadelphia. Voice: I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold, bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. It would give me infinite pleasure to afford protection to every individual and to every spot of ground in the whole of the United States. Nothing is more my wish, but this is not possible with our present force. George Washington. [Canon fire in distance] ♪ [Fire crackling] Voice: I'd experienced what I thought sufficient of the hardships of military life the year before, but we were now absolutely in danger of perishing, and that too in the midst of a plentiful country. Joseph Plumb Martin. [Horse neighs] Narrator: Private Joseph Plumb Martin had survived the Battles of Long Island, Kips Bay, the disaster at Germantown, and the siege of Fort Mifflin, and he was still just 17. ♪ Now huddled in tattered canvas tents at Valley Forge, soldiers went for days with nothing to eat but fire cakes-- just flour and water baked on hot stones. Several days went by when many soldiers had no food at all. There was talk of mutiny. Rick Atkinson: The apparatus of war supporting the army has come unglued. All of these support functions that help keep an army thriving, keep it healthy, have really begun to implode. Narrator: Congress, still in exile in York, Pennsylvania, told Washington to commandeer food and fodder from the surrounding countryside, but he resisted, worried it might turn civilians against the cause. Instead, he tried to purchase everything his men needed, but the steady depreciation of Continental currency made that problematic. William Hogeland: Nothing like the American Revolutionary War had been fought. No public project like it had been undertaken before, and it was incredibly expensive. What happens with a paper currency if it isn't well-supported and isn't handled properly is, it depreciates wildly against gold and silver. It was useless as a currency, and in that sense, the Congress went broke. ♪ Stephen Conway: The British Army, on the contrary, has lots of hard cash, and lots of Americans who are not politically interested one way or the other see opportunities for commercial benefit-- selling products, selling goods and services to the British Army. Narrator: Washington's army was dwindling again. Men simply went home. Hundreds enlisted in Loyalist regiments. Others joined roving outlaw bands that looted isolated farmhouses. Still others made their way to Philadelphia to surrender, hoping they would be treated better as prisoners of war than as soldiers at Valley Forge. Washington's officers were leaving, too. Voice: The number of resignations in the Virginia Line is induced by officers finding that every man who remains at home is making a fortune whilst they are spending what they have in the defense of their country. Thomas Nelson. ♪ Narrator: Over the coming months, more than 500 of Washington's officers would resign. To add to his troubles, some members of Congress and a handful of commanders had begun whispering that he had proved himself weak and indecisive in battle. If the Revolution were to succeed, some argued, command of the Continental Army should pass to Horatio Gates, who had recently accepted the surrender of an entire British army at Saratoga. ♪ Voice: I did not solicit this command, but accepted it after much entreaty. As soon as the public gets dissatisfied with my service, I shall quit the helm with as much satisfaction and retire to a private station with as much content as ever the weariest pilgrim felt upon his safe arrival in the Holy Land. George Washington. Narrator: Until that moment came, Washington would work tirelessly, first to maintain, and then to improve his army. Shelter came first. He ordered the men to cut down trees, dismantle farmers' outbuildings and fences, and bang together row upon row of log huts, perhaps 2,000 of them, each one 14 by 16 feet and meant to house 12 men. ♪ Valley Forge would for a time be the fourth largest city in America-- 20,000 men, women, and children from all 13 states. For many, English was not their native language. They spoke German, Irish, Scots, Welsh, Dutch, Swedish, French, Mohican, Oneida, Wolof, Kikongo, and more. Nearly 10% were African American, most of whom served alongside whites in integrated regiments. Some 60 men were enrolled in a brand-new all-Black company belonging to the First Rhode Island Regiment. The state legislature promised those who were enslaved their freedom at war's end and pledged to pay compensation to those whose property they had been. ♪ Among the Native American soldiers and scouts at Valley Forge were Tuscaroras, Oneidas, as well as Mohicans and Wappingers from Stockbridge, Massachusetts. ♪ The hundreds of women who lived among the soldiers did the men's laundry, nursed the sick and wounded, and cared for an unknown number of children. When men went to war, they were gone and so was whatever pay they were going to get, and many women just could not survive on their own, and so it was actually better for everybody when women traveled with the armies. ♪ Narrator: Martha Washington joined her husband at Valley Forge. At least 8 servants-- men and women, white and Black, enslaved and free-- lived alongside the Washingtons in a stone house they rented from the family of the mill owner who had built it. 8 of General Washington's closest aides were crowded in there, as well, among them, two especially idealistic young officers in their early 20s-- John Laurens and the Marquis de Lafayette. ♪ Iris de Rode: As soon as Lafayette arrived, he starts to look around and get inspired by everything he sees, and he's young, and he's excited to be in this new country in what, to him, is the New World, and he's going to explore and understand. He really starts to believe in the cause for equalities, for liberties. ♪ Narrator: John Laurens of South Carolina was the son of Henry Laurens, the current president of Congress and one of the biggest slave traders in North America. From Valley Forge, the young Laurens wrote to his father. Voice: I would solicit you to seed me a number of your able-bodied men slaves instead of leaving me a fortune. I would bring about a twofold good. First, I would advance those who are unjustly deprived of the rights of mankind, and I would reinforce the defenders of liberty with a number of gallant soldiers. ♪ My dearest friend and father, I hope that my plan for serving my country and the oppressed Negro race will not appear to you the chimera of a young mind, but a laudable sacrifice of private interest to justice and the public good. John Laurens. Narrator: Henry Laurens rejected his son's proposal. Freeing some slaves, he said, would simply "render Slavery more irksome to those who remained in it." ♪ [Wind blowing] In February, the bad conditions at Valley Forge grew still worse. Some 1,000 soldiers would sicken and die that month. Voice: I was called to relieve a soldier thought to be dying. He was an Indian, an excellent soldier. He has fought for those very people who disinherited his forefathers. Having finished his pilgrimage, he was discharged from the war of life and death. His memory ought to be respected more than those rich ones who supply the world with nothing better than money and vice. Dr. Albigence Waldo. [Chickens clucking] Narrator: Desperate to feed his hungry men, Washington now organized what was called the Great Forage, more than 1,500 men in all, to scour the countryside in eastern Pennsylvania, western New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, seizing whatever they could find and handing out promissory notes in exchange. ♪ Voice: The militia and some regular troops on one side, and Loyalist refugees with the Englishmen on the other, were constantly roving about, plundering and destroying everything in a barbarous manner. Everywhere distrust, fear, hatred and abominable selfishness were met with. Reverend Nils Collin. ♪ Narrator: Nils Collin was a Swedish missionary sent to America to serve as rector of the Swedish Church in Swedesboro, New Jersey. Since he considered himself a subject of the Swedish monarch, his conscience would not allow him to swear allegiance to the British king or to ally himself with the Patriot cause. He vowed to remain neutral, but bands of American and British soldiers and their sympathizers took turns occupying the town, seizing livestock and provisions, and punishing those who stood in their way. ♪ Voice: Many members of the congregation suffered injury in various ways by this frenzy. Dr. Otto's house was burnt down by Loyalist refugees. James Stillman lost most of his cattle. Sutherland, a Scotchman, together with a young Swede, Hendrickson, were taken to New York as prisoners. ♪ On the opposite side, the militia pillaged the following-- Jacob and Anders Jones, who had traded with the English; a sea captain, Jan Cox, whose beds were cut up and his China, tea tables, and bureaus smashed. From all this it is apparent how terrible this civil war raged, party hatred flamed in the hearts of my people. Some would not go to church because the sight of their enemy aroused the memory of the evils they had suffered. Nils Collin. Vincent Brown: Given the choice to fight for the Patriot cause or join the British effort to suppress the Patriots, most people stood to the side. Most people tried to let it pass. They tried to get out of the way. Kamensky: It's common individuals, ordinary individuals asking the question that I think we all ask about politics every day-- "What does this have to do with me?" ♪ Voice: Girls at the age of 12 and 13 require a mother's care. A girl of 13, left without an advisor and fancying herself a woman, stands on a precipice that trembles beneath her. Betsy Ambler. Narrator: Betsy Ambler and her younger sister Mary spent that winter in Winchester, Virginia. They were left with an aunt and uncle while their parents and little sisters headed southeast to avoid the cold. Betsy spent much of her time trying to win the attention of "charming young..." Continental "officers." "Here," she said, "was a fine field open for a romantic girl." Voice: Early in the spring, our good father returned. And though he treated us himself as children, he saw that we had been considered of an age to attract too much attention. Betsy Ambler. Narrator: The Ambler family would be reunited, and they would be returning to Yorktown, what Betsy called her "beloved birthplace." Her father's finances had been hit hard by the war. He and his two daughters had to make the long, dusty trip home in a wagon, not a coach. "We were rather ashamed of our cavalry," Betsy remembered. Voice: The only possible good from the entire change in our circumstances was that we were made acquainted with the manner and situation of our country, which we otherwise should never have known. We were forced to industry and to endeavor by amiable and agreeable conduct to make amends for the loss of fortune. Betsy Ambler. Narrator: When the Amblers finally got to Yorktown, they settled not in "our former mansion," she recalled, but in a much smaller house on the edge of town. [Birds chirping] Voice: My imagination frequently recurs to that enchanting spot situated on a little eminence overlooking a smiling meadow, where a gentle stream meandering round the sloping hill was lost in one of the noblest rivers in our country. Here, my sister and myself often wandered, gathering wildflowers to adorn our hair, till we almost fancied ourselves heroines. Betsy Ambler. [Officer saying commands] Christopher Brown: Washington had this really interesting quality of being able to project authority and confidence and allowing that to spill out into others, so that they acquired authority and confidence by being in his orbit. I think he had the effect of pulling out some of the best in the people who were around him. Narrator: To provide his army with the reliable logistical support it desperately needed, Washington insisted that Congress appoint as quartermaster general the officer he trusted most-- Nathanael Greene, but Greene was a fighting general. He knew there was more combat ahead and wanted to be in on what he called "the mischief." Atkinson: Greene says, nobody in history has ever heard of a "quartermaster." He doesn't want the job, but he takes the job. Like Washington, he's got a brain built for executive action, and he's good at being the quartermaster. Narrator: Thanks to Nathanael Greene's mastery of logistics and Washington's appeals to state governors, by the end of March 1778, herds of cattle and sheep were plodding toward Valley Forge from several directions, along with wagon trains filled with everything from barrels of nails to brand-new uniforms and crates of bayonets and muskets. [Snare drum playing] Now that his men were better fed, clothed, and equipped and their ranks were swelling as fresh recruits, recalled regulars, and returning convalescents all converged on Valley Forge, Washington wanted every man in his newly reorganized army to undergo formal military training to end what he called the confusion that had too often undercut its performance on the battlefield. The man he picked to oversee that task was a newcomer to America-- Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben. Voice: Never before or since have I had such an impression of the ancient fabled God of War as when I looked on the baron. The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols all seemed to favor the idea. He seemed to me a perfect personification of Mars. Private Ashbel Green. Narrator: Steuben claimed to be a baron, a lieutenant general in the Prussian Army, and a close aide to Frederick the Great. He really was a baron, though a penniless one, and he had served in Frederick's headquarters for a time, but his army career in Europe had been cut short by an accusation that he had taken familiarities with young boys. In America, he said, he wanted to put his "talents in the arts of war in the service of a republic." ♪ Steuben was hot-tempered, and his English was initially limited to a single word--"goddamn." Voice: When some movement or maneuver was not performed to his mind, he began to swear in German, then in French, and then in both languages together. When he had exhausted his artillery of foreign oaths, he would call to his aides, "Come and swear for me in English. These fellows won't do what I bid them." Peter Stephen Du Ponceau. Edward Lengel: Baron von Steuben is really a comical figure when he arrives at camp. The men make fun of him, but he is a man who you need pulling the men together and giving them a sense of common purpose. After the men have drilled with him for a little while, they stop laughing. [Man shouting orders] Narrator: But for all his bluster, Steuben grasped the character of the men he was to work with. "The genius of this nation is not to be compared... with the Prussians, Austrians or French," he wrote to an old friend back home. "You say to your soldier, 'Do this,' and he does it," but here, "I am obliged to say, "'This is the reason why you ought to do that,' and then he does it." ♪ Steuben taught the men to march at a "common step" of 75 paces a minute and a "quick step" of 120 paces, to move in columns rather than straggle in single file, to shift into battle line and back again when under fire, to load and fire musket volleys more quickly, and to become proficient with the bayonet, the weapon that had once terrified them when in British or Hessian hands. As skills improved, so did morale. ♪ By spring, the danger of mutiny had eased. So had the mutterings about Washington's leadership. He was, it was clear, indispensable to the cause of liberty. ♪ That year, a German-language almanac published in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, would call Washington Des Landes Vater-- "the Country's Father." ♪ He was the glue that held people together. These 13 colonies had to come together, and he was the person to do it. We would not have had a country without him. I don't know, actually. I mean, you know-- God, I can't believe I'm saying this because I'm not a huge fan of "great man" theories of history or explanations of history, but let's put it this way. It's easy to see the American effort for independence failing without Washington's leadership. ♪ [Gull squawks] Narrator: After midnight on April 23, 1778, 31 sailors and Marines from the 20-gun Continental Navy sloop "Ranger," tossing in the Irish Sea, climbed into two longboats and began rowing toward the port of Whitehaven on the western coast of England. Their Scottish-born commander knew these waters well. He'd begun his seafaring career there as a 13-year-old apprentice seaman named John Paul Jr. In the intervening years, he had sailed aboard slave ships, risen to command merchant vessels, and then, after killing a crewman, fled to America. There, he changed his name to John Paul Jones and volunteered to join the fledgling Continental Navy. Voice: I resolved to make the greatest efforts to bring to an end the barbarous ravages to which the English turned in America by making good fire in England of shipping. John Paul Jones. Narrator: When Jones' men reached the Whitehaven wharf, they found more than 200 vessels moored in its harbor. As Jones worked to get a fire going aboard a boat loaded with coal, angry townspeople raced to the waterfront. Voice: I stood between them and the ship of fire with a pistol in my hand and ordered them to retire, which they did with precipitation. The flames had already caught the rigging and begun to ascend the main mast. It was time to retire. John Paul Jones. Narrator: Jones and his men made it back to the Ranger and sailed away. [Cannon fire] The next day, they engaged a British warship, the "Drake," and after a battle that Jones remembered as "warm, close, and obstinate," captured it and its crew and brought it into the French port of Brest. Jones understood his impact on British public opinion. Mothers began warning their children to be good, or the fearsome "Pirate" John Paul Jones would get them. ♪ Voice: What was done is sufficient to show that not all their boasted navy can protect their own coasts and that the scenes of distress which they have occasioned in America may soon be brought home to their own doors. John Paul Jones. ♪ Voice: What a miraculous change in the political world-- the government of France an advocate for liberty, espousing the cause of Protestants, and risking a war to secure their independence; Britain at war with America, France in alliance with her. These, my friend, are astonishing changes. Elbridge Gerry. Narrator: It had taken nearly 3 months for word of the new military alliance with France to reach Washington. The French would be sending soldiers and the fleet. His army would no longer be alone. "This...great... glorious...news," he said, "must put the independency of America out of all manner of dispute." [Snare drum playing] Washington was eager now to test his newly disciplined army against the enemy. Voice: The enemy imagined Philadelphia to be of more importance to us than it really was and to that belief added the absurd idea that the soul of all America was centered there and would be conquered there. Thomas Paine. ♪ Narrator: The British, German, and Loyalist troops penned up in Philadelphia had had a hard winter, too. They had subsisted on half-rations. Wounded troops occupied every public building in town except the State House, where the Declaration of Independence had been signed, which was crowded with Patriot prisoners. ♪ 1777 had ended badly for the British. General Burgoyne had surrendered an entire army at Saratoga. General Howe might have occupied Philadelphia, and his subordinates still held New York City and Newport, but they controlled little else, and now, with the French joining the war, Britain would be required to defend all its imperial holdings-- in India, Africa, Ireland, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, as well as in North America. Kathleen DuVal: The French decide to enter the war, and that changes everything for Britain. Britain knows that Spain and the Netherlands may be next. Suddenly, those 13 colonies that were rebelling are kind of the small potatoes of the war. They could lose their profitable plantation islands. They could lose Jamaica. The stakes are big in this war, and the 13 colonies have become just a tiny corner of it. ♪ Narrator: Lord North, the British prime minister, dispatched peace commissioners to America that spring, armed with a series of concessions aimed at ending the fighting, everything the Americans had been demanding for years. All they had to do was renounce independence. What they're offering is basically terms that would have been acceptable to the colonists in 1774 or 1775. Narrator: Congress would not hear of it. The very idea of dependence, its president, Henry Laurens, said, "is inadmissible." British negotiators responded with a warning. Americans could now expect far harsher treatment than any they had yet received, and they had appointed a new commander to deliver that treatment. Voice: On the 10th of May, Sir Henry Clinton arrived at Philadelphia, relieving Sir William Howe as commander in chief. Captain Johann Ewald. Atkinson: Henry Clinton is a formidable military officer. He's had a lot of combat experience, but he's a very, very difficult personality. He's easily aggrieved. He carries his grievances and grudges with him. He will be the British commander in chief longer than any other general in the American Revolution, for 4 years. Narrator: General Henry Clinton, who had been fighting in America since Bunker's Hill, had hoped to be relieved. Instead, he would be asked to do at least as much as his predecessor had been asked to do and to do it with far fewer men. His new orders were to send 8,000 of his soldiers to protect British interests in Florida and the Caribbean. He was to leave the rest of the New England and Mid-Atlantic states in Patriot hands for the most part and eventually mount seaborne assaults on the 4 Southern Colonies. Clinton concluded he first had to get his army back to New York, which meant evacuating Philadelphia that had been taken just 9 months earlier. Most of his men, he decided, would have to march to New York. He had too few ships to carry his entire army as well as some 3,000 Loyalists now eager to leave with him. Voice: All of the loyal inhabitants who had taken our protection lamented that they now had to give up all their property. Brave people who have rendered such good service to the King are being left behind. God alone knows what will happen to them. Johann Ewald. Maya Jasanoff: Philadelphia has its population turned inside out a couple of different times in the Revolution. New York City has its population turned around, a kind of back-and-forth of Loyalist and Patriot residents, depending on which army is in charge, and when an army leaves, the population that had come in order to live under their protection have to sort of fumble and figure out what it is that they're going to do next. ♪ Voice: Philadelphia, June 18th. This morning when we arose, there was not one redcoat to be seen. Colonel Gordon and some others had not been gone a quarter of an hour before the Americans entered the city. Elizabeth Drinker. Narrator: To act as military governor of Philadelphia, George Washington selected General Benedict Arnold, still suffering from war wounds so severe that he could not mount a horse. He was to restore order and preserve tranquility. Philadelphia was now almost unrecognizable. Retreating redcoats had looted homes, desecrated churches, felled orchards for firewood, and in the houses they had used as barracks, cut holes in the floor to serve as privies. Returning Patriot refugees were enraged at what had been done to their city and were eager to punish anyone who had collaborated with the occupiers. The homes and property of scores of accused Tories would be confiscated. 23 men were tried for treason. Two Quakers were hanged. Nathaniel Philbrick: Philadelphia was divided between the Loyalists and the Patriots, who were at each other's throats. It would have required someone of great tact and sympathy to keep the lid on this city. That was not Arnold. Narrator: By June 18, 1778, most of Clinton's army was in New Jersey and had begun its march toward New York, some 90 miles away. They moved in two great columns-- more than 18,000 soldiers, nearly 2,000 noncombatants, 46 artillery pieces, and 5,000 horses. The next morning, George Washington led his army out of Valley Forge for the first time in months and began shadowing the British as they moved east, looking for an opportunity to strike. Atkinson: Washington has decided that he is not going to directly intercept this column, which is very strong. He wants to nick at them and--and peck at them from the rear and make life miserable for them and watch for an opening. Narrator: Once again, New Jersey militia made the British passage as painful as possible, felling trees across the roads, destroying bridges, flooding streams to make fording difficult, and picking off individual soldiers by ambush. ♪ Voice: The whole province was in arms, following us with Washington's army, constantly surrounding us on our marches and besieging our camps. Each step cost human blood. Johann Ewald. [Thunder] Narrator: The weather added to their misery-- heat that soared above 90 degrees, sudden downpours that turned sandy roads into bogs, followed by dense humidity, swarms of mosquitoes, and still more heat. 20 British soldiers died of heat exhaustion on a single day. As many as 500 men are thought to have deserted during the march, most of them Hessians, blending into German-speaking communities nearby. [Birds chirping] ♪ On the morning of June 24, 1778, Americans otherwise disconnected by the vastness of their continent witnessed an otherworldly phenomenon at roughly the same time as the moon eclipsed the sun. ♪ Indians and Spanish colonists in Mexico and Texas saw it first. When it reached Spanish New Orleans and British Mobile, the flags of empire flew in sudden darkness for more than 4 minutes. The total eclipse lasted even longer for the Muscogee Creeks on the Chattahoochee River and for the "Maroon" communities of self-emancipated former slaves hidden in the Great Dismal Swamp. ♪ When mid-morning darkness descended on the Virginia capital at Williamsburg, "Lightening buggs were seen as at Night." ♪ The same darkness briefly enveloped Washington's army as it followed the British into New Jersey. "Had this happened upon such an occasion in "olden time," Private Joseph Plumb Martin remembered, "it would have been considered ominous, either of good or bad fortune, but we took no notice of it." ♪ Martin had been detached from his Connecticut regiment and assigned to join fast-moving light infantry with orders to follow the enemy closely enough to capture stragglers and welcome deserters. The day after the eclipse, Clinton decided to head east towards Sandy Hook, a Loyalist stronghold from which royal transports could ferry his men to New York. He merged his two divisions into one column, and, he recalled, hoping that "Mr. Washington might possibly be induced to commit himself" to battle, "[I placed] the elite of my army between him and my [supply train]... to defend it from insult." He put General Charles Cornwallis in charge of that force. ♪ At Hopewell, Washington convened a council of war. General Nathanael Greene, back in the field, was eager for a fight. Voice: If we suffer the enemy to pass through the Jerseys without attempting anything upon them, I think we shall ever regret it. People expect something from us, and our strength demands it. Nathanael Greene. Narrator: But most commanders urged caution. Major General Charles Lee-- Washington's second in command, captured two years before and only recently exchanged-- was especially adamant in his opposition. Sending Americans against British regulars would be "criminal," he said, but when Washington decided to send forward 4,500 troops anyway, Lee insisted seniority required that he lead them. If he weren't given command, he said, he would be "disgraced." Washington relented and ordered Lee to follow Cornwallis' elite rearguard and look for an opportunity to attack. ♪ [Indistinct conversation] Narrator: The British left their encampment around Monmouth Court House well before dawn on Sunday, June 28th. [Gunfire] By mid-morning, Lee's men had formed west of the British line, trying piecemeal to attack and dislodge Cornwallis' forces. All their efforts proved futile. [Shouting and gunfire] Narrator: As the Patriots struggled in the increasingly brutal heat, Clinton sent an entire division to reinforce Cornwallis. More than 10,000 British, German, and Loyalist troops counterattacked. Atkinson: Things go south in a hurry for the Americans. Lee loses control, and the next thing you know, this American advance guard, the vanguard that's supposed to be attacking, is fleeing. Lengel: They're confused. They begin falling back, but then Washington appears. The knowledge of his presence causes the retreat to stop instantaneously without even having said a word. Those who witnessed this moment said that it was like a bolt of electricity shot through the forces once they realized that Washington was there. Voice: His presence stopped the retreat. His fine appearance on horseback, his calm courage gave him the air best calculated to excite enthusiasm. He rode all along the lines amid the shouts of the soldiers, cheering them by his voice and example. Marquis de Lafayette. Lengel: Washington gives some orders. The men get back into line... [Gunshot] and they face down the British attack, and they don't break. Man: Fire! ♪ [Men shouting commands] Narrator: General Steuben's training had paid off. The British launched a series of assaults. General Henry Clinton himself led one of them, sword in hand. ♪ Colonels Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr both had horses shot out from under them, but the Americans held. Atkinson: Washington places his defenses in a way that stops the British assault. He's got good ground for his artillery. He's hammering the British. [Men shouting] ♪ Narrator: The artillery duel continued for two hours. Infantry on both sides sought whatever cover they could. Voice: With the thermometer at 96, what could be done in a hot pine barren loaded with everything that the poor soldier carries? It breaks my heart that I was obliged under those cruel circumstances to attempt it. General Henry Clinton. ♪ Narrator: Finally, at around 3:45, Clinton ordered a stop to the firing. With his supply train now well on its way towards Sandy Hook and safety, he reluctantly began to withdraw his exhausted troops. Washington's men were worn out, too. The heat, Joseph Plumb Martin remembered, was like "the mouth of [an]...oven." [Insect buzzing] Voice: It was generally understood the battle was to be renewed at the dawn of day, but at the dawn of day, I heard the shout of victory-- "The British are gone." Dr. William Read. ♪ Narrator: The Battle of Monmouth had left some 362 of Washington's men and 411 of Clinton's dead, wounded, or missing. Corpses, swollen and blackening in the heat, sprawled everywhere. Both sides claimed victory. ♪ Clinton's column reached Sandy Hook without serious interruption and embarked for Staten Island. His objective was to get his army to New York, and he had done so... ♪ but when the fighting ended, Washington's men held the field. "It is glorious for America," a New Jersey colonel wrote his wife. At least one British officer admitted his army had endured "a handsome flogging." Although there would be fierce fighting and many skirmishes in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, Monmouth would be the last major battle fought in the North during the American Revolution... ♪ and it would be more than 3 years before George Washington would personally lead his troops into battle again. ♪ Serena Zabin: What he learns over the course of the war is that there are other ways to perform his leadership that's not actually by doing something big and bold but that waiting and holding back and containment can also be a way of showing his strength. [Clock ticking] Voice: Cruel as this war has been and separated as I am on account of it from the dearest connection in life, I would not exchange my country for the wealth of the Indies, or be any other than an American. Abigail Adams. ♪ Stacy Schiff: One of the great blessings here is how much time John spends in Philadelphia with Abigail back in Massachusetts because from that, we have really the most detailed, richest correspondence of the Revolutionary years. Narrator: In the summer of 1778, Abigail and John Adams were apart, as they almost always were during the war. She was at their home in Braintree, Massachusetts, managing the household, and he was newly arrived in Paris, sent by Congress to join Benjamin Franklin and the American delegation to France. ♪ There, on the Fourth of July, Adams and Franklin hosted a modest celebration on the second anniversary of American independence. Voice: We had the honor of the company of all the American gentlemen and ladies in and about Paris with a few of the French gentlemen in the neighborhood. They were not ministers of state, nor ambassadors, nor princes, nor dukes, nor peers, nor marquises, nor cardinals, nor archbishops, nor bishops. John Adams. Narrator: Thousands of miles west of Paris in Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress had just returned from exile, General Benedict Arnold presided over a feast and entertainment for the city's political, military, and merchant leaders. They were interrupted by what one of them called "a crowd of the vulgar" outside mocking the pretensions of the wealthy. DuVal: I think the American Revolution creates an idea that there is no class in the United States, that we, in our founding moment, decided to do away with that. It's not true. There have always been wide varieties in wealth and power in the United States, and there were more opportunities in the colonies than there were in Europe, but some of the opportunity, some of the promise of the United States, is built on slavery and taking Native land. ♪ Narrator: Late the same evening of July 4th, in the heart of the continent, Virginia militia under Lieutenant Colonel George Rogers Clark reached British-held Kaskaskia, a mostly French-speaking village on the Mississippi River. Man: Ready! [Gunshots] Narrator: In the dead of night, Clark's men overwhelmed the town's defenses. Woman: [Vocalizing] Narrator: The next morning, he notified the terrified townspeople that the King of France had joined the Americans. Clark guaranteed they would be free to practice their Catholic faith, since all religions would be tolerated in America, provided they agreed to bow to the authority of the United States. It was a bloodless start to what would become Clark's bloody campaign to conquer Indian country east of the Mississippi. [Snare drum playing] [Gulls squawking] The French fleet Washington had been waiting for finally appeared off New York in the week after Independence Day-- 12 ships of the line, 4 frigates, and over 4,000 French marines, all commanded by Vice Admiral Charles Henri, Comte d'Estaing, a veteran of warfare against Britain in India and Sumatra. De Rode: D'Estaing is a French aristocrat. He considers himself quite superior to these American "ragtag" army and is looking at them and thinks, "How am I gonna work with these people?" Because he thought, "I'm the French admiral. I know what to do here, so they better listen to me." Narrator: Washington hoped a coordinated attack with this new French force could trap Clinton in New York, take back the city, and, by so doing, persuade Britain that further prosecution of the war was hopeless. Because d'Estaing had convinced himself that his heaviest ships would run aground trying to enter New York Harbor, he decided to move against the British garrison at Newport, Rhode Island, instead. It was to be a coordinated assault with American ground forces under General John Sullivan, but neither commander spoke the other's language. Sullivan, the son of Irish indentured servants, loathed aristocrats like the French commander, who, in turn, found Sullivan crude and inept. [Cannon fire] It all went wrong. Without informing the French, Sullivan advanced a day earlier than had been planned. When a British fleet appeared offshore, d'Estaing sailed out to do battle... [Thunder] but a howling storm scattered and seriously damaged both fleets. De Rode: 18th-century warfare is mainly based on the weather. You could have no alternative. If there is a big storm coming in, you can't do anything besides getting just wiped away. Admiral d'Estaing had to go for repairs in Boston. [Cannon fire] Lengel: The French, in essence, leave the Americans in the lurch. Sullivan is barely able to extract his forces from what could have been a catastrophe. ♪ Narrator: The first joint French-American operation had failed. Once the repairs were finished in Boston, d'Estaing would set sail for the French West Indies without even bothering to tell Washington he was leaving. French ships would be available to the Americans only during the late summer and early fall, when hurricanes threatened the Caribbean. The American Revolution was important to France only when its successes deepened Britain's failures and Washington knew he could not win the decisive battle without French help. Lengel: Anti-French feeling runs so high after this that Lafayette said he never at any point in the war felt that his life was at so much risk as it was when he walked down the streets of Boston after this catastrophe at Rhode Island. He thought he was gonna be strung up. [Man shouts] ♪ Voice: I, with some of my comrades who were in the Battle of White Plains in the year '76, saw a number of the graves of those who fell in that battle. Some of the bodies had been so slightly buried that the dogs or hogs or both had dug them out of the ground. Here were Hessian skulls. Poor fellows! They were left unburied in a foreign land. They had perhaps as near and dear friends to lament their sad destiny as the Americans who laid buried near them. They should have kept at home. Joseph Plumb Martin. ♪ Narrator: By the fall of 1778, Washington's army was arrayed in an arc from Middlebrook, New Jersey, to Danbury, Connecticut. He would remain within striking distance of New York City, determined to recapture the place he had been forced to abandon in 1776. [Shouting and gunfire] For months, his and Clinton's armies had probed one another's lines. On a single summer afternoon near Kingsbridge, a Maryland patrol ambushed a German unit, killing 6 and wounding 6 more, and Loyalist cavalry ambushed and hacked to death most of the Stockbridge Indians who had been with Washington's army since 1775. They "have fought and bled by our side," Washington said. "We consider them as our friends and brothers." ♪ Voice: On the great road from New York to Boston, not a single solitary traveler was visible from week to week or from month to month. The world was motionless and silent. Chaplain Timothy Dwight. ♪ Narrator: Before the Revolution, Westchester County in New York had been one of the wealthiest in the colonies, but for nearly two years now, it had been a part of what was called the "Neutral Ground," uncontrolled by either army but plundered by both again and again. ♪ Roving bands of lawless raiders prowled the countryside rustling livestock, extorting cash, looting and burning homes, raping women. Voice: This year has not been a very glorious one to America. Our enemies, however, have nothing to boast of since they have not gained one inch of territory more than they possessed a year ago and are at least Philadelphia out of pocket. What the winter may produce I know not. I wish it would give us peace but do not expect it. Abigail Adams. Women: ♪ Sit down, servant, sit down... ♪ Taylor: It's pretty clear the British are not gonna win the war in New England. They're not gonna get enough popular support, probably not gonna win the war in the Middle Atlantic region either. Woman: ♪ I know you tired... ♪ Taylor: The great potential place where their relatively more reduced forces can have more leverage is the South, so the goal is just see what you can retain. You probably can't keep all of these 13 colonies. Maybe you can keep the most valuable of these colonies. Woman: ♪ I know you're mighty tired... ♪ Conway: The Southern Colonies are seen as an integrated part of an economic system that generates great power and wealth for Britain, so keeping the Southern Colonies with their ability to provision the West Indian islands, and particularly their plantation economies, is seen as a vital British interest, and that, more than anything else, is why the war shifts to the South from 1778. Woman: ♪ Sit down ♪ Narrator: After General Clinton learned the French fleet had sailed away from Boston, he prepared for the invasion of the South that London had ordered him to undertake. ♪ Jasanoff: Another reason that the British pursue a Southern strategy after Saratoga is that they assume that there are many more Loyalists in the South who will come to their aid. There was also, of course, the question of the enslaved population. Voice: A great majority of the inhabitants of North and South Carolina are loyal subjects. It is also well known that the principal resources for carrying on the rebellion are drawn from the labor of an incredible multitude of Negroes in the Southern Colonies. But the instant that the King's troops are put in motion in those colonies, these poor slaves would be ready to rise upon their rebel masters. Moses Kirkland. So the Southern Strategy was to recapture the Southern Colonies one by one, starting with Georgia, and move up the coast, and in each place, they hoped to put Loyalists in charge, and that way, the British Army could continue moving north. Narrator: from New York, General Clinton sent a squadron south to try to capture Savannah, the capital of Georgia and its only city of any size. ♪ With the help of an African American river pilot named Sampson, the British fleet sailed up the Savannah River and began disembarking below the city at dawn on December 29, 1778. ♪ Some 700 Continental troops and 150 local militia were waiting. The British commander saw that a direct assault was certain to be bloody. ♪ Then Quamino Dolly, an elderly enslaved man, led part of the British force through a swamp that allowed them to get behind the startled Americans and open fire. [Gunfire] The Patriots panicked. British troops chased them through the town. 83 Americans were killed and 30 more drowned trying to swim across the Yamacraw Creek. 453 surrendered. The British lost just 7 dead. ♪ Over the weeks that followed, The British captured Augusta and reimposed royal rule in Georgia. "I have," their commander boasted, "ripped one star and one stripe from the rebel flag." [Bird squawks] Voice: My disposition always active, I could not content myself at home while my fellow countrymen were fighting the battles of my country. John Greenwood. ♪ Narrator: In January of 1779, the teenaged fifer John Greenwood decided to try something new. He would sign onto a Boston privateer, hoping both to strike more blows at the British and to make a fortune for himself. He chose the 18-gun, 130-man "Cumberland" because its commander was Captain John Manley, who had been the most successful sea raider in the Continental Navy for years and who was now a civilian only because there were too few naval vessels for him to have one to command. Atkinson: The Americans have no navy to speak of. Congress asks that 13 frigates be built. None of those frigates really get into action in a meaningful way. The British have 400 warships. What the Americans do have are privateers. Philbrick: Privateers made warfare a for-profit endeavor, and so you had countless sailors in New England and up and down the coast, volunteering to go out in privateers, take British vessels, and make them money from what they got from them. Narrator: Profits from privateering attracted a host of Revolutionary leaders, including Generals Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, and George Washington himself. Investors shared the profits from the sale of captured cargo with the officers and men who took them, like the crew of the "Cumberland," John Greenwood's ship. Voice: Every ship had the right or took it to wear what kind of fancy flag the captain pleased. Captain Manley's flag was a very singular one, with a pine tree painted green and under the tree the representation of a large rattlesnake cut into 13 pieces, then in large black letters, "Join or Die." John Greenwood. [Cannon fire] Narrator: Over the course of the Revolution, some 1,700 American privateers are thought to have prowled the seas, capturing nearly 2,000 British vessels. John Greenwood and the "Cumberland" set out for the Caribbean, the most profitable hunting ground. Americans had already seized so many British merchant ships that they had reduced the sugar trade by 2/3. ♪ The "Cumberland's" voyage went smoothly at first. They easily commandeered a British ship loaded with soldiers and wine. A few days later, they came within sight of the port of Bridgetown on the island of Barbados... but the next morning, a British Navy frigate called the "Pomona" bore down on them with 36 guns and a crew of 300. [Cannon fire] British cannonballs tore through the "Cumberland's" sails and rigging. One shot went "through and through" the hull, Greenwood remembered, causing the whole ship to shudder. There was nothing else to do but surrender. ♪ The Americans spent 5 grim months in the Bridgetown jail before they were exchanged. ♪ John Greenwood would serve on at least 4 more privateers before the Revolution ended. He was captured and imprisoned 3 more times and somehow survived it all. ♪ After the war, John Greenwood would become a prominent Manhattan dentist. His most celebrated patient was his old commander, George Washington, for whom he fashioned dentures of human and horse's teeth and ivory from a hippopotamus. [Bird squawks] Voice: You ask me, "Can the enemy continue to prosecute the war?" I answer, "Can we carry on the war much longer?" Certainly, no. The true point of light, then, in which to place and consider this matter is not simply whether Great Britain can carry on the war, but whose finances-- theirs or ours-- is most likely to fail. George Washington. Narrator: General Washington spent the first 5 weeks of 1779 in Philadelphia, summoned there by Congress. It was not a happy visit. "I never was much...afraid of the enemy's arms," Washington wrote a friend, but he did fear that people were wearying of the war that had gone on for 4 years and still had no end in sight, and Congress seemed mired, he said, in "party disputes and personal quarrels." The value of Continental currency was melting "like snow before a hot sun," he complained, so that "a wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions." Christopher Brown: On both the North American side and on the British side, there is an exhaustion that is settling in and an economic reality for both-- the American side, the question of coming up with the resources every year to be able to fight the war-- uniforms, guns, paying the men, replacing the ones who die, replacing the ones who desert. Britain has the money, but it starts to look a little bit like a sunk-cost problem. "Are we going to continue to pour money into an effort when there's no end in view?" ♪ Hogeland: One of the critical ways by which the Revolutionary War was funded was debt. There were a number of ways to raise money, but the best ways were to borrow, so you had to go to lenders, largely a merchant class, but also planters and even some prosperous farmers. It was a bit of a risky speculation because getting paid back and getting your interest paid would depend upon winning this extremely unlikely war. Nonetheless, that was a pretty good way of raising money to fight the Revolution, and it created an entire class of American lenders with strong interests in creating a very strong government because that was the only way they could see themselves getting paid their interest. ♪ Voice: Shall we at last become the victims of our own abominable lust of gain? Forbid it, heaven. Forbid it all. Our cause is noble. It is the cause of mankind, and the danger to it springs from ourselves. George Washington. ♪ Voice: When we took up the hatchet and struck the Virginians, our nation was alone and surrounded by them, and after we had lost some of our best warriors, we were forced to leave our towns, and now we live in the grass as you see us, but we are not yet conquered. Dragging Canoe. ♪ Colin Calloway: Indian Country is a mosaic of multiple Indigenous nations, each one of whom is pursuing its own interests and its own foreign policy. Woman: [Singing in Native language] Narrator: In the Ohio River Valley, the Delawares and their Shawnee allies had a long, contentious history with their expansionist neighbors. When the Revolution began, both nations struggled to stay out of it, but after Virginia militiamen violated a truce, most Shawnees sided with the British. In 1778, White Eyes, a Delaware war chief who leaned toward supporting the United States, went to Pittsburgh to negotiate with the Americans. ♪ The resulting Treaty of Fort Pitt seemed like a landmark agreement. Philip Deloria: The Fort Pitt Treaty is a really formal, legalistic document. An article near the end of the treaty says, "Oh, and by the way, when this is all over, "Indians can have a state like other states, and the Delaware"--this is the treaty with the Delaware-- "the Delaware will be the head of the state," and so it's making this very interesting promise of the possibility that Indian people could be part of the American republic. Narrator: White Eyes was made a colonel in the Continental Army and accompanied an American expedition against the British at Fort Detroit... [Gunfire] but somewhere along the way, Patriot militiamen killed him. With his death, the Americans had lost their best Indian ally in the Ohio Country, and the promise of the treaty was forgotten. [Horse neighs] In a council at Detroit, a delegation of Shawnees and Delawares promised the British that they would take up the tomahawk, "sharpen" it, "and strike against our Common Enemy." Calloway: The British have been telling them all along, "Don't trust the Americans because the Americans are out to take your land and to kill you." Voice: I always knew they were for open war but never before could get a proper excuse for exterminating them. To excel them in barbarity is the only way to make war and gain a name among the Indians. The cries of the widows and the fatherless on the frontiers required their blood from my hands. George Rogers Clark. ♪ Michael Witgen: George Rogers Clark is an Indian fighter and an Indian hater. He imagines himself as sort of seeking justice for white settlers who've died on the frontier at the hands of Native people, and he imagines himself as sort of the avenging angel of these communities. There is, to be sure, lots of violence in this backcountry, in part because white settlers are squatting on Native territory. ♪ Narrator: In February of 1779, Clark led his Virginians east from the Mississippi to take British outposts and destroy any Indians who dared support the enemy. His first target was Fort Vincennes on the Wabash River in what is now Indiana. There, he had 4 bound Indian captives lined up in full view of the fort and then hacked to death. Clark warned that if Vincennes did not surrender, all its defenders would suffer the same fate. The British commander gave up. Then Clark sent an ultimatum to any Indians tempted to make war on American settlers. Voice: I don't care whether you are for peace or war, as I glory in war. This is the last speech you may ever expect. The next thing will be the tomahawk, and you may expect in 4 moons to see your women and children given to the dogs to eat while those nations that have kept their words with me will flourish and grow like the willow trees on the riverbanks. George Rogers Clark. Narrator: Your "Name Strikes Terror to both English and Indians," one of Clark's captains told him, but "if there's not a stop put to Killing Indian friends, we must Expect to have all foes." Clark would not listen. Native people from the Smoky Mountains to the Great Lakes were now coming together to forget former quarrels and unite against the United States. Calloway: Most Native Americans recognize that the new United States represents an existential threat to them, their way of life, and their sovereignty, so it makes sense for Indian people-- for most Indian people-- to side with the British as the best bet to preserve their own independence and protect their land. Narrator: By the spring of 1779, hundreds of people, Indians and settlers, had been killed in the West. ♪ Deloria: There's a randomness to this, as well. "Those Indians killed some people over there, so we're gonna kill these Indians," but they didn't have anything to do with it, so you never quite know who's gonna come after you, and you never know what the logic is, and there's, most of the time, not a logic about why kill that person and not kill this person, so it's very uncertain kind of terrain, and I think it breeds an intense kind of violence that happens here. ♪ Narrator: A Shawnee boy named Tecumseh, one of the war's many refugees, would never forget the devastation that the American Revolution had brought to his country, but for him and his people, the Revolution was just one chapter in their struggle for independence. That war would rage on for decades. ♪ [Gulls squawking] Voice: If the enemy have it in their power to press us hard this campaign, I know not what may be the consequence. George Washington. Narrator: Like Washington, British General Clinton was stretched thin, too, and could only take small-scale actions. [Cannon fire] In May of 1779, he ordered raids in the Chesapeake Bay to destroy Virginia shipyards, dry docks, and tobacco warehouses. 17 ships were needed just to carry the loot back to New York. A few weeks later, he dispatched ships to sail up the Hudson and capture two forts-- at Stony Point and Verplanck's Point. The ease with which those forts fell convinced Washington to strengthen fortifications 10 miles to the north at a narrow curve in the river called West Point. Washington believed West Point "the most important post in America." The Polish engineer Colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko was given the task of designing a series of interlocking fortifications on both sides of the river. An enormous chain weighing 65 tons and covered by gun batteries at both ends had been installed to block hostile passage. ♪ In early July, Clinton ordered another expedition against the Patriot privateering that had taken such a toll on British shipping, burning Norwalk, Fairfield, and New Haven. ♪ It had been more than a year since the Battle of Monmouth. Washington remained eager to take back New York, but he didn't have the men or the ships. Still, he understood it would be damaging to his army's reputation if he did not strike back somewhere, so on the night of July 15th, he ordered General Anthony Wayne and a hand-picked force of 1,350 men to attack Stony Point on the Hudson. Under the cover of darkness, they took it. [Musket fire] [Sword is drawn from scabbard] "The fort & garrison are ours," Wayne reported back to Washington at 2:00 in the morning. "Our officers & men behaved like men who were determined to be free." ♪ Meanwhile, when enslaved African Americans from New England to Georgia learned that summer that General Clinton had issued a proclamation promising "refuge" within the British Army to "any Negro" who was "the property of a Rebel," many of them began to see the British flag as a symbol of hope. ♪ Like Lord Dunmore before him, Clinton was no abolitionist. He decreed that any Black man captured while serving with the rebel army was to be sold as a slave, and the profit divided among his captors. The British commander's motives were exclusively military-- to strip rebels of their human "property" and assemble a big workforce to support his army... but for many Black Americans, their war was about ending slavery for themselves, their children, and their children's children. Vincent Brown: We know that about 15,000 Black people actually joined the British or ran away to the British lines versus about 5,000 ultimately entering the Patriot cause, and that's because, for many of those enslaved people, the British represented freedom. The Patriots did not. That's a hard story to tell to Americans. ♪ Man: Fire! [Cannon fire] [Men shouting] Narrator: In June 1779, King Carlos III of Spain joined France in the war against England. His goal was to recapture for his empire everything Spain had lost to Britain during the Seven Years' War and to add to it, as well, including Gibraltar, the British-held spit of land that controlled the narrow entrance to the Mediterranean. ♪ For the Spanish king, like the French king, the American Revolution was useful only to undercut Britain. Christopher Brown: This is not about securing American independence. This is about cutting Britain's economic commercial might down to size, but it's risky, though, especially for Spain, because Spain has a empire in the Americas that looks a little bit like Britain's North American empire only much larger and many, many, many more people. And so you encourage a colonial independence movement in the British Empire, who's to say your own people won't get the same idea? Narrator: Given the sudden widening of the global war, the opposition in Parliament called upon King George to direct measures for restoring peace to America. He would not hear of it. Voice: The present contest with America I cannot help seeing as the most serious in which any country was ever engaged. Step by step, the demands of America have risen. Independence is their object. Should America succeed in that, the West Indies must follow. Ireland must soon be a separate state. Then this island would be reduced to itself and soon would be a poor island indeed. King George III. [Gull squawking] Voice: "London Morning Post." John Paul Jones resembles a Jack o' Lantern to mislead our mariners and terrify our coasts. He's no sooner seen than lost. ♪ Narrator: John Paul Jones was now in command of another ship-- a slow, battered French merchant vessel. He fitted it out with 40 old French guns, gathered a 320-man crew from 8 different countries, and renamed it the "Bonhomme Richard" after the French version of Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanack." ♪ In August, the "Richard" and several smaller warships sailed all the way around the British Isles in search of merchant prizes. Jones took 17 ships, captured 100 British sailors, and locked them up below his decks. ♪ Late in the afternoon on September 23rd, just off the chalk cliffs of Flamborough Head, Jones caught up with a convoy of some 40 British supply ships. He signaled his squadron to form a line of battle. When they failed to respond, the "Bonhomme Richard" alone engaged the "Serapis," the larger of the two Royal Navy escort ships. Commanded by Richard Pearson, a veteran sailor, the British vessel was a fast, new 44-gun frigate. [Cannon fire] As the battle began, hundreds of English villagers lined the cliffs, hoping to see a British man-of-war destroy the dreaded rebel they called "Pirate Jones." [Men shouting] Narrator: A British broadside caused cannon on the "Richard's" lower gun deck to explode, killing men and putting the rest of the battery out of action. At one point, the "Serapis" rammed the "Richard." Their rigging became entangled, and before the British ship could break free, Jones ordered his men to throw grappling hooks, locking the two ships together gunport to gunport. [Cannon fire] Their crews fired into each other at point-blank range. The "Bonhomme Richard" took the worst of it-- half the crew dead or wounded, fires raging everywhere, decks slippery with blood, seawater rushing in through holes blasted in the hull-- but then a sailor high in the "Richard's" rigging managed to lob a grenade down the main hatchway of the British ship. [Explosions] It set off explosions from one end of the "Serapis" to the other. [Explosions continue] Half its crew were dead or wounded. Captain Pearson surrendered. Jones clambered aboard the British warship and sailed it into neutral Dutch waters. The "Bonhomme Richard" sank the next day. In Paris, John Paul Jones was hailed as a hero. He met Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, and when he heard that George III had knighted Captain Pearson for fighting so valiantly, Jones was unimpressed. "Should I have the good fortune to fall in with him again," he said, "I'll make him a lord." ♪ [Rattle and drum playing] Voice: We do not mean to let the enemy penetrate into our country, for we well know that as far as they set their foot, they will claim the country is conquered. Old Smoke. Jennifer Kreisberg: [Singing "Grief" in Native language] Narrator: Back in the summer of 1777, the British and their Mohawk and Seneca allies had prevailed over their enemies in their ambush near Oriskany Creek. [Gunfire] Over the months that followed, New York and Pennsylvania saw raid after raid, skirmish after skirmish. Patriots drove Loyalists from their homes. Loyalists and their Indian allies burned settlements at Cherry Valley and in the Wyoming Valley. Hundreds died on both sides. Atkinson: It has gotten to the point where Washington is under intense pressure from Congress, from the state of New York, from the state of Pennsylvania, to do something about it, and because the war has kind of gone fallow in the North after Monmouth, he agrees that he will put together a punitive expedition against the Indians led by one of his major generals, John Sullivan, to drive them away from the frontier. ♪ Calloway: One of the things that I think is always on Washington's mind during this war is the end of the war, so Washington basically realizes, "We're gonna win independence because France is in the war, "Spain's in the war, and we need to make sure "that we can present a legitimate and robust claim to western land." One of the foundational truths of American history is that this is a nation built on Indian land, and Washington would not dispute that, I think, for a minute. Narrator: Washington's orders to General Sullivan in May of 1779 had been clear and uncompromising. Voice: The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more that the country may not merely be overrun, but destroyed. You will not by any means listen to any overture for peace before the total ruin of their settlements is affected. George Washington. Narrator: The Continental Army invaded from 3 sides. In early August, Colonel Daniel Brodhead led 600 men northward from Fort Pitt to destroy the Seneca villages along the upper Allegheny River. Sullivan and 3 Continental brigades started north along the Susquehanna, while another moved west from the Mohawk Valley. At the end of the month their combined forces-- 4,500 men--began marching north. ♪ Witgen: They don't find destitute villages or scattered villages of savage people. They find what, to them, are undoubtedly easily recognizable prosperous villages. They're cedar-planked buildings, multiple-story buildings, often with chimneys, often with glass windows. [Child speaking] Witgen: These people have material wealth that they've accumulated over the years, and they have houses that look like something that people on the Eastern Seaboard would inhabit. [Gunfire] ♪ Narrator: On August 29th, some 600 Senecas, Mohawks, Cayugas, Delawares, and Loyalists tried to halt the invasion and were defeated. ♪ Voice: We sent out a small party to look for some of the dead Indians. They found them and skinned two of them from their hips down for boot legs-- one pair for the major, the other for myself. Lieutenant William Barton. [Man shouting orders] Voice: Our brigade destroyed about 150 acres of the best corn that I ever saw-- some of the stalks grew 16 feet high-- besides great quantities of beans, potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, and watermelons, and the enemy looking at us from the hills. Lieutenant Erkuries Beatty. Voice: There is something so cruel in destroying the habitations of any people, however mean they may be, that I might say the prospect hurts my feelings. Dr. Jabez Campfield. Narrator: When some soldiers asked General Sullivan if he wouldn't at least spare fruit orchards that had taken years to grow, he refused. "The Indians," he said, "shall see that there is malice enough "in our hearts to destroy everything that contributes to their support." ♪ Deloria: The Sullivan expedition ends up mapping New York for future settlement. Everybody kind of moves through New York and says, "Wow. These apple orchards are so great, "these cornfields are so fantastic, I'm coming back here at the end of this," right? And so in many ways, it is not only a military campaign. It's a scouting expedition for future settlement. Narrator: The troops torched village after village-- Catherine's Town, Appletown, Cayuga Town, Kanadaseaga, Canandaigua, Honeoye. By then, Sullivan was within miles of Little Beard's Town, which he had been told was the grand capital of Indian Country. Little Beard's Town was the home of Mary Jemison, who had been adopted years earlier by Senecas after her Irish parents had been killed during a raid. Voice: He was about to march to our town when our Indians resolved to give him battle on the way. They sent all the women and children into the woods. And then, well-armed, they set out to face the conquering enemy. Mary Jemison. ♪ Narrator: A scouting party of 26 Continentals, guided by an Oneida scout and commanded by Lieutenant Thomas Boyd, was advancing ahead of the main column on September 13th, when they stumbled into a Seneca and Loyalist ambush. [Gunfire] 16 men were encircled. 14 were killed and scalped. Boyd and another man were captured. ♪ The next day, Sullivan's main army reached Little Beard's Town. Voice: On entering the town, we found the body of Lieutenant Boyd and another rifleman in a most terrible, mangled condition. They was both stripped naked and their heads cut off. Erkuries Beatty. Narrator: Sullivan's men buried what was left of their companions, looted and burned all 128 dwellings in Little Beard's Town, and then spent 8 hours methodically uprooting and destroying crops. By the end, Sullivan reported to Washington that his army had burned a total of 40 towns. Farther to the west, Colonel Brodhead had destroyed 10 more. ♪ Most of the Seneca refugees made their way to Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario, where some 5,000 men, women, and children belonging to a host of nations huddled together in muddy camps. ♪ Voice: We of the Six Nations have been much cast down by the great loss we have sustained. But yet we do not despair. We are determined to persevere in the cause we have engaged in. We hope to be able to survive the winter, and then we mean once more to meet our enemies and see whether we are to live or die. And if such is the will of the Great Spirit, we will leave our bones with those of the rest of our brethren, rather than evacuate our country or give our enemies room to say we fled from them. Twethorechte. ♪ Narrator: The damage Patriot campaigns did to Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Mohawk homelands was profound and permanent. Some Haudenosaunee would come to call George Washington "the Town Destroyer" and would remember the American Revolution as "the Whirlwind." ♪ [Waves breaking] In the late summer of 1779, both George Washington and British General Henry Clinton believed that the long-awaited all-out American assault on British-occupied New York City could finally be just weeks away. Each had learned that the French fleet was sailing back north from the West Indies. Neither was sure where it was headed. Clinton ordered all British troops to withdraw from occupied Newport to strengthen New York's defenses. Washington readied plans for a siege of the city and called upon 5 neighboring states to provide him with more militia, but French Admiral d'Estaing never came. Instead, he appeared at the mouth of the Savannah River with 32 warships to join forces with southern Patriots who had already retaken Augusta and were eager to recapture the rest of Georgia. ♪ Aboard were 4,000 French troops, including 750 "free men of color," Black and mixed-race troops from what would one day be called Haiti. ♪ While d'Estaing waited for his American allies to join the siege, he surrounded Savannah with heavy artillery and demanded its surrender. The outnumbered British refused, stalling for time until reinforcements of their own could reach the city. As they braced for an attack, redcoats and Loyalist troops and scores of Savannah's free and enslaved residents had time to complete two defensive lines around the city. [Cannon fire] After Continentals and Patriot militiamen arrived from Charleston, d'Estaing led a direct assault on October 9th. Some Americans became mired in a rice field. [Shouting and gunfire] French troops in white uniforms proved easy targets. British guns sent grapeshot, nails, and chunks of iron tearing through the attackers. The ditch, a British officer remembered, was chock full of their dead. [Gunfire continues] De Rode: For the French-American alliance, it is quite the defeat. People do lose their trust in the availabilities of the French to help the Americans. They were very happy to have signed an alliance with them, but the first campaigns, plural, completely failed. Narrator: D'Estaing, who had been wounded twice, sailed away to France. The American commander General Benjamin Lincoln limped back to Patriot-controlled Charleston. Voice: You know the importance of Charleston. It is the bond that binds 3 states to the authority of Congress. If the enemy possessed themselves of this town, there will be no living for honest Patriots. David Ramsay. ♪ Atkinson: The winter of 1779-1780, probably the harshest winter in North America in the 18th century. ♪ New York Harbor froze over solidly. You could drag cannon from the tip of Manhattan Island to Staten Island. You could cross the Hudson River on foot, and the winter was all the worse in Upstate New York for the Indians. Voice: That winter was the most severe that I have witnessed since my remembrance. The snow fell about 5 feet deep and remained so. Almost all the game upon which we depended perished and reduced us almost to starvation. Mary Jemison. ♪ Narrator: For General Washington and most of his army at winter quarters in and around Morristown, New Jersey, the temperature rarely rose above zero. It was "cold enough to cut a man in two," Joseph Plumb Martin remembered. ♪ Joseph Ellis: The winter in New Jersey at Morristown was worse than Valley Forge. The enthusiasm for the war had begun to wane years before, and it continued to wane each year. Voice: We were absolutely literally starved. I did not put a single morsel into my mouth for 4 days except a little black birch bark. I saw several of the men roast their old shoes and eat them, and I was afterwards informed that some of the officers killed and ate a favorite little dog that belonged to one of them. Joseph Plumb Martin. Narrator: To add to their misery, the men of Joseph Plumb Martin's 8th Connecticut Regiment had not been paid for months. By spring, they had had enough. ♪ Voice: The men now saw no other alternative but to starve to death or break up the army. This was a hard matter for the soldiers to think upon. They were truly patriotic. They loved their country, and they had already suffered everything short of death in its cause. What was to be done? [Joseph Plumb Martin] Narrator: The 4th and 8th Connecticut Regiments planned to desert. When a colonel tried to talk them out of it, someone stabbed him with a bayonet. A Pennsylvania regiment was rushed in to surround them, and its colonel managed to talk the men into staying on. In the end, Martin wrote, "We were unwilling to desert "the cause of our country when in distress. We knew her cause involved our own." ♪ Voice: This is the most important hour Britain ever knew. If we lose it, we shall never see such another. Henry Clinton. Narrator: It had now been 21 months since General Clinton was ordered to take the Carolinas. On the day after Christmas 1779, leaving enough of a force behind to defend New York, Clinton finally sailed south for Charleston. Atkinson: Every farthing of the wealth in South Carolina is built on the back of slavery. That's one of the reasons why South Carolina and the other Southern states have robust militias. It is not to repel foreign invaders. It's to suppress potential slave insurrections. Narrator: Charleston was one of the largest cities in the United States, home to 12,000 people, half of them enslaved. If it could be captured, the British believed, a Loyalist majority in the Carolinas would rally to the Crown. Lengel: Charleston has resisted British attacks before. There's a sense of confidence that it'll be able to resist British attacks again. Americans are almost delusional about it. They don't look the facts in the face of how vulnerable Charleston really is. The geography is impossible. Charleston is really out on a limb. The British are gonna cut this place off, and they're gonna capture it. Congress, instead of recognizing this fact, they keep sending more and more men to defend Charleston. They send the best that the Continental Army has. It's a mistake. ♪ Narrator: Some 30 miles southwest of the city on February 11, 1780, Clinton began landing his troops. As the British army marched toward Charleston, first hundreds, then thousands of enslaved men, women, and children fled their plantations to join them. ♪ It would be more than a month before Clinton's forces could form a line a mile and a half north of the rebel fortifications and begin a European-style siege. ♪ More British troops from New York and Savannah would swell the British army to more than 10,000, roughly twice as large as the force with which Patriot General Benjamin Lincoln hoped somehow to defend the city. Desperate for reinforcements, Lincoln suggested arming enslaved men and was told no. Whites feared giving weapons to Black people, and, besides, slave owners did not want their property killed or maimed in battle. Militia from the backcountry were also reluctant to come to the crowded city. They feared smallpox and were unmoved by the plight of planters and merchants whose wealth and political power they had long resented. ♪ On April 1, 1780, the British began constructing the first of a series of parallels, sequential support trenches that would allow them to inch closer and closer to the city. ♪ A week later, British warships forced their way into Charleston Harbor and took command of it. General Clinton called upon the rebels to surrender in order to save the town and its people from what he called "havock and desolation." General Lincoln refused. Man: Fire! Narrator: The British opened fire. [Cannon fire] The Americans fired back. Man: Fire! Narrator: The guns would continue day and night for a month. [Men shouting] ♪ As each blasted at the other, the British parallels moved closer to the American lines-- 800 yards... 450 yards... 250. ♪ There was no escape. General Lincoln asked that his surrendering men be granted the usual honors of war, but General Clinton refused: Rebels deserved no such honors. ♪ Lengel: When Charleston falls, it's a body blow to the Revolution and to the American cause. It's a humiliation because we've lost not only Charleston, but we've lost some of the best troops that we have, and the British in their surrender terms really drive home that humiliation. ♪ Narrator: It was the worst defeat suffered by the Patriots during the Revolution. An entire army was captured, 5,618 men by Clinton's count, including Benjamin Lincoln and 6 other generals, along with more than 300 cannon, 376 barrels of gunpowder, and 5,916 muskets. ♪ Hundreds of South Carolinians streamed into the occupied city from the countryside, eager now to swear allegiance to the Crown. ♪ Voice: To Lord Germain-- With the greatest pleasure, I report to your Lordship that the inhabitants from every quarter declare their allegiance to the King, and offer their services in arms in support of his government. In many instances, they have brought prisoners, their former oppressors or leaders, and I may venture to assert that there are few men in South Carolina who are not either our prisoners or in arms with us. Henry Clinton. [Birds chirping] Narrator: General Clinton and 4,000 troops returned to New York, leaving General Charles Cornwallis in command of the southern theater. A few more such victories, British commanders believed, and the Loyalty to the Crown of all the Southern Colonies would be reconfirmed. "The English lion," a German officer wrote, "has awakened from his sleep." ♪ Voice: Unless Congress is vested with powers competent to the great purposes of war, our cause is lost. We can no longer drudge on in the old way. I see one head gradually changing into 13. I see one army branching into thirteen-- and am fearful of the consequences of it. George Washington. [Wind blowing] ♪ ♪ Announcer: Next time on "The American Revolution"... The shock of treason. Joseph Ellis: He was the last person Washington ever thought would have betrayed him. Announcer: The South explodes in battle. Vincent Brown: It's sometimes brother against brother in this backwoods warfare. It's an ugly conflict. Announcer: And a new nation rises. Voice: Who would have thought that out of this multitude of rabble would arise a people who could defy kings? [Johann Ewald] [Men shouting] Announcer: Don't miss the conclusion of "The American Revolution" 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. ♪ 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-5-the-soul-of-all-america/

The American Revolution A Film By Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein & David Schmidt Conquer by a Drawn Game (January 1777 – February 1778) 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. [Musket fire] ♪ Voice: Mankind have ever been so prone to yield implicit obedience to that authority to which they have long been accustomed that there are few examples of resistance, unless the wanton abuse of power has rendered it necessary. When this is the case, the feelings of the man and the patriot are awakened, and both the peasant and the statesman are urged to struggle even in blood. No suffering which Britain can inflict will reduce America to submission. The thunder of their artillery may lay waste the cities, but the spirit of the people is unconquerable. Mercy Otis Warren. ♪ We think about the kind of anticolonial, insurgent uprisings, independence movements of the 20th century, and think of those as being sort of the Third World fighting back against the sort of imperial colonial powers. You don't always recognize the fact that the United States actually started that. ♪ Voice: England is the natural enemy of France. She is an enemy at once grasping, ambitious, unjust, and perfidious. The invariable and most cherished purpose in her politics has been, if not the destruction of France, at least her overthrow and her ruin. Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes. Narrator: The Comte de Vergennes, the French foreign minister, was determined to avenge his country's humiliating defeat in the Seven Years' War. He had already persuaded Louis XVI to open French ports to American merchants for the selling of American goods and the buying of French ones, and even to provide some funds with which the Americans could purchase guns and ammunition, provided they did so in secret. ♪ Woman: The French needed to reorganize their army. They were reforming their navy. So they did start to send clandestine weapons, they started to send money, they started to send uniforms to the "insurgents" in America because they didn't want to have an open warfare against the British at the time, yet. ♪ Narrator: At the end of 1776, the Continental Congress had sent 70-year-old Benjamin Franklin, the most widely admired American on earth, to try to talk France into providing much more help. Franklin understood that the Americans could not compete with the British Army and Navy unless France entered the war, and that the French would not dare do so unless the Americans showed that they could win. The last time he had heard from America, prospects did not look bright. The "Declaration of Independence" had proved American seriousness, but the invasion of Canada had been a disaster, and British forces had defeated Washington on Long Island, then driven him out of New York City. After a secret meeting with Vergennes in Paris in January of 1777, Franklin promised that if France and its ally Spain were to join the Americans, Britain would be reduced to a state of "weakness and humiliation." But continuing reports of American defeats were not encouraging, and Vergennes refused to meet again. He also feared that the thirteen former colonies would never come together as a nation. Publicly, Franklin remained optimistic, but privately, he was anxious for better news from home that might persuade the French to join the American Revolution. Voice: Those who live under arbitrary power do nevertheless approve of liberty and wish for it. 'Tis a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own. [Franklin] ♪ Narrator: Though Benjamin Franklin did not yet know it, George Washington's army had stunned the British and lifted Patriot spirits by taking the garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, on the day after Christmas 1776. [Officer shouts command] Voice: Though the rebels seem to be ignorant of the precision, order, and even of the principles by which large bodies are moved, they possess some of the requisites for making good troops, such as extreme cunning, great industry, and a spirit of enterprise upon any advantage. Though it was once the fashion of this army to treat them in the most contemptible light, they are now become a formidable army. Lieutenant William Harcourt. ♪ Narrator: But now the British were on the move again. General William Howe sent General Charles Cornwallis and some 9,000 redcoats and Hessians to recapture Trenton and trap the rebel army against the Delaware River. Washington decided to fight rather than retreat. To do otherwise, he said, would be to destroy the "dawn of hope." On January 2, 1777, he posted 1,000 men along the road from Princeton, a college town twelve miles away, with orders to slow Cornwallis' column until evening. The Patriots contested every inch of ground as they fell back through Trenton to join most of Washington's army arrayed on the south side of the Assunpink Creek. At dusk, when the advance guard of Cornwallis' column started across the lone stone bridge over the Assunpink, American artillery opened up on them with what Henry Knox proudly called "great vociferation." Three times, the redcoats tried to cross the bridge. Three times, American fire hurled them back. Perhaps one hundred Americans would be killed or wounded before darkness fell, but the British lost three times as many. Cornwallis called a halt. His forces still outnumbered Washington's, and the creek was fordable upstream. "We'll go over," Cornwallis reportedly told his commanders, "and bag him in the morning." Washington ordered a small detachment to stay on their hillside that night, tending campfires and banging entrenching tools to make the enemy believe they were digging in. Meanwhile, the rest of his army would slip silently away, following unguarded back roads to get behind Cornwallis and attack his rear guard at Princeton. At dawn, two British regiments on their way to reinforce Cornwallis saw Americans marching toward them. The British "were as much astonished," Patriot General Henry Knox would write to his wife Lucy, "as if an army had dropped perpendicularly upon them." [Cannonfire] The British fired their cannon, then charged with fixed bayonets. The American Commander, General Hugh Mercer's, horse was shot out from under him. He fought with his sword as long as he could before being mortally wounded by British bayonets. His men began to fall back. Washington once again galloped to the front, ignoring the bullets flying all about him, exhorting his men to stand and fight. One of his aides covered his eyes, fearful of seeing his commander shot from his saddle. Man: He's really lucky. Bullets are going all around him, everybody else is dying, he's never scratched. He assumes he's never going to be killed. Now, there's probably a lot of people in war that assume that and they get killed. And we never hear about them. He doesn't believe in God in the total Christian sense, but he believes in Providence. Providence. He really thinks the gods, or God, is on our side and his side. Narrator: Washington's men held. Veteran Continentals joined them. Now it was the Americans' turn to charge. [Soldiers shouting] "I never saw men" look "so furious as they did," one remembered. Voice: The fate of this extensive continent seemed suspended by a single thread. But happy for us, happy for unborn millions, that we had a general who knew how to take advantage, and by a masterful maneuver frustrated the designs of the enemy. Lieutenant Samuel Shaw. Man: George Washington was no military colossus. He was no Frederick the Great or Napoleon. His natural instincts, I think, were to preserve the Americans intact so they could fight another day. But this caution was occasionally complemented by boldness. For the most part, Washington saw his primary task as holding the Continental Army together, because it represented the rebellion. Without the Continental Army, there would be no United States. Narrator: Seventy Americans had been killed or wounded in the Battle of Princeton, but the enemy had lost another 450-- killed, wounded, or captured. By the time Cornwallis realized Washington had fooled him at Assunpink Creek that morning, it had been too late to catch him. And when he and the rest of his army reached Princeton that evening, Washington and his army had vanished again. ♪ Voice: Everyone was so frightened that it was completely forgotten even to obtain information about where the Americans had gone. But the enemy now had wings, and, it was believed, had flown to the mountains of Morristown. Captain Johann Ewald. Narrator: Morristown, New Jersey, a tiny village in the heart of the thickly forested Watchung Mountains, would be Washington's winter headquarters for the next five months. It was out of reach of the British Navy but well suited for raiding British outposts and for keeping an eye out for a British advance from New York. Most of the troops who had offered to stay after Trenton went home as soon as their reenlistment was up. By the end of January, Washington had fewer than 3,000 Continentals in his camp. But encouraged by Patriot victories at Trenton and Princeton and angered by the excesses of British occupation, New Jersey militiamen now rallied to him. Voice: They are actuated by resentment now. And resentment coinciding with principle is a very powerful motive. John Adams. Narrator: Whenever British foraging parties ventured from their outposts, Patriots attacked them... [Musket fire] at Maidenhead and Quibbletown, Bound Brook and Drake's Farm, Piscataway and English Neighborhood, and at least 50 other places. That winter, more British and Hessian troops were killed fighting over forage than would fall in battle. Voice: The British lost men who were not easily replaced. The rebel loss was soon repaired by drafts from the militia. It inured them to hardships, and it emboldened them to look a British or a Hessian soldier in the eye, whose very face would make a hundred of them run after the Battle of Brooklyn. Justice Thomas Jones. Narrator: And now New Jersey Loyalists found themselves the targets of vengeful Patriots. At Morristown, Patriots hanged two Loyalist officers, and got 33 of their men to enlist in the Continental Army by threatening to hang them, too. General Howe's hope of pacifying the state had brought civil war instead. [Musket fire] If one thinks of this as a British Empire and British subjects, who are contending for their rights, right, then it's a civil war. Then it's family against family, sometimes brother against brother. It's hard to tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. This is a predicament that is incredibly fraught and incredibly difficult for people to sort out. Woman: This inability to really figure out who is the enemy here is a problem. They're marching through the countryside, and they don't know. "This farm, is this farm-- are these Loyalists? "Are there rebels in there? Are they going to shoot at us out of the window," which does happen. Who do you trust? Narrator: The frequent attacks forced the British to abandon most of their New Jersey outposts. Winter would end in frustration and failure. Voice: The next will be a trying campaign. And as all that is dear and valuable may depend upon the issue of it, let us have a respectable army, such as will be competent to every exigency. George Washington. Narrator: Spring was coming. Armies would soon be again on the move. And Washington wanted to be ready for whatever the British were planning next. Congress had come back to Philadelphia, but while they were in exile in Baltimore, it had become clear that expecting delegates to make instant decisions about the battlefield was impractical. They had voted to grant General Washington total control over his army for a period of six months and authorized him to imprison without trial suspected Loyalists or anyone who refused to supply his army. Some delegates had feared that affording Washington such powers would make him a dictator, betraying the principles for which they were supposed to be fighting. General Nathanael Greene sought to reassure them. Voice: I can see no evil nor danger to the states in delegating such powers to the general. There was never a man who might seem more safely trusted, nor a time when there was a louder call. [Greene] ♪ Narrator: Most of Washington's new recruits signed on for three years and a ten-dollar bonus, but those who signed up for the duration of the war were promised a twenty-dollar bonus, and 100 "free" acres of Indian land when the war was over. Man: When we think about what was offered to the Continental soldier, Indian land at the end of it all-- that land hasn't been taken, ceded, bought. That land is still Indian land, right? It tells you that the entire Revolution is premised on the future possibility. Narrator: These soldiers were different from the men who had rallied after Lexington and Concord. Most of them had been farmers and artisans, propertied men with taxes to pay, creditors to appease, crops to sow and harvest. From now on, the Continental Army would be made up predominantly of the poorest of the poor-- jobless laborers and landless tenants, second and third sons without hope of an inheritance, debtors and British deserters, indentured servants and apprentices, felons hoping to win pardons for their service, immigrants from Ireland, and immigrants from Germany, or their descendants who had never learned English. John Adams had worried that only "the meanest, idlest, most intemperate and worthless men" in America could ever be persuaded to serve more than a year. But victory would be impossible without them. When patriotic speeches and free rum failed to attract enough recruits, some states instituted drafts. Names were drawn from a hat. Married men were exempted. Propertied draftees wanting to avoid service could hire substitutes at fees to be negotiated with their replacements. Epping, New Hampshire, managed to avoid sending any of its men to war by paying men from neighboring villages to go. South Carolina advertised for "vagrants and idle disorderly persons." Thousands of African Americans, enslaved and free, served alongside Whites in units from New England all the way south to Georgia. Some volunteered, some were drafted. Many stood in for their gun-shy enslavers. Connecticut and Rhode Island would later promise enslaved recruits their freedom when the war ended. From 1777 onward, the American Revolution, begun in part to defend the interests of property-owners, would be fought mostly by men who owned little or no property at all. ♪ Voice: Montreal. Two deserters from the rebel country informed me that my property had been seized, and that my wife and the children had been turned out of my house and sent off through the woods, snowstorms, and bad roads. John Peters. Narrator: To escape persecution and fight for his king, the Vermont Loyalist John Peters had fled to Canada in 1776, leaving behind his wife Ann and their six children. [Knock on door] After his defection, Patriots seized his home and evicted his family. Carrying their infant son, Ann Peters managed to get everyone all the way to Lake Champlain, where they were spotted by a British boat and carried north to a rendezvous with John. They were "naked and dirty," he remembered, but safe. In the weeks that followed, John Peters began to recruit American Loyalists for a new regiment-- the Queen's Loyal Rangers. He would command it, and his now-15-year-old son, John Jr., would be among the first to sign up. ♪ Voice: The smallpox has made such headway in every quarter that I find it impossible to keep it from spreading through the whole army. [Washington] Narrator: As fresh recruits made their way into the Continental Army camps, some carried with them smallpox, the scourge that had threatened the army from the beginning of the Revolution. Washington had always resisted ordering inoculation, because it took men out of action for weeks. But now he decided to run the risk. Voice: I have determined not only to inoculate all the troops now here that had not had smallpox but shall order the doctors to inoculate the recruits as fast as they come in. [Washington] Ellis: The British troops were less vulnerable to smallpox because they had been exposed more to it in Scotland and Ireland and England. Washington made a decision that to serve in the Continental Army, you had to first undergo inoculation. And that was probably the single most important military decision he made. Narrator: Private Joseph Plumb Martin reenlisted and received his inoculation that spring along with 400 other Connecticut recruits at a Continental Army supply depot at Peekskill in the Hudson Highlands. He had been just 15 when he first joined the Connecticut militia. After enduring combat, cold, hunger, and a bout of near-fatal illness, Martin had decided he'd had enough and left his militia regiment in December. But life on his grandparents' farm soon bored him, and when local draftees thought he might be talked into serving in their place in the Continental Army, they began bidding against one another. Voice: I thought I might as well endeavor to get as much for my skin as I could. I forget the sum. They were now freed from any further trouble, at least for the present, but I was again a soldier. [Martin] Narrator: By the middle of May, Washington's force at Morristown had grown to nearly 12,000 men. Voice: There is a clock calm at this time in the political and military hemispheres. The surface is smooth and the air serene. Not a breath, nor a wave. No news, nor noise. John Adams. ♪ Voice: By what means, may I ask, do you expect to conquer America? If you could not effect it in the summer, when our army was less than yours, nor in the winter, when we had none, how are you to do it? You cannot be so insensible as not to see that we have two-to-one the advantage of you, because we conquer by a drawn game and you lose by it. Thomas Paine. ♪ Narrator: In London, Lord George Germain, the secretary of state for America, was embarrassed by how long the war was taking and concerned about growing opposition to it in Parliament. Germain found the setbacks at Trenton and Princeton "extremely mortifying," thought Sir Guy Carleton's failure to capture Fort Ticonderoga the previous autumn inexcusable, believed the Howe brothers' repeated offers of pardons to rebels "sentimental," and insisted they instead force Americans to undergo what he called "a lively experience of losses and sufferings." Conway: Running of the war largely comes down to Lord George Germain, who is coordinating and orchestrating military operations from Britain. In logistical terms, fighting a war 3,000 miles from the home islands was a major enterprise in the days of sailing ships. Christopher Brown: When the British government gets information about what's happening on the ground, they're already weeks out of date. And then they're issuing orders for things that will happen two to three months in the future. You can think about what that means for actually making decisions. Narrator: General John Burgoyne, a dashing favorite of the King, had persuaded Germain to place him in charge of an army in Canada, promising to succeed in a second invasion of the Colonies, where General Carleton had failed. Voice: I do not conceive any expedition can be so formidable to the enemy or so effectual to close the war as an invasion from Canada by Ticonderoga. [Burgoyne] Narrator: Burgoyne proposed a three-pronged attack. He would lead an army south to seize Ticonderoga and then move on to take Albany; to the west, a smaller diversionary force would advance via Lake Ontario and the Mohawk River Valley, rallying support among Indians and Loyalists as they went; finally, Sir William Howe was to lead his army up the Hudson from New York to complete the juncture of the three forces, isolating New England. General Howe had other plans. Voice: I am fully persuaded the principal army should act offensively to get possession of Philadelphia, where the enemy's chief strength will certainly be collected. The rebels are at present buoyed up by hopes of assistance from France. If that door were shut by any means, it would, in my opinion, put a stop to the rebellion. [Howe] ♪ In 18th-century European wars, the capture of an enemy's capital city usually brought the war to a close. Of course, America had no capital city in the sense of Paris in France or London in Britain. But it did have Philadelphia, which was seen as the political headquarters of the rebellion. Howe became obsessed with the capture of Philadelphia and the defeat of Washington's army. Narrator: Because Lord Germain had failed to reconcile the two incompatible strategies, his two commanders-- Howe and Burgoyne-- would plan two distinct campaigns in which neither would support the other. There would be no rendezvous on the Hudson. But Burgoyne was so sure of success that even before he set sail, he had bet the opposition leader in Parliament a sizeable sum that he would "be home victorious by Christmas Day" 1777. Voice: If the frenzy of hostility should remain, the messengers of justice and of wrath await them in the field, and devastation, famine, and every concomitant horror that a reluctant but indispensable prosecution of military duty must occasion. [Burgoyne] ♪ Narrator: By the time he reached Quebec, Burgoyne had convinced himself that thousands of Native Americans would join his army. In fact, no more than 500 men answered his call-- Mohawks, Algonquins, Abenakis, and Wyandots-- drawn from seven villages along the St. Lawrence River. They joined him for many reasons: to seek the honors of war, to receive British goods in payment of their service, and out of an eagerness to settle old scores with the hated people they called Bostonians. Man: The Hudson River Valley, the Mohawk River Valley, the Adirondack Mountains, Lake Champlain, and up to the St. Lawrence River Valley, that's been the battlefield for the colonial powers for centuries. And our people were swept up in it, and a lot of what happened had more to do with what kings and queens in Europe were deciding. A major chess tournament happened here, and we were the pawns. Narrator: On June 20, 1777, Burgoyne's enormous army began moving south on Lake Champlain. Scores of birch bark canoes paddled by Native Americans came first. They were followed by Royal Navy warships and 200 bateaux carrying more than 6,500 British and German regulars, Loyalist troops, and French-speaking Canadians, along with a number of children and hundreds of women. Fort Ticonderoga, on the west side of the lake, was Burgoyne's first target. It was now linked by a floating bridge to a separate hilltop fortification on the east side called Mount Independence. Determined to take both outposts, Burgoyne sent forces down each side of the lake by land. He expected he would have to mount a full-scale siege, but a British officer quickly spotted a fatal flaw in the rebel defenses. About a mile southwest of Ticonderoga stood a hill that overlooked both forts. It remained undefended. If British guns could be hauled to the high ground, both Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence would be completely exposed. When astonished Patriots spotted redcoats peering down from the hill on the afternoon of July 5th, American General Arthur St. Clair ordered both fortifications abandoned. The next morning, British troops raised the King's colors above Fort Ticonderoga. ♪ The Americans fled in two directions, with Burgoyne's men right behind them. After hours of tramping in the heat, those Patriots heading east called a temporary halt at a tiny deserted frontier settlement called Hubbardton. [Bugle music] Voice: The morning after our retreat, orders came very early for the troops to refresh and be ready for marching. Some were eating, some were cooking, and all in a very unfit posture for battle. [Musket fire, men shouting] Then there was a cry: "The enemy are upon us!" Ebenezer Fletcher, 2nd New Hampshire. Narrator: Ebenezer Fletcher was a sixteen-year-old from New Ipswich, New Hampshire. As the menacing line of redcoats moved closer, firing volleys as they came, the 2nd New Hampshire fired back and then began to seek cover. Voice: Many of our party retreated into the woods. I made shelter for myself and discharged my piece. But before I had time to reload it, I received a musket ball in the small of my back and fell with my gun cocked. [Fletcher] Narrator: Elsewhere, the fighting intensified. In the fierce combat that followed, the Americans more than held their own against some of Britain's best-trained professional soldiers. In the end, the British won, but they were too tired to pursue the retreating Americans. Though in great pain, Ebenezer Fletcher decided to escape; he slipped away into the forest, eluded hungry wolves and bands of Loyalists, and eventually made it home to New Ipswich, New Hampshire. Once he healed, he would return to serve out his three-year enlistment in the Continental Army. ♪ Voice: It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg. [Thomas Jefferson] [Bell ringing] Narrator: Most of the revolutionaries belonged to Protestant denominations, but there were Catholics and Jews among them, too, as well as Muslims, whose faith had crossed the Atlantic on slave ships. Central to the philosophy of some of the most influential creators of the United States was their belief in a Supreme Being but one who did not interfere in the affairs of men or distinguish between faiths. They were deists, and they believed it was each individual's responsibility to lead a virtuous life, which could only come from tolerance and a lifetime of learning: the pursuit of happiness. ♪ Man: The revolutionaries believed that the American people would have to be educated. Without education, there could be no virtue in the populace, and without virtue in the populace, the government would fail. Republics are based on authority coming from the bottom up, not like monarchies from the top down. So you require an educated, virtuous-- they use that term over and over, drawing it from antiquity-- virtuous population to sustain a republican government. Voice: Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York have long subsisted without any established religion at all. They have made the happy discovery that the way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them. Let us, too, give this experiment fair play. Thomas Jefferson. ♪ Voice: To Lord Germain, I have the honor to inform your Lordship that the enemy were dislodged from Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, and were driven, on the same day, beyond Skenesborough on the right and to Hubbardton on the left. General John Burgoyne. ♪ Narrator: The armies had been moving at a dizzying pace. Burgoyne's forces had reached Skenesborough by July 9th, but they had now outrun their gigantic supply train. Burgoyne decided to send his guns by water, south on Lake George. But his men were to march through the woods to Fort Edward on the east bank of the Hudson just 23 miles away. General Philip Schuyler, commander of the Continental Army's Northern Department, sent axmen into the woods to slow Burgoyne's overland advance. He would let the forest fight for him. The narrow path between Skenesborough and Fort Edward ran along a twisting stream called Wood Creek. The Americans felled trees every few feet on both sides of the road so that their tangled branches made the path impassable; they also destroyed some 40 crude bridges that crossed and recrossed the creek and used boulders to flood the boggy ground that surrounded it. It would take Burgoyne's men three exhausting weeks to turn the path into a road their wagons could navigate. And he was still a long way from his main objective--Albany. ♪ Voice: O the American war! I heard, I saw, I felt, smelled, and tasted its woes for ninety-two long months: famines, sores, sicknesses, plagues, battles; houses ransacked and burned; towns depopulated; gardens made graves. Roger Lamb. Narrator: Among the men in Burgoyne's army was Irish-born Corporal Roger Lamb, who kept his memories alive in watercolors and in print. ♪ By now, 400 more Native Americans from the Great Lakes-- Fox, Menominee, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk-- had joined Burgoyne. His Indian allies attacked retreating Patriot forces. In one instance, they killed 22 men and scalped their corpses to terrify those sent out in search of them. Voice: This strikes a panic in our men which is not to be wondered at, when we consider the hazards they run by being fired at from quarters, and the woods so thick they can't see three yards before them, and then to hear the cursed war whoop, which makes the woods ring for miles. General John Glover. Narrator: Settlers were attacked, too, with little regard for their loyalties. A young woman named Jane McCrea, on her way to meet her Loyalist fiancé, was killed. And when her scalp was brought into Burgoyne's camp, he threatened to hang the perpetrator. Deloria: We don't really know much about Jane McCrea. She seems to have had reddish-brown hair and been an average person. But very quickly, Jane McCrea becomes a blonde and she has very long, beautiful hair. And she's pure and fair. And she's been plucked out of life right in her prime. Darren Bonaparte: It was just too captivating and tragic and scary a thing. That became part of the propaganda aspect of the war. It was used against us. Deloria: What happens is the American propagandists are not simply attacking Indians; they're using it to attack the British themselves and British policy. It's that the British sponsor Indian warfare that kills Jane McCrea, and that becomes a very, very powerful piece of cultural argument. Narrator: Hundreds of Patriot soldiers continued to flee southward. By the end of July 1777, most of what was left of the American forces in the area had withdrawn to Saratoga, a small cluster of houses north of Albany. Voice: To General Washington, our army is weak in numbers. I foresee that all this part of the country will soon be in their power unless we are speedily and largely reinforced. General Schuyler. Narrator: Washington had been shocked to learn of Ticonderoga's fall, but he also shared Nathanael Greene's view that "General Burgoyne's triumphs "may serve to bait his vanity and lead him on to his total ruin." To try to bring on that ruin, Washington took a calculated risk and sent some of his best officers north-- General Benedict Arnold, whose "conduct and bravery" he greatly admired, as well as Colonel Daniel Morgan and his sharpshooting frontiersmen from Virginia. Voice: General Washington is certainly a most surprising man, one of nature's geniuses, a heaven-born general if there is any of that sort. That a Negro-driver should, with a ragged banditti of undisciplined people, the scum and refuse of all nations on Earth, so long keep a British general at bay-- it is astonishing. It is too much. Nicholas Cresswell. Narrator: Burgoyne remained confident he would capture Albany. He assured Lord Germain that the obstacles the Patriots were placing in the path of his army were merely acts of "desperation and folly." He had once hoped to join forces with General Howe on the Hudson River, but Howe was already headed for Philadelphia. ♪ Man: General Howe can't go overland through New Jersey because the Americans are strong enough that they could really harass the column that he has to send down there. So, he decides to send his force by ship. Narrator: With favorable winds, it should have taken the fleet a little over a week. But winds died or blew the wrong way. Lightning storms split masts and ripped sails. Water and provisions ran low. Instead of trying to sail up the Delaware River under Patriot guns, the British would go still further south and approach Philadelphia via the Chesapeake Bay. Voice: I wish we could but fix upon their object. Their conduct is really so mysterious that you cannot reason upon it so as to form any certain conclusions. [Washington] Narrator: When Washington finally got word that the British had entered the Chesapeake, he realized where they were headed and hurried his army to defend Philadelphia. ♪ Voice: I think there can be no doubt that Howe aims at this place. He gives us an opportunity of exerting the strength of all the middle states against him, while New York and New England are destroying Burgoyne. Now is the time. Never was so good an opportunity for my countrymen to turn out and crush that vaporing, blustering bully to atoms. John Adams. [Crows cawing] Narrator: By early August, General Burgoyne was in trouble. He had reached the Hudson at Fort Edward, but he was still 50 miles from Albany. He would press on, but to do that, he needed more provisions. When he heard that only a handful of militia were guarding a sizable rebel depot at Bennington, he ordered nearly 800 men-- British, German, Native-American, French-Canadian, and Loyalist troops-- to seize it. [Bagpipe music] The men spoke at least five different languages. Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum, was certain his disciplined forces had nothing to fear from what he called "uncouth militia." Baer: Baum does not know English. He doesn't really know the terrain. There is some confusion about where they're going, who they're dealing with. They go out towards Bennington, and they are met by a large number of Americans that had assembled there that they just had not anticipated. Narrator: There were far more than "a handful" of militiamen; some 1,800 New Englanders and New Yorkers were waiting for them. Four miles west of Bennington, Colonel Baum spread his force in a wide arc with two strong points-- a hastily-built redoubt atop a forested 300-foot hill in the center, manned by British and German troops, and a second redoubt on a less lofty hill defended by John Peters, who had led his Queen's Loyal Rangers south from Canada back to near his old home in Vermont. On August 16th, at 3:00 in the afternoon, the Patriot commander, John Stark of New Hampshire-- a hard-fighting veteran of Breed's Hill, Trenton, and Princeton-- sent his men forward. [Musket fire, soldiers shouting] Narrator: The Germans were quickly outflanked and outnumbered. Baum urged his dragoons to try to cut their way out through the swarming militia. Moments later he fell, mortally wounded. Meanwhile, in and around the Loyalist redoubt, old friends battled one another. Voice: As the rebels were coming up, I observed a man fire at me, which I returned. He loaded again as he came up crying out, "Peters, you damned Tory, I have got you." I saw that it was a rebel captain, Jeremiah Post, an old schoolfellow and playmate and a cousin of my wife's. He rushed on me with his bayonet, which entered just below my left breast but was turned by the bone. Though his bayonet was in my body, I felt regret at being obliged to destroy him. [Weapon fires] Colonel John Peters, Queen's Loyal Rangers. [Musket fire] Narrator: All afternoon, the battle went back and forth. The Patriots eventually prevailed. Wounded and with his son by his side, John Peters led the survivors of his regiment back to Burgoyne's Army. Few of Colonel Baum's men escaped death, injury, or capture. Prisoners were packed into the Bennington Meeting House, many badly wounded. Voice: They were in all stages of suffering, and some were dying. Some of their fellow soldiers who were less seriously wounded would go to a dying comrade, and, kneeling by his side, would clasp their hands, bow their heads, and swaying their bodies up and down, would mutter prayers in their own language. And when death came to him, they would pass to another. [Woman] Narrator: At Bennington, Burgoyne had lost nearly 15% of his army, and he had accomplished nothing. Assurances about the near universality of Loyalist sentiments were dead wrong. Voice: The country now abounds in the most active and most rebellious race of the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm upon my left. [Burgoyne] ♪ Voice: Resolved that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation. [The Flag Resolution] ♪ Narrator: During a short meeting devoted mostly to fiscal matters, the Continental Congress had called for a new flag to represent their new country. But two years later, the committee of Congress overseeing the Army still regretted that there was as yet no "national standard." Some militia companies and privateers designed their own banners and had their wives and daughters make them. Although artists often included the Stars and Stripes in their postwar romantic renderings of Revolutionary events, it is not known ever actually to have been flown by the Continental Army above a battlefield, nor does anyone know who made the first one. ♪ Voice: We know the Indians now to have the highest notions of liberty of any people on Earth-- a people who will never consider consequences when they think their liberty likely to be invaded, though it may end in their ruin. George Croghan. Narrator: The Haudenosaunee was a centuries-old union comprised of the Six Nations-- Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida, and Mohawk. Each was allowed to act in its own interest, but they were expected to act together in matters affecting them all. They likened their confederacy to a "great longhouse." The Senecas were the keepers of its western door, the Mohawks--the eastern door. At the center was Onondaga, where representatives met around the Great Council Fire. Man: Normally you hammer things out until everybody says, "OK, this is what we will do." And that had endured, right? Battered and bruised and bombarded through colonial wars and all the rest of it. That had endured. And then the Revolution occurs. [Cannon firing] Bonaparte: For us, the Mohawk people, it was survival. Period. And you didn't know which side was going to be the best choice. We kind of gravitated mostly to the British because they had kind of won our respect, beating the French, and pretty much having our interests when they dealt with the regular colonists. Voice: The disturbances in America give great trouble to all our nations. The Mohawks, our particular nation, have on all occasions shown their zeal and loyalty to the Great King. Thayendanegea. Narrator: No Mohawk man identified more closely with the British than Thayendanegea, who was also known as Joseph Brant. His sister Molly had married the British superintendent of Indian affairs, and her connections helped Brant make his name among the English. He had fought for the Crown in the French and Indian War at 15, attended an English mission school, and, in 1776, traveled to London, where he reaffirmed his people's loyalty to Britain in an audience with King George III. Many of the Indian people in this time are kind of anonymous to us in some ways because we don't have accurate representations of them, but one of the major exceptions is Joseph Brant, who had his portrait painted not once but many, many times. This is the 18th century. Not just anybody got their portrait painted. To have your portrait painted multiple times was unusual. I think he controlled his space. "I confound your stereotypical images of savage Indians." Narrator: Brant had fought against the Patriots at the Battle of Long Island, then began traveling from town to town within the Six Nations, urging the young men to join him. It was imperative, he told them, to "defend" our "lands and liberty against the rebels "who, in a great measure, began the rebellion to be sole Masters of the Continent." But suspicious of the way Brant seemed to move between the Indian and British worlds, more traditional leaders resented this minor chief's ambition to lead them into war, and preferred to hold back until it seemed clear Britain was headed for victory. And so, when Brant assembled his armed Volunteers, only a handful were from the Six Nations. Perhaps 80% of them were Loyalist settlers disguised as Indians. ♪ In early August, Brant's men were with British forces as they initiated the second part of Burgoyne's grand scheme to seize the Hudson and cut off the New England states. They started by laying siege to Fort Stanwix, a Patriot outpost far west on the Mohawk River, a crucial meeting place that connected the Great Lakes with the East. The British had believed the fort was only thinly defended and in disrepair. Actually, it was held by some 600 Continental soldiers, and they had been strengthening the fortifications at the urging of some Oneidas, who made their homes in the valley and did not share Joseph Brant's enthusiasm for the Crown. The American Revolution was about to plunge the once-united Six Nations into a civil war of their own. Calloway: Many Oneidas were closer to the Americans. Some are intermarried. Oneida people were, in many cases, surrounded by American colonists. Narrator: When an 800-man Patriot militia column commanded by General Nicholas Herkimer reached Oriska, an Oneida settlement on Oriskany Creek just eight miles from the embattled Fort Stanwix, sixty Oneida chiefs and warriors joined them. They were ready to fight alongside their White neighbors and help thwart the British invasion. Joseph Brant and his men were waiting for them, alongside hundreds of other Mohawks, Senecas, and Loyalists. [Woman singing in Native American language on soundtrack] On the morning of August 6, 1777, as Herkimer's long column filed into a ravine and began splashing across a stream, Loyalists fired from above, while hundreds of Native Americans allied with the British ran down among the startled men, wielding tomahawks, clubs, and scalping knives. ♪ Bonaparte: It was a slaughter. It was horrific what happened. And even the Native people who survived the war said they'd never experienced anything like that. ♪ Narrator: Perhaps as many as 400 Patriot militia lay dead, including some 30 of their Oneida allies. Almost 100 of the British forces had been killed or wounded, 65 of whom were Indians. The Mohawks and Senecas were accustomed to warfare that yielded far fewer casualties, and were stunned. Voice: There, I have seen the most dead bodies all over it that I never did see, and never will again. I thought, at the time, the bloodshed a stream running down on the descending ground. And yet some living crying for help, but have no mercy on to be spared of them. Chainbreaker. ♪ Bonaparte: We look back on the Battle of Oriskany as one of those points where the Longhouse seemed to be burning-- the all-time worst-case scenario, where we're actually killing each other in combat. For what? For what? For somebody else can claim our land? [Musket fire] Narrator: Fort Stanwix continued to hold out. British artillery proved too light to damage the fort's reinforced walls. Then word came that General Benedict Arnold and a large force of Continentals were on their way to break the siege. Britain's Native American allies decided to go home. They wanted time to mourn their dead. Without them, the cause was lost. The British withdrew their remaining forces and returned to Canada. The other army Burgoyne had once hoped would meet him at Albany would not be there. Meanwhile, General Horatio Gates, the new commander of the Continental Army's Northern Department, was methodically gathering his forces near the village of Saratoga to stop Burgoyne. ♪ [Horse clopping] Voice: Philadelphia is the asylum of the disaffected. The very air is contagious. The Quakers in general are wolves in sheep's clothing. And while they shelter themselves under the pretext of contentious scruples, they are the more dangerous. Philip Schuyler. Narrator: Philadelphia may have been the place where the Patriots were trying to form a national government, but its citizens were deeply divided. I think one of the really great examples of the difficulties of any kind of sort of neutral place is what happens to the Quakers over the course of the war. The Quakers are famously pacifist. And that's not good enough in Revolutionary America. Narrator: When the first anniversary of American independence was celebrated in the city that July, Patriots had called upon homeowners to place candles in their windows as a symbol of fidelity to the cause. Thomas and Sarah Fisher's home on Second Street remained dark that evening, and suffered fifteen broken windows. The Fishers were Quakers and therefore officially neutral. Their faith, one believer explained, held that "setting up and putting down of kings and governments is God's peculiar prerogative." Patriots routinely raided their shops and warehouses to supply the Continental Army. But the Fishers were defiant: they would not accept Continental money or pay any tax that supported the war, and they refused to denounce King George III. On August 23rd, the Fishers rode out to Stenton, Sarah's family's country estate near Germanton. Voice: On the road, we heard the disagreeable news that Washington's army is to march that way. We met numbers of wagons and light horsemen, and, on our getting to Stenton, found General Washington's bodyguard had taken possession of our house. They behaved civil, were very quiet. And Washington appeared extremely grave and thoughtful. [Sarah Fisher] ♪ Narrator: On August 24th, Washington paraded his men through the streets of Philadelphia. He hoped to persuade its citizens that his army would be able to defend them. Many in the crowd cheered; others remained stone-faced. Among the officers riding alongside Washington that day was a Frenchman, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier-- the Marquis de Lafayette. Congress had just made him a major general. He was just nineteen years old. Voice: The welfare of America is intimately bound up with the happiness of humanity. She is going to become the deserving and sure refuge of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, of equality, and of a tranquil liberty. [Lafayette] Woman: Lafayette comes without a word of English but just with a sense that the American continent is the continent on which he will make his name, on which he stakes his glory, and with a willingness to essentially do anything that needs to be done for the sake of American independence. Narrator: Europe was momentarily at peace, and Lafayette was just one of many young officers-- from France, Bavaria, Prussia, and Poland-- all eager to show what they could do on the battlefield in the New World. But Lafayette stood out. He was so rich, he bought the ship in which he and a dozen other would-be officers had crossed the ocean. The young man's military experience was minimal, but his father had been killed by British artillery when he was two. "To injure England is to serve my country," he said. And he was determined to become a real major general, commanding a division of his own. de Rode: To George Washington, Lafayette was interesting. He had personal money with him that he could invest to buy uniforms, to buy supplies. He had a very important network at the French Court because he was, himself, from a very powerful family. So, if he could advocate for the cause of the American Revolution in France, it could create very important support from Versailles. Narrator: Washington liked him from the first, but would not consider giving him a command until he had seen how he fared in battle. Until then, he said, Lafayette was to join his staff, to consider himself part of his military family. ♪ Voice: I feel in a most painful situation between hope and fear. There must be fighting and very bloody battles, too, I apprehend. Why is man called humane when he delights so much in blood, slaughter, and devastation? Even those who are styled civilized nations think this little spot worth contending for, even to blood. Abigail Adams. ♪ Narrator: On August 25th, after five miserable weeks at sea, General Howe's 16,000-man army finally began to disembark near the mouth of the Elk River in Maryland. Atkinson: This is in the middle of the summer. It's broiling hot. These men have been on the ships for weeks. The horses are dying by the scores. But they disembark at the head of the Chesapeake Bay. And now they're looking for the Americans. Voice: Almost every movement of the war in North America is an act of enterprise, clogged with innumerable difficulties. A knowledge of the country, intersected, as it everywhere is, by woods, mountains, waters, or morasses, cannot be obtained with any degree of precision. General William Howe. Narrator: To block the enemy's advance on Philadelphia, George Washington interposed his 14,000-man army along Brandywine Creek, some 30 miles west of the city. The bulk of his force guarded Chad's Ford, prepared to face Howe's army in the open. Washington made sure his men understood what was at stake. Voice: If the enemy is overthrown, the war is at an end. One bold stroke will free the land from devastations and burnings. If we behave like men, this campaign will be our last. [Washington] Narrator: General Howe, now encamped near the village of Kennet Square, was eager for a climactic battle, too. He didn't think he could end the rebellion at one blow, but if he could destroy Washington's army and then seize Philadelphia, he would surely make that objective much easier. His plan was to divide his army and flank Washington's, just as he had on Long Island the previous summer. A little less than half his force, commanded by the German General Knyphausen, was to move toward Chad's Ford and keep Washington's army pinned down there, braced for an all-out attack. Meanwhile, the rest of General Howe's force, led by General Cornwallis and Howe himself, would move north as quietly as possible to attack the right flank of the rebel army. That attack was to be the signal for Knyphausen at Chad's Ford to storm across the Brandywine. If all went as planned, General Howe would be able to trap Washington's army between the two forces. Washington, again, misreads the ground. He has made tactical errors earlier in the war at the Battle of Long Island, and he makes another one at Brandywine. He believes that there are no fords up Brandywine Creek that the British can get across securely to outflank the Americans. That's not true. There are fords up there. The British find them. The British are well-informed. There are a number of Loyalists who are acting as guides; they're providing information about the terrain, about the topography, about, "Here on the map is where you can get around these American positions." ♪ Narrator: At daybreak on September 11, 1777, Generals Howe and Cornwallis set out on what would be a twisting seventeen-mile march to get behind the Americans. A dense morning fog screened their movements. General Knyphausen and his column began moving east soon after, along the Great Post Road toward Chad's Ford. [Cannon and musket fire] Forward elements of the American Army had felled trees across the road. Riflemen hidden in the woods fired into the enemy's ranks. American guns across the creek lobbed shells among them. But by midmorning, Knyphausen's men had driven the American advance troops back across the Brandywine, ready to storm across the creek when the signal was given. At his headquarters, General Washington was unsure what was happening. And so, he settled in for what he believed would be an all-out frontal assault across Chad's Ford, just as Howe wanted him to. Meanwhile, Howe and Cornwallis' men had waded across two waist-deep fords far upstream and marched for hours in intense heat without a break. The weary British and German troops halted on the bare slopes of Osborne's Hill to rest. They stayed there long enough for Washington to finally learn of the coming attack on his flank and order three brigades to leave their positions along the river and form a defensive line at another hill on which the Birmingham Meeting House stood: John Sullivan's men from Maryland and Delaware, William Alexander's from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and Adam Stephen's Virginians-- some 3,000 soldiers. [Cannon and musket fire] At around 4:00 in the afternoon, Howe ordered his much larger force forward in three perfectly disciplined columns. American marksmen fired into them from an apple orchard. American artillery tore through their ranks. The redcoats kept coming. Sullivan's brigade broke and ran, but the others held firm. Voice: There was a most infernal fire of cannon and musketry, the most incessant shouting. "Incline to the right!" "Incline to the left!" "Halt!" "Fire!" "Charge!" The balls plowing up the ground. The trees crackling over one's head. The branches riven by the artillery. The leaves falling as in autumn by the grapeshot. [British soldier] [Soldiers shouting] Man: A battle like Brandywine saw suffering at every corner. It was a hellscape in so many different ways. Cannonballs ripping through the forest; splinters killing men, just taking off arms, legs. [Cannons firing] Narrator: The outnumbered Americans were driven back five times, and five times managed to surge forward again before they finally broke. Had General Nathanael Greene and his reinforcements not raced some four miles in less than forty-five minutes to cover their retreat, it might have become a rout. Back at Chad's Ford, the sound of the fighting on Birmingham Hill had been the signal for General Knyphausen to send his army streaming across the Brandywine. The remaining Patriots could not hold. Washington ordered a retreat. ♪ Night fell. General Howe lamented that if he had more time, he could have brought about the rebel army's "total overthrow." Atkinson: The Americans, only by the grace of darkness, get away. The British can't chase them any further in the dark. It's a serious defeat for the Americans. It is going to open the gateway toward Philadelphia. ♪ Voice: We experienced another drubbing. But we did, I think, as well as could be expected. I saw not a despairing look, nor did I hear a despairing word. We had our solacing words always ready for each other: "Come, boys, we shall do better another time." Such was the spirit of the times. Captain Enoch Anderson. ♪ Narrator: The spirit of the times was not universal, as Washington's beaten army stumbled through the dark. Hundreds of men melted away into the countryside and headed home, making an accurate count of casualties impossible. But more than 1,000 Americans are thought to have been killed, wounded, or taken captive during the Battle of Brandywine, roughly twice as many casualties as the British had suffered. Voice: Our Americans, after holding firm for considerable time, were finally routed. While I was trying to rally them, the English honored me with a musket shot, which wounded me slightly in the leg. But the wound is nothing. The ball hit neither bone nor nerve, and all I have to do for it is to lie on my back for a while. Marquis de Lafayette. ♪ [Waves breaking, ship's rigging creaking] Voice: I needed all my courage and tenderness to keep my resolution of following my husband. Besides the perils of the sea, I was told that we would be exposed to be eaten by the savages, and that people in America lived upon horse flesh and cats. Baroness Friederike Riedesel. Narrator: When German General Friedrich Adolph Riedesel left Europe in 1776 to join General Burgoyne's northern campaign, he had left his pregnant wife and two small daughters at home. But as soon as she could, after her third daughter was born, Baroness Riedesel crossed the Atlantic with all three girls. In mid-August, she caught up with her husband and Burgoyne's army at Fort Edward. Voice: In the beginning, all went well. We cherished the sweet hope of a sure victory and of coming into the promised land. And when on the passage across the Hudson, General Burgoyne exclaimed, "The English never lose ground," our spirits were greatly exhilarated. [Baroness Riedesel] Narrator: On September 13, 1777, two days after Washington's defeat at the Battle of the Brandywine, General Burgoyne's army in New York began streaming across the Hudson near Saratoga on a bridge of boats covered with planks. Officers and men, women, children, horses, cattle, wagons, field-pieces-- it took three days for it all to cross. Waiting for them some 10 miles south of Saratoga were General Horatio Gates' 6,900 Continentals and 1,300 militia, dug in along Bemis Heights, a broad plateau anchored on the right by the Hudson River and sheltered on the left by craggy wooded bluffs. Colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish volunteer for the Americans, had chosen the site and laid out brigade encampments, breastworks, and artillery emplacements all along the Heights for 3/4 of a mile. Patriot cannon commanded the river road to Albany. Officers had a clear view of the rough terrain across which the British would have to march-- deep ravines and dense woods, broken here and there by half-cleared farmers' fields. Most of Burgoyne's Native scouts had left him by now, so while he knew the Americans were somewhere ahead of him, he had no way of knowing how many they were or precisely how they were positioned. On September 19th, he resolved to find out and then try to drive through the rebel lines. He divided his force into three columns. Scottish General Simon Fraser, with nearly 3,000 troops, set out to pinpoint his enemy's flank, hoping to locate high ground from which to fire on the rebels. 2,200 soldiers under German General Riedesel approached along the river road. Burgoyne himself led the middle column-- some 1,700 soldiers--to assault what he guessed was the center of the American lines. Watching from Bemis Heights, General Gates was content to wait. This was his first battlefield command, and he was a careful, cautious man. Both Fraser's and Riedesel's columns stalled, but Burgoyne's men managed to make it through the forest to a clearing named Freeman's Farm, where General Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan's riflemen went out to engage them. [Musket fire] Atkinson: General Burgoyne asks for reinforcements. Riedesel, who's a very fine commander, immediately sends some reinforcements up from the river to hit the Americans in the American right flank. And this successfully stops the American momentum. This First Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Freeman Farm, it's a draw, basically. You can say that the British have been successful in that they have held onto the ground, but for the most part, it's inconclusive. Narrator: Burgoyne had not located the main rebel positions on Bemis Heights, and had lost 591 men, nearly twice as many as the Patriots had lost, and, unlike General Gates, Burgoyne had no realistic prospect of replacing them. ♪ Voice: I was an eyewitness of the whole affair and shivered at every shot, for I could hear everything. I saw a great number of wounded. And what was still more harrowing, they even brought three of them into the house where I was. [Baroness Riedesel] ♪ Woman: Imagine what a battlefield looks like after a battle. It has a lot of bodies. It has a lot of blood and gore. And it was the job of women to go in and take care of those bodies, to clean them up, to identify them, if they could, to see over the burial of bodies. Part of the work of war is dealing with death. Voice: Although we repulsed them with loss, we ourselves were much weakened. The bodies of the slain were scarcely covered with the clay. And the only tribute of respect to fallen officers was to bury them by themselves, without throwing them in the common grave. So destruction comes with rapid wings, and ruin rushes on like a whirlwind to sweep the best officers, and sometimes almost entire battalions, from their strongest foundations. Roger Lamb. ♪ Voice: Harassed and exhausted by perpetual change from bad to worse, my poor afflicted mother consented to go beyond the mountains to Winchester. It was indeed a new world to us-- rude and wild as nature had made it. Betsy Ambler. ♪ Narrator: Betsy Ambler and her family from Yorktown, Virginia, had been on the move since the war began, trying to find a place that suited her mother's frail health and was safe from the British. For decades, Winchester, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley, had been an important waystation on the Great Wagon Road that settlers followed through the backcountry from Philadelphia to the Carolinas. Because it was so far inland, Winchester served new purposes: it was a relatively safe place for storing military supplies and materiel; a safe haven for refugees; and a place to house prisoners of war. Suspected Loyalists were often exiled to Winchester, too. Voice: We not unfrequently made acquaintance with agreeable men who were condemned to banishment in this dreary place on account of "disaffection," as it was called, to the great cause of liberty. Amongst those proscribed, genteel Quakers from Philadelphia were numerous. [Ambler] Narrator: One of those Quakers was Sarah Fisher's husband Thomas. As British troops advanced on Philadelphia, Congress and the local authorities had convinced themselves that he and seven other wealthy Quakers were communicating with the enemy. They had them arrested, and when they again refused to swear allegiance to the new government, loaded them into wagons and sent them off under guard to Winchester. ♪ Now alone in Philadelphia, Sarah Fisher had two small boys to care for and was nearly eight months' pregnant. Voice: I feel forlorn and desolate, and the world appears like a dreary desert, almost without any visible protecting hand to guard us from the ravenous wolves and lions that prowl about for prey, seeking to devour those harmless innocents that don't go hand-in-hand with them in their cruelty and rapine. [Fisher] Narrator: Her husband's only crime, Sarah Fisher said, was that he saw himself as a subject of Britain. But she was cheered to see that rebels and their sympathizers, including all the members of the Continental Congress, were now fleeing the city in fear of the enemy's approach after the American defeat at Brandywine. Voice: People in very great confusion, some flying one way and some another, as if not knowing where to go or what to do. Wagons rattling, horses galloping, women running, children crying, delegates flying, and altogether the greatest consternation, fright, and terror that can be imagined. [Fisher] ♪ Narrator: George Washington still hoped somehow to keep the British from occupying Philadelphia. He ordered General Anthony Wayne and his Pennsylvania division to attack the rear of the advancing army. But local Loyalists alerted General Howe that Wayne and his men were camped near the Paoli Tavern, and he sent 1,700 soldiers to deal with them. ♪ As they approached through the woods on the night of September 20th, they were ordered to remove the flints from their muskets for fear someone's gun would go off and alert the sleeping rebels. They fixed bayonets and exploded out of the trees with what a British officer remembered: "such a cheer as made the wood echo." [Sound of musket fire, bayonets stabbing, soldiers shouting] Voice: The light infantry bayoneted every man they came up with. And the cries of the wounded formed altogether one of the most dreadful scenes I ever beheld. Every man that fired was instantly put to death. Lieutenant Martin Hunter. Narrator: At least 53 Patriots were stabbed to death, and more than 200 were wounded or captured. Americans would remember it as the Paoli Massacre. Washington gave up hope of holding Philadelphia. ♪ Six days after the massacre, September 26, 1777, General Cornwallis led 3,000 victorious British troops into Philadelphia. Voice: About 10 o'clock, the troops began to enter. A band of music played a tune, which I afterwards understood was called "God save Great George Our King." Then followed the soldiers, no wanton levity, or indecent mirth, but a gravity well becoming the occasion on all their faces. Sarah Fisher. Narrator: General Howe, with 8,000 more troops camped in Germanton, made his headquarters at Stenton, Sarah Fisher's country home that had only a few weeks before been occupied by George Washington. At Brandywine, General Howe had repeated the tactics that had won the Battle of Long Island. Now Washington hoped to repeat his successful surprise attack on Trenton by hitting Howe at Germanton in early October. Washington's plan was ambitious and complicated. Success would depend on dividing his 11,000-man force into four separate columns to undertake miles-long marches at night on poorly marked roads so as to arrive simultaneously on the town's northern and western edges at precisely 5 A.M. on October 4th. Then, at dawn, they were to storm into town on four different roads. It would be the first time during the Revolution that Washington dared hurl his army against the main British force. [Musket fire] John Sullivan's and Anthony Wayne's columns swiftly swept aside British pickets north of the town. Wayne's men found themselves face-to-face with the British Light Infantry, the same soldiers who had massacred so many of their comrades at Paoli just two weeks earlier. Voice: Our people pushed on with their bayonets and took ample vengeance for that night's work. The rage and fury of the soldiers were not to be restrained. [General Anthony Wayne] Narrator: The Americans continued to push the British back through the town, driving them from one fenced yard to the next. Voice: Fortune smiled on our arms. The enemy were broke, dispersed, and flying in all quarters. We were in possession of their whole encampment. [Wayne] Narrator: In the face of the advancing Americans, British Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Musgrave ordered half his regiment-- between 100 and 120 soldiers-- to duck inside the largest house in Germanton, the home of Benjamin Chew, the Loyalist ex-chief justice of Pennsylvania. Its walls were two feet thick. Musgrave directed his men to block the door and ground-floor windows with furniture. Downstairs, his men were to bayonet anyone who dared try to enter while others fired into the passing rebels from the upstairs windows. Atkinson: Washington is advised, "Bypass them. Go around them. Isolate them. Keep the momentum going." Narrator: But Henry Knox insisted that the house had to be taken right away. "It would be unmilitary," he said, "to leave a castle in our rear." Washington agreed. [Cannons firing] Artillery blew in the front door and damaged statuary in the garden, but bounced harmlessly off the walls. Continentals from New Jersey repeatedly stormed the house and were cut down on the lawn and front steps. As the siege at the Chew House went on, the bulk of the American force streamed past, continuing to drive the British back. A Patriot victory seemed likely. Voice: About this time came on perhaps the thickest fog known in the memory of man, which, together with the smoke, brought on almost midnight darkness. It was not possible to distinguish friend from foe at five yards distance. [Elias Dayton] Narrator: When the men who had penetrated the farthest heard the furious gunfire still coming from the Chew House, they believed the enemy had somehow gotten behind them. Now it was the Patriots who began to fall back. General Cornwallis himself led the counterattack. His troops freed Musgrave's men from the Chew House and drove the Americans back along the roads they'd followed into town. The British had won...again. ♪ Voice: I rode over the battlefield, and with surprise and admiration approached the house, which the brave Colonel Musgrave had defended. During the battle, some thirty defenders were killed and wounded. I counted seventy-five dead Americans. The rooms of the house were riddled by cannonball and looked like a slaughterhouse because of the blood splattered around. There, the entire English army was saved. Johann Ewald. For the Americans, what had been a sure victory-- it looked like they were going to drive the British back into Philadelphia--becomes a fairly significant defeat. Washington gets away again, but there are hundreds of casualties. The British capture quite a few Americans. And what had been a glorious morning turns into a very grim evening. Narrator: Reporting to Congress, Washington tried to put the best face he could on his humiliating defeat. Voice: Upon the whole, it may be said the day was rather unfortunate than injurious. We sustained no material loss of men and brought off all our artillery, except one piece. The enemy are nothing the better by the event. And our troops, who are not in the least dispirited by it, have gained what all young troops gain by being in actions. [Washington] He is very good at, I think, the key tactic for an insurrectionary force, which is living to fight another day, and successfully plays a long game of just not being crushed. Ellis: Washington's not a great field commander, but he's resilient, and he understands the kind of war he's fighting. At some point, he reaches the insight-- and it's a basic insight-- he doesn't have to win. The British have to win. He only has not to lose. ♪ Voice: The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government so different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners, and habits had so little resemblance, their intercourse had been so rare, and their knowledge of each other so imperfect that to unite them in the same principles of theory and the same system of action, was certainly a very difficult enterprise. John Adams. ♪ Narrator: After fleeing Philadelphia, the Continental Congress reconvened in a small county courthouse in York, Pennsylvania. The delegates had taken just 27 days of discussion the previous year to declare American independence, but it would take them 526 days to fashion the Articles of Confederation. They were meant in part to demonstrate to France that the thirteen former colonies could act effectively together, but the result was not a government. Woman: They needed to have a way to pay for wars; they needed to run wars. They needed to possess Native lands; they needed to redistribute those lands. But the Articles had so much political compromise that it wasn't a functional centralized government. Narrator: By design, the Articles of Confederation were weak and constrained. Each state remained a more or less independent republic jealously guarding its own sovereignty and freedom. Congress had no power to tax, which meant it couldn't pay the soldiers in the Continental Army. And before the Articles could even become operative, they needed to be ratified by all the states. That would take another 39 months. ♪ Voice: The armies were so near that not a night passed without firing. No foraging party could be made without great detachments to cover it. I do not believe either officer or soldier ever slept during that interval. General John Burgoyne. Narrator: For eighteen days after the Battle of Freeman's Farm near Saratoga, the American and British armies strengthened their defenses and skirmished constantly but remained precisely where they had been when the shooting stopped. Meanwhile, Loyalist refugees continued to stream into the British camp, forcing Burgoyne to reduce rations by a third. Desertions, especially among German troops, rose so fast that Baron Riedesel promised his soldiers ten guineas for every would-be deserter they brought back and five guineas if he had to be shot for resisting. At 11:00 in the morning on October 7th, Burgoyne led some 1,500 men out of his camp and formed a long, thin line across two unharvested wheat fields just west of Freeman's Farm, redcoats on the right, Germans in the center, elite British grenadiers on the left. While some of his men harvested the wheat his encampment desperately needed, Burgoyne and several of his officers climbed onto the roof of a log cabin with spyglasses, trying to see if there was a way around the rebel left. Tall trees blocked them from seeing anything useful, but Americans patrolling the no man's land saw them. [Musket fire] Shots were exchanged. From Bemis Heights, General Gates now ordered Daniel Morgan's corps and Brigadier General Enoch Poor's brigades to attack the British on both flanks. British General Fraser was killed. The redcoats crumbled. Then Benedict Arnold galloped onto the battlefield. He seemed to be everywhere, leading a charge against the British center, racing between the armies through a swarm of musket balls to rally another regiment so that they could sweep the defenders from two fortified cabins. He urged the exhausted men on to seize a redoubt manned by some 200 German grenadiers. Voice: You cannot conceive how men looked. And at first it appeared to me that if the order came for us to march, I could not do it. Nathaniel Bacheller. Narrator: But when Arnold gave the order, Bacheller and his comrades climbed to their feet and moved forward again, shouting as they rushed toward the front of the redoubt. Arnold rode around it, forced his way inside, and demanded that its defenders surrender. Most did surrender or fled, but one fired a musket ball that shattered Arnold's left leg, the same leg that had been wounded at Quebec two years before, and killed his horse, which fell on him. Unable to move, Arnold continued to shout orders until the fighting died down and he could be carried from the field. "Arnold was our fighting general," one of his men remembered. "He was as brave a man as ever lived." Philbrick: I think it's safe to say that Benedict Arnold should be regarded as the hero of Saratoga. It was really an aggressive move at the end that sealed the victory for the Americans. Narrator: The British stumbled back to Saratoga, carrying their wounded with them. [Cannons firing] Voice: October 10th--Saratoga. A frightful cannonade began, principally directed against the house in which we had sought shelter, probably because the enemy believed that all the generals made it their headquarters. Alas! It harbored none but wounded soldiers or women. We were finally obliged to take refuge in a cellar. My children laid down on the earth with their heads upon my lap. My own anguish prevented me from closing my eyes. Eleven cannonballs went through the house, and we could plainly hear them rolling over our heads. One poor soldier, whose leg they were about to amputate, had the other leg taken off by another cannonball in the very middle of the operation. [Baroness Riedesel] [Cannons firing] Narrator: Militiamen continued to stream into Gates' army, its numbers now swollen to 17,000. By October 13th, the Americans had Burgoyne's army completely surrounded. Voice: Every hour, the position of the army grew more critical and the prospect of salvation grew less and less. Even for the wounded, no spot could be found which could afford them a safe shelter. The sick and wounded would drag themselves along into a quiet corner in the woods, and lie down to die. General Riedesel. ♪ Conway: Saratoga was a body blow to the British. It was clear that all of the old assumptions, that the British Army was a professional force that would sooner or later prevail over the amateurish Americans, all those assumptions were undermined. The amateurish Americans had actually beaten the British. For the British, this was not just a military defeat; it was a psychological blow of very considerable proportions. Narrator: That afternoon, Burgoyne gathered his staff. They were trapped, without food or forage. They voted to begin negotiations with General Gates. ♪ For three days, messages flew back and forth between the camps. Voice: During the time of the cessation of arms, a soldier in the 9th Regiment named Maguire came down to the bank of the river with a number of his companions, who engaged in conversation with a party of Americans on the opposite shore. ♪ Maguire suddenly darted like lightning from his companions, and resolutely plunged into the stream. [Water splashing] At the very same moment, one of the American soldiers, seized with a similar impulse, resolutely dashed into the water from the opposite shore. The wondering soldiers on both sides beheld them eagerly swim towards the middle of the river, where they met. They hung on each other's necks and wept. They were brothers. One was in the British and the other in the American service, totally ignorant until that hour that they were engaged in hostile combat against each other's life. Roger Lamb. ♪ Narrator: On the morning of October 17th, Gates' generous terms were accepted. He and Burgoyne met between their respective lines and shook hands. Burgoyne presented his sword to Gates-- who handed it back, as dictated by military custom. To his dying day, Burgoyne would blame others for his defeat-- Lord Germain, General Howe, his Loyalist German and Native allies-- everyone but himself. Voice: All the army gave up and surrendered themselves prisoners of war to our men. Such a thing was never heard of. Such a sight was never seen before, so many men giving in to us. Exult, oh, Americans and rejoice and praise the Lord, who hath done wonderful things for you. Ezra Tilden. Narrator: An entire British army had been forced to lay down its arms-- one lieutenant general, two major generals, three brigadiers, 350 commissioned and staffed officers, 5,900 other ranks, and some 600 women and children. Along with them, the Americans seized 30 artillery pieces, 60 wagons, 1,500 swords, 3,400 bayonets, and 4,600 muskets and rifles. Burgoyne's Canadian and Loyalist auxiliaries were to be permitted to make their way north to Canada, while more than 6,000 British and German prisoners were to be marched to Boston and sent home from there to Europe, pledged never to return. But when they got there, they learned that Congress had refused to ratify Gates' agreement with Burgoyne. After months housed in makeshift camps, they were sent south. Voice: I never had the least idea that the creation produced such a sordid set of creatures in human figure-- poor, dirty, emaciated men, great numbers of women, who seemed to be the beasts of burden, and children, some very young infants who were born on the road. Hannah Winthrop. Narrator: The prisoners would eventually be marched more than 600 miles to Charlottesville, Virginia, and still later to other camps in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Many died. Hundreds escaped. Some would rejoin the British army at New York; others joined the Continental Army or simply disappeared into the populace. By the time the remaining prisoners from Saratoga were released in 1783, only a few of the 6,000 would be left. ♪ [Distant bird cawing] Voice: Everything is almost gone of the vegetable kind, butchers obliged to kill fine milk cows. One woman walked two miles out of town only for an egg. Such is the dreadful situation we are reduced to. Sarah Fisher. Narrator: At first, Philadelphia Loyalists had welcomed British troops into their city. But as it grew colder that autumn, homeowners would be forced to take officers into their homes, whether they wanted to or not and, as Sarah Fisher wrote, there were soon "very bad accounts "of the licentiousness of the English officers deluding young girls." Sarah Fisher felt especially isolated and alone, but she soon gave birth to a baby daughter, whom she named Hannah, after her late mother. American patrols made foraging in the surrounding countryside dangerous for British troops. Provisions grew increasingly scarce. Prices soared. General Howe had to find a way for the Royal Navy to ferry food, supplies, and equipment up the Delaware River to Philadelphia. American forces occupied two forts--Fort Mifflin on Mud Island, and Fort Mercer at Red Bank on the New Jersey side. For weeks, the British worked to destroy them. The besieged Americans, Thomas Paine wrote, had nothing "to cover them but their bravery." Joseph Plumb Martin had been among the last Americans to evacuate Fort Mifflin. Voice: Every private soldier in an army thinks his particular services as essential to carry on the war he's engaged in, as the services of the most influential general. And why not? What could officers do without such men? Nothing at all. [Distant explosions] Great men get great praise, little men nothing. [Martin] Narrator: Both forts fell. The Delaware was now open to British shipping. Howe's army could safely spend the winter in Philadelphia. In December, George Washington would lead his army into winter quarters, a hilly, wooded, remote place northwest of Philadelphia called Valley Forge. [Distant bell tolling] In France, Benjamin Franklin had heard little of what was happening in America for seven long weeks. Then, on December 4th, a rider clattered into his courtyard, shouting he had important news. Franklin hurried out to greet him. "Sir," he asked, "is Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, sir," the courier answered. Franklin, dejected, turned to go back inside. "But, Sir," the rider said. "I have greater news than that. "General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war." Just a few months earlier, Franklin had written that only "a small matter" would be needed to bring France into the war with Britain. Clearly, the surrender of an entire British army was a large matter. The Comte de Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, whose newly rebuilt navy was now ready for war, saw the victory at Saratoga and the former colonies' tentative steps toward forming a central government as the best evidence so far that a French-American alliance might defeat the British. Louis XVI agreed. "America is triumphant," he said, "and England beaten." Alan Taylor: Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga is a crushing blow, and it impresses the French. But the French are also impressed by George Washington's survival. He's still hanging in there. His army is still fighting. The British may force their way into Philadelphia, but they have not destroyed Washington's army. de Rode: It's quite a risk to send your army to fight with an army that might never win. But there's more to the story, because the French are not just waiting for the victory. They're waiting for their own army to be ready. Finally, their navy was ready, their army was ready. They were strong enough again and felt confident that this was the right moment to join the rebels. Narrator: In Paris, on February 6, 1778, French and American commissioners would sign two treaties. The first recognized the independence of the United States of America and established commercial relations between the two countries. The second, the Treaty of Alliance, promised full support for the American cause from the French Army and Navy, as well as its Treasury. ♪ Schiff: The importance of the French alliance, just in entirely practical terms, we're talking about what would today be $25 billion to $30 billion in aid. We're talking about a war effort that the colonies could not have provided for themselves. And the idea that a foreign power bankrolled that effort and that it would have impossible without them, that's the chapter we don't like to think too much about because our sense of our independence is that it's something that we achieved on our own. Narrator: Although it would be nearly three months before the news crossed the Atlantic, an uprising among British subjects in North America was about to ignite another global war. ♪ ♪ Announcer: Next time on "The American Revolution"... Winter at Valley Forge. Voice: This army must inevitably starve or disperse in order to obtain subsistence. [George Washington] Announcer: Alliances are formed... Colin Calloway: The new United States represents an existential threat. Announcer: and the French enter the war. Kathleen DuVal: Britain knows that Spain and the Netherlands may be next. The stakes are big in this war. 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. ♪ 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-4-conquer-by-a-drawn-game/