The American Revolution 1x2

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3. Before dawn on May 10th, 1775—

4. less than a month after Lexington and Concord—

5. some 85 New Englanders rowed across

6. the southern end of Lake Champlain,

7. keeping silent, muskets primed.

8. Their objective was a dilapidated,

9. star-shaped fortress called Ticonderoga,

10. built by the French 20 years earlier

11. and now occupied by 50 British soldiers

12. and 24 women and children.

13. If they could capture it, they might be able to stop

14. British troops from attacking from the north;

15. to provide American forces with a staging area

16. should they ever choose to invade Canada;

17. and to take possession of dozens of artillery pieces

18. that the rebel forces ringing Boston desperately needed.

19. The men slipped silently onto the shore.

20. The British surrendered without a shot.

21. So did the 9 redcoats stationed at Crown Point,

22. a smaller outpost nearby.

23. The Americans had two commanders.

24. One was Colonel Ethan Allen,

25. the hard-drinking leader of the "Green Mountain Boys,"

26. a band of vigilantes who had spent years defending

27. their settlements in the Vermont region

28. of northwestern New England

29. against New Yorkers who also claimed the land.

30. The other was a newly promoted 34-year-old

31. Connecticut militia colonel.

32. He was descended from a distinguished

33. New England family that had fallen on hard times.

34. Able but arrogant, sensitive to slights,

35. he would become one of the most important commanders

36. of the American Revolution.

37. His name was Benedict Arnold.

38. William Hogeland: Once it's a shooting war,

39. as with Lexington and Concord, it's a war.

40. There's no doubt about that.

41. But independence was not, in any way, officially

42. on the table as a goal

43. of the Americans at that point.

44. The idea of independence was still controversial.

45. The official position was that the fight was

46. essentially for redress, for

47. "Let's get back to the way things used to be.

48. Back when things were good, when you left us alone."

49. The blood shed at Lexington and Concord

50. had deepened the divisions among Americans

51. from Georgia to New Hampshire.

52. "Loyalists," those who remained faithful to the Crown

53. and hoped His Majesty's troops would soon restore

54. law and order, dismissed those whose sympathies

55. lay with the militiamen surrounding Boston as "rebels."

56. The "rebels" called themselves "Patriots"--

57. or "Whigs" after British champions

58. of constitutionally guaranteed rights—

59. and vilified their Loyalist neighbors as "Tories."

60. Alan Taylor: The term "Patriot" is a very old one

61. that pre-exists the Revolution.

62. It applies to people who believe that they are

63. the defenders of liberty against power.

64. Now, "rebel" is a term that the British will use,

65. and the Loyalists will use, to apply to the people

66. who call themselves the "Patriots."

67. So, to be a rebel means that you are rejecting

68. the legitimate authority of your sovereign,

69. King George III of the British Empire.

70. That we are divorced is to me very clear.

71. The only question is concerning the proper time

72. for making an explicit declaration in words.

73. Some people must have time to look around them,

74. before, behind, on the right hand, and on the left,

75. then to think, and after all this, to resolve.

76. Others see at one intuitive glance

77. into the past and the future,

78. and judge with precision at once.

79. But remember you can't make 13 clocks

80. strike precisely alike at the same second.

81. John Adams.

82. I think the greatest misconception

83. about the American Revolution is that it was

84. something that unified Americans

85. and that it was just a war of Americans against the British.

86. It leaves out the reality that it was

87. a civil war among Americans.

88. I tremble at the thoughts of war;

89. but of all wars, a civil war!

90. Our all is at stake.

91. Sarah Mifflin.

92. In the spring of 1775,

93. a Philadelphia woman named Sarah Mifflin

94. wrote to a British officer who had been her friend

95. before the shooting began.

96. He had suggested that the whole thing

97. was just a minor disagreement.

98. It is not a quibble in politics.

99. It is this plain truth, which the most ignorant peasant knows,

100. that no man has a right to take their money

101. without their consent.

102. I know this, that as free I can die but once,

103. but as a slave I shall not be worthy of life.

104. Sarah Mifflin.

105. Some 20,000 militiamen from towns

106. all over Massachusetts—and from Connecticut, New Hampshire,

107. and Rhode Island as well—

108. had poured into the series of impromptu camps

109. that kept the British caged in Boston.

110. They were united in their anger at the redcoats

111. but very little else.

112. They were militiamen, not professional soldiers,

113. expected to meet immediate crises,

114. not take part in prolonged campaigns.

115. Few had uniforms.

116. Many had never been more than 50 miles from home.

117. Their first loyalty was to the towns from which they came

118. and the neighbors whom they had elected as their officers.

119. Once the shooting stopped and it became clear

120. that the British were not going to attack them,

121. they began drifting home to plant their crops.

122. In overall charge of this dwindling, disorganized force

123. was General Artemas Ward,

124. the commander of the Massachusetts militia.

125. From his headquarters in Cambridge, he understood

126. that if there were to be any hope of holding their own

127. against the British, he needed a paid, recruited army—

128. and he needed it fast.

129. Wherever you go,

130. we will be by your sides.

131. Our bones shall lie with yours.

132. We are determined never to be at peace with the redcoats

133. while they are at variance with you.

134. If we are conquered, our lands go with yours.

135. But if we are victorious, we hope you will help us

136. to recover our just rights.

137. Captain Solomon Uhhaunauwaunmut.

138. Among the troops who arrived in Cambridge

139. was a company of Native Americans

140. from Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

141. Philip Deloria: Stockbridge is a community of

142. multiple tribes,

143. which has a long history of surviving colonization,

144. in part through adopting Christianity

145. and adopting certain kinds of strategic ways of being

146. in relation with colonists.

147. They come over from Western Massachusetts

148. and they're part of the Siege of Boston.

149. Ned Blackhawk: Most Indigenous powers stay relatively

150. on the sidelines of the conflict

151. during the early years.

152. But many Native communities, particularly those

153. who have lived with settlers for generations,

154. come to share loyalties and sensibilities.

155. And so, many decide

156. that it's in their best interest

157. to join the Revolutionary forces

158. and take up arms against the British Empire.

159. The presence of the Stockbridge men

160. among the rebels, General Thomas Gage,

161. the commander-in-chief of the British Army

162. in North America, said, freed him to call upon

163. other Native Americans to join his forces

164. and fight for the Crown.

165. Enslaved New Englanders were not recruited by either side.

166. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress insisted

167. it was engaged in a struggle for freedom

168. from British "slavery."

169. Enlisting them, it said, would be "inconsistent."

170. But free African-Americans were welcome—

171. and at least 35 and perhaps as many as 50 men of color

172. had fought at Lexington and Concord

173. and more would soon be engaged

174. in the next, far bigger battle with the British.

175. Black, White, and Native American soldiers

176. would serve in regiments more integrated

177. than American forces would be again for almost two centuries.

178. What? 10,000 peasants keep

179. 5,000 King's troops shut up!

180. Well, let us get in, and we'll soon find elbow room.

181. General John Burgoyne.

182. On May 25th, 1775, a Royal Navy frigate

183. threaded its way into Boston harbor.

184. Aboard were British reinforcements

185. and 3 major generals.

186. John Burgoyne was the showiest

187. and the most self-assured of the three.

188. A playwright as well as a soldier,

189. eager always for advancement, he was dismissive of the rebels

190. besieging Boston, whom he called

191. a "rabble in arms, flushed with insolence."

192. Henry Clinton had spent 6 boyhood years in New York,

193. where his father had been the Royal Governor.

194. He was soft-spoken, retiring, insecure.

195. William Howe had once expressed sympathy

196. with the American cause,

197. but he now saw an opportunity

198. to burnish his reputation as a soldier.

199. They had been sent to bolster General Gage,

200. whom the King's Ministers now saw as overly timid.

201. The commanders all agreed that if they could seize

202. the heights at Dorchester and Charlestown,

203. they could break the rebel siege.

204. Rick Atkinson: There are two pieces of high ground

205. that the British have to worry about.

206. One is Dorchester Heights.

207. And the other is the high ground

208. on the Charlestown Peninsula,

209. including Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill.

210. If you put cannon on either the Charlestown Peninsula

211. or on Dorchester Heights,

212. you would be able to bombard

213. British forces in Boston.

214. The British decide that they are going to

215. seize Charlestown first.

216. The Patriots got wind of the plan,

217. and Colonel William Prescott was ordered to seize and fortify

218. Bunker's Hill, the highest prominence

219. on the Charlestown peninsula.

220. As Prescott and his men got there, however,

221. it was somehow decided that they should instead

222. build their fort on the crest of another, lower hill

223. that came to be called Breed's Hill.

224. But it was within range of both the warships

225. in the harbor and a British battery in Boston's North End.

226. Prescott's men went to work with picks and shovels

227. trying to make as little noise as possible

228. so as not to alert the British.

229. But when dawn broke on June 17th, 1775,

230. the redoubt was only half-finished.

231. A 20-gun British Navy ship opened fire on the hilltop.

232. A cannonball tore the head off a private named Asa Pollard.

233. To steady his men, Prescott leaped onto

234. the unfinished parapet and bellowed at the warships,

235. "Hit me if you can!"

236. British General Howe was certain

237. that the hill would "easily be carried."

238. As soon as the mid-afternoon tide came in,

239. Howe would personally accompany a large force

240. to the eastern tip of the Charlestown Peninsula.

241. The British stepped up their cannonade,

242. the roar so loud it rattled windows in Braintree,

243. 10 miles away, where Abigail Adams wondered

244. whether "the day—perhaps the decisive day—is come,"

245. she wrote, "on which the fate of America depends."

246. Prescott rushed to strengthen his left flank,

247. ordering some of his men to dig a ditch

248. and form a 165-foot breastwork

249. and assigning others to strengthen

250. a rail-and-stone fence that ran all the way down to the bluff

251. overlooking the Mystic River beach.

252. Looking up at the American positions,

253. General Howe believed the hill could be taken

254. by what was called a "turning" movement.

255. While one column assaulted the redoubt from the left

256. and another, led by Howe himself,

257. attacked the rail fence head-on,

258. a third would slip along the undefended Mystic River beach,

259. get behind the rebels, turn their line, and destroy them.

260. Such attacks had worked well

261. against disciplined armies in Europe.

262. Stacy Schiff: No one expects that a bunch of

263. country farmers with muskets are going to hold off

264. a trained army who have orders

265. from an actual general in Boston.

266. There is a real disbelief that a bunch of ragtag colonists

267. are going to manage to hold their own

268. against trained soldiers.

269. When the column on the left neared Charlestown

270. and came under fire from Americans

271. hidden in abandoned buildings,

272. British ships set the town ablaze

273. with incendiary shells.

274. Then, at around half past 3,

275. Howe's redcoats started up the right side of the hill.

276. Tall, fearsome grenadiers formed the first rank;

277. behind them came the Foot Infantry.

278. But the men had to dismantle wooden fences and stone walls

279. that blocked their climb.

280. Their uniforms were woolen. The sun was hot.

281. And, like the anxious New Englanders waiting for them

282. on the hilltop, some had never been in battle.

283. The notion that the British Army

284. is this battle-tested, experienced force, they're good.

285. There's no doubt about it. Their officers are good.

286. They're very disciplined, for the most part.

287. But they are as scared and as new to this

288. as the Americans are.

289. As Howe's force continued their ascent,

290. British light infantry on the far right

291. started their flanking maneuver along the narrow beach,

292. bent on getting behind the American defenses,

293. sure they could get there unopposed.

294. But Colonel John Stark of New Hampshire

295. and 60 of his militiamen were waiting for them.

296. He had seen that the beach was open to a flanking attack

297. and directed his men to build a barricade.

298. When the British got within range,

299. the Patriots opened fire.

300. The light infantry disintegrated.

301. The New Hampshire men kept firing

302. until the stunned survivors

303. began to retreat toward their boats.

304. Behind them lay nearly 100 dead and wounded,

305. lying, Stark recalled, "as thick as sheep in a fold."

306. Meanwhile, at the top of Breed's Hill,

307. Prescott and his officers reassured their men:

308. the redcoats could never reach them

309. if they held their fire till they came close.

310. 90 yards out, a stone wall stopped the Grenadiers.

311. As they laid down their arms

312. and worked to tear apart the wall,

313. the Patriots fired their muskets.

314. British officers urged their men to keep advancing.

315. Instead, the soldiers stayed where they were

316. and tried to shoot back.

317. The Americans had cover. The British had none.

318. The redcoats broke and retreated down the slope.

319. General Howe let his lines regroup,

320. then ordered them back up the hill,

321. in hopes of driving through the gap between

322. the breastwork and the rail fence.

323. He would go with them.

324. This time, the Patriots behind the fence

325. waited till the Grenadiers got within 50 yards

326. before opening fire.

327. It was hard to miss. Scores of British soldiers fell,

328. dead, dying, screaming in pain.

329. They deliberately target

330. the British officers and they can recognize them

331. in part because they're all wearing red coats, right,

332. but the officers are wearing coats that are almost

333. vermillion in hue because they can afford

334. the more expensive dyes that make those coats pop.

335. The British, frankly, think this is unfair.

336. Trying to target officers,

337. there's something unseemly about it.

338. But the Americans are not going to stop

339. throughout the whole war.

340. The Americans cheered,

341. hoping General Howe had had enough.

342. Every one of his staff officers

343. is killed or wounded.

344. Howe will come back down the hill, unharmed, remarkably.

345. But he's got blood all over his stockings

346. from the men who've been shot on either side of him.

347. The teenage fifer John Greenwood

348. had been away that day.

349. When he heard the guns,

350. he hurried back to rejoin his regiment.

351. Everything seemed to be

352. in the greatest terror and confusion.

353. I felt very much frightened and would have given the world

354. if I had not enlisted for a soldier.

355. Then, I saw a Negro man,

356. wounded in the back of his neck.

357. I saw the wound very plain

358. and the blood running down his back.

359. I asked him if it hurt him much

360. as he did not seem to mind it.

361. He said no, and that he was only a-going to get

362. a plaster put on it and meant to return.

363. Immediately, you cannot conceive what encouragement it gave me.

364. I began to feel from that moment brave and like a soldier.

365. John Greenwood.

366. From the Boston waterfront, townspeople,

367. including John Greenwood's brother Isaac,

368. watched as British soldiers

369. rowed wounded regulars from Charlestown.

370. They were "obliged," he said,

371. "to bail the blood out like water."

372. And when they started back toward Charlestown again

373. with fresh troops,

374. "the soldiers," Isaac remembered,

375. "looked as pale as death when they got into the boats,

376. "for they could plainly see their brother redcoats

377. mowed down like grass."

378. At the bottom of Breed's Hill, General Howe was determined

379. to come at the Americans one more time.

380. Up above, Colonel Prescott knew his men had

381. little powder left and that many of their muskets

382. were fouled from so much firing.

383. This time, in order to make each shot count,

384. he insisted his men wait until

385. their targets were within 30 yards.

386. "As fast as the front man was shot down,

387. the next stepped forward into his place,"

388. one militiaman recalled.

389. "It was surprising how they would step over

390. their dead as though they had been logs of wood."

391. "We fired till our ammunition began to fail,"

392. another militiaman remembered,

393. "then our firing began to slacken—

394. and at last it went out like an old candle."

395. British marines with bayonets

396. began climbing over the parapets.

397. Some Americans hurled rocks

398. or swung their muskets like clubs.

399. Others clawed their way out of the redoubt and ran.

400. It was all over in a matter of minutes.

401. The Patriots had been driven from Breed's Hill.

402. 115 Americans had been killed and another 305 wounded.

403. The British succeed in that they drive

404. the Americans off of the Charlestown Peninsula.

405. They take Breed's Hill. They take Bunker Hill.

406. But it has been a, a pyrrhic victory of the first order.

407. It's 4 of the most awful hours of combat

408. in American military history.

409. There are 1,000 British casualties that day.

410. There are 220-some British dead.

411. Stephen Conway: 40% of the attacking force

412. was killed or injured.

413. 40%.

414. That's horrendously high casualty rate.

415. It is the highest casualty rate for the British Army

416. until the first day of the Somme in 1916.

417. It is unbelievably bloody.

418. And that has a really profound impact.

419. "The loss we have sustained,"

420. General Gage admitted, "is greater than we can bear."

421. During the final struggle,

422. two prominent men had been killed.

423. As Major John Pitcairn encouraged his British Marines

424. to climb over the walls,

425. he'd been shot through the chest

426. and fell, dying, into the arms of his son.

427. He was so hated by New Englanders

428. because he had led the British troops at Lexington Green

429. that at least 4 different men would subsequently claim

430. to have fired the fatal shot.

431. Dr. Joseph Warren, the president

432. of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress,

433. whom the British considered the most "incendiary"

434. of all the rebel leaders,

435. had insisted on joining the men defending Breed's Hill

436. and was shot in the head.

437. The British officer in charge of the burial detail

438. boasted that they had "stuffed the scoundrel

439. "with another Rebel into one hole

440. and there he and his seditious principles may remain."

441. Saturday gave us a dreadful specimen

442. of the horrors of civil war.

443. You may easily judge what distress we were in

444. to see and hear Englishmen destroying one another.

445. God grant the blood already spilt may suffice.

446. But this we cannot reasonably expect.

447. Reverend Andrew Eliot.

448. When the news of the battle—remembered as

449. the Battle of Bunker Hill—

450. eventually made its way to London, the King proclaimed

451. "The deluded People" of America were in a state

452. of "open and avowed rebellion."

453. Anyone who now aided their cause was a traitor.

454. General Gage had been right— the rebellion would never be

455. crushed without overwhelming force.

456. But Gage was soon called home, replaced as commander-in-chief

457. by General William Howe.

458. For almost 3 years, Howe would lead the struggle

459. to try to put down the rebellion—

460. and carefully avoid ordering any more frontal assaults

461. against entrenched Americans.

462. Britain, at the expense of

463. 3 millions, has killed 150 Americans this campaign,

464. which is 20,000 pounds a head.

465. And at Bunker's Hill, she gained a mile of ground.

466. During the same time, 60,000 children

467. have been born in America.

468. From these data, calculate the time and expense

469. necessary to kill us all,

470. and conquer our whole territory.

471. Benjamin Franklin.

472. Unhappy it is to reflect

473. that a brother's sword has been sheathed

474. in a brother's breast,

475. and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America

476. are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves.

477. Sad alternative!

478. But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?

479. George Washington.

480. On July 2nd, 1775, Private Phineas Ingalls

481. of Andover, Massachusetts, noted in his diary

482. that it "rained" and that

483. "a new general from Philadelphia"

484. had arrived in Cambridge.

485. That new general was George Washington of Virginia,

486. the commander of the Continental Army

487. the Congress in Philadelphia had just created.

488. His arrival meant that the New England war in which

489. Phineas Ingalls and his fellow militiamen had joined

490. was about to become an American war.

491. Jane Kamensky: Washington is a figure toward whom

492. people naturally turn for leadership.

493. It is clear, by the time the Continental Army

494. is signed into being in the late spring of 1775,

495. that its commander-in-chief can be nobody else.

496. There's something about his presence

497. that makes him the inescapable choice.

498. The Second Continental Congress

499. had been meeting since May,

500. and it was obvious from the first

501. that 43-year-old George Washington

502. would command its new army.

503. He had led troops during the French and Indian War,

504. and he was from Virginia,

505. the wealthiest and most populated colony.

506. New England delegates, eager to ensure

507. that colony's support for the war,

508. favored naming a Virginian.

509. Washington was also one of America's richest men,

510. the beneficiary of the work of scores of indentured servants

511. and more than 100 enslaved people at his plantation

512. on the Potomac River— Mount Vernon.

513. They grew tobacco and wheat, corn and flax and hemp,

514. milled flour, distilled whiskey,

515. caught, salted, and sold fish.

516. And to the West, he had amassed

517. tens of thousands of acres of Indian lands.

518. Washington has this vision of the future

519. in which... America's future is not to the East,

520. not towards Europe.

521. It's to the West.

522. He does see the future and the next century

523. as something in which we should focus on

524. the consolidation of the continent.

525. What defines his early career

526. is an amazing focus, a ruthless and intense focus,

527. on his own interests, which makes him exactly like

528. every other member of his class.

529. It's just that he became George Washington.

530. Washington considered outward evidence

531. of ambition unseemly,

532. but his appearance alone made him stand out in Philadelphia.

533. He was about 6'3" when the average height

534. of the men he would lead into battle was around 5'7",

535. and he alone among the delegates

536. appeared each day dressed as a soldier.

537. Washington will remain, I think, endlessly fascinating.

538. Partly because he was so mysterious,

539. so reserved in his manner, frequently,

540. and didn't give up a lot of what was going on in his gut.

541. He was naturally a person

542. who created space around himself,

543. and pity anybody that enters that space that's not invited.

544. Martha gets into that space.

545. Lafayette gets into that space.

546. Maybe Hamilton gets into that space.

547. He has so much martial dignity

548. in his deportment that you would distinguish him

549. to be a general and a soldier from among 10,000 people.

550. There is not a king in Europe that would not look like

551. a "valet de chambre" by his side.

552. Benjamin Rush.

553. He's got a brain built for executive action.

554. He's willing to take responsibility.

555. He's got an adhesive memory.

556. He is, according to Thomas Jefferson,

557. the greatest horseman of his age.

558. He's built to lead other men in the dark of night,

559. which is a rare and valuable trait in any commander.

560. I am now embarked

561. on a tempestuous ocean, from whence, perhaps,

562. no friendly harbor is to be found.

563. Washington accepted that he and his army

564. would be subordinate to the civilian control of Congress,

565. but he did not yet see himself as a revolutionary.

566. He still hoped to lead what he called "a loyal protest,"

567. as if George III might somehow overrule Parliament

568. and restore the rights of British colonists.

569. On his way to Cambridge, he met a dispatch rider

570. who carried a letter that told of the terrible bloodletting

571. that had taken place on Breed's Hill.

572. He shows up in Cambridge

573. in early July, 1775,

574. as a Virginian commanding,

575. almost exclusively, New England militiamen.

576. He doesn't know what to make of them;

577. they don't know quite what to make of him.

578. He has nothing good to say about New Englanders, privately.

579. They're almost from different countries.

580. But his job is to take this gaggle,

581. this cluster of militia forces,

582. and to form them into a national army.

583. Washington thought he'd be commanding

584. a 20,000-man force;

585. in fact, he had fewer than 14,000 men fit for service.

586. He was assured he would have 15 tons of precious gunpowder;

587. there were just 5.

588. On August 6th, a company of 96 riflemen from Virginia

589. arrived, concrete evidence that Americans

590. beyond New England would volunteer to fight.

591. They had marched nearly 500 miles in 3 weeks.

592. Their leader was Captain Daniel Morgan,

593. a big, brawling one-time wagoner whose back bore the scars

594. of a lashing he'd received during the French and Indian War

595. after he'd knocked unconscious

596. a British officer who had insulted him.

597. More riflemen soon followed, from Pennsylvania and Maryland

598. as well as more Virginians.

599. Their rifles were far more accurate than the smooth-bore

600. muskets most Patriots used;

601. their grooved barrels spun a ball,

602. making it fly straighter and truer.

603. A British soldier would call them "the most fatal

604. widow-and-orphan makers in the world."

605. But the riflemen were also frontiersmen.

606. They sounded different from New Englanders,

607. dressed differently, disliked discipline of any kind.

608. So what's going to come out of this Revolution

609. is attempts to create an American national identity.

610. And somebody like George Washington becomes

611. quite eloquent in trying to persuade people,

612. "You're not Carolinians," "You're not New Yorkers,"

613. "You're not New Englanders." "We're all Americans."

614. Always at Washington's side,

615. throughout the Revolution, was William Lee,

616. the enslaved servant he had

617. brought with him from Mount Vernon.

618. I think we have to understand Washington

619. as both the figurehead without whom

620. American liberty would not have survived.

621. At the same time, he's an enslaver of

622. 317 men, women, and children.

623. He acted as an enslaver in the ways that enslavers did.

624. He bought and sold people.

625. He broke up families.

626. Do not look for gilded statues of marble men.

627. They were not that and neither are we

628. and neither is anybody at all.

629. Washington was impatient,

630. eager to get at the enemy.

631. In September, he proposed mounting

632. a water-borne attack on Boston.

633. His officers talked him out of it.

634. Washington has got a lot to learn.

635. Because he's been out of uniform for 16 years,

636. there's a lot he does not know.

637. He knows very little about artillery.

638. He knows very little about fortification.

639. He knows nothing about continental logistics.

640. So, he brings a stack of books with him.

641. Nathaniel Philbrick: Typically, Washington,

642. before he would make a big decision,

643. would canvass his major generals as to what to do.

644. And inevitably, he would do

645. whatever Nathanael Greene suggested.

646. General Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island,

647. a Quaker who came to see pacifism as impractical

648. in the face of what he called "this business of necessity,"

649. hoped the British might make a move so that the Americans,

650. he said, could "sell them another hill

651. at the same price" as they had paid taking Breed's Hill.

652. But the British didn't dare mount an attack

653. on Washington's forces, either.

654. The memory of the last battle was too fresh.

655. The standoff would continue for another 6 months.

656. In Boston, soldiers and civilians alike suffered.

657. There was too little firewood:

658. regulars ripped pews from churches

659. and demolished whole houses trying to keep warm.

660. Of 40 transport vessels dispatched from

661. England and Ireland to provision the town,

662. 32 never made it—blown off-course by unfavorable winds

663. all the way to the West Indies

664. or seized by Patriots.

665. What, in God's name,

666. are ye all about in England?

667. Have you forgot us?

668. For we have not had a vessel for 3 months

669. with any sort of supplies.

670. And, therefore, our miseries are become manifold.

671. British Officer.

672. In 1770, I built a house, dam,

673. saw, and grist mills on the west side of the Connecticut River.

674. Here I was in easy circumstances,

675. and as independent as my mind ever wished.

676. John Peters.

677. Before the war, Yale-educated John Peters

678. had been the most respected man in the small settlement

679. of Moretown in Vermont, where he lived

680. with his wife Ann and their children.

681. In 1774, his neighbors had picked him to represent them

682. in the First Continental Congress.

683. But when Peters got to Philadelphia

684. and sensed the other delegates

685. "meant to have a serious rebellion,"

686. he refused to take part and left for home.

687. On the way back, suspicious Patriots detained him 4 times—

688. in Wethersfield, Hartford, Springfield,

689. and finally in Moretown itself,

690. where "another mob threatened to execute him,"

691. he remembered, "as an enemy to Congress."

692. His own father, a colonel in Connecticut's rebel militia,

693. urged his fellow Patriots to use "severity" on his son

694. to make him "a friend to America."

695. The mob again and again visited me.

696. They confined me to the limits of the town

697. and threatened me with death

698. if I transgressed their orders.

699. Even then, Peters refused to betray

700. his "King and Conscience."

701. Instead, he put his head down

702. and hoped to stay out of the fight.

703. I little thought the troubles would be

704. so great, or if they did,

705. would last so long.

706. I endeavored to be quiet, but it would not do.

707. The madness of the people was daily growing.

708. Lake Champlain is this 90-mile-long teardrop

709. that extends from the Canadian border

710. down almost to the Hudson River.

711. If you controlled Lake Champlain, you controlled

712. the most obvious entry point into New York from the north,

713. and into Canada from the south.

714. Everything else is wilderness.

715. The Americans saw an opportunity.

716. If they could take Montreal, if they could take Quebec,

717. and have command of the St. Lawrence,

718. they would have the British right where they wanted them.

719. In the late summer of 1775,

720. some 1,200 New York and New England troops

721. assembled on the lie aux Noix,

722. just inside the Province of Quebec.

723. Their commander Richard Montgomery had orders

724. from the Continental Congress to "take immediate possession"

725. of the British garrison at Montreal

726. and then keep moving north.

727. The ultimate goal was to eliminate the province

728. as a military threat and perhaps adopt it

729. as the 14th American Colony.

730. They did not expect much opposition:

731. there were just 700 British regulars in the whole province.

732. Now George Washington called for a complementary expedition

733. through the forests of the Maine province of Massachusetts

734. to surprise and capture Quebec City

735. on the St. Lawrence River.

736. To lead it, Washington chose Benedict Arnold.

737. Benedict Arnold is the finest

738. tactical commander on either side

739. in the first couple of years of the war.

740. He's conspicuously gifted in being able to motivate men,

741. tactically, under difficult circumstances,

742. to do what he wants them to do.

743. Arnold had emerged from the capture of

744. Fort Ticonderoga with a mixed reputation:

745. he had quarreled with rival officers

746. and become so incensed at having his expenses questioned

747. that he simply left the militia and went home.

748. But after his wife died, he left his 3 sons

749. with his sister and joined Washington's Continental Army.

750. "An idle life under my present circumstances,"

751. he told a friend, "would be but a lingering death."

752. Quebec, Washington believed, was certain to be

753. "very easy prey."

754. But "not a moment's time is to be lost," he added.

755. The Americans were not hostile

756. to the concept of empire.

757. On the contrary, they were great enthusiasts for it.

758. They called it the "Continental Army"

759. and the "Continental Congress" for a good reason.

760. They had ambitions to incorporate Canada, Florida,

761. and the whole of the continent of North America.

762. On September 25th, from a boatyard

763. on the Kennebec River in Maine,

764. Benedict Arnold and his 1,100-man force

765. set out for Canada.

766. Failure to punish the people

767. of the 4 New England governments

768. for their many rebellious and piratical acts,

769. only encouraged them to go to greater lengths.

770. I determined to destroy some of their towns and shipping.

771. Vice Admiral Samuel Graves.

772. In October, Vice Admiral Samuel Graves,

773. commander-in-chief of His Majesty's

774. North American Station,

775. announced he planned to lay waste to the ports

776. of Marblehead, Salem, Cape Ann, Ipswich,

777. Newburyport, Portsmouth, Saco, Falmouth, Machias.

778. All of them were bases from which privateers—

779. Patriot raiders—menaced British shipping.

780. Graves dispatched Lieutenant Henry Mowat and 4 warships

781. to carry out his orders.

782. Mowat began with Falmouth— now Portland, Maine.

783. Mowat gave the nearly 2,000 townspeople

784. two hours, he said, to "remove without delay the Human Species"

785. before the bombardment began,

786. then agreed to reconsider provided the townspeople

787. turned over all their arms and gunpowder

788. by the following morning.

789. When they didn't, British ships opened fire.

790. The cannonade went on for more than 7 hours,

791. firing more than 3,000 rounds of shot

792. and hollow balls filled with combustible material.

793. In mid-afternoon, landing parties rowed ashore.

794. They hurled torches into the doors and windows

795. of homes and shops.

796. News of Falmouth's destruction spread fast.

797. Ports up and down the coast braced for the next attack.

798. Washington and Congress had both already begun

799. arming ships to seize enemy cargoes to supply the army.

800. Now Congress voted to commission 13 frigates

801. for a new Continental Navy.

802. To have a navy in the late 18th century

803. was to have a fleet of ships that were the most

804. sophisticated machines in the world at that time.

805. They were very expensive. And they required all sorts of

806. economic power and technology to create.

807. Great Britain had that. The colonies really didn't.

808. And, so, to go against this huge naval power

809. was kind of an insane task to even contemplate.

810. The most successful Patriot commander

811. was John Manley, a sea captain from Marblehead.

812. He managed to seize 7 British vessels

813. before the end of the year,

814. including an ordnance ship, its hold filled

815. with 100,000 flints, 2,000 muskets,

816. and 30,000 cannonballs—

817. all of it badly needed by the Continental Army.

818. British Admiral Graves ultimately decided against

819. attacking any more ports.

820. But the damage was done.

821. The savage and brutal barbarity of our enemies

822. is a full demonstration that there is not

823. the least remains of virtue,

824. wisdom, or humanity in the British.

825. Therefore, we expect soon to break off

826. all kind of connection with Britain,

827. and form into a Grand Republic of the American United colonies.

828. "The New England Chronicle."

829. In every human breast,

830. God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom.

831. It is impatient of oppression, and pants for deliverance.

832. I will assert, that the same principle lives in us.

833. Phillis Wheatley.

834. George Washington made his

835. Cambridge headquarters in the handsome home

836. of a Loyalist who had fled to England.

837. One morning, not long after he had moved in,

838. he noticed a 6-year-old African-American

839. named Darby Vassall swinging on the gate.

840. Vassall remembered saying he had been born in the house

841. and his parents had worked there.

842. Washington urged him to come inside

843. and get something to eat;

844. he had plenty of chores for him to do.

845. When Darby asked what sort of wages he could expect,

846. Washington thought the question impertinent

847. and "unreasonable."

848. Darby Vassall lived to be a very old man

849. and, when asked, he liked to say that in his experience,

850. George Washington "was no gentleman,"

851. since he'd expected a boy to work for free.

852. Washington was also shocked to see Black soldiers

853. encamped alongside their White neighbors.

854. Unconvinced they could ever make good soldiers,

855. Washington persuaded the Massachusetts Provincial Congress

856. to enlist no more of them,

857. though dozens had fought on Breed's Hill.

858. Christopher Brown: I think that Washington was concerned

859. about what it might mean

860. for slavery and slaveholding.

861. I think he was alert to the ways

862. that it could end up eroding the institution.

863. Enslaved African-Americans constituted

864. just 2% percent of the population of New England,

865. but 40% of Virginians were held as slaves,

866. and planters like Washington lived in constant fear

867. that they would rise up against them—

868. as enslaved people had risen up

869. on the British island of Jamaica

870. 3 times in the last 15 years.

871. When you make men slaves

872. you deprive them of half their virtue,

873. and compel them to live with you in a state of war.

874. Are there no dangers attending this mode of treatment?

875. Are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection?

876. Olaudah Equiano.

877. The growing talk of "liberty"

878. had appealed to those who had the least of it

879. and craved it most.

880. From New England to South Carolina, enslaved people

881. offered to help the British if they were granted freedom.

882. In November of 1775, Virginia's Royal Governor

883. Lord Dunmore, who had been forced to flee

884. with some 300 soldiers, sailors, and Loyalists

885. to ships anchored in the Chesapeake Bay,

886. issued a Proclamation that seemed to confirm

887. the slaveholders' worst nightmares.

888. It promised freedom to any enslaved man owned by a rebel

889. who was willing to take up arms

890. and help suppress the uprising.

891. Britain is the biggest

892. slave-trading nation on earth.

893. Nevertheless, the British believe that if they can

894. convince enough slaves to abandon their masters

895. in the South, to take up arms against

896. the American rebels, that this is a manpower pool

897. that can also derange the economies

898. of the Southern states.

899. It's not that the British are anti-slavery,

900. by any means, in the 1770s, right?

901. Their colonies in the Caribbean

902. are their most profitable colonies in the Americas.

903. They are firmly committed to slavery.

904. But, opportunistically, when they think that they can

905. encourage slaves to rise up against rebelling colonists,

906. they'll do so.

907. Annette Gordon-Reed: For enslaved people,

908. this was a way of getting out of a situation

909. that seemed intractable.

910. And it gave them an impetus to get involved in all of this.

911. In the sort of chaos of war, they found an opportunity,

912. a way to escape their situation.

913. "The Virginia Gazette."

914. Be not then, ye Negroes,

915. tempted by this proclamation to ruin yourselves.

916. Whether you will profit by my advice, I cannot tell.

917. But this I know, that whether we suffer or not,

918. if you desert us, you most certainly will.

919. Dunmore's Proclamation helped drive

920. Southern slaveholders to the side of the revolutionaries.

921. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina spoke for many:

922. Lord Dunmore's proclamation tends "in my judgment,

923. "more effectually to work an eternal separation

924. "between Great Britain and the Colonies

925. than any other expedient."

926. Dunmore says that he only wants

927. the slaves of rebels to join him.

928. Not clear exactly how you can tell them apart,

929. or whether there's any kind of census going on

930. of who do you belong to.

931. Dunmore was not an abolitionist;

932. he did not free any of the 57 human beings

933. he held in slavery himself;

934. the Patriots would capture them all

935. and sell them to fund their cause.

936. Wednesday.

937. Last night after going to bed, Moses, my son's man,

938. Joe, Billy, Postillion, John,

939. Mulatto Peter, Tom, Panticore,

940. Manuel, and Lancaster Sam

941. all ran away to Lord Dunmore.

942. Landon Carter.

943. Now runaways streamed to the governor's ships,

944. silently slipping along the rivers and tidal creeks

945. that opened into the Chesapeake Bay.

946. 87 men, women, and children

947. from a single Virginia plantation fled to Dunmore.

948. Ran off last night from the subscriber:

949. a Negro man named Charles,

950. who is a very shrewd, sensible fellow,

951. and can both read and write.

952. There is reason to believe he intends an attempt

953. to get to Lord Dunmore.

954. His elopement was from no cause of complaint,

955. or dread of whipping

956. but from a determined resolution to get liberty, as he conceived.

957. "The Virginia Gazette."

958. "There is not a man among them,"

959. George Washington's farm manager warned him,

960. "but would leave us if they believed

961. "they could make their escape.

962. Liberty is sweet."

963. He was right.

964. The first enslaved person

965. to escape Mount Vernon

966. was named Harry Washington.

967. Born somewhere near the Gambia River in West Africa,

968. he was captured, carried across the ocean,

969. and, in 1763, purchased by George Washington.

970. Freedom was never far from his mind.

971. In 1771, he had tried to escape

972. but was caught and brought back.

973. 4 years later, he saw his chance.

974. Erica Dunbar: Following Lord Dunmore's proclamation,

975. Harry Washington knew that this would be an opportunity,

976. and he joined the British

977. against the people who had once owned him.

978. George Washington called Lord Dunmore

979. a "Monster," and an "arch-traitor

980. to the rights of humanity."

981. If that man is not crushed

982. before spring, he will become

983. the most formidable enemy America has.

984. His strength will increase, as a snowball,

985. by rolling, and faster.

986. Nothing less than depriving him of life or liberty

987. will secure peace to Virginia.

988. George Washington.

989. Scores of runaways were caught

990. and brutally punished;

991. some were killed, others sold off

992. to compensate their enslavers.

993. But some 800 men would make it to Dunmore's growing fleet,

994. along with roughly the same number of women and children.

995. Men found fit for duty were enlisted in a special unit

996. called "Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment."

997. They were commanded by White officers but paid a wage

998. for the first time in their lives.

999. The proclamation has had a wonderful effect.

1000. The Negroes are flocking in from all quarters.

1001. And had I but a few more men here,

1002. I would march immediately to Williamsburg,

1003. by which I should soon compel the whole colony to submit.

1004. Lord Dunmore.

1005. Bolstered by reinforcements,

1006. Dunmore occupied Norfolk and ordered a stockade built

1007. at the Great Bridge over the Elizabeth River

1008. to block the only road to town from the South.

1009. Some 700 Patriots dug in across the river,

1010. and on December 9, 1775,

1011. when Dunmore's troops charged across the bridge

1012. to dislodge them,

1013. more than 100 of his men, Black and White, were killed.

1014. "They fought, bled, and died like Englishmen,"

1015. one man remembered.

1016. Dunmore's makeshift army— including what was left

1017. of the Ethiopian regiment—

1018. fled back to sea.

1019. With them went scores of Loyalist families

1020. from in and around Norfolk,

1021. most of them Dunmore's fellow Scots.

1022. He now commanded a floating city—including rafts

1023. on which the poorest struggled to survive.

1024. Dunmore's Proclamation

1025. turns the conflict, in Virginia, into a genuine crisis.

1026. But it does help clarify differences, right?

1027. It establishes that there is one side of this conflict

1028. that is unevenly committed to slavery.

1029. And then there's another side, our side,

1030. which is fully committed to it.

1031. And for some Patriots, that's all they need to know.

1032. It creates a sense that this is an existential conflict

1033. in a way that it had not before.

1034. These lords of themselves,

1035. these kings of me, these demigods of independence.

1036. It has been proposed that the slaves should be set free,

1037. an act which, surely, the lovers of liberty

1038. cannot but commend.

1039. How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty

1040. among the drivers of Negroes?

1041. Dr. Samuel Johnson.

1042. Connecticut wants no Massachusetts man in her corps;

1043. Massachusetts thinks there is no necessity for a Rhode Islander

1044. to be introduced into hers.

1045. Could I have foreseen what I have,

1046. and am like to experience,

1047. no consideration upon earth

1048. should have induced me to accept this command.

1049. Now George Washington faced

1050. for the first time the problem

1051. that would haunt him again and again:

1052. when enlistments expired at the end of the year,

1053. most of his army was simply going to melt away.

1054. To fill out his ranks, Washington persuaded

1055. the governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire

1056. to send him a total of 5,000 militiamen.

1057. The newcomers were so sullen, veteran soldiers called them

1058. the "Long-Faced People."

1059. Washington asked Congress if Indian units

1060. could serve in his army.

1061. While they debated the issue,

1062. many Native people did join the ranks.

1063. 5 sons of a Mohegan woman named Rebecca Tanner

1064. would die fighting for the Patriots

1065. over the course of the war.

1066. In December, Washington changed his mind

1067. about enlisting African-Americans.

1068. His desperate need for men was part of it.

1069. But there were also appeals from Black veterans themselves

1070. or from their officers.

1071. "It has been represented to me," Washington wrote

1072. to the Continental Congress, "that the free Negroes who have

1073. "served in this Army are very much dissatisfied

1074. at being discarded."

1075. They could now re-enlist.

1076. Washington brings to Cambridge

1077. the "hard no" of a Virginia planter.

1078. But he is also willing to revise himself.

1079. To think about the whole of the potential fighting force

1080. and whether Black men can play a role within it.

1081. I think many people, most people from his station,

1082. would have started where he started

1083. and have gone no further.

1084. So, I think he does have a sort of flexibility

1085. as a commander, which is the only thing

1086. that the commander of an insurrectionary force can have.

1087. Though the decision remained unpopular,

1088. by the end of the war, some 5,000 African-Americans

1089. had served in the Continental Army.

1090. A lot of these decisions about who to fight for,

1091. who to align with, are deeply, deeply local.

1092. They're not necessarily about high ideals at all, right?

1093. So, when people think there's an opportunity

1094. with the British, they may align with

1095. and run off to British lines.

1096. But when the Patriot Army kind of opens its ranks

1097. to Black people, there are lots of Black people

1098. who think they can gain advantage, concession,

1099. and even, one day, some status from fighting for the Patriots.

1100. It's not a question of who the good guys are

1101. and who the bad guys are.

1102. It's what can I get from making this decision,

1103. right now, in this place, at this time, among these people.

1104. Washington's new army—an ill-assorted

1105. mix of soldiers who'd decided to stay on, raw recruits,

1106. and short-term militiamen— now numbered around 8,000 men.

1107. But only 2/3 were fit for duty.

1108. Those men were still cold, still poorly armed,

1109. still poorly paid— but also still able

1110. to keep the British trapped in Boston.

1111. It is not in the pages of history

1112. perhaps to furnish a case like ours.

1113. To maintain a post within musket shot of the enemy

1114. for 6 months together, without powder,

1115. and at the same time to disband one Army and recruit another,

1116. within that distance of 20-odd British regiments,

1117. is more than probably ever was attempted.

1118. At the most moderate computation,

1119. this rebellion will cost Great Britain

1120. 10 millions of treasure and 20,000 lives.

1121. What then, in the name of wonder,

1122. is the object of the war?

1123. Are we to throw away so much treasure and so many lives

1124. to gain a point which, when gained,

1125. is not worth 1% on our money?

1126. The "Public Advertiser."

1127. Maya Jasanoff: In the British Parliament, there are

1128. debates taking place.

1129. There are people lining up on one side

1130. who say, "You know, we ought to actually

1131. "grant the colonies more autonomy.

1132. "We ought to loosen the strictures

1133. "that we've placed on them.

1134. "We ought to think about ways

1135. that they might be represented."

1136. The war in North America

1137. was not universally popular in England.

1138. The colonies were 3,000 miles away.

1139. The theater of war would be far larger

1140. than any the British Army had ever encountered before.

1141. It was sure to be costly and bloody

1142. and likely to be prolonged.

1143. The Army chief and England's

1144. most distinguished naval commander

1145. would both refuse to take part in the war.

1146. The Lord Mayor and aldermen of the City of London

1147. appealed to the King to reconsider.

1148. It was far better to give the Americans

1149. their "rights and liberties," they said,

1150. than impose "the dreadful operations of your armaments."

1151. But the new Secretary of State for America,

1152. Lord George Germain,

1153. remained determined to crush the rebellion—

1154. and to do it with a single, all-out campaign.

1155. If the war dragged on, King George himself feared

1156. that Britain's old Catholic enemies, France and Spain,

1157. might be persuaded to support the rebel cause.

1158. The rebellious war now levied

1159. is become more general, and is manifestly

1160. carried on for the purpose of establishing

1161. an independent empire.

1162. The object is too important,

1163. the spirit of the British nation too high,

1164. the resources with which God hath blessed her too numerous,

1165. to give up so many colonies

1166. which she has planted with great industry,

1167. nursed with great tenderness, and protected and defended

1168. at much expense of blood and treasure.

1169. King George was not an ogre.

1170. He was not a tyrant.

1171. Contrary to the stereotype that most Americans have of him,

1172. he's actually a pretty extraordinary man.

1173. He was a very great constitutional monarch.

1174. In fact, in 1775, he declares,

1175. "I'm fighting the war of the legislature."

1176. In other words, he's fighting for Parliament's rights

1177. over the American colonies.

1178. Not his own rights, Parliament's rights.

1179. But once the war starts, he sees himself

1180. as the commander-in-chief with a responsibility to make sure

1181. the war is run efficiently and effectively.

1182. The British Navy was the largest on earth,

1183. but the all-volunteer British Army numbered fewer than

1184. 50,000 officers and men on paper.

1185. And it was still smaller in reality,

1186. just 1/3 of the size of the French Army,

1187. and scattered across the world from Ireland to India,

1188. the Mediterranean to the Caribbean.

1189. "Unless it rains men in red coats," one official warned,

1190. "I know not where we are to get all we shall want."

1191. The British should have recognized that

1192. this was going to be extremely difficult

1193. and perhaps unwinnable conflict.

1194. They were confident of two things.

1195. They had invincible military power.

1196. And, therefore, there was no need for them to compromise.

1197. And secondly, that any compromise of Sovereignty,

1198. of Parliament's Sovereignty, was going to encourage

1199. independence on the part of the Americans.

1200. They had a kind of "Domino" theory:

1201. if we lose American colonies, then we lose Canada,

1202. then we lose the Caribbean.

1203. So that George III and his Ministers really believe

1204. that nothing less than the future of the British Empire

1205. is at stake.

1206. Our commander, Arnold,

1207. was of a remarkable character.

1208. Brave and beloved by the soldiery,

1209. he possessed great powers of persuasion.

1210. Private John Joseph Henry.

1211. Benedict Arnold and his men had made

1212. slow progress on their way up the Kennebec River

1213. as part of the American invasion of Canada.

1214. Their provisions had been packed into 220 flat-bottomed

1215. "bateaux," built for them at George Washington's orders.

1216. All Arnold knew about the forests

1217. his men were about to penetrate

1218. came from a crude 15-year-old British map

1219. that seemed to suggest Quebec City was 180 miles away

1220. and could be reached in just 20 days.

1221. The real distance turned out to be 270 miles.

1222. Nothing could have prepared Arnold for the ordeal

1223. he and his men were about to endure.

1224. The Kennebec turned out to be punctuated

1225. by waterfalls and rapids.

1226. Submerged rocks tore the bottoms of their boats.

1227. Within 72 hours, 1/4 of their provisions

1228. were lost or ruined.

1229. In the mornings, wet clothes were glazed with ice,

1230. one man wrote, thick as a pane of glass.

1231. On the 10th day, Arnold began rationing the remaining food—

1232. just salt pork and flour.

1233. It snowed on the 19th day

1234. and rained relentlessly for days afterwards.

1235. Then, it snowed again.

1236. America is this huge continent.

1237. There's tornadoes, there's hurricanes,

1238. there's winter storms.

1239. Turns of weather that we know are coming for weeks on end

1240. hit the people of the 18th century

1241. completely by surprise.

1242. They're not just fighting each other.

1243. In a profound way, they are fighting

1244. the American climate and geography and topography.

1245. This is a difficult place to conduct a war.

1246. After a month of hardship,

1247. the officer leading the battalion that had been

1248. bringing up the rear declared the mission suicidal,

1249. turned his 300 men around,

1250. and started for home with many of the remaining provisions.

1251. Arnold's men were now forced to subsist on candles,

1252. tree bark, and soup made by boiling rawhide.

1253. One company killed and ate

1254. their captain's Newfoundland dog.

1255. Of the 1,100 men who set out from Cambridge,

1256. more than 1/3 had turned back, been escorted home as invalids,

1257. or died along the way.

1258. Finally, 45 days after setting off—not 20—

1259. Arnold's men saw the spires and walls of Quebec City

1260. looming across the St. Lawrence River.

1261. No one, particularly the British,

1262. can believe that suddenly they are there.

1263. Arnold, because of this, would have a reputation now.

1264. He would be known as the "American Hannibal"

1265. for his ability to move men over mountains,

1266. to achieve seemingly impossible things.

1267. Meanwhile, American forces led by

1268. General Montgomery had easily taken Montreal.

1269. Then, with 300 of his men,

1270. Montgomery set out along the St. Lawrence

1271. to meet up with Arnold.

1272. Together, they planned their assault on Quebec City.

1273. They realize that they've got a hard decision to make.

1274. We either attack now, or many of our men are going to leave.

1275. Their enlistments are up. They're cold.

1276. It's mid-winter in Canada.

1277. There were only some 300 British regulars

1278. stationed in the fortified city.

1279. So, General Guy Carleton, the royal governor of Canada,

1280. ordered every able-bodied man within its walls

1281. to prepare for battle.

1282. Anyone who refused had to leave or be prosecuted as a spy.

1283. The city's ramparts were soon guarded by some 1,800 men.

1284. The American plan called for two small, noisy

1285. diversionary feints to draw defenders away

1286. from the attack's real targets.

1287. Meanwhile, Arnold and his men would circle around

1288. Quebec City from the north,

1289. while General Montgomery would approach from the south.

1290. Together, they would storm the citadel's steep walls.

1291. Dear Father, if you receive

1292. this letter, it will be the last

1293. this hand will ever write you.

1294. Heaven only knows what will be my fate.

1295. But whatever it may be, I cannot resist

1296. the inclination I feel to assure you that in this cause

1297. I feel no reluctance to venture a life,

1298. which I consider as only lent to be used

1299. when my country demands it.

1300. Your very affectionate son, John Macpherson.

1301. The storm was outrageous.

1302. Covering the locks of our guns with the lapels of our coats

1303. and holding down our heads...

1304. we ran in single file.

1305. John Joseph Henry.

1306. The Americans launched their attack

1307. at 4 in the morning on December 31st, 1775,

1308. under the cover of a howling blizzard.

1309. Many men had pinned to their hats slips of paper

1310. with the words, "Liberty or Death."

1311. Everything went wrong.

1312. The diversionary attacks fooled no one.

1313. Arnold's men came under merciless fire

1314. from the ramparts above— and the enemy had placed

1315. formidable barricades in their way.

1316. When a ricocheting bullet fragment tore through

1317. Arnold's left leg, he had to be carried back to camp.

1318. Captain Daniel Morgan of Virginia took over.

1319. He managed to lead his men past one barricade

1320. only to be blocked by another.

1321. He tried 4 times to scale it, then decided to wait

1322. for Montgomery and his men to break through.

1323. But Montgomery never made it.

1324. Within moments of making his way into the city,

1325. he, John Macpherson, and 11 others were killed.

1326. The enemy, having the advantage

1327. of the ground in front, a vast superiority of numbers,

1328. and dry and better arms,

1329. gave them an irresistible power.

1330. About 9:00 a.m., it was apparent to all of us

1331. that we must surrender.

1332. John Joseph Henry.

1333. 30 Americans lay dead.

1334. 389 were taken prisoner, including Daniel Morgan.

1335. Arnold, though badly wounded, was not captured

1336. and vowed to try to take the city again

1337. before it could be reinforced.

1338. I have no thoughts of leaving

1339. this proud town, until I first

1340. enter it in triumph.

1341. Providence which has carried me through so many dangers,

1342. is still my protection.

1343. Benedict Arnold.

1344. I am more and more convinced

1345. that man is a dangerous creature,

1346. and that power, whether vested in many or a few,

1347. is ever grasping, and like the grave cries give, give.

1348. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which

1349. humane nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it,

1350. but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise

1351. from the scarcity of the instances.

1352. When I consider these things, I feel anxious for the fate

1353. of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place.

1354. Abigail Adams.

1355. On New Year's Day, 1776, George Washington

1356. ordered a new "Continental Union" flag

1357. raised atop Prospect Hill overlooking occupied Boston.

1358. The British Union Jack still filled

1359. its upper left-hand corner.

1360. But its 13 red and white stripes, he said,

1361. were intended as a "compliment to the United Colonies."

1362. With the exception of the city of Boston,

1363. Patriots now controlled each of the 13 colonies.

1364. Several other royal governors had, like Dunmore,

1365. fled to ships offshore.

1366. But people within the colonies remained deeply divided.

1367. Some of the free population favored independence.

1368. Others were appalled at the thought of

1369. breaking with the King.

1370. Abandoning Britain, one Virginian wrote,

1371. would "dissolve the bands of religion, of oaths, of laws,

1372. "of language, of blood, which hold us united

1373. under the influence of the common parent."

1374. Still others remained "disaffected,"

1375. favoring neither side, hoping somehow to carry on

1376. with their lives while their fellow-Americans—

1377. suspicious of their neutrality— fought things out.

1378. But events were changing minds.

1379. Gordon-Reed: What happened in the run-up

1380. to all of this gave people a sense

1381. that they might be able to make it on their own.

1382. They were different from the people in Great Britain.

1383. They realized that they were moving apart.

1384. If we must erect an independent

1385. government in America,

1386. a republic will produce strength, hardiness, activity,

1387. courage, fortitude, and enterprise.

1388. But there is so much rascality, so much

1389. venality and corruption, so much avarice and ambition,

1390. such a rage for profit and commerce

1391. among all ranks and degrees of men, even in America,

1392. that I sometimes doubt whether there is public virtue enough

1393. to support a republic.

1394. John Adams.

1395. The leaders of the American Revolution

1396. need popular support.

1397. The leaders of the American Revolution

1398. are going to have to make promises

1399. that there's going to be greater social mobility;

1400. there's going to be greater respect for common people;

1401. there is going to be broader political participation

1402. in the future than there has been in the colonial past

1403. by loosening up structures of authority,

1404. including structures of religious authority.

1405. If you're making this Revolution and you need

1406. the support of thousands of common people, men and women,

1407. what's in it for them?

1408. Gordon Wood: Up to the 18th century, people assumed that

1409. everything will always remain the same.

1410. But the idea that you could take charge

1411. and change your culture,

1412. that's what—that's the fundamental basis

1413. of the Enlightenment, that man can be changed.

1414. The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.

1415. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country,

1416. a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent.

1417. Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation.

1418. Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression.

1419. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.

1420. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time

1421. an asylum for mankind.

1422. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

1423. A situation similar to the present hath not happened

1424. since the days of Noah until now.

1425. The birthday of a new world is at hand.

1426. Thomas Paine.

1427. On January 9th, 1776, a slender pamphlet titled

1428. "Common Sense" was published in Philadelphia—

1429. the most important pamphlet in American history.

1430. It was signed simply "an Englishman."

1431. Its author, a recent newcomer to America,

1432. was 38-year-old Thomas Paine.

1433. The son of a Quaker corset-maker and his Anglican wife,

1434. Paine had failed at his father's profession,

1435. lost his first wife and their child in childbirth,

1436. been fired from his post as tax collector,

1437. endured the collapse of a second childless marriage,

1438. and had seen his possessions auctioned off to pay his debts.

1439. During his 8-week voyage from Britain,

1440. he'd contracted typhus, and when his ship reached Philadelphia,

1441. he had to be carried off, half-dead.

1442. But Paine was a master with words,

1443. skillfully weaving the latest Enlightenment philosophy

1444. with biblical references that everyone knew.

1445. And he was a violent foe of aristocracy and monarchy.

1446. It's a much more radical document

1447. than anything that had preceded it.

1448. "Common Sense" takes off

1449. like an accelerant through the colonies.

1450. Everyone reads it.

1451. Excerpts from "Common Sense" appeared

1452. in newspapers throughout the colonies.

1453. The pamphlet would sell tens of thousands of copies.

1454. It is an unprecedented bestseller.

1455. With the exception of the Bible in the colonies,

1456. no book has been read as widely as "Common Sense" is.

1457. Bernard Bailyn: It was a wholesale attack

1458. on the entire world of Britain, political, cultural.

1459. And it's in slam-bang prose.

1460. No American pamphleteer wrote that kind of

1461. really tough extreme language.

1462. It just made people listen

1463. and made people think at a time when the Congress

1464. would never have thought of attacking the King, personally,

1465. King George III, the "Crown of England."

1466. They were always like, "Oh, he's not really getting it.

1467. "It's Parliament that's our problem.

1468. The King needs to help us."

1469. He just called the King a "beast," in print.

1470. He was the working-class intellectual.

1471. His politics were radically democratic, in many ways.

1472. And that made him different from the other famous Founders.

1473. Hereditary succession

1474. is an insult and an imposition on posterity.

1475. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth

1476. could have a right to set up his own family

1477. in perpetual preference to all others forever.

1478. One of the strongest natural proofs

1479. of the folly of hereditary right in kings

1480. is that nature disapproves it,

1481. otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule

1482. by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

1483. Thomas Paine.

1484. That pamphlet did stir people's minds

1485. about the possibility of a different kind of world.

1486. "Common Sense" struck a string

1487. which required a touch to make it vibrate.

1488. The country was ripe for independence, and only needed

1489. somebody to tell the people so.

1490. Private Ashbel Green.

1491. Some of the Founders, and others,

1492. thought this is the moment we can start over again.

1493. We can actually begin the world anew.

1494. And it must have been, you know, wildly exciting at the time.

1495. And I think it still excites us, that we are

1496. the product of a revolutionary moment

1497. where the world turned upside down.

1498. My countrymen will come

1499. reluctantly into the idea of independency.

1500. I find "Common Sense" is working a wonderful change

1501. in the minds of many men.

1502. George Washington.

1503. Not all minds were changed.

1504. Hannah Griffitts, the Philadelphia poet

1505. who in 1768 had urged American women

1506. to boycott British goods, was horrified.

1507. The idea that to reform the Empire

1508. by not buying tea or imported cloth

1509. would lead to this crazy question of independence

1510. was an impossible thing for her to countenance.

1511. Paine is where a lot of people get on the revolutionary road.

1512. It's where she gets off.

1513. For some Americans, "Common Sense" confirmed

1514. their worst fears.

1515. Vermont Loyalist John Peters, who continued to receive

1516. death threats from his Patriot neighbors,

1517. had reached a breaking point.

1518. Often mobbed and once imprisoned

1519. by the malcontents, I quitted

1520. my family, property, and offices,

1521. and fled to Canada, to avoid personal danger

1522. and to support the British cause against its enemies.

1523. The want of guns is so great

1524. that no trouble or expense must be spared to obtain them.

1525. Washington has got Boston surrounded.

1526. The problem is, he doesn't have the big guns necessary

1527. to make the British in Boston really feel threatened.

1528. He's got some artillery, but not enough.

1529. They tend to be smaller field guns.

1530. He knows that at Ticonderoga,

1531. which is several hundred miles away,

1532. there are more than 80 British guns that have been captured by

1533. Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen.

1534. And he tells Henry Knox, "Go to Ticonderoga,

1535. bring back whatever you can."

1536. Henry Knox was a big, amiable, 25-year-old

1537. Boston bookseller who had learned all he knew

1538. about artillery and military engineering

1539. from volumes he'd stocked in his shop

1540. and from his service in the Boston militia.

1541. He'd earned Washington's admiration for overseeing

1542. the construction of fortifications at Roxbury.

1543. Washington, who's got a very good eye

1544. for subordinate talent, recognizes that this guy,

1545. he doesn't even have a uniform at the time,

1546. has something about him that Washington finds appealing,

1547. and the potential that Henry Knox evinces

1548. is something that Washington recognizes immediately.

1549. Before setting out, Knox wrote a letter

1550. to his pregnant wife Lucy, who had fled Boston,

1551. leaving her Loyalist parents and siblings behind.

1552. Keep up your spirits, my dear girl,

1553. and don't be alarmed when I tell you that the General

1554. has ordered me to go to the westward

1555. as far as Ticonderoga.

1556. Don't be afraid, there is no fighting in the case.

1557. I am going upon business only.

1558. Henry Knox.

1559. Knox made his way to the captured forts

1560. and found 55 guns worth transporting—

1561. 39 field pieces, 14 mortars, and two howitzers—

1562. all weighing more than 64 tons.

1563. Knox's task was somehow to move them

1564. 300 miles down into the Hudson Valley,

1565. across the Berkshires, and all the way to Boston.

1566. He had horses and ox teams haul the guns overland

1567. to the northern end of Lake George.

1568. From there, a small fleet of barges and boats

1569. ferried them more than 30 miles against howling winds

1570. to Fort George at the southern end.

1571. I have made 42 exceeding strong sleds

1572. and have provided 80 yoke of oxen

1573. to drag them as far as Springfield,

1574. where I shall get fresh cattle to carry them to camp.

1575. We shall have a fine fall of snow,

1576. which will make the carriage easy.

1577. Henry Knox.

1578. The snow for which Knox hoped

1579. proved unpredictable, sometimes too light

1580. for his sleds to glide over,

1581. sometimes too heavy for them to move at all.

1582. Crossing the Berkshires, oxen hauled the cannon

1583. up and over mountains so tall that from their summits,

1584. Knox remembered, "We might almost have seen

1585. all the kingdoms of the earth."

1586. Wherever they went, farmers and townspeople

1587. turned out to see them.

1588. We reached Westfield, Massachusetts,

1589. and found that very few, even among the oldest inhabitants,

1590. had ever seen a cannon.

1591. We were great gainers by this curiosity.

1592. For while they were employed in remarking upon our guns,

1593. we were with equal pleasure discussing the qualities

1594. of their cider and whiskey.

1595. John P. Becker.

1596. As the ox train lumbered on,

1597. Knox hurried ahead alone to Cambridge.

1598. He reported to Washington that over the next few weeks,

1599. all the artillery he'd been promised

1600. would be at his disposal.

1601. When the last of Knox's cannon reached Washington's army,

1602. England's hold on Boston was doomed.

1603. It's one of the most extraordinary expeditions

1604. in American military history.

1605. He appears back in Cambridge, says, "Boss, I'm here.

1606. "I've brought back 50 guns.

1607. "They're parked right outside of town.

1608. They're available whenever you need them."

1609. Washington says, "You're my man."

1610. And he puts Knox in charge of Continental Artillery.

1611. On the night of March 4th, 1776,

1612. some 3,000 men and 300 teams

1613. worked to put 20 or more heavy guns

1614. in place on Dorchester Heights.

1615. March 5th.

1616. This morning at daybreak, we discovered two redoubts

1617. on the hills on Dorchester Point,

1618. and two smaller works on their flanks.

1619. They were all raised during the night,

1620. with an expedition equal to that of the genie

1621. belonging to Aladdin's wonderful lamp.

1622. From these hills they commanded the whole town,

1623. so that we must drive them from their post,

1624. or desert the place.

1625. Unwilling to sacrifice any more men,

1626. General Howe decided to leave Boston

1627. for Halifax in Nova Scotia, where he hoped to regroup.

1628. With him went 10,000 soldiers and their dependents

1629. as well as 1,100 Loyalist men, women, and children

1630. who would have to build new lives in a new place.

1631. Among them were Henry Knox's in-laws.

1632. "I have lost," his wife Lucy wrote,

1633. "my father, mother, brother, and sisters."

1634. How horrid is this war?

1635. Brother against brother and the parent against the child.

1636. Who were the first promoters of it, I know not.

1637. But God knows.

1638. And I fear they will feel the weight of His vengeance.

1639. Tis pity, the little time we have to spend in this world,

1640. we cannot enjoy ourselves and our friends,

1641. but must be devising means to destroy each other.

1642. Lucy Knox.

1643. With the evacuation of Boston, no British garrison

1644. now remained anywhere in the rebellious colonies.

1645. Serena Zabin: I think it surprises everybody

1646. that the Patriots are having some successes.

1647. So much so that everyone's convinced that it's either

1648. the support of God or the virtue of the cause

1649. that is helping them win.

1650. One of their favorite metaphors is the Battle of Jericho.

1651. They're sure that all it takes

1652. is for this army that has right on its side

1653. to show up and blow a trumpet,

1654. and the walls are just going to fall down.

1655. Some Americans believed the war was over.

1656. The Massachusetts legislature thanked George Washington

1657. for his service and wished him

1658. "Peace and Satisfaction of Mind" in his retirement.

1659. But Washington knew better.

1660. He informed Congress that he would

1661. "immediately repair to New York, with the remainder of the Army."

1662. He was sure that Howe's next move would be to attack

1663. that strategically important port.

1664. By mid-April, 1776, he and his wife Martha,

1665. and several members of their household,

1666. were in residence there.

1667. Meanwhile, Congress sent a Connecticut businessman

1668. named Silas Deane to Paris

1669. to secretly buy munitions and supplies—

1670. and to look into the possibility

1671. of forging an alliance with France.

1672. Two questions, really, conjoin at this point.

1673. One question is, if we're going to

1674. make ourselves independent,

1675. if we're going to somehow create a nation,

1676. which is a truly novel and destabilizing concept,

1677. how are we going to do that? We have absolutely

1678. no means with which to do so.

1679. So, we will have to enlist the aid of a foreign power.

1680. And then comes the question of a Declaration.

1681. And the question is, which needs to happen first.

1682. Independence is the only bond

1683. that can tie and keep us together.

1684. Every day convinces us of its necessity.

1685. Instead of gazing at each other

1686. with suspicious or doubtful curiosity,

1687. let each of us hold out to his neighbor

1688. the hearty hand of friendship.

1689. And let no other name be heard among us, than those of

1690. a good citizen; an open and resolute friend;

1691. and a virtuous supporter of the Rights of Mankind,

1692. and of the Free and Independent States of America.

1693. Thomas Paine.

1694. Language cannot describe,

1695. nor imagination paint, the scenes of misery

1696. the soldiery endure,

1697. continually groaning and calling for relief, but in vain.

1698. The most shocking of all spectacles

1699. was to see a large barn crowded full of men with this disorder,

1700. many of which could not see, speak, or walk.

1701. Dr. Lewis Beebe.

1702. That spring, colonists on both sides

1703. of the fighting were ravaged by a common enemy:

1704. "Variola major"--smallpox.

1705. Highly infectious, the virus had scarred,

1706. blinded, or killed hundreds of thousands in North America

1707. over the past 21/2 centuries.

1708. The American Revolution coincided

1709. with a continent-wide epidemic that would last for 7 years

1710. and take some 100,000 more lives—Black, White,

1711. as well as Native American.

1712. Colin Calloway: When armies are marching back and forth,

1713. this is prime environment for the spread of diseases.

1714. And one of the largest,

1715. or at least best documented, smallpox epidemics,

1716. and it may be epidemics, plural,

1717. happens at the time of the American Revolution.

1718. Smallpox was the dread disease of humanity.

1719. There were just two weapons against smallpox:

1720. isolating its victims to keep them from infecting others

1721. or inoculating the still unaffected by deliberately

1722. implanting live virus into an incision

1723. in hopes that the infection they contracted

1724. would neither prove fatal nor infect anyone else

1725. before it conferred immunity.

1726. George Washington knew the disease firsthand;

1727. he'd been permanently scarred by it as a young man.

1728. But he initially rejected inoculation for his soldiers:

1729. if he imposed it universally, his whole army

1730. would have been incapacitated for weeks;

1731. if he employed it piecemeal

1732. and just one still-infectious inoculated soldier

1733. was released too early,

1734. he might infect his whole company.

1735. Instead, anyone showing smallpox symptoms

1736. was isolated in a special hospital

1737. with guards posted to keep visitors out.

1738. Meanwhile, aboard Lord Dunmore's

1739. floating city in the Chesapeake Bay,

1740. the men of his Ethiopian Regiment and their families,

1741. packed together on small, segregated vessels,

1742. were without immunity and not inoculated

1743. until the disease was already raging among them.

1744. So was typhus.

1745. The fever has proved a very malignant one

1746. and has carried off an incredible number

1747. of our people, especially the Blacks.

1748. Had it not been for this horrid disorder,

1749. I am satisfied I should have had 2,000 Blacks

1750. with whom I should have had no doubt

1751. of penetrating into the heart of this colony.

1752. Lord Dunmore.

1753. In late May, Dunmore moved his ramshackle fleet

1754. north to Gwynn's Island, lured there by the presence

1755. of some 400 cows with which he hoped

1756. to help feed his followers.

1757. But smallpox and typhus came with him.

1758. Runaways continued to find their way to Dunmore,

1759. 6 or 8 a day—and died almost as fast.

1760. Eventually, under fire from

1761. Virginia militiamen onshore,

1762. Dunmore and his fleet would be forced

1763. to sail away from the island.

1764. They left behind hundreds

1765. of sick African-American men, women, and children.

1766. A Virginian who reached the island a day or two later

1767. never forgot what he saw.

1768. On our arrival,

1769. we were struck with horror

1770. at the number of dead bodies,

1771. in a state of putrefaction,

1772. without a shovelful of earth upon them;

1773. others gasping for life;

1774. and some had crawled to the water's edge,

1775. who could only make known their distress by beckoning to us.

1776. Such a scene of cruelty my eyes never beheld;

1777. for which the authors never can make atonement in this world.

1778. Dunmore's experiment in emancipation

1779. had ended in disaster.

1780. But over the 7 years of fighting that followed,

1781. tens of thousands of enslaved people

1782. would flee to the British,

1783. believing that the King's representatives

1784. were more likely than the Revolutionaries

1785. to fulfill their hopes for liberty.

1786. Gordon-Reed: Opting for freedom is a gamble.

1787. And it makes people take all kinds of risks.

1788. The notion that you would be in a situation

1789. where your children, and your children's children,

1790. and your children's children's children would be enslaved,

1791. I can understand wanting to risk death to prevent that.

1792. That same spring, smallpox would end

1793. the American dream of capturing Canada, as well.

1794. For more than 4 months,

1795. Benedict Arnold, now promoted to general,

1796. had continued to blockade Quebec City,

1797. hoping he could mount a successful second assault

1798. before spring temperatures thawed the ice

1799. blocking the St. Lawrence,

1800. and the British could land reinforcements.

1801. But by May, nearly half of those Americans

1802. who remained were sick.

1803. Then, Royal Navy warships and transports arrived,

1804. filled with thousands of fresh troops—

1805. and thousands more were on the way.

1806. The Americans took flight.

1807. British forces, led by General Guy Carleton

1808. and General John Burgoyne, pursued them—

1809. soon supported by Native American allies.

1810. Darren Bonaparte: For us, my people

1811. living on the St. Lawrence,

1812. the British rallied us and said,

1813. "We've got Americans invading.

1814. They're going to kill all of you."

1815. We sent 100 of our warriors to help the British

1816. drive the Americans out of the Montreal area.

1817. One by one, the Americans

1818. abandoned their outposts.

1819. Reinforcements added to their numbers,

1820. but 3/4 of the newcomers had no immunity to smallpox.

1821. The road ran alongside

1822. of the river opposite the city of Montreal,

1823. and we could plainly see the red-coated

1824. British soldiers on the other shore.

1825. So close were they upon us that if we had not retreated

1826. as we did, all would have been prisoners,

1827. for they were in numbers as 6-to-our-one,

1828. and we, moreover, nearly half-dead

1829. with sickness and fatigue and lack of clothing.

1830. John Greenwood.

1831. The young fifer John Greenwood

1832. was among those reinforcements

1833. when Arnold ordered his men to abandon Montreal.

1834. Nearly 2,000 fell ill.

1835. Eventually they crowded onto lie aux Noix,

1836. waiting their turn to be ferried south on Lake Champlain

1837. to Crown Point and Ticonderoga.

1838. 20 to 60 men fell ill every day, and 15 to 20 died.

1839. Two great pits were dug

1840. in which the dead were heaped each evening,

1841. one man recalled,

1842. "with no other covering but the rags in which they died."

1843. By the end of June, 10 months

1844. after the American invasion of Canada began,

1845. it was over.

1846. 12,000 Americans had taken part.

1847. Some 5,000 of them had been killed,

1848. wounded, taken prisoner,

1849. died of disease, or deserted.

1850. The survivors were now encamped

1851. back on the shores of Lake Champlain

1852. where the campaign had started.

1853. Our army at Crown Point

1854. is an object of wretchedness

1855. to fill a human mind with horror.

1856. Our misfortunes in Canada are enough

1857. to melt a heart of stone.

1858. The smallpox is 10 times more terrible

1859. than Britons, Canadians, and Indians together.

1860. John Adams.

1861. "Our affairs are hastening to a crisis,"

1862. John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress

1863. warned, "and the approaching campaign

1864. "will in all probability

1865. determine forever the fate of America."

1866. France had by now quietly pledged

1867. to provide some arms and money—

1868. but open support would require the Congress

1869. to cut all ties to Britain.

1870. "Every day," John Adams wrote to a friend,

1871. independence "rolls in upon us like a torrent."

1872. On May 15th, Congress called upon all 13 colonies

1873. to form their own governments.

1874. By adopting new constitutions, the colonies would

1875. turn themselves into sovereign States.

1876. The next day, delegates learned that the British,

1877. desperate and without European allies,

1878. had hired thousands of foreign troops

1879. to help crush the rebellion.

1880. Some German princes had agreed to provide them—for a price.

1881. Most came from Hessen-Kassel and Hessen-Hanau,

1882. so the Americans would call them all "Hessians."

1883. "O Britons," one Rhode Islander lamented,

1884. "how art you fallen that you hire foreigners

1885. to cut your children's throats."

1886. The British nation have proceeded

1887. to the last extremity.

1888. And we should expect a severe trial this summer,

1889. with Britons, Hessians, Indians, Negroes,

1890. and every other butcher the gracious King of Britain

1891. can hire against us.

1892. Josiah Bartlett, New Hampshire.

1893. Friederike Baer: The Americans are using

1894. the British Government's decision

1895. to hire foreign soldiers

1896. in the war against British subjects,

1897. if they look at this as a civil war to some extent.

1898. They're using this as a tool

1899. to rile up resistance against Britain,

1900. to mobilize men to, basically,

1901. take up arms against these invaders,

1902. and ultimately to support independence.

1903. On June 7th, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia

1904. introduced resolutions in Congress declaring that

1905. "these United Colonies are & of right

1906. "ought to be free & independent States

1907. absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown."

1908. Meanwhile, a letter to a Pennsylvania newspaper

1909. signed only "Republicus"

1910. declared that it was time for independent Americans

1911. "to call themselves by some name"--

1912. and proposed the "United States of America."

1913. A 5-man committee was named to produce a document

1914. setting forth the reasons for making

1915. such a momentous decision.

1916. 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson of Virginia

1917. was assigned to write the first draft.

1918. He would draw from Aristotle, Cicero, John Locke,

1919. and the Virginia Declaration of Rights,

1920. written by his friend George Mason.

1921. But his goal, he said, was to distill what he called

1922. "an expression of the American mind."

1923. He worked in a rented room on Market Street,

1924. fueled by cups of tea brought to him

1925. by his 14-year-old valet, Robert Hemings—

1926. the son of an enslaved servant, Elizabeth Hemings,

1927. and Jefferson's father-in-law.

1928. When in the course of human events,

1929. it becomes necessary for one people

1930. to dissolve the political bands

1931. which have connected them with another,

1932. and to assume among the powers of the earth

1933. the separate and equal station

1934. to which the laws of nature

1935. and of nature's God entitle them,

1936. a decent respect to the opinions of mankind

1937. requires that they should declare the causes

1938. which impel them to the separation.

1939. We hold these truths to be self-evident:

1940. that all men are created equal;

1941. that they are endowed by their Creator

1942. with certain inalienable rights;

1943. that among these are life, liberty,

1944. and the pursuit of happiness.

1945. Everything that we believe in

1946. comes out of the Revolution.

1947. Our ideas of liberty, equality,

1948. it's the defining event of our history.

1949. "All men are created equal."

1950. That is the most famous and important phrase

1951. in our history.

1952. If we don't celebrate it, we have

1953. no reason to be a people.

1954. And Lincoln knew that.

1955. And that's why he says,

1956. "All honor to Jefferson."

1957. Thomas Jefferson was proposing something

1958. altogether new and radical in the world.

1959. It was the American people's "right," he argued,

1960. it was "their duty"-- to "throw off" tyranny

1961. and learn to govern themselves.

1962. That to secure these rights,

1963. governments are instituted among men,

1964. deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

1965. that whenever any form of government

1966. becomes destructive of these ends,

1967. it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it,

1968. and to institute new government,

1969. laying its foundation on such principles

1970. and organizing its powers in such form,

1971. as to them shall seem most likely

1972. to effect their safety and happiness.

1973. Since no one had authority over anyone else

1974. by birthright, Jefferson was affirming

1975. that all legitimate power came from the people themselves—

1976. even if he, the owner of hundreds of human beings,

1977. could never make that truth a reality in his own life.

1978. Gordon-Reed: His relationship to slavery

1979. is foundational.

1980. From the beginning to the end, this institution

1981. bounded his life, even though he knew it was wrong.

1982. How could you know something is wrong and still do it?

1983. Well, that is the human question for all of us.

1984. The Declaration of Independence,

1985. we remember it, primarily,

1986. from its opening preamble,

1987. the most famous sentences in our history,

1988. quoted ever since as a mandate

1989. for expanding liberty for other people.

1990. But most of the document is something else.

1991. It is a list of crimes

1992. allegedly committed by the King.

1993. That means that when the Patriot leaders

1994. decide that they want independence,

1995. then they must persuade their people in the colonies,

1996. now states, that the King has forfeited his just authority.

1997. The purpose of the Declaration of Independence

1998. is to declare the King is no longer sovereign.

1999. Throughout history, most people

2000. had been subjects,

2001. living under authoritarian rule.

2002. "All experience hath shewn," Jefferson wrote,

2003. "that mankind are more disposed to suffer,

2004. while evils are sufferable."

2005. George III himself, not the Parliament, was now the enemy.

2006. The Declaration denounced him

2007. as "unfit to be the ruler of a free people,"

2008. guilty of 18 "injuries and usurpations,"

2009. all meant to establish, it read, "absolute tyranny."

2010. It charged that he had invaded "the rights of the people,"

2011. sent "swarms of officers to harass" them,

2012. imposed a standing army in peacetime,

2013. levied taxes without the colonists' consent,

2014. and was now waging war against them.

2015. Dunmore's Proclamation had deepened fears

2016. of slave uprisings,

2017. and reports that the governor of Canada

2018. had enlisted Native people to resist the invasion there

2019. further inflamed Congress.

2020. In the 18th and final charge against the King,

2021. Jefferson did all he could to exploit their fury.

2022. He has excited

2023. domestic insurrections amongst us

2024. and has endeavored to bring on

2025. the inhabitants of our frontiers,

2026. the merciless Indian Savages,

2027. whose known rule of warfare

2028. is an undistinguished destruction

2029. of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

2030. Proclaiming the equality of "all men"

2031. was a genuinely revolutionary idea,

2032. but that equality was not yet extended to Native Americans,

2033. enslaved or free Blacks, the poor, or any woman.

2034. Jefferson's original list of "injuries" had also included

2035. the charge that George III was somehow responsible

2036. for the Atlantic slave trade.

2037. He called it "cruel war against human nature itself."

2038. The other delegates refused to adopt that charge.

2039. The Declaration of Independence was formally

2040. ratified on July 4th, 1776—

2041. just 1,337 words that ended with the phrase,

2042. "We mutually pledge to each other

2043. our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

2044. When Rhode Island delegate Stephen Hopkins,

2045. who had palsy, signed the document,

2046. he is said to have remarked,

2047. "My hand trembles, but my heart does not."

2048. It was first read aloud to a cheering crowd

2049. in the State House yard at Philadelphia on July 8th.

2050. It was soon published in 29 newspapers,

2051. and greeted by parades and celebratory volleys of gunfire

2052. throughout the newly United States.

2053. Boston, Massachusetts—

2054. when Colonel Crafts read the proclamation,

2055. great attention was given to every word,

2056. and every face appeared joyful.

2057. The King's arms were taken down from the State House

2058. and every vestige of him from every place

2059. in which it appeared and burned in King Street.

2060. Thus ends royal authority in this state,

2061. and all the people shall say, "Amen."

2062. Abigail Adams.

2063. On July 9th, in New York,

2064. General Washington ordered the Declaration read to his troops.

2065. Hearing the list of George III's alleged crimes

2066. so angered the men that a number of them

2067. raced down Broadway to Bowling Green,

2068. tied ropes to the statue of the King,

2069. and pulled it to the ground.

2070. Pieces of the shattered statue were dispatched by wagon

2071. to Litchfield, Connecticut, where Patriots melted

2072. the gilded lead into bullets— 42,088 of them.

2073. Far to the north at Fort Ticonderoga,

2074. the battered survivors of the failed invasion of Canada

2075. were assembled so that the Declaration

2076. could be read to them.

2077. When it was over, an eyewitness said,

2078. "The language of every man's countenance was,

2079. "Now we are a people;

2080. we have a name among the states of the world."

2081. Among those who heard the Declaration

2082. read at Ticonderoga was private Lemuel Haynes,

2083. a free African-American from Granville, Massachusetts.

2084. He understood right away what it might mean

2085. for people like him—and wrote an essay entitled:

2086. "Liberty Further Extended."

2087. Liberty is a jewel

2088. which was handed down to man

2089. from the cabinet of heaven.

2090. It hath pleased God to make "of one blood all nations

2091. of men for to dwell upon the face of the earth."

2092. And as all are of one species, therefore, we may

2093. reasonably conclude that liberty is equally as precious

2094. to a Black man as it is to a White one,

2095. and bondage equally as intolerable

2096. to the one as it is to the other.

2097. Maggie Blackhawk: The Declaration of Independence

2098. was deeply significant to people at the margins.

2099. It gave them a space of moral argument.

2100. It gave them a space of legal argument

2101. that could be leveraged to reshape United States democracy

2102. and become a part of it.

2103. And we are going to push every lever we had

2104. to be able to make this democracy real,

2105. and to make these visions, these values,

2106. real rather than hypocritical.

2107. London, "The Gentleman's Magazine."

2108. The American Declaration reflects no honor

2109. upon either the erudition or honesty of its authors.

2110. "We hold," they say, "these truths to be self-evident.

2111. That all men are created equal"?

2112. Every plowman knows that they are not created equal.

2113. It certainly is no reason why the Americans

2114. should turn rebels.

2115. King George was determined that the Americans

2116. not be permitted to break away.

2117. He believes, and his senior ministers believe,

2118. that this slippery slope of an American insurrection

2119. will only lead to

2120. the dissolution of the British Empire.

2121. The sun never sets on the British Empire.

2122. That phrase was coined in 1773.

2123. And George is determined it's never going to set

2124. as long as he is the monarch.

2125. And the King had sent a great fleet

2126. to New York—with thousands of troops—

2127. to prevent that from ever happening.