Original subtitles

(intense music)

- [Narrator] 1776, America is a land divided against itself,

torn between dreams of independence and loyalty to a king.

In the midst of this struggle, a single document

transforms a rebellion into a revolution.

- Every soldier who picks up a musket,

every member of the family back home

keeping the farm going is, in effect,

signing their own declaration of independence.

- [Narrator] 250 years after

the Declaration of Independence,

the stories of revolutionary veterans,

some recently transcribed from pension applications

in the National Archives,

reveal what fighting for the cause meant

to the common soldier. (muskets fire)

- Black Americans like Prince Griswold

are caught between the cruel reality of slavery

and the high-minded rhetoric of liberty and freedom.

(musket fires)

- Deborah Sampson takes the name Robert Shirtliff.

She is a model soldier.

(muskets firing) (soldiers yelling)

- In many ways, the war in the South becomes a civil war.

- [Soldier] We were a set of men

acting entirely on our own footing,

what might be called the harum scarum boys

- [Narrator] Traitors to some, revolutionaries to others,

but what does independence mean to those fighting

to bring about a new dawn for the country and its people?

(foreboding music)

Successes at Trenton and Princeton

have temporarily saved the revolution,

and the Declaration of Independence

has given Americans a country to fight for,

but only if people believe in its promises.

23-year-old Prince Griswold is born

into perpetual hereditary slavery in Connecticut.

His enslaver is Matthew Griswold,

the colony's chief justice and deputy governor.

- Now, we think of the American Revolution

as being about freedom, and it is,

but that means different things to different people.

(birds chirping)

- Black Americans like Prince really are caught

between the cruel reality of slavery

and the high-minded rhetoric

of the Declaration of Independence,

with its focus on liberty and freedom.

(inkwell clinking)

- [Narrator] Jefferson's first draft of the declaration

actually contains an explicit condemnation

of King George's role in slavery

and the transatlantic slave trade.

- "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself,

violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty

in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,

captivating and carrying them into slavery

in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death

in a transportation hither."

This is an astonishing statement for Jefferson

to include in the Declaration of Independence.

All of the colonies at this time have slavery.

Jefferson himself is a slave holder.

He will be for the rest of his life.

- The South Carolina delegation

at the Second Continental Congress says that line,

"Can't stay."

Says the Declaration of Independence cannot have a claim

that the slave trade is wrong.

(pensive music)

- [Narrator] Even with the explicit reference

to slavery removed from the declaration,

the revolution creates new possibilities

and difficult choices for enslaved people,

and the choices are different in the North and the South.

In the southern colonies of Virginia,

the Carolinas, and Georgia,

where the economies are built on enslaved labor,

the British dangle the prospect of freedom

to entice enslaved people to escape

and join the loyalist cause.

- Now, that offer is not done really kind

of out of the goodness of their hearts.

It's really very specifically done to swell the ranks

of the British army and to undermine the American colonies,

to have enslaved populations on these plantations leave.

- What they're trying to do

is disrupt the Southern economic system built on slavery

in hopes that this will drive the planters to make peace.

- In huge numbers, enslaved men,

women carrying their children find the British army.

- And those who do risk their life leaving the plantation,

and in some cases, walking miles and miles and miles

so they can get to the British Army,

where they are greeted not as loyal Britains,

they're greeted as laborers.

- [Narrator] In the North,

where enslavement was still legal but less common,

free Black militia men fight on the side

of the colonists at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill.

But revolutionary leaders are reluctant

to allow Black men, free or enslaved,

to enlist in the American Continental Army.

- The revolution is being fought

over all this rhetoric of freedom, this rhetoric of liberty,

and so the optics don't look particularly good

when you're enlisting enslaved people

to fight for your white liberty.

- [Narrator] But the American losses during 1776

forced congressional leadership to rethink this policy,

- They need more soldiers,

so some of the Northern colonies,

like Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut,

produced these limited pathways to freedom

for enslaved people who were willing to sort

of swell the ranks of the Continental Army.

- [Narrator] In 1777, Connecticut legislature passes a law,

that states, "White patriots who've been drafted

can send enslaved men to serve in their place

so long as they offer them freedom."

- This appears to be the case for Prince,

but Prince is not alone.

He has a brother, Jim, who enlists as well.

- [Narrator] He is literally fighting for his freedom.

It comes at a steep cost.

Terms of enlistment have been increased to three years,

and Prince is about to join what still appears

to be the losing side.

- The Founding Fathers signed a Declaration of Independence,

but Prince in enlisting the fight is, in effect,

signing his own declaration of independence.

So, for someone like Prince,

the revolution's literally a choice

between liberty and death.

(tense marching music)

- [Narrator] In August, 1777,

only a few weeks after enlisting,

Prince's unit, the 7th Connecticut Regiment is on the march.

Washington has learned his British opponent,

General William Howe, has landed his army

on the northernmost point of Chesapeake Bay.

If the Americans can't turn back the British,

there will be nothing to stop Howe

from capturing the new capital of Philadelphia

and possibly dealing a fatal blow to the revolution.

- The 11th of September, 1777 is humid and foggy.

Under these conditions, the British army sets out

to attack Washington.

- [Narrator] Washington's forces are lined up

along the Brandywine, a shallow but fast flowing creek

about 10 miles west of Philadelphia.

(soldiers yelling)

Barely one month into his service, Prince finds himself

in the largest single-day field battle of the entire war

as 14,000 Americans prepare to clash with 16,000 British.

When Washington sees the British army advancing

against his front,

he believes that Howe is going to attack him straight on.

- During the fight, though, he gradually learns

that there are British forces to his north.

It's at that moment that Washington realizes

he's being outflanked.

- [Narrator] Prince and his comrades are ordered

to shore up the right flank.

In some of the heaviest fighting of the war,

they hold off the British until darkness falls,

covering the main army's retreat.

After 11 hours of fighting,

1300 Americans are killed or wounded,

twice the number of British forces,

but the organized retreat

spares the Americans from disaster.

- Howe was hoping to destroy

the American army at Brandywine.

Instead, all he's done is bloody it.

- [Narrator] Prince has survived his first battle.

- The pension applications tell us

a lot about these soldiers.

In the case of Prince,

you have white soldiers that served with him

that testified that he was a good soldier,

and one of the things that was brought up was,

"We always carried a fiddle with him."

And this is not to be understated.

Someone that could play the fiddle

could bring some much needed entertainment

to the drudgery of camp life.

- [Narrator] As Prince settles into the army,

Washington must make an impossible choice,

protect Philadelphia and risk another bloody defeat

or abandon it.

- Washington does the right thing

by allowing the British to take Philadelphia,

and lives to fight another day.

(footsteps stomping)

- [Narrator] On September 26th, 1777,

General Howe marches the British army into Philadelphia.

The American capitol has fallen.

Its supposed government, the Congress, has fled.

More than ever,

the American cause appears on the brink of defeat.

Washington needs a win.

Not only does he need to show congressional leaders

he's still the right man for the job,

he needs to prove to potential allies like France

that the Americans are worth backing.

Starting in 1775,

the French have been secretly sending money

and weapons to the colonists.

They are motivated less by a desire to aid the Americans

than the chance to score a blow

against their arch rival, the British.

(rhythmic classical music)

They have also sent volunteers

like 19-year-old Gilbert du Mutier,

the Marquis de Lafayette,

who arrives in America in 1777,

driven by idealism and a thirst for adventure.

- He becomes quite close to people like Washington,

Hamilton, and the people that are kind

of leading the revolution.

They know that he is a potentially very important ally

in convincing the right people in the French court

to whisper in the ear of Louis XVI.

- [Narrator] But to convince France

to declare war on the British,

Washington has to deliver a victory.

When Howe splits his forces between Philadelphia

and the nearby Mennonite community of Germantown,

Washington sees an opportunity.

(finger tapping)

On October 4th, 1777,

11,000 American regulars and militia, including Prince,

prepare to face 9,000 of Howe's best troops.

Washington plans to attack at 5:00 AM.

Just like at Brandywine, a thick fog rolls in.

Washington's carefully planned offensive

quickly begins to unravel.

- In the fog, two American units come into contact.

Neither one realizes that the other one is American.

A friendly fire incident ensues.

American casualties are produced by American soldiers.

(pensive music)

- [Narrator] The attack's momentum stalls

and the British gain the upper hand,

but Prince and his regiment keep their heads

and make a fighting withdrawal.

- Germantown isn't the success

that Washington is hoping for,

but it impresses the French observers who are with the army.

They see an army that is willing to stand and fight.

- [Narrator] But Germantown alone will not be enough

to convince the French to join the war.

Fortunately, events in New York

are about to change the course of the conflict.

While Washington and Howe face off in Pennsylvania,

a second threat is being fought

400 miles north near Saratoga.

There, American General Horatio Gates engages in a series

of battles against a British force invading from Canada.

(muskets fire)

- The British General Burgoyne, known as Gentleman Johnny,

his army is trapped at Saratoga.

The Americans then seize on that opportunity.

- [Narrator] At two battles spread three weeks apart,

Gates' 15,000 Americans kill

or capture Burgoyne's entire army of 7,500 soldiers.

- This is a devastating defeat for the British

and an enormous victory for the Americans

and one of the most consequential moments of the entire war.

It convinces the French to join the cause.

- [Narrator] Even still, it will be months

before French aid arrives.

The Americans will be on their own until then.

With the approach of winter,

the campaign season of 1777 draws to a close.

- Armies typically didn't fight in the winter.

It was too difficult.

It seems silly to us today, but they'd basically say,

"Timeout, we'll see you in the spring."

- [Narrator] Washington withdraws the main army

one day's march northwest of Philadelphia.

12,000 men, including Prince, arrive at an ironworks

in a hilly region called Valley Forge.

They begin constructing their winter camp.

- With so many men building so many cabins there,

Valley Forge becomes what would be the fourth largest city

in the country at the time.

- [Narrator] As the cold winter sets in,

living conditions deteriorate.

Temperatures drop as low as six Fahrenheit.

Most of the soldiers have only their summer clothes,

up to one third have no shoes.

Blankets are in short supply and food is running out.

- Soldiers are going many days without eating,

often resorting to eating things

like tree bark or their shoe leather.

The situation at Valley Forge is growing desperate.

(low music)

- [Narrator] Even more deadly than the cold

or starvation is illness.

With so many people in such close quarters,

diseases like smallpox run rampant

- Smallpox is incredibly debilitating,

causes a number of symptoms,

things like headache, fever, rash, body pains.

Causes death in about 30% of cases,

so it's a very serious disease.

(dark music)

- [Narrator] During the course of the war,

it is estimated that more than 100,000 American soldiers

and civilians die from smallpox,

far outnumbering deaths from battle.

- The thing about smallpox is that once you've had it,

typically, you are immune from that point on.

British soldiers typically have a greater immunity

to smallpox as smallpox had spread more widely in Europe.

- [Narrator] But the age of enlightenment,

whose ideals underpin the declaration,

also puts an emphasis on science.

And European doctors have begun looking

at ways to stop the disease.

- Inoculation is done by making an incision

on the person who's being inoculated,

at which point, pus through scabs

from a person who has smallpox

would be inserted into that wound with the idea being

that the person would contract hopefully

a mild form of smallpox,

which they would recover from relatively quickly

and then be immune to smallpox from that point on.

- [Narrator] The practice was controversial,

but Washington decides to inoculate troops starting in 1777.

His decision drops the smallpox infection rate

from 20% down to 1%.

Still, over the six months the army spends at Valley Forge,

an estimated 2,000 soldiers die.

(water rushing) (bright music)

As spring finally arrives,

American forces start to regroup

from the hard months of sickness and starvation.

The nearly 400 women in the camp are essential

to getting the army back on its feet.

- In both the British army and the Continental Army,

there are women who travel with the men in the army.

Some of the women with armies are there

because their own homes have been destroyed

or there's no way to feed themselves at home.

They're not in a great position,

but the army provides them

at least a little bit of security.

- The women are gathering firewood, nursing the sick,

and they're doing the laundry.

And they're not just doing the laundry for their husbands,

they're doing laundry for the whole regiment.

And so, ultimately, they are a vital part

of these military encampments.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Some of the women in the camp

have even secretly come to the front lines,

disguising their identities by dressing in men's clothes.

- We don't really know how many women enlist

because if they get away with it,

then they'll be recorded in the army records by a male name.

- [Narrator] Any woman who is caught in a soldier's uniform

risks public humiliation.

- They treat her like she's a whore

and they march her out of the military setting,

stripped to the waist behind a cart with her hands tied,

and the fife and drum corps (lively marching music)

are playing what came to be known as the whores march.

- [Narrator] But these risks don't stop women

like Deborah Sampson from enlisting.

- Deborah Sampson is a Massachusetts woman

from a very poor family.

She's a domestic servant,

and she's gonna be a servant all of her life.

She would never have a dowry, so it's a gloomy prospect.

- [Narrator] A soldier's pay

is an opportunity for a better life.

- The recruiters come through town for the Continental Army,

and she joins up.

Now, women aren't supposed to join up, right,

so she has to disguise herself as a man.

- She takes the name Robert Shirtliff.

She's tall and she has the appearance of manliness

when she cuts her hair and puts on a uniform.

As far as we can tell, she's one of the guys.

She goes to the tavern,

she's drinking with the other soldiers,

she's flirting with the barmaids,

and I don't think anybody challenged her.

- [Narrator] Deborah Sampson is emblematic

of the new possibilities created by the revolution

and the revolutionary ideas underpinning it.

- One of the things with ideas

is that it's very hard to control how they flow.

In this context of the American Revolution,

American women start to think freedom

and liberty sound like good ideas to us.

- [Narrator] In 1776, 3 months before the signing

of the Declaration of Independence,

Abigail Adams writes a letter to her husband,

Congressional Delegate John Adams.

- "I long to hear that you have declared an independency.

I desire that you would remember the ladies.

If particular care and attention is not paid,

we are determined to foment a rebellion

and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws

in which we have no voice or representation."

- [Narrator] But as with the issue of slavery,

rights for women are excluded

from specific mention in the declaration.

- Stating the fact that all men are created equal

is, it itself at the time, a radical position.

This is a world in which all men are not considered equal,

but we need to see that the Founding Fathers

could have pushed this thing further than they did.

- [Narrator] What the revolutionary ideal of liberty

will truly mean for people like Deborah Sampson

and Prince Griswold is still an open question.

Washington uses the time at Valley Forge

to train his troops.

Enlisting oppression army officer

named Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August von Steuben.

- Von Steuben shows the army how to fight with bayonets,

how to resist a bayonet charge.

The soldiers see themselves coming together.

They're learning new tactics.

So, when the army marches out of Valley Forge,

they are a European-style fighting force.

- [Narrator] As Washington prepares to face the British

in the summer of 1778, he does so with the promise of help

soon to arrive from America's new ally, France,

but he also faces a new foe.

- General Howe has had a number

of remarkable successes against George Washington,

but he hasn't delivered the decisive victory yet,

and the British cannot understand, the King, the Parliament,

how is Howe not ending this war?

And their patience has grown thin.

Yet another British commander is sent over

to try to win this war.

- [Narrator] General Sir Henry Clinton

is a respected strategist and tactician.

He recognizes that the strategic situation of the war

has changed with the entrance of France.

Concerned that he will be trapped

between Washington's army and the French Navy,

Clinton decides to abandon Philadelphia

and to march north, back to New York City.

On June 24th, 1778,

the Continental Congress returns to the capital.

(low tense music)

Meanwhile, Washington shadows Clinton's forces

into New Jersey, harassing them.

Although the British army is bigger,

they're strung out along a 12-mile column.

Seeing an opportunity, Washington orders General Charles Lee

to attack the rear guard on June 28th near Monmouth.

Clinton dispatches his second-in-command,

general Lord Charles Cornwallis, to engage Washington,

hoping to provoke a large-scale battle.

- Lee encounters the British army

and sees that he's up against a bigger force

than they'd reckoned.

- Charles Lee cuts and runs,

doesn't follow Washington's orders

and almost risks the entire army in a rout at Monmouth.

- [Narrator] Washington arrives

to find his newly trained army on the brink of collapse.

He turns his temper on General Lee.

- George Washington was known for his stoic demeanor.

In truth, he had a volcanic temper.

Well, that temper came out at Monmouth.

It was said by the soldiers that Washington

was so volcanically explosive

that the leaves on the trees nearby quake

when he chewed out Lee and removed him from command.

(soldiers yelling)

- [Narrator] 10,000 British troops form up

against less than half that number of Americans,

but these aren't the rabble the British derided

in previous years.

Drawing on Von Steuben's training,

the Americans make a heroic stand

against the superior

- What seems like a disaster for Washington

actually turns into a pretty good day.

Eventually, the fight becomes a stalemate.

Both sides exchanging artillery fire, musketry.

Washington pulls the battlefield at the end of the day,

his army did not have to fall back.

It held the ground.

- [Narrator] In his autobiography, written after the war,

soldier Joseph Plumb Martin describes a woman

working alongside men at an artillery crew

during the battle.

- Martin recounts that while helping her husband reload

an artillery piece,

an enemy cannonball passed right between her legs,

tearing away the lower part of her dress.

He writes, "Looking at it with apparent unconcern,

she observed that it was lucky

it did not pass a little higher, or in that case,

it might have carried away something else."

- After the battle, soldiers nicknamed the woman

Sergeant Molly or Molly Pitcher.

- Molly was a common nickname for Mary,

so we believe it might have been Mary Ludwig Hays.

She gained a lot of fame

and is an iconic part of the revolution.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Fighting at Monmouth rages

for 12 grueling hours.

For Prince, this will be his final battle.

- Prince is shot in the leg.

He's one of an estimated

at least 25,000 Revolutionary War soldiers

who are wounded or disabled from the fight.

- [Narrator] Prince is also one

of 5,000 African American men who serve

on the side of the patriots during the revolution.

He's honorably discharged in August, 1780.

He leaves the army and returns to Connecticut a free man.

But his great achievement is tempered by loss and sadness.

- Prince learns that his brother Jim

is killed during the war.

So, for one, it is liberty,

and for the other, it is death.

(intense music)

- [Narrator] In the aftermath of the Battle of Monmouth,

Clinton retreats to New York City

while Washington positions himself north of Manhattan.

With their closely matched armies,

neither side wants to make a fatal move.

As the war in the North grinds

to an inconclusive standstill,

British strategy shifts to the Southern colonies

of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Here, opinion on the revolutionary cause

is much more divided.

- There were far more loyalists in the South

because the South was very rural, it was very agrarian,

and the prime product, which was based on slavery,

was producing things like rice and indigo

and cotton and tobacco,

and one of the biggest consumers

of these products, the British.

The British therefore realized if they went into the South,

they could take advantage of all these loyalists

to do the fighting for them.

(slow foreboding music)

- [Narrator] On December, 29, 1778,

the British captured the strategically important

deep water port of Savannah.

But as the Southern campaign begins in earnest,

it takes on a different character

than in the Northern colonies,

with patriots and loyalists squaring off against each other.

- In many ways the war in the south becomes a civil war.

The two sides are neighbors, sometimes family members,

they fight against each other, and so towns are split apart.

Individual men sometimes will serve on one side

and then later on the other side.

- James Potter Collins from Tryon County, North Carolina,

describes the division between patriots and loyalists

in his memoir composed after the war.

- [Reader] "Times began to be troublesome

and people began to divide into parties.

Those that had been good friends

in times past became enemies.

They began to watch each other with jealous eyes."

(energetic classical music)

- [Narrator] Along with his father and older brother,

Collins joins the patriot militia in 1780 at age 17.

They are fully committed to the cause.

- When Collins' father enlists, he says,

"We must submit and become slaves or fight."

For Collins' family and for many

other American revolutionaries at this time,

the idea of liberty or death

has become much more than just rhetoric.

It is really kind of central

to their belief system at this point.

- [Narrator] For the British, the Southern strategy

initially starts to pay off.

While Washington watches helplessly from New York,

the British, under commander-in-chief Sir Henry Clinton,

capture Charleston, South Carolina.

- Clinton takes Charleston,

and not only captures the wealthiest city in North America,

he also captures some 5,000 American soldiers.

He takes the American army off the chessboard in the South.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] Two weeks later,

British Colonel Banastre Tarleton

routs the remaining American forces in South Carolina

at the Battle of Waxhaws.

More than 100 Americans are killed

compared to only five British,

sparking rumors that Tarleton ordered

a massacre of prisoners.

(muskets fire)

True or not, the event enrages Americans

and earns Tarleton a bloodthirsty reputation.

He did not allow them to surrender.

He gave them no quarter, as the expression was.

Therefore, a term called Banastre Tarleton's Quarter

or Tarleton Quarter became popular during the war.

- [Narrator] As the conflict in the South turns uglier,

(cannon booms)

British momentum seems unstoppable.

- Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga,

takes command of the Southern department.

Charles Cornwallis faces him in battle

at Camden, South Carolina.

- [Narrator] On August 16th, 1780,

Gates tries to turn the tide of the war

in the American's favor.

2,200 British soldiers (muskets booming)

rout 3,700 colonial troops under Gates' command.

(muskets booming)

It's the worst tactical loss

for the Americans of the entire war,

and it gives the British control of South Carolina.

Cornwallis reports to his commander-in-chief

General Clinton that resistance in the South

has been crushed, except in his words,

for a few scattering militia.

But those militia do not give up the fight.

- [Soldier] We were a set of men acting entirely

on our own footing without the promise

or expectation of any pay.

We depended on what chance

or kind providence might cast in our way,

and were always ready to decamp in a short time

so that we were what might be called

the harum scarum boys, the ranting squad.

- Militia men like Collins fight a different kind of war.

They will strike from hidden locations,

trying to hit the British where their weakest,

attacking small outposts, attacking loyalist militia,

always trying to keep the British wondering what's next.

(musket fires)

- [Narrator] On October 7th, 1780,

900 patriot militiamen and backwoods fighters

assemble at King's Mountain, South Carolina

to directly confront a force of over 1,000 loyalist militia.

The result is the first major victory

for the Americans in the South.

(muskets firing)

More than 1,000 loyalists are killed or captured

while the patriots suffer only 90 casualties.

After the loyalists surrender,

the patriots take revenge for Tarleton's Quarter.

Dozens of prisoners are shot and nine are hanged.

- [Soldier] After the fight was over,

the situation of the poor Tories appears

to be really pitiable.

The dead laying heaps on all sides

while the groans of the wounded were heard

in every direction.

I could not help turning away

from the scene before me with horror,

and though exalting in victory,

could not refrain from shedding tears.

- [Narrator] The patriot victory at King's Mountain

marks a turning point in the South.

- The victory at King's Mountain raises

the morale of the Americans.

It helps convince perhaps some

who were wavering that maybe it's a good thing

to back the Americans fighting for independence.

- [Narrator] Inspired by the success at King's Mountain,

the Americans go on the offensive.

At the Battle of Cowpens on January 17th, 1781,

American Army soldiers and militiamen

win another stunning victory,

with the British losing nearly eight times the number

of soldiers as the Americans.

Two months later, American General Nathaniel Greene

grinds down Cornwallis's numbers even further

at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

With his army diminished,

Cornwallis is forced to rethink his strategy.

- He goes to Yorktown on the coast of Virginia.

He expects that the British Navy is going to sail down

and either reinforce and resupply him

or transport his army back to New York City.

- [Narrator] But the Americans now have the support

of the French Navy.

Washington sees a chance to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.

He consults with the French General,

the Comte de Rochambeau, and orders Lafayette

to block Cornwallis's escape from Yorktown.

Next, he decides to trick General Clinton

into thinking he plans to attack New York City.

- Washington builds a fake camp.

He lights campfires.

He has information spread around,

knowing that loose lips will sink ships, so to speak.

(escalating music)

- [Narrator] Meanwhile, he secretly leads a combined force

of American and recently arrived French troops south.

At the same time, the French Navy arrives from Haiti

and prepares to engage British ships off the Virginia Coast.

- The French Navy is deployed.

It blockades and intercepts the British Navy,

and in a stunning victory,

defeats the all-powerful British Navy.

Now, Cornwallis is trapped.

(soft music)

- [Narrator] Marching with the Continental Army

towards Yorktown is 25-year-old John Bodine of Pennsylvania.

- John Bodine's story is remarkable.

According to his pension application, he enlisted in 1776.

He's been with George Washington

while crossing the Delaware River.

He suffered through Valley Forge.

He fought at Brandywine, where he was shot and wounded.

By this point, he's in the war for five years.

He thought he had only signed up for three years.

Bodine mentions this misunderstanding, not once, but twice

in his pension application where he says,

"And this Declarant again repeats

at the expiration of that period three years."

He was told by his colonel

that he had not enlisted for three years,

but for the war, to which he yielded

and accordingly served the United States faithfully.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] The British Navy is gone,

but Cornwallis and his troops

are still protected by Yorktown's strong fortifications.

Just like at Boston six years earlier,

Washington prepares for a siege,

but now France fights beside him.

- The French army, when it comes to Yorktown,

demonstrates its skill at siege warfare.

- French General Rochambeau directs

the nearly 20,000 American troops, including John Bodine,

to begin constructing European-style siege trenches.

- The idea is to bring in your artillery

as close as possible in order to fire

at the enemy fortifications.

It's dirty, dangerous, and exhausting work.

- [Narrator] Defending Cornwallis's 9,000 men

inside Yorktown are 10 redoubts,

small fortresses made of earth

and surrounded by sharpened stakes.

The redoubts prevent the American and French soldiers

from getting close enough to use their cannons.

- Anytime the Continental and French armies try

to dig a little closer, they come under withering fire.

- From these positions, Cornwallis hopes

to delay the Americans and French long enough

for General Clinton to arrive with a relief force,

but George Washington has a plan.

- There's one redoubt, redoubt number 10,

which is on the end.

If they can annihilate their redoubt,

they can come in through the corner

and hit the main British army.

- [Narrator] Colonel Alexander Hamilton takes 400 men

and prepares to assault the redoubt.

- The fire of the muskets

will alert the British that this is happening,

so in a secretive night attack,

they go in with only swords, bayonets, hand-to-hand combat.

- [Narrator] John Bodine is one of these men

assigned to Hamilton's unit.

- In his pension application, he writes,

"George Washington ordered us

to storm the breastworks of the enemy,

which were galling us very much."

And this applicant was in the division

under Colonel Hamilton that stormed

and took one of those redoubts.

And they overrun redoubt 10,

they kill the British, they capture the cannons.

In the morning, Cornwallis awakens

to see his own cannons aimed down at him.

- [Narrator] With the siege line so close

and no sign of reinforcements,

Cornwallis realizes he has run out of options.

On the morning of October 19th, 1781,

a British officer approaches the American camp,

waving a white handkerchief.

- Cornwallis refuses to come out

and surrender to Washington.

He says that he doesn't deem Washington to be worthy

of being on the same battlefield,

so he sends a second-in-command out.

Washington sends a message back,

"If Cornwallis comes out and surrenders like a gentleman,

I'll give him favorable terms.

If he does not, we'll open up the cannons."

So, Cornwallis is forced, tail between his legs, sheepishly,

to come out in an embarrassing surrender,

and that's it.

That's the end.

(lively music)

- [Narrator] When the news of Cornwallis's surrender

reaches Britain, Prime Minister Lord North

is said to cry out,

"Oh God, it's all over."

The American victory at Yorktown leads to the collapse

of the British government in March, 1782.

The new government opens peace negotiations

with the Americans and their French allies.

But as those negotiations drag on, fighting continues.

Soldiers who have signed up for the duration

of the war remain in uniform and at risk.

In July, 1782, Deborah Sampson's troop is ambushed

by British and loyalist troops near East Chester, New York.

Sampson is shot twice in the leg.

Rather than risk her identity

being discovered in a hospital,

she removes one of the musket balls with a pen knife

and stitches up the wound with a sewing needle.

The other ball stays in her leg

and causes pain for the rest of her life.

One year later, while on duty in Philadelphia,

Sampson falls seriously ill with a fever.

This time, she can't avoid being taken to a hospital

where her identity is discovered.

- And then an interesting thing happens.

They look at her record, and she is a model soldier,

and they don't dismiss her in shame.

She goes back to Massachusetts, she gets married,

and now she's Deborah Sampson Gannett.

And when she dies, her husband, Samuel Gannett,

applies for a widow's pension, and he gets it.

(soft music)

- [Narrator] The American Revolutionary War ends

with the signing of the Treaty of Paris

on September 3rd, 1783.

Britain formally recognizes the United States of America

as an independent and sovereign nation,

but this independence means different things

to different people.

- In fact, after the American Revolution,

the life of enslaved people in the South became much worse.

There was much tighter regulation on their movements

because they had proved that, if given a chance,

they would try to get out of slavery.

- Of course, the unfilled promises to people of color,

to women, to the Indigenous population,

that would take blood and decades

to really fill those purposes.

- The revolution led to two centuries of struggle

to make real the preamble

to the Declaration of Independence.

- Benjamin Rush, another signer

of the Declaration of Independence, says,

"The American War is over,

but this is far from being the case

with the American Revolution.

On the contrary,

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

(musket fires)

- [Narrator] Although at times imperfectly realized,

the ideals of the declaration, (musket fires)

equality, liberty, the freedom to pursue happiness,

and a government by consent of the governed

reverberate far beyond the shores

of the newly independent United States of America.

In 1789, Thomas Jefferson helps Lafayette

to author the first draft of the Declaration

of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,

a document directly inspired

by the Declaration of Independence,

and which provides one of the ideological foundations

for the French Revolution.

Like a forest fire leaping from branch to branch,

the desire for independence spreads.

- You see an entire revolutionary period emerge

that is not just concentrated in the United States.

Fundamentally, Western civilization is changed.

- [Narrator] The Haitian Revolution, the Irish Rebellion,

and the Colombian War of Independence

all take inspiration from the success

of the American Revolution,

as do anti-colonial movements of the 20th century.

- The legacy of the American Revolution

was felt throughout the world

and is still an aspirational example to people

who want to live free and unencumbered with tyranny.

- But for those who participated in the war,

the cause was personal.

Some fought for noble and high-minded beliefs,

others for their families and neighbors,

still others to obtain liberty,

not only for America, but for themselves.

(calm music)

Deborah Sampson became the only woman

to receive a veteran's pension

for her Revolutionary War service.

Prince changed his last name from Griswold,

the name of his former enslaver, to Crosley.

In 2024, the Connecticut Society

of the Sons of the American Revolution honored him

with a veteran's memorial headstone.

(musket fires)

James Potter Collins moved across the growing United States.

He finally settled in the new state of Texas

and died at age 81.

John Bodine lived in poverty

as a result of pain from his war injuries.

He finally received his veteran's pension in 1834.

He died two years later at age 80.

(lively music)

(lively music continues)