The American Experiment (2026) s01e02 Episode Script

- [birds chirping]
- [voices murmuring]
[Bunch] The Smithsonian
is America's collective memory.
[soft string music building]
What these artifacts do is they make real,
they make concrete,
they make accessible
the stories of our lives,
the issues that have shaped us.
You see people who don't know each other,
who come together around an object.
The desk Jefferson wrote
the Declaration of Independence on,
that's a powerful icon.
The Star-Spangled Banner.
There's nothing more powerful
than watching people go and look
at the Star-Spangled Banner…
understand a little more
about its history,
and sort of suddenly revel in what it…
what it was and what it means.
[music continues]
There are real debates over
whether you tell history
that is complicated,
history that is painful.
Often people say, "You know what?
You're only telling negative stories."
Yet I would argue
when you go through most museums,
especially the Smithsonian,
the stories are overwhelmingly positive.
They're overwhelmingly rife with hope.
They're overwhelmingly rife
with a sense of,
"Boy, we are a better nation
because we went through that."
[music becomes victorious]
How do you understand the nation
if you don't look at all the challenges
the nation has faced?
A great nation doesn't run from its past,
doesn't hide from its past,
but looks at it, learns from it,
and has been made better by that past.
[music fades]
[joyous string music playing]
[gun shoots]
[guns blast]
[men shouting]
[Taub] Following the battles of Lexington
and Concord and Bunker Hill…
I think it's clear for New Englanders
that there's no going back now.
[shouting]
Every year brings us fresh evidence
that we have nothing to hope for
from our loving mother country
but cruelties.
[Hagist] The war starts
to get big very quickly.
It spreads throughout the colonies.
Small battles, but clear,
open opposition to the British government.
[music continues]
At the beginning, the British reaction
to Lexington and Concord is,
"Well, we're gonna go crush these people."
[shouting]
On the other hand,
the British and the American colonists
have a lot in common.
They have a lot of shared interests.
They have a lot of shared culture.
At the time of the Revolution,
a reasonably high percentage of people
in the colonies had been born in Britain.
So there's a lot of very close ties.
- [upbeat music playing]
- [guns blasting]
[Taub] Not all are convinced
this was going to become
a war for independence,
but they know that this
was going to be a war for their rights,
whether that be as Britons
or as something else.
[music fades]
[Hagist] In 1774, the Continental Congress
met for the first time
just to agree on a set of policies.
No war had broken out,
but by 1775,
we've got a real war on our hands.
It's clear that
another Continental Congress is needed.
- [bells tolling]
- [hooves clacking]
The Second Continental Congress
met in the Pennsylvania Statehouse,
which we call Independence Hall today.
[McDonald] The Second Continental Congress
is essentially responding
to the war that has begun
at Lexington and Concord in April of 1775.
[soft upbeat music playing]
[Philbrick] At this time, there wasn't
a United States of America.
It was 13 very different colonies.
And when an American talked
about their country,
they didn't mean the United States.
They meant Virginia or Massachusetts
or from wherever they came from.
[Hogeland] When the Continental Congress
is formed,
this was a very unusual thing to do.
People coming from
all the different provinces, colonies,
to join together
to do something was kind of strange.
It was something
that they hadn't really done before.
[gentle guitar plucking]
But this is a full-on war now.
We really have to work together
in a way
that we've never had to do so before.
An enormous amount of tension
in the building, in the room… [scoffs]
I mean, that was a sweaty, smoky room,
full of people getting very angry
with one another
and very worried
about what the future was gonna hold.
[Hagist] A lot of things on their agenda
were very straightforward.
How do we manage an army?
We're fighting a very well-established,
very professional,
very coordinated opponent.
We have to raise troops.
We have to feed the troops.
We have to get supplies to them.
We have to coordinate the command of them.
These are
very difficult problems to solve.
[McMaster] Logistics is vital
to military capability.
You know, there's the old saying
that amateurs talk tactics
and experts talk logistics.
And there's a lot of truth to that.
If you don't have food,
fuel, ammunition, medical care,
then you can't fight.
- [music fades]
- [bells tolling]
[voices murmuring softly]
As will be the case later in his career,
they really only trust
one man with the job.
[dramatic music playing]
[Chernow] George Washington
was a tremendous presence
at the Second Continental Congress.
[drums thumping dramatically]
Dr. Benjamin Rush said
that George Washington
had martial dignity of such
that in a crowd of 10,000 people
you would immediately pick him out
as the soldier and general.
[Jasanoff] John Adams put forth
George Washington
as the nominee for the commander in chief.
[McMaster] George Washington is
remarkable in a number of ways.
One of the ways is that he taught himself.
He taught himself about military theory
and doctrine and tactics.
Then he had practical experience
to leaven that book knowledge
that he had gained.
[McDonald] He was a Virginian.
Maybe his presence
would have been an inducement
to the men of the other colonies
to enlist, to sign up,
to make this army
truly continental in character.
[Chernow] He attended the Continental
Congress wearing his blue and buff uniform
from the Fairfax militia in Virginia.
It was a typical Washington move
because he was not being crude or strident
in stating that he wanted to become
the general-in-chief of this new army.
At the same time,
his uniform was advertising the fact
that he was available.
[McMaster] Even when it is pretty clear
that he's the best qualified,
this Virginian, to go up to Massachusetts
with these newly formed regiments,
he makes this speech in which he indicates
that he may not be up to the job.
[string instrument plucking]
Though I am truly sensible
of the high honor
done me in this appointment,
yet I feel great distress
from a consciousness
that my abilities and military experience
may not be equal
to the extensive and important trust.
It's a kind of humility
that these days we're not used to.
[Nichols] This is one
of the most admirable things
about George Washington.
He constantly takes inventory of himself,
is honest with himself,
sometimes too hard on himself,
but I think that's the mark
of a great leader.
If you have someone
who's been given command of an army,
the last guy you want is the one
who comes in and says, "I've got this."
- [music intensifies]
- [clapping]
[Bradburn] The politics of it demanded
a Virginian who had experience.
I think he wanted to serve.
I think he was ready to serve.
So they appoint him the commander in chief
of this basically New England army.
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
They will very quickly see men joining in
from Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Virginia, New York,
and other states as they try to form
a regular standing military force
that will become known
as the Continental Army.
The whole continent now
became attentive to the call of liberty.
The alarm was universal
and feeling my bosom glow
with love for my country,
I turned out on the first alarm
with many of my fellow youth
and marched under the command
of one Captain Avery
to Cambridge near Boston.
[Bradburn] The British are in Boston.
The Continental Army's headquartered
in Cambridge, near the Harvard campus.
Washington arrives
shortly after the Battle of Bunker Hill.
When Washington first arrived
in Cambridge,
he was horrified by what he found.
[horse neighing]
[crows cawing]
[Nichols] He doesn't think very much
of New England men at the time.
Washington is a Southerner.
He is not used to Northern ways.
And here are these quarrelsome,
undisciplined, filthy men,
camped out just outside of the gates
of Harvard College.
[Chervinsky] It was a number
of very disorganized militias
who didn't know how to do things
like build a proper latrine.
So they were putting their wastewater
where their drinking water was
and contaminating the drinking water site.
The youth of the army are not possessed
of the absolute necessity
of cleanliness in their dress and lodging,
continual exercise, and strict temperance.
[Freeman] They had been electing people
into being officers.
And Washington is like,
"You don't elect officers."
Like, who are these people?
Like, what is this? It's not a real army.
[Nichols] He realizes the sheer scale
of the task before him
to create an army out of this rabble.
[Taub] Washington almost immediately sets
to writing letters to Congress saying,
"I've got this army you asked me
to build together."
"Can I have guns or ammunition or food?
Or maybe we should even have uniforms."
[Nichols] He had to improvise.
Washington is forming this army
without many resources
and with policies in place
that were not conducive
to sustained capability
against the British.
[music fades]
[Watts] Washington,
he looked out, and he saw
white faces, red faces,
brown and Black faces.
[soldiers shouting]
As he looked
at the brown and Black faces, he said,
"Who are these men?
And what are they doing here?"
"I want them out of my army."
[somber music playing]
George Washington had been a slave owner
since about the age of 11.
[Bradburn] He inherits the first people
that he owned when his father dies.
And as he becomes a planter,
he behaves like
most other typical Virginia slave owners.
They are using this labor to try
to increase their lands and their profits.
He didn't think much of buying
and selling people
like he would any other commodity.
[somber music continues]
[Margaret Washington] People of African
descent arrived in the British colonies,
we think, in 1619.
[Cobb] When the colonial expansion
along the Eastern seaboard
of what would become
the United States developed,
it was deeply connected
to financial interests.
What could be generated here?
Those enterprises required labor.
And the solution to that labor question
was the transatlantic slave trade.
[somber music building]
We are torn from our country and friends
to toil for your luxury and lust of gain.
[Berry] The system in the United States
was a system of chattel slavery,
where enslaved people
were considered a piece of property.
All of the 13 colonies supported slavery.
[Whaley] In the mid-Atlantic
and up in New England,
you might find one to two enslaved people
in a household,
and they're probably gonna be working
pretty closely alongside their enslavers.
[Jasanoff] In the Southern American
colonies,
there is a plantation economy
that is completely dependent
on the labor of enslaved Africans.
[Berry] Once they were enslaved,
they were enslaved for life.
Enslaved people were controlled
by legislation, by physical force.
They were whipped often,
and many times, whipped almost to death.
[Cobb] The fundamental idea of autonomy
is stripped away from these human beings.
[music fades]
An enslaved person
does not have the right to self-defense.
An enslaved person
does not own their own body.
[dramatic music building]
[Whaley] George Washington
was born into this world.
He was enveloped in an environment
where slavery was okay.
So he's coming up to Massachusetts,
and he's seeing all these
armed African Americans.
To a Southern slave owner,
that's servile insurrection,
that's extremely dangerous.
The 8,000-pound gorilla in the room
for Black men at the time was freedom.
90% of Africans in America were enslaved.
So their motivation is going to be,
how is this going to improve
my lot as a human,
as a person within this country?
And if I am enslaved,
how will this improve
opportunities for me to be free?
- [gunshots]
- [shouting]
Black men were thinking,
hey, if I can fight, maybe I can earn
my place within this society.
Washington comes in and says,
"We don't need to be recruiting
all of these Black men with weapons.
This is not a good thing."
And tries to prevent Black men
from further signing up
to serve in the Continental Army.
It was certainly short-sighted.
And he doesn't realize
he needs all the men that he can get.
[music fades]
[dramatic music playing]
[Jasanoff] The Royal Governor of Virginia,
a man called Lord Dunmore,
is the embodiment of the Crown
and Parliament in Virginia.
And he has this kind of brilliant
and somewhat nefarious strategic insight
right at the beginning of the conflict.
[Chapman] He only has
about 300 British troops
in the state of Virginia.
It's not a lot to be able to defend
and protect an entire state
from Patriots that live down there.
He needs men.
So Lord Dunmore basically puts forth
the first Emancipation Proclamation
in the Americas
and offers freedom to male slaves
that are willing to escape
their Patriot owners and serve
in what became
Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Brigade.
[Coe] Dunmore offers
the enslaved people of Patriots
a deal that is absolutely terrifying
to the colonists.
They will have their freedom.
[Dunmore] I do hereby further
declare all indentured servants,
Negroes or others, appertaining to rebels,
free that are able
and willing to bear arms,
they joining His Majesty's troops
as soon as may be.
[Coe] But if you belong to a Loyalist,
because they're a Loyalist,
Loyalists are loyal to the king,
you will be returned.
[Chapman] Anywhere from hundreds
to thousands of slaves respond.
They leave plantations,
and not just Virginia.
They're coming from
surrounding states as well.
They are flocking to Virginia.
It's a powerful statement,
saying that we are going to use
your slaves against you
and arm them against you.
[Coe] That changes the calculus
on the American side.
[music fades]
[pen scratching]
Lord Dunmore's letters to General Howe,
which very fortunately fell into my hands
and enclosed by me to Congress,
will let you pretty fully
into his diabolical schemes.
He will become
the most formidable enemy America has.
[Whaley] The Patriots need to find
a way to level that playing field.
And that is what George Washington
and Congress decide to do.
They decide that they are going to allow
people of African descent
to serve in the Continental Army.
[upbeat music playing]
The Dunmore Proclamation
really was a turning point
in terms of the African-American
freedom movement
during the American Revolution.
[Allen] It also radicalized
the Virginians.
Many considered that a violation
of their property rights.
And so from that point on,
they no longer wanted to be part
of the British Empire.
[birds tweeting]
[Nichols] By now,
the Second Continental Congress
had a massive task just making a decision.
Are we trying
to fight for our rights as Englishmen
and simply get the representation
and government we want?
[soft orchestral music playing]
Or do we want to actually break
from the British government?
- [men shouting]
- [guns firing]
[Bradburn] We have a war
that's being waged,
but what is it a war for?
Is it merely a war of resistance?
Or is it a war for independence?
[music continues]
The question is incredibly divisive
in the colonies.
[Hillary Clinton] The war was very hard
for so many people
because there were loyalties to the king.
There was a lot of ambivalence,
negotiation, legitimate concerns
about were these colonies off here
across the Atlantic Ocean
really ready to govern themselves,
ready to provide for themselves?
[Hagist] In January of 1776,
the momentum really begins to shift
when Tom Paine publishes Common Sense.
[Paine] Perhaps the sentiments
contained in the following pages
are not yet sufficiently fashionable
to procure them general favor.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong
gives it a superficial appearance
of being right.
[Bradburn] Thomas Paine had experienced
his own share of failures.
Here's a man born in England
who had a failed marriage.
Here's a man who failed
as a tax collector, of all things.
Here's a man who failed as a corset maker.
[orchestral music continues]
[Hogeland] He went from being
one of the most obscure people
to one of the most famous people
because of Common Sense,
which takes a very different point of view
from the official point of view
of the Continental Congress.
[Carp] He articulates a lot
of Americans' grievances in Common Sense.
[Paine] Government, even in
its best state, is but a necessary evil.
In its worst state, an intolerable one.
He wants to convince Americans
that monarchy is actually a bad system.
[Paine] In England,
a king hath little more to do
than to make war and give away places.
Which in plain terms
is to impoverish the nation
and set it together by the ears.
A pretty business indeed for a man
to be allowed 800,000 sterling a year for
and worshipped into the bargain.
Of more worth is one honest man to society
and in the sight of God.
[Freeman] One of the things he does
is really tear the king off his pedestal.
He refers to him at one point
as the royal brute
and really attacks him
in a way that most colonists probably
wouldn't have seen or heard before.
And it changes
how people can envision the king.
It opens their eyes to thinking
about the king in a different way.
[Hogeland] Common Sense
is a pro-independence pamphlet.
It's open. It's not pulling any punches.
[Paine] There is something very absurd
in supposing a continent
to be perpetually governed by an island.
The utmost stretch of human wisdom
cannot at this time
compass a plan short of separation.
[Hogeland] One of the radical things
about Common Sense
isn't just that it called
for independence.
It called for creating
a government of the United States
that would be hyper-representative
of ordinary people.
[Paine] The cause of America
is in a great measure
the cause of all mankind.
Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny
but the tyrant, stand forth.
Every spot of the old world
is overrun with oppression.
Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.
[Kamensky] Common Sense says
it is possible to begin the world anew.
That's a shocking statement.
There is something new under the sun,
and it's within human capacity
to decide what that thing is.
[McDonald] Common Sense
was widely regarded
as the second most important
publication ever
in the history of America
up to that point.
Second only to the Bible.
[orchestral music continues]
[Carp] It's considered
to have a strong effect
in leading Americans
to embrace the idea of independence.
[music surges, fades]
[hooves clacking]
[McDonald] On June 7, 1776,
Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee
rises on the floor
of the Continental Congress…
[voices murmuring]
…and issues a resolution
that I think people understood
had been a long time coming.
[dramatic orchestral music playing]
He proposed that these United Colonies
are and, of right, ought to be
free and independent states.
The Congress decides
that they're going to compose a committee,
that they're going to ask to draft
a declaration of independence
if the resolution should pass.
[music continues]
On the committee, they have
Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania.
There is John Adams of Massachusetts.
Representing New York
is Robert Livingston.
Representing Connecticut is Roger Sherman.
The only Southerner
on the drafting committee,
a 33-year-old Virginian
named Thomas Jefferson.
[music intensifies]
[Kamensky] Thomas Jefferson was born
in 1743 in Western Virginia
at a time when this would have been
the frontier
of British colonial settlement.
He was a fortunate child.
He was born on a plantation
called Shadwell.
His father, Peter Jefferson,
died when he was a teenager.
One of the things that he had
was a large library.
So born on the frontier,
but also part of a world of ideas.
[Davenport] Jefferson is elected
to the Virginia legislature
in his mid-twenties.
So he's already on track toward being
this very prominent peer of Virginia.
And as a leading figure
in colonial Virginia,
Jefferson will ultimately voice
some of the greatest
and most biting criticisms of the king.
Kings are the servants
not the proprietors of the people.
Let not the name of George III
be a blot in the page of history.
[McDonald] So the committee meets.
Adams, of course, had been in favor
of independence for so long.
Adams had been almost
unceasingly urging his fellow delegates
to support the cause
of breaking away from Great Britain.
There is something
very unnatural and odious
in a government 1,000 leagues off.
A whole government of our own choice
managed by persons whom we love, revere,
and can confide in has charms in it
for which men will fight.
Jefferson thought John Adams
should be the obvious person
to draft the Declaration of Independence.
And yet Adams
turned to Jefferson and says,
"Oh no, it can't be me.
You have to do it."
Jefferson said, "Why? Why me?"
"I'm just 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson."
Adams said, "I'll give you three reasons."
"Reason number one, you are a Virginian,
and a Virginian ought to be
at the head of this business."
"Reason number two, I, John Adams,
am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular."
"You are very much otherwise."
"Reason number three, you can write
ten times better than I can."
[music fades]
[birds singing]
Jefferson began drafting
the Declaration of Independence in June.
He was staying on the second floor
of the house of a Philadelphia brickmaker.
And he had two rented rooms.
He had the 18th century equivalent
of a laptop computer.
It was his lap desk. It contained ink.
It contained parchment.
[soft music playing]
[Kamensky] So Jefferson drafts.
The Committee of Five,
especially Franklin and Adams, revise.
And then a clean draft is put to Congress.
And Congress slashes the heck out of it,
removing what Adams later calls
some of Jefferson's
most oratorical paragraphs.
[Hogeland] Jefferson actually kept
his first draft the rest of his life
and would show it to people to say,
"It was really better before they got
their hands on it. Here's my draft."
Everyone gives Jefferson all this credit
for making us independent.
But he wasn't alone.
[Freeman] To have colonies
declare independence
of their empire is a monumental event.
[shouting]
It's a big moment. It's a treasonous act.
[Kamensky] Independence is a huge
and terrifying step.
Like most big changes, it happens
gradually and then all at once.
[Jefferson] When in the course
of human events
it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another…
[Levin] It was not addressed
to the American people,
but to the broader world
to explain the American people.
[Wood] What is it to be an American?
There's no ethnic base to Americanism.
So it has to be created.
And it's created by the Declaration.
The United States was the first country
created by documents.
It's the most important document
in our history.
[man 1] …to assume
among the powers of the earth
the separate and equal station
to which the laws of nature
and of nature's God entitle them.
[woman 1] A decent respect
to the opinions of mankind
requires that they
should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.
It was a candid declaration to the world
that we were now 13 independent states
and that the world had to notice that.
[Davenport] The second paragraph
of the Declaration
is probably the best known
and most brilliant words,
originally rendered in English,
outside of Shakespeare.
[McDonald] The most powerful extended
sentence in the history of the world.
[music softens]
[woman 2] We hold these truths
to be self-evident…
[woman 3] …that all men are created equal…
[man 2] …that they are endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights…
[woman 4] …that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…
[man 3] …that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men…
[woman 5] …deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed…
[man 4] …that whenever
any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends…
[woman 6] …it is the right of the people
to alter or to abolish it
and to institute new government.
That key sentence in the Declaration
really distills the essence of equality
and justice for all.
Class, circumstances of one's birth,
wealth, family, lineage…
None of that mattered
compared to the essential equality
that comes from being born here
in the United States of America
or being a citizen of this great country
that confers equal status under the law.
And that was part of what was brand new.
[Allen] It's the pithiest,
most eloquent expression
of what it means
to be a citizen of a democracy
that has ever been written.
[music fades]
[upbeat string plucking]
[Lessig] Now, when they uttered
those words, they were neither truths,
nor were they self-evident.
They had never existed
in the history of governance.
[upbeat music continues]
What the revolutionaries realized
is that they needed
a new theory of authority,
of governance, of popular power
that would allow them
to escape the control of Britain.
One of the most important parts is that
whenever a form of government
is not serving people,
then the people retain
an unalienable right
to alter or abolish it.
If a government ceases
to protect and preserve these rights,
then the people have the right
to rise up against it
and institute a new government.
And of course, the Declaration
was literally a declaration of war.
It was a Declaration of Independence.
It was telling England,
we are no longer part of you.
We are on our own because the monarchy
has violated our natural rights.
[Bunch] What you begin to see
in the Declaration,
is it's such an aspirational document.
It's a document that says,
this is who we could be.
And what I think makes
the United States so powerful
is it's really one of the few nations
in the world that's aspirational.
The Declaration of Independence
is a turning point in world history.
It's really the formal beginning
of the age of revolution.
It inspired the drive for self-government.
It has taught the whole world
how to think about
the project of self-government.
You gotta name your core values.
You gotta figure out how to structure
the powers of government
to go with those core values.
And you gotta declare
your causes to mankind.
[upbeat orchestral music playing]
[Jasanoff] The United States is founded
on so many paradoxes.
We only need to look at that resonant
phrase, "All men are created equal."
The very man who wrote those words
was a slaveholder.
[Kamensky] Jefferson drafts
the Declaration
with his enslaved and literate valet,
Robert Hemmings, at his elbow
doing things that we can only imagine
as a supporting player,
keeping Jefferson sort of body and soul.
[Cobb] Ideologically,
at least on the face of it,
these nascent revolutionaries
are committed to this bold experiment
of self-government
that's rooted in this profound faith
in human beings' ability
to act rationally,
to make reasonable judgments,
to participate in the civic rights
and rituals that go along with democracy.
And at the same time,
they're buying and selling human beings
and trading human beings
and raping and impregnating human beings.
[music fades]
[Whaley] The Declaration of Independence
was used by people
who saw that there was an opportunity
to push back against the practice
of chattel slavery,
using the words in that document.
[upbeat string music playing]
[Kamensky] Enslaved and freed Black people
from almost the moment
that the ink was dry
are leveraging the Declaration
in their own rights struggles.
Women seeking suffrage.
Native peoples seeking to steer their ship
through this incredibly expansive
United States.
The importance
of the Declaration of Independence
is those principles can evolve over time.
[Kamensky] That document has been
one of the most powerful
philosophical tools
for people seeking rights
across the United States
and around the world.
[Whaley] Much of the rest of the document
is used to list out grievances
against the British.
[man 1] He has dissolved
representative houses repeatedly,
imposing taxes on us without our consent.
[man 2] He has kept among us
in times of peace
standing armies
without the consent of our legislatures.
[woman] …for depriving us, in many cases,
of the benefits of trial by jury.
[man 3] He has plundered our seas,
ravaged our coast,
burned our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.
[music fades]
[Coe] The people who vote
for the Declaration of Independence,
those bold-faced names are people
who have positions.
They have a lot to lose.
[upbeat music playing]
They own the biggest plantations,
the biggest forced labor camps
in their colonies.
And they know
that if they go against the British,
that's treason.
This is a leap of faith into the unknown.
And you have to admire
the gutsiness and the courage
of those who said, "Okay,
I'm gonna actually go through with this."
[Freeman] John Adams says, "I sat there
and I watched people that day
and I could see their faces."
"And I could see in their faces
there were people
not happy about that document."
They were not happy
about having to go through with this.
They saw it as dangerous,
as traitorous, as treason, which it was.
[Flake] To say we're gonna
overthrow our masters,
or people acting like our masters,
that was significant.
I'm still in awe
at what they put on the line
and were willing to give up their lives
so they could have this freedom.
[Davenport] It was worth it to them
to pursue independence
and that in so doing,
they were affecting human history.
[Flake] The Declaration of Independence
was agreed to in Philadelphia
on July 4, 1776.
[dramatic music playing]
One of the most important events
in the history of the world.
[Allen] On July 4th,
there's a big reading of the text outside
of what we would now call
Independence Hall.
And the word just spreads
really fast, like wildfire.
The Declaration of Independence was read
at the head of each brigade
of the Continental Army,
posted at and near New York
and everywhere received with loud huzzahs
and the utmost demonstrations of joy.
[cheering]
[McDonald] When George Washington
got a copy,
he is with his troops in Manhattan,
and he orders that it be read aloud
before his soldiers.
Who then proceed to go down to the Bowery,
where there has been a statue
of George III.
New Yorkers had it erected
just six years earlier.
And yet in July of 1776,
Americans are going to,
after hearing the news
of the Declaration of Independence,
pull it down…
[roaring]
…chop it to pieces,
send the pieces
to Litchfield, Connecticut,
where the lead of the statue
will be melted down
into musket balls
for the Continental Army.
[music fades]
By this point, the Americans
have secured this high ground
in Dorchester Heights over Boston.
[Philbrick] They put in cannons
to fire on the British,
and William Howe sees what they have done,
but remembers what happened at Bunker Hill
and says, "It's time for us
to get out of here."
[ocean churning]
They go to Nova Scotia,
and over the summer,
he puts together a huge fleet
with the help of the ministers in England,
and soon they are heading towards
New York Harbor in the summer of 1776.
It will be in New York
where the empire will strike back.
- [piano music playing]
- [gulls shrieking]
[Bradburn] Washington has to try
to defend all of New York.
The Continental Congress says,
"You must defend New York."
But it's impossible
to defend it without a Navy
because Manhattan,
as we know, is an island.
[Ellis] He actually sends someone down
to take a look at the battleground
and he says, "This is indefensible."
Nevertheless, Washington commits the army.
And the question is, why does he do that?
One reason is because he is told
by the civilian government to do it.
[music intensifies]
[McMaster] Washington is unique
in a lot of ways,
and I think one of them
is his understanding of his relationship
to the Continental Congress,
essentially civil control
over the military.
He continues to respect
civilian authority,
but defending New York
was an impossible mission.
[Bradburn] Long Island's an island,
and there's huge waterways in between.
If you can't control them,
you can't control
where the troops can be landed.
The British sent
the largest expeditionary force
in recorded modern history to New York.
[dramatic music playing]
[Ellis] The British government
has come to the realization,
"We have to win the war quickly,
and so we're gonna send a massive blow."
The largest armada ever
to cross the Atlantic
with 32,000 troops.
[music continues]
[Keagle] Amphibious operations are
one of the areas where the British shine.
It's where they're able to use
their advantage in naval power.
[McDonald] They're gonna use it in order
to crush this rebellion in its cradle
before it can get even more widespread.
[Keagle] Their commander, Howe,
by this point has trained his men well.
- They land in Long Island.
- [men shouting]
The fear around New York was intense.
There's no question about that.
[Nichols] If the Continental Army
did not make it through this battle,
there wasn't gonna be a Continental Army,
and there wasn't gonna be a revolution.
Or I should say,
there was a revolution, and it was over.
Washington blunders
at the Battle of Long Island
because he doesn't protect his flanks.
[dramatic music playing]
[Ellis] Jamaica Pass is a pathway
on Long Island to the extreme east.
For whatever reason,
Washington doesn't defend.
He thinks it's too far away.
The British would never
go that far around.
And they use that pathway
to circle behind the American force.
They flanked the heck out
of the Continental Army.
- [men shouting]
- [guns firing]
The battle was really up close
and personal killing
in significant numbers.
[men grunting]
It's brutal.
- It's face to face.
- [music intensifies]
[screams]
[grunts]
It's a very bloody battle.
- [high-pitched ring]
- [man groans]
Washington's forces start to crack.
[groaning]
There's panic. There's retreat.
[shouting]
[Hagist] It's a horrendous defeat.
- [music fades]
- [flies buzzing]
By the end of the day,
in August 27th, in 1776,
the British have demolished
a large portion of the army.
Hundreds dead or wounded.
[soft music playing]
[Chapman] The Continental Army holds
at Brooklyn Heights
at the end of the first day's battle.
And the British Army
is planning to attack.
[Taub] Washington's trapped
as the British noose is slowly
closing around his forces.
But the British are unable
to capture Washington.
[crickets chirping]
[Chapman] The Continental Army got lucky.
Weather was in their favor.
[music intensifies]
[Nichols] What he does
at the Battle of Long Island
is achieve one of the great retreats
of all time.
[somber music playing]
At night, with a group of tiny boats,
he shuttles his men in the fog
across the East River into New York.
And when dawn comes,
the American Army has left.
They are now in New York City.
[Chapman] By the time the fog
had cleared up later that morning,
the British just saw an empty encampment.
It was kind of miraculous that he was able
to evacuate as much of the forces he did.
[Taub] It's the beginning of a game
of cat and mouse.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bradburn] What follows
is a sequence of disasters
essentially like that
all throughout Manhattan
where Washington's army fights.
They get beaten. They keep moving back.
[Keagle] Because of their naval control
of the waterways
and the cooperation between the army
and the Navy
that is happening on the British side,
the British can, to a certain extent,
go where they please.
And so the retreat up Manhattan Island
is an incredibly haphazard,
demoralizing affair for the Americans.
I mean, we get the accounts of Americans.
And to read their reminiscences of this,
like Joseph Plum Martin,
[Martin] Every man that I saw
was endeavoring by all sober means
to escape from death or captivity,
which at that period of the war,
was almost certain death.
His account is scattered. It's haphazard.
It's confusing. It's frightening.
He's hiding here and there,
so the British won't find him
and then trying to rejoin forces,
being caught by these guys,
trying to skirt around them in the night.
I mean, it's absolutely chaotic.
And there is a great amount of disorder
as Washington continues to retreat
as the British have their success.
[shouting]
[Bradburn] Washington is consistently
being outflanked, outfought
at each one of these engagements.
[dramatic music continues]
[Keagle] Near Fort Washington
in the far northern part of the island,
the British are scaling
some pretty remarkable fortifications.
And having great success,
forcing all of Fort Washington
to surrender,
giving them control of Manhattan Island.
This is a demoralizing failure
for Washington,
and I think personally,
as much as it was for the broader
Continental Army's efforts.
This is the most unfortunate affair
and has given me great mortification
as we have lost
not only 2,000 men that were there
but a good deal of artillery
and some of the best arms we had.
[Keagle] The British
will reclaim New York,
and the Americans lose an important
strategic hub on the East Coast.
[Chapman] The British capture
thousands of American troops,
and those American troops,
for the most part,
are being prisoners of war
on these prisoner ships
here in the New York City area.
And those were just terrible places to be.
Thousands of American troops
died of sickness there.
[dramatic music building]
[Bradburn] General Howe drove
the American Army out of that region.
As they are being harassed
and chased through New Jersey,
it couldn't get much worse for them.
I cannot express the hardship and fatigue
we have undergone
on our march from place to place.
I hope God will still preserve us
and give us an opportunity
of meeting together again in this world.
[Keagle] That retreat is one
of the most harrowing for the Americans
because it's unclear where it will end.
You have men unprepared
for the change in weather
when you get to a cold, wet fall.
And then the winter.
- [dreary music playing]
- [wind howling]
You get militiamen from Connecticut
who are called up and who go
on what they see will be a summer campaign
wearing summer clothing.
But you get to the middle of winter
in a snowstorm,
and the clothing they have
is unsuited for those conditions.
This march on the account
of the severity of the weather
and the bad state of the soldiers,
particularly with respect to the shoes,
there being many nearly barefooted,
and the whole very ill clad
became a very tedious business.
And numbers of our brave fellows
cried like children
with the severity of the cold
and the pain of traveling, their footsteps
often leaving traces of blood.
[Chapman] A lot don't have proper shoes,
and they're walking barefoot,
and your feet
are getting cut up and infected,
and many of them are wounded.
[coughing]
Their distresses are extremely great.
Many of them being entirely naked,
and most so thinly clad
as to be unfit for service.
I must entreat Congress
to write to the agents
and contractors upon this subject.
[Keagle] Washington desperately
needs them to hang on.
Ten days more will put an end
to the existence of our army.
Short enlistments and a mistaken
dependence upon militia
have been the origin
of all our misfortunes.
[coughing]
[McDonald] By December of 1776,
the Continental Army
had its back against the wall.
The British have
this large army in America
that is going to begin
to view the Americans
as an inferior and separate people,
and they treat them, frankly,
with a great deal of disregard.
There are a number of reports
of sexual assaults.
[dark music playing]
There are a number of reports
of British soldiers looting
Americans' property.
They demanded her ring from her finger.
She pleaded for it,
told them it was her wedding ring
and begged they let her keep it,
but they still demanded it
and, presenting a pistol at her,
swore if she did not deliver it
immediately, they'd fire.
[McDonald] Wherever
the British soldiers go,
they can occupy a city,
but as soon as they leave,
people will stop saying
"God save the king,"
and they start saying, you know,
"God save George Washington."
Because they see
in front of their own eyes
the tyrannical nature
of British occupation.
[dramatic music playing]
To the outrage of the Americans,
the British have also hired mercenaries.
Hessian soldiers from Germany.
[Bradburn] The Hessians
are a group of German auxiliaries
that are hired by the British government
to serve in their wars.
[Hogeland] Americans took that
as a huge insult.
They've hired "foreigners" to fight us.
[Philbrick] These were
very well-disciplined soldiers
with fearsome reputations
for battle and carnage.
According to the Americans,
they are raping and pillaging their way
through Westchester County,
down into New Jersey.
The Hessians have truly enraged
the American people.
[music fades]
[Carp] After the Battle of New York,
it looks like the Americans
are losing and on their last legs.
Congress and the states
do not sufficiently fund the army,
and most of Washington's men's enlistment
is going to expire at the end of 1776,
and he's gonna have
to recruit an entire new army.
[Chervinsky] They didn't have enough food,
they didn't have enough supplies,
and they weren't sure
if the American people
were still with them.
[somber music building]
[bird tweeting]
[Holton] This is the context
in which Thomas Paine
wrote his second
most famous American pamphlet.
[somber music continues]
[Bradburn] Thomas Paine was marching down
with George Washington
through New Jersey
as they're getting beaten.
[McDonald] According to one story,
he writes his pamphlet,
The Crisis, on the head of a drum.
He is trying to boost the morale
of these soldiers.
Thomas Paine wrote, "These are the times
that try men's souls."
[Paine] The summer soldier
and the sunshine patriot
will in this crisis shrink
from the service of his country,
but he that stands it now deserves
the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell,
is not easily conquered.
It provides a kind of
psychological ammunition
to the American forces
to hang on for that much longer.
[Paine] I love the man
that can smile in trouble,
that can gather strength from distress
and grow brave by reflection.
It is the business
of little minds to shrink,
but he whose heart is firm
and whose conscience proves his conduct,
will pursue his principles unto death.
This moment comes after
some of Washington's
worst decision-making during the war.
His command was being questioned.
There were a number of congressmen
and a number of supporters of the army
who started to question whether or not
Washington was the right person
to lead the forces.
Was he too inexperienced?
Did he demonstrate poor judgment?
[Carp] Washington needs
to do something not only to change
the momentum of the war,
but save his own job.
[upbeat string picking]
[Chapman] He's losing men left and right.
The 3,000 men that he has left,
these are strong, good soldiers.
These are fighters, but they're tired.
You know, they're in the fourth quarter
and they're losing, you know, 35 to seven.
They're a bit dejected, but they're tough.
They're some of the best that he has,
and you see how during ten crucial days,
they step up.
[string picking continues]
[Philbrick] What Washington realizes
is that Howe has left his Hessians
in a very precarious situation.
Washington realizes if he can make
some kind of motion against the Hessians
stationed in New Jersey,
maybe he can change
the momentum of the war.
[music continues]
And so he hatches the plan
to attack Trenton.
[McDonald] He made the decision
to lead his army
as they rode across the icy Delaware River
to conduct a surprise Christmas attack
at a time when traditionally
people never fought.
[Keagle] It's a desperate
last attempt to stop
what seems like the British juggernaut.
[Chapman] He's doing a Hail Mary.
[Bradburn] Washington says,
"It's either victory or death."
[music intensifies]
[Nichols] There's a famous painting
of Washington crossing the Delaware.
It's daylight and, you know,
the sunshine is breaking.
That's completely a fiction.
This was a miserable business
done in the dead of night.
[Chapman] Two men
actually freeze to death.
One guy says that, "I sat down on a log,
and I just felt myself getting tired."
And if his friends hadn't woke him up,
he probably would have been number three.
[Philbrick] They rode across the Delaware,
pushing aside the ice.
Through a blizzard,
they march towards Trenton.
- [music fades]
- [wind howling]
Washington launches the attack.
- [man] Fire!
- [gunshots]
- [guns shooting]
- [upbeat music playing]
[men shouting]
And it's almost
a psychedelic experience for the men.
[men shouting and grunting]
There are rumors that the Hessians
were drunk celebrating Christmas,
but they don't seem to have been.
[Chapman] It's just that
the Hessian troops are not ready.
They have no reason to fear
that Washington's
gonna do something so bold.
- [shouting]
- [swords slashing]
[Philbrick] The Americans are charging
through the wide streets of Trenton
towards the Hessians.
They can't see very well.
- [shouting]
- [music softens]
Washington has appointed
a commander of artillery,
a former bookstore owner named Henry Knox.
He has succeeded a scene of war
of which I had often conceived
but never saw before.
The troops behaved like men
contending for everything
that was dear and valuable.
[grunts]
[Chapman] The Continental Army
engaging in very close quarters
fighting as they push the Hessians
through the town of Trenton,
street by street, building by building.
Those who aren't killed
or wounded surrender.
Finding from our deposition
that they were surrounded
and they must inevitably be cut to pieces
if they made any further resistance,
they agreed to lay down their arms.
[Keagle] Washington has won
the Battle of Trenton.
[music fades]
Psychologically, it's a really
important win for the Continental Army.
[shouting and gunshots]
[McDonald] It caused
many of those soldiers
to have a sudden burst of confidence.
[Chapman] The Continental Army
is Rocky Balboa.
We may not be the fastest
and the strongest,
but we're not gonna quit.
You're gonna have to fight us to the end.
[victorious music playing]
[McMaster] Morale is really having
a sense that you can win,
that you can make a difference.
And of course,
you're always worried and caring
about the welfare of your troopers.
But the best thing
you can provide soldiers with
is the knowledge
that the risk that they may take
and the sacrifices they may make
will contribute to an outcome
worthy of those risks
and worthy of those sacrifices.
These bonds of mutual trust,
respect, and common purpose.
[music continues]
[McDonald] Because of
Washington's leadership,
a large number of them
were willing to gut it out
and continue this campaign
into the year 1777.
[victorious music continues]
[Al Gore] I think that they felt like
they had a real chance
to create something brand new.
They were hopeful.
They thought that it could be done.
[Pence] George Washington believed
in what he was fighting for,
which was not precisely
just achieving a victory in a war.
It wasn't repelling
the tyranny of the king,
but it was winning liberty
for the American people.
[music continues]
And earning the right for self-government.
[Nichols] Washington's now on the board
with a serious win,
but he still is faced with the reality
that significant British forces
are concentrated
around New York and New Jersey.
And America still has no allies.
So although we think
of crossing the Delaware
and the battle at Trenton
as a great moment,
it's a respite, not a turning point.
[McDonald] And yet there's so much hope.
As long as the Continental Army survived,
the American Revolution survived.
[music surges]
[victorious music continues]
[music softens]
[music ends]
[upbeat march playing]
[march fades]
[gentle music playing]
[music fades]