BBC_Rebels and Redcoats_4of4_The World Turned Upside Down
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00:00By 1781, the American War of Independence had been raging for five years.
00:10It had become a bitter struggle, in which neither side yet had the upper hand.
00:17Even though the Americans had made good use of guerrilla tactics, facing the might of
00:22the British redcoats in the field was perilous, and the Royal Navy's mastery of the sea still
00:28gave Britain a huge advantage.
00:34Yet before the end of the year, an extraordinary sequence of British mistakes on land and sea
00:40would transform America's destiny.
00:58Yorktown stands on the Virginia Peninsula, only 20 miles from Britain's first colony
01:21in North America.
01:23It's close to the colonial capital of Williamsburg, where today, aside from the tourists, things
01:29still look much as they did in the 18th century.
01:35In early 1781, Williamsburg was as divided as any American town.
01:41The Declaration of Independence had won over many Americans to the rebel cause, but others
01:47still felt allegiance to King George III.
01:50Behind one door was a loyalist, behind the next was a rebel.
01:55George Washington, leader of the American Continental Army, was in no position to end
02:00this civil war at any time soon.
02:03In January of 1781, he'd been forced to suppress mutinies amongst his troops.
02:09He was at his lowest ebb.
02:14Instead of having everything and readiness to take the field, we have nothing.
02:19We have the prospect of a glorious offensive campaign before us.
02:23We have a bewildered and gloomy defense of one, unless we should receive a powerful aid
02:30of ships, land troops and money from our generous allies, but the ace of presents are too contingent
02:38to build upon.
02:42In the north, Washington's war-weary army was still stuck at the fort of West Point
02:47on the Hudson River.
02:49Across the river, the British Redcoats were comfortably barracked in loyalist New York.
02:55But it was to be in the south, hundreds of miles away from the rival army's headquarters,
03:01where the deadlock would be broken.
03:15There were more than 10,000 British soldiers in the south, but most of them were tied up
03:20in garrisons like Charleston and Savannah.
03:24The British knew that if they were to win the war, they had to get out from behind their
03:28barricades.
03:30Doing nothing was simply not an option.
03:34Lord Cornwallis, the new British commander in the south, was convinced that just one
03:40outright victory would crush the revolution.
03:44He would use his 4,000-strong field army to destroy the rebels in the south, releasing
03:49troops and resources for a final assault on Washington in the north.
03:57He'd been assured that thousands of southern loyalists were waiting to swell his ranks.
04:03As he set out on the offensive into the depths of South Carolina, he had one huge advantage.
04:11Although both field armies were pretty reasonably matched, with around 4,000 men apiece, Cornwallis
04:18knew that his redcoats were the better troops.
04:21They were highly trained, well-disciplined, and didn't have to worry about bringing in
04:27the harvest or feeding their families.
04:33Cornwallis's opponent, commander of the American Southern Army, was a 38-year-old former Quaker,
04:40Nathaniel Green.
04:42He was painfully aware of the deficiencies of his irregular militias.
04:48You may strike a hundred blows and reap little benefit from them unless you have a strong
04:52army to take advantage of your success.
04:56The enemy will never relinquish their plan, nor the people be firm in our favor, until
05:00they behold a better barrier in the field than a volunteer militia who are out one day
05:05and home the next.
05:09This rag-bag militia force was to be put to the test sooner than he had anticipated.
05:17Green decided to split his army.
05:20If he could lure Cornwallis into attacking one half of his divided force, then the other
05:26would be free to strike at the overextended British lines of supply.
05:30It was an incredible gamble, against all the rules of war, and with a potentially fatal
05:35flaw.
05:37If Cornwallis picked off each of the weakened American armies in turn, then the war in the
05:42South would be over.
05:53Cornwallis dispatched a force to seek out and destroy the smaller of the two American
05:58armies under General Daniel Morgan.
06:01The British force was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Bernaster Tarleton, nicknamed Bloody Band
06:07and The Butcher, for his alleged massacre of American prisoners of war.
06:13Twenty-six-year-old Tarleton, part dashing cavalryman, part 18th century Colonel Kurtz,
06:20had a reputation for ruthlessness that matched his American guerrilla rivals.
06:26He's supposed to have said, I've killed more men and slept with more women than any man
06:31in America.
06:34On the morning of the 17th of January, Tarleton's wolf pack of around 1,100 men closed in for
06:39the kill on grazing land at Cowpens, South Carolina.
06:50In theory, Tarleton should just have had the edge.
06:54About half his men were British regulars, redcoat infantry and a few cavalry.
07:00The rest were American loyalists of his British legion, horse and foot.
07:06Morgan's army looked strangely similar, with some hard-bitten regular infantry and lots
07:12of militia and guerrilla bands.
07:15The armies were now coming to resemble one another, with elements of both regular and
07:20irregular warfare.
07:22But the tactics the Americans were about to use would transform the war in the south.
07:32The American general, Daniel Morgan, was a charismatic, hard-drinking, hard-fighting
07:38frontiersman who had good reason to hate the British.
07:42He'd once received 500 lashes while serving as a wagoner with the British army.
07:51Tarleton's real problem was that only 400 of his men were regulars.
07:56Most of the rest were militia, liable to panic and run away at a crucial moment, as they
08:02had so often in the past.
08:04So the night before the battle, he went round his camp like Henry V before Agincourt, encouraging
08:10his men, explaining his tactics, telling them that they wouldn't be left to the bayonets
08:15of the British infantry, or the sabres of Tarleton's feared cavalry.
08:24At five in the morning, he rallied them again.
08:28Boys, get up.
08:30Benny is coming.
08:42Tarleton's tactics that morning were indeed revolutionary.
08:46Instead of forming his men up in tightly packed ranks, he drew them up in three widely spaced
08:51defensive lines.
08:54This wasn't simply defence in depth, designed to physically and psychologically exhaust
08:59the British.
09:00It maximised the capabilities of his militia, many of them good shots, but reluctant to
09:06take the regulars on in close combat.
09:09He would effectively ambush the British.
09:19When the impulsive Tarleton saw the first American line, he immediately ordered an attack,
09:25without consulting other commanders in the field, and regardless of the fact that his
09:29men had been on the march for most of the night.
09:49The first line of widely spread sharpshooters was hidden here in the grass.
09:54They had orders to fire once, and then fall back.
10:14Their first shots picked off 15 dragoons, and checked the first cavalry charge.
10:21The second line, more experienced militia, was about 150 yards behind.
10:28They'd been told to fire just two volleys when the British were in killing range, concentrating
10:34on the epaulette men, the officers.
10:37Then they too could disperse.
10:44As the battle-hardened British bayonet men crashed into the American third line, Morgan's
10:49bold plan was in the balance.
10:52An order to regroup was misinterpreted as a call to retreat.
10:58American regular soldiers and the remaining militias appeared to panic.
11:01The battle looked lost.
11:05Morgan himself stepped in to steady their nerves and save the day.
11:09Form, form, my brave fellows, he shouted.
11:12Give them just one more fire, and the day is ours.
11:17General Morgan is never beaten.
11:27Although the Americans had once found it hard to stop a redcoat regiment in full flood,
11:33this time their line held.
11:36The exhausted British were effectively surrounded.
11:43Tarleton was one of the lucky few to escape.
11:47Americans had witnessed the most skilful display of American generalship in the Revolutionary
11:51War.
11:56Combining the strengths of his militia and regular troops, Morgan had found a way of
12:01matching the British in open battle.
12:08Five hundred British redcoats were captured, two hundred wounded, and more than a hundred
12:13lay dead on the field.
12:22I think that Cowpens is one of the most important American victories of the war.
12:27Although in a sense it was only a skirmish, the loss of nine hundred men was enough to
12:32tilt the balance of the war in the south, because the armies involved were so small.
12:38Cornwallis had lost a quarter of his fighting force.
12:43But Cornwallis wasn't giving up.
12:45He in turn adopted a new tactic, effectively turning all his soldiers into fast-moving
12:51light infantry, abandoning supplies, and to his men's disgust, even throwing away their
12:58rum in order to move more quickly.
13:03His trusted regulars, already ravaged by disease and reduced to a meagre ration of unripened
13:09turnips and corn, were about to be further punished by another long march through the
13:15dense forests and swamps of the southern interior.
13:27I thought I knew America reasonably well before I started filming this series, but one of
13:31the things that the filming process has emphasised is the sheer scale of America.
13:36All of our journeys by car, separating battlefields, easy for me, but for the people at the time
13:42that was an endless trudge.
13:44This is a land that exhausts individual soldiers and wears down armies.
13:58Cornwallis's new model army of light troops again chased Morgan, trying to avenge the
14:04British defeat.
14:06But others were racing to catch Morgan too.
14:09Green hoped to reinforce him before the British could strike.
14:14This was a gripping game of cat and mouse.
14:18Cornwallis would be skirmishing with the American rearguard, only to discover that the American
14:22main body was just ahead of him, but over one of the many swollen rivers that crossed
14:28this part of the south.
14:32As Cornwallis swept into North Carolina, he still believed that thousands of loyalists,
14:38whose support he desperately needed, would flock to his cause.
14:45The rebels were bent on deterring these loyalists.
14:49Light Horse Harry Lee, a ruthless American cavalry commander, was to use particularly
14:54ferocious methods.
14:57In the Hollywood version of history, it's Bloody Ban Tarleton who's been demonised.
15:03But the rebels were every bit as adept at using terror tactics when it suited them.
15:07In February, Light Horse Harry Lee was sent off with a force to discourage 400 loyalists
15:14who were heading to join Cornwallis.
15:16Audaciously posing as Tarleton, he actually rode alongside the loyalist column for a bit.
15:22Then the rebels turned on the loyalists and the slaughter began.
15:26After the loyalists begged for mercy, over 90 of them were cut down, and six prisoners
15:31were hacked to death, as an example.
15:38The massacre had the desired effect of ending Cornwallis's hope of loyalist support in the
15:43south.
15:47Our experience has shown us that their numbers are not so great as had been represented,
15:52and their friendship was only passive, for we have received but a little assistance from
15:58them since we came into the province.
16:01Not above 200 have been prevailed upon to follow us, either as provincials or militia.
16:07Without loyalist support, the need to crush the American Southern Army in the field became
16:12even more acute.
16:14In late February 1781, the two American armies under Morgan and Green met again at Guilford
16:20Courthouse, North Carolina, near what is now called Greensboro.
16:30The stage was set for what might prove to be the decisive battle in the south.
16:36The odds were stacked heavily against Cornwallis.
16:40He had 1,900 men, to his opponents more than 4,000.
16:45His men were tired and hungry.
16:49But Cornwallis wasn't in the least deterred.
16:54Green replicated the new American tactic of a three-line defence that had won Cowpens.
17:00He hoped that Cornwallis would fall into the same trap.
17:06Green was forced to set his three lines further apart because of the terrain.
17:11Each line was unable to see the other.
17:14It was a high-risk plan.
17:17The British had already marched 10 miles that day and were very tired.
17:22But when Cornwallis ordered the advance, there was no hesitation.
17:27Forward they went, with empty bellies and dirty shirts, 3,000 miles from home, to take
17:34the bayonet to the king's enemies.
17:37The first American line was about here, looking out across open fields.
17:45About 40 yards from the Americans, the British line, under Colonel Webster of the 23rd Foot,
17:52came to an abrupt halt.
17:54The Americans also held their fire.
18:02In the British vanguard was Sergeant Roger Lamb.
18:06Their whole force had their arms presented and resting on a rail fence.
18:13They were taking aim with nice precision.
18:18At this awful period, a general pause took place.
18:24Both parties surveyed each other for a moment, with the most awful suspense.
18:31Colonel Webster then rode forward and said,
18:34Come on, my brave fusiliers!
18:36These words operating like an inspiring voice.
18:43Dreadful was the havoc on both sides.
18:52There was a sharp, close-range firefight, which fell perhaps half the front-rank redcoats.
19:04The American first line then withdrew, and the British marched on to the second line,
19:19harassed by snipers from both left and right flanks.
19:24Unable to see the battle unfolding in front of them, all Green and his third line of Continentals
19:30could do was to listen and wait.
19:41The British pushed on to the American second line here, which was heavily wooded 220 years ago.
19:47Advance in formed line was now impossible, and the battle broke down into pockets of action.
19:55By this stage in the war, woods like this were no deterrent to British regulars and
19:59their German comrades-in-arms.
20:01And after bitter, bitter fighting, they were through Green's second line, and through the woods too.
20:12Webster decided to come on, even though his men were exhausted.
20:17First, a Continental volley checked them.
20:21Then the Americans moved forward with their bayonets, bringing the British advance to a halt.
20:27Meanwhile, Cornwallis had had his horse shot from beneath him.
20:32He mounted another, only to have it veer off towards the American lines in the confusion.
20:38He was steered to safety by Sergeant Roger Lamb of the 23rd.
20:47In the centre, the British foot guards pressed on and became entangled with Green's Continentals,
20:54exchanging volleys, with muskets almost touching.
21:00This was the climax of the battle.
21:02It looked as if the guards would be overwhelmed, and the British would lose.
21:07Then Cornwallis had a moment of ruthless inspiration.
21:10He ordered two cannon to fire a grape shot at the Americans.
21:15As both sides were locked in hand-to-hand combat, the grape shot would be indiscriminate,
21:20and some British would also be hit.
21:23An artillery officer begged him to reconsider his decision.
21:27Closer! Closer! My orders will be obeyed!
21:30Fire!
21:34Fire!
21:37The Americans, stunned and demoralised, retreated from the field.
21:46Against all the odds, Cornwallis had snatched victory from the very jaws of defeat.
21:51And in doing so, had staved off disaster for the British cause in North America.
21:57Without a British army in the field, Green would have overrun the south,
22:02leaving the way clear for an assault on the remaining British garrisons.
22:07But like Bunker Hill at the beginning of the war, this was a Pyrrhic victory,
22:12a defeat in everything but name.
22:15For Cornwallis had lost 500 of his 1,900 fighting men.
22:22He'd bought this ground at a price he simply couldn't afford to pay.
22:27In Britain, there were growing doubts about the conduct of the war.
22:46Costly battles like Guildford Courthouse were reinforcing the view that the war was unwinnable,
22:52particularly amongst the Whig opposition to the government.
22:56Charles James Fox, leader of the opposition in Parliament, declared,
23:01one more victory like this will cost us the whole war.
23:06The majority of Britons represented in Parliament
23:09had supported the war when it started, five years before.
23:13But now, that support was steadily waning.
23:17The same voters were paying for thousands of troops in North America,
23:21and the cost was too great.
23:24And there was always a feeling, especially amongst the Whigs,
23:28that the rebels were actually fighting for the traditional rights and liberties of Englishmen.
23:35The British had no clear strategy as to how to finish the war, apart from more of the same.
23:42Preoccupied with worldwide concerns, they were bereft of new ideas.
23:50And significantly, the British didn't understand the American strategy,
23:55personified by Nathaniel Greene.
23:58We fight, we get beat, rise and fight again.
24:03We never have to win a battle to win the war.
24:06The side that ultimately gets support of the people will prevail.
24:12One of the greatest American generals, Greene never won a battle,
24:17but he kept his army in the field.
24:24Again, the Vietnam analogy is a very strong one.
24:27The British are good at winning battles, but can't ultimately win the war.
24:31And at the very end of the Vietnam War,
24:33a North Vietnamese colonel was talking to an American colonel.
24:37And the American colonel said, you never beat us in a single battle.
24:40And the Vietnamese said, well, I fail to understand the relevance of that.
24:46We may not have beaten you in battles, but actually we won the war,
24:49because the war wasn't about individual battles.
24:53It was about something longer and broader and deeper.
25:07The British position was further undermined
25:09when the commander-in-chief in New York, General Sir Henry Clinton,
25:14ordered Cornwallis to retreat to the garrison town of Charleston in South Carolina.
25:20Cornwallis refused.
25:22It was a fundamental split between the two very different generals,
25:26the cavalier Cornwallis and the more cautious Clinton.
25:31Clinton believed that the war wouldn't now be won by offensive action.
25:36He thought that the Americans would eventually get tired of fighting
25:39and sue for peace on terms that suited the British.
25:44Cornwallis couldn't disguise his frustration with Clinton's defensive attitude.
25:49I can assure you I am quite tired of marching about the countryside in quest of adventure.
25:55If we mean an offensive war in America,
25:58then we must abandon New York and bring the bulk of our forces into Virginia.
26:04We should then have a stake to fight for,
26:07and a successful battle may give us America.
26:10If, however, we plan defensively,
26:13then let us abandon the Carolinas and fall back to New York and our salt pork,
26:20sending out the occasional raiding party to burn tobacco etc.
26:32Cornwallis now made a momentous decision
26:35to strike at the richest of all the colonies
26:37and the supply base for the American army, Virginia.
26:41He chose Yorktown on the Virginia Peninsula as his headquarters.
26:47It was a logical choice.
26:49Here he could be reinforced and resupplied from the sea.
26:56I'm just driving onto the Virginia Peninsula.
26:59It's really one of those telling bits of military landscape,
27:02important in this war and indeed in the Civil War.
27:06For Cornwallis, it would have been a safe bet
27:09if the Royal Navy had retained command of the sea.
27:18At least Cornwallis had a clear plan.
27:21But for Washington, his Continental Army and his French allies,
27:26the war still looked unwinnable.
27:28Things in the south were bad,
27:31but at least their forces there were causing some damage to Cornwallis.
27:35In the north, matters seemed no better.
27:38Washington and the Continental Army were stuck at West Point.
27:43The Comte de Rochambeau and a French force of 4,000 regulars
27:47had been inactive at Newport, Rhode Island for over a year.
27:51Something was urgently needed to break the deadlock
27:54and Washington knew exactly what was required.
27:59Without a decisive naval force, we can do nothing definitive.
28:02And with it, everything honourable and glorious.
28:07A constant naval superiority will terminate the war speedily.
28:14Then in July, came the news he was so desperate for.
28:21The French Navy, at last, was about to intervene.
28:26The French Admiral de Grasse was moving north from the West Indies,
28:30with a mighty fleet heading for Chesapeake Bay.
28:33It would prove to be the turning point of the war.
28:39Washington acted decisively the minute he heard
28:42that the French fleet was on the move.
28:45He feigned an attack on New York,
28:47then rushed 400 miles further south, by land and river,
28:51to block Cornwallis in Yorktown,
28:54while de Grasse's fleet moved to control Yorktown from the sea.
28:59Meanwhile, the British sent one of their best admirals, Samuel Hood,
29:04to pursue de Grasse, assuming he was heading to New York.
29:10Washington's tactic of a feigned attack
29:13had convinced the British that New York was the intended target.
29:20Admiral Hood, with a fleet of 14 ships,
29:23pursued de Grasse from the West Indies, and unknowingly overtook him.
29:28British ships with their copper bottoms sailed faster than French ones.
29:33When the British Admiral dropped anchor in New York,
29:36he met his superior officer and rival, the more cautious Admiral Graves.
29:43With no sight of the French,
29:45Hood and Graves realised that they had made a terrible mistake.
29:48The Franco-American attack was not to be on New York.
29:52De Grasse's fleet must still be planning to control the Chesapeake,
29:57to ensnare Cornwallis in Yorktown.
30:01Both the British admirals now swung south themselves.
30:05But when they arrived at the Chesapeake,
30:08they found that de Grasse had beaten them to it.
30:11The normally restrained Washington, when he heard the news,
30:15jumped in the air and waved his arms with sheer delight.
30:21With Cornwallis now cut off at Yorktown,
30:24the British fleet, with 19 vessels under Graves,
30:27prepared to do battle with de Grasse's 24 ships,
30:30to take back Chesapeake Bay.
30:34The two-hour battle that followed
30:36might so easily have been a British victory,
30:39but there was a depressing mixture of misunderstood signals,
30:43bickering admirals and wasted opportunities.
30:47These blunders kept the British from manoeuvring into battle line,
30:51and only the vanguards engaged.
31:01The vanguards fought mightily,
31:06but most of the ships could only observe the firefight
31:09from their positions in the rear.
31:12It never became a fully pitched battle.
31:22At the end of the day, the British fell back to assess their damage
31:26and ponder their next move.
31:28The French returned to the protection of the bay,
31:31where today a mothballed fleet of American warships
31:34stands guard over the Chesapeake.
31:37Here I met with Virginia historian John Korstein.
31:41Unfortunately, when Graves comes down and engages the French fleet,
31:47Hood is in the rear of the English line,
31:51and therefore their best ships, their best commander,
31:55are not involved in the battle in a way they should be.
31:59After several days, with the French still holding Chesapeake Bay,
32:04Admiral Graves opted to preserve his badly damaged fleet.
32:07He disengaged and sailed back to New York.
32:11The battle was over.
32:14It was a tactical draw, but a strategic victory for the French.
32:19At its end, they still controlled the Chesapeake.
32:23History hasn't been kind to Admiral Graves,
32:27but he had the wit to realise
32:29that while Britain would survive the defeat of Cornwallis,
32:32it would be gravely damaged by the loss of his fleet.
32:38But Graves could not have realised that withdrawing his fleet
32:41would change the fate of North America.
32:45The English had controlled the American coast
32:48throughout the American Revolution.
32:50They will control it the year after 1781,
32:53but it is August and September 1781
32:57where the British will really lose North America in many, many ways
33:01because of their failure to seize a tactical opportunity
33:05and the French ability to control the Chesapeake
33:09means the Franco-American army can come down,
33:14can besiege Cornwallis,
33:16and the British kind of lose a real desire.
33:20I mean, you look at what Graves does when he goes back to New York.
33:23He doesn't really try.
33:25It's almost as if the loss on September 5th
33:28means to him that, well, there's no sense in going back.
33:32But it's annoying, isn't it,
33:34that the decisive blow for American liberty is struck by the French?
33:37Without a doubt.
33:38The United States, the Continentals do not have a navy,
33:41never have a hope of having a navy.
33:42The English have gotten used to moving their troops and fleets
33:47up and down whenever they will.
33:48The Americans have gotten used to the French
33:51not doing what the Americans want them to do.
33:55It is 1781 where all this comes together.
34:03With the French navy now firmly in control of Chesapeake Bay,
34:07the stage was set for what would become the decisive battle of the war.
34:18The French unloaded their deadly cargo of siege guns
34:21onto the Virginia Peninsula.
34:28And Washington and Rochambeau
34:31began to assemble their land forces for the assault on Yorktown.
34:40Facing French ships, siege guns and an Allied army of 16,000 men
34:47assembling here at Williamsburg, Cornwallis began his grim endgame.
34:56Less than 20 miles away from the French and American Allied headquarters,
35:01Cornwallis and his army of 8,000 redcoats
35:04prepared to defend its Yorktown base.
35:10This would be a very different battle from his field campaigns.
35:13It was to be European-style siege warfare.
35:25By the 29th of September,
35:27the British had thrown up impressive defences,
35:30including ten redoubts mounting 65 guns here at Yorktown.
35:36That night, they gave up their outer defences.
35:40Cornwallis was outnumbered by at least three to one
35:43and wanted to concentrate his forces in order to survive until relieved.
35:49Clinton had promised help by the 5th of October.
35:53This place is in no state of defence.
35:56Unless you can relieve me very quickly,
35:58you must be prepared to hear the worst.
36:03The Allies were already building a ring of heavy artillery,
36:07known as the First Parallel, around Cornwallis' defences.
36:12The next step would be to cut zigzag trenches forward
36:16and then complete a second parallel,
36:18tightening their grip on the base.
36:22The British.
36:24On the 9th of October,
36:25the French and American forces were able to open fire from here,
36:29the First Parallel,
36:30a 2,000-yard arc of trenches mounting siege guns like these monsters.
36:36They fired 32-pound balls that chewed up palisades and levelled earthworks.
36:43That night, 3,600 heavy shot crashed into Yorktown.
36:53Chris Bryce, a ranger on the Yorktown battlefield,
36:57knows the effect such a bombardment would have had.
37:01You're obviously trying to maim, kill your enemy,
37:04but also the demoralising effect that one of these would have.
37:07If you're under fire, not only from that hammering effect
37:10of those 18-pound, 24-pound siege guns,
37:13having these mortar bombs going off over your head for nine days,
37:17as the British suffer here,
37:18that's got to take a lot out of you.
37:20Psychologically, so even if you don't even hit a single person,
37:23the fact that you're having this day in and day out,
37:26it's got to have an impact.
37:31On the night of the 11th,
37:32the Allies dug 750 yards of the Second Parallel,
37:36only 350 yards from the British defences.
37:40To complete this second arc of artillery positions,
37:43they'd have to get rid of two outlying British forts,
37:46Redoubts Numbers 9 and 10,
37:48Redoubts Numbers 9 and 10.
38:01The attack on Redoubt Number 9 took place under cover of darkness.
38:05It was a French assault.
38:06400 Frenchmen against 120 British and Hessians.
38:11Halt! Who goes?
38:14The attackers lost men and time
38:16as their pioneers hacked their way through these wooden defences.
38:21Then once they fought their way up onto the parapet,
38:24there was vicious hand-to-hand fighting
38:27and some men bayoneted their friends in the dark.
38:35But the sheer weight of numbers wouldn't be denied.
38:38In half an hour, the French were masters of the place.
38:47The encirclement of the British was now complete.
38:54The Redcoats in Yorktown were enduring all the horrors of an 18th century siege,
38:59so very like the trench warfare of the 20th century.
39:04One of them wrote,
39:05we get terrible provisions now,
39:08putrid meat and wormy biscuits that have spoiled aboard the ships.
39:12Men fall sick with bloody flux and dysentery.
39:16Foul fever is spreading.
39:18We get little rest by day or night.
39:22Soldiers and sailors deserted in large numbers.
39:25Bodies lay about the place, some with limbs or heads shot off.
39:31An American observed,
39:33the whole peninsula trembles
39:35with the incessant thundering of our infernal machines.
39:42...
39:59Bickering between the British commanders in New York
40:01was delaying the vital rescue operation.
40:06Cornwallis wrote in despair to Clinton,
40:09the safety of this place is so precarious
40:11that I cannot recommend the fleet or the army
40:13should put themselves into any great danger in endeavouring to save us.
40:21The crisis was about to lead to the betrayal
40:23of some of Britain's most valuable and vulnerable allies.
40:28Cornwallis ejected 5,000 black auxiliaries,
40:31many ravaged by smallpox, into no man's land.
40:35They joined the British hoping for freedom.
40:38Now they face slavery again, or death.
40:54Defeat was staring Cornwallis in the face.
40:57But he made one last attempt to escape
41:00by slipping away north across the York River.
41:04On the night of the 16th,
41:06Tarleton, commanding the enclave of Gloucester on the far bank,
41:11sent over 16 boats, each capable of carrying 100 men.
41:16The first wave of 1,000 men got across safely.
41:20But then a tremendous storm blew up.
41:23By six in the morning, no more troops had crossed
41:26and those on the far side had had to be evacuated.
41:30Cornwallis's attempt at a Dunkirk had failed.
41:34He'd run out of options.
41:41At dawn on the 17th, the Allies recommenced their deadly bombardment.
41:47At about 10 o'clock, a British drummer mounted the parapet
41:51and beat the call for a parley.
41:54He was drowned out by the noise of the guns.
41:57Then an officer raised a white handkerchief.
42:00It was all over.
42:02Bar the talking.
42:27As an American, this is where American independence is won.
42:31And for it to happen, just 23 miles from where it all began in 1607
42:37is one of the most remarkable things I can think of in association with the siege.
42:42You know, that they're in walking distance, if you will,
42:47of where Britain started its dominance here in North America.
42:51And so, you know, it's a remarkable thing.
42:53If you will, of where Britain started its dominance
42:56here in North America 174 years earlier.
43:09This is still called Surrender Field.
43:12At the ceremony here, British fifes are said to have played a popular song called
43:17The World Turned Upside Down.
43:20An appropriate choice for an 18th century superpower.
43:24An American officer, St George Tucker, witnessed the ceremony.
43:29Our army was drawn up in line on both sides of the road.
43:33French on one side, the Americans on the other.
43:37Through these lines, the whole of the British army passed.
43:40Their drums in front, beating a slow march.
43:43Their colours furled and cased.
43:45The sight was too pleasing to an American to admit of description.
43:55Cornwallis was ill that day,
43:57and his second in command, O'Hara, offered his sword to the French.
44:02For the British, this was a French, not an American, victory.
44:06But the French refused.
44:08The surrender was to be taken by George Washington.
44:15It was one of the biggest British military defeats in history.
44:30Even though the peace wasn't signed until 1783,
44:34the American Revolutionary War ended at Yorktown.
44:40On the 25th of October, 1781,
44:44a British relief force arrived off the Chesapeake.
44:47It was one week too late.
44:51After the surrender, there was much of that elegant courtesy,
44:55so common in Europe, where officers were gentlemen,
44:58and war was often about politics, not patriotism.
45:02The British asked the French to lend them money
45:04for a lavish dinner for the officers of both sides.
45:08Rochambeau personally loaned Cornwallis £10,000.
45:13BELL RINGS
45:18American officers declined to join the meal,
45:21and looked on in amazement.
45:28The dinner represented in microcosm why the British had lost the war.
45:33For the Redcoats, it was a matter of honour and duty.
45:38But for the Americans, it had become a war of liberation
45:42and national identity.
45:45But what kind of nation were they building?
45:49In 1776, the Declaration of Independence had proudly affirmed
45:55that all men were created equal,
45:58and were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,
46:03amongst them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
46:08But these rights would not apply to all Americans.
46:13Very few black Americans who'd fought for the rebels were offered freedom.
46:20Native American Indians would face near extinction
46:23in savage wars against the new nation.
46:30100,000 American Loyalists were forced to leave their country forever.
46:34And for the victors, would all the sacrifices ultimately prove to be worthwhile?
46:45Even though America was at last independent of British rule,
46:48the cost of the victory was more than many of the original revolutionary wars.
46:54The British were forced to leave the country,
46:56and the Americans were forced to leave the country forever.
46:59Even though America was at last independent of British rule,
47:01the cost of the victory was more than many of the original revolutionaries could stomach.
47:08In the Constitutional Convention of 1787,
47:11there were no elected representatives,
47:14no Indians, no blacks, and no women.
47:18People like John Hancock and Sam Adams,
47:21fathers of the revolution, boycotted it.
47:24A coup had taken place without anybody noticing.
47:28Indeed, the revolution had come full circle.
47:32America was to be ruled much as it had been by the British,
47:35only perhaps more efficiently.
47:40As the first President of the United States,
47:42George Washington helped transform revolutionary fervor into sound government.
47:48But some of his French allies took that fervor back home.
47:52American victory sent shockwaves right into the heart of the old world.
47:59And liberty?
48:00That's what American patriots and French revolutionaries thought they were fighting for.
48:05And it remains a noble ideal.
48:08But the American Revolution, like revolutions before and since,
48:12shows just what an elusive quality it really is.
48:22The American Revolution
48:26The American Revolution
48:30The American Revolution
48:34The American Revolution
48:38The American Revolution
48:42The American Revolution
48:46The American Revolution
48:50The American Revolution
48:54The American Revolution
48:58The American Revolution