The Harsh Winter at Morristown

Hello, American History Teller listeners. I have an exciting announcement. I'm going on tour and coming to a theater near you. This live show is a thrilling evening of history, storytelling, and music, with a full band accompanying me as we look back to explore the days that made America And they aren't the days that you might think. Sure, everyone knows july fourth, seventeen seventy six. We'll be hearing a lot about that date this year But there are many other days that are maybe even more influential. So come out to see me live. More shows to be announced soon. So for information on tickets and upcoming dates, go to Americanhistorylive. com. That's Americanhistorylive dot comot Come see my Days that Made America tour live on stage. goo to ammericanhistorylive dot com Imagine it's november eighth, seventeen eighty in Clarendon County, South Carolina You are the widow of a patriot general, and you're standing over the stove in your kitchen while British cavalry Commander Bannister Tarleton interrogates you You swallow your fear and try to concentrate on the meal Tarleton demanded you cook for him and his men. He stands over your shoulder watching you closely I'll ask you again, ma'am, where is Francis Marion Yesterday, your son warned the Patriot guerrilla leader Francis Marion that Tarlton was planning to ambush him, but you can't let Tarlton know that drop some carrots into the pot And then steal a glance at your children who cower at the table, nervously eyeing Tarleton's men I told you I know nothing of his movements How do you like your potatoes Don't lie to me. We know you passed information to him. He and the rotten scoundrels he calls a militia could not have escaped without helpll. How about I roast the potatoes? That's enough Tarlton turns sharply to his men Drive all the sheep and cattle into the barn, lock the doors, and then set it ablaze. No, you can't tryry and stop me, treacherous woman. You're gonna pay for this Please just leave us. Have your supper, then go I'm not going anywhere until you tell me Marian's location I swear to you, I don't know where he is. Carlton looks at you with disgust and whirls around to his men Take her outside, Fog her until she gives up the information we need two soldiers seize your arms. You struggle, twisting hard enough to drive your heel into one man's shin. He loosens his grip for half a second, but it's not enough. They haul you toward the door as your children look on in terror. You call out to them Look away, Don't come outside. It's gonna be allright. I'll be fine The words ring hollow as the soldiers drag you away When your husband marched off to battle five long years ago, you never imagined the savage brutality the war would unleash or that it would invade your very home But now it seems like there's nothing the war won't touch. No boundary the British won't cross I'm Leon Nafok What happens when onlyly Fans becomes more than just a side hustle On fantasy is an in depth look at the world's newest professionals how the rules of human intimacy are being rewritten online. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or binge all episodes of Only Fantasy, ad free only on Audible I heard a rumour that the CIA poisoned my granddad. Gordon Banks the world's number one goalkeeper. It happened in Mexico, supposedly, at the World Cup in nineteen seventy. Sounds crazy? I'm an investigative journalist on the hunt for evidence. We needed to do some extraordinary things to counter these sovians This is Foul playay, an unbelievable tale of sports, spies and family secrets. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts or early and ad free on audible A Mudible Originals, I'm Lindssey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story In the fall of seventeen eighty, British Lieutenant Colonel Bannister Tarleton terrorized the South Carolina countryside while pursuing the Patriot guerrilla leader, Francis Marion torched thirty plantations and had his men beat a war widow for refusing to reveal Marian's whereabouts Charlton hoped his tactics would undermine morale, but instead, his cruelty only fueled the rebels' resistance wo years had passed since the seventeen seventy eight Alliance between the United States and France had transformed the Revolutionary War from a colonial rebellion into a global conflict. This forced Britain to divert resources, to defend more valuable colonies in the Caribbean, and with a global empire at stake and the war in the Northern colonies at a stalemate British leaders concluded that the path to victory lay in the south And their southern campaign sparked a vicious civil war in the region, pitting neighbor against neighbor in endless cycles of violence By then, the cause of American independence had entered its darkest chapter. Despite dramatic patriot raids on the frontier and at sea, soldier and civilian morale was in crisis Inflation wreaked havoc on the economy Continental arrmy soldiers went unpaid and underfed, and mutinies erupted within the ranks For both sides, the revolution was no longer merely a contest of arms What a grueling test of endurance This is episode five. deevil of a whpp In the summer of seventeen seventy eight, the British Army concentrated their forces in New York City To hem them in, General George Washington had positioned his own army in a wide ark stretching from New Jersey to Connecticut. Washington wanted to take back the city But he knew that he could not do it alone Then in july seventeen seventy eight, in the wake of the new French American treaty, sixteen French warships sailed into Sandy Hook, New Jersey The arrival of the formidable French fleet raised hopes that the Patriots could break the stalemate and retake New York. But the French soon realized that New York's harbor channel was too shallow for their heavy warships, and their commander, Vice Admiral Charlotte D' Destang, had no choice but to withdraw seearching for another opportunity to weaken the British, Washington and Estong agreed to a joint strike against Newport, Rhode Island valuable port city that the British had occupied since seventeen seventy six. while Destong would lead the French fleet. American soldiers would be led by Major General John Sullivan, a brawny man of Irish descent whose notorious temper and working class background put him at odds with D'estong, a highborn count, close to the French royal family So although their combined forces outnumbered the British garrison The operation was plagued by mutual distrust or planning and even bad weather After a severe storm damaged the French ships, Deestong sailed to Boston for repairs, leaving the Americans on their own. So Sullivan sent the French aristocrat and Continental Army officer Marquis de Lafayette to Boston in order to urge Destang to return to Newport, but to no avail. In the end, Sullivan pressed ahead with the assault But without naval support, he was forced into a bloody retreat furious over Destong's desertion, he publicly attacked this decision as derogatory to the honor of France Despite Washington's own frustrations with the French admiral, he swallowed his pride and wrote falling letters to Destang in hopes of smoothing things over. It was no use Instead of coming to Washington's aid, Destan set sail for the Caribbean on orders from his superiors in France to attack Britain's lucrative sugar colonies Washington was forced to accept that America was the junior partner in this alliance and that France had its own strategic priorities Ultimately, French leaders were more concerned with weakening Britain on a global scale than fighting for American independence But France's entry into the war did force the British to spread their resources over a wider area In response to De Stal's threat, the British Secretary of State ordered the newly appointed Commander in Chief, Sir Henry Clinton to redeploy eight thousand British soldiers to the Caribbean and Florida reducing the size of his army in the colonies by a third. When Clinton received these instructions, he complained that he'd been given a hopeless assignment Clinton commanded a much smaller army than his predecessor, yet was tasked with a far more ambitious objective He was expected not only to defend Britain's control of New York and Rhode Island, but also to carry the war into the South. With the fighting in the North settling into a stalemate, British officials ordered Clinton to turn his focus to Georgia and South Carolina in an effort to capture the lucrative plantation economies in the region This became known as Britain's southern strategy British leaders implemented the strategy, believing that the South contained a large loyalist population that was waiting for the chance to rally to their side. They also hope that with many plantations dependent on Britain for trade Pragmatic southerners would support the crown So as seventeen seventy eight drew to a close The British began their campaign in the south by invading Georgia, the weakest and most sparsely populated of the thirteen colonies In late December, British forces easily captured Savannah, and just a few days later, the Royal Governor of Georgia was reinstated And this restoration of crown rule prompted one British officer to boast, I have ripped one star and one stripe from the rebel flag of America. But beyond Georgia General Clinton was forced to limit his shrunken army to small scale actions In may seventeen seventy nine, he ordered raids on Virginia shipyards, destroying two million pounds of rebel property Then two months later, he burned Patriot privateeering bases in Connecticut that had damaged British trade But the British failed to gain any major ground that year Meanwhile, brutal warfare continued raging on the frontier as various Indian nations and their British allies fought militias and back countountry settlers in cycles of raids and reprisals that killed hundreds in the Illinois country, northwest of the Ohio River British backed Indian raids on American settlers prompted the Virginia Governor to send twenty six year old frontier fighter George Rogers Clarark on a mission to capture British outposts in february seventeen seventy nine Flark led two hundred militamen against the British held Fort Vincense in modern day Indiana After demanding the British surrender demonstrated the seriousness of his threat by ordering the execution of four Indian captives in plain view of the fort His men hacked the prisoners to death with tomahawks before throwing their bodies in the Ohio River Clark explained his actions by declaring that to excel Indians in barbarity was and is the only way to make war upon them But the most notorious raids occurred in New York and Pennsylvania. where in the aftermath of the Saratoga campaign, Patriots continued battling loyalists and their Iroquois allies under Mohawk leader Joseph Braantt In july seventeen seventy eight, looyalists and Iroquois warriors swept through Pennsylvania's Wyoming valley killing roughly three hundred Patriot militiamen. False stories spread, claiming that hundreds of women and children were massacred, spreading fear throughout the area Four months later, Brant led an attack on the New York toown of Cherry Valley killing sixteen soldiers and thirty two civilians, which Brand insisted was retaliation for a patriot attack on an Iroquois village outraged patriots called Brant a monster, and a butcher Congress pressured Washington to seek revenge. So in may seventeen seventy nine, George Washington once again turned to General John Sullivan ordering him to lead a campaign of terror against the Iroquois villages in New York Washington's instructions to Sullivan were clear He declared The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more He then reminded Sulliman that the campaign was essential to America's future security Following Washington's orders in august seventeen seventy nine Sullivan led four thousand five hundred soldiers in systemically destroying at least forty one Indian towns. These soldiers destroyed dwellings, cornfields, and orchards notot only to crush native resistance, but to ensure the survivors would have nowhere to return, opening the way for future white settlements Imagine it's august thirty first, seventeen seventy nine You're a colonel in the Continental Army, and you've just ridden into the Iroquois village of Catherinestown, New York You expect it to find crude bark huts, not the orderly rows of timber frame houses before you. They almost remind you of your small village back home in rural Pennsylvania, and your family's apple orchard But already, some of the men in your regiment are setting the homes ablaze, while another group burns a plot of towering stalks of corn. Commander John Sullivan rides up beside you and surveys the destruction, his face glowing with pleasure At this rate, we should be ready to march out well before dusk watch as a burning roof collapses in the distance, sending a burst of smoke and embers high into the air The men are certainly accomplishing the task with Gusto, are they not I'd like you to take a detachment and destroy the fruit orchards You follow Sullivan's gaze to your right, where long rows of trees stretch out as far as your eye can see branches heaving with late summer peaches and early autumn apples and pears You want me to burn them? No, I want you to girdle them strip the bar clean around the trunk so they can't grow back But sir, is that truly necessary? Of course it is These trees look like they've been here as long as I've been alive The Indian raiding parties we've seen, don they don't touch the settlers' orchards. They steal cattle, sure, but they spare the fruit trees. Sullivan cuts you a hard glare. Colonel This is war. General Washington was explicit. We are delay waste to these villages to deprive the people of every resource they have, every means of sustenance They can't feed themselves, they cannot wage war against us justust seems a shame, Genal I hate to think of someone doing this to my family's orchards. Well your tender feelings have no place here, Colonel, G get it done. Yes, sir certain nod you gather your reins and ride off to the edge of the orchard. You dismount beside a row of peach trees and retrieve an ax from your pack It feels heavy in your hand as you reckon with the years of careful tending you're about to undo irreparable damage your army is responsible for. During General John Sullivan's scorch Eth campaign in Western New York He ordered his men to girdle fruit trees by cutting rings around the trunks to starve the roots and ruin future harvests Some of his subordinates balked at destroying orchards that had taken years to mature, but Sullivan insisted, declaring, Indians shall see that there is malice enough in our hearts to destroy everything that contributes toward their support Sullivan's expedition left lasting damage to Iroquois Homelands, and earned Washington a new name destroyer In the wake of this campaign, thousands of Indian refugees fled to the British at Fort Niagara in Canada But while the American army spread fear and chaos on the frontier The hero of the fledgling American Navy carried the war across the Atlantic Ocean to Britain's own shores. Only a handful of American vessels ever made it to sea, but one naval commander, the Scottish born John Paul Jones, went further than any other, launching daring raids on the enemy's doorstep and unleashing terror along the British coast But in september seventeen seventy nine, the British Royal Navy cornered Jones and his crew off the coast of Yorkshire, England commanding an old French merchant ship called the Bonome Richard Jones faced off against a brand new forty four gun warship, the HMS Serapus Dictators on the cliffs watched as a fierce battle erupted between the two ships And in light of his enemy's superior speed and firepower, Jones realized that the only way to win would be to force the fight into close quarters So Jones ordered his men to use grappling hooks to lock the two vessels together, and the crews began firing at each other at point blank range Soon the decks of the Bonomeriich Chard became slippery with blood, with half the crew dead or wounded And after nearly four hours of furious battle The American ship was taking on water and in dangerous sinking That's when one of Jones's sailors lobbed a grenade at the Serapus, igniting its gunpowder stores, killing twenty men and forcing the British captain to surrender The Bon Homome Richard sank. but Jones managed to sail the serapus into neutral waters and his victory over the superior Royal Navy became legendary. But one brave sailor like Jones could not match the full might of the world's most powerful Navy Americans knew that if they were going to have any hope of defeating the British, they would need French naval support Late in the summer of seventeen seventy nine, Washington got some good news. He learned that the French fleet was sailing back from the Caribbean due to the start of the hurricane season Washington hoped that they would join his army for an assault on New York Once again, the French had their own agenda Admiral De Stong had instead set his sights on retaking Georgia from the British When word of the French Admiral's plans reached Major General Benjamin Lincoln, the commander of the Continental Army's Southern Department He rushed his army from South Carolina to Georgia And then in October, the French and Americans joined forces in storming the British lines in Savannah The operation ended in disaster Soon after, Destong sailed his battered fleet home to France Lincoln took his troops back to Charleston to regroup It was yet another devastating blow to the French American Alliance, but the darkest days of the revolution were still to come In the year ahead, the Continental Army confronted an economy in freefall the worst winter of the century and a shocking betrayal by one of the most capable commanders Jo there 'is I, Queen Mortuana of the Night realalm, AKA Kate McKn. And her reven minion Jojo, AK Emily Lynn Do not download and binge my show. headads will roll air apparent, unaudible I will cut off your head! Oh no. Mbe just tell them about the guest stars like Richard Kind, Karry Coon, Jimmy Fallon and all. But they weren't. And if you don't listen to them, then I will cut off your tongue, then cut off your head and then put the tongue in the head hole. A, you tried! Listen now exclusively unaudible and D with the audible after today are off with your head I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire, and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for aggressive tactics But when a war wound A new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the Max. Heurns spine. and devises a plot to shatter the revolutionary and help Britain capture rebel commommander in chief, General George Washington And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in US history. Follow the Sy Wh now, wherever you listen to podcasts You can also listen to the full season of the spy who betrayed the American Revolution early and ad free on Audible By seventeen seventy nine, runaway inflation was plaguing the new United States The Continental Congress had printed too much paper money to fund the war without sufficient gold and silver to back it So by the start of the year Continental currency had lost nearly ninety percent of its value causing George Washington to complain that a wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions The problem was further compounded by wartime shortages British blockades prevented imports, countryside raids destroyed crops and livestock, and soldiering and privateering pulled men away from their usual work as farmers and fishermen As the war dragged on, severe shortages of food and other goods drove up prices, continental currency was virtually worthless. This economic pain ignited tensions in Philadelphia, where working class artisans, radicals, and militiamen accused the city's rich merchants of price gouging They also resented many of the city's elites for avoiding the burdens of military service crisis came to a head in the spring of seventeen seventy nine when anonymous broadsides appeared throughout Philadelphia declaring Down with your prices or down with yourselves. Imagine it's the morning of may twenty third, seventeen seventy nine in Philadelphia you're restocking inventory in your dry goods store when you hear the front door bang open. As you turn around, you find yourself face to face with a crowd of men armed with clubs Your heart starts pounding in your chest, but you try to keep your voice calm I'm not open for another hour. Why don't you boys come back later A young man with sandy hair and soot stained hands examines a display of coffee, carelessly knocking one of the Burlap bags to the ground How do you live with yourself? Selling coffee for six shillings a pound You bend over to pick up the coffee, set it back on the shelf I don't want any trouble. I'd prefer if you please leave sandy haired man ignores you, shifting his focus to another display bushel of corn for seven shillings, Rye for eight Prices are outrageous My prices are fair. There's a war going on in case you hadn't noticed Yeah, and merchants like you are getting rich by sucking the blood of this country Getting rich ve barely been able to keep the store open bother lying to us, we know you're colluding with the other merchants to keep your prices high. This is outrageous. I want you out of my store The man steps forward, tightening his grip on his club You need to lower your prices. You need to do it today Why should I let a mob tell me how to run my sh Well, how would you like to be tarred and feathered and marched through town or hauled off to city jail? You're about to protest then you catch the menacing Clint in his eyes. These are no idle threats Allright fine. I'll lower my prices, but please just get out of here And I see that you do because we'll be back to make sure of it As the men turn walk out the door You're struck by the sense that the revolution has spiralled out of control The cause has given way to a complete breakdown in law and order, and you've never felt so much contempt for your fellow citizens On may twenty third, seventeen seventy nine crowd of armed men descended on Philadelphia shopkeepers, threatening them until they agreed to lower their prices At a mass meeting two days later, residents established a committee to create price controls But over the next few months, many farmers and merchants simply circumvented the controls by selling their goods to other towns And in October, Patriot militamen seized four men they believed had violated price controls and paraded them through the streets in an act of public humiliation Th they marched to the home of a wealthy lawyer named James Wilson. Wilson had drawn public criticism for defending men in court accused of collaborating with the British and for his opposition to price controls Seeing the mob descend upon his home, he armed and barricaded himself inside with several friends and colleagues But one of his guests began taunting the crowd of militiamen from an upstairs window A shot then rang out, sparking a full scale firefight The mob was in the middle of aiming a cannon at the house when mounted troops arrived in restored order By then, the crossfire had killed one of Wilson's guests, a handful of militiamen and one child on the street At least a dozen more people lay wounded Philadelphians were shocked by the violence, which became known as the Fort Wilson Rriot Arrests of the militiamen only stoked more conflict, and elites began fleeing the city The Pennsylvania Assembly finally eased tensions by pardoning the rioters and distributing flour to the poor with preference given to militia families. But just a few months later, the northern states were paralyzed by the harshest winter of the century. The Delaware River and New York Harbor froe solid, and the transport of food and supplies slowed to a crawl That December, the Continental Army went into winter quarters in Morristown, New Jersey, roughly thirty miles from the British base in New York City There they experienced conditions even more severe than Valley Forge two years earlier twenty eight major snowstorms hammered the northeast between December and April, and temperatures in Morristown rarely rose above freezing with snow blanketing the countryside and supplies nowhere to be found Soldiers face the threat of starbvation One army private remembered, I did not put a single morsel into my mouth for four days, except a little black birch bark I saw several of the men roast their old shoes and eat them, and I was afterwards informed that some of the officers killed and ate a favorite little dog. along with these wretched conditions, a major source of bitterness for the soldiers was their persistent lack of pay Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to collect revenue by levying taxes, relying instead on the states to voluntarily contribute funds But with so many states unwilling to tax their own citizens, soldiers went months without seeing any wages. And when they were paid, it was in worthless paper money that failed to meet the cost of basic food and supplies. Soldiers complain that even four months' pay was not enough to purchase a single bushel of wheat So to fend off their hunger, the soldiers tried to forage in the countryside They found little sympathy among the local population who were also suffering One Connecticut private recounted receiving scornful looks and hard words from civilians when he and his comrades sought food and shelter An officer complained, Where is the public spirit of the year of seventeen seventy five Where are those flaming patriots who are ready to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, their all Many soldiers felt abandoned by the country they were fighting for And by winter's end, roughly one thousand had deserted But while Washington was struggling to keep his army together British General Henry Clinton was preparing to launch a major offensive in the South. He decided to send more than eight thousand soldiers to Charleston, South Carolina's largest city and its leading seaport. His plan was to capture the city with a siege, then mobilize local loyalists into waging war on the countryside Though the British already controlled Georgia, this campaign in South Carolina would be the first real test of their southern strategy After receiving word of Clinton's plans, Patriot Major General Benjamin Lincoln, the commander of Charleston's garrison, prepared to defend the city with five thousand soldiers and miliamen And in february seventeen eighty, the British began landing troops thirty miles south of the city. They then swung north, forming an ark to seal off the Charleston Peninsula from the mainland By April, they started digging a series of trenches to close in on rebel lines, laying the groundwork for a siege Days later, British warships took over Charleston Harbor, leaving the defenders with no way of escape So after a month long bombardment, Patriot Major General Benjamin Lincoln was forced to surrender Charleston It was the worst American defeat of the Revolution, resulting in the capture of the entire Southern Army More than five thousand soldiers were imprisoned and three hundred cannons and nearly six thousand muskets fell into British hands. This loss shattered patriot morale and sent South Carolina loyalists rallying to the British. And for his part, after capturing Charleston, British General Clinton took four thousand troops back to New York to defend the city against potential attack and left his second in command, Lord Charles Corn Wallace in charge of the South Corn Wallace was an aristocrat and a widely respected commander But he would soon discover that taking a major city was not the same as forcing an entire countryside into a submission determined to restore a crown rule throughout the colony Corn Wallace sent the young and ruthless Lieutenant Colonel Bannister Tarlton to capture retreating American forces in the South Carolina interior Tarleton commanded a unit of loyalists known as the British Legion And on may twenty ninth, seventeen eighty, Tarleton and his men cornered American forces at Waxhaws near the North Carolina border and called on them to surrender. When they refused, Tarleton ordered a cavalry charge. Soon, one hundred and thirteen patriots lay dead and another one hundred and fifty wounded, many of them stabbed with sabers and bayonets while trying to surrender Thus, the phrase Tarlton's quQuarter became a shorthand for British brutality. and a rallying cry of South Carolinians seeking revenge against their loyalist neighbors. Soon, civil war erupted across the South Carolina backcountry, with patriots and loyalists attacking each other, looting homes and burning crops This savage fighting in South Carolina would ultimately account for nearly twenty percent of all revolutionary war deaths Meanwhile, in the wake of the disaster in Charleston Congress sent General Horatio Gates, the hero of Saratoga, to face the British in South Carolina. He marched south with roughly two thousand continental regulars and gathered another two thousand militiamen along the way But in August, dysentery and diarrhea debilitated his army Still he pushed on and rashly engaged Cornwallace at Camden, South Carolina when his militia recruits panicked and fled before a British charge The remaining Americans were overwhelmed, and Gates himself fled the field in disgrace He had ruined his reputation and now Corn Wallace was free to press his advantage begin marching north to his next target. North Carolina. Making matters worse, Patriot Morale plunged to new depaths in September, with a shocking revelation about Benedict Arnold one of the great heroes of the Continental Army Arnold had proven his courage in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, the invasion of Canada, and bold charges into the frray at Saratoga But though he had risked life and limb for the Patriot cause, he felt that his sacrifices had not been sufficiently rewarded consumed by greed and resentment. he decided to turn his back on his country by offering his services to the crown In the summer of seventeen eighty, Arnold plotted to surrender West Point, a key Patriot stronghold on the Hudson River to the British in exchange for money and a position in the British arrmy He took command of the fort in August and immediately began undermining its defenses But when American militiamen captured Arnold's collaborator, Arnold was exposed as a traitor. He managed to escape behind British lines in New York City, where he was awarded a commission in the British Army This news sent shockways through the Patriot ranks and left Washington reeling When he learned of Arnold's betrayal, he asked the Marquis de Lafette Whom can we trust now He found his answer in the reliable Nathaniel Green, the former Quaker who had taught himself military strategy from books At firstirst, Washington entrusted Greene with overseeing the trial of Arnold's collaborator and restoring order at West Point Then in October, he sent him south to replace Horatio Gates Soon, Greene would take on the challenge of rebuilding the demoralized American army, rallying local militias, and implementing a strategy of attrition to wear down the British and restore hope to the Patriot cause As Americans, we're constantly grappling with a fundamental question. Do we settle for the world as it is Or do we strive to create the world as it should be Our answers tend to ebb and flow through the decades But once Just after a war that nearly tore us apart We came as close as we've come to answering it And it's a story worth a closer look I'm Michelle Obama, and I'm proud to announce Higher Ground's new podcast Reconstruction. The unfinished promise. Guided by bestselling author, Malcolm Gladwell and featuring my husband, Barack Obama, this limited series uncovers the untold stories of recconstruction what they mean for us today, and how our past can shape the future we choose to build Reconstruction, the Unfinished promise, is available now on audible or wherever you get your podcast. In the fall of seventeen eighty, British commommander Lord Charles Cornwallace began a three pronged invasion of North Carolina, sending forces to Wilmington, Charlotte, and the western backcountry attacked his left flank, Cornwallis turned to a loyalist militia commanded by Major Patrick Ferguson This fearsome Scottish born officer was tasked with recruiting more loyalists and intimidating any civilians who resisted his advance And when Ferguson learned that several Patriot militias had crossed the Blue Ridge mountains in pursuit of him, he tried to rally the support from Scots Irish settlers who populated the back countountry, issuing a proclamation declaring, If you choose to be pissed upon forever and ever by a set of mongrels, say so at once and let your women turn their backs upon you and look out for real men But these words backfired and instead of garnering support from loyalists, elicited outrage among the locals who had not forgotten Banister Tarleton's cruelty or other reports of loyalist atrocities. And on the afternoon of october seventh, the Patriot militias caught up with Ferguson's loyalists at King's Mountain, a flat topped hill covered with pine trees Patriots fired long rifles from behind the trees, picking off their enemies with deadly skill And after a little more than an hour, Ferguson himself was shot dead, prompting his men to surrender Patriots later stripped Ferguson's bullet riddle body for souvenirs In total, one hundred and fifty loyalists were killed and hundreds more were taken prisoner Patriots suffered less than one hundred casualties. Among the dead were four brothers from a single family Three of them loyalists and oneon a patriot And it wasn't the only family torn apart An injured loyalist begged his patriot brother in law to help him only to be coldly told, Look to your own friends for help. This fighting embodied the grim civil war that pitted back country families and neighbors against one another It was also the first major setback the British had suffered in the South shattering the illusion of British invincibility and prompting Corn Wallace to pull his army out of Charlotte and head back to South Carolina But even though the victory offered Patriots a flicker of hope In the fall of seventeen eighty, their chances of winning the war still appeared slim As Nathaniel Green traveled south to take command He discovered that Congress was unwilling to send him more soldiers or supplies The government was mired in debt, but the states refused to alienate their citizens by raising the taxes needed to sustain the war Washington summed up the dire state of affairs in a letter to Benjamin Franklin, writing, Our present situation makes one of two things essential to us, a peace or the most vigorous aid of our allies particularly in the arrticle of Money. But so far, the alliance Benjamin Franklin had secured with the French had failed to yield significant strategic gains And with the bulk of France financial support spent on military supplies rather than on paying troops, the weetary soldiers of the Continental Army were left underpaid and underfed The resulting crisis in morale reached a breaking point on New Year's D seventeen eighty one when fifteen hundred soldiers from the eleven regiments of the Pennsylvania line mutinate They drunkenly killed an officer, wounded two more who tried to stop them, then fled their winter quarters at Morristown to march on Philadelphia in order to confront Congress directly Imagine it's late at night on january fifth, seventeen eighty one in an office in Nassau Hall in Princeton, New Jersey. You're a continental Army serergeant and one of the leaders of the recent mutiny of the Pennsylvania line. You're sitting behind a desk writing a list of demands to Congress when the door opens One of your fellow mutineers steps inside with two strangers dressed in plain clothes Well, sir, I found these two skulking around the camp. What do you want me to do with them? Before you can answer, one of the prisoners stepped forward. Hello, my name is John Mason. This fellow is my guide here in New Jersey. I've come here today on behalf of Sir Henry Clinton. No, is that right? The man hands you a letter and you slide your finger under the wax seal and open it, glancing at the grand looping signature of the British commander in chief You look up to find the prisoner watching you with a look of smug satisfaction Yes, as you can see, Sir Clinton has made you a generous offer He's prepared to give you and the other soldiers of the Pennsylvania line a tidy sum for the British Treasury in exchange for abandoning the rebel cause Your mouth falls open You can't be serious. Oh I am perfectly sincere But I have no intention of joining the British Well why ever not? You would have all the financial rewards you could ever hope for. Aren't you sick of sleeping in the cold? surviving on scraps, waiting months to get paid Sir, you misjudge me. I'm no Benedict Arnold. My comrades and I are simply asking our government to fulfill the promises made to us when we enlisted. But we would never consider betraying our country. The sheer thought of it makes me sick. Well, But just a moment Iignore him and turn to your fellow soldier. Arrest these men. seend them to headquarters. Let them find out how our government treats British spies This man pales as he comes to terms with what this overture has cost him And as he and his guide are let out of the room You look back at Clinton's letter, feeling stunned that your dissatisfaction with Congress could ever be mistaken for disloyalty. When the mutinous soldiers of the Pennsylvania line stopped in Princeton on the way to Philadelphia A British officer and his guide made the soldiers an offer to defect The soldiers responded by handing the men over to Patriot authorities who soon hanged them as spies. This show of loyalty strengthened the mutineers's position with Pennsylvania officials, helping them negotiate back pay and the option of leaving the army or re enlisting. These favorable terms inspired two hundred New Jersey soldiers to stage their own mutiny three weeks later But this time, instead of giving in to the soldiers' demands, Washington ordered another unit to disarm the mutineers and execute two of their leaders, insisting that a show of force was necessary to end the very pernicious influence on the whole army. With this brutal response, Washington managed to keep the arrmy from disintegrating But its future remained uncertain Even when the hated Benedict Arnold returned to the field, this time as a brigadier general in the British Army It did little to drum up enthusiasm for the war effort In early january seventeen eighty one, Arnold commanded a force that laid waste to plantations along Virginia's James River before arriving in Richmond And when Governor Thomas Jefferson called out the militia to defend the capapitol, few men responded manyany believing they had already done their fair share of service Arnold's men met little resistance as they set a large swath of the city of Blaze At the start of seventeen eighty one, General Nathaniel Greene took command of the remnants of Horatio Gates Army in North Carolina, which consisted of just one thousand continental soldiers and twelve hundred militiamen. Green told the North Carolina governor that he had inherited a shadow of an army, incompetent to give protection to the Carolinas Green knew that defeating the enemy with this small force would require creativity Conventional military wisdom advised against dividing a weaker army in the face of a stronger one But even though his troops were outnumbered two to one