Transcript
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Introduces the outbreak of fighting at Lexington and Concord and explains the real story behind Paul Revere’s ride. It emphasizes that the war has begun, but the colonies are still reacting rather than declaring independence.
Speaker A
In the aftermath of the coercive or Intolerable Acts, 12 of the 13 colonies got together at the First Continental Congress to declare their outrage, but also to wait and see what would happen next.And what did they eventually see?Well, you can tell from the slide that it wasn't.Things aren't going to calm down.Also, you should know this because we're in the, you know, on the path to the American Revolution.
What they specifically saw though, was the battles of Lexington and Concord.Fighting began in this war in 1775 with the battles of Lexington and Concord.It was a colonial victory, but fighting was just beginning.This is also the story, the battles contain the story of the famous Midnight Rider, Paul Revere.That's another one of those events where what you may have learned about it was not quite what happened.
And just to be very brief with it, so the, the three things you know were that he, that it was Paul Revere.Yes, but he wasn't the only one.There were two other individuals who also made this ride this night.Second, he did not shout the British were coming, because everyone involved was British.So for him to ride through the streets in the middle of the night and say the British were coming would be a warning.
Would basically be like somebody driving down your street in the middle of the night yelling, the Americans are coming.Right.You just wonder, you know, how much meth they were on.So what he actually said was the regulars are coming out.In other words, the soldiers are moving.
Regulars was the term for a full time soldier.And the other thing was, is he didn't ride down the street yelling it, he went to think of it like the Underground Railroad where there were safe houses.So he would go to people that were believed or that he knew him and the other riders to places where they believe that they could spread the word, hey, the soldiers are marching.Warn something, you know, and spread the word.And they, he, they could open that door when he knocked on it and it could be the person he was supposed to be talking to, or it could be an agent of the British government, that, that strict colonial governor, or it could be soldiers.
So there was a risk here.But he didn't yell it in the streets because if you're trying to conduct a secret mission, you don't shout it from the rooftops.Right?If you've ever watched a spy movie like James Bond or the Bourne movies, it's not like he or any other spy ran around and saying, I'm doing spy work.Even though a lot of spy movies are mostly action movies, there's not a lot of.
A lot of sneakiness anyway, besides the point.So it's not quite the story you heard, but, you know, why.Why is that story popular?A poem and the British are coming Rhymes.Better than the regulars are coming out, I guess.
So this was just the beginning, and it was a colonial victory.
Covers the Second Continental Congress, the creation of the Continental Army, and the choice of George Washington as commander. It also explains the effort to gain French support and why those early diplomatic attempts failed.
Speaker A
Now the waiting and seeing was over, so the colonies decided to hold a second meeting.This is.Again, I didn't say this, but the first one was in Philadelphia.The second one will be as well.
And they have to decide how to respond to the situation in Massachusetts.And so this second Continental Congress, which first meets in 1775, starting in the summer, and will remain.I mean, obviously they took breaks, but they.They will remain a thing all the way up until 1781 for six years.
They're going to make a few important decisions here.First is they're going to decide to create a continental army by organizing and uniting the colonial militias.Remember, the first Continental Congress had decided to start training those colonial militias.Well, now they're going to unite them into an actual army.The purpose of this army was purely solely for colonial defense, to defend themselves from the aggression of the British government.
Now, what they needed, aside from, you know, men and supplies and money, was a commander.But there wasn't a strong military tradition amongst the colonists.They didn't have their own militaries.The British army was there some of the time, and they had fought the colonists, but that.It's different.
Or sorry.They fought the native nations and still were in many places.But that's different than being part of a trained military force.
So they needed a commander, but there wasn't that strong tradition.Now, who they ended up choosing was a wealthy Virginia planter named George Washington, who they'll elevate to general.He had military experience from the French and Indian War, but it was entirely losing, except for the first battle, which was a disaster that ended up leading to the French Canadian War.So he won, but.And, you know, technically.
But only technically so he had military experience, but it wasn't exactly great.Now, he.He was at this meeting in a military uniform, as he was the leader of the Virginia Colonial militia may have heard the phrase, dress for the job you want, not for the job you have.Washington had an idea that he would be.That he'd be up for consideration if they created an army.So he went ahead and dressed the part.Why else was he chosen?He was also known for his integrity and his patriotism.He was trusted he could be put in charge of a military and he wouldn't use it against the colonists.He's also 6 foot 4.
So if you have one guy in a military uniform who literally stood head and shoulders above everybody else, you know, I like to think maybe they just went, well, I don't know who to pick.And looked out in the crowd and there's, you know, six foot four.Washington in a military uniform is like, well that guy seems like he knows what he's doing.A little more consideration than that, but not too much to be honest.Oh, one other reason is that the northern colonies wanted to get the southern colonies involved, which Virginia was a southern colony.I mean think about it.And all of this setup for to get to this point.Where have we been focused on Massachusetts and Boston?We haven't even, you know, I only mentioned one southern state to this point.That was North Carolina for the Edenton Tea Party.
So the northern colonies wanted to get the southern ones involved.And so getting a Virginian to lead the Continental army was believed to be a step in that direction.
Another thing that the second Continental Congress will do is request financial and military assistance from France.This is because of the colonists good relations with the French, right?Well no, the French hated the British.So the Continental Congress expected them to jump at the chance to twist the knife in Britain while they were distracted.But they did not jump at all for many reasons, but largely because they had no faith in the colonists chances and there was no real benefit to the French.
But they're going to keep trying.
Describes the early battles of 1775 and the colonists’ continued loyalty to King George III. The chapter ends with the king rejecting the Olive Branch Petition and issuing the Proclamation of Rebellion.
Speaker A
Now battles progress here in the summer of 1775.
Despite all of this, Congress was not thinking and the colonies were not thinking of independence yet.And we know this for certain because on 5 July 1775, one day short or one day, sorry, one day short of a year from when the declaration will be made official.That's 4th of July 1776.So 364 days later they will be declaring independence.But here in July 5th of July 1775, they were not thinking of independence.
They sent this olive branch petition to England.It was a letter to King George III trying to reach a compromise.And this was also after the next big battle, the battle of Bunker Hill, which happened in June of 75.Essentially the colonists blamed everything on Parliament and asserted their loyalty to the King and to the throne.This wasn't necessarily false, as during the first year of these conflicts, colonists opposed the British armies during the day and drank to the health of the King during or at dinner and at night.
So they were still loyal British citizens.They just wanted Their rights restored, and they're appealing to the king directly, blaming everything on Parliament.
But King George III declined to even open the envelope, much less read the petition.He actually had it ordered thrown into a fire.Luckily, as was done at the time, that if there was anything important, particularly between governments, they would, if they sent it, like, you know, this letter was sent to King George iii.They made a copy before they sent it.Congress did instead.What the King did was issue the proclamation.I don't think I have a separate slide.I do not.The Proclamation of Rebellion on 23rd August, 1775.Proclamation of Rebellion, which stated that the government considered the 13 colonies to be an open rebellion, all of them, not just Massachusetts, and it authorized the use of force to suppress that rebellion.
We'll see shortly how the colonists take this rejection.But until then, the petition showed that the colonists were simply fighting for their place in the British Empire, their seat at the table, Parliament, and their rights as British citizens, not for independence.And as I said clumsily, this is one year almost to the day before the ratification of the Declaration.The first two years of the Revolutionary War essentially occurred without independence as the goal, or even a significant topic of discussion.In most revolts, independence is declared before the fighting starts or around the same time.
But not here.Once independence is declared in 1776, the Second Continental Congress became the de facto government of a new country.And we'll circle back to that later, but first, or rather, we'll circle back to the Declaration, we're going to keep going with the Continental Congress as a government, because that's going to be a separate, larger discussion.So we'll circle back to the Declaration.Once the Declaration has happened.
The Second Continental Congress is now the government of the colonies.
Explains how the Second Continental Congress functioned as a wartime government, raising money, overseeing the army, and recruiting foreign help. It highlights von Steuben’s training reforms and Lafayette’s commitment to the American cause.
Speaker A
They were responsible for raising money, but had no power to do that, or really no power to do anything.So to raise money, they'll sell bonds.Basically government IOUs saying, hey, if you loan us money by buying this bond, we'll pay you back later.It's a loan to the government, an iou.The bond is basically the IOU for giving a loan to the government.
This is to raise money for the war effort, and this will be a massive issue later on.
They also oversaw the Continental army with Washington at its head.One thing they also tried to do is recruit foreign military advisors and officers to help lead the army.This was much needed because they lacked experienced officers and.And had few trained soldiers.
Now they will be able to recruit several officers and soldiers, but there are two that I want to mention.Here that are significant.The first was General Frederick Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Louis von Steuben, or we'll just call him von Steuben.He was Prussian.Starting with a piece which essentially modern day Germany.
He is who trained the militia into an actual professional army.He was also a champion cursor, but he also only spoke German.So he wrote his orders for the day down in German.His secretary knew German and French so they rewrote his orders into French and then Washington's secretary rewrote them because they knew French and English to English.So he trained an army via a multi language telephone game which makes turning, I mean it was already an impressive feat to train.It would be an impressive feat to take this, you know, mob of basically frontier frontiersmen and people who own guns, who want to fight.It's already a feat to turn them into an army, but to do so crossing three languages and you know, a telephone game which you've all played where somebody says something into someone's ear and then they whisper to the next person.
By the time you get to the end, you know, the phrase is completely different somehow.You trained an army doing that.Now it was written so it was.It's not like you lost the.It's not like you know, you could mishear something.But translation's tricky.
So all professionalism in the Continental army comes almost entirely from him.At least the discipline side.Washington helped as well.But von Steuben is who actually trained this army, took it from a group of militia into an actual disciplined fighting force.The other major foreign military officer they will recruit was Marie Joseph Paul Ives Roche Gibert D. Du Mortier or the Marquis de Lafayette.
Lafayette was a 20 year old French noble, hence the title Marquis.He was the Marquis of Lafayette.
I'll just refer to him as Lafayette.Lafayette came to the colonies because he believed in their cause.Von Steuben came to the colonies because they were paying him and because he was good at what he did.But Lafayette believed in the principles what America was going was fighting for.He came after the Declaration was published.So he's later.Right, this is.Both of these gentlemen were after the Declaration.So he believed in the principles laid out in the Declaration.He thought the American Revolution would be the opening shot in a global revolution for principles of democracy and self government.And that did not end up being the case at least in the short term.But that's what he believed.He was probably the most able general in combat of the entire war.
Washington was not great at a lot of things, but we'll get to that later.But Lafayette was really good to great at pretty much everything you need from a general, particularly when it came to actually fighting the war.After the war, he was actually granted U.S. citizenship, honorary U.S. citizenship, and he helped negotiate with his home country of France to bring them into the war, which eventually happened in 1777.He had a role in that.
Briefly notes the later success in bringing France into the war and the creation of the Articles of Confederation. It then transitions to the central question of how the conflict became a war for independence, leading into the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker A
Eventually, the Second Continental Congress, as I just said, succeeded in bringing France into the war for the US but we'll get to that in the future.They will write a new constitution and create a new government, a government called the Articles of Confederation, which were, as you can guess, since we still don't have them, not great.So how did this turn from a war for rights under the British government to a war of independence?Well, that's what we're going to talk about next.That is the Declaration of Independence.