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00:00In 1775 an irregular army made up of American farmers and tradesmen took up
00:16arms against the most powerful nation on earth, Great Britain. We think of them as
00:23inexperienced and outgunned, struggling with inferior technology. But was that
00:29true? Can we ever know what it was like to fight in the Revolutionary War?
00:39You can read books, you can go to the battlefields, but doing experiments,
00:44shooting these weapons, really helps give us a better understanding of the soldiers
00:50from both sides who fought in the American Revolution.
00:54It only gives a whole different appreciation and horror.
00:57The Revolutionary War is on a real cusp militarily. You see echoes of older ways.
01:05This is aiming for the head. And you see some of these kind of glimmers of the future
01:13and new technologies.
01:16Indigenous ingenuity and European design, technology evolves because of this collision
01:23of cultures.
01:24We have a ticking bomb.
01:26This is ticking.
01:27Whoa!
01:28How did ordinary Americans use this technology to win their freedom?
01:34You want to be hitting that same spot again and again and again.
01:40I've never experienced or seen anything like this.
01:46Revolutionary War Weapons, right now on NOVA.
02:04April 19th, 1775, Massachusetts.
02:29Tensions between the British and the American colonists are at a boiling point.
02:42A moment that's commemorated even 250 years later.
02:46A silversmith named Paul Revere has spread word that 700 British troops are marching from Boston
03:03to Concord.
03:05Their mission?
03:06Seize an American stockpile of weapons and supplies to stop a revolution before it begins.
03:12But as the British pass through Lexington, they are stopped by around 80 militiamen.
03:26One of them is 36-year-old farmer, John Robbins.
03:33Sometime before sunrise, there suddenly appeared a number of the king's troops, about a thousand.
03:43The militia and the British are under orders not to fire.
03:52But within minutes, shots ring out.
04:00The skirmish sparks a war that lasts eight brutal years
04:03and leads to the establishment of the United States of America.
04:07It's said that in war, history is written by the victors.
04:14In the story of the American Revolution, the colonial forces are often portrayed as plucky heroes
04:19standing alone, armed with inferior technology, against the most powerful nation on Earth.
04:25But the truth is far more complex.
04:34Now, with modern insight, we can reach a better understanding of what it was like
04:39to stand in the line of fire, armed with the weapons of the day.
04:42This image of the Battle of Lexington, engraved months later, is based on eyewitness accounts.
04:55It reveals some of the true cost of the colonists' fight for freedom.
04:59Americans lie dead and wounded.
05:01And the British are using the most common weapon of the Revolutionary War, the smoothbore musket.
05:10Today, the musket is seen as crude and inaccurate, especially when compared to modern guns.
05:20But is that true?
05:25At Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, historic firearms researcher Joel Boye
05:31is finding out how effective the musket was on the battlefield.
05:35So what we've got here is a British pattern 1756 longland musket, more commonly known as the brown
05:42bess. The brown bess begins use in about 1730, and this type of gun would have been the workhorse
05:48of the British Army through the 18th century into the 19th century. It was an extremely important
05:53gun to building the British Empire and used through the American Revolution.
05:59Manufactured in the British Isles, each brown bess is made up of around 50 individual pieces.
06:05The 46-inch barrel is forged from a single piece of iron,
06:11heated to 2500 degrees Fahrenheit, then beaten and welded into shape.
06:17The inside is reamed and polished to remove rough edges, resulting in a smooth internal bore.
06:24The stock, fashioned from walnut because it is less prone to splitting.
06:28The final step, assemble the metal components, including the flint lock mechanism and trigger,
06:35to make the finished musket.
06:39To load it, the soldier starts with a paper cartridge.
06:42About a third of an ounce of pre-measured gunpowder and a lead ball, enclosed in the wrapper.
06:48Take a tail, bite it off, pour some powder into the pan.
06:59More gunpowder down the barrel with a musket ball.
07:03And we ran that cartridge home, and the guns are loaded and ready to fire.
07:15It's cumbersome. The process can take 15 to 20 seconds and must feel like an eternity in battle.
07:22The musket would seem primitive to anyone familiar with the sophistication of a modern rifle.
07:30So here we have the Lee-Enfield, number one, commonly used in World War I and through World War II,
07:35and is a good representation of a modern gun.
07:37Here, the loading process has been made easier with a self-contained primed metallic cartridge.
07:43We've got a brass casing, a primer, which sets off the powder inside, and it fires a jacketed lead bullet,
07:54which is a lot different than the brown best.
07:56This .303 caliber round, or .303 of an inch, is also half the diameter of the .69 caliber musket ball.
08:07With a magazine that holds 10 rounds, the Lee-Enfield can fire multiple shots in the time it takes to
08:13load a single musket ball, which is a big advantage in combat.
08:19The bolt is pushed forward. It's chambered for a round now. It can fire.
08:27But for Joel, the best way to assess the musket is not by comparing it to modern weapons,
08:33but by testing its effectiveness in battle 250 years ago.
08:37Joel's team will fire at a ballistic gelatin block designed to replicate human tissue,
08:49providing valuable insight into how different projectiles can affect a person's body.
08:56With the aid of a slow-motion camera, he'll also try to answer a question. How damaging could a musket shot be?
09:04He'll also try to measure the speed of the barrel, known as the muzzle velocity, using a chronograph.
09:19Marksman Jay Waller will be firing the guns.
09:23First up, the musket with the .69 caliber ball.
09:27Pulling the trigger instantly sets off a chain reaction in the flintlock mechanism.
09:41A stone flint strikes a steel hammer.
09:47The impact creates sparks, which ignites the priming powder in the pan.
09:51This ignition passes through a small hole and sets off the gunpowder inside the barrel.
10:02The gas pressure produced here propels the round out of the gun.
10:10On inspection, it's a direct hit.
10:12You can see where it traveled right through the block and came out the other side.
10:19Reviewing the footage, they can see the horrific damage caused.
10:27Wow.
10:28You see that ball zip right through.
10:30Look at the cavitation in the gel from that .69 caliber ball.
10:34When the ball moves through the block, it displaces the gel around it, creating a cavity.
10:41This is known as cavitation, similar to what would happen to living human tissue.
10:48Devastating to bones and internal organs.
10:52The men on Lexington Green knew how deadly these weapons were,
10:55but they never had the opportunity to see the damage in the way that we're seeing it now.
11:04The men on Lexington Green knew how deadly these weapons were, but they never had the damage in the way that we were seeing it.
11:11Wow.
11:11Wow.
11:13Yeah, certainly gives a whole different appreciation and horror for what happened.
11:20On April 19th, 1775, one of the Lexington militiamen who feels the destructive power
11:28of the smoothbore musket is farmer John Robbins.
11:31The foremost of the three officers ordered their men, saying,
11:37Fire, by God, fire.
11:39Being wounded, I fell.
11:44The shot enters his back, passes through his body, and shatters his jaw.
11:51In total, ten militiamen are wounded and eight killed.
11:55The musket is clearly deadly.
12:02So why do we see it as a primitive weapon?
12:05Likely because of what later guns can do.
12:10Joel demonstrates this with the modern rifle.
12:12The modern rifle's power is far more terrifying, but what does the data reveal?
12:34Using the chronograph, Joel and Jay compare muzzle velocities.
12:39On the end field, that is 2,314 feet per second, whereas the musket is 845 feet per second.
12:50So there's a big difference between the two guns.
12:52But you can really see the velocity when you look at the ballistics gelatin blocks.
13:00The higher velocity of the modern rifle's bullet means it carries substantially more energy.
13:07When it penetrates the block, much of this is transferred to the gel, causing it to lift into the air.
13:13With a muzzle velocity nearly three times the muskets, the data proves that the musket is much less powerful.
13:23But what makes the rifle bullet have such a high projectile speed?
13:29When the trigger is pulled on the modern rifle, the charge is ignited within the self-contained cartridge.
13:37The vast majority of the explosive force is transmitted to the bullet, propelling it.
13:44The bullet travels flush against the barrel, and with a more aerodynamic shape,
13:50moves cleanly through the air, retaining its power for longer.
13:59But when it comes to the musket, 18th century gunpowder is less efficient than the modern equivalent.
14:06Its smoothbore barrel is also slightly larger than the ball it fires.
14:10This means the ball bounces down the barrel and allows gases to escape around it when the gunpowder is ignited,
14:18resulting in less energy being transferred to the ball.
14:22Being larger, rounder, and less aerodynamic than the modern bullet, it is further slowed by air resistance.
14:29But perhaps the musket's biggest weakness is its relative inaccuracy.
14:37The best way to demonstrate this is to see what a skilled marksman can do with the modern gun.
14:42So here we're going to do a test with the modern rifle and the brown bass or the musket at 100 yards.
14:52First, the Lee-Enfield.
14:53At this distance, it's a great shot.
15:03Now, Jay tests the accuracy of the brown bass.
15:06The musket shot at 100 yards.
15:16There's no new impact.
15:17No matter how many times they try.
15:29Should we take a walk down and look at it?
15:35All right, so this shot missed the target.
15:41Why did it miss?
15:42One key reason is the difficulty of holding the musket steady.
15:46It's interesting because it's only a matter of milliseconds between the time that the flash and the charge and the pan is ignited and it ignites the charge.
15:58But that fraction of a second is enough to lose and go off sight.
16:01You can move the gun a little bit from the time you pull the trigger until the time it actually goes off.
16:08This, plus all the factors that make it less powerful, means the smoothbore musket is also less accurate.
16:16Despite this, we know from written accounts that facing musket fire was not for the faint of heart.
16:27To compensate for any inaccuracy, armies during the Revolutionary War relied on a lethal tactic.
16:35Mast volley fire.
16:38By standing in rows and firing multiple lead balls at their enemy, they made up for the musket's lack of precision.
16:46Making it very dangerous when used en masse.
16:53After the April 19th clash at Lexington, the British continue on to Concord.
17:00Where they are attacked by 400 militiamen and forced to retreat, leaving hundreds dead and wounded.
17:07Soon, what began as a skirmish turns into all-out war.
17:22Following the American colonies' declaration of independence in July 1776, the war spreads from the land to the sea.
17:31Some 200 British warships with 32,000 musket-wielding troops arrive in New York.
17:41From here, they rapidly deploy into battle.
17:44The Americans are outnumbered and outgunned, so they begin working on a plan to blow up the British warships.
17:57In the United Kingdom, military historian Mike Lodes is investigating one of the war's most audacious weapons.
18:04This is a model of the first combat submarine.
18:11Now, I say model because the original doesn't exist.
18:15All we have is a few hints and clues from subsequent writings.
18:19The writings come from American inventor David Bushnell.
18:25The external shape of the submarine vessel bore some resemblance to two upper tortoise shells of equal size, joined together.
18:35It was later nicknamed the turtle.
18:40First, you've got the overall shape.
18:42It's using the technology of a barrel. It's thick oak staves bound together with iron hoops.
18:52It's not quite barrel-shaped, though, and the reason for that is because you need space inside for an operator to sit,
18:59so that's going to broaden it in the middle, and you need space at the top for a hatch for the operator to get in.
19:07At first glance, it immediately reminds you of a space capsule.
19:13But what it is, in fact, is a time capsule, a time capsule of contemporary technologies.
19:20You've got these pedals here, so the operator is pedaling away.
19:23This is powered by pedal power, and they are driving a propeller.
19:31The concept of the propeller dates back to Greek mathematician Archimedes.
19:37His Archimedes screw famously moved water using a spiral blade inside a tube.
19:44Bushnell took this concept and located a blade on the outside of his turtle.
19:49This is thought to be one of the first practical applications of a propeller.
19:55Along with a rudder, the turtle has all the components needed to maneuver on the surface.
19:59A particular feature of the outside of the vessel is this hatch at the top here.
20:07It's got these watertight windows, so he has got some natural light inside.
20:14Then, above there, these strange-looking things are really snorkels, so that when it's above water,
20:23it's fully ventilated.
20:28Using the windows, the operator could maneuver on the surface to locate and position the turtle next to a ship.
20:37It is then ready to descend by filling the area at the base of the vessel known as the bilges.
20:45To do that, the operator kicks a lever.
20:48This will flood the bilges down there with water.
20:53Under the surface, a second propeller is used to lower or raise the turtle.
21:01Once submerged in darkness, the operator has only two instruments for guidance.
21:05This is a barometer. It has a little cork in it, and each of these marks on the glass tube represents a fathom.
21:15That's about six feet. So, as he sees the cork bobbing down, he knows he's going down another six feet.
21:21How can he see that underwater? Because it's been covered with a fungus called foxfire, which is luminous.
21:28It glows in the dark. And over here is a compass, which again, the needle on the compass has been coated
21:37with this luminous fungus, so he can read his heading.
21:42The turtle is designed to move into position, armed with a bomb to blow up its target.
21:49So, assuming that we've now got to the right depth, we now need to attach the payload.
21:54And that's this crank here. This crank operates that drill at the top.
22:01And that bores its way up into the hull of a ship.
22:07The drill is attached to the bomb by a rope.
22:10Once connected, the turtle detaches itself, leaving the explosives secured to the ship.
22:17And now you've got to get out of here. So you pedal away.
22:20When you want to surface, you use these two hand pumps, yet more exertion to save your life,
22:28pumping away to get that water out of the bilges.
22:32But my goodness, that's a heck of a lot of work to get to that stage.
22:40Employed to carry out this dangerous mission?
22:43The plan, 27-year-old American, Ezra Lee.
22:47The plan? Drive into New York Harbor and blow up the British flagship, HMS Eagle.
22:55But how could Ezra Lee attach a bomb big enough to sink the British ship and get away safely?
23:03Inventor David Bushnell's writings provide some clues.
23:06Allowing pyrotechnics expert John Hargreaves to figure out how it was supposed to happen.
23:15I've rigged this as a demonstration.
23:17This is pretty much the size of the bomb that would have been on the turtle.
23:22That holds the gunpowder?
23:23Correct. 150 pounds.
23:26How do we get a spark to it?
23:28Well, in the references to Bushnell's machine, they show a flintlock mechanism.
23:35So this little pocket pistol, which has got this flintlock here,
23:39so that flint strikes that, which creates the spark.
23:45The pistol's muzzle is screwed into the barrel.
23:49When it's fired, it will ignite the gunpowder.
23:53But Ezra Lee would need time to escape before it exploded.
23:58Bushnell had a plan.
24:03Within the magazine was an apparatus,
24:05constructed to run any proposed length of time, under 12 hours.
24:12This is a specialist clock.
24:14It is a very early 19th century version, actually.
24:18But it's the nearest thing I can find to the right mechanism.
24:22The mechanism John thinks Bushnell used comes from a period pocket watch.
24:27The pocket watch had been around at the beginning of the 17th century.
24:31It was a pretty rare thing, and they were all watches like this.
24:38The clock is going to count down to zero.
24:41When it gets to zero, it pulls a lever, which I have attached to the trigger mechanism of my pistol.
24:48So it pulls the trigger and fires the gun.
24:52This is absolutely ingenious, John.
24:55I'm going to set it to a minute two.
24:59Can you hear it ticking?
25:01We have a ticking bomb.
25:02Yeah?
25:03This is ticking.
25:04Whoa-ho!
25:05Look at that!
25:07Excellent.
25:09Proof of concept.
25:10Yes.
25:12The timer for the bomb was set to 30 minutes and sealed in a watertight casing.
25:17The countdown would begin when the bomb detached from the turtle.
25:23This apparatus could not possibly move,
25:26till, by casting off the magazine from the vessel, it was set in motion.
25:31To test the gunpowder bomb underwater, they use a modern firing mechanism for safety.
25:42When Bushnell first tested the bomb, he did so with varying amounts of gunpowder.
25:48For safety, John is only using five pounds.
25:53Ezra Lee was carrying 150.
26:01At 11 p.m. on September 6th, 1776, after being launched into the water from a whale boat,
26:10Lee starts his mission.
26:14Even though this is a scaled-down test, John is taking all the necessary precautions.
26:20Ezra Lee is facing the real risk that the bomb could fail to detonate,
26:25or worse, explode too early, killing him instantly.
26:31For over two exhausting hours, with the constant risk of being spotted,
26:36he navigates toward the British ship.
26:41Upon reaching it, he begins his descent, dropping close to 30 feet below the surface,
26:48with the bomb.
26:49Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!
27:00There she blows.
27:01That's just five pounds?
27:18Yes, five pounds of gunpowder.
27:21The bomb they're dealing with was 30 times that magnitude.
27:25A detonation that large would have been catastrophic.
27:39The wooden hull of a ship offers less resistance to the bomb's explosive force
27:44than the denser water around it.
27:48It would have just ripped through the bottom of the boat.
27:50Instant destruction.
27:51Yeah.
27:59But HMS Eagle is not blown up.
28:04After making his descent, Ezra Lee is unable to attach the bomb.
28:10He went under the ship and attempted to fix the wood screw,
28:13but struck, as he supposes, a bar of iron.
28:19At this crucial moment, running out of air, he abandons the mission.
28:25In a later attempt, the boat carrying the sub is sunk by British gunfire.
28:30This is the end of the turtle.
28:34I have absolutely no doubt that if it had been successful,
28:39and if it had been repeatable to scale, if they'd built many more turtles,
28:44and they had destroyed the British fleet, it would have shortened the war by years.
28:48The war would have been over in months.
28:55Following the failure of the turtle, the war grinds on.
28:59With neither side securing a strategic advantage.
29:04But in 1777, the tide starts to turn.
29:09Now with access to more weapons and 13,000 troops,
29:13the Americans achieve a decisive victory at the Battle of Saratoga.
29:19Both armies are using muskets, but there's another weapon on the battlefield,
29:24bringing its own advantages and weaknesses.
29:29The long rifle.
29:32Developed in the early 1700s by German and Swiss immigrants,
29:36the long rifle was designed as a highly accurate hunting gun.
29:44After the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Americans quickly set up sharpshooting rifle units.
29:50At Saratoga, it is claimed one of these units, Morgan's rifleman, plays a crucial role in securing the American victory.
30:00This isn't the first time Morgan's sharpshooters have been celebrated.
30:03One newspaper in 1775 wrote,
30:10Yesterday, the company were drawn out to show the gentlemen of the town their dexterity in shooting.
30:16A clapboard with a mark the size of a dollar was put up.
30:19Few shot being made that were not close to or in the paper.
30:23The report also suggests the long rifle is much more accurate than the musket.
30:29This test is going to be for accuracy.
30:42We're going to be shooting at that melon 60 yards down range with a long rifle.
30:48Even before it's fired, there is a visible difference that gives it an advantage over the musket.
30:53The benefit of the rifle is it has front and rear sights.
30:59While the musket only has a front sight, it's going to help with the accuracy of the gun.
31:06Having two sights allows for more precise alignment, providing two points of reference,
31:11enabling the shooter to more effectively maintain focus on the target.
31:17Ready?
31:17Yeah, he's going to go now.
31:23Ready?
31:28Having never fired the long rifle before, Jay just misses the melon.
31:33But now he has his mark and adjusts his aim.
31:54Yes.
31:58It's a direct hit.
32:02But why is it so accurate?
32:06The answer lies in the name, the Rifled Barrel.
32:14Forged by specialist gunsmiths, the iron barrel is bored to include spiral grooves,
32:20known as rifling, on the inside surface.
32:24This changes how the ball behaves.
32:30When fired, the ball engages with the grooves, causing it to spin around its longitudinal axis.
32:37This spinning motion gives the projectile angular momentum, helping it resist external forces like
32:43air resistance, and maintain a straighter path.
32:48The result?
32:50The ball remains stable in flight over longer distances, significantly enhancing accuracy.
32:58Combined with improved sights,
33:02and a smaller tight-fitting ball, which travels at a higher velocity,
33:05the long rifle is a formidable sharpshooting weapon.
33:12But there are also disadvantages.
33:15A slower loading time, with the long barrel being cumbersome,
33:19and the small ball needing firm positioning.
33:23If you're in combat, you need to load and fire as quickly as you possibly can.
33:27With a rifle, it's going to be, you know, one shot or two shots a minute,
33:32compared to the four you can get with a musket.
33:35Meaning, this symbol of American patriotism and success is particularly vulnerable during reloading,
33:43leaving a soldier defenseless, and open to attack from bladed weapons.
33:55Following the American success at Saratoga in 1777,
33:59the Revolutionary War enters a new phase.
34:04A year later, the French officially join the American cause, bringing much needed troops and supplies.
34:13Some indigenous communities are also playing a role in the war.
34:18In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson refers to them as merciless Indian savages.
34:23But their relationships with the colonists and the crown are complex.
34:30Both sides are seeking to recruit them.
34:34Historian of indigenous eastern woodlands, Fallon Berner, specializes in this often untold story of the war.
34:42Native people were involved in the American Revolution since the beginning, since Lexington and Concord.
34:47Native people fought on both sides of this conflict.
34:51That might be the American side, that might be the British side, that might be remaining sort of neutral.
34:56These decisions are based on what is best for that native nation and the trajectory that they are on.
35:01In a conflict often characterized by small skirmishes, whoever indigenous people side with, their impact is felt.
35:12Often with the help of a deadly axe, the tomahawk.
35:19Fallon is meeting up with eastern woodlands weapons expert Russell Reed to discuss indigenous people's weaponry and its role in the war.
35:28I know that the word for tomahawk actually comes from this area here in Tidewater, Virginia.
35:35Can you tell us a little bit about the kinds of tomahawks that settlers would have been seeing when they first arrived here?
35:40So when the English first arrived, you're going to see the tribes in Virginia and really throughout much of the eastern woodlands
35:47using stone-bladed axes like this to clear brush and fields to work on canoes, build houses,
35:54and also certainly as a weapon when the time required it.
35:57However, after the English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and other colonial powers arrive,
36:02rapidly you're going to see this replaced bit by bit with iron and steel versions of the tomahawk that we more think of nowadays.
36:13With Europeans came new technology, including ironmongery and steel work.
36:20Early on, colonial traders realized they could exchange metal goods, including axe heads, for items needed in Europe.
36:27The advantages to this are several.
36:34Stone tomahawks work for thousands of years. There's no issue in using them.
36:38However, the iron and steel ones can be brought to a little bit of a finer edge for more effective cutting.
36:44And this can be purchased or traded for at fairly cheap cost, in some cases for a couple of deer skins.
36:52It just makes a lot of sense to trade for scores of these rather than make stone versions that are a little heavier and not quite as sharp.
37:00Over time, metal tomahawks transformed, taking on new shapes with intricate decoration.
37:07Some even contained pipes that could be smoked.
37:11But the tomahawk remained a weapon for close combat.
37:20You're going to see a sort of a system of weapons.
37:22You're going to have your long-range weapon.
37:24So that's going to be your longbow, your rifle, or very commonly this Indian trade gun, musket.
37:30Once in battle, the system is deployed rapidly.
37:37You're going to be leveling that at your enemy, firing.
37:43And then while your enemy is hopefully reloading, you're going to see this long-range weapon tossed to the side, immediately drawing a tomahawk and your knife.
37:56And so you're going to see the knife in one hand, the tomahawk in the other, actually closing in on your enemy.
38:04Period sources routinely talk about the fact that this is actually going to be brought aiming for the head.
38:14It certainly can be an effective weapon against the body, but layers of thick clothing and the fact that this is a fairly light weapon.
38:21You're going to see a lot more targeting of the head, the knife being something you can use to follow up or possibly to block a strike.
38:29And quickly either brought to the side or straight down.
38:35You can see it's sort of cleaved pretty much right through the center of it like that.
38:41And then it can even be brought back in the opposite direction.
38:46That would be terrifying if that was my head.
38:53Now you can imagine this on a battlefield with hundreds of warriors, muskets going off.
38:58Arrows flying everywhere.
39:00And then warriors closing the distance with devastating effect on their enemies.
39:05Against an enemy, especially slow-loading riflemen, the tomahawk could be highly effective.
39:15So we definitely see a lot in movies or other cultural depictions of native warriors throwing and letting go of their tomahawk to hit a target.
39:24How viable and actionable do you think that is?
39:27It's likely that actually throwing your tomahawk in combat would be incredibly uncommon.
39:33This weapon simply doesn't weigh a lot.
39:35And you would have to match the rotations to hit your enemy perfectly and you're incredibly limited on range.
39:41It's certainly going to be more effective used in the hand.
39:45To throw it, you've gotten rid of it, then you don't have it to use anymore.
39:48Yes, you have now, unless you've been incredibly lucky and successful, you have now disarmed yourself, given your enemy your main weapon.
39:55So how much of a difference do you think the tomahawk made in the revolution?
40:00It really is such an effective hand-to-hand weapon that you're going to see colonial forces, militia, and the British all carrying tomahawks as well.
40:08And so we do get period accounts in the revolution where the tomahawk comes into play in a big way with lots of hand-to-hand fighting,
40:15which can turn the tide of the battle one direction or the other, commonly leading to the victory of whoever's employing it first and most effectively.
40:23After six brutal years, the war takes a sudden turn.
40:33In 1781, in a surprise move, nearly 18,000 American and French troops corner 8,000 British in Yorktown, Virginia.
40:46Outnumbered and surrounded, the British are forced to dig in.
40:50Pitch battles and skirmishes are out.
40:53Now, this becomes a siege war.
40:58In this painting, The Siege of Yorktown, the artist captures the defensive earthworks built by both sides.
41:05And the powerful weapon intended to defeat them, the cannon.
41:11The contest between these earthworks and the cannon would become one of the most iconic in history.
41:23But which one would come out on top?
41:27At Yorktown today, historian Marvin Alonzo Greer is finding out.
41:32So what you're seeing here is a reconstruction of the 18th century earthworks that the British created.
41:41This foliage here, this greenery, would not have been here at the time.
41:44It would have all been dirt and earth and palisades here, these wooden spikes sticking out of the ground.
41:50In just six weeks, the British construct a system of fortified earthworks.
41:59These defenses would have been built by a mixture of people.
42:02Some by soldiers in the British Army.
42:05But the vast majority of these defenses would have been built by freedom seekers.
42:09Before the Revolutionary War, all 13 colonies practiced slavery.
42:16During the conflict, many enslaved people are brought to the battlefield, often as laborers.
42:22Some fight on the American side voluntarily, with the hope of freedom.
42:27The British also offer them liberty if they join their ranks.
42:31Thousands take this opportunity at Yorktown.
42:34They've become known as freedom seekers.
42:37Most of their names are lost to history.
42:40But we do have names of at least two.
42:43Eve from Williamsburg and her son, George.
42:46They were enslaved by Peyton Randolph and his wife, Betty Randolph.
42:50Betty Randolph writes in 1781.
42:53Some of her enslaved people, including Eve and George, have gone to the enemy, right here to Yorktown.
43:00In the painting of the siege, there are clues about how the defenses are built.
43:04Piles of strange-shaped objects lie next to passing troops.
43:10But what are they?
43:13Revolutionary War expert Matthew Cagle has built three examples.
43:18So these are called gabions, basically big wicker baskets, but they don't have a bottom or a top.
43:23So you can move them where you need to go, you can dump earth into them, and they're going to hold it there.
43:29Gabions had been used in defensive fortifications since the time of the ancient Egyptians.
43:35During the Revolutionary War, and with so many American towns lacking stone wall defenses, gabions are commonplace.
43:42We're just looking at this cross-section of the works.
43:45So imagine this continuing through us and past us to make a whole wall nine feet or more deep.
43:52With ditches dropping no less than six feet, and ramparts of equivalent height covered in spiked palisades, the earthworks at Yorktown present a formidable obstacle.
44:04But they had to face down the cannon.
44:11Originating in China 800 years ago, the first experimental cannon were made of bamboo.
44:17By the 1770s, the most expensive and lightweight are made of bronze.
44:22But the more common ones are heavier, larger, and made of iron.
44:25This is the most powerful weapon system known at this time.
44:30The works at Yorktown are all designed around the capabilities of these weapons.
44:34Either to prevent incoming fire from damaging people and equipment, or as platforms to fire artillery from.
44:41At Yorktown, the Americans and French bring 100 cannon to the battle.
44:46The British have 250 cannon, but not nearly as much ammunition.
44:51To defeat earthworks, artillerymen use solid iron shot.
44:57Right here, we're working with a French four-pounder.
45:01So that's not the weight of the barrel.
45:02That's the weight of the shot this is going to fire.
45:04So a solid iron ball weighing four pounds is going to come hurtling out the muzzle of this cannon downrange.
45:10For this cannon, there are five crew members.
45:13Each has a specific role.
45:16So what we see up here is on that front right, he's got the sponge rammer.
45:20The sponge rammer.
45:23The sponger ensures the cannon is safe to fire.
45:27By plunging the barrel with water and pulling it out with the vent closed, a vacuum extinguishes any embers from the previous shot.
45:36So when he pulls that out, we get that sound, which is evidence of the vacuum inside the tube.
45:42Because if you put a round of cartridge in there afterwards, and there's even the smallest ember, that could set that off.
45:48Another crew member passes the cartridge, which holds the gunpowder, to the loader.
45:54After inserting this, the loader then adds wadding, which holds the cartridge against the breech of the cannon.
46:00Next, the iron ball, followed by more wadding.
46:06Then, sponge rammer is actually going to ram down this whole mass into the breech, because for the gunpowder to work correctly, to get the most force possible, it needs to be compacted into as small a space as possible.
46:17Now, at the rear, at the vent of the weapon, they're going to take a small spike, drive that through the vent hole, through the cartridge, opening up the gunpowder inside there.
46:28With the cartridge open, the gunner pours additional gunpowder into the vent, and then inserts a fuse.
46:35Finally, the commander who aims the gun prepares to fire.
46:39Prepares to fire.
46:42At Yorktown, the closest the American and French guns get to the British lines is just 200 yards away.
46:52Within an instant of lighting the fuse, the gunpowder inside the barrel ignites.
46:59The gases produced rapidly build to create pressure between the ball and the base of the barrel.
47:04In milliseconds, this pressure propels the ball out of the cannon.
47:21Came around here.
47:25Oh.
47:27Look at that.
47:29Did it just plunge right through the gabion?
47:31Yeah.
47:33See right there, that shattered sapling, and then we've gone right into here.
47:40That's our second hole, isn't it?
47:41Yep.
47:43It's dislodged a fair amount of Earth, but they're still holding.
47:50The fact that it passed through the Earth, the saplings, and into a second one.
47:56And into the next one.
47:58That's some power.
47:59That really is.
48:01Because this is so loosely constructed, this isn't like firing into a stone wall.
48:05So the nature of this defense has helped it to kind of almost heal itself.
48:11Earthworks could effectively withstand a single strike.
48:14But at Yorktown, the Americans and the French are firing up to 3,500 rounds every day, with some cannon shot six times the weight of this four-pounder.
48:28We got the palisade.
48:31We got the palisade.
48:33Right on target.
48:35Bullseye.
48:37The second shot is inches from the first hit.
48:40Your intention is you want to be hitting that same spot again and again and again and again, ultimately battering down that wall.
48:49After six tightly grouped shots, they inspect the damage.
49:02I've never experienced or seen anything like this, but that Earth just literally sucking up all of that artillery fire.
49:10The accuracy is amazing.
49:13But it's this kind of consistency that is ultimately going to win you something like the Siege of Yorktown.
49:17Over nine days of bombardment, the Americans and French fire an incredible 15,000 cannon rounds.
49:28Finally, after three weeks of siege, mounting losses and low supplies, the British surrender, ending the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.
49:39As for the freedom seekers who helped build these defenses, like Eve and her son George, when smallpox breaks out in the fort during the siege, the British expel them.
49:52Threatened once again with enslavement, most take their chances between the opposing armies in no man's land.
50:00Eve escapes, but after a reward is issued, she is captured.
50:09We don't know what happens to George. Her son probably died of smallpox or in no man's land.
50:15But Eve is sold for, quote unquote, her bad behavior, for going to and seeking her freedom.
50:21Harrowing is the word that continues to come to mind through all of this.
50:25Exactly.
50:30It would be another 84 years before slavery is abolished throughout the United States.
50:38After the siege of Yorktown, the British realize the war can no longer be won.
50:44After eight years and 57,000 killed in action on both sides combined, they recognize the independence of the United States of America.
50:54This freedom was only possible thanks to the people who fought and the extraordinary technology they used.
51:03As an American, this is the foundation of the United States.
51:07We're a relatively young country. We're one that was born out of eight years of struggle of a vicious war.
51:12Going out and shooting these weapons can give you a much greater understanding of the battles, how they were fought, how they were won and lost.
51:23And it enables me to have a much better understanding of the war itself.
51:28Back then, this was cutting edge technology. This was experimentation. This was original thought.
51:35Indigenous people were involved in this conflict since the very beginning. So was their technology.
51:42The tomahawk is really this unifying factor here that ties Indigenous history and American history together.
51:48Whether people are inventing technology or using the technology, an instrument of war can also be used as an instrument of freedom.
51:58And I think we as humans can learn a lot from this time period because just like our lives today, there's good and bad happening on all sides.
52:09And it's really up to we, the users of technology, to determine how our future will be paved.
52:15Ed and Jack
52:27Ed Beatty
52:34Ed and Jack
52:39Ed in the