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Rebels and Redcoats: How Britain Lost America; War Moves South, The

Episode 3 ; 50:55

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Series

Rebels and Redcoats: How Britain Lost America

Program

War Moves South, The

Program Number

103

Series Description

Broadcast in June 2004. With vivid dramatizations of battles, eyewitness accounts, original documents and paintings, REBELS AND REDCOATS tells the untold story of the American Revolution. Renowned British military historian Richard Holmes presents the four-part series, focusing on the military struggle — the soldiers, leaders, tactics and strategy of this grand conflict. Told from an unusual point of view — that of the British losers — the series at the same time explores painful conflicts within the American populace, taking viewers inside the vicious battles of brothers, friends and families forced to choose sides between loyalist and rebels. Series release date: 6/2004

Program Description

103 "The War Moves South" - The British open a new front in the southern colonies, where they hope to gather strong support from the loyalists and new recruits among America's blacks. Thousands of African Americans join the British to escape slavery. The Redcoats win a series of victories against American and French forces. The war in the south is brutal and the stuff of nightmares, a savage war of partisan raids and guerrilla skirmishes. The American victory in the battle of King's mountain in October 1780 becomes a turning point in the war. The British now have to contend with the French navy, with the rebels' growing confidence on land and with opposition to the war in England's parliament. The World Turned Upside Down - The British navy still commands the sea and with it the ability to move troops as needed. But then an extraordinary naval blunder allows the French fleet to isolate a large British garrison at Yorktown and the British are forced to surrender. The surrender in Yorktown marks the end of the war. The victory belongs to Washington and his French allies. Those who have supported the Redcoats, the loyalists, many African Americans and American Indians withdraw with the British, or are left to the mercy of the rebels. In many ways the American Revolution was a civil war within the English nation on both sides of the Atlantic. And even now, a special relationship with the "mother country" is still intact.

Asset Type

Broadcast program

Media Type

Video

Genres

Documentary

Topics

War and Conflict

History

Citation

Chicago: “Rebels and Redcoats: How Britain Lost America; War Moves South, The,” GBH Archives, accessed January 24, 2025, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_8890E1D53299473E9CA81E349F995F40.

MLA: “Rebels and Redcoats: How Britain Lost America; War Moves South, The.” GBH Archives. Web. January 24, 2025. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_8890E1D53299473E9CA81E349F995F40>.

APA: Rebels and Redcoats: How Britain Lost America; War Moves South, The. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_8890E1D53299473E9CA81E349F995F40