American Political History
The full story of this country, told through the people who lived it. From the soldier in the mud to the statesman at the table. Chronological, self-contained seasons, built on the primary sources. New episodes Tuesdays and Thursday.
American Political History
The Glorious Cause - The 14th Colony
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In the autumn of 1775, the American rebellion reached for an entire country. Congress wanted Canada as the fourteenth colony, and sent two armies north to take it: one under the reluctant ex-British officer Richard Montgomery, the other under the restless Benedict Arnold, whose men marched 350 miles through the frozen Maine wilderness, eating shoe leather and boiling their candles into soup, until barely half were left alive.
This is the story of how that dream died in a blizzard. On the last morning of the year, Montgomery and Arnold gambled everything on a desperate night assault against the walls of Quebec, racing a calendar, because at midnight their enlistments expired and their army would melt away. Montgomery was killed in the first volley. Arnold was shot down. Daniel Morgan fought into the lower town and was trapped there, surrendering with 400 men, his sword handed to a priest rather than a redcoat.
On the frozen dead, the British found three words pinned to their coats: Liberty or Death. The fourteenth colony was over before it began.