American History Tellers - American Revolution | A Devil of a Whipping | 5

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

In the aftermath of America’s victory at Saratoga, France entered the Revolutionary War, transforming the colonial rebellion into a global conflict. British officials decided that the path to victory lay in the South. As the fighting shifted to the Carolinas, a brutal civil war erupted, pitting families and neighbors against one another in cycles of violence and retribution.By 1779, the Patriot cause hung in the balance, undermined by rampant inflation, soldier mutinies, and one of the most notorious incidents of treason in American history.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Imagine it's November 8th, 1780 in Clarendon County, South Carolina. You're the widow of a Patriot General, and you're standing over the stove in your kitchen, while British Cavalry Commander Bannister Tarleton interrogates you. We swallow your fear and try to confront. 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 Tarleton was planning to ambush him, but you can't let Tarleton know that. You drop some carrots into the pot, and then steal a glance at

your children who'll 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 hell. How about I roast the potatoes? That's enough. Tarleton turned 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. Try and stop me. Treacherous woman, you're going to pay for this. Please, just leave us. Have your supper, then go. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me Marion's location. I swear to you, I don't know where he is.

Tarleton looks at you with disgust and whirls around to his men. Take her outside. Flog 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 going to be all right. I'll be fine. But 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.

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In the fall of 1780, British lieutenant colonel Bannister Tarleton terrorized the South Carolina countryside while pursuing the Patriot guerrilla leader Francis Marion. He torched 30-planted. and had his men beat a war widow for refusing to reveal Marion's whereabouts. Tarleton hoped his tactics would undermine morale, but instead, his cruelty only fueled the rebels' resistance. Two years had passed since the 1778 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 Army soldiers went unpaid and underfed, and mutinies erupted within the ranks. For both sides, the revolution was no longer merely a contest of arms, but a grueling test of endurance. This is episode five, a devil of a whipping. In the summer of 1778, 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 arc stretching for 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 1778, in the wake of the new French-American treaty,

16 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 Charlecht d'Estaan, had no choice but to withdraw. Searching for another opportunity to weaken the British, Washington and Destong agreed to a joint strike against Newport, Rhode Island, a valuable port city that the British had occupied since 1776.

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 Destong, a high-born count, close to the French royal family. So although their combined forces outnumbered the British garrison, the operation was plagued by mutual distrust, poor planning, and even bad weather. After a severe storm damaged the French ships, Destong 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 Destant to return to Newport, but to no avail. In the end, Sullivan pressed to, ahead with the assault, but without naval support, he was forced into a bloody retreat. Furious over Destin's desertion, he publicly attacked this decision as derogatory to the honor of France. But despite Washington's own frustrations with the French Admiral, he swallowed his pride and wrote following letters to Destin in hopes of smoothing things over. It was no use. Instead of coming to Washington's aid, Destin 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 distan's threat, the British Secretary of State ordered the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief Sir Henry Clinton to redeploy 8,000 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 hoped that with many plantations dependent on Britain for trade, pragmatic Southerners would support the Crown.

So as 1778 drew to a close, the British began their campaign in the South by invading Georgia, the weakest and most sparsely populated of the 13 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 1779, he ordered raids on Virginia shipyards, destroying two million pounds of rebel property. Then two months later, he burned Patriot privateering 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 backcountry 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 26-year-old frontier fighter George Rogers Clark on a mission to capture British outposts. In February 1779, Clark led 200 militiamen against the British held Fort Vincense in modern-day Indiana. After demanding the British surrender, Clark 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 Brandt. In July 1778, Loyalists and Iroquois warriors swept through Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley, killing roughly 300 Patriot militiamen. False stories spread, claiming that hundreds of women and children were massacred, spreading fear throughout the area. Four months later, Brandt led an attack on the New York

town of Cherry Valley, killing 16 soldiers and 32 civilians, which Brandt insisted was retaliation for a patriot attack on an Iroquois village. Outrage patriots called Brandt a monster and a butcher, and Congress pressured Washington to seek revenge. So in May 1779, 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

and the 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 Sullivan that the campaign was essential to America's future security. Following Washington's orders in August 1779, Sullivan led 4,500 soldiers in systemically destroying at least 41 Indian towns. These soldiers destroyed dwellings, cornfields, and orchards, not only to crush native resistance,

but to ensure the survivors would have nowhere to return, opening the way for future white settlement. Imagine it's August 31st, 1779. You're a colonel in the Continental Army, and you've just ridden into the Iroquois village of Catherine's Town, New York. You expected 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. Your 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. You 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 bark clean around the trunk so they can't grow back. But sir, is that truly necessary? Of course it is. But these trees look like they've been here as long as I've been alive. The Indian raiding parties we've seen, 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 to lay ways to these villages to deprive the people of every resource they have, every means of sustenance. If they can't feed themselves, they cannot wage war against us. It just seems a shame, General. I hate to think of someone doing this to my family's orchards. Well, your tender feelings have no place here, Colonel.

Go get it done. Yes, sir. With a curt 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 axe from your pack. It feels heavy in your hand, as you reckon with the years of careful tending you're about to undo, and the irreparable damage your army is responsible for. During General John Sullivan's scorch-earth 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, Town 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 1779, the British Royal Navy cornered Jones and his crew off the coasts of Yorkshire, commanding an old French merchant ship called the Bonhomme Richard, Jones faced off against a brand new 44-gun warship, the HMS Serapus. Spectators 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 Bonhomme Richard 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 danger of sinking. That's when one of Jones's sailors lobbed a grenade at the serapus, igniting its gunpowder stores,

killing 20 men and forcing the British captain to surrender. The Bonhomme, 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. And late in the summer of 1779, 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. But once again, the French had their own agenda, and 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,

but the operation ended in disaster. Soon after, Des Tong sailed his battered fleet home to France, and 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 free fall, the worst winter of the century, and a shocking betrayal by one of their most capable commanders. 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 best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell and featuring my husband Barack Obama, this limited series uncovers the untold stories of reconstruction, 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. You there, tis I, Queen Mortuana of the night realm, aka Kate McKinnon,

and her Raven Minion Jojo, aka Emily Lynn. If you do not download and binge my show, heads will roll air apparent on Audible, I will cut off your head! Oh no, maybe just tell them about the guest stars, like Richard Kind, Carrie Coon, Jimmy Fallon, at all. Right, they were in it, 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. Ah, you tried. Listen now exclusively on Audible and done to the Audible app today, or off with your head!

I'm kidding. By 1779, run away in four. 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 90% 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, but 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 1779, when anonymous broadsides appeared throughout Philadelphia declaring, down with your prices or down with yourselves.

Imagine it's the morning of May 23, 1779 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. The sandy-haired man ignores you, shifting his focus to another display. A bushel of corn for seven shillings? Rye for eight? Your 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. I've barely been able to keep the store open. Don't 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. A man steps forward, tightening his grip on his club. You need to lower your prices, and you need to do it today. Why should I let a mob tell me how to run my shot? Well, how would you like to be tarred and feathered and march through town or hauled off to city jail? You're about to protest, but then you catch the menacing glint in his eyes. These are no idle threats. All right, fine, I'll lower my prices, but please just get out of here.

I see that you do, because we'll be back to make sure of it. As the men turn and walk out the door, you're struck by the sense that the revolution has spiraled 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 23, 1779, a 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 Militiamen seized four men they believed had violated price controls

and paraded them through the streets and an act of public humiliation. Then 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 riot. 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 froze solid, and the transport of food and supply slowed to a crawl. That December, the Continental Army went into winter quarters in Morristown, New Jersey, roughly 30 miles from the British base in New York City.

There, they experienced conditions even more severe than Valley Forge two years earlier. 28 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 faced the threat of starvation. 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 complained 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. But 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 1775? Where are those flaming patriots who were ready to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, they're all? Many soldiers felt abandoned by the country they were fighting for, and by winter's end, roughly 1,000 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 8,000 soldiers to Charleston, South Carolina's largest city and its leading seaport. His plan was to capture the city with a siege, then mobilized 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 5,000 soldiers and militiamen. And in February 1780, the British began landing troops 30 miles south of the city. They then swung north, forming an arc 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 5,000 soldiers were imprisoned, and 300 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 4,000 troops back to New York to defend the city against potential attack and left his second-in-command, Lord Charles Cornwallis in charge of the South. Cornwallis 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, Cornwallis sent the young and ruthless lieutenant-colon to capture retreating American forces in the South Carolina Interior. Tarleton commanded a unit of loyalists known as the British Legion, and on May 29, 1780, 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, 113 patriots lay dead, and another 150 wounded, many of them stabbed with sabers and bayonets while trying to surrender. Thus the phrase Tarleton's quarter 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 20% 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 2,000 continental regulars and gathered another 2,000 militiamen along the way. But in August, dysentery and diarrhea debilitated his army. Still, he pushed on and rashly engaged Cornwallis 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 Cornwallis was free to press his advantage and begin marching north to his next target, North Carolina. Making matters worse, Patriot morale plunged to new depths 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 fray 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 1780, 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 Army. 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 Lafayette. yet, 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. First, Washington entrusted Green 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, Green 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. I'm Razor Jaffrey and in the new season of The Spy Who, they opened 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 his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics,

test his loyalty to the max, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander-in-chief, General George Washington. And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in US history. Follow the spy who 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. In the fall of 1780, British commander Lord Charles Cornwallis began a three-prong invasion of North Carolina, sending forces to Wilmington, Charlotte, and the Western backcountry. To protect 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,

the Blue Ridge Mountains in pursuit of him. He tried to rally the support from Scots-Irish settlers who populated the backcountry, 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 to protect you. But these words backfired, and instead of garnering support from loyalists, elicited outrage among the locals who had not forgotten Bannister Tarleton's cruelty or other reports of loyalist atrocities. And on the afternoon of October 7th, the Patriot militias caught up with Ferguson's loyalists at King's Mountain, a flat-topped hill covered with pine trees. The 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-riddled body for souvenirs. In total, 150 loyalists were killed, and and hundreds more were taken prisoner, while the Patriots suffered less than 100 casualties. Among the dead were four brothers from a single family, three of them loyalists and won 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 that British had suffered in the South, shattering the illusion of British invincibility and prompting Cornwallis 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 1780, 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. 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 for the most vigorous aid of our allies, particularly in the article 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 weary soldiers of the Continental Army were left underpaid and underfed. The resulting crisis in morale reached a breaking point on New Year's Day, 1781, when 1,500 soldiers from the 11 regiments of the Pennsylvania line mutinied.

They drunkenly killed an officer, wounded two. Moore 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 5, 1781, in an office in Nassau Hall in Princeton, New Jersey. You're a Continental Army Sergeant 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 him? 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. Oh, is that right? A 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 from 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, just a moment. You ignore him and turn to your fellow soldier. Arrest these men. Send him to the headquarters. Let them find out how our government treats British spies.

The 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 hang them as spies. This show of loyalty strengthened the mutineers' position with Pennsylvania officials,

helping them negotiate back pay in the option of leaving the army or re-enlisting. These favorable terms inspired 200 New Jersey soldiers to stage their own mutiny three weeks later. But this time, instead of giving in to the soldier's 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 army 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 1781, Arnold commanded a force that laid ways to plantations along Virginia's James River before arriving in Richmond. And when Governor Thomas Jefferson called out the militia to defend the Capitol, few men responded, many 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 1781, General Nathaniel Green took command of the remnants of Horatio Gates Army in North Carolina, which consisted of just 1,000 continental soldiers and 1,200 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, Green defied this convention and split his forces, sending half his force west with frontier fighter Daniel Morgan to harass British posts, while taking the rest east.

He explained, It makes the most of my inferior force, for it compels my adversary to divide his. Cornwallis took the bait and sent Bannister Tarleton after Morgan, who decided to make a stand at a rolling South Carolina cattlefield called Cowpins. On January 17, 1781,

Morgan used a clever three-line formation to lure Tarleton into a trap. He placed his sharpshooters in front, his inexperienced militia in the middle and his best-trained continental soldiers in the back. The first two lines fired and fell back, giving the false impression of a retreat before drawing the enemy into combat with his best troops. With this maneuver, Morgan's men killed or captured most of Tarleton's force in a major victory, after which Morgan boasted, I have given him a devil of a whipping.

Meanwhile, Green developed a strategy of attrition, wearing down Cornwallis' army not through major battles, but luring them into small engagements before retreating, forcing the British into pursuit far away from their supply lines. And at the same time, the stealthy guerrilla leader Francis Marion and his small band of Patriots ambushed enemy camps and supply lines, then eluded capture by hiding in swamps in the marshy low country. Marion became known as Swamp Fox, famous for his crafty guerrilla tactics that kept the British on edge. A frustrated British officer declared, they will not fight like gentlemen, but like savages are eternally popping at us from behind every tree.

Frustrated by the Patriots' unpredictable guerrilla tactics, Cornwallis became determined to catch Nathaniel Green. But in order to do that, he would need to lighten his army's load. So in late January, he ordered the destruction of most of the army's tents, food, and supplies, forcing his soldiers to sleep in the rain and live off the land. One British general complained of pursuing Green's forces without baggage of any sort in the most barren, inhospitable, unhealthy part of North America, with zeal and bayonets only. And it was finally in March 1781 that Nathaniel Green lured Cornwallis into battle at Guilford Courthouse in present-day Greensboro, North Carolina.

Their militia reinforcements helped him outnumber Cornwallis' force by two to one. When the fighting was done, the British held the field. They lost 500 men, causing a leading member of Parliament to declare another such victory would destroyed the British Army. Cornwallis was fed up with Green and the exhausting war in the Carolinas. He wanted nothing more than to engage the Americans in a single decisive battle. So in defiance of Clinton's orders, he began marching his army north to Virginia, believing it was the key to controlling the entire South. His disobedience would set the stage for a climactic final act of the American Revolution. From Audible Originals, this is episode five of our

six-part series on the American Revolution for American History Tellers. In the next episode, after six long years of war, French and American troops confront the British Army in a decisive battle, and American leaders face the challenge of balancing their revolutionary ideals with building a central government that can endure. Follow American History Tellers on the Audible app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of American History Tellers ad-free by joining Audible, and to find out more about me and my other projects, including my live stage show coming to a theater near you, go to not thatlindsaygram.com. That's not that Lindsaygram.com.

American History Tellers is hosted, edited and produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton, edited by Dorian Marina, senior producers, Alita Rosanski and Andy Herman, managing producer Desi Blaylock, audio editing by Wahamashazi, music by Throne, designed by Molly Bach, executive producer for Audible, Jenny Lauer Beckman, head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin, head of Audible Originals, North America, Marshall Louis, Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.