(dramatic music) - [Graham] Previously, on "The War That Made America".

- Fire.

(weapons firing) - [Graham] At age 22, a naive George Washington triggers a war between Britain and France that will decide the fate of North America.

(weapons firing) (thunder rumbling) But it's the native people who hold the balance of power here.

(dramatic music) Neither side will win without them.

(weapon firing) (soldier yelling indistinctly) British arrogance leads to a bloody disaster on the Monongahela River.

(Soldiers yelling) (dramatic music) Many Indians join the French, the winning side.

(men yelling) (dramatic music) Terror becomes a potent weapon.

(dramatic music) Now, George Washington must do his best to defend the Virginia frontier.

(dramatic music) - [Soldier] Fire.

- [Graham] When the war spreads from the Ohio River Valley to upstate New York, the British make a desperate stand.

(dramatic music) (canons firing) It ends in gentlemanly surrender when the defeated English general graciously entertains his French victors.

(light dramatic music) But when the French shun their native allies, the Indians take matters into their own hands.

(everyone yelling) (dramatic music) The following summer, the British vow once again to defeat the French in North America, and this time, they are leaving nothing to chance.

(dramatic music) (light instrumental music) - [Narrator] This program is made possible by Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, Eden Hall Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the following.

(light instrumental music) (gentle music) (soldiers speaking faintly) (soldier grunting) (horse neighing) (soldiers speaking faintly) (light instrumental music) - [Graham] It is now three years into this war, the French and Indian War.

(light instrumental music) (soldiers speaking faintly) After a series of humiliating defeats to the French, the British have appointed a new commander in chief.

Major General James Abercrombie is mobilizing the largest army ever seen in North America: Over 15,000 men and 18 massive siege cannon, more than enough to crush the French forces.

(light instrumental music) His plan is to follow the highway of water north from New York City to Montreal, the heart of French Canada.

Along the way, he must take the French Fort Carryon, what the English call Fort Ticonderoga, that guards the crucial water passage from Lake George into Lake Champlain.

(light instrumental music) On July fifth, 1758, Abercrombie's fleet set sail toward Ticonderoga.

(light instrumental music) 1,000 boats cover Lake George from one side to the other.

(light instrumental music) As he waits for the British to arrive, the commander of the French forces in North America, 46-year-old Louis-Joseph, the Marquis de Montcalm, knows how precarious France's position has become.

(light instrumental music) - We are faced with the imminent loss of Canada.

The English have 20 battalions, we have eight.

Our circumstances require decisive and determined measures.

It's no longer the time when a few scalps or the burning of a few houses is any advantage.

Action, scrupulous and well-considered use of men and time is all that can compensate.

- The marquis knows that this upcoming battle has become part of a much bigger story.

(light instrumental music) It began in North America, but by 1758, this war is a global conflict.

France and Britain and the respective allies are battling in Germany over who will control Northern Europe.

(dramatic music) (canons firing) In West Africa, they are fighting to control the slave trade.

(dramatic music) (canons firing) And even in far-off India, they battle for a piece of Asia.

(dramatic music) It will become known to history as the Seven Years' War, an epic struggle to determine who will rule the greatest empire since ancient Rome, (dramatic music) Britain's King George II, a Protestant?

Or the French King Louis the 15th, a Catholic?

(dramatic music) In North America, the outcome of this war should have been easy to predict.

The British colonists outnumbered the French by 18 to one, but what Britain didn't have was the one thing it needed most, the support of the Indian nations.

It was the Indians who would determine the victory in North America.

And until the British figured that out, they would never be able to turn the tide.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) The main action of the war is unfolding in the Northeast, (weapons firing) but there is another front, an almost forgotten one on the western frontier.

That's where George Washington has been posted for two years.

(light instrumental music) At age 25, he is commander of the Virginia Regiment, an undermanned force expected to defend the frontier from Indian raids.

(light instrumental music) But his enemy is elusive, the campaign has been unsuccessful and frustrating.

(light instrumental music) - [George] I am tired of this place, the inhabitants, and the life I lead here.

- [Graham] So far, Washington can claim only one military engagement that wasn't a failure, a skirmish with the French that helped trigger this war.

(light instrumental music) (weapons firing) Since then, his two major battles have both ended badly.

One, when he surrendered to a larger French and Indian force.

(light instrumental music) The other, the disastrous defeat of General Edward Braddock in 1755.

(light instrumental music) Now, Washington's military career is stalled, and his health, precarious.

(light instrumental music) - My strongest representations relative to the peace of the frontier are disregarded as idle and frivolous.

My orders: dark, doubtful, and uncertain.

Today, approved; tomorrow, condemned.

I'm left to proceed at hazard, accountable for the consequences, and blamed without benefit of defense.

(George coughing) (light instrumental music) - [Graham] Worst of all, he feels he and his men are treated as inferiors by the British regular army.

- However, I am determined to bear up under all the embarrassments, sometime longer.

(light instrumental music) - [Graham] To plead the case for his men and himself, Washington makes a visit to the new British commander for North America, John Campbell, Fourth Earl of Loudoun, an aristocratic Scotsman with little patience for colonials.

(light upbeat music) Washington hopes to overcome the handicap of being born an American.

(light upbeat music) He believes his service on the frontier has earned him an officer's commission in the regular British army, not merely the provincial forces.

Washington writes to the general in preparation for his visit.

(light upbeat music) - Although I have not the honor to be known to your lordship, yet your name was familiar to my ear on account of the important services performed to his majesty in other parts of the world.

Do not think, my lord, that I mean to flatter, my nature is honest and free from Gaia.

- [Graham] It doesn't work.

(light upbeat music) Loudoun keeps him waiting for several days, (light upbeat music) then finally grants him an audience.

(light upbeat music) There's no record of what was said, but from all accounts, it didn't go the way Washington had hoped.

(light upbeat music) - Your lordship, I trust you have had the opportunity to study my petition.

- Colonel Washington, I see no reason to alter the current provisions.

The regiment performs a useful function on the frontier, and I shall require it to continue in that capacity.

- But, your lordship- - You shall maintain your position at Winchester.

- [Graham] It may be the lowest point in the young man's life.

George Washington would never again seek a British commission.

- 100 men at the upper track.

- [Graham] Chronically ill with dysentery and worried he has tuberculosis, now Loudoun's ordered him to stay on the forgotten western frontier indefinitely.

(somber music) - That will be all, colonel.

Thank you.

(somber music) - [Graham] In January 1758, Washington takes sick leave from the army and returns home to run Mount Vernon, the large estate he's inherited.

Unlucky in war, he's also unlucky in love.

The woman he wanted, a well-known beauty named Sally Fairfax, has married one of his best friends.

(somber music) Meanwhile, Lord Loudoun has problems of his own.

Loudoun needs men and money to fight the French, but the colonial assemblies are not cooperating.

(light instrumental music) Massachusetts is being particularly difficult.

- How can we in good conscience supply our men in this conflict?

(light instrumental music) - [Graham] The colonial legislators are asking for the same rights historically accorded to the British subjects of the king, that they give their consent to being taxed.

- If his lordship, if anyone compels us to pay a penny and we submit, then he may compel us to pay a pound.

A fart for his troops, then.

(light instrumental music) (men laughing) - But to Loudoun, it's beyond comprehension that these colonials could refuse his orders.

But refuse, they did.

(light instrumental music) Money and principles were driving a wedge between the British and the colonists.

The colonists feared that this expensive war would bankrupt their governments, but more than that, they feared it would destroy their rights.

The colonists were putting the crown on notice that they would not stand to be treated as inferiors.

They saw themselves as full-fledged subjects of the king who just happened to live on the western side of the Atlantic.

(upbeat instrumental music) Just when the impasse seems unbreakable, two letters arrive from William Pitt, a brilliant politician who has joined the king's government as prime minister.

(upbeat instrumental music) - Sir, the king having judged proper that the Earl of Loudoun should return to England.

- [Graham] The first letter fires Loudoun.

(upbeat instrumental music) Even better, the second letter promises reimbursement for military expenses.

- To furnish all the men so raised with arms, ammunition, and tents.

(laughs) (upbeat instrumental music) - [Graham] By simply granting the colonists most of what they want, Pitt changes the mood overnight.

Unlike his predecessors, he understands that the colonists yearn to be recognized as loyal members of the British Empire.

He knows that to win this war, Britain needs the full participation of these troublesome British subjects, (upbeat instrumental music) these demanding and headstrong colonists, these Americans.

(upbeat instrumental music) Pitt's new policies make all the difference to Britain's ability to fight the war.

(footsteps thudding) 1,000s of colonials joined General Abercrombie's army.

By July 1758, when he is ready to attack Fort Ticonderoga, Abercrombie has a force of nearly 16,000 men, more than the population of Boston.

This will be a fully allied effort, provincials fighting alongside British red coats.

(light instrumental music) On July sixth, General Abercrombie lands his massive army at the northern end of Lake George, just a few miles from Fort Ticonderoga.

(light instrumental music) (soldier speaking faintly) (light instrumental music) Then he hauls to regroup and waits a full day.

(light instrumental music) That day provides an unexpected opportunity for the Marquis de Montcalm.

Outnumbered five to one, low on supplies, he knows his fort can't withstand British cannon fire, so he takes a desperate gamble.

He orders his men out of the fort and brings them nearly a mile forward toward the British.

(light instrumental music) At the top of a hill, he builds a defensive wall of feld timbers.

(light instrumental music) In front of the wall, Montcalm orders a barrier of sharpened treetops and (indistinct).

(light instrumental music) He is anxiously awaiting reinforcements, 1,000 regulars and 1,000 Indians, but they don't arrive in time.

And this will be the first major action of the French and Indian War in which no Indians will fight on the French side.

(light upbeat instrumental music) (soldier praying faintly) (light instrumental music) Finally, on July eighth, General Abercrombie prepares to move these men forward in a frontal assault.

(light instrumental music) (soldier praying faintly) Abercrombie has ordered a cannon bombardment, which should make quick work of the flimsy French defenses.

He doesn't know that half these giant siege guns have sunk in the lake, and the others will take too long to deploy.

(light instrumental music) - To the front, march.

(dramatic music) Recover your arms.

(dramatic music) To the quick time, march.

(dramatic music) (soldiers mumbling) (weapons firing) - [Graham] Just after noon, the highly disciplined red coats march uphill toward the French entrenchment, supported by American provincials.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) Montcalm's improvised defense proves remarkably effective.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) The British are slowed to a crawl.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) "The men were cut down like grass," wrote a Massachusetts private.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) - [Soldier] The ground was strewed with the dead and dying.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) A man could not stand erect without being hit for the balls, came by the handful.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) And I could hear the men screaming and see them dying all around me.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) - [Graham] The attacks carry on all day.

(soldiers chanting) (weapons firing) (dramatic music) (weapons firing) The carnage continues for nearly eight hours.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) The formidable Scottish Highlanders are the only British forces to get near the French wall, but even they can't prevail.

(weapons firing) (soldiers mumbling) Before it's over, the British and provincials will lose nearly 2,000 dead or wounded.

(light dramatic music) Montcalm casualties are only 380.

(light dramatic music) Once again, the British discover that overwhelming numbers alone are not enough to produce a victory.

(light dramatic music) (crow cawing) (light dramatic music) (Montcalm speaking foreign language) - Without Indians and almost without Canadian or colony troops, I have beaten an army of 25,000.

This glorious day does infinite honor to the valor of our battalions.

(light instrumental music) Ah, what soldiers are ours, I have never seen the like.

(light instrumental music) - [Graham] Montcalm far smaller force has driven the huge British army into a headlong retreat.

After the battle, French soldiers find the shoes of British soldiers stuck in the mud.

The red coats were running so fast, they didn't even stop to retrieve them.

(light instrumental music) But Montcalm's stunning victory is shallow.

Without more men and supplies from France, he can't pursue the British.

(light instrumental music) The Marques sends urgent pleas for help, but he hears little in response.

(light instrumental music) The defeat at Ticonderoga shatters Britain's hopes for a quick victory, along with General Abercrombie's reputation.

In the wake of the disaster, a brash suggestion comes from an unlikely quarter, an American-born colonel named John Bradstreet.

Bradstreet suggests a bold strike at the heart of the French Canadian colony.

(light instrumental music) Soon after the defeat at Ticonderoga, he takes a small army from Lake George to the eastern end of Lake Ontario, (light instrumental music) 250 miles through Iroquois lands.

(light instrumental music) Bradstreet's soldiers are almost exclusively colonials from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island.

(light instrumental music) This is their chance to show what the Americans can do for the British cause.

(light instrumental music) Their goal is the French Fort Frontenac at the headwaters of the St.

Lawrence River.

(light instrumental music) (canon firing) (light instrumental music) Bradstreet orders an immediate bombardment, leaving the French no opportunity to prepare their defenses.

(canon firing) (light dramatic music) Fort Frontenac surrenders within hours.

(canon firing) (light dramatic music) (soldiers cheering) (light dramatic music) Inside the fort are cannon, muskets, and food meant to supply Canada's western outposts.

It's a blow from which the French empire in North America will never recover.

(light instrumental music) - Fort Frontenac has fallen.

That was merely our principle supply base for the whole of the upper country.

How could this happen?

Now how shall we hold the west?

(foreboding music) - [Graham] The news from Fort Frontenac is bad enough, but even worse reports come from the East Coast.

(light instrumental music) Canada's critical port on the Atlantic, Louisburg, is falling to the British.

(light instrumental music) Under heavy fire, Brigadier General James Wolf leads his troops ashore.

(light instrumental music) (canons firing) For six weeks, British and American forces lay siege to the heavily fortified city.

(light instrumental music) The death nail comes when British sailors sneak into the harbor and destroy the last French battleships in Canada.

(light instrumental music) (canon firing) (fire blazing) (soldiers yelling) The French have no choice but to surrender.

(foreboding music) (soldiers mumbling) The fall of Louisburg is a turning point in the French and Indian War.

(foreboding music) If France can't halt the British advances, the loss of Canada may indeed be imminent.

(foreboding music) (upbeat music) But there is still one place where the British have made no progress at all, (upbeat music) the western frontier, where this war began three years earlier.

(upbeat music) What's at stake here is the Ohio country, 200,000 square miles, an area as large as France.

To control the Ohio country means dominating one spot in particular, a strategic river junction in Pennsylvania called the Forks of the Ohio River.

(upbeat music) The place where Pittsburgh stands today.

(upbeat music) In 1758, the forks are firmly in French hands.

(upbeat music) They have built Fort Duquesne, which commands all river traffic in the region, (light instrumental music) but the French have another potent weapon, they're long of alliance with the native peoples.

(light instrumental music) Dozens of Indian nations coexist in eastern North America.

(light instrumental music) For a century and a half, the French have traded with and fought beside many of them.

(light instrumental music) Now, in this war against the English to determine who will control North America, maintaining the loyalty of those Indian allies is the only hope for France.

(light instrumental music) (men yelping) It's a reality that the French commander has a hard time accepting.

Montcalm is an old-school general who wants to fight the European way, not la guerre sauvage, as he calls the Indian style of warfare.

(light instrumental music) (men yelping) It puts him directly at odds with French Canada's civilian governor, the Marqui de Vaudreuil, who believes in using native allies to terrorize the enemy.

(light instrumental music) For the Indians, forming an alliance with the French is a survival strategy.

They're not fighting on behalf of France, they're fighting to maintain control over the land they see as their birthright.

(light instrumental music) And the French seem less likely than the English to try to take it from them.

(light instrumental music) In the eyes of most British settlers and soldiers, the native people of North America are exotic and savage, ready to scalp, murder, or take white's captive at every opportunity.

(light dramatic music) The truth is, Indians do take white settlers' captive on the frontier, but the victims often have less to fear than they think.

(light instrumental music) One of them, Susannah Johnson, left an account of her life as a prisoner of the Abenaki.

(light instrumental music) (Susannah whining) - [Susannah] We were in the power of unmerciful savages, without provision and almost without clothes.

When I was taken with the pangs of childbirth.

(Susannah whining) - [Native Woman] You're doing grand, Susannah, I promise.

(Susannah whining) - [Graham] Susannah gives birth during the forced march North.

(baby cooing) - [Susannah] None but a mother can understand my unhappy fortune.

- [Graham] She names her baby captive, and wonders if either of them will survive.

(birds chirping) (baby cooing) (light instrumental music) - [Susannah] Whenever the warriors return from an excursion against the enemy, the captives must be conducted in a triumphant form and decorated to every possible advantage.

- [Graham] At their village, the Abenaki prepare for the ritual that greets all new captives.

(light dramatic music) - [Susannah] Each Indian took his prisoner by the hand and began to march through the gauntlet.

(men cheering) (light dramatic music) We expected a severe beating, but they just gave us a tap on the shoulder.

(men cheering) (light dramatic music) I was then introduced to my new family, and was told to call them brothers and sisters.

(light dramatic music) (woman speaking faintly) - [Graham] Susannah's eventual fate reveals one of the many strange twists this war would bring to North America.

(light dramatic music) After months with her adoptive Abenaki family, she is redeemed, bought by the French, and taken to live as a prisoner of the Canadians in Montreal.

Susannah's story is not unusual.

The French spend considerable sums to ransom captives from the native peoples.

In French Canada, the war has created a severe labor shortage.

Captives help fill the gap.

(light instrumental music) While for the Indians, captive taking becomes a desperately needed source of income.

(light instrumental music) (Montcalm speaking French) (light instrumental music) - The fortress at Louisburg has fallen.

The way to Quebec is now wide open.

The English will surely pay us a visit next year.

- [Graham] British victories along the St.

Lawrence River have made Canada vulnerable.

Montcalm knows the noose is tightening.

- We still have Niagara, which is heavily fortified.

- True, but how shall it be supplied?

Monsieur Bradstreet has kindly destroyed our fleet at Fontenecke.

We must build more ships, or we shall lose control of Lake Ontario.

(light instrumental music) - [Graham] To make matters worse, corrupt officials are sapping the French Canadian supply system, bleeding the war effort dry.

(light upbeat music) At the center is Francois Bigot, an affable man with a notorious gambling habit.

(light upbeat music) (men mumbling) He's in charge of equipping the army, but he sells the war supplies and keeps the profits for himself and he's cronies.

The losers are, of course, the French soldiers.

General Montcalm is furious at the greed that cripples his ability to fight the English.

- [Montcalm] The official corruption no longer knows any limits, it devours all the substance of the country.

It plays with men's lives.

(light instrumental music) - [Graham] And Montcalm's pleas for help are met with only a token response.

- The minister has this to say: "I have received your letter of sixth, April," et cetera, et cetera.

Ah, "The king has seen fit to send you 800 recruits."

A handful of recruits.

I ask for regiments, they send recruits.

- 2,000 miles away in the Palace of Versailles, it seems that Louis the 15th and Madam Pompadour, the power behind the throne, are far more invested in their European campaigns than in Canada.

(light instrumental music) The fact is, France had become bogged down in a costly war in Europe that should have been an easy win, but it didn't work out that way.

By 1758, the French treasury was drained, and Louis the 15th was desperate for a European victory.

(light instrumental music) Montcalm and North America would have to wait.

(light instrumental music) In reply to Montcalm's repeated requests, one of the king's ministers makes the message clear.

(man speaking French) - [Voiceover] When the house is on fire, one cannot occupy oneself with a stable, monsieur.

(light instrumental music) - I do not know how long this can continue.

There is not a man in our army who does not feel the pangs of hunger.

It is much to ask of men to be brave when they are weak for want of bread.

(singer singing foreign language) - [Graham] It's not just the French soldiers who feel the effects of Montcalm's supply problems.

Without gifts of muskets and powder, the French will lose the loyalty of their longtime Indian allies.

(singer singing foreign language) Three years of war are already taking a terrible toll on Indian villages.

(singer singing foreign language) Smallpox decimate whole settlements.

(singer singing foreign language) Hunger has become a way of life.

(singer singing foreign language) Making peace with the English may be a matter of survival.

(singer singing foreign language) But until the British can take Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio, they'll never win the West.

(singer singing foreign language) General Edward Braddock's devastating failure to take the forks in 1755 has left the British high command wary.

(dramatic music) No one wants to repeat Braddock's errors.

So in 1758, when the British turned their attention back to Fort Duquesne, they send a general who has no illusions about what he's up against.

(light instrumental music) - [John] This country is an immense uninhabited wilderness, overgrown everywhere so that one cannot see 20 yards.

(light instrumental music) - [Graham] General John Forbes, a determined Scotsman, will carve a road through the wilderness in a methodical way.

He will build a fort or staging post every 50 miles from Philadelphia to the Forks of the Ohio, a strategy designed to avoid the fate that befall Braddock's army.

(light instrumental music) But Forbes realizes that to conquer Fort Duquesne, he will need to do more than just march his army through the forest.

He tries something no British general has done before, he makes diplomatic overtures to the Ohio Country Indians.

- [John] I desire to set a treaty on foot between the Shawnee, the Delaware, and the people of Pennsylvania, to deprive the French of their friendship.

- [Graham] He will have to reverse decades of native bitterness over English duplicity, and he is seriously ill.

General Forbes is determined to see Fort Duquesne fall before he dies.

(light instrumental music) For help, Forbes turns to an unlikely ally, an eastern Delaware chief named Teedyuscung.

More than 50 years old, Teedyuscung has a long entangled history with both the British and the French.

(light dramatic music) He had once embraced Christianity.

(light dramatic music) (water spattering) Baptized, he took the name Gideon and hoped this new faith would help him find a secure homeland for his people and himself.

(light dramatic music) - [Teedyuscung] I sit as a bird upon a bow, I look about and do not know where to go.

Let me therefore come down upon the ground and make that my own, and I shall have a home forever.

(light dramatic music) - [Graham] But a year into the French and Indian War, Teedyuscung left Christianity behind and turned to war instead, attacking British settlers moving on to land that had been stolen through fraudulent treaties.

(light dramatic music) Waging war seemed the best way to send a message that he and his people are a power to be reckoned with.

(light dramatic music) - This very ground that is under me was our land and inheritance, (light dramatic music) (gunshot popping) and was taken from us by fraud.

(gunshot popping) (light dramatic music) And the Indians have suffered for it.

(gunshot popping) (light dramatic music) We are not such fools.

The Indians could make peace, and the Indians could break peace when it is made.

(light dramatic music) - As much as Teedyuscung wanted to call the shots, the reality of war made that difficult.

His followers were starving, and he realized that coming to terms with the British would be the only way to achieve security and land for his people.

Encouraged by Pennsylvania's pacifist Quakers, Teedyuscung started a peace process in the Ohio country just in time to help General Forbes.

Four years earlier, it had been an Indian leader, the half King, who triggered the war in the Ohio country.

Now, a different native leader would be the key to ending it.

Teedyuscung finds two men to carry the message of Peace West, a Delaware chief named Pisquetomen and a Delaware-speaking missionary, Christian Frederick Post.

- The great King of England does not incline to have war with the Indians, but wants to live in peace and love with them, if they lay down the hatchet and leave off war against them.

(people mumbling) (birds chirping) They said to me, "Why do you come to fight in our land?

This makes everybody believe you want to take the land from us."

I said I did not intend to take the land from them, but only to drive the French away.

- [Graham] The Indians listen, but are skeptical.

The English reputation for land swindles is hard to overcome.

Forbes' emissaries assure the Indian leaders that this time it will be different.

(men speaking indistinctly) (saw rasping) Even as the diplomats do their work, General Forbes continues to cut his road through the woods toward Fort Duquesne.

(man grunting) (saw rasping) The dense forest isn't his only impediment.

The young Virginia Colonel George Washington has rejoined the army for the final push to conquer the forks of the Ohio, and Washington had his own ideas about the best route the British army should take, (men whispering) (light instrumental music) Forbes plans to build his road west from Philadelphia, the shortest possible path.

(light instrumental music) Whichever route it follows, Forbes's Road will pave the way for a rush of traitors and settlers to the Ohio country.

(light instrumental music) Washington lobbies hard to get Forbes to change his plans and instead follow General Braddock's southern route, which would favor Virginia.

(light instrumental music) He doesn't hold back on his opinion of Forbes.

(light instrumental music) - The conduct of our leaders is tempered with something I don't care to put a name to.

(light instrumental music) - [Graham] Forbes gets hold of a letter Washington wrote.

(light instrumental music) - Could not discover the bottom from Wester sprang until Colonel Washington in a letter thoroughly shows himself the leader of their foolish suggestions.

- Indeed, I will go further and say they are dupes, or worse, to Pennsylvanian artifice, to whose selfish views I attribute this miscarriage.

(light instrumental music) - The Virginians came such a length as to be most singularly impertinent.

- It has long been the luckiest fate of poor Virginia to fall victim to her crafty neighbors.

We can now only bewail that blindness and wish for happier times.

- [Graham] In the end, Washington doesn't get his way.

Forbes' road carves the path that will eventually become the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

In the autumn of 1758, Forbes reaps the rewards of his diplomatic efforts.

The colonists sign a historic treaty with several Indian nations.

The Pennsylvanians pledge no new settlements west of the Allegheny mountains.

The Indians promised peace.

Teedyuscung is instrumental in bringing the sides together.

In return, he has guaranteed 1,000s of acres for his people to build a farming community.

Finally, peaceful coexistence with the white man seems within reach.

(light instrumental music) By November, Forbes's army is within 50 miles of the forks of the Ohio.

(saw rasping) They're at Ligonier, the jumping-off point for the final assault on Fort Duane.

(saw rasping) (light dramatic music) For the first time in three years, British scouts can now see the fort and try to gauge the enemy's strength.

(light dramatic music) In preparation for the assault, Forbes orders two parties of soldiers to chase down Raiders who stubbornly continue to harass the British.

George Washington leads one of the squads, the other is commanded by his close friend, Colonel George Mercer.

(light dramatic music) The two groups come across each other in heavy fog.

(dramatic music) (gunshots popping) (dramatic music) - Find the target and keep firing.

(gunshots popping) (dramatic music) It's Mercer, hold your fire.

Hold the fire, men, it's Mercer.

- [Graham] When the fog clears for a moment, Washington realizes the terrible mistake.

(gunshots popping) (dramatic music) - Hold your fire.

(light instrumental music) (gunshots popping) - He throws himself between the two lines, indifferent to the musket balls flying past his head.

(light instrumental music) When the friendly fire skirmish was over, two officers and 38 men were dead or wounded.

Incredibly, George Washington was unhurt.

This was only his fourth major military action, and not one he could take any pride in.

But no one could question his remarkable bravery or his luck.

Years later, he recalled that this was the most dangerous moment of his life and speculated that perhaps Providence might have spared him for some other purpose.

(light instrumental music) Just two weeks later, on November 23rd, 1758, Forbes' Army is finally ready to make its assault on Fort Duane.

(light instrumental music) But rather than fight a battle they know they will lose, the outnumbered French destroy the fort and withdraw to Canada.

Without firing a shot, General Forbes has won the prize.

He renames the spot Pittsburgh for the prime minister who made victory possible.

A few months later, he is dead.

For five years, George Washington has been working toward this goal, resting the forks of the Ohio away from the French.

He stays only long enough to perform one sad duty.

(light instrumental music) Returning to the battlefield where General Braddock and 100s of troops were killed three years earlier, Washington's men bury the remains with overdue military honors.

(light instrumental music) Since this war began, Washington has suffered painful illness and survived several brushes with death.

He has made some serious blunders and been part of Britain's worst defeat in North America, but he is coming away with valuable experience forged in the fire of battle, and the lessons he's learned will not be forgotten.

(light instrumental music) At age 27, he decides it's time to let others finish the war.

(light instrumental music) He returns to Mount Vernon.

(light instrumental music) There he will embark on two new chapters in his life.

One is political.

He has recently won a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses.

(light instrumental music) The other personal, he's going home to marry Martha Cutis, the wealthiest widow in Virginia.

(light instrumental music) War seldom brings happy endings, but for George Washington, this one came close.

On his retirement from the army, he had won the respect of the men who had served under him.

Perhaps more important, he had accomplished what he had set out to do.

For the British, 1758 was the year that turned the tide.

Finally, the empire they wanted so badly was within reach, but to grasp it would prove more painful than anyone could imagine.

(light instrumental music) (bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] Next time on "The War That Made America", Britain defeats France in Quebec.

(soldiers yelling) But the British soon discover that winning is one thing, ruling North America will be something else entirely.

"The War That Made America", it's not the war you think it is.

(bright upbeat music) (light upbeat instrumental music) (light upbeat instrumental music continues) (light upbeat instrumental music continues) (light upbeat instrumental music continues) (light upbeat instrumental music continues) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, Eden Hall Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the following.

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