I'm John Batchel with Edward J. Larson. His new book is declaring independence, why 1776 matters.

That document has a lot of drama and a lot of tension in it. And we're about to watch what

happens that year, thanks to Ed's guidance. We go from Norfolk, Virginia to the snowy peaks of New England. There is an effort

underway led by heroic members of the Continental Army to transport, I think, like 60,000 tons or some

incredible amount of cannons and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga to

Dorchester Heights. Why? What is the thinking, Ed? Why do they need that firepower at

Dorchester Heights? It was a brilliant move and a critical move, and it led to Washington, the drama

at Dorchester Heights led to George Washington's first victory

and where he starts rising that pantheon in American history. What happened is that after the

Battle of Lexington and Concord and the slaughter of British troops on their march back to Boston.

And my ancestor was part of that colonial militia.

The British troops that hold up in Boston, 4,000 strong.

They had been sent over to enforce the Stamp Act, the collection of taxes,

the tariffs, the towns and tariffs by this time, and British rule. In the hotbed of

revolution, one of the twin hotbeds, New England and Boston, they had taken military rule of Massachusetts. They'd abolished the state

charter. But Boston was like an island back then on a little isthmus of land. And the British

militia, the militia, the colonial militia, militia of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island,

and Connecticut had come and surrounded them, headquarters in Charlestown, excuse me, in Cambridge,

which, as you know, is on the mainland, surrounded them. So the Boston, the British troops,

the 4,000 people strong, were trapped on this virtually an island with a tiny

isthmus, with this Navy around it. The Americans didn't have a Navy, so they couldn't get at them.

And the original idea of the Americans had been to, or what the British had realized, is

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