Program notes on the Liberty! mini-series provided by PBS.

Episode 3 November 24, 9:00-10:00pm EST

The Times that Try Men's Souls

Days after the Declaration of Independence is signed, an immense British force drops anchor in New York harbor, pitting the largest professional army in the world against George Washington's army of untrained volunteers. Wasington, the perfect gentleman, wants to conduct the war in proper eighteenth-century style. Instead, after an early string of defeats, he realizes that to keep the Revolution alive, he must avoid fighting at all costs and keep his army on the run. On the day after Christmas, 1776, with just days of enlistment left for many recruits, a desperate Washington leads his Continentals quietly across the half-frozen Delaware River, surprising a garrison of Hessian soldiers at Trenton. Washington becomes a hero and the American Revolution goes on.