Daniel Morgan: 499 Problems, the Crown Ain’t One

Powdered wigs didn’t win the American Revolution... scarred knuckles did.

Host Ben Thompson is joined by David Schmidt, director of The American Revolution with Ken Burns, to tell the story of Daniel Morgan - a frontier brawler who survived 500 lashes, took a musket ball through the face, and learned to fight the British in ways they couldn’t understand or stop. Morgan didn’t look like a Founding Father and he didn’t fight like a gentleman. He hunted officers from the treeline, turned militia panic into strategy, and delivered one of the most decisive victories of the war at Cowpens.

This episode strips the American Revolution down to its rawest form: mud, blood, rifle smoke, and a man with 499 reasons to never surrender.