In 1775, the world’s most powerful navy and an elite British army found themselves trapped and starving in Boston, hemmed in by a makeshift force of farmers, blacksmiths, and shopkeepers. This episode explores how colonial militias trapped, outlasted, and ultimately expelled the British during the Siege of Boston.

We cover the siege lines formed after Lexington and Concord, the logistical problems facing the Royal Navy, the costly British victory at Bunker Hill, and George Washington’s efforts to discipline the Continental Army while battling smallpox and gunpowder shortages. Then we follow Henry Knox’s noble train of artillery and the overnight fortification of Dorchester Heights that forced the British to evacuate.

• How Boston’s geography and the Boston Neck allowed militias to seal the city
• Why supplying the British by sea from Halifax was a logistical nightmare
• Why Bunker Hill was a Pyrrhic victory that left British commanders wary of frontal assaults
• How Henry Knox hauled 60 tons of artillery from Fort Ticonderoga across 300 miles of winter terrain
• How prefabricated fortifications on Dorchester Heights led to the British evacuation on March 17, 1776