Reel 1286

Readings by: Rene Auberjonois & Blair Brown. Wins War-Loses Peace.

series: THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: 10. Host: David McCullough. Chronicling events of the year.

Alexander Hamilton & Aaron Burr.

Jefferson's blood in Heming.

Movie: The Hall of Fame presentation of "April Morning"—a tense, tragic drama about one of the most fateful days in American history, April 19, 1775. That was the day British soldiers marched out of Boston to seize and destroy Colonial munitions stockpiled in Concord, Mass. Before that day ended, the "lobsterbacks" would fire on the militia assembled at Lexington Green and be forced into a deadly retreat from Concord, ambushed along the way by Patriots from "every Middlesex village and farm." In the thick of all this fighting—and at the center of this extraordinary 1988 TV-movie—is a farm boy named Adam Cooper, a lad of 15 who will do a lot of growing up on this April morning. See the Close-up on A-36. (R PM 5) 4/24/88

The birth of the Nation. On April 19, 1775, Colonial irregular militia engaged British troops in Massachusetts at the battles of Lexington and Concord, where, as later immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world." Adapted from Howard Fast's novel by veteran screenwriter James Lee Barrett ("Shenandoah"), this 1988 "Hall of Fame" TV-movie re-creates the fateful April morning that triggered the American Revolution. History doesn't record who actually fired the first shot on the Lexington green, but here it's surmised that the skirmish was initiated by a Colonial zealot named Solomon Chandler (Rip Torn). After Concord, Chandler leads ambushes against the retreating British that prove to be a frightening rite of passage for 15-year-old Adam Cooper (Chad Lowe), the mustered son of a patriotic and principled farmer. (Tommy Lee Jones). Delbert Mann ("Marty") directed Joseph Simmons, Robert Ulrich, Sarah Cooper, Susan Blakely, Ruth Sammons, Meredith Salenger, Granny Cooper, Joan Heney, John Parker, Nicholas Kateshins, Haverford Joel Miller, Major Patcarm, Peter Colvay, Samuel Hadley, Griffith Brewer. (2 hrs.) Tommy Lee Jones

Cliff Robertson's One-man show profiles 10 Constitution creators.

(Constitution ratification debates)