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diff --git a/old/2704-8.txt b/old/2704-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..795bd72 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2704-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6770 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Washington and his Comrades in Arms, by George Wrong + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Washington and his Comrades in Arms + A Chronicle of the War of Independence + +Author: George Wrong + +Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2704] +Release Date: July, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: windows-1252 + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES +*** + + + + +Produced by Dianne Bean, The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's +University; Alev Akman, David Widger, and Robert J. Homa + + + + +Washington and His Comrades in Arms By George M. Wrong A Chronicle of +the War of Independence + +Volume 12 of the Chronicles of America Series + +Allen Johnson, Editor Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. +Jefferys + +Abraham Lincoln Edition + +New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: +Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1921 + +Copyright, 1921 by Yale University Press + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +The author is aware of a certain audacity in undertaking, himself a +Briton, to appear in a company of American writers on American history +and above all to write on the subject of Washington. If excuse is needed +it is to be found in the special interest of the career of Washington to +a citizen of the British Commonwealth of Nations at the present time and +in the urgency with which the editor and publishers declared that such +an interpretation would not be unwelcome to Americans and pressed upon +the author a task for which he doubted his own qualifications. To the +editor he owes thanks for wise criticism. He is also indebted to Mr. +Worthington Chauncey Ford, of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a +great authority on Washington, who has kindly read the proofs and given +helpful comments. Needless to say the author alone is responsible for +opinions in the book. University of Toronto, June 15, 1920. + + +Contents + + Washington and his Comrades in Arms + + Chapter Chapter Title Page + Prefatory Note vii + I. The Commander-In-Chief 1 + II. Boston and Quebec 27 + III. Independence 54 + IV. The Loss of New York 81 + V. The Loss of Philadelphia 108 + VI. The First Great British Disaster 123 + VII. Washington and his Comrades at Valley Forge 148 + VIII. The Alliance with France and its Results 182 + IX. The War in the South 211 + X. France to the Rescue 230 + XI. Yorktown 247 + Bibliographical Note 277 + Index 283 + + + +WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES IN ARMS + + + +CHAPTER I. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF + +Moving among the members of the second Continental Congress, which met +at Philadelphia in May, 1775, was one, and but one, military figure. +George Washington alone attended the sittings in uniform. This colonel +from Virginia, now in his forty-fourth year, was a great landholder, an +owner of slaves, an Anglican churchman, an aristocrat, everything that +stands in contrast with the type of a revolutionary radical. Yet from +the first he had been an outspoken and uncompromising champion of the +colonial cause. When the tax was imposed on tea he had abolished the use +of tea in his own household and when war was imminent he had talked of +recruiting a thousand men at his own expense and marching to Boston. His +steady wearing of the uniform seemed, indeed, to show that he regarded +the issue as hardly less military than political. + +The clash at Lexington, on the 19th of April, had made vivid the reality +of war. Passions ran high. For years there had been tension, long +disputes about buying British stamps to put on American legal papers, +about duties on glass and paint and paper and, above all, tea. Boston +had shown turbulent defiance, and to hold Boston down British soldiers +had been quartered on the inhabitants in the proportion of one soldier +for five of the populace, a great and annoying burden. And now British +soldiers had killed Americans who stood barring their way on Lexington +Green. Even calm Benjamin Franklin spoke later of the hands of British +ministers as "red, wet, and dropping with blood." Americans never forgot +the fresh graves made on that day. There were, it is true, more British +than American graves, but the British were regarded as the aggressors. +If the rest of the colonies were to join in the struggle, they must have +a common leader. Who should he be? + +In June, while the Continental Congress faced this question at +Philadelphia, events at Boston made the need of a leader more urgent. +Boston was besieged by American volunteers under the command of General +Artemas Ward. The siege had lasted for two months, each side watching +the other at long range. General Gage, the British Commander, had the +sea open to him and a finely tempered army upon which he could rely. The +opposite was true of his opponents. They were a motley host rather than +an army. They had few guns and almost no powder. Idle waiting since +the fight at Lexington made untrained troops restless and anxious to go +home. Nothing holds an army together like real war, and shrewd officers +knew that they must give the men some hard task to keep up their +fighting spirit. It was rumored that Gage was preparing an aggressive +movement from Boston, which might mean pillage and massacre in the +surrounding country, and it was decided to draw in closer to Boston to +give Gage a diversion and prove the mettle of the patriot army. So, on +the evening of June 16, 1775, there was a stir of preparation in the +American camp at Cambridge, and late at night the men fell in near +Harvard College. + +Across the Charles River north from Boston, on a peninsula, lay the +village of Charlestown, and rising behind it was Breed's Hill, about +seventy-four feet high, extending northeastward to the higher elevation +of Bunker Hill. The peninsula could be reached from Cambridge only by a +narrow neck of land easily swept by British floating batteries lying off +the shore. In the dark the American force of twelve hundred men under +Colonel Prescott marched to this neck of land and then advanced half a +mile southward to Breed's Hill. Prescott was an old campaigner of the +Seven Years' War; he had six cannon, and his troops were commanded by +experienced officers. Israel Putnam was skillful in irregular frontier +fighting, and Nathanael Greene, destined to prove himself the best man +in the American army next to Washington himself, could furnish sage +military counsel derived from much thought and reading. + +Thus it happened that on the morning of the 17th of June General Gage in +Boston awoke to a surprise. He had refused to believe that he was shut +up in Boston. It suited his convenience to stay there until a plan +of campaign should be evolved by his superiors in London, but he was +certain that when he liked he could, with his disciplined battalions, +brush away the besieging army. Now he saw the American force on Breed's +Hill throwing up a defiant and menacing redoubt and entrenchments. Gage +did not hesitate. The bold aggressors must be driven away at once. He +detailed for the enterprise William Howe, the officer destined soon +to be his successor in the command at Boston. Howe was a brave and +experienced soldier. He had been a friend of Wolfe and had led the party +of twenty-four men who had first climbed the cliff at Quebec on the +great day when Wolfe fell victorious. He was the younger brother of +that beloved Lord Howe who had fallen at Ticonderoga and to whose memory +Massachusetts had reared a monument in Westminster Abbey. Gage gave him +in all some twenty-five hundred men, and, at about two in the afternoon, +this force was landed at Charlestown. + +The little town was soon aflame and the smoke helped to conceal Howe's +movements. The day was boiling hot and the soldiers carried heavy packs +with food for three days, for they intended to camp on Bunker Hill. +Straight up Breed's Hill they marched wading through long grass +sometimes to their knees and throwing down the fences on the hillside. +The British knew that raw troops were likely to scatter their fire on +a foe still out of range and they counted on a rapid bayonet +charge against men helpless with empty rifles. This expectation was +disappointed. The Americans had in front of them a barricade and Israel +Putnam was there, threatening dire things to any one who should fire +before he could see the whites of the eyes of the advancing soldiery. As +the British came on there was a terrific discharge of musketry at twenty +yards, repeated again and again as they either halted or drew back. + +The slaughter was terrible. British officers hardened in war declared +long afterward that they had never seen carnage like that of this fight. +The American riflemen had been told to aim especially at the British +officers, easily known by their uniforms, and one rifleman is said to +have shot twenty officers before he was himself killed. Lord Rawdon, +who played a considerable part in the war and was later, as Marquis of +Hastings, Viceroy of India, used to tell of his terror as he fought in +the British line. Suddenly a soldier was shot dead by his side, and, +when he saw the man quiet at his feet, he said, "Is Death nothing but +this?" and henceforth had no fear. When the first attack by the British +was checked they retired; but, with dogged resolve, they re-formed and +again charged up the hill, only a second time to be repulsed. The third +time they were more cautious. They began to work round to the weaker +defenses of the American left, where were no redoubts and entrenchments +like those on the right. By this time British ships were throwing shells +among the Americans. Charlestown was burning. The great column of black +smoke, the incessant roar of cannon, and the dreadful scenes of carnage +had affected the defenders. They wavered; and on the third British +charge, having exhausted their ammunition, they fled from the hill in +confusion back to the narrow neck of land half a mile away, swept now +by a British floating battery. General Burgoyne wrote that, in the third +attack, the discipline and courage of the British private soldiers also +broke down and that when the redoubt was carried the officers of some +corps were almost alone. The British stood victorious at Bunker Hill. It +was, however, a costly victory. More than a thousand men, nearly half of +the attacking force, had fallen, with an undue proportion of officers. + +Philadelphia, far away, did not know what was happening when, two days +before the battle of Bunker Hill, the Continental Congress settled the +question of a leader for a national army. On the 15th of June John Adams +of Massachusetts rose and moved that the Congress should adopt as +its own the army before Boston and that it should name Washington +as Commander-in-Chief. Adams had deeply pondered the problem. He +was certain that New England would remain united and decided in the +struggle, but he was not so sure of the other colonies. To have a leader +from beyond New England would make for continental unity. Virginia, +next to Massachusetts, had stood in the forefront of the movement, and +Virginia was fortunate in having in the Congress one whose fame as a +soldier ran through all the colonies. There was something to be said for +choosing a commander from the colony which began the struggle and Adams +knew that his colleague from Massachusetts, John Hancock, a man of +wealth and importance, desired the post. He was conspicuous enough to +be President of the Congress. Adams says that when he made his motion, +naming a Virginian, he saw in Hancock's face "mortification and +resentment." He saw, too, that Washington hurriedly left the room when +his name was mentioned. + +There could be no doubt as to what the Congress would do. Unquestionably +Washington was the fittest man for the post. Twenty years earlier he +had seen important service in the war with France. His position and +character commanded universal aspect. The Congress adopted unanimously +the motion of Adams and it only remained to be seen whether Washington +would accept. On the next day he came to the sitting with his mind made +up. The members, he said, would bear witness to his declaration that he +thought himself unfit for the task. Since, however, they called him, he +would try to do his duty. He would take the command but he would accept +no pay beyond his expenses. Thus it was that Washington became a great +national figure. The man who had long worn the King's uniform was +now his deadliest enemy; and it is probably true that after this step +nothing could have restored the old relations and reunited the British +Empire. The broken vessel could not be made whole. + +Washington spent only a few days in getting ready to take over his new +command. On the 21st of June, four days after Bunker Hill, he set out +from Philadelphia. The colonies were in truth very remote from each +other. The journey to Boston was tedious. In the previous year +John Adams had traveled in the other direction to the Congress at +Philadelphia and, in his journal, he notes, as if he were traveling in +foreign lands, the strange manners and customs of the other colonies. +The journey, so momentous to Adams, was not new to Washington. Some +twenty years earlier the young Virginian officer had traveled as far as +Boston in the service of King George II. Now he was leader in the war +against King George III. In New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut he was +received impressively. In the warm summer weather the roads were good +enough but many of the rivers were not bridged and could be crossed only +by ferries or at fords. It took nearly a fortnight to reach Boston. + +Washington had ridden only twenty miles on his long journey when the +news reached him of the fight at Bunker Hill. The question which he +asked anxiously shows what was in his mind: "Did the militia fight?" +When the answer was "Yes," he said with relief, "The liberties of the +country are safe." He reached Cambridge on the 2d of July and on the +following day was the chief figure in a striking ceremony. In the +presence of a vast crowd and of the motley army of volunteers, which was +now to be called the American army, Washington assumed the command. +He sat on horseback under an elm tree and an observer noted that his +appearance was "truly noble and majestic." This was milder praise than +that given a little later by a London paper which said: "There is not a +king in Europe but would look like a valet de chambre by his side." +New England having seen him was henceforth wholly on his side. His +traditions were not those of the Puritans, of the Ephraims and the +Abijahs of the volunteer army, men whose Old Testament names tell +something of the rigor of the Puritan view of life. Washington, a sharer +in the free and often careless hospitality of his native Virginia, had a +different outlook. In his personal discipline, however, he was not less +Puritan than the strictest of New Englanders. The coming years were to +show that a great leader had taken his fitting place. + +Washington, born in 1732, had been trained in self-reliance, for he had +been fatherless from childhood. At the age of sixteen he was working at +the profession, largely self-taught, of a surveyor of land. At the age +of twenty-seven he married Martha Custis, a rich widow with children, +though her marriage with Washington was childless. His estate on the +Potomac River, three hundred miles from the open sea, recently named +Mount Vernon, had been in the family for nearly a hundred years. +There were twenty-five hundred acres at Mount Vernon with ten miles of +frontage on the tidal river. The Virginia planters were a landowning +gentry; when Washington died he had more than sixty thousand acres. The +growing of tobacco, the one vital industry of the Virginia of the time, +with its half million people, was connected with the ownership of land. +On their great estates the planters lived remote, with a mail perhaps +every fortnight. There were no large towns, no great factories. Nearly +half of the population consisted of negro slaves. It is one of the +ironies of history that the chief leader in a war marked by a passion +for liberty was a member of a society in which, as another of its +members, Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, said, +there was on the one hand the most insulting despotism and on the +other the most degrading submission. The Virginian landowners were more +absolute masters than the proudest lords of medieval England. These +feudal lords had serfs on their land. The serfs were attached to +the soil and were sold to a new master with the soil. They were not, +however, property, without human rights. On the other hand, the slaves +of the Virginian master were property like his horses. They could not +even call wife and children their own, for these might be sold at will. +It arouses a strange emotion now when we find Washington offering to +exchange a negro for hogsheads of molasses and rum and writing that the +man would bring a good price, "if kept clean and trim'd up a little when +offered for sale." + +In early life Washington had had very little of formal education. He +knew no language but English. When he became world famous and his friend +La Fayette urged him to visit France he refused because he would +seem uncouth if unable to speak the French tongue. Like another great +soldier, the Duke of Wellington, he was always careful about his dress. +There was in him a silent pride which would brook nothing derogatory +to his dignity. No one could be more methodical. He kept his accounts +rigorously, entering even the cost of repairing a hairpin for a ward. +He was a keen farmer, and it is amusing to find him recording in his +careful journal that there are 844,800 seeds of "New River Grass" to the +pound Troy and so determining how many should be sown to the acre. Not +many youths would write out as did Washington, apparently from French +sources, and read and reread elaborate "Rules of Civility and Decent +Behaviour in Company and Conversation." In the fashion of the age +of Chesterfield they portray the perfect gentleman. He is always to +remember the presence of others and not to move, read, or speak without +considering what may be due to them. In the true spirit of the time he +is to learn to defer to persons of superior quality. Tactless laughter +at his own wit, jests that have a sting of idle gossip, are to be +avoided. Reproof is to be given not in anger but in a sweet and mild +temper. The rules descend even to manners at table and are a revelation +of care in self-discipline. We might imagine Oliver Cromwell drawing up +such rules, but not Napoleon or Wellington. + +The class to which Washington belonged prided itself on good birth and +good breeding. We picture him as austere, but, like Oliver Cromwell, +whom in some respects he resembles, he was very human in his personal +relations. He liked a glass of wine. He was fond of dancing and he went +to the theater, even on Sunday. He was, too, something of a lady's man; +"He can be downright impudent sometimes," wrote a Southern lady, "such +impudence, Fanny, as you and I like." In old age he loved to have the +young and gay about him. He could break into furious oaths and no one +was a better master of what we may call honorable guile in dealing with +wily savages, in circulating falsehoods that would deceive the enemy in +time of war, or in pursuing a business advantage. He played cards for +money and carefully entered loss and gain in his accounts. He loved +horseracing and horses, and nothing pleased him more than to talk of +that noble animal. He kept hounds and until his burden of cares became +too great was an eager devotee of hunting. His shooting was of a type +more heroic than that of an English squire spending a day on a moor +with guests and gamekeepers and returning to comfort in the evening. +Washington went off on expeditions into the forest lasting many days and +shared the life in the woods of rough men, sleeping often in the open +air. "Happy," he wrote, "is he who gets the berth nearest the fire." He +could spend a happy day in admiring the trees and the richness of the +land on a neighbor's estate. Always his thoughts were turning to the +soil. There was poetry in him. It was said of Napoleon that the one +approach to poetry in all his writings is the phrase: "The spring is at +last appearing and the leaves are beginning to sprout." Washington, +on the other hand, brooded over the mysteries of life. He pictured to +himself the serenity of a calm old age and always dared to look death +squarely in the face. He was sensitive to human passion and he felt the +wonder of nature in all her ways, her bounteous response in growth to +the skill of man, the delight of improving the earth in contrast +with the vain glory gained by ravaging it in war. His most striking +characteristics were energy and decision united often with strong likes +and dislikes. His clever secretary, Alexander Hamilton, found, as he +said, that his chief was not remarkable for good temper and resigned +his post because of an impatient rebuke. When a young man serving in +the army of Virginia, Washington had many a tussle with the obstinate +Scottish Governor, Dinwiddie, who thought his vehemence unmannerly and +ungrateful. Gilbert Stuart, who painted several of his portraits, said +that his features showed strong passions and that, had he not learned +self-restraint, his temper would have been savage. This discipline he +acquired. The task was not easy, but in time he was able to say with +truth, "I have no resentments," and his self-control became so perfect +as to be almost uncanny. + +The assumption that Washington fought against an England grown decadent +is not justified. To admit this would be to make his task seem lighter +than it really was. No doubt many of the rich aristocracy spent idle +days of pleasure-seeking with the comfortable conviction that they could +discharge their duties to society by merely existing, since their luxury +made work and the more they indulged themselves the more happy and +profitable employment would their many dependents enjoy. The eighteenth +century was, however, a wonderful epoch in England. Agriculture became +a new thing under the leadership of great landowners like Lord Townshend +and Coke of Norfolk. Already was abroad in society a divine discontent +at existing abuses. It brought Warren Hastings to trial on the charge of +plundering India. It attacked slavery, the cruelty of the criminal law, +which sent children to execution for the theft of a few pennies, the +brutality of the prisons, the torpid indifference of the church to the +needs of the masses. New inventions were beginning the age of machinery. +The reform of Parliament, votes for the toiling masses, and a thousand +other improvements were being urged. It was a vigorous, rich, and +arrogant England which Washington confronted. + +It is sometimes said of Washington that he was an English country +gentleman. A gentleman he was, but with an experience and training quite +unlike that of a gentleman in England. The young heir to an English +estate might or might not go to a university. He could, like the young +Charles James Fox, become a scholar, but like Fox, who knew some of the +virtues and all the supposed gentlemanly vices, he might dissipate +his energies in hunting, gambling, and cockfighting. He would almost +certainly make the grand tour of Europe, and, if he had little Latin and +less Greek, he was pretty certain to have some familiarity with Paris +and a smattering of French. The eighteenth century was a period of +magnificent living in England. The great landowner, then, as now, the +magnate of his neighborhood, was likely to rear, if he did not inherit, +one of those vast palaces which are today burdens so costly to the heirs +of their builders. At the beginning of the century the nation to honor +Marlborough for his victories could think of nothing better than to +give him half a million pounds to build a palace. Even with the colossal +wealth produced by modern industry we should be staggered at a residence +costing millions of dollars. Yet the Duke of Devonshire rivaled at +Chatsworth, and Lord Leicester at Holkham, Marlborough's building +at Blenheim, and many other costly palaces were erected during the +following half century. Their owners sometimes built in order to surpass +a neighbor in grandeur, and to this day great estates are encumbered by +the debts thus incurred in vain show. The heir to such a property was +reared in a pomp and luxury undreamed of by the frugal young planter of +Virginia. Of working for a livelihood, in the sense in which Washington +knew it, the young Englishman of great estate would never dream. + +The Atlantic is a broad sea and even in our own day, when instant +messages flash across it and man himself can fly from shore to shore in +less than a score of hours, it is not easy for those on one strand to +understand the thought of those on the other. Every community evolves +its own spirit not easily to be apprehended by the onlooker. The state +of society in America was vitally different from that in England. The +plain living of Virginia was in sharp contrast with the magnificence +and ease of England. It is true that we hear of plate and elaborate +furniture, of servants in livery, and much drinking of Port and Madeira, +among the Virginians. They had good horses. Driving, as often they did, +with six in a carriage, they seemed to keep up regal style. Spaces were +wide in a country where one great landowner, Lord Fairfax, held no less +than five million acres. Houses lay isolated and remote and a gentleman +dining out would sometimes drive his elaborate equipage from twenty to +fifty miles. There was a tradition of lavish hospitality, of gallant men +and fair women, and sometimes of hard and riotous living. Many of the +houses were, however, in a state of decay, with leaking roofs, battered +doors and windows and shabby furniture. To own land in Virginia did +not mean to live in luxurious ease. Land brought in truth no very large +income. It was easier to break new land than to fertilize that long in +use. An acre yielded only eight or ten bushels of wheat. In England the +land was more fruitful. One who was only a tenant on the estate of Coke +of Norfolk died worth £150,000, and Coke himself had the income of a +prince. When Washington died he was reputed one of the richest men in +America and yet his estate was hardly equal to that of Coke's tenant. + +Washington was a good farmer, inventive and enterprising, but he had +difficulties which ruined many of his neighbors. Today much of his +infertile estate of Mount Vernon would hardly grow enough to pay +the taxes. When Washington desired a gardener, or a bricklayer, or a +carpenter, he usually had to buy him in the form of a convict, or of +a negro slave, or of a white man indentured for a term of years. Such +labor required eternal vigilance. The negro, himself property, had no +respect for it in others. He stole when he could and worked only when +the eyes of a master were upon him. If left in charge of plants or of +stock he was likely to let them perish for lack of water. Washington's +losses of cattle, horses, and sheep from this cause were enormous. The +neglected cattle gave so little milk that at one time Washington, with a +hundred cows, had to buy his butter. Negroes feigned sickness for weeks +at a time. A visitor noted that Washington spoke to his slaves with +a stern harshness. No doubt it was necessary. The management of this +intractable material brought training in command. If Washington could +make negroes efficient and farming pay in Virginia, he need hardly be +afraid to meet any other type of difficulty. + +From the first he was satisfied that the colonies had before them a +difficult struggle. Many still refused to believe that there was +really a state of war. Lexington and Bunker Hill might be regarded as +unfortunate accidents to be explained away in an era of good feeling +when each side should acknowledge the merits of the other and apologize +for its own faults. Washington had few illusions of this kind. He took +the issue in a serious and even bitter spirit. He knew nothing of the +Englishman at home for he had never set foot outside of the colonies +except to visit Barbados with an invalid half-brother. Even then he +noted that the "gentleman inhabitants" whose "hospitality and genteel +behaviour" he admired were discontented with the tone of the officials +sent out from England. From early life Washington had seen much of +British officers in America. Some of them had been men of high birth and +station who treated the young colonial officer with due courtesy. When, +however, he had served on the staff of the unfortunate General Braddock +in the calamitous campaign of 1755, he had been offended by the tone of +that leader. Probably it was in these days that Washington first brooded +over the contrasts between the Englishman and the Virginian. With +obstinate complacency Braddock had disregarded Washington's counsels +of prudence. He showed arrogant confidence in his veteran troops and +contempt for the amateur soldiers of whom Washington was one. In a wild +country where rapid movement was the condition of success Braddock would +halt, as Washington said, "to level every mole hill and to erect bridges +over every brook." His transport was poor and Washington, a lover of +horses, chafed at what he called "vile management" of the horses by +the British soldier. When anything went wrong Braddock blamed, not the +ineffective work of his own men, but the supineness of Virginia. "He +looks upon the country," Washington wrote in wrath, "I believe, as void +of honour and honesty." The hour of trial came in the fight of July, +1755, when Braddock was defeated and killed on the march to the Ohio. +Washington told his mother that in the fight the Virginian troops stood +their ground and were nearly all killed but the boasted regulars "were +struck with such a panic that they behaved with more cowardice than it +is possible to conceive." In the anger and resentment of this comment is +found the spirit which made Washington a champion of the colonial cause +from the first hour of disagreement. + +That was a fatal day in March, 1765, when the British Parliament voted +that it was just and necessary that a revenue be raised in America. +Washington was uncompromising. After the tax on tea he derided "our +lordly masters in Great Britain." No man, he said, should scruple for +a moment to take up arms against the threatened tyranny. He and his +neighbors of Fairfax County, Virginia, took the trouble to tell the +world by formal resolution on July 18, 1774, that they were descended +not from a conquered but from a conquering people, that they claimed +full equality with the people of Great Britain, and like them would make +their own laws and impose their own taxes. They were not democrats; they +had no theories of equality; but as "gentlemen and men of fortune" they +would show to others the right path in the crisis which had arisen. In +this resolution spoke the proud spirit of Washington; and, as he brooded +over what was happening, anger fortified his pride. Of the Tories in +Boston, some of them highly educated men, who with sorrow were walking +in what was to them the hard path of duty, Washington could say later +that "there never existed a more miserable set of beings than these +wretched creatures." + +The age of Washington was one of bitter vehemence in political thought. +In England the good Whig was taught that to deny Whig doctrine was +blasphemy, that there was no truth or honesty on the other side, and +that no one should trust a Tory; and usually the good Whig was true +to the teaching he had received. In America there had hitherto been +no national politics. Issues had been local and passions thus confined +exploded all the more fiercely. Franklin spoke of George III as drinking +long draughts of American blood and of the British people as so depraved +and barbarous as to be the wickedest nation upon earth, inspired by +bloody and insatiable malice and wickedness. To Washington George III +was a tyrant, his ministers were scoundrels, and the British people were +lost to every sense of virtue. The evil of it is that, for a posterity +which listened to no other comment on the issues of the Revolution, such +utterances, instead of being understood as passing expressions of party +bitterness, were taken as the calm judgments of men held in reverence +and awe. Posterity has agreed that there is nothing to be said for the +coercing of the colonies so resolutely pressed by George III and his +ministers. Posterity can also, however, understand that the struggle was +not between undiluted virtue on the one side and undiluted vice on the +other. Some eighty years after the American Revolution the Republic +created by the Revolution endured the horrors of civil war rather than +accept its own disruption. In 1776 even the most liberal Englishmen felt +a similar passion for the continued unity of the British Empire. Time +has reconciled all schools of thought to the unity lost in the case of +the Empire and to the unity preserved in the case of the Republic, but +on the losing side in each case good men fought with deep conviction. + + +CHAPTER II. BOSTON AND QUEBEC + + +Washington was not a professional soldier, though he had seen the +realities of war and had moved in military society. Perhaps it was an +advantage that he had not received the rigid training of a regular, for +he faced conditions which required an elastic mind. The force besieging +Boston consisted at first chiefly of New England militia, with companies +of minute-men, so called because of their supposed readiness to fight at +a minute's notice. Washington had been told that he should find 20,000 +men under his command; he found, in fact, a nominal army of 17,000, +with probably not more than 14,000 effective, and the number tended +to decline as the men went away to their homes after the first vivid +interest gave way to the humdrum of military life. + +The extensive camp before Boston, as Washington now saw it, expressed +the varied character of his strange command. Cambridge, the seat of +Harvard College, was still only a village with a few large houses and +park-like grounds set among fields of grain, now trodden down by the +soldiers. Here was placed in haphazard style the motley housing of a +military camp. The occupants had followed their own taste in building. +One could see structures covered with turf, looking like lumps of mother +earth, tents made of sail cloth, huts of bare boards, huts of brick and +stone, some having doors and windows of wattled basketwork. There were +not enough huts to house the army nor camp-kettles for cooking. Blankets +were so few that many of the men were without covering at night. In the +warm summer weather this did not much matter but bleak autumn and harsh +winter would bring bitter privation. The sick in particular suffered +severely, for the hospitals were badly equipped. + +A deep conviction inspired many of the volunteers. They regarded as +brutal tyranny the tax on tea, considered in England as a mild expedient +for raising needed revenue for defense in the colonies. The men of +Suffolk County, Massachusetts, meeting in September, 1774, had declared +in high-flown terms that the proposed tax came from a parricide who +held a dagger at their bosoms and that those who resisted him would earn +praises to eternity. From nearly every colony came similar utterances, +and flaming resentment at injustice filled the volunteer army. Many a +soldier would not touch a cup of tea because tea had been the ruin of +his country. Some wore pinned to their hats or coats the words "Liberty +or Death" and talked of resisting tyranny until "time shall be no more." +It was a dark day for the motherland when so many of her sons believed +that she was the enemy of liberty. The iron of this conviction entered +into the soul of the American nation; at Gettysburg, nearly a century +later, Abraham Lincoln, in a noble utterance which touched the heart of +humanity, could appeal to the days of the Revolution, when "our fathers +brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty." The +colonists believed that they were fighting for something of import to +all mankind, and the nation which they created believes it still. + +An age of war furnishes, however, occasion for the exercise of baser +impulses. The New Englander was a trader by instinct. An army had come +suddenly together and there was golden promise of contracts for supplies +at fat profits. The leader from Virginia, untutored in such things, was +astounded at the greedy scramble. Before the year 1775 ended Washington +wrote to his friend Lee that he prayed God he might never again have to +witness such lack of public spirit, such jobbing and self-seeking, +such "fertility in all the low arts," as now he found at Cambridge. +He declared that if he could have foreseen all this nothing would have +induced him to take the command. Later, the young La Fayette, who had +left behind him in France wealth and luxury in order to fight a hard +fight in America, was shocked at the slackness and indifference among +the supposed patriots for whose cause he was making sacrifices so +heavy. In the backward parts of the colonies the population was densely +ignorant and had little grasp of the deeper meaning of the patriot +cause. + +The army was, as Washington himself said, "a mixed multitude." There +was every variety of dress. Old uniforms, treasured from the days of the +last French wars, had been dug out. A military coat or a cocked hat was +the only semblance of uniform possessed by some of the officers. Rank +was often indicated by ribbons of different colors tied on the arm. Lads +from the farms had come in their usual dress; a good many of these were +hunters from the frontier wearing the buckskin of the deer they had +slain. Sometimes there was clothing of grimmer material. Later in the +war in American officer recorded that his men had skinned two dead +Indians "from their hips down, for bootlegs, one pair for the Major, +the other for myself." The volunteers varied greatly in age. There +were bearded veterans of sixty and a sprinkling of lads of sixteen. +An observer laughed at the boys and the "great great grandfathers" who +marched side by side in the army before Boston. Occasionally a black +face was seen in the ranks. One of Washington's tasks was to reduce the +disparity of years and especially to secure men who could shoot. In +the first enthusiasm of 1775 so many men volunteered in Virginia that a +selection was made on the basis of accuracy in shooting. The men fired +at a range of one hundred and fifty yards at an outline of a man's nose +in chalk on a board. Each man had a single shot and the first men shot +the nose entirely away. + +Undoubtedly there was the finest material among the men lounging about +their quarters at Cambridge in fashion so unmilitary. In physique they +were larger than the British soldier, a result due to abundant food and +free life in the open air from childhood. Most of the men supplied their +own uniform and rifles and much barter went on in the hours after +drill. The men made and sold shoes, clothes, and even arms. They +were accustomed to farm life and good at digging and throwing up +entrenchments. The colonial mode of waging war was, however, not that +of Europe. To the regular soldier of the time even earth entrenchments +seemed a sign of cowardice. The brave man would come out on the open to +face his foe. Earl Percy, who rescued the harassed British on the day of +Lexington, had the poorest possible opinion of those on what he called +the rebel side. To him they were intriguing rascals, hypocrites, +cowards, with sinister designs to ruin the Empire. But he was forced to +admit that they fought well and faced death willingly. + +In time Washington gathered about him a fine body of officers, brave, +steady, and efficient. On the great issue they, like himself, had +unchanging conviction, and they and he saved the revolution. But a good +many of his difficulties were due to bad officers. He had himself the +reverence for gentility, the belief in an ordered grading of society, +characteristic of his class in that age. In Virginia the relation of +master and servant was well understood and the tone of authority was +readily accepted. In New England conceptions of equality were more +advanced. The extent to which the people would brook the despotism of +military command was uncertain. From the first some of the volunteers +had elected their officers. The result was that intriguing demagogues +were sometimes chosen. The Massachusetts troops, wrote a Connecticut +captain, not free, perhaps, from local jealousy, were "commanded by a +most despicable set of officers." At Bunker Hill officers of this type +shirked the fight and their men, left without leaders, joined in the +panicky retreat of that day. Other officers sent away soldiers to work +on their farms while at the same time they drew for them public pay. At +a later time Washington wrote to a friend wise counsel about the choice +of officers. "Take none but gentlemen; let no local attachment influence +you; do not suffer your good nature to say Yes when you ought to say No. +Remember that it is a public, not a private cause." What he desired +was the gentleman's chivalry of refinement, sense of honor, dignity of +character, and freedom from mere self-seeking. The prime qualities of +a good officer, as he often said, were authority and decision. It is +probably true of democracies that they prefer and will follow the man +who will take with them a strong tone. Little men, however, cannot see +this and think to gain support by shifty changes of opinion to please +the multitude. What authority and decision could be expected from +an officer of the peasant type, elected by his own men? How could he +dominate men whose short term of service was expiring and who had to be +coaxed to renew it? Some elected officers had to promise to pool their +pay with that of their men. In one company an officer fulfilled the +double position of captain and barber. In time, however, the authority +of military rank came to be respected throughout the whole army. An +amusing contrast with earlier conditions is found in 1779 when a captain +was tried by a brigade court-martial and dismissed from the service for +intimate association with the wagon-maker of the brigade. + +The first thing to do at Cambridge was to get rid of the inefficient and +the corrupt. Washington had never any belief in a militia army. From +his earliest days as a soldier he had favored conscription, even in free +Virginia. He had then found quite ineffective the "whooping, holloing +gentlemen soldiers" of the volunteer force of the colony among whom +"every individual has his own crude notion of things and must undertake +to direct. If his advice is neglected he thinks himself slighted, +abused, and injured and, to redress his wrongs, will depart for his +home." Washington found at Cambridge too many officers. Then as later +in the American army there were swarms of colonels. The officers from +Massachusetts, conscious that they had seen the first fighting in the +great cause, expected special consideration from a stranger serving +on their own soil. Soon they had a rude awakening. Washington broke a +Massachusetts colonel and two captains because they had proved +cowards at Bunker Hill, two more captains for fraud in drawing pay and +provisions for men who did not exist, and still another for absence +from his post when he was needed. He put in jail a colonel, a major, and +three or four other officers. "New lords, new laws," wrote in his diary +Mr. Emerson, the chaplain: "the Generals Washington and Lee are upon +the lines every day… great distinction is made between officers and +soldiers." + +The term of all the volunteers in Washington's army expired by the end +of 1775, so that he had to create a new army during the siege of Boston. +He spoke scornfully of an enemy so little enterprising as to remain +supine during the process. But probably the British were wise to avoid a +venture inland and to remain in touch with their fleet. Washington made +them uneasy when he drove away the cattle from the neighborhood. Soon +beef was selling in Boston for as much as eighteen pence a pound. Food +might reach Boston in ships but supplies even by sea were insecure, for +the Americans soon had privateers manned by seamen familiar with New +England waters and happy in expected gains from prize money. The British +were anxious about the elementary problem of food. They might have made +Washington more uncomfortable by forays and alarms. Only reluctantly, +however, did Howe, who took over the command on October 10, 1775, admit +to himself that this was a real war. He still hoped for settlement +without further bloodshed. Washington was glad to learn that the British +were laying in supplies of coal for the winter. It meant that they +intended to stay in Boston, where, more than in any other place, he +could make trouble for them. + +Washington had more on his mind than the creation of an army and the +siege of Boston. He had also to decide the strategy of the war. On the +long American sea front Boston alone remained in British hands. New +York, Philadelphia, Charleston and other ports farther south were all, +for the time, on the side of the Revolution. Boston was not a good +naval base for the British, since it commanded no great waterway leading +inland. The sprawling colonies, from the rock-bound coast of New England +to the swamps and forests of Georgia, were strong in their incoherent +vastness. There were a thousand miles of seacoast. Only rarely were +considerable settlements to be found more than a hundred miles distant +from salt water. An army marching to the interior would have increasing +difficulties from transport and supplies. Wherever water routes could +be used the naval power of the British gave them an advantage. One such +route was the Hudson, less a river than a navigable arm of the sea, +leading to the heart of the colony of New York, its upper waters almost +touching Lake George and Lake Champlain, which in turn led to the +St. Lawrence in Canada and thence to the sea. Canada was held by the +British; and it was clear that, if they should take the city of New +York, they might command the whole line from the mouth of the Hudson to +the St. Lawrence, and so cut off New England from the other colonies and +overcome a divided enemy. To foil this policy Washington planned to hold +New York and to capture Canada. With Canada in line the union of the +colonies would be indeed continental, and, if the British were driven +from Boston, they would have no secure foothold in North America. + +The danger from Canada had always been a source of anxiety to the +English colonies. The French had made Canada a base for attempts to +drive the English from North America. During many decades war had raged +along the Canadian frontier. With the cession of Canada to Britain in +1763 this danger had vanished. The old habit endured, however, of fear +of Canada. When, in 1774, the British Parliament passed the bill for the +government of Canada known as the Quebec Act, there was violent clamor. +The measure was assumed to be a calculated threat against colonial +liberty. The Quebec Act continued in Canada the French civil law and the +ancient privileges of the Roman Catholic Church. It guaranteed order in +the wild western region north of the Ohio, taken recently from France, +by placing it under the authority long exercised there of the Governor +of Quebec. Only a vivid imagination would conceive that to allow to +the French in Canada their old loved customs and laws involved designs +against the freedom under English law in the other colonies, or that +to let the Canadians retain in respect to religion what they had always +possessed meant a sinister plot against the Protestantism of the English +colonies. Yet Alexander Hamilton, perhaps the greatest mind in the +American Revolution, had frantic suspicions. French laws in Canada +involved, he said, the extension of French despotism in the English +colonies. The privileges continued to the Roman Catholic Church in +Canada would be followed in due course by the Inquisition, the burning +of heretics at the stake in Boston and New York, and the bringing +from Europe of Roman Catholic settlers who would prove tools for the +destruction of religious liberty. Military rule at Quebec meant, sooner +or later, despotism everywhere in America. We may smile now at the +youthful Hamilton's picture of "dark designs" and "deceitful wiles" +on the part of that fierce Protestant George III to establish Roman +Catholic despotism, but the colonies regarded the danger as serious. The +quick remedy would be simply to take Canada, as Washington now planned. + +To this end something had been done before Washington assumed the +command. The British Fort Ticonderoga, on the neck of land separating +Lake Champlain from Lake George, commanded the route from New York to +Canada. The fight at Lexington in April had been quickly followed by +aggressive action against this British stronghold. No news of Lexington +had reached the fort when early in May Colonel Ethan Allen, with +Benedict Arnold serving as a volunteer in his force of eighty-three +men, arrived in friendly guise. The fort was held by only forty-eight +British; with the menace from France at last ended they felt secure; +discipline was slack, for there was nothing to do. The incompetent +commander testified that he lent Allen twenty men for some rough work +on the lake. By evening Allen had them all drunk and then it was easy, +without firing a shot, to capture the fort with a rush. The door to +Canada was open. Great stores of ammunition and a hundred and twenty +guns, which in due course were used against the British at Boston, fell +into American hands. + +About Canada Washington was ill-informed. He thought of the Canadians as +if they were Virginians or New Yorkers. They had been recently conquered +by Britain; their new king was a tyrant; they would desire liberty and +would welcome an American army. So reasoned Washington, but without +knowledge. The Canadians were a conquered people, but they had found +the British king no tyrant and they had experienced the paradox of being +freer under the conqueror than they had been under their own sovereign. +The last days of French rule in Canada were disgraced by corruption +and tyranny almost unbelievable. The Canadian peasant had been cruelly +robbed and he had conceived for his French rulers a dislike which +appears still in his attitude towards the motherland of France. For +his new British master he had assuredly no love, but he was no longer +dragged off to war and his property was not plundered. He was free, +too, to speak his mind. During the first twenty years after the British +conquest of Canada the Canadian French matured indeed an assertive +liberty not even dreamed of during the previous century and a half of +French rule. + +The British tyranny which Washington pictured in Canada was thus not +very real. He underestimated, too, the antagonism between the Roman +Catholics of Canada and the Protestants of the English colonies. The +Congress at Philadelphia in denouncing the Quebec Act had accused the +Catholic Church of bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion. This was +no very tactful appeal for sympathy to the sons of that France which was +still the eldest daughter of the Church and it was hardly helped by +a maladroit turn suggesting that "low-minded infirmities" should not +permit such differences to block union in the sacred cause of liberty. +Washington believed that two battalions of Canadians might be recruited +to fight the British, and that the French Acadians of Nova Scotia, a +people so remote that most of them hardly knew what the war was about, +were tingling with sympathy for the American cause. In truth the +Canadian was not prepared to fight on either side. What the priest and +the landowner could do to make him fight for Britain was done, but, for +all that, Sir Guy Carleton, the Governor of Canada, found recruiting +impossible. + +Washington believed that the war would be won by the side which held +Canada. He saw that from Canada would be determined the attitude of the +savages dwelling in the wild spaces of the interior; he saw, too, that +Quebec as a military base in British hands would be a source of grave +danger. The easy capture of Fort Ticonderoga led him to underrate +difficulties. If Ticonderoga why not Quebec? Nova Scotia might be +occupied later, the Acadians helping. Thus it happened that, soon +after taking over the command, Washington was busy with a plan for the +conquest of Canada. Two forces were to advance into that country; one by +way of Lake Champlain under General Schuyler and the other through the +forests of Maine under Benedict Arnold. + +Schuyler was obliged through illness to give up his command, and it was +an odd fortune of war that put General Richard Montgomery at the head +of the expedition going by way of Lake Champlain. Montgomery had served +with Wolfe at the taking of Louisbourg and had been an officer in the +proud British army which had received the surrender of Canada in 1760. +Not without searching of heart had Montgomery turned against his former +sovereign. He was living in America when war broke out; he had married +into an American family of position; and he had come to the view that +vital liberty was challenged by the King. Now he did his work well, +in spite of very bad material in his army. His New Englanders were, he +said, "every man a general and not one of them a soldier." They feigned +sickness, though, as far as he had learned, there was "not a man dead of +any distemper." No better were the men from New York, "the sweepings of +the streets" with morals "infamous." Of the officers, too, Montgomery +had a poor opinion. Like Washington he declared that it was necessary to +get gentlemen, men of education and integrity, as officers, or disaster +would follow. Nevertheless St. Johns, a British post on the Richelieu, +about thirty miles across country from Montreal, fell to Montgomery on +the 3d of November, after a siege of six weeks; and British regulars +under Major Preston, a brave and competent officer, yielded to a crude +volunteer army with whole regiments lacking uniforms. Montreal could +make no defense. On the 12th of November Montgomery entered Montreal +and was in control of the St. Lawrence almost to the cliffs of Quebec. +Canada seemed indeed an easy conquest. + +The adventurous Benedict Arnold went on an expedition more hazardous. +He had persuaded Washington of the impossible, that he could advance +through the wilderness from the seacoast of Maine and take Quebec by +surprise. News travels even by forest pathways. Arnold made a wonderful +effort. Chill autumn was upon him when, on the 25th of September, with +about a thousand picked men, he began to advance up the Kennebec River +and over the height of land to the upper waters of the Chaudière, which +discharges into the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec. There were heavy +rains. Sometimes the men had to wade breast high in dragging heavy +and leaking boats over the difficult places. A good many men died of +starvation. Others deserted and turned back. The indomitable Arnold +pressed on, however, and on the 9th of November, a few days before +Montgomery occupied Montreal, he stood with some six hundred worn and +shivering men on the strand of the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec. He +had not surprised the city and it looked grim and inaccessible as he +surveyed it across the great river. In the autumn gales it was not easy +to carry over his little army in small boats. But this he accomplished +and then waited for Montgomery to join him. + +By the 3d of December Montgomery was with Arnold before Quebec. They +had hardly more than a thousand effective troops, together with a few +hundred Canadians, upon whom no reliance could be placed. Carleton, +commanding at Quebec, sat tight and would hold no communication +with despised "rebels." "They all pretend to be gentlemen," said an +astonished British officer in Quebec, when he heard that among the +American officers now captured by the British there were a former +blacksmith, a butcher, a shoemaker, and an innkeeper. Montgomery was +stung to violent threats by Carleton's contempt, but never could he draw +from Carleton a reply. At last Montgomery tried, in the dark of early +morning of New Year's Day, 1776, to carry Quebec by storm. He was to +lead an attack on the Lower Town from the west side, while Arnold was to +enter from the opposite side. When they met in the center they were to +storm the citadel on the heights above. They counted on the help of the +French inhabitants, from whom Carleton said bitterly enough that he +had nothing to fear in prosperity and nothing to hope for in adversity. +Arnold pressed his part of the attack with vigor and penetrated to the +streets of the Lower Town where he fell wounded. Captain Daniel Morgan, +who took over the command, was made prisoner. + +Montgomery's fate was more tragic. In spite of protests from his +officers, he led in person the attack from the west side of the +fortress. The advance was along a narrow road under the towering cliffs +of a great precipice. The attack was expected by the British and the +guard at the barrier was ordered to hold its fire until the enemy was +near. Suddenly there was a roar of cannon and the assailants not swept +down fled in panic. With the morning light the dead head of Montgomery +was found protruding from the snow. He was mourned by Washington and +with reason. He had talents and character which might have made him one +of the chief leaders of the revolutionary army. Elsewhere, too, was +he mourned. His father, an Irish landowner, had been a member of the +British Parliament, and he himself was a Whig, known to Fox and Burke. +When news of his death reached England eulogies upon him came from the +Whig benches in Parliament which could not have been stronger had he +died fighting for the King. + +While the outlook in Canada grew steadily darker, the American cause +prospered before Boston. There Howe was not at ease. If it was really +to be war, which he still doubted, it would be well to seek some +other base. Washington helped Howe to take action. Dorchester Heights +commanded Boston as critically from the south as did Bunker Hill from +the north. By the end of February Washington had British cannon, brought +with heavy labor from Ticonderoga, and then he lost no time. On the +morning of March 5, 1776, Howe awoke to find that, under cover of a +heavy bombardment, American troops had occupied Dorchester Heights and +that if he would dislodge them he must make another attack similar +to that at Bunker Hill. The alternative of stiff fighting was the +evacuation of Boston. Howe, though dilatory, was a good fighting +soldier. His defects as a general in America sprang in part from his +belief that the war was unjust and that delay might bring counsels +making for peace and save bloodshed. His first decision was to attack, +but a furious gale thwarted his purpose, and he then prepared for the +inevitable step. + +Washington divined Howe's purpose and there was a tacit agreement that +the retiring army should not be molested. Howe destroyed munitions +of war which he could not take away but he left intact the powerful +defenses of Boston, defenses reared at the cost of Britain. Many of the +better class of the inhabitants, British in their sympathies, were now +face to face with bitter sorrow and sacrifice. Passions were so aroused +that a hard fate awaited them should they remain in Boston and they +decided to leave with the British army. Travel by land was blocked; they +could go only by sea. When the time came to depart, laden carriages, +trucks, and wheelbarrows crowded to the quays through the narrow streets +and a sad procession of exiles went out from their homes. A profane +critic said that they moved "as if the very devil was after them." No +doubt many of them would have been arrogant and merciless to "rebels" +had theirs been the triumph. But the day was above all a day of sorrow. +Edward Winslow, a strong leader among them, tells of his tears "at +leaving our once happy town of Boston." The ships, a forest of masts, +set sail and, crowded with soldiers and refugees, headed straight out +to sea for Halifax. Abigail, wife of John Adams, a clever woman, watched +the departure of the fleet with gladness in her heart. She thought that +never before had been seen in America so many ships bearing so many +people. Washington's army marched joyously into Boston. Joyous it might +well be since, for the moment, powerful Britain was not secure in a +single foot of territory in the former colonies. If Quebec should fall +the continent would be almost conquered. + +Quebec did not fall. All through the winter the Americans held on before +the place. They shivered from cold. They suffered from the dread disease +of smallpox. They had difficulty in getting food. The Canadians were +insistent on having good money for what they offered and since good +money was not always in the treasury the invading army sometimes used +violence. Then the Canadians became more reserved and chilling than +ever. In hope of mending matters Congress sent a commission to Montreal +in the spring of 1776. Its chairman was Benjamin Franklin and, with him, +were two leading Roman Catholics, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a +great landowner of Maryland, and his brother John, a priest, afterwards +Archbishop of Baltimore. It was not easy to represent as the liberator +of the Catholic Canadians the Congress which had denounced in scathing +terms the concessions in the Quebec Act to the Catholic Church. Franklin +was a master of conciliation, but before he achieved anything a dramatic +event happened. On the 6th of May, British ships arrived at Quebec. The +inhabitants rushed to the ramparts. Cries of joy passed from street +to street and they reached the little American army, now under General +Thomas, encamped on the Plains of Abraham. Panic seized the small force +which had held on so long. On the ships were ten thousand fresh British +troops. The one thing for the Americans to do was to get away; and they +fled, leaving behind guns, supplies, even clothing and private papers. +Five days later Franklin, at Montreal, was dismayed by the distressing +news of disaster. + +Congress sent six regiments to reinforce the army which had fled from +Quebec. It was a desperate venture. Washington's orders were that the +Americans should fight the new British army as near Quebec as possible. +The decisive struggle took place on the 8th of June. An American force +under the command of General Thompson attacked Three Rivers, a town +on the St. Lawrence, half way between Quebec and Montreal. They were +repulsed and the general was taken prisoner. The wonder is indeed that +the army was not annihilated. Then followed a disastrous retreat. Short +of supplies, ravaged by smallpox, and in bad weather, the invaders tried +to make their way back to Lake Champlain. They evacuated Montreal. It is +hard enough in the day of success to hold together an untrained army. In +the day of defeat such a force is apt to become a mere rabble. Some of +the American regiments preserved discipline. Others fell into complete +disorder as, weak and discouraged, they retired to Lake Champlain. Many +soldiers perished of disease. "I did not look into a hut or a tent," +says an observer, "in which I did not find a dead or dying man." Those +who had huts were fortunate. The fate of some was to die without medical +care and without cover. By the end of June what was left of the force +had reached Crown Point on Lake Champlain. + +Benedict Arnold, who had been wounded at Quebec, was now at Crown Point. +Competent critics of the war have held that what Arnold now did saved +the Revolution. In another scene, before the summer ended, the British +had taken New York and made themselves masters of the lower Hudson. +Had they reached in the same season the upper Hudson by way of Lake +Champlain they would have struck blows doubly staggering. This Arnold +saw, and his object was to delay, if he could not defeat, the British +advance. There was no road through the dense forest by the shores of +Lake Champlain and Lake George to the upper Hudson. The British must go +down the lake in boats. This General Carleton had foreseen and he had +urged that with the fleet sent to Quebec should be sent from England, +in sections, boats which could be quickly carried past the rapids of the +Richelieu River and launched on Lake Champlain. They had not come and +the only thing for Carleton to do was to build a flotilla which could +carry an army up the lake and attack Crown Point. The thing was done +but skilled workmen were few and not until the 5th of October were the +little ships afloat on Lake Champlain. Arnold, too, spent the summer in +building boats to meet the attack and it was a strange turn in warfare +which now made him commander in a naval fight. There was a brisk +struggle on Lake Champlain. Carleton had a score or so of vessels; +Arnold not so many. But he delayed Carleton. When he was beaten on the +water he burned the ships not captured and took to the land. When he +could no longer hold Crown Point he burned that place and retreated to +Ticonderoga. + +By this time it was late autumn. The British were far from their base +and the Americans were retreating into a friendly country. There is +little doubt that Carleton could have taken Fort Ticonderoga. It fell +quite easily less than a year later. Some of his officers urged him to +press on and do it. But the leaves had already fallen, the bleak winter +was near, and Carleton pictured to himself an army buried deeply in an +enemy country and separated from its base by many scores of miles of +lake and forest. He withdrew to Canada and left Lake Champlain to the +Americans. + + +CHAPTER III. INDEPENDENCE + +Well-meaning people in England found it difficult to understand the +intensity of feeling in America. Britain had piled up a huge debt in +driving France from America. Landowners were paying in taxes no less +than twenty per cent of their incomes from land. The people who had +chiefly benefited by the humiliation of France were the colonists, +now freed from hostile menace and secure for extension over a whole +continent. Why should not they pay some share of the cost of their own +security? Certain facts tended to make Englishmen indignant with the +Americans. Every effort had failed to get them to pay willingly for +their defense. Before the Stamp Act had become law in 1765 the colonies +were given a whole year to devise the raising of money in any way which +they liked better. The burden of what was asked would be light. Why +should not they agree to bear it? Why this talk, repeated by the Whigs +in the British Parliament, of brutal tyranny, oppression, hired minions +imposing slavery, and so on. Where were the oppressed? Could any one +point to a single person who before war broke out had known British +tyranny? What suffering could any one point to as the result of the tax +on tea? The people of England paid a tax on tea four times heavier than +that paid in America. Was not the British Parliament supreme over the +whole Empire? Did not the colonies themselves admit that it had the +right to control their trade overseas? And if men shirk their duty +should they not come under some law of compulsion? + +It was thus that many a plain man reasoned in England. The plain man in +America had his own opposing point of view. Debts and taxes in England +were not his concern. He remembered the recent war as vividly as did the +Englishman, and, if the English paid its cost in gold, he had paid his +share in blood and tears. Who made up the armies led by the British +generals in America? More than half the total number who served in +America came from the colonies, the colonies which had barely a third +of the population of Great Britain. True, Britain paid the bill in money +but why not? She was rich with a vast accumulated capital. The war, +partly in America, had given her the key to the wealth of India. Look +at the magnificence, the pomp of servants, plate and pictures, the parks +and gardens, of hundreds of English country houses, and compare this +opulence with the simple mode of life, simplicity imposed by necessity, +of a country gentleman like George Washington of Virginia, reputed to be +the richest man in America. Thousands of tenants in England, owning no +acre of land, were making a larger income than was possible in America +to any owner of broad acres. It was true that America had gained from +the late war. The foreign enemy had been struck down. But had he not +been struck down too for England? Had there not been far more dread in +England of invasion by France and had not the colonies by helping to +ruin France freed England as much as England had freed them? If now the +colonies were asked to pay a share of the bill for the British army that +was a matter for discussion. They had never before done it and they +must not be told that they had to meet the demand within a year or be +compelled to pay. Was it not to impose tyranny and slavery to tell +a people that their property would be taken by force if they did not +choose to give it? What free man would not rather die than yield on such +a point? + +The familiar workings of modern democracy have taught us that a great +political issue must be discussed in broad terms of high praise or +severe blame. The contestants will exaggerate both the virtue of +the side they espouse and the malignity of the opposing side; nice +discrimination is not possible. It was inevitable that the dispute with +the colonies should arouse angry vehemence on both sides. The passionate +speech of Patrick Henry in Virginia, in 1763, which made him famous, +and was the forerunner of his later appeal, "Give me Liberty or give me +Death," related to so prosaic a question as the right of disallowance +by England of an act passed by a colonial legislature, a right +exercised long and often before that time and to this day a part of the +constitutional machinery of the British Empire. Few men have lived more +serenely poised than Washington, yet, as we have seen, he hated the +British with an implacable hatred. He was a humane man. In earlier +years, Indian raids on the farmers of Virginia had stirred him to +"deadly sorrow," and later, during his retreat from New York, he was +moved by the cries of the weak and infirm. Yet the same man felt no +touch of pity for the Loyalists of the Revolution. To him they were +detestable parricides, vile traitors, with no right to live. When we +find this note in Washington, in America, we hardly wonder that the +high Tory, Samuel Johnson, in England, should write that the proposed +taxation was no tyranny, that it had not been imposed earlier because +"we do not put a calf into the plough; we wait till he is an ox," and +that the Americans were "a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful +for anything which we allow them short of hanging." Tyranny and treason +are both ugly things. Washington believed that he was fighting the one, +Johnson that he was fighting the other, and neither side would admit the +charge against itself. + +Such are the passions aroused by civil strife. We need not now, when +they are, or ought to be, dead, spend any time in deploring them. It +suffices to explain them and the events to which they led. There was +one and really only one final issue. Were the American colonies free to +govern themselves as they liked or might their government in the last +analysis be regulated by Great Britain? The truth is that the colonies +had reached a condition in which they regarded themselves as British +states with their own parliaments, exercising complete jurisdiction in +their own affairs. They intended to use their own judgment and they were +as restless under attempted control from England as England would have +been under control from America. We can indeed always understand the +point of view of Washington if we reverse the position and imagine what +an Englishman would have thought of a claim by America to tax him. + +An ancient and proud society is reluctant to change. After a long and +successful war England was prosperous. To her now came riches from India +and the ends of the earth. In society there was such lavish expenditure +that Horace Walpole declared an income of twenty thousand pounds a year +was barely enough. England had an aristocracy the proudest in the world, +for it had not only rank but wealth. The English people were certain of +the invincible superiority of their nation. Every Englishman was taught, +as Disraeli said of a later period, to believe that he occupied a +position better than any one else of his own degree in any other country +in the world. The merchant in England was believed to surpass all others +in wealth and integrity, the manufacturer to have no rivals in skill, +the British sailor to stand in a class by himself, the British officer +to express the last word in chivalry. It followed, of course, that the +motherland was superior to her children overseas. The colonies had no +aristocracy, no great landowners living in stately palaces. They had +almost no manufactures. They had no imposing state system with places +and pensions from which the fortunate might reap a harvest of ten or +even twenty thousand pounds a year. They had no ancient universities +thronged by gilded youth who, if noble, might secure degrees without the +trying ceremony of an examination. They had no Established Church with +the ancient glories of its cathedrals. In all America there was not even +a bishop. In spite of these contrasts the English Whigs insisted upon +the political equality with themselves of the American colonists. The +Tory squire, however, shared Samuel Johnson's view that colonists were +either traders or farmers and that colonial shopkeeping society was +vulgar and contemptible. + +George III was ill-fitted by nature to deal with the crisis. The King +was not wholly without natural parts, for his own firm will had +achieved what earlier kings had tried and failed to do; he had mastered +Parliament, made it his obedient tool and himself for a time a despot. +He had some admirable virtues. He was a family man, the father of +fifteen children. He liked quiet amusements and had wholesome tastes. If +industry and belief in his own aims could of themselves make a man +great we might reverence George. He wrote once to Lord North: "I have no +object but to be of use: if that is ensured I am completely happy." +The King was always busy. Ceaseless industry does not, however, include +every virtue, or the author of all evil would rank high in goodness. +Wisdom must be the pilot of good intentions. George was not wise. He was +ill-educated. He had never traveled. He had no power to see the point of +view of others. + +As if nature had not sufficiently handicapped George for a high part, +fate placed him on the throne at the immature age of twenty-two. +Henceforth the boy was master, not pupil. Great nobles and obsequious +prelates did him reverence. Ignorant and obstinate, the young King was +determined not only to reign but to rule, in spite of the new doctrine +that Parliament, not the King, carried on the affairs of government +through the leader of the majority in the House of Commons, already +known as the Prime Minister. George could not really change what was the +last expression of political forces in England. The rule of Parliament +had come to stay. Through it and it alone could the realm be governed. +This power, however, though it could not be destroyed, might be +controlled. Parliament, while retaining all its privileges, might yet +carry out the wishes of the sovereign. The King might be his own Prime +Minister. The thing could be done if the King's friends held a majority +of the seats and would do what their master directed. It was a dark day +for England when a king found that he could play off one faction against +another, buy a majority in Parliament, and retain it either by paying +with guineas or with posts and dignities which the bought Parliament +left in his gift. This corruption it was which ruined the first British +Empire. + +We need not doubt that George thought it his right and also his duty to +coerce America, or rather, as he said, the clamorous minority which was +trying to force rebellion. He showed no lack of sincerity. On October +26, 1775, while Washington was besieging Boston, he opened Parliament +with a speech which at any rate made the issue clear enough. Britain +would not give up colonies which she had founded with severe toil and +nursed with great kindness. Her army and her navy, both now increased +in size, would make her power respected. She would not, however, deal +harshly with her erring children. Royal mercy would be shown to those +who admitted their error and they need not come to England to secure it. +Persons in America would be authorized to grant pardons and furnish the +guarantees which would proceed from the royal clemency. + +Such was the magnanimity of George III. Washington's rage at the tone of +the speech is almost amusing in its vehemence. He, with a mind conscious +of rectitude and sacrifice in a great cause, to ask pardon for his +course! He to bend the knee to this tyrant overseas! Washington himself +was not highly gifted with imagination. He never realized the strength +of the forces in England arrayed on his own side and attributed to the +English, as a whole, sinister and malignant designs always condemned by +the great mass of the English people. They, no less than the Americans, +were the victims of a turn in politics which, for a brief period, and +for only a brief period, left power in the hands of a corrupt Parliament +and a corrupting king. + +Ministers were not all corrupt or place-hunters. One of them, the +Earl of Dartmouth, was a saint in spirit. Lord North, the king's chief +minister, was not corrupt. He disliked his office and wished to leave +it. In truth no sweeping simplicity of condemnation will include all the +ministers of George III except on this one point that they allowed to +dictate their policy a narrow-minded and ignorant king. It was their +right to furnish a policy and to exercise the powers of government, +appoint to office, spend the public revenues. Instead they let the King +say that the opinions of his ministers had no avail with him. If we ask +why, the answer is that there was a mixture of motives. North stayed in +office because the King appealed to his loyalty, a plea hard to resist +under an ancient monarchy. Others stayed from love of power or for what +they could get. In that golden age of patronage it was possible for a +man to hold a plurality of offices which would bring to himself many +thousands of pounds a year, and also to secure the reversion of offices +and pensions to his children. Horace Walpole spent a long life in +luxurious ease because of offices with high pay and few duties secured +in the distant days of his father's political power. Contracts to supply +the army and the navy went to friends of the government, sometimes +with disastrous results, since the contractor often knew nothing of +the business he undertook. When, in 1777, the Admiralty boasted that +thirty-five ships of war were ready to put to sea it was found that +there were in fact only six. The system nearly ruined the navy. It +actually happened that planks of a man-of-war fell out through rot and +that she sank. Often ropes and spars could not be had when most needed. +When a public loan was floated the King's friends and they alone were +given the shares at a price which enabled them to make large profits on +the stock market. + +The system could endure only as long as the King's friends had a +majority in the House of Commons. Elections must be looked after. The +King must have those on whom he could always depend. He controlled +offices and pensions. With these things he bought members and he had to +keep them bought by repeating the benefits. If the holder of a public +office was thought to be dying the King was already naming to his Prime +Minister the person to whom the office must go when death should occur. +He insisted that many posts previously granted for life should now be +given during his pleasure so that he might dismiss the holders at will. +He watched the words and the votes in Parliament of public men and woe +to those in his power if they displeased him. When he knew that Fox, +his great antagonist, would be absent from Parliament he pressed through +measures which Fox would have opposed. It was not until George III was +King that the buying and selling of boroughs became common. The King +bought votes in the boroughs by paying high prices for trifles. He +even went over the lists of voters and had names of servants of the +government inserted if this seemed needed to make a majority secure. +One of the most unedifying scenes in English history is that of George +making a purchase in a shop at Windsor and because of this patronage +asking for the shopkeeper's support in a local election. The King was +saving and penurious in his habits that he might have the more money to +buy votes. When he had no money left he would go to Parliament and +ask for a special grant for his needs and the bought members could not +refuse the money for their buying. + +The people of England knew that Parliament was corrupt. But how to end +the system? The press was not free. Some of it the government bought +and the rest it tried to intimidate though often happily in vain. Only +fragments of the debates in Parliament were published. Not until 1779 +did the House of Commons admit the public to its galleries. No great +political meetings were allowed until just before the American war and +in any case the masses had no votes. The great landowners had in their +control a majority of the constituencies. There were scores of pocket +boroughs in which their nominees were as certain of election as peers +were of their seats in the House of Lords. The disease of England +was deep-seated. A wise king could do much, but while George III +survived--and his reign lasted sixty years--there was no hope of a wise +king. A strong minister could impose his will on the King. But only time +and circumstance could evolve a strong minister. Time and circumstance +at length produced the younger Pitt. But it needed the tragedy of two +long wars--those against the colonies and revolutionary France--before +the nation finally threw off the system which permitted the personal +rule of George III and caused the disruption of the Empire. It may thus +be said with some truth that George Washington was instrumental in the +salvation of England. + +The ministers of George III loved the sports, the rivalries, the ease, +the remoteness of their rural magnificence. Perverse fashion kept them +in London even in April and May for "the season," just when in the +country nature was most alluring. Otherwise they were off to their +estates whenever they could get away from town. The American Revolution +was not remotely affected by this habit. With ministers long absent in +the country important questions were postponed or forgotten. The crisis +which in the end brought France into the war was partly due to the +carelessness of a minister hurrying away to the country. Lord George +Germain, who directed military operations in America, dictated a letter +which would have caused General Howe to move northward from New York +to meet General Burgoyne advancing from Canada. Germain went off to the +country without waiting to sign the letter; it was mislaid among other +papers; Howe was without needed instructions; and the disaster followed +of Burgoyne's surrender. Fox pointed out, that, at a time when there +was a danger that a foreign army might land in England, not one of the +King's ministers was less than fifty miles from London. They were in +their parks and gardens, or hunting or fishing. Nor did they stay away +for a few days only. The absence was for weeks or even months. + +It is to the credit of Whig leaders in England, landowners and +aristocrats as they were, that they supported with passion the American +cause. In America, where the forces of the Revolution were in control, +the Loyalist who dared to be bold for his opinions was likely to be +tarred and feathered and to lose his property. There was an embittered +intolerance. In England, however, it was an open question in society +whether to be for or against the American cause. The Duke of Richmond, +a great grandson of Charles II, said in the House of Lords that under no +code should the fighting Americans be considered traitors. What they did +was "perfectly justifiable in every possible political and moral +sense." All the world knows that Chatham and Burke and Fox urged the +conciliation of America and hundreds took the same stand. Burke said of +General Conway, a man of position, that when he secured a majority in +the House of Commons against the Stamp Act his face shone as the face of +an angel. Since the bishops almost to a man voted with the King, Conway +attacked them as in this untrue to their high office. Sir George Savile, +whose benevolence, supported by great wealth, made him widely respected +and loved, said that the Americans were right in appealing to arms. Coke +of Norfolk was a landed magnate who lived in regal style. His seat of +Holkham was one of those great new palaces which the age reared at +such elaborate cost. It was full of beautiful things--the art of +Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Van Dyke, rare manuscripts, books, +and tapestries. So magnificent was Coke that a legend long ran that his +horses were shod with gold and that the wheels of his chariots were of +solid silver. In the country he drove six horses. In town only the King +did this. Coke despised George III, chiefly on account of his American +policy, and to avoid the reproach of rivaling the King's estate, he +took joy in driving past the palace in London with a donkey as his +sixth animal and in flicking his whip at the King. When he was offered +a peerage by the King he denounced with fiery wrath the minister through +whom it was offered as attempting to bribe him. Coke declared that if +one of the King's ministers held up a hat in the House of Commons and +said that it was a green bag the majority of the members would solemnly +vote that it was a green bag. The bribery which brought this blind +obedience of Toryism filled Coke with fury. In youth he had been taught +never to trust a Tory and he could say "I never have and, by God, I +never will." One of his children asked their mother whether Tories were +born wicked or after birth became wicked. The uncompromising answer was: +"They are born wicked and they grow up worse." + +There is, of course, in much of this something of the malignance of +party. In an age when one reverend theologian, Toplady, called another +theologian, John Wesley, "a low and puny tadpole in Divinity" we must +expect harsh epithets. But behind this bitterness lay a deep conviction +of the righteousness of the American cause. At a great banquet at +Holkham, Coke omitted the toast of the King; but every night during the +American war he drank the health of Washington as the greatest man on +earth. The war, he said, was the King's war, ministers were his tools, +the press was bought. He denounced later the King's reception of the +traitor Arnold. When the King's degenerate son, who became George IV, +after some special misconduct, wrote to propose his annual visit to +Holkham, Coke replied, "Holkham is open to strangers on Tuesdays." It +was an independent and irate England which spoke in Coke. Those who +paid taxes, he said, should control those who governed. America was not +getting fair play. Both Coke and Fox, and no doubt many others, wore +waistcoats of blue and buff because these were the colors of the +uniforms of Washington's army. + +Washington and Coke exchanged messages and they would have been +congenial companions; for Coke, like Washington, was above all a farmer +and tried to improve agriculture. Never for a moment, he said, had +time hung heavy on his hands in the country. He began on his estate the +culture of the potato, and for some time the best he could hear of it +from his stolid tenantry was that it would not poison the pigs. +Coke would have fought the levy of a penny of unjust taxation and he +understood Washington. The American gentleman and the English gentleman +had a common outlook. + +Now had come, however, the hour for political separation. By +reluctant but inevitable steps America made up its mind to declare for +independence. At first continued loyalty to the King was urged on the +plea that he was in the hands of evil-minded ministers, inspired by +diabolical rage, or in those of an "infernal villain" such as the +soldier, General Gage, a second Pharaoh; though it must be admitted that +even then the King was "the tyrant of Great Britain." After Bunker Hill +spasmodic declarations of independence were made here and there by local +bodies. When Congress organized an army, invaded Canada, and besieged +Boston, it was hard to protest loyalty to a King whose forces were +those of an enemy. Moreover independence would, in the eyes at least of +foreign governments, give the colonies the rights of belligerents and +enable them to claim for their fighting forces the treatment due to a +regular army and the exchange of prisoners with the British. They could, +too, make alliances with other nations. Some clamored for independence +for a reason more sinister--that they might punish those who held to the +King and seize their property. There were thirteen colonies in arms +and each of them had to form some kind of government which would work +without a king as part of its mechanism. One by one such governments +were formed. King George, as we have seen, helped the colonies to make +up their minds. They were in no mood to be called erring children who +must implore undeserved mercy and not force a loving parent to take +unwilling vengeance. "Our plantations" and "our subjects in the +colonies" would simply not learn obedience. If George III would not +reply to their petitions until they laid down their arms, they could +manage to get on without a king. If England, as Horace Walpole admitted, +would not take them seriously and speakers in Parliament called them +obscure ruffians and cowards, so much the worse for England. + +It was an Englishman, Thomas Paine, who fanned the fire into +unquenchable flames. He had recently been dismissed from a post in +the excise in England and was at this time earning in Philadelphia a +precarious living by his pen. Paine said it was the interest of America +to break the tie with Europe. Was a whole continent in America to be +governed by an island a thousand leagues away? Of what advantage was +it to remain connected with Great Britain? It was said that a united +British Empire could defy the world, but why should America defy the +world? "Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation." +Interested men, weak men, prejudiced men, moderate men who do not really +know Europe, may urge reconciliation, but nature is against it. Paine +broke loose in that denunciation of kings with which ever since the +world has been familiar. The wretched Briton, said Paine, is under a +king and where there was a king there was no security for liberty. +Kings were crowned ruffians and George III in particular was a sceptered +savage, a royal brute, and other evil things. He had inflicted on +America injuries not to be forgiven. The blood of the slain, not less +than the true interests of posterity, demanded separation. Paine called +his pamphlet Common Sense. It was published on January 9, 1776. More +than a hundred thousand copies were quickly sold and it brought decision +to many wavering minds. + +In the first days of 1776 independence had become a burning question. +New England had made up its mind. Virginia was keen for separation, +keener even than New England. New York and Pennsylvania long hesitated +and Maryland and North Carolina were very lukewarm. Early in 1776 +Washington was advocating independence and Greene and other army leaders +were of the same mind. Conservative forces delayed the settlement, and +at last Virginia, in this as in so many other things taking the +lead, instructed its delegates to urge a declaration by Congress of +independence. Richard Henry Lee, a member of that honored family which +later produced the ablest soldier of the Civil War, moved in Congress on +June 7, 1776, that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, +Free and Independent States." The preparation of a formal declaration +was referred to a committee of which John Adams and Thomas Jefferson +were members. It is interesting to note that each of them became +President of the United States and that both died on July 4, 1826, the +fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Adams related +long after that he and Jefferson formed the sub-committee to draft the +Declaration and that he urged Jefferson to undertake the task since "you +can write ten times better than I can." Jefferson accordingly wrote +the paper. Adams was delighted "with its high tone and the flights of +Oratory" but he did not approve of the flaming attack on the King, as +a tyrant. "I never believed," he said, "George to be a tyrant in +disposition and in nature." There was, he thought, too much passion for +a grave and solemn document. He was, however, the principal speaker in +its support. + +There is passion in the Declaration from beginning to end, and not the +restrained and chastened passion which we find in the great utterances +of an American statesman of a later day, Abraham Lincoln. Compared with +Lincoln, Jefferson is indeed a mere amateur in the use of words. Lincoln +would not have scattered in his utterances overwrought phrases about +"death, desolation and tyranny" or talked about pledging "our lives, our +fortunes and our sacred honour." He indulged in no "Flights of Oratory." +The passion in the Declaration is concentrated against the King. We do +not know what were the emotions of George when he read it. We know that +many Englishmen thought that it spoke truth. Exaggerations there are +which make the Declaration less than a completely candid document. The +King is accused of abolishing English laws in Canada with the intention +of "introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies." What had +been done in Canada was to let the conquered French retain their own +laws--which was not tyranny but magnanimity. Another clause of the +Declaration, as Jefferson first wrote it, made George responsible for +the slave trade in America with all its horrors and crimes. We may doubt +whether that not too enlightened monarch had even more than vaguely +heard of the slave trade. This phase of the attack upon him was too much +for the slave owners of the South and the slave traders of New England, +and the clause was struck out. + +Nearly fourscore and ten years later, Abraham Lincoln, at a supreme +crisis in the nation's life, told in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, +what the Declaration of Independence meant to him. "I have never," +he said, "had a feeling politically which did not spring from the +sentiments in the Declaration of Independence"; and then he spoke of +the sacrifices which the founders of the Republic had made for these +principles. He asked, too, what was the idea which had held together the +nation thus founded. It was not the breaking away from Great Britain. It +was the assertion of human right. We should speak in terms of reverence +of a document which became a classic utterance of political right and +which inspired Lincoln in his fight to end slavery and to make "Liberty +and the pursuit of Happiness" realities for all men. In England the +colonists were often taunted with being "rebels." The answer was not +wanting that ancestors of those who now cried "rebel" had themselves +been rebels a hundred years earlier when their own liberty was at stake. + +There were in Congress men who ventured to say that the Declaration +was a libel on the government of England; men like John Dickinson of +Pennsylvania and John Jay of New York, who feared that the radical +elements were moving too fast. Radicalism, however, was in the saddle, +and on the 2d of July the "resolution respecting independency" was +adopted. On July 4, 1776, Congress debated and finally adopted +the formal Declaration of Independence. The members did not vote +individually. The delegates from each colony cast the vote of the +colony. Twelve colonies voted for the Declaration. New York alone was +silent because its delegates had not been instructed as to their vote, +but New York, too, soon fell into line. It was a momentous occasion and +was understood to be such. The vote seems to have been reached in the +late afternoon. Anxious citizens were waiting in the streets. There +was a bell in the State House, and an old ringer waited there for the +signal. When there was long delay he is said to have muttered: "They +will never do it! they will never do it!" Then came the word, "Ring! +Ring!" It is an odd fact that the inscription on the bell, placed there +long before the days of the trouble, was from Leviticus: "Proclaim +liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." The +bells of Philadelphia rang and cannon boomed. As the news spread there +were bonfires and illuminations in all the colonies. On the day after +the Declaration the Virginia Convention struck out "O Lord, save the +King" from the church service. On the 10th of July Washington, who +by this time had moved to New York, paraded the army and had the +Declaration read at the head of each brigade. That evening the statue +of King George in New York was laid in the dust. It is a comment on the +changes in human fortune that within little more than a year the British +had taken Philadelphia, that the clamorous bell had been hid away for +safety, and that colonial wiseacres were urging the rescinding of the +ill-timed Declaration and the reunion of the British Empire. + + +CHAPTER IV. THE LOSS OF NEW YORK + + +Washington's success at Boston had one good effect. It destroyed Tory +influence in that Puritan stronghold. New England was henceforth of a +temper wholly revolutionary; and New England tradition holds that what +its people think today other Americans think tomorrow. But, in the +summer of this year 1776, though no serious foe was visible at any +point in the revolted colonies, a menace haunted every one of them. The +British had gone away by sea; by sea they would return. On land armies +move slowly and visibly; but on the sea a great force may pass out of +sight and then suddenly reappear at an unexpected point. This is +the haunting terror of sea power. Already the British had destroyed +Falmouth, now Portland, Maine, and Norfolk, the principal town in +Virginia. Washington had no illusions of security. He was anxious above +all for the safety of New York, commanding the vital artery of the +Hudson, which must at all costs be defended. Accordingly, in April, he +took his army to New York and established there his own headquarters. + +Even before Washington moved to New York, three great British +expeditions were nearing America. One of these we have already seen at +Quebec. Another was bound for Charleston, to land there an army and to +make the place a rallying center for the numerous but harassed Loyalists +of the South. The third and largest of these expeditions was to strike +at New York and, by a show of strength, bring the colonists to reason +and reconciliation. If mildness failed the British intended to capture +New York, sail up the Hudson and cut off New England from the other +colonies. + +The squadron destined for Charleston carried an army in command of a +fine soldier, Lord Cornwallis, destined later to be the defeated +leader in the last dramatic scene of the war. In May this fleet reached +Wilmington, North Carolina, and took on board two thousand men under +General Sir Henry Clinton, who had been sent by Howe from Boston in +vain to win the Carolinas and who now assumed military command of the +combined forces. Admiral Sir Peter Parker commanded the fleet, and on +the 4th of June he was off Charleston Harbor. Parker found that in order +to cross the bar he would have to lighten his larger ships. This was +done by the laborious process of removing the guns, which, of course, +he had to replace when the bar was crossed. On the 28th of June, Parker +drew up his ships before Fort Moultrie in the harbor. He had expected +simultaneous aid by land from three thousand soldiers put ashore from +the fleet on a sandbar, but these troops could give him no help against +the fort from which they were cut off by a channel of deep water. A +battle soon proved the British ships unable to withstand the American +fire from Fort Moultrie. Late in the evening Parker drew off, with +two hundred and twenty-five casualties against an American loss of +thirty-seven. The check was greater than that of Bunker Hill, for there +the British took the ground which they attacked. The British sailors +bore witness to the gallantry of the defense: "We never had such a +drubbing in our lives," one of them testified. Only one of Parker's ten +ships was seaworthy after the fight. It took him three weeks to refit, +and not until the 4th of August did his defeated ships reach New York. + +A mighty armada of seven hundred ships had meanwhile sailed into the +Bay of New York. This fleet was commanded by Admiral Lord Howe and it +carried an army of thirty thousand men led by his younger brother, Sir +William Howe, who had commanded at Bunker Hill. The General was an able +and well-informed soldier. He had a brilliant record of service in the +Seven Years' War, with Wolfe in Canada, then in France itself, and in +the West Indies. In appearance he was tall, dark, and coarse. His face +showed him to be a free user of wine. This may explain some of his +faults as a general. He trusted too much to subordinates; he was +leisurely and rather indolent, yet capable of brilliant and rapid +action. In America his heart was never in his task. He was member of +Parliament for Nottingham and had publicly condemned the quarrel with +America and told his electors that in it he would take no command. He +had not kept his word, but his convictions remained. It would be to +accuse Howe of treason to say that he did not do his best in America. +Lack of conviction, however, affects action. Howe had no belief that his +country was in the right in the war and this handicapped him as against +the passionate conviction of Washington that all was at stake which made +life worth living. + +The General's elder brother, Lord Howe, was another Whig who had no +belief that the war was just. He sat in the House of Lords while his +brother sat in the House of Commons. We rather wonder that the King +should have been content to leave in Whig hands his fortunes in America +both by land and sea. At any rate, here were the Howes more eager +to make peace than to make war and commanded to offer terms of +reconciliation. Lord Howe had an unpleasant face, so dark that he was +called "Black Dick"; he was a silent, awkward man, shy and harsh in +manner. In reality, however, he was kind, liberal in opinion, sober, and +beloved by those who knew him best. His pacific temper towards America +was not due to a dislike of war. He was a fighting sailor. Nearly twenty +years later, on June 1, 1794, when he was in command of a fleet in touch +with the French enemy, the sailors watched him to find any indication +that the expected action would take place. Then the word went round: "We +shall have the fight today; Black Dick has been smiling." They had it, +and Howe won a victory which makes his name famous in the annals of the +sea. + +By the middle of July the two brothers were at New York. The soldier, +having waited at Halifax since the evacuation of Boston, had arrived, +and landed his army on Staten Island, on the day before Congress made +the Declaration of Independence, which, as now we can see, ended finally +any chance of reconciliation. The sailor arrived nine days later. Lord +Howe was wont to regret that he had not arrived a little earlier, since +the concessions which he had to offer might have averted the Declaration +of Independence. In truth, however, he had little to offer. Humor and +imagination are useful gifts in carrying on human affairs, but George +III had neither. He saw no lack of humor in now once more offering full +and free pardon to a repentant Washington and his comrades, though John +Adams was excepted by name¹; in repudiating the right to exist of the +Congress at Philadelphia, and in refusing to recognize the military +rank of the rebel general whom it had named: he was to be addressed in +civilian style as "George Washington Esq." The King and his ministers +had no imagination to call up the picture of high-hearted men fighting +for rights which they held dear. ¹Trevelyan, American Revolution, Part +II, vol. I (New Ed., vol. II), 261. + +Lord Howe went so far as to address a letter to "George Washington Esq. +&c. &c.," and Washington agreed to an interview with the officer who +bore it. In imposing uniform and with the stateliest manner, Washington, +who had an instinct for effect, received the envoy. The awed messenger +explained that the symbols "&c. &c." meant everything, including, of +course, military titles; but Washington only said smilingly that they +might mean anything, including, of course, an insult, and refused to +take the letter. He referred to Congress, a body which Howe could not +recognize, the grave question of the address on an envelope and Congress +agreed that the recognition of his rank was necessary. There was nothing +to do but to go on with the fight. + +Washington's army held the city of New York, at the southerly point +of Manhattan Island. The Hudson River, separating the island from the +mainland of New Jersey on the west, is at its mouth two miles wide. The +northern and eastern sides of the island are washed by the Harlem River, +flowing out of the Hudson about a dozen miles north of the city, and +broadening into the East River, about a mile wide where it separates New +York from Brooklyn Heights, on Long Island. Encamped on Staten Island, +on the south, General Howe could, with the aid of the fleet, land at any +of half a dozen vulnerable points. Howe had the further advantage of +a much larger force. Washington had in all some twenty thousand men, +numbers of them serving for short terms and therefore for the most part +badly drilled. Howe had twenty-five thousand well-trained soldiers, and +he could, in addition, draw men from the fleet, which would give him in +all double the force of Washington. + +In such a situation even the best skill of Washington was likely only +to qualify defeat. He was advised to destroy New York and retire to +positions more tenable. But even if he had so desired, Congress, his +master, would not permit him to burn the city, and he had to make plans +to defend it. Brooklyn Heights so commanded New York that enemy cannon +planted there would make the city untenable. Accordingly Washington +placed half his force on Long Island to defend Brooklyn Heights and +in doing so made the fundamental error of cutting his army in two and +dividing it by an arm of the sea in presence of overwhelming hostile +naval power. + +On the 22d of August Howe ferried fifteen thousand men across the +Narrows to Long Island, in order to attack the position on Brooklyn +Heights from the rear. Before him lay wooded hills across which led +three roads converging at Brooklyn Heights beyond the hills. On the east +a fourth road led round the hills. In the dark of the night of the 26th +of August Howe set his army in motion on all these roads, in order by +daybreak to come to close quarters with the Americans and drive them +back to the Heights. The movement succeeded perfectly. The British made +terrible use of the bayonet. By the evening of the twenty-seventh the +Americans, who fought well against overwhelming odds, had lost nearly +two thousand men in casualties and prisoners, six field pieces, and +twenty-six heavy guns. The two chief commanders, Sullivan and Stirling, +were among the prisoners, and what was left of the army had been driven +back to Brooklyn Heights. Howe's critics said that had he pressed the +attack further he could have made certain the capture of the whole +American force on Long Island. + +Criticism of what might have been is easy and usually futile. It might +be said of Washington, too, that he should not have kept an army so far +in front of his lines behind Brooklyn Heights facing a superior enemy, +and with, for a part of it, retreat possible only by a single causeway +across a marsh three miles long. When he realized, on the 28th of +August, what Howe had achieved, he increased the defenders of Brooklyn +Heights to ten thousand men, more than half his army. This was another +cardinal error. British ships were near and but for unfavorable winds +might have sailed up to Brooklyn. Washington hoped and prayed that Howe +would try to carry Brooklyn Heights by assault. Then there would have +been at least slaughter on the scale of Bunker Hill. But Howe had +learned caution. He made no reckless attack, and soon Washington found +that he must move away or face the danger of losing every man on Long +Island. + +On the night of the 29th of August there was clear moonlight, with fog +towards daybreak. A British army of twenty-five thousand men was only +some six hundred yards from the American lines. A few miles from the +shore lay at anchor a great British fleet with, it is to be presumed, +its patrols on the alert. Yet, during that night, ten thousand American +troops were marched down to boats on the strand at Brooklyn and, with +all their stores, were carried across a mile of water to New York. There +must have been the splash of oars and the grating of keels, orders given +in tones above a whisper, the complex sounds of moving bodies of men. +It was all done under the eye of Washington. We can picture that tall +figure moving about on the strand at Brooklyn, which he was the last +to leave. Not a sound disturbed the slumbers of the British. An army +in retreat does not easily defend itself. Boats from the British fleet +might have brought panic to the Americans in the darkness and the +British army should at least have known that they were gone. By seven in +the morning the ten thousand American soldiers were for the time safe +in New York, and we may suppose that the two Howes were asking eager +questions and wondering how it had all happened. + +Washington had shown that he knew when and how to retire. Long Island +was his first battle and he had lost. Now retreat was his first great +tactical achievement. He could not stay in New York and so sent at once +the chief part of the army, withdrawn from Brooklyn, to the line of the +Harlem River at the north end of the island. He realized that his shore +batteries could not keep the British fleet from sailing up both the +East and the Hudson Rivers and from landing a force on Manhattan Island +almost where it liked. Then the city of New York would be surrounded by +a hostile fleet and a hostile army. The Howes could have performed this +maneuver as soon as they had a favorable wind. There was, we know, great +confusion in New York, and Washington tells us how his heart was torn by +the distress of the inhabitants. The British gave him plenty of time to +make plans, and for a reason. We have seen that Lord Howe was not only +an admiral to make war but also an envoy to make peace. The British +victory on Long Island might, he thought, make Congress more willing to +negotiate. So now he sent to Philadelphia the captured American General +Sullivan, with the request that some members of Congress might confer +privately on the prospects for peace. + +Howe probably did not realize that the Americans had the British quality +of becoming more resolute by temporary reverses. By this time, too, +suspicion of every movement on the part of Great Britain had become +a mania. Every one in Congress seems to have thought that Howe was +planning treachery. John Adams, excepted by name from British offers of +pardon, called Sullivan a "decoy duck" and, as he confessed, laughed, +scolded, and grieved at any negotiation. The wish to talk privately with +members of Congress was called an insulting way of avoiding recognition +of that body. In spite of this, even the stalwart Adams and the suave +Franklin were willing to be members of a committee which went to meet +Lord Howe. With great sorrow Howe now realized that he had no power to +grant what Congress insisted upon, the recognition of independence, as a +preliminary to negotiation. There was nothing for it but war. + +On the 15th of September the British struck the blow too long delayed +had war been their only interest. New York had to sit nearly helpless +while great men-of-war passed up both the Hudson and the East River with +guns sweeping the shores of Manhattan Island. At the same time General +Howe sent over in boats from Long Island to the landing at Kip's Bay, +near the line of the present Thirty-fourth Street, an army to cut off +the city from the northern part of the island. Washington marched in +person with two New England regiments to dispute the landing and give +him time for evacuation. To his rage panic seized his men and they +turned and fled, leaving him almost alone not a hundred yards from the +enemy. A stray shot at that moment might have influenced greatly modern +history, for, as events were soon to show, Washington was the mainstay +of the American cause. He too had to get away and Howe's force landed +easily enough. + +Meanwhile, on the west shore of the island, there was an animated scene. +The roads were crowded with refugees fleeing northward from New York. +These civilians Howe had no reason to stop, but there marched, too, out +of New York four thousand men, under Israel Putnam, who got safely away +northward. Only leisurely did Howe extend his line across the island so +as to cut off the city. The story, not more trustworthy than many other +legends of war, is that Mrs. Murray, living in a country house near what +now is Murray Hill, invited the General to luncheon, and that to enjoy +this pleasure he ordered a halt for his whole force. Generals sometimes +do foolish things but it is not easy to call up a picture of Howe, in +the midst of a busy movement of troops, receiving the lady's invitation, +accepting it, and ordering the whole army to halt while he lingered over +the luncheon table. There is no doubt that his mind was still divided +between making war and making peace. Probably Putnam had already got +away his men, and there was no purpose in stopping the refugees in that +flight from New York which so aroused the pity of Washington. As it was +Howe took sixty-seven guns. By accident, or, it is said, by design of +the Americans themselves, New York soon took fire and one-third of the +little city was burned. + +After the fall of New York there followed a complex campaign. The +resourceful Washington was now, during his first days of active warfare, +pitting himself against one of the most experienced of British generals. +Fleet and army were acting together. The aim of Howe was to get control +of the Hudson and to meet half way the advance from Canada by way of +Lake Champlain which Carleton was leading. On the 12th of October, when +autumn winds were already making the nights cold, Howe moved. He did +not attack Washington who lay in strength at the Harlem. That would +have been to play Washington's game. Instead he put the part of his army +still on Long Island in ships which then sailed through the dangerous +currents of Hell Gate and landed at Throg's Neck, a peninsula on the +sound across from Long Island. Washington parried this movement by so +guarding the narrow neck of the peninsula leading to the mainland that +the cautious Howe shrank from a frontal attack across a marsh. After a +delay of six days, he again embarked his army, landed a few miles +above Throg's Neck in the hope of cutting off Washington from retreat +northward, only to find Washington still north of him at White Plains. +A sharp skirmish followed in which Howe lost over two hundred men and +Washington only one hundred and forty. Washington, masterly in retreat, +then withdrew still farther north among hills difficult of attack. + +Howe had a plan which made a direct attack on Washington unnecessary. He +turned southward and occupied the east shore of the Hudson River. On the +16th of November took place the worst disaster which had yet befallen +American arms. Fort Washington, lying just south of the Harlem, was the +only point still held on Manhattan Island by the Americans. In modern +war it has become clear that fortresses supposedly strong may be only +traps for their defenders. Fort Washington stood on the east bank of the +Hudson opposite Fort Lee, on the west bank. These forts could not fulfil +the purpose for which they were intended, of stopping British ships. +Washington saw that the two forts should be abandoned. But the civilians +in Congress, who, it must be remembered, named the generals and had +final authority in directing the war, were reluctant to accept the +loss involved in abandoning the forts and gave orders that every effort +should be made to hold them. Greene, on the whole Washington's best +general, was in command of the two positions and was left to use his own +judgment. On the 15th of November, by a sudden and rapid march across +the island, Howe appeared before Fort Washington and summoned it to +surrender on pain of the rigors of war, which meant putting the garrison +to the sword should he have to take the place by storm. The answer was a +defiance; and on the next day Howe attacked in overwhelming force. There +was severe fighting. The casualties of the British were nearly five +hundred, but they took the huge fort with its three thousand defenders +and a great quantity of munitions of war. Howe's threat was not carried +out. There was no massacre. + +Across the river at Fort Lee the helpless Washington watched this great +disaster. He had need still to look out, for Fort Lee was itself doomed. +On the nineteenth Lord Cornwallis with five thousand men crossed the +river five miles above Fort Lee. General Greene barely escaped with +the two thousand men in the fort, leaving behind one hundred and forty +cannon, stores, tools, and even the men's blankets. On the twentieth the +British flag was floating over Fort Lee and Washington's whole force +was in rapid flight across New Jersey, hardly pausing until it had been +ferried over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. + +Treachery, now linked to military disaster, made Washington's position +terrible. Charles Lee, Horatio Gates, and Richard Montgomery were +three important officers of the regular British army who fought on the +American side. Montgomery had been killed at Quebec; the defects of +Gates were not yet conspicuous; and Lee was next to Washington the most +trusted American general. The names Washington and Lee of the twin forts +on opposite sides of the Hudson show how the two generals stood in the +public mind. While disaster was overtaking Washington, Lee had seven +thousand men at North Castle on the east bank of the Hudson, a few miles +above Fort Washington, blocking Howe's advance farther up the river. On +the day after the fall of Fort Washington, Lee received positive +orders to cross the Hudson at once. Three days later Fort Lee fell, and +Washington repeated the order. Lee did not budge. He was safe where +he was and could cross the river and get away into New Jersey when he +liked. He seems deliberately to have left Washington to face complete +disaster and thus prove his incompetence; then, as the undefeated +general, he could take the chief command. There is no evidence that he +had intrigued with Howe, but he thought that he could be the peacemaker +between Great Britain and America, with untold possibilities of ambition +in that rôle. He wrote of Washington at this time, to his friend Gates, +as weak and "most damnably deficient." Nemesis, however, overtook him. +In the end he had to retreat across the Hudson to northern New Jersey. +Here many of the people were Tories. Lee fell into a trap, was captured +in bed at a tavern by a hard-riding party of British cavalry, and +carried off a prisoner, obliged to bestride a horse in night gown and +slippers. Not always does fate appear so just in her strokes. + +In December, though the position of Washington was very bad, all was +not lost. The chief aim of Howe was to secure the line of the Hudson and +this he had not achieved. At Stony Point, which lies up the Hudson about +fifty miles from New York, the river narrows and passes through what is +almost a mountain gorge, easily defended. Here Washington had erected +fortifications which made it at least difficult for a British force to +pass up the river. Moreover in the highlands of northern New Jersey, +with headquarters at Morristown, General Sullivan, recently exchanged, +and General Gates now had Lee's army and also the remnants of the force +driven from Canada. But in retreating across New Jersey Washington +had been forsaken by thousands of men, beguiled in part by the Tory +population, discouraged by defeat, and in many cases with the right to +go home, since their term of service had expired. All that remained +of Washington's army after the forces of Sullivan and Gates joined him +across the Delaware in Pennsylvania, was about four thousand men. + +Howe was determined to have Philadelphia as well as New York and +could place some reliance on Tory help in Pennsylvania. He had pursued +Washington to the Delaware and would have pushed on across that river +had not his alert foe taken care that all the boats should be on the +wrong shore. As it was, Howe occupied the left bank of the Delaware with +his chief post at Trenton. If he made sure of New Jersey he could go on +to Philadelphia when the river was frozen over or indeed when he liked. +Even the Congress had fled to Baltimore. There were British successes in +other quarters. Early in December Lord Howe took the fleet to Newport. +Soon he controlled the whole of Rhode Island and checked the American +privateers who had made it their base. The brothers issued proclamations +offering protection to all who should within sixty days return to their +British allegiance and many people of high standing in New York and New +Jersey accepted the offer. Howe wrote home to England the glad news of +victory. Philadelphia would probably fall before spring and it looked as +if the war was really over. + +In this darkest hour Washington struck a blow which changed the whole +situation. We associate with him the thought of calm deliberation. +Now, however, was he to show his strongest quality as a general to be +audacity. At the Battle of the Marne, in 1914, the French General Foch +sent the despatch: "My center is giving way; my right is retreating; the +situation is excellent: I am attacking." Washington's position seemed +as nearly hopeless and he, too, had need of some striking action. A +campaign marked by his own blundering and by the treachery of a trusted +general had ended in seeming ruin. Pennsylvania at his back and New +Jersey before him across the Delaware were less than half loyal to the +American cause and probably willing to accept peace on almost any terms. +Never was a general in a position where greater risks must be taken for +salvation. As Washington pondered what was going on among the British +across the Delaware, a bold plan outlined itself in his mind. Howe, +he knew, had gone to New York to celebrate a triumphant Christmas. His +absence from the front was certain to involve slackness. It was Germans +who held the line of the Delaware, some thirteen hundred of them under +Colonel Rahl at Trenton, two thousand under Von Donop farther down the +river at Bordentown; and with Germans perhaps more than any other +people Christmas is a season of elaborate festivity. On this their first +Christmas away from home many of the Germans would be likely to be +off their guard either through homesickness or dissipation. They cared +nothing for either side. There had been much plundering in New Jersey +and discipline was relaxed. + +Howe had been guilty of the folly of making strong the posts farthest +from the enemy and weak those nearest to him. He had, indeed, ordered +Rahl to throw up redoubts for the defense of Trenton, but this, as +Washington well knew, had not been done for Rahl despised his enemy and +spoke of the American army as already lost. Washington's bold plan +was to recross the Delaware and attack Trenton. There were to be three +crossings. One was to be against Von Donop at Bordentown below Trenton, +the second at Trenton itself. These two attacks were designed to prevent +aid to Trenton. The third force with which Washington himself went was +to cross the river some nine miles above the town. + +Christmas Day, 1776, was dismally cold. There was a driving storm of +sleet and the broad swollen stream of the Delaware, dotted with dark +masses of floating ice, offered a chill prospect. To take an army with +its guns across that threatening flood was indeed perilous. Gates and +other generals declared that the scheme was too difficult to be carried +out. Only one of the three forces crossed the river. Washington, with +iron will, was not to be turned from his purpose. He had skilled boatmen +from New England. The crossing took no less than ten hours and a great +part of it was done in wintry darkness. When the army landed on the New +Jersey shore it had a march of nine miles in sleet and rain in order +to reach Trenton by daybreak. It is said that some of the men marched +barefoot leaving tracks of blood in the snow. The arms of some were lost +and those of others were wet and useless but Washington told them that +they must depend the more on the bayonet. He attacked Trenton in broad +daylight. There was a sharp fight. Rahl, the commander, and some seventy +men, were killed and a thousand men surrendered. + +Even now Washington's position was dangerous. Von Donop, with two +thousand men, lay only a few miles down the river. Had he marched at +once on Trenton, as he should have done, the worn out little force of +Washington might have met with disaster. What Von Donop did when the +alarm reached him was to retreat as fast as he could to Princeton, a +dozen miles to the rear towards New York, leaving behind his sick and +all his heavy equipment. Meanwhile Washington, knowing his danger, had +turned back across the Delaware with a prisoner for every two of his +men. When, however, he saw what Von Donop had done he returned on the +twenty-ninth to Trenton, sent out scouting parties, and roused the +country so that in every bit of forest along the road to Princeton there +were men, dead shots, to make difficult a British advance to retake +Trenton. + +The reverse had brought consternation at New York. Lord Cornwallis was +about to embark for England, the bearer of news of overwhelming victory. +Now, instead, he was sent to drive back Washington. It was no easy task +for Cornwallis to reach Trenton, for Washington's scouting parties and a +force of six hundred men under Greene were on the road to harass him. On +the evening of the 2d of January, however, he reoccupied Trenton. +This time Washington had not recrossed the Delaware but had retreated +southward and was now entrenched on the southern bank of the little +river Assanpink, which flows into the Delaware. Reinforcements were +following Cornwallis. That night he sharply cannonaded Washington's +position and was as sharply answered. He intended to attack in force +in the morning. To the skill and resource of Washington he paid the +compliment of saying that at last he had run down the "Old Fox." + +Then followed a maneuver which, years after, Cornwallis, a generous +foe, told Washington was one of the most surprising and brilliant in +the history of war. There was another "old fox" in Europe, Frederick the +Great, of Prussia, who knew war if ever man knew it, and he, too, from +this movement ranked Washington among the great generals. The maneuver +was simple enough. Instead of taking the obvious course of again +retreating across the Delaware Washington decided to advance, to get +in behind Cornwallis, to try to cut his communications, to threaten the +British base of supply and then, if a superior force came up, to retreat +into the highlands of New Jersey. There he could keep an unbroken +line as far east as the Hudson, menace the British in New Jersey, and +probably force them to withdraw to the safety of New York. + +All through the night of January 2, 1777, Washington's camp fires burned +brightly and the British outposts could hear the sound of voices and of +the spade and pickaxe busy in throwing up entrenchments. The fires +died down towards morning and the British awoke to find the enemy camp +deserted. Washington had carried his whole army by a roundabout route to +the Princeton road and now stood between Cornwallis and his base. There +was some sharp fighting that day near Princeton. Washington had to +defeat and get past the reinforcements coming to Cornwallis. He reached +Princeton and then slipped away northward and made his headquarters at +Morristown. He had achieved his purpose. The British with Washington +entrenched on their flank were not safe in New Jersey. The only thing +to do was to withdraw to New York. By his brilliant advance Washington +recovered the whole of New Jersey with the exception of some minor +positions near the sea. He had changed the face of the war. In London +there was momentary rejoicing over Howe's recent victories, but it was +soon followed by distressing news of defeat. Through all the colonies +ran inspiring tidings. There had been doubts whether, after all, +Washington was the heaven-sent leader. Now both America and Europe +learned to recognize his skill. He had won a reputation, though not yet +had he saved a cause. + + + +CHAPTER V. THE LOSS OF PHILADELPHIA + + +Though the outlook for Washington was brightened by his success in New +Jersey, it was still depressing enough. The British had taken New York, +they could probably take Philadelphia when they liked, and no place +near the seacoast was safe. According to the votes in Parliament, by the +spring of 1777 Britain was to have an army of eighty-nine thousand men, +of whom fifty-seven thousand were intended for colonial garrisons and +for the prosecution of the war in America. These numbers were in fact +never reached, but the army of forty thousand in America was formidable +compared with Washington's forces. The British were not hampered by the +practice of enlisting men for only a few months, which marred so much of +Washington's effort. Above all they had money and adequate resources. +In a word they had the things which Washington lacked during almost the +whole of the war. + +Washington called his success in the attack at Trenton a lucky stroke. +It was luck which had far-reaching consequences. Howe had the fixed idea +that to follow the capture of New York by that of Philadelphia, the most +populous city in America, and the seat of Congress, would mean great +glory for himself and a crushing blow to the American cause. If to this +could be added, as he intended, the occupation of the whole valley of +the Hudson, the year 1777 might well see the end of the war. An acute +sense of the value of time is vital in war. Promptness, the quick +surprise of the enemy, was perhaps the chief military virtue of +Washington; dilatoriness was the destructive vice of Howe. He had so +little contempt for his foe that he practised a blighting caution. On +April 12, 1777, Washington, in view of his own depleted force, in a +state of half famine, wrote: "If Howe does not take advantage of our +weak state he is very unfit for his trust." Howe remained inactive and +time, thus despised, worked its due revenge. Later Howe did move, and +with skill, but he missed the rapid combination in action which was the +first condition of final success. He could have captured Philadelphia +in May. He took the city, but not until September, when to hold it had +become a liability and not an asset. To go there at all was perhaps +unwise; to go in September was for him a tragic mistake. + +From New York to Philadelphia the distance by land is about a hundred +miles. The route lay across New Jersey, that "garden of America" which +English travelers spoke of as resembling their own highly cultivated +land. Washington had his headquarters at Morristown, in northern New +Jersey. His resources were at a low ebb. He had always the faith that +a cause founded on justice could not fail; but his letters at this time +are full of depressing anxiety. Each State regarded itself as in danger +and made care of its own interests its chief concern. By this time +Congress had lost most of the able men who had given it dignity and +authority. Like Howe it had slight sense of the value of time and +imagined that tomorrow was as good as today. Wellington once complained +that, though in supreme command, he had not authority to appoint even +a corporal. Washington was hampered both by Congress and by the State +Governments in choosing leaders. He had some officers, such as Greene, +Knox, and Benedict Arnold, whom he trusted. Others, like Gates and +Conway, were ceaseless intriguers. To General Sullivan, who fancied +himself constantly slighted and ill-treated, Washington wrote sharply to +abolish his poisonous suspicions. + +Howe had offered easy terms to those in New Jersey who should declare +their loyalty and to meet this Washington advised the stern policy of +outlawing every one who would not take the oath of allegiance to the +United States. There was much fluttering of heart on the New Jersey +farms, much anxious trimming in order, in any event, to be safe. Howe's +Hessians had plundered ruthlessly causing deep resentment against the +British. Now Washington found his own people doing the same thing. +Militia officers, themselves, "generally" as he said, "of the lowest +class of the people," not only stole but incited their men to steal. It +was easy to plunder under the plea that the owner of the property was a +Tory, whether open or concealed, and Washington wrote that the waste +and theft were "beyond all conception." There were shirkers claiming +exemption from military service on the ground that they were doing +necessary service as civilians. Washington needed maps to plan his +intricate movements and could not get them. Smallpox was devastating his +army and causing losses heavier than those from the enemy. When pay day +came there was usually no money. It is little wonder that in this spring +of 1777 he feared that his army might suddenly dissolve and leave him +without a command. In that case he would not have yielded. Rather, so +stern and bitter was he against England, would he have plunged into the +western wilderness to be lost in its vast spaces. + +Howe had his own perplexities. He knew that a great expedition under +Burgoyne was to advance from Canada southward to the Hudson. Was he to +remain with his whole force at New York until the time should come to +push up the river to meet Burgoyne? He had a copy of the instructions +given in England to Burgoyne by Lord George Germain, but he was himself +without orders. Afterwards the reason became known. Lord George Germain +had dictated the order to coöperate with Burgoyne, but had hurried off +to the country before it was ready for his signature and it had been +mislaid. Howe seemed free to make his own plans and he longed to +be master of the enemy's capital. In the end he decided to take +Philadelphia--a task easy enough, as the event proved. At Howe's elbow +was the traitorous American general, Charles Lee, whom he had recently +captured, and Lee, as we know, told him that Maryland and Pennsylvania +were at heart loyal to the King and panting to be free from the tyranny +of the demagogue. Once firmly in the capital Howe believed that he would +have secure control of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He could +achieve this and be back at New York in time to meet Burgoyne, perhaps +at Albany. Then he would hold the colony of New York from Staten Island +to the Canadian frontier. Howe found that he could send ships up the +Hudson, and the American army had to stand on the banks almost helpless +against the mobility of sea power. Washington's left wing rested on +the Hudson and he held both banks but neither at Peekskill nor, as yet, +farther up at West Point, could his forts prevent the passage of ships. +It was a different matter for the British to advance on land. But the +ships went up and down in the spring of 1777. It would be easy enough to +help Burgoyne when the time should come. + +It was summer before Howe was ready to move, and by that time he had +received instructions that his first aim must be to coöperate with +Burgoyne. First, however, he was resolved to have Philadelphia. +Washington watched Howe in perplexity. A great fleet and a great army +lay at New York. Why did they not move? Washington knew perfectly well +what he himself would have done in Howe's place. He would have attacked +rapidly in April the weak American army and, after destroying or +dispersing it, would have turned to meet Burgoyne coming southward from +Canada. Howe did send a strong force into New Jersey. But he did not +know how weak Washington really was, for that master of craft in war +disseminated with great skill false information as to his own supposed +overwhelming strength. Howe had been bitten once by advancing too far +into New Jersey and was not going to take risks. He tried to entice +Washington from the hills to attack in open country. He marched here and +there in New Jersey and kept Washington alarmed and exhausted by counter +marches, and always puzzled as to what the next move should be. Howe +purposely let one of his secret messengers be taken bearing a despatch +saying that the fleet was about to sail for Boston. All these things +took time and the summer was slipping away. In the end Washington +realized that Howe intended to make his move not by land but by sea. +Could it be possible that he was not going to make aid to Burgoyne his +chief purpose? Could it be that he would attack Boston? Washington +hoped so for he knew the reception certain at Boston. Or was his goal +Charleston? On the 23d of July, when the summer was more than half gone, +Washington began to see more clearly. On that day Howe had embarked +eighteen thousand men and the fleet put to sea from Staten Island. + +Howe was doing what able officers with him, such as Cornwallis, Grey, +and the German Knyphausen, appear to have been unanimous in thinking +he should not do. He was misled not only by the desire to strike at +the very center of the rebellion, but also by the assurance of the +traitorous Lee that to take Philadelphia would be the effective signal +to all the American Loyalists, the overwhelming majority of the people, +as was believed, that sedition had failed. A tender parent, the King, +was ready to have the colonies back in their former relation and to give +them secure guarantees of future liberty. Any one who saw the fleet +put out from New York Harbor must have been impressed with the might of +Britain. No less than two hundred and twenty-nine ships set their sails +and covered the sea for miles. When they had disappeared out of sight +of the New Jersey shore their goal was still unknown. At sea they might +turn in any direction. Washington's uncertainty was partly relieved on +the 30th of July when the fleet appeared at the entrance of Delaware +Bay, with Philadelphia some hundred miles away across the bay and up the +Delaware River. After hovering about the Cape for a day the fleet again +put to sea, and Washington, who had marched his army so as to be near +Philadelphia, thought the whole movement a feint and knew not where the +fleet would next appear. He was preparing to march to New York to menace +General Clinton, who had there seven thousand men able to help Burgoyne +when he heard good news. On the 22d of August he knew that Howe +had really gone southward and was in Chesapeake Bay. Boston was now +certainly safe. On the 25th of August, after three stormy weeks at sea, +Howe arrived at Elkton, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, and there landed +his army. It was Philadelphia fifty miles away that he intended to have. +Washington wrote gleefully: "Now let all New England turn out and +crush Burgoyne." Before the end of September he was writing that he was +certain of complete disaster to Burgoyne. + +Howe had, in truth, made a ruinous mistake. Had the date been May +instead of August he might still have saved Burgoyne. But at the end +of August, when the net was closing on Burgoyne, Howe was three hundred +miles away. His disregard of time and distance had been magnificent. In +July he had sailed to the mouth of the Delaware, with Philadelphia near, +but he had then sailed away again, and why? Because the passage of his +ships up the river to the city was blocked by obstructions commanded by +bristling forts. The naval officers said truly that the fleet could not +get up the river. But Howe might have landed his army at the head of +Delaware Bay. It is a dozen miles across the narrow peninsula from the +head of Delaware Bay to that of Chesapeake Bay. Since Howe had decided +to attack from the head of Chesapeake Bay there was little to prevent +him from landing his army on the Delaware side of the peninsula and +marching across it. By sea it is a voyage of three hundred miles round +a peninsula one hundred and fifty miles long to get from one of these +points to the other, by land only a dozen miles away. Howe made the +sea voyage and spent on it three weeks when a march of a day would have +saved this time and kept his fleet three hundred miles by sea nearer to +New York and aid for Burgoyne. + +Howe's mistakes only have their place in the procession to inevitable +disaster. Once in the thick of fighting he showed himself formidable. +When he had landed at Elkton he was fifty miles southwest of +Philadelphia and between him and that place was Washington with his +army. Washington was determined to delay Howe in every possible way. +To get to Philadelphia Howe had to cross the Brandywine River. Time was +nothing to him. He landed at Elkton on the 25th of August. Not until the +10th of September was he prepared to attack Washington barring his way +at Chadd's Ford. Washington was in a strong position on a front of two +miles on the river. At his left, below Chadd's Ford, the Brandywine is +a torrent flowing between high cliffs. There the British would find no +passage. On his right was a forest. Washington had chosen his position +with his usual skill. Entrenchments protected his front and batteries +would sweep down an advancing enemy. He had probably not more than +eleven thousand men in the fight and it is doubtful whether Howe brought +up a greater number so that the armies were not unevenly matched. At +daybreak on the eleventh the British army broke camp at the village +of Kenneth Square, four miles from Chadd's Ford, and, under General +Knyphausen, marched straight to make a frontal attack on Washington's +position. + +In the battle which followed Washington was beaten by the superior +tactics of his enemy. Not all of the British army was there in the +attack at Chadd's Ford. A column under Cornwallis had filed off by a +road to the left and was making a long and rapid march. The plan was to +cross the Brandywine some ten miles above where Washington was +posted and to attack him in the rear. By two o'clock in the afternoon +Cornwallis had forced the two branches of the upper Brandywine and was +marching on Dilworth at the right rear of the American army. Only then +did Washington become aware of his danger. His first impulse was to +advance across Chadd's Ford to try to overwhelm Knyphausen and thus +to get between Howe and the fleet at Elkton. This might, however, have +brought disaster and he soon decided to retire. His movement was ably +carried out. Both sides suffered in the woodland fighting but that night +the British army encamped in Washington's position at Chadd's Ford, and +Howe had fought skillfully and won an important battle. + +Washington had retired in good order and was still formidable. He now +realized clearly enough that Philadelphia would fall. Delay, however, +would be nearly as good as victory. He saw what Howe could not see, that +menacing cloud in the north, much bigger than a man's hand, which, with +Howe far away, should break in a final storm terrible for the British +cause. Meanwhile Washington meant to keep Howe occupied. Rain alone +prevented another battle before the British reached the Schuylkill +River. On that river Washington guarded every ford. But, in the end, +by skillful maneuvering, Howe was able to cross and on the 26th of +September he occupied Philadelphia without resistance. The people were +ordered to remain quietly in their houses. Officers were billeted on the +wealthier inhabitants. The fall resounded far of what Lord Adam Gordon +called a "great and noble city," "the first Town in America," "one of +the Wonders of the World." Its luxury had been so conspicuous that the +austere John Adams condemned the "sinful feasts" in which he shared. +About it were fine country seats surrounded by parklike grounds, with +noble trees, clipped hedges, and beautiful gardens. The British believed +that Pennsylvania was really on their side. Many of the people were +friendly and hundreds now renewed their oath of allegiance to the King. +Washington complained that the people gave Howe information denied to +him. They certainly fed Howe's army willingly and received good British +gold while Washington had only paper money with which to pay. Over the +proud capital floated once more the British flag and people who did not +see very far said that, with both New York and Philadelphia taken, the +rebellion had at last collapsed. + +Once in possession of Philadelphia Howe made his camp at Germantown, a +straggling suburban village, about seven miles northwest of the city. +Washington's army lay at the foot of some hills a dozen miles farther +away. Howe had need to be wary, for Washington was the same "old fox" +who had played so cunning a game at Trenton. The efforts of the British +army were now centered on clearing the river Delaware so that supplies +might be brought up rapidly by water instead of being carried fifty +miles overland from Chesapeake Bay. Howe detached some thousands of men +for this work and there was sharp fighting before the troops and the +fleet combined had cleared the river. At Germantown Howe kept about nine +thousand men. Though he knew that Washington was likely to attack him he +did not entrench his army as he desired the attack to be made. It might +well have succeeded. Washington with eleven thousand men aimed at a +surprise. On the evening of the 3d of October he set out from his camp. +Four roads led into Germantown and all these the Americans used. +At sunrise on the fourth, just as the attack began, a fog arose to +embarrass both sides. Lying a little north of the village was the solid +stone house of Chief Justice Chew, and it remains famous as the central +point in the bitter fight of that day. What brought final failure to the +American attack was an accident of maneuvering. Sullivan's brigade +was in front attacking the British when Greene's came up for the same +purpose. His line overlapped Sullivan's and he mistook in the fog +Sullivan's men for the enemy and fired on them from the rear. A panic +naturally resulted among the men who were attacked also at the same +time by the British on their front. The disorder spread. British +reinforcements arrived, and Washington drew off his army in surprising +order considering the panic. He had six hundred and seventy-three +casualties and lost besides four hundred prisoners. The British loss +was five hundred and thirty-seven casualties and fourteen prisoners. +The attack had failed, but news soon came which made the reverse +unimportant. Burgoyne and his whole army had surrendered at Saratoga. + + +CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST GREAT BRITISH DISASTER + + +John Burgoyne, in a measure a soldier of fortune, was the younger son of +an impoverished baronet, but he had married the daughter of the powerful +Earl of Derby and was well known in London society as a man of fashion +and also as a man of letters, whose plays had a certain vogue. His will, +in which he describes himself as a humble Christian, who, in spite of +many faults, had never forgotten God, shows that he was serious minded. +He sat in the House of Commons for Preston and, though he used the +language of a courtier and spoke of himself as lying at the King's feet +to await his commands, he was a Whig, the friend of Fox and others +whom the King regarded as his enemies. One of his plays describes the +difficulties of getting the English to join the army of George III. We +have the smartly dressed recruit as a decoy to suggest an easy life in +the army. Victory and glory are so certain that a tailor stands with his +feet on the neck of the King of France. The decks of captured ships swim +with punch and are clotted with gold dust, and happy soldiers play +with diamonds as if they were marbles. The senators of England, says +Burgoyne, care chiefly to make sure of good game laws for their own +pleasure. The worthless son of one of them, who sets out on the long +drive to his father's seat in the country, spends an hour in "yawning, +picking his teeth and damning his journey" and when once on the way +drives with such fury that the route is marked by "yelping dogs, +broken-backed pigs and dismembered geese." + +It was under this playwright and satirist, who had some skill as a +soldier, that the British cause now received a blow from which it never +recovered. Burgoyne had taken part in driving the Americans from +Canada in 1776 and had spent the following winter in England using his +influence to secure an independent command. To his later undoing he +succeeded. It was he, and not, as had been expected, General Carleton, +who was appointed to lead the expedition of 1777 from Canada to the +Hudson. Burgoyne was given instructions so rigid as to be an insult to +his intelligence. He was to do one thing and only one thing, to press +forward to the Hudson and meet Howe. At the same time Lord George +Germain, the minister responsible, failed to instruct Howe to advance up +the Hudson to meet Burgoyne. Burgoyne had a genuine belief in the +wisdom of this strategy but he had no power to vary it, to meet changing +circumstances, and this was one chief factor in his failure. + +Behold Burgoyne then, on the 17th of June, embarking on Lake Champlain +the army which, ever since his arrival in Canada on the 6th of May, +he had been preparing for this advance. He had rather more than seven +thousand men, of whom nearly one-half were Germans under the competent +General Riedesel. In the force of Burgoyne we find the ominous presence +of some hundreds of Indian allies. They had been attached to one side or +the other in every war fought in those regions during the previous one +hundred and fifty years. In the war which ended in 1763 Montcalm had +used them and so had his opponent Amherst. The regiments from the New +England and other colonies had fought in alliance with the painted +and befeathered savages and had made no protest. Now either times had +changed, or there was something in a civil war which made the use of +savages seem hideous. One thing is certain. Amherst had held his savages +in stern restraint and could say proudly that they had not committed a +single outrage. Burgoyne was not so happy. + +In nearly every war the professional soldier shows distrust, if not +contempt, for civilian levies. Burgoyne had been in America before the +day of Bunker Hill and knew a great deal about the country. He thought +the "insurgents" good enough fighters when protected by trees and stones +and swampy ground. But he thought, too, that they had no real knowledge +of the science of war and could not fight a pitched battle. He himself +had not shown the prevision required by sound military knowledge. If the +British were going to abandon the advantage of sea power and fight where +they could not fall back on their fleet, they needed to pay special +attention to land transport. This Burgoyne had not done. It was only a +little more than a week before he reached Lake Champlain that he asked +Carleton to provide the four hundred horses and five hundred carts which +he still needed and which were not easily secured in a sparsely settled +country. Burgoyne lingered for three days at Crown Point, half way down +the lake. Then, on the 2d of July, he laid siege to Fort Ticonderoga. +Once past this fort, guarding the route to Lake George, he could easily +reach the Hudson. + +In command at Fort Ticonderoga was General St. Clair, with about +thirty-five hundred men. He had long notice of the siege, for the +expedition of Burgoyne had been the open talk of Montreal and the +surrounding country during many months. He had built Fort Independence, +on the east shore of Lake Champlain, and with a great expenditure of +labor had sunk twenty-two piers across the lake and stretched in front +of them a boom to protect the two forts. But he had neglected to defend +Sugar Hill in front of Fort Ticonderoga, and commanding the American +works. It took only three or four days for the British to drag cannon to +the top, erect a battery and prepare to open fire. On the 5th of July, +St. Clair had to face a bitter necessity. He abandoned the untenable +forts and retired southward to Fort Edward by way of the difficult Green +Mountains. The British took one hundred and twenty-eight guns. + +These successes led the British to think that within a few days they +would be in Albany. We have an amusing picture of the effect on George +III of the fall of Fort Ticonderoga. The place had been much discussed. +It had been the first British fort to fall to the Americans when the +Revolution began, and Carleton's failure to take it in the autumn of +1776 had been the cause of acute heartburning in London. Now, when the +news of its fall reached England, George III burst into the Queen's +room with the glad cry, "I have beat them, I have beat the Americans." +Washington's depression was not as great as the King's elation; he had +a better sense of values; but he had intended that the fort should hold +Burgoyne, and its fall was a disastrous blow. The Americans showed skill +and good soldierly quality in the retreat from Ticonderoga, and Burgoyne +in following and harassing them was led into hard fighting in the woods. +The easier route by way of Lake George was open but Burgoyne hoped to +destroy his enemy by direct pursuit through the forest. It took him +twenty days to hew his way twenty miles, to the upper waters of +the Hudson near Fort Edward. When there on the 30th of July he had +communications open from the Hudson to the St. Lawrence. + +Fortune seemed to smile on Burgoyne. He had taken many guns and he had +proved the fighting quality of his men. But his cheerful elation had, in +truth, no sound basis. Never during the two and a half months of bitter +struggle which followed was he able to advance more than twenty-five +miles from Fort Edward. The moment he needed transport by land he +found himself almost helpless. Sometimes his men were without food and +equipment because he had not the horses and carts to bring supplies from +the head of water at Fort Anne or Fort George, a score of miles +away. Sometimes he had no food to transport. He was dependent on his +communications for every form of supplies. Even hay had to be brought +from Canada, since, in the forest country, there was little food for his +horses. The perennial problem for the British in all operations was this +one of food. The inland regions were too sparsely populated to make it +possible for more than a few soldiers to live on local supplies. The +wheat for the bread of the British soldier, his beef and his pork, even +the oats for his horse, came, for the most part, from England, at vast +expense for transport, which made fortunes for contractors. It is said +that the cost of a pound of salted meat delivered to Burgoyne on the +Hudson was thirty shillings. Burgoyne had been told that the inhabitants +needed only protection to make them openly loyal and had counted on them +for supplies. He found instead the great mass of the people hostile and +he doubted the sincerity even of those who professed their loyalty. + +After Burgoyne had been a month at Fort Edward he was face to face with +starvation. If he advanced he lengthened his line to flank attack. As +it was he had difficulty in holding it against New Englanders, the most +resolute of all his foes, eager to assert by hard fighting, if need be, +their right to hold the invaded territory which was claimed also by New +York. Burgoyne's instructions forbade him to turn aside and strike them +a heavy blow. He must go on to meet Howe who was not there to be met. +A being who could see the movements of men as we watch a game of chess, +might think that madness had seized the British leaders; Burgoyne on +the upper Hudson plunging forward resolutely to meet Howe; Howe at sea +sailing away, as it might well seem, to get as far from Burgoyne as he +could; Clinton in command at New York without instructions, puzzled what +to do and not hearing from his leader, Howe, for six weeks at a time; +and across the sea a complacent minister, Germain, who believed that he +knew what to do in a scene three thousand miles away, and had drawn up +exact instructions as to the way of doing it, and who was now eagerly +awaiting news of the final triumph. + +Burgoyne did his best. Early in August he had to make a venturesome +stroke to get sorely needed food. Some twenty-five miles east of the +Hudson at Bennington, in difficult country, New England militia had +gathered food and munitions, and horses for transport. The pressure of +need clouded Burgoyne's judgment. To make a dash for Bennington meant a +long and dangerous march. He was assured, however, that a surprise +was possible and that in any case the country was full of friends only +awaiting a little encouragement to come out openly on his side. They +were Germans who lay on Burgoyne's left and Burgoyne sent Colonel Baum, +an efficient officer, with five or six hundred men to attack the New +Englanders and bring in the supplies. It was a stupid blunder to send +Germans among a people specially incensed against the use of these +mercenaries. There was no surprise. Many professing loyalists, seemingly +eager to take the oath of allegiance, met and delayed Baum. When near +Bennington he found in front of him a force barring the way and had to +make a carefully guarded camp for the night. Then five hundred men, some +of them the cheerful takers of the oath of allegiance, slipped round to +his rear and in the morning he was attacked from front and rear. + +A hot fight followed which resulted in the complete defeat of the +British. Baum was mortally wounded. Some of his men escaped into the +woods; the rest were killed or captured. Nor was this all. Burgoyne, +scenting danger, had ordered five hundred more Germans to reinforce +Baum. They, too, were attacked and overwhelmed. In all Burgoyne lost +some eight hundred men and four guns. The American loss was seventy. +It shows the spirit of the time that, for the sport of the soldiers, +British prisoners were tied together in pairs and driven by negroes +at the tail of horses. An American soldier described long after, with +regret for his own cruelty, how he had taken a British prisoner who had +had his left eye shot out and mounted him on a horse also without +the left eye, in derision at the captive's misfortune. The British +complained that quarter was refused in the fight. For days tired +stragglers, after long wandering in the woods, drifted into Burgoyne's +camp. This was now near Saratoga, a name destined to be ominous in the +history of the British army. + +Further misfortune now crowded upon Burgoyne. The general of that day +had two favorite forms of attack. One was to hold the enemy's front and +throw out a column to march round the flank and attack his rear, the +method of Howe at the Brandywine; the other method was to advance on the +enemy by lines converging at a common center. This form of attack had +proved most successful eighteen years earlier when the British had +finally secured Canada by bringing together, at Montreal, three armies, +one from the east, one from the west, and one from the south. Now there +was a similar plan of bringing together three British forces at or near +Albany, on the Hudson. Of Clinton, at New York, and Burgoyne we know. +The third force was under General St. Leger. With some seventeen hundred +men, fully half of whom were Indians, he had gone up the St. Lawrence +from Montreal and was advancing from Oswego on Lake Ontario to attack +Fort Stanwix at the end of the road from the Great Lakes to the Mohawk +River. After taking that stronghold he intended to go down the river +valley to meet Burgoyne near Albany. + +On the 3d of August St. Leger was before Fort Stanwix garrisoned by some +seven hundred Americans. With him were two men deemed potent in that +scene. One of these was Sir John Johnson who had recently inherited +the vast estate in the neighborhood of his father, the great Indian +Superintendent, Sir William Johnson, and was now in command of a +regiment recruited from Loyalists, many of them fierce and embittered +because of the seizure of their property. The other leader was a famous +chief of the Mohawks, Thayendanegea, or, to give him his English name, +Joseph Brant, half savage still, but also half civilized and half +educated, because he had had a careful schooling and for a brief day had +been courted by London fashion. He exerted a formidable influence with +his own people. The Indians were not, however, all on one side. Half of +the six tribes of the Iroquois were either neutral or in sympathy with +the Americans. Among the savages, as among the civilized, the war was a +family quarrel, in which brother fought brother. Most of the Indians on +the American side preserved, indeed, an outward neutrality. There was +no hostile population for them to plunder and the Indian usually had no +stomach for any other kind of warfare. The allies of the British, on the +other hand, had plenty of openings to their taste and they brought on +the British cause an enduring discredit. + +When St. Leger was before Fort Stanwix he heard that a force of eight +hundred men, led by a German settler named Herkimer, was coming up +against him. When it was at Oriskany, about six miles away, St. Leger +laid a trap. He sent Brant with some hundreds of Indians and a few +soldiers to be concealed in a marshy ravine which Herkimer must cross. +When the American force was hemmed in by trees and marsh on the narrow +causeway of logs running across the ravine the Indians attacked with +wild yells and murderous fire. Then followed a bloody hand to hand +fight. Tradition has been busy with its horrors. Men struggled in slime +and blood and shouted curses and defiance. Improbable stories are told +of pairs of skeletons found afterwards in the bog each with a bony +hand which had driven a knife to the heart of the other. In the end the +British, met by resolution so fierce, drew back. Meanwhile a sortie +from the American fort on their rear had a menacing success. Sir John +Johnson's camp was taken and sacked. The two sides were at last glad to +separate, after the most bloody struggle in the whole war. St. Leger's +Indians had had more than enough. About a hundred had been killed and +the rest were in a state of mutiny. Soon it was known that Benedict +Arnold, with a considerable force, was pushing up the Mohawk Valley to +relieve the American fort. Arnold knew how to deal with savages. He took +care that his friendly Indians should come into contact with those of +Brant and tell lurid tales of utter disaster to Burgoyne and of a great +avenging army on the march to attack St. Leger. The result was that St. +Leger's Indians broke out in riot and maddened themselves with stolen +rum. Disorder affected even the soldiers. The only thing for St. Leger +to do was to get away. He abandoned his guns and stores and, harassed +now by his former Indian allies, made his way to Oswego and in the end +reached Montreal with a remnant of his force. + +News of these things came to Burgoyne just after the disaster at +Bennington. Since Fort Stanwix was in a country counted upon as Loyalist +at heart it was especially discouraging again to find that in the main +the population was against the British. During the war almost without +exception Loyalist opinion proved weak against the fierce determination +of the American side. It was partly a matter of organization. The +vigilance committees in each State made life well-nigh intolerable to +suspected Tories. Above all, however, the British had to bear the odium +which attaches always to the invader. We do not know what an American +army would have done if, with Iroquois savages as allies, it had made +war in an English county. We know what loathing a parallel situation +aroused against the British army in America. The Indians, it should be +noted, were not soldiers under British discipline but allies; the chiefs +regarded themselves as equals who must be consulted and not as enlisted +to take orders from a British general. + +In war, as in politics, nice balancing of merit or defect in an enemy +would destroy the main purpose which is to defeat him. Each side +exaggerates any weak point in the other in order to stimulate the +fighting passions. Judgment is distorted. The Baroness Riedesel, the +wife of one of Burgoyne's generals, who was in Boston in 1777, says that +the people were all dressed alike in a peasant costume with a leather +strap round the waist, that they were of very low and insignificant +stature, and that only one in ten of them could read or write. She +pictures New Englanders as tarring and feathering cultivated English +ladies. When educated people believed every evil of the enemy the +ignorant had no restraint to their credulity. New England had long +regarded the native savages as a pest. In 1776 New Hampshire offered +seventy pounds for each scalp of a hostile male Indian and thirty-seven +pounds and ten shillings for each scalp of a woman or of a child under +twelve years of age. Now it was reported that the British were offering +bounties for American scalps. Benjamin Franklin satirized British +ignorance when he described whales leaping Niagara Falls and he did not +expect to be taken seriously when, at a later date, he pictured George +III as gloating over the scalps of his subjects in America. The Seneca +Indians alone, wrote Franklin, sent to the King many bales of scalps. +Some bales were captured by the Americans and they found the scalps of +43 soldiers, 297 farmers, some of them burned alive, and 67 old people, +88 women, 193 boys, 211 girls, 29 infants, and others unclassified. +Exact figures bring conviction. Franklin was not wanting in exactness +nor did he fail, albeit it was unwittingly, to intensify burning +resentment of which we have echoes still. Burgoyne had to bear the odium +of the outrages by Indians. It is amusing to us, though it was hardly so +to this kindly man, to find these words put into his mouth by a colonial +poet: + + I will let loose the dogs of Hell, + Ten thousand Indians who shall yell, + And foam, and tear, and grin, and roar + And drench their moccasins in gore:… + I swear, by St. George and St. Paul, + I will exterminate you all. + +Such seed, falling on soil prepared by the hate of war, brought forth +its deadly fruit. The Americans believed that there was no brutality +from which British officers would shrink. Burgoyne had told his Indian +allies that they must not kill except in actual fighting and that there +must be no slaughter of non-combatants and no scalping of any but the +dead. The warning delivered him into the hands of his enemies for it +showed that he half expected outrage. Members of the British House of +Commons were no whit behind the Americans in attacking him. Burke amused +the House by his satire on Burgoyne's words: "My gentle lions, my humane +bears, my tender-hearted hyenas, go forth! But I exhort you, as you are +Christians and members of civilized society, to take care not to hurt +any man, woman, or child." Burke's great speech lasted for three and +a half hours and Sir George Savile called it "the greatest triumph of +eloquence within memory." British officers disliked their dirty, greasy, +noisy allies and Burgoyne found his use of savages, with the futile +order to be merciful, a potent factor in his defeat. + +A horrifying incident had occurred while he was fighting his way to +the Hudson. As the Americans were preparing to leave Fort Edward some +marauding Indians saw a chance of plunder and outrage. They burst into a +house and carried off two ladies, both of them British in sympathy--Mrs. +McNeil, a cousin of one of Burgoyne's chief officers, General Fraser, +and Miss Jeannie McCrae, whose betrothed, a Mr. Jones, and whose brother +were serving with Burgoyne. In a short time Mrs. McNeil was handed over +unhurt to Burgoyne's advancing army. Miss McCrae was never again seen +alive by her friends. Her body was found and a Wyandot chief, known as +the Panther, showed her scalp as a trophy. Burgoyne would have been a +poor creature had he not shown anger at such a crime, even if committed +against the enemy. This crime, however, was committed against his own +friends. He pressed the charge against the chief and was prepared to +hang him and only relaxed when it was urged that the execution would +cause all his Indians to leave him and to commit further outrages. The +incident was appealing in its tragedy and stirred the deep anger of the +population of the surrounding country among whose descendants to this +day the tradition of the abandoned brutality of the British keeps alive +the old hatred. + +At Fort Edward Burgoyne now found that he could hardly move. He was +encumbered by an enormous baggage train. His own effects filled, it is +said, thirty wagons and this we can believe when we find that champagne +was served at his table up almost to the day of final disaster. The +population was thoroughly aroused against him. His own instinct was +to remain near the water route to Canada and make sure of his +communications. On the other hand, honor called him to go forward and +not fail Howe, supposed to be advancing to meet him. For a long time he +waited and hesitated. Meanwhile he was having increasing difficulty in +feeding his army and through sickness and desertion his numbers were +declining. By the 13th of September he had taken a decisive step. He +made a bridge of boats and moved his whole force across the river to +Saratoga, now Schuylerville. This crossing of the river would result +inevitably in cutting off his communications with Lake George and +Ticonderoga. After such a step he could not go back and he was moving +forward into a dark unknown. The American camp was at Stillwater, twelve +miles farther down the river. Burgoyne sent messenger after messenger +to get past the American lines and bring back news of Howe. Not one +of these unfortunate spies returned. Most of them were caught and +ignominiously hanged. One thing, however, Burgoyne could do. He could +hazard a fight and on this he decided as the autumn was closing in. + +Burgoyne had no time to lose, once his force was on the west bank of the +Hudson. General Lincoln cut off his communications with Canada and was +soon laying siege to Ticonderoga. The American army facing Burgoyne was +now commanded by General Gates. This Englishman, the godson of Horace +Walpole, had gained by successful intrigue powerful support in Congress. +That body was always paying too much heed to local claims and jealousies +and on the 2d of August it removed Schuyler of New York because he was +disliked by the soldiers from New England and gave the command to Gates. +Washington was far away maneuvering to meet Howe and he was never able +to watch closely the campaign in the north. Gates, indeed, +considered himself independent of Washington and reported not to the +Commander-in-Chief but direct to Congress. On the 19th of September +Burgoyne attacked Gates in a strong entrenched position on Bemis +Heights, at Stillwater. There was a long and bitter fight, but by +evening Burgoyne had not carried the main position and had lost more +than five hundred men whom he could ill spare from his scanty numbers. + +Burgoyne's condition was now growing desperate. American forces barred +retreat to Canada. He must go back and meet both frontal and flank +attacks, or go forward, or surrender. To go forward now had most +promise, for at last Howe had instructed Clinton, left in command at New +York, to move, and Clinton was making rapid progress up the Hudson. On +the 7th of October Burgoyne attacked again at Stillwater. This time he +was decisively defeated, a result due to the amazing energy in attack +of Benedict Arnold, who had been stripped of his command by an intrigue. +Gates would not even speak to him and his lingering in the American camp +was unwelcome. Yet as a volunteer Arnold charged the British line madly +and broke it. Burgoyne's best general, Fraser, was killed in the fight. +Burgoyne retired to Saratoga and there at last faced the prospects of +getting back to Fort Edward and to Canada. It may be that he could have +cut his way through, but this is doubtful. Without risk of destruction +he could not move in any direction. His enemies now outnumbered him +nearly four to one. His camp was swept by the American guns and his +men were under arms night and day. American sharpshooters stationed +themselves at daybreak in trees about the British camp and any one +who appeared in the open risked his life. If a cap was held up in view +instantly two or three balls would pass through it. His horses were +killed by rifle shots. Burgoyne had little food for his men and none for +his horses. His Indians had long since gone off in dudgeon. Many of +his Canadian French slipped off homeward and so did the Loyalists. The +German troops were naturally dispirited. A British officer tells of the +deadly homesickness of these poor men. They would gather in groups of +two dozen or so and mourn that they would never again see their native +land. They died, a score at a time, of no other disease than sickness +for their homes. They could have no pride in trying to save a lost +cause. Burgoyne was surrounded and, on the 17th of October, he was +obliged to surrender. + +Gates proposed to Burgoyne hard terms--surrender with no honors of war. +The British were to lay down their arms in their encampments and to +march out without weapons of any kind. Burgoyne declared that, rather +than accept such terms, he would fight still and take no quarter. A +shadow was falling on the path of Gates. The term of service of some of +his men had expired. The New Englanders were determined to stay and see +the end of Burgoyne but a good many of the New York troops went off. +Sickness, too, was increasing. Above all General Clinton was advancing +up the Hudson. British ships could come up freely as far as Albany and +in a few days Clinton might make a formidable advance. Gates, a timid +man, was in a hurry. He therefore agreed that the British should march +from their camp with the honors of war, that the troops should be taken +to New England, and from there to England. They must not serve again +in North America during the war but there was nothing in the terms to +prevent their serving in Europe and relieving British regiments for +service in America. Gates had the courtesy to keep his army where it +could not see the laying down of arms by Burgoyne's force. About five +thousand men, of whom sixteen hundred were Germans and only three +thousand five hundred fit for duty, surrendered to sixteen thousand +Americans. Burgoyne gave offense to German officers by saying in his +report that he might have held out longer had all his troops been +British. This is probably true but the British met with only a just +Nemesis for using soldiers who had no call of duty to serve. + +The army set out on its long march of two hundred miles to Boston. The +late autumn weather was cold, the army was badly clothed and fed, and +the discomfort of the weary route was increased by the bitter antagonism +of the inhabitants. They respected the regular British soldier but at +the Germans they shouted insults and the Loyalists they despised as +traitors. The camp at the journey's end was on the ground at Cambridge +where two years earlier Washington had trained his first army. Every day +Burgoyne expected to embark. There was delay and, at last, he knew +the reason. Congress repudiated the terms granted by Gates. A tangled +dispute followed. Washington probably had no sympathy with the quibbling +of Congress. But he had no desire to see this army return to Europe and +release there an army to serve in America. Burgoyne's force was never +sent to England. For nearly a year it lay at Boston. Then it was marched +to Virginia. The men suffered great hardships and the numbers fell by +desertion and escape. When peace came in 1783 there was no army to take +back to England; Burgoyne's soldiers had been merged into the American +people. It may well be, indeed, that descendants of his beaten men have +played an important part in building up the United States. The irony of +history is unconquerable. + + + +CHAPTER VII. WASHINGTON AND HIS COMRADES AT VALLEY FORGE + + +Washington had met defeat in every considerable battle at which he was +personally present. His first appearance in military history, in +the Ohio campaign against the French, twenty-two years before the +Revolution, was marked by a defeat, the surrender of Fort Necessity. +Again in the next year, when he fought to relieve the disaster to +Braddock's army, defeat was his portion. Defeat had pursued him in +the battles of the Revolution--before New York, at the Brandywine, at +Germantown. The campaign against Canada, which he himself planned, had +failed. He had lost New York and Philadelphia. But, like William III of +England, who in his long struggle with France hardly won a battle +and yet forced Louis XIV to accept his terms of peace, Washington, by +suddenness in reprisal, by skill in resource when his plans seemed +to have been shattered, grew on the hard rock of defeat the flower of +victory. + +There was never a time when Washington was not trusted by men of real +military insight or by the masses of the people. But a general who does +not win victories in the field is open to attack. By the winter of 1777 +when Washington, with his army reduced and needy, was at Valley Forge +keeping watch on Howe in Philadelphia, John Adams and others were +talking of the sin of idolatry in the worship of Washington, of its +flavor of the accursed spirit of monarchy, and of the punishment which +"the God of Heaven and Earth" must inflict for such perversity. Adams +was all against a Fabian policy and wanted to settle issues forever by a +short and strenuous war. The idol, it was being whispered, proved after +all to have feet of clay. One general, and only one, had to his credit +a really great victory--Gates, to whom Burgoyne had surrendered at +Saratoga, and there was a movement to replace Washington by this +laureled victor. + +General Conway, an Irish soldier of fortune, was one of the most +troublesome in this plot. He had served in the campaign about +Philadelphia but had been blocked in his extravagant demands for +promotion; so he turned for redress to Gates, the star in the north. A +malignant campaign followed in detraction of Washington. He had, it was +said, worn out his men by useless marches; with an army three times +as numerous as that of Howe, he had gained no victory; there was high +fighting quality in the American army if properly led, but Washington +despised the militia; a Gates or a Lee or a Conway would save the cause +as Washington could not; and so on. "Heaven has determined to save your +country or a weak general and bad counsellors would have ruined it"; so +wrote Conway to Gates and Gates allowed the letter to be seen. The words +were reported to Washington, who at once, in high dudgeon, called +Conway to account. An explosion followed. Gates both denied that he had +received a letter with the passage in question, and, at the same time, +charged that there had been tampering with his private correspondence. +He could not have it both ways. Conway was merely impudent in reply to +Washington, but Gates laid the whole matter before Congress. Washington +wrote to Gates, in reply to his denials, ironical references to "rich +treasures of knowledge and experience" "guarded with penurious reserve" +by Conway from his leaders but revealed to Gates. There was no irony in +Washington's reference to malignant detraction and mean intrigue. At +the same time he said to Gates: "My temper leads me to peace and harmony +with all men," and he deplored the internal strife which injured the +great cause. Conway soon left America. Gates lived to command another +American army and to end his career by a crowning disaster. + +Washington had now been for more than two years in the chief command and +knew his problems. It was a British tradition that standing armies were +a menace to liberty, and the tradition had gained strength in crossing +the sea. Washington would have wished a national army recruited by +Congress alone and bound to serve for the duration of the war. There +was much talk at the time of a "new model army" similar in type to the +wonderful creation of Oliver Cromwell. The Thirteen Colonies became, +however, thirteen nations. Each reserved the right to raise its own +levies in its own way. To induce men to enlist Congress was twice +handicapped. First, it had no power of taxation and could only ask the +States to provide what it needed. The second handicap was even greater. +When Congress offered bounties to those who enlisted in the Continental +army, some of the States offered higher bounties for their own levies +of militia, and one authority was bidding against the other. This +encouraged short-term enlistments. If a man could re-enlist and again +secure a bounty, he would gain more than if he enlisted at once for the +duration of the war. + +An army is an intricate mechanism needing the same variety of agencies +that is required for the well-being of a community. The chief aim is, of +course, to defeat the enemy, and to do this an army must be prepared to +move rapidly. Means of transport, so necessary in peace, are even more +urgently needed in war. Thus Washington always needed military engineers +to construct roads and bridges. Before the Revolution the greater part +of such services had been provided in America by the regular British +army, now the enemy. British officers declared that the American army +was without engineers who knew the science of war, and certainly the +forts on which they spent their skill in the North, those on the lower +Hudson, and at Ticonderoga, at the head of Lake George, fell easily +before the assailant. Good maps were needed, and in this Washington +was badly served, though the defect was often corrected by his intimate +knowledge of the country. Another service ill-equipped was what we +should now call the Red Cross. Epidemics, and especially smallpox, +wrought havoc in the army. Then, as now, shattered nerves were sometimes +the result of the strain of military life. "The wind of a ball," what we +should now call shell-shock, sometimes killed men whose bodies appeared +to be uninjured. To our more advanced knowledge the medical science of +the time seems crude. The physicians of New England, today perhaps the +most expert body of medical men in the world, were even then highly +skillful. But the surgeons and nurses were too few. This was true +of both sides in the conflict. Prisoners in hospitals often suffered +terribly and each side brought charges of ill-treatment against the +other. The prison-ships in the harbor of New York, where American +prisoners were confined, became a scandal, and much bitter invective +against British brutality is found in the literature of the period. The +British leaders, no less than Washington himself, were humane men, and +ignorance and inadequate equipment will explain most of the hardships, +though an occasional officer on either side was undoubtedly callous in +respect to the sufferings of the enemy. + +Food and clothing, the first vital necessities of an army, were often +deplorably scarce. In a land of farmers there was food enough. Its +lack in the army was chiefly due to bad transport. Clothing was another +matter. One of the things insisted upon in a well-trained army is a +decent regard for appearance, and in the eyes of the French and the +British officers the American army usually seemed rather unkempt. The +formalities of dress, the uniformity of pipe-clay and powdered hair, of +polished steel and brass, can of course be overdone. The British army +had too much of it, but to Washington's force the danger was of having +too little. It was not easy to induce farmers and frontiersmen who at +home began the day without the use of water, razor, or brush, to appear +on parade clean, with hair powdered, faces shaved, and clothes neat. In +the long summer days the men were told to shave before going to bed that +they might prepare the more quickly for parade in the morning, and to +fill their canteens over night if an early march was imminent. Some +of the regiments had uniforms which gave them a sufficiently smart +appearance. The cocked hat, the loose hunting shirt with its fringed +border, the breeches of brown leather or duck, the brown gaiters or +leggings, the powdered hair, were familiar marks of the soldier of the +Revolution. + +During a great part of the war, however, in spite of supplies brought +from both France and the West Indies, Washington found it difficult to +secure for his men even decent clothing of any kind, whether of military +cut or not. More than a year after he took command, in the fighting +about New York, a great part of his army had no more semblance of +uniform than hunting shirts on a common pattern. In the following +December, he wrote of many men as either shivering in garments fit only +for summer wear or as entirely naked. There was a time in the later +campaign in the South when hundreds of American soldiers marched stark +naked, except for breech cloths. One of the most pathetic hardships +of the soldier's life was due to the lack of boots. More than one of +Washington's armies could be tracked by the bloody footprints of his +barefooted men. Near the end of the war Benedict Arnold, who knew +whereof he spoke, described the American army as "illy clad, badly fed, +and worse paid," pay being then two or three years overdue. On the +other hand, there is evidence that life in the army was not without its +compensations. Enforced dwelling in the open air saved men from diseases +such as consumption and the movement from camp to camp gave a broader +outlook to the farmer's sons. The army could usually make a brave +parade. On ceremonial occasions the long hair of the men would be tied +back and made white with powder, even though their uniforms were little +more than rags. + +The men carried weapons some of which, in, at any rate, the early days +of the war, were made by hand at the village smithy. A man might take +to the war a weapon forged by himself. The American soldier had this +advantage over the British soldier, that he used, if not generally, at +least in some cases, not the smooth-bore musket but the grooved rifle +by which the ball was made to rotate in its flight. The fire from this +rifle was extremely accurate. At first weapons were few and ammunition +was scanty, but in time there were importations from France and also +supplies from American gun factories. The standard length of the barrel +was three and a half feet, a portentous size compared with that of the +modern weapon. The loading was from the muzzle, a process so slow that +one of the favorite tactics of the time was to await the fire of the +enemy and then charge quickly and bayonet him before he could reload. +The old method of firing off the musket by means of slow matches +kept alight during action was now obsolete; the latest device was the +flintlock. But there was always a measure of doubt whether the weapon +would go off. Partly on this account Benjamin Franklin, the wisest man +of his time, declared for the use of the pike of an earlier age rather +than the bayonet and for bows and arrows instead of firearms. A soldier, +he said, could shoot four arrows to one bullet. An arrow wound was more +disabling than a bullet wound; and arrows did not becloud the +vision with smoke. The bullet remained, however, the chief means of +destruction, and the fire of Washington's soldiers usually excelled that +of the British. These, in their turn, were superior in the use of the +bayonet. + +Powder and lead were hard to get. The inventive spirit of America was +busy with plans to procure saltpeter and other ingredients for making +powder, but it remained scarce. Since there was no standard firearm, +each soldier required bullets specially suited to his weapon. The men +melted lead and cast it in their own bullet-molds. It is an instance of +the minor ironies of war that the great equestrian statue of George III, +which had been erected in New York in days more peaceful, was melted +into bullets for killing that monarch's soldiers. Another necessity was +paper for cartridges and wads. The cartridge of that day was a paper +envelope containing the charge of ball and powder. This served also as +a wad, after being emptied of its contents, and was pushed home with a +ramrod. A store of German Bibles in Pennsylvania fell into the hands of +the soldiers at a moment when paper was a crying need, and the pages of +these Bibles were used for wads. + +The artillery of the time seems feeble compared with the monster weapons +of death which we know in our own age. Yet it was an important factor in +the war. It is probable that before the war not a single cannon had been +made in the colonies. From the outset Washington was hampered for lack +of artillery. Neutrals, especially the Dutch in the West Indies, sold +guns to the Americans, and France was a chief source of supply during +long periods when the British lost the command of the sea. There was +always difficulty about equipping cavalry, especially in the North. The +Virginian was at home on horseback, and in the farther South bands of +cavalry did service during the later years of the war, but many of +the fighting riders of today might tomorrow be guiding their horses +peacefully behind the plough. + +The pay of the soldiers remained to Washington a baffling problem. When +the war ended their pay was still heavily in arrears. The States were +timid about imposing taxation and few if any paid promptly the levies +made upon them. Congress bridged the chasm in finance by issuing paper +money which so declined in value that, as Washington said grimly, it +required a wagon-load of money to pay for a wagon-load of supplies. The +soldier received his pay in this money at its face value, and there +is little wonder that the "continental dollar" is still in the United +States a symbol of worthlessness. At times the lack of pay caused mutiny +which would have been dangerous but for Washington's firm and tactful +management in the time of crisis. There was in him both the kindly +feeling of the humane man and the rigor of the army leader. He sent +men to death without flinching, but he was at one with his men in their +sufferings, and no problem gave him greater anxiety than that of pay, +affecting, as it did, the health and spirits of men who, while unpaid, +had no means of softening the daily tale of hardship. + +Desertion was always hard to combat. With the homesickness which led +sometimes to desertion Washington must have had a secret sympathy, +for his letters show that he always longed for that pleasant home in +Virginia which he did not allow himself to revisit until nearly the end +of the war. The land of a farmer on service often remained untilled, +and there are pathetic cases of families in bitter need because the +breadwinner was in the army. In frontier settlements his absence +sometimes meant the massacre of his family by the savages. There is +little wonder that desertion was common, so common that after a reverse +the men went away by hundreds. As they usually carried with them their +rifles and other equipment, desertion involved a double loss. On one +occasion some soldiers undertook for themselves the punishment of +deserters. Men of the First Pennsylvania Regiment who had recaptured +three deserters, beheaded one of them and returned to their camp with +the head carried on a pole. More than once it happened that condemned +men were paraded before the troops for execution with the graves dug and +the coffins lying ready. The death sentence would be read, and then, as +the firing party took aim, a reprieve would be announced. The reprieve +in such circumstances was omitted often enough to make the condemned +endure the real agony of death. + +Religion offered its consolations in the army and Washington gave much +thought to the service of the chaplains. He told his army that fine as +it was to be a patriot it was finer still to be a Christian. It is an +odd fact that, though he attended the Anglican Communion service before +and after the war, he did not partake of the Communion during the +war. What was in his mind we do not know. He was disposed, as he said +himself, to let men find "that road to Heaven which to them shall seem +the most direct," and he was without Puritan fervor, but he had deep +religious feeling. During the troubled days at Valley Forge a neighbor +came upon him alone in the bush on his knees praying aloud, and stole +away unobserved. He would not allow in the army a favorite Puritan +custom of burning the Pope in effigy, and the prohibition was not +easily enforced among men, thousands of whom bore scriptural names from +ancestors who thought the Pope anti-Christ. + +Washington's winter quarters at Valley Forge were only twenty miles from +Philadelphia, among hills easily defended. It is matter for wonder that +Howe, with an army well equipped, did not make some attempt to destroy +the army of Washington which passed the winter so near and in acute +distress. The Pennsylvania Loyalists, with dark days soon to come, were +bitter at Howe's inactivity, full of tragic meaning for themselves. He +said that he could achieve nothing permanent by attack. It may be so; +but it is a sound principle in warfare to destroy the enemy when this +is possible. There was a time when in Washington's whole force not +more than two thousand men were in a condition to fight. Congress +was responsible for the needs of the army but was now, in sordid +inefficiency, cooped up in the little town of York, eighty miles west +of Valley Forge, to which it had fled. There was as yet no real federal +union. The seat of authority was in the State Governments, and we need +not wonder that, with the passing of the first burst of devotion which +united the colonies in a common cause, Congress declined rapidly in +public esteem. "What a lot of damned scoundrels we had in that second +Congress" said, at a later date, Gouverneur Morris of Philadelphia to +John Jay of New York, and Jay answered gravely, "Yes, we had." The body, +so despised in the retrospect, had no real executive government, no +organized departments. Already before Independence was proclaimed there +had been talk of a permanent union, but the members of Congress had +shown no sense of urgency, and it was not until November 15, 1777, when +the British were in Philadelphia and Congress was in exile at York, that +Articles of Confederation were adopted. By the following midsummer many +of the States had ratified these articles, but Maryland, the last +to assent, did not accept the new union until 1781, so that Congress +continued to act for the States without constitutional sanction during +the greater part of the war. + +The ineptitude of Congress is explained when we recall that it was +a revolutionary body which indeed controlled foreign affairs and the +issues of war and peace, coined money, and put forth paper money but +had no general powers. Each State had but one vote, and thus a small and +sparsely settled State counted for as much as populous Massachusetts +or Virginia. The Congress must deal with each State only as a unit; it +could not coerce a State; and it had no authority to tax or to coerce +individuals. The utmost it could do was to appeal to good feeling, and +when a State felt that it had a grievance such an appeal was likely to +meet with a flaming retort. + +Washington maintained towards Congress an attitude of deference +and courtesy which it did not always deserve. The ablest men in the +individual States held aloof from Congress. They felt that they had more +dignity and power if they sat in their own legislatures. The assembly +which in the first days had as members men of the type of Washington and +Franklin sank into a gathering of second-rate men who were divided into +fierce factions. They debated interminably and did little. Each member +usually felt that he must champion the interests of his own State +against the hostility of others. It was not easy to create a sense of +national life. The union was only a league of friendship. States which +for a century or more had barely acknowledged their dependence upon +Great Britain, were chary about coming under the control of a new +centralizing authority at Philadelphia. The new States were sovereign +and some of them went so far as to send envoys of their own to negotiate +with foreign powers in Europe. When it was urged that Congress should +have the power to raise taxes in the States, there were patriots who +asked sternly what the war was about if it was not to vindicate the +principle that the people of a State alone should have power of taxation +over themselves. Of New England all the other States were jealous and +they particularly disliked that proud and censorious city which already +was accused of believing that God had made Boston for Himself and all +the rest of the world for Boston. The religion of New England did not +suit the Anglicans of Virginia or the Roman Catholics of Maryland, and +there was resentful suspicion of Puritan intolerance. John Adams said +quite openly that there were no religious teachers in Philadelphia to +compare with those of Boston and naturally other colonies drew away from +the severe and rather acrid righteousness of which he was a type. + +Inefficiency meanwhile brought terrible suffering at Valley Forge, +and the horrors of that winter remain still vivid in the memory of the +American people. The army marched to Valley Forge on December 17, 1777, +and in midwinter everything from houses to entrenchments had still to be +created. At once there was busy activity in cutting down trees for the +log huts. They were built nearly square, sixteen feet by fourteen, in +rows, with the door opening on improvised streets. Since boards were +scarce, and it was difficult to make roofs rainproof, Washington tried +to stimulate ingenuity by offering a reward of one hundred dollars for +an improved method of roofing. The fireplaces of wood were protected +with thick clay. Firewood was abundant, but, with little food for oxen +and horses, men had to turn themselves into draught animals to bring in +supplies. + +Sometimes the army was for a week without meat. Many horses died for +lack of forage or of proper care, a waste which especially disturbed +Washington, a lover of horses. When quantities of clothing were ready +for use, they were not delivered at Valley Forge owing to lack of +transport. Washington expressed his contempt for officers who resigned +their commissions in face of these distresses. No one, he said, ever +heard him say a word about resignation. There were many desertions but, +on the whole, he marveled at the patience of his men and that they did +not mutiny. With a certain grim humor they chanted phrases about "no +pay, no clothes, no provisions, no rum," and sang an ode glorifying war +and Washington. Hundreds of them marched barefoot, their blood staining +the snow or the frozen ground while, at the same time, stores of shoes +and clothing were lying unused somewhere on the roads to the camp. + +Sickness raged in the army. Few men at Valley Forge, wrote Washington, +had more than a sheet, many only part of a sheet, and some nothing at +all. Hospital stores were lacking. For want of straw and blankets the +sick lay perishing on the frozen ground. When Washington had been +at Valley Forge for less than a week, he had to report nearly three +thousand men unfit for duty because of their nakedness in the bitter +winter. Then, as always, what we now call the "profiteer" was holding up +supplies for higher prices. To the British at Philadelphia, because they +paid in gold, things were furnished which were denied to Washington +at Valley Forge, and he announced that he would hang any one who +took provisions to Philadelphia. To keep his men alive Washington had +sometimes to take food by force from the inhabitants and then there was +an outcry that this was robbery. With many sick, his horses so disabled +that he could not move his artillery, and his defenses very slight, +he could have made only a weak fight had Howe attacked him. Yet the +legislature of Pennsylvania told him that, instead of lying quiet in +winter quarters, he ought to be carrying on an active campaign. In most +wars irresponsible men sitting by comfortable firesides are sure they +knew best how the thing should be done. + +The bleak hillside at Valley Forge was something more than a prison. +Washington's staff was known as his family and his relations with them +were cordial and even affectionate. The young officers faced their +hardships cheerily and gave meager dinners to which no one might go if +he was so well off as to have trousers without holes. They talked and +sang and jested about their privations. By this time many of the bad +officers, of whom Washington complained earlier, had been weeded out and +he was served by a body of devoted men. There was much good comradeship. +Partnership in suffering tends to draw men together. In the company +which gathered about Washington, two men, mere youths at the time, have +a world-wide fame. The young Alexander Hamilton, barely twenty-one years +of age, and widely known already for his political writings, had the +rank of lieutenant colonel gained for his services in the fighting about +New York. He was now Washington's confidential secretary, a position +in which he soon grew restless. His ambition was to be one of the great +military leaders of the Revolution. Before the end of the war he had +gone back to fighting and he distinguished himself in the last battle +of the war at Yorktown. The other youthful figure was the Marquis de La +Fayette. It is not without significance that a noble square bears his +name in the capital named after Washington. The two men loved each +other. The young French aristocrat, with both a great name and great +possessions, was fired in 1776, when only nineteen, with zeal for the +American cause. "With the welfare of America," he wrote to his wife, +"is closely linked the welfare of mankind." Idealists in France believed +that America was leading in the remaking of the world. When it was known +that La Fayette intended to go to fight in America, the King of France +forbade it, since France had as yet no quarrel with England. The +youth, however, chartered a ship, landed in South Carolina, hurried to +Philadelphia, and was a major general in the American army when he was +twenty years of age. + +La Fayette rendered no serious military service to the American cause. +He arrived in time to fight in the battle of the Brandywine. Washington +praised him for his bravery and military ardor and wrote to Congress +that he was sensible, discreet, and able to speak English freely. It was +with an eye to the influence in France of the name of the young noble +that Congress advanced him so rapidly. La Fayette was sincere and +generous in spirit. He had, however, little military capacity. Later +when he might have directed the course of the French Revolution he was +found wanting in force of character. The great Mirabeau tried to work +with him for the good of France, but was repelled by La Fayette's +jealous vanity, a vanity so greedy of praise that Jefferson called it a +"canine appetite for popularity and fame." La Fayette once said that +he had never had a thought with which he could reproach himself, and +he boasted that he has mastered three kings--the King of England in the +American Revolution, the King of France, and King Mob of Paris during +the upheaval in France. He was useful as a diplomatist rather than as a +soldier. Later, in an hour of deep need, Washington sent La Fayette to +France to ask for aid. He was influential at the French court and came +back with abundant promises, which were in part fulfilled. + +Washington himself and Oliver Cromwell are perhaps the only two civilian +generals in history who stand in the first rank as military leaders. +It is doubtful indeed whether it is not rather character than military +skill which gives Washington his place. Only one other general of the +Revolution attained to first rank even in secondary fame. Nathanael +Greene was of Quaker stock from Rhode Island. He was a natural student +and when trouble with the mother country was impending in 1774 he +spent the leisure which he could spare from his forges in the study of +military history and in organizing the local militia. Because of his +zeal for military service he was expelled from the Society of Friends. +In 1775 when war broke out he was promptly on hand with a contingent +from Rhode Island. In little more than a year and after a very slender +military experience he was in command of the army on Long Island. On the +Hudson defeat not victory was his lot. He had, however, as much stern +resolve as Washington. He shared Washington's success in the attack on +Trenton, and his defeats at the Brandywine and at Germantown. Now he +was at Valley Forge, and when, on March 2, 1778, he became quartermaster +general, the outlook for food and supplies steadily improved. Later, in +the South, he rendered brilliant service which made possible the final +American victory at Yorktown. + +Henry Knox, a Boston bookseller, had, like Greene, only slight training +for military command. It shows the dearth of officers to fight the +highly disciplined British army that Knox, at the age of twenty-five, +and fresh from commercial life, was placed in charge of the meager +artillery which Washington had before Boston. It was Knox, who, with +heart-breaking labor, took to the American front the guns captured +at Ticonderoga. Throughout the war he did excellent service with the +artillery, and Washington placed a high value upon his services. He +valued too those of Daniel Morgan, an old fighter in the Indian wars, +who left his farm in Virginia when war broke out, and marched his +company of riflemen to join the army before Boston. He served with +Arnold at the siege of Quebec, and was there taken prisoner. He was +exchanged and had his due revenge when he took part in the capture of +Burgoyne's army. He was now at Valley Forge. Later he had a command +under Greene in the South and there, as we shall see, he won the great +success of the Battle of Cowpens in January, 1781. + +It was the peculiar misfortune of Washington that the three men, Arnold, +Lee, and Gates, who ought to have rendered him the greatest service, +proved unfaithful. Benedict Arnold, next to Washington himself, was +probably the most brilliant and resourceful soldier of the Revolution. +Washington so trusted him that, when the dark days at Valley Forge were +over, he placed him in command of the recaptured federal capital. Today +the name of Arnold would rank high in the memory of a grateful country +had he not fallen into the bottomless pit of treason. The same is in +some measure true of Charles Lee, who was freed by the British in an +exchange of prisoners and joined Washington at Valley Forge late in +the spring of 1778. Lee was so clever with his pen as to be one of the +reputed authors of the Letters of Junius. He had served as a British +officer in the conquest of Canada, and later as major general in the +army of Poland. He had a jealous and venomous temper and could never +conceal the contempt of the professional soldier for civilian generals. +He, too, fell into the abyss of treason. Horatio Gates, also a regular +soldier, had served under Braddock and was thus at that early period +a comrade of Washington. Intriguer he was, but not a traitor. It was +incompetence and perhaps cowardice which brought his final ruin. + +Europe had thousands of unemployed officers some of whom had had +experience in the Seven Years' War and many turned eagerly to America +for employment. There were some good soldiers among these fighting +adventurers. Kosciuszko, later famous as a Polish patriot, rose by his +merits to the rank of brigadier general in the American army; De Kalb, +son of a German peasant, though not a baron, as he called himself, +proved worthy of the rank of a major general. There was, however, a +flood of volunteers of another type. French officers fleeing from their +creditors and sometimes under false names and titles, made their way +to America as best they could and came to Washington with pretentious +claims. Germans and Poles there were, too, and also exiles from that +unhappy island which remains still the most vexing problem of British +politics. Some of them wrote their own testimonials; some, too, were +spies. On the first day, Washington wrote, they talked only of serving +freely a noble cause, but within a week were demanding promotion and +advance of money. Sometimes they took a high tone with members of +Congress who had not courage to snub what Washington called impudence +and vain boasting. "I am haunted and teased to death by the importunity +of some and dissatisfaction of others" wrote Washington of these people. + +One foreign officer rendered incalculable service to the American cause. +It was not only on the British side that Germans served in the American +Revolution. The Baron von Steuben was, like La Fayette, a man of rank +in his own country, and his personal service to the Revolution was much +greater than that of La Fayette. Steuben had served on the staff of +Frederick the Great and was distinguished for his wit and his polished +manners. There was in him nothing of the needy adventurer. The sale of +Hessian and other troops to the British by greedy German princes was +met in some circles in Germany by a keen desire to aid the cause of the +young republic. Steuben, who held a lucrative post, became convinced, +while on a visit to Paris, that he could render service in training the +Americans. With quick sympathy and showing no reserve in his generous +spirit he abandoned his country, as it proved forever, took ship for the +United States, and arrived in November, 1777. Washington welcomed him at +Valley Forge in the following March. He was made Inspector General +and at once took in hand the organization of the army. He prepared +"Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United +States" later, in 1779, issued as a book. Under this German influence +British methods were discarded. The word of command became short +and sharp. The British practice of leaving recruits to be trained +by sergeants, often ignorant, coarse, and brutal, was discarded, and +officers themselves did this work. The last letter which Washington +wrote before he resigned his command at the end of the war was to +thank Steuben for his invaluable aid. Charles Lee did not believe that +American recruits could be quickly trained so as to be able to face the +disciplined British battalions. Steuben was to prove that Lee was wrong +to Lee's own entire undoing at Monmouth when fighting began in 1778. + +The British army in America furnished sharp contrasts to that of +Washington. If the British jeered at the fighting quality of citizens, +these retorted that the British soldier was a mere slave. There were +two great stains upon the British system, the press-gang and flogging. +Press-gangs might seize men abroad in the streets of a town and, unless +they could prove that they were gentlemen in rank, they could be sent +in the fleet to serve in the remotest corners of the earth. In both navy +and army flogging outraged the dignity of manhood. The liability to this +brutal and degrading punishment kept all but the dregs of the populace +from enlisting in the British army. It helped to fix the deep gulf +between officers and men. Forty years later Napoleon Bonaparte, despot +though he might be, was struck by this separation. He himself went +freely among his men, warmed himself at their fire, and talked to them +familiarly about their work, and he thought that the British officer was +too aloof in his demeanor. In the British army serving in America there +were many officers of aristocratic birth and long training in military +science. When they found that American officers were frequently drawn +from a class of society which in England would never aspire to a +commission, and were largely self-taught, not unnaturally they jeered +at an army so constituted. Another fact excited British disdain. The +Americans were technically rebels against their lawful ruler, and rebels +in arms have no rights as belligerents. When the war ended more than a +thousand American prisoners were still held in England on the capital +charge of treason. Nothing stirred Washington's anger more deeply than +the remark sometimes made by British officers that the prisoners they +took were receiving undeserved mercy when they were not hanged. + +There was much debate at Valley Forge as to the prospect for the future. +When we look at available numbers during the war we appreciate the +view of a British officer that in spite of Washington's failures and +of British victories the war was serious, "an ugly job, a damned affair +indeed." The population of the colonies--some 2,500,000--was about +one-third that of the United Kingdom; and for the British the war was +remote from the base of supply. In those days, considering the means +of transport, America was as far from England as at the present day is +Australia. Sometimes the voyage across the sea occupied two and even +three months, and, with the relatively small ships of the time, it +required a vast array of transports to carry an army of twenty or +thirty thousand men. In the spring of 1776 Great Britain had found it +impossible to raise at home an army of even twenty thousand men for +service in America, and she was forced to rely in large part upon +mercenary soldiers. This was nothing new. Her island people did not like +service abroad and this unwillingness was intensified in regard to +war in remote America. Moreover Whig leaders in England discouraged +enlistment. They were bitterly hostile to the war which they regarded as +an attack not less on their own liberties than on those of America. It +would be too much to ascribe to the ignorant British common soldier of +the time any deep conviction as to the merits or demerits of the cause +for which he fought. There is no evidence that, once in the army, he +was less ready to attack the Americans than any other foe. Certainly the +Americans did not think he was half-hearted. + +The British soldier fought indeed with more resolute determination +than did the hired auxiliary at his side. These German troops played +a notable part in the war. The despotic princes of the lesser German +states were accustomed to sell the services of their troops. Despotic +Russia, too, was a likely field for such enterprise. When, however, it +was proposed to the Empress Catherine II that she should furnish twenty +thousand men for service in America she retorted with the sage advice +that it was England's true interest to settle the quarrel in America +without war. Germany was left as the recruiting field. British efforts +to enlist Germans as volunteers in her own army were promptly checked by +the German rulers and it was necessary literally to buy the troops from +their princes. One-fourth of the able-bodied men of Hesse-Cassel were +shipped to America. They received four times the rate of pay at home and +their ruler received in addition some half million dollars a year. The +men suffered terribly and some died of sickness for the homes to which +thousands of them never returned. German generals, such as Knyphausen +and Riedesel, gave the British sincere and effective service. The +Hessians were, however, of doubtful benefit to the British. It angered +the Americans that hired troops should be used against them, an anger +not lessened by the contempt which the Hessians showed for the colonial +officers as plebeians. + +The two sides were much alike in their qualities and were skillful in +propaganda. In Britain lurid tales were told of the colonists scalping +the wounded at Lexington and using poisoned bullets at Bunker Hill. In +America every prisoner in British hands was said to be treated brutally +and every man slain in the fighting to have been murdered. The use of +foreign troops was a fruitful theme. The report ran through the colonies +that the Hessians were huge ogre-like monsters, with double rows of +teeth round each jaw, who had come at the call of the British tyrant +to slay women and children. In truth many of the Hessians became good +Americans. In spite of the loyalty of their officers they were readily +induced to desert. The wit of Benjamin Franklin was enlisted to compose +telling appeals, translated into simple German, which promised grants +of land to those who should abandon an unrighteous cause. The Hessian +trooper who opened a packet of tobacco might find in the wrapper appeals +both to his virtue and to his cupidity. It was easy for him to resist +them when the British were winning victories and he was dreaming of a +return to the Fatherland with a comfortable accumulation of pay, but it +was different when reverses overtook British arms. Then many hundreds +slipped away; and today their blood flows in the veins of thousands of +prosperous American farmers. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE AND ITS RESULTS + +Washington badly needed aid from Europe, but there every important +government was monarchical and it was not easy for a young republic, +the child of revolution, to secure an ally. France tingled with joy at +American victories and sorrowed at American reverses, but motives were +mingled and perhaps hatred of England was stronger than love for liberty +in America. The young La Fayette had a pure zeal, but he would not have +fought for the liberty of colonists in Mexico as he did for those in +Virginia; and the difference was that service in Mexico would not hurt +the enemy of France so recently triumphant. He hated England and said so +quite openly. The thought of humiliating and destroying that "insolent +nation" was always to him an inspiration. Vergennes, the French Foreign +Minister, though he lacked genius, was a man of boundless zeal and +energy. He was at work at four o'clock in the morning and he spent his +long days in toil for his country. He believed that England was the +tyrant of the seas, "the monster against whom we should be always +prepared," a greedy, perfidious neighbor, the natural enemy of France. + +From the first days of the trouble in regard to the Stamp Act Vergennes +had rejoiced that England's own children were turning against her. He +had French military officers in England spying on her defenses. When +war broke out he showed no nice regard for the rules of neutrality and +helped the colonies in every way possible. It was a French writer who +led in these activities. Beaumarchais is known to the world chiefly as +the creator of the character of Figaro, which has become the type of the +bold, clever, witty, and intriguing rascal, but he played a real part +in the American Revolution. We need not inquire too closely into his +motives. There was hatred of the English, that "audacious, unbridled, +shameless people," and there was, too, the zeal for liberal ideas which +made Queen Marie Antoinette herself take a pretty interest in the "dear +republicans" overseas who were at the same time fighting the national +enemy. Beaumarchais secured from the government money with which he +purchased supplies to be sent to America. He had a great warehouse +in Paris, and, under the rather fantastic Spanish name of Roderigue +Hortalez & Co., he sent vast quantities of munitions and clothing +to America. Cannon, not from private firms but from the government +arsenals, were sent across the sea. When Vergennes showed scruples +about this violation of neutrality, the answer of Beaumarchais was that +governments were not bound by rules of morality applicable to private +persons. Vergennes learned well the lesson and, while protesting to +the British ambassador in Paris that France was blameless, he permitted +outrageous breaches of the laws of neutrality. + +Secret help was one thing, open alliance another. Early in 1776 Silas +Deane, a member from Connecticut of the Continental Congress, was named +as envoy to France to secure French aid. The day was to come when +Deane should believe the struggle against Britain hopeless and counsel +submission, but now he showed a furious zeal. He knew hardly a word of +French, but this did not keep him from making his elaborate programme +well understood. Himself a trader, he promised France vast profits from +the monopoly of the trade of America when independence should be secure. +He gave other promises not more easy of fulfillment. To Frenchmen +zealous for the ideals of liberty and seeking military careers in +America he promised freely commissions as colonels and even generals and +was the chief cause of that deluge of European officers which proved +to Washington so annoying. It was through Deane's activities that La +Fayette became a volunteer. Through him came too the proposal to send +to America the Comte de Broglie who should be greater than colonel or +general--a generalissimo, a dictator. He was to brush aside Washington, +to take command of the American armies, and by his prestige and skill to +secure France as an ally and win victory in the field. For such services +Broglie asked only despotic power while he served and for life a great +pension which would, he declared, not be one-hundredth part of his real +value. That Deane should have considered a scheme so fantastic reveals +the measure of his capacity, and by the end of 1776 Benjamin Franklin +was sent to Paris to bring his tried skill to bear upon the problem +of the alliance. With Deane and Franklin as a third member of the +commission was associated Arthur Lee who had vainly sought aid at the +courts of Spain and Prussia. + +France was, however, coy. The end of 1776 saw the colonial cause at +a very low ebb, with Washington driven from New York and about to be +driven from Philadelphia. Defeat is not a good argument for an alliance. +France was willing to send arms to America and willing to let American +privateers use freely her ports. The ship which carried Franklin to +France soon busied herself as a privateer and reaped for her crew a +great harvest of prize money. In a single week of June, 1777, this ship +captured a score of British merchantmen, of which more than two thousand +were taken by Americans during the war. France allowed the American +privateers to come and go as they liked, and gave England smooth words, +but no redress. There is little wonder that England threatened to hang +captured American sailors as pirates. + +It was the capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga which brought decision to +France. That was the victory which Vergennes had demanded before he +would take open action. One British army had surrendered. Another was +in an untenable position in Philadelphia. It was known that the British +fleet had declined. With the best of it in America, France was the more +likely to win successes in Europe. The Bourbon king of France could, +too, draw into the war the Bourbon king of Spain, and Spain had good +ships. The defects of France and Spain on the sea were not in ships but +in men. The invasion of England was not improbable and then less than +a score of years might give France both avenging justice for her recent +humiliation and safety for her future. Britain should lose America, +she should lose India, she should pay in a hundred ways for her past +triumphs, for the arrogance of Pitt, who had declared that he would so +reduce France that she should never again rise. The future should belong +not to Britain but to France. Thus it was that fervent patriotism argued +after the defeat of Burgoyne. Frederick the Great told his ambassador +at Paris to urge upon France that she had now a chance to strike England +which might never again come. France need not, he said, fear his enmity, +for he was as likely to help England as the devil to help a Christian. +Whatever doubts Vergennes may have entertained about an open alliance +with America were now swept away. The treaty of friendship with +America was signed on February 6, 1778. On the 13th of March the French +ambassador in London told the British Government, with studied +insolence of tone, that the United States were by their own declaration +independent. Only a few weeks earlier the British ministry had said that +there was no prospect of any foreign intervention to help the Americans +and now in the most galling manner France told George III the one thing +to which he would not listen, that a great part of his sovereignty was +gone. Each country withdrew its ambassador and war quickly followed. + +France had not tried to make a hard bargain with the Americans. +She demanded nothing for herself and agreed not even to ask for the +restoration of Canada. She required only that America should never +restore the King's sovereignty in order to secure peace. Certain +sections of opinion in America were suspicious of France. Was she not +the old enemy who had so long harassed the frontiers of New England and +New York? If George III was a despot what of Louis XVI, who had not +even an elected Parliament to restrain him? Washington himself was +distrustful of France and months after the alliance had been concluded +he uttered the warning that hatred of England must not lead to +over-confidence in France. "No nation," he said, "is to be trusted +farther than it is bound by its interests." France, he thought, must +desire to recover Canada, so recently lost. He did not wish to see a +great military power on the northern frontier of the United States. This +would be to confirm the jeer of the Loyalists that the alliance was a +case of the wooden horse in Troy; the old enemy would come back in +the guise of a friend and would then prove to be master and bring the +colonies under a servitude compared with which the British supremacy +would seem indeed mild. + +The intervention of France brought a cruel embarrassment to the Whig +patriot in England. He could rejoice and mourn with American patriots +because he believed that their cause was his own. It was as much the +interest of Norfolk as of Massachusetts that the new despotism of a +king, who ruled through a corrupt Parliament, should be destroyed. It +was, however, another matter when France took a share in the fight. +France fought less for freedom than for revenge, and the Englishman who, +like Coke of Norfolk, could daily toast Washington as the greatest +of men could not link that name with Louis XVI or with his minister +Vergennes. The currents of the past are too swift and intricate to be +measured exactly by the observer who stands on the shore of the present, +but it is arguable that the Whigs might soon have brought about peace +in England had it not been for the intervention of France. No serious +person any longer thought that taxation could be enforced upon America +or that the colonies should be anything but free in regulating their +own affairs. George III himself said that he who declared the taxing of +America to be worth what it cost was "more fit for Bedlam than a seat in +the Senate." The one concession Britain was not yet prepared to make was +Independence. But Burke and many other Whigs were ready now for this, +though Chatham still believed it would be the ruin of the British +Empire. + +Chatham, however, was all for conciliation, and it is not hard to +imagine a group of wise men chosen from both sides, men British in blood +and outlook, sitting round a table and reaching an agreement to result +in a real independence for America and a real unity with Great Britain. +A century and a quarter later a bitter war with an alien race in South +Africa was followed by a result even more astounding. The surrender of +Burgoyne had made the Prime Minister, Lord North, weary of his position. +He had never been in sympathy with the King's policy and since the bad +news had come in December he had pondered some radical step which should +end the war. On February 17, 1778, before the treaty of friendship +between the United States and France had been made public, North +startled the House of Commons by introducing a bill repealing the tax on +tea, renouncing forever the right to tax America, and nullifying those +changes in the constitution of Massachusetts which had so rankled in the +minds of its people. A commission with full powers to negotiate peace +would proceed at once to America and it might suspend at its discretion, +and thus really repeal, any act touching America passed since 1763. + +North had taken a sharp turn. The Whig clothes had been stolen by a Tory +Prime Minister and if he wished to stay in office the Whigs had not the +votes to turn him out. His supporters would accept almost anything in +order to dish the Whigs. They swallowed now the bill, and it became +law, but at the same time came, too, the war with France. It united the +Tories; it divided the Whigs. All England was deeply stirred. Nearly +every important town offered to raise volunteer forces at its own +expense. The Government soon had fifteen thousand men recruited at +private cost. Help was offered so freely that the Whig, John Wilkes, +actually introduced into Parliament a bill to prohibit gifts of money to +the Crown since this voluntary taxation gave the Crown money without +the consent of Parliament. The British patriot, gentle as he might +be towards America, fumed against France. This was no longer only a +domestic struggle between parties, but a war with an age-long foreign +enemy. The populace resented what they called the insolence and the +treachery of France and the French ambassador was pelted at Canterbury +as he drove to the seacoast on his recall. In a large sense the French +alliance was not an unmixed blessing for America, since it confused the +counsels of her best friends in England. + +In spite of this it is probably true that from this time the mass of the +English people were against further attempts to coerce America. A change +of ministry was urgently demanded. There was one leader to whom the +nation looked in this grave crisis. The genius of William Pitt, Earl +of Chatham, had won the last war against France and he had promoted the +repeal of the Stamp Act. In America his name was held in reverence so +high that New York and Charleston had erected statues in his honor. When +the defeat of Burgoyne so shook the ministry that North was anxious to +retire, Chatham, but for two obstacles, could probably have formed a +ministry. One obstacle was his age; as the event proved, he was near +his end. It was, however, not this which kept him from office, but +the resolve of George III. The King simply said that he would not have +Chatham. In office Chatham would certainly rule and the King intended +himself to rule. If Chatham would come in a subordinate position, well; +but Chatham should not lead. The King declared that as long as even ten +men stood by him he would hold out and he would lose his crown rather +than call to office that clamorous Opposition which had attacked his +American policy. "I will never consent," he said firmly, "to removing +the members of the present Cabinet from my service." He asked North: +"Are you resolved at the hour of danger to desert me?" North remained in +office. Chatham soon died and, during four years still, George III was +master of England. Throughout the long history of that nation there +is no crisis in which one man took a heavier and more disastrous +responsibility. + +News came to Valley Forge of the alliance with France and there +were great rejoicings. We are told that, to celebrate the occasion, +Washington dined in public. We are not given the bill of fare in that +scene of famine; but by the springtime tension in regard to supplies had +been relieved and we may hope that Valley Forge really feasted in +honor of the great event. The same news brought gloom to the British +in Philadelphia, for it had the stern meaning that the effort and loss +involved in the capture of that city were in vain. Washington held most +of the surrounding country so that supplies must come chiefly by sea. +With a French fleet and a French army on the way to America, the British +realized that they must concentrate their defenses. Thus the cheers at +Valley Forge were really the sign that the British must go. + +Sir William Howe, having taken Philadelphia, was determined not to be +the one who should give it up. Feeling was bitter in England over the +ghastly failure of Burgoyne, and he had gone home on parole to defend +himself from his seat in the House of Commons. There Howe had a seat and +he, too, had need to be on hand. Lord George Germain had censured him +for his course and, to shield himself; was clearly resolved to make +scapegoats of others. So, on May 18, 1778, at Philadelphia there was +a farewell to Howe, which took the form of a Mischianza, something +approaching the medieval tournament. Knights broke lances in honor +of fair ladies, there were arches and flowers and fancy costumes, +and high-flown Latin and French, all in praise of the departing Howe. +Obviously the garrison of Philadelphia had much time on its hands and +could count upon, at least, some cheers from a friendly population. It +is remembered still, with moralizings on the turns in human fortune, +that Major André and Miss Margaret Shippen were the leaders in that gay +scene, the one, in the days to come, to be hanged by Washington as a +spy, because entrapped in the treason of Benedict Arnold, who became the +husband of the other. + +On May 24, 1778, Sir Henry Clinton took over from Howe the command +of the British army in America and confronted a difficult problem. If +d'Estaing, the French admiral, should sail straight for the Delaware he +might destroy the fleet of little more than half his strength which lay +there, and might quickly starve Philadelphia into surrender. The British +must unite their forces to meet the peril from France, and New York, as +an island, was the best point for a defense, chiefly naval. A move to +New York was therefore urgent. It was by sea that the British had come +to Philadelphia, but it was not easy to go away by sea. There was not +room in the transports for the army and its encumbrances. Moreover, to +embark the whole force, a march of forty miles to New Castle, on the +lower Delaware, would be necessary and the retreating army was sure to +be harassed on its way by Washington. It would besides hardly be safe +to take the army by sea for the French fleet might be strong enough to +capture the flotilla. + +There was nothing for it but, at whatever risk, to abandon Philadelphia +and march the army across New Jersey. It would be possible to take by +sea the stores and the three thousand Loyalists from Philadelphia, some +of whom would probably be hanged if they should be taken. Lord Howe, the +naval commander, did his part in a masterly manner. On the 18th of June +the British army marched out of Philadelphia and before the day was +over it was across the Delaware on the New Jersey side. That same day +Washington's army, free from its long exile at Valley Forge, occupied +the capital. Clinton set out on his long march by land and Howe worked +his laden ships down the difficult river to its mouth and, after delay +by winds, put to sea on the 28th of June. By a stroke of good fortune +he sailed the two hundred miles to New York in two days and missed the +great fleet of d'Estaing, carrying an army of four thousand men. On the +8th of July d'Estaing anchored at the mouth of the Delaware. Had not his +passage been unusually delayed and Howe's unusually quick, as Washington +noted, the British fleet and the transports in the Delaware would +probably have been taken and Clinton and his army would have shared the +fate of Burgoyne. + +As it was, though Howe's fleet was clear away, Clinton's army had a bad +time in the march across New Jersey. Its baggage train was no less than +twelve miles long and, winding along roads leading sometimes through +forests, was peculiarly vulnerable to flank attack. In this type of +warfare Washington excelled. He had fought over this country and he knew +it well. The tragedy of Valley Forge was past. His army was now well +trained and well supplied. He had about the same number of men as the +British--perhaps sixteen thousand--and he was not encumbered by a long +baggage train. Thus it happened that Washington was across the Delaware +almost as soon as the British. He marched parallel with them on a line +some five miles to the north and was able to forge towards the head of +their column. He could attack their flank almost when he liked. Clinton +marched with great difficulty. He found bridges down. Not only was +Washington behind him and on his flank but General Gates was in front +marching from the north to attack him when he should try to cross the +Raritan River. The long British column turned southeastward toward Sandy +Hook, so as to lessen the menace from Gates. Between the half of the +army in the van and the other half in the rear was the baggage train. + +The crisis came on Sunday the 28th of June, a day of sweltering heat. By +this time General Charles Lee, Washington's second in command, was in +a good position to attack the British rear guard from the north, while +Washington, marching three miles behind Lee, was to come up in the hope +of overwhelming it from the rear. Clinton's position was difficult but +he was saved by Lee's ineptitude. He had positive instructions to attack +with his five thousand men and hold the British engaged until Washington +should come up in overwhelming force. The young La Fayette was with Lee. +He knew what Washington had ordered, but Lee said to him: "You don't +know the British soldiers; we cannot stand against them." Lee's conduct +looks like deliberate treachery. Instead of attacking the British he +allowed them to attack him. La Fayette managed to send a message to +Washington in the rear; Washington dashed to the front and, as he came +up, met soldiers flying from before the British. He rode straight to +Lee, called him in flaming anger a "damned poltroon," and himself at +once took command. There was a sharp fight near Monmouth Court House. +The British were driven back and only the coming of night ended the +struggle. Washington was preparing to renew it in the morning, but +Clinton had marched away in the darkness. He reached the coast on the +30th of June, having lost on the way fifty-nine men from sunstroke, +over three hundred in battle, and a great many more by desertion. The +deserters were chiefly Germans, enticed by skillful offers of land. +Washington called for a reckoning from Lee. He was placed under arrest, +tried by court-martial, found guilty, and suspended from rank for twelve +months. Ultimately he was dismissed from the American army, less it +appears for his conduct at Monmouth than for his impudent demeanor +toward Congress afterwards. + +These events on land were quickly followed by stirring events on the +sea. The delays of the British Admiralty of this time seem almost +incredible. Two hundred ships waited at Spithead for three months for +convoy to the West Indies, while all the time the people of the West +Indies, cut off from their usual sources of supply in America, were in +distress for food. Seven weeks passed after d'Estaing had sailed for +America before the Admiralty knew that he was really gone and sent +Admiral Byron, with fourteen ships, to the aid of Lord Howe. When +d'Estaing was already before New York Byron was still battling with +storms in mid-Atlantic, storms so severe that his fleet was entirely +dispersed and his flagship was alone when it reached Long Island on the +18th of August. + +Meanwhile the French had a great chance. On the 11th of July their +fleet, much stronger than the British, arrived from the Delaware, and +anchored off Sandy Hook. Admiral Howe knew his danger. He asked for +volunteers from the merchant ships and the sailors offered themselves +almost to a man. If d'Estaing could beat Howe's inferior fleet, the +transports at New York would be at his mercy and the British army, with +no other source of supply, must surrender. Washington was near, to give +help on land. The end of the war seemed not far away. But it did not +come. The French admirals were often taken from an army command, and +d'Estaing was not a sailor but a soldier. He feared the skill of Howe, +a really great sailor, whose seven available ships were drawn up in line +at Sandy Hook so that their guns bore on ships coming in across the bar. +D'Estaing hovered outside. Pilots from New York told him that at high +tide there were only twenty-two feet of water on the bar and this was +not enough for his great ships, one of which carried ninety-one guns. On +the 22d of July there was the highest of tides with, in reality, thirty +feet of water on the bar, and a wind from the northeast which would have +brought d'Estaing's ships easily through the channel into the harbor. +The British expected the hottest naval fight in their history. At three +in the afternoon d'Estaing moved but it was to sail away out of sight. + +Opportunity, though once spurned, seemed yet to knock again. The one +other point held by the British was Newport, Rhode Island. Here General +Pigot had five thousand men and only perilous communications by sea with +New York. Washington, keenly desirous to capture this army, sent General +Greene to aid General Sullivan in command at Providence, and d'Estaing +arrived off Newport to give aid. Greene had fifteen hundred fine +soldiers, Sullivan had nine thousand New England militia, and d'Estaing +four thousand French regulars. A force of fourteen thousand five hundred +men threatened five thousand British. But on the 9th of August Howe +suddenly appeared near Newport with his smaller fleet. D'Estaing put to +sea to fight him, and a great naval battle was imminent, when a terrific +storm blew up and separated and almost shattered both fleets. D'Estaing +then, in spite of American protests, insisted on taking the French ships +to Boston to refit and with them the French soldiers. Sullivan publicly +denounced the French admiral as having basely deserted him and his own +disgusted yeomanry left in hundreds for their farms to gather in the +harvest. In September, with d'Estaing safely away, Clinton sailed into +Newport with five thousand men. Washington's campaign against Rhode +Island had failed completely. + +The summer of 1778 thus turned out badly for Washington. Help from +France which had aroused such joyous hopes in America had achieved +little and the allies were hurling reproaches at each other. French and +American soldiers had riotous fights in Boston and a French officer +was killed. The British, meanwhile, were landing at small ports on +the coast, which had been the haunts of privateers, and were not only +burning shipping and stores but were devastating the country with +Loyalist regiments recruited in America. The French told the Americans +that they were expecting too much from the alliance, and the cautious +Washington expressed fear that help from outside would relax effort at +home. Both were right. By the autumn the British had been reinforced +and the French fleet had gone to the West Indies. Truly the mountain +in labor of the French alliance seemed to have brought forth only +a ridiculous mouse. None the less was it to prove, in the end, the +decisive factor in the struggle. + +The alliance with France altered the whole character of the war, which +ceased now to be merely a war in North America. France soon gained an +ally in Europe. Bourbon Spain had no thought of helping the colonies in +rebellion against their king, and she viewed their ambitions to extend +westward with jealous concern, since she desired for herself both sides +of the Mississippi. Spain, however, had a grievance against Britain, +for Britain would not yield Gibraltar, that rocky fragment of Spain +commanding the entrance to the Mediterranean which Britain had wrested +from her as she had wrested also Minorca and Florida. + +So, in April, 1779, Spain joined France in war on Great Britain. France +agreed not only to furnish an army for the invasion of England but +never to make peace until Britain had handed back Gibraltar. The allies +planned to seize and hold the Isle of Wight. England has often been +threatened and yet has been so long free from the tramp of hostile +armies that we are tempted to dismiss lightly such dangers. But in the +summer of 1779 the danger was real. Of warships carrying fifty guns or +more France and Spain together had one hundred and twenty-one, while +Britain had seventy. The British Channel fleet for the defense of home +coasts numbered forty ships of the line while France and Spain together +had sixty-six. Nor had Britain resources in any other quarter upon which +she could readily draw. In the West Indies she had twenty-one ships +of the line while France had twenty-five. The British could not find +comfort in any supposed superiority in the structure of their ships. +Then and later, as Nelson admitted when he was fighting Spain, the +Spanish ships were better built than the British. + +Lurking in the background to haunt British thought was the growing +American navy. John Paul was a Scots sailor, who had been a slave trader +and subsequently master of a West India merchantman, and on going +to America had assumed the name of Jones. He was a man of boundless +ambition, vanity, and vigor, and when he commanded American privateers +he became a terror to the maritime people from whom he sprang. In the +summer of 1779 when Jones, with a squadron of four ships, was haunting +the British coasts, every harbor was nervous. At Plymouth a boom blocked +the entrance, but other places had not even this defense. Sir Walter +Scott has described how, on September 17, 1779, a squadron, under John +Paul Jones, came within gunshot of Leith, the port of Edinburgh. The +whole surrounding country was alarmed, since for two days the squadron +had been in sight beating up the Firth of Forth. A sudden squall, which +drove Jones back, probably saved Edinburgh from being plundered. A few +days later Jones was burning ships in the Humber and, on the 23d of +September, he met off Flamborough Head and, after a desperate fight, +captured two British armed ships: the Serapis, a 40-gun vessel newly +commissioned, and the Countess of Scarborough, carrying 20 guns, both +of which were convoying a fleet. The fame of his exploit rang through +Europe. Jones was a regularly commissioned officer in the navy of +the United States, but neutral powers, such as Holland, had not yet +recognized the republic and to them there was no American navy. The +British regarded him as a traitor and pirate and might possibly have +hanged him had he fallen into their hands. + +Terrible days indeed were these for distracted England. In India, +France, baulked twenty years earlier, was working for her entire +overthrow, and in North Africa, Spain was using the Moors to the same +end. As time passed the storm grew more violent. Before the year 1780 +ended Holland had joined England's enemies. Moreover, the northern +states of Europe, angry at British interference on the sea with their +trade, and especially at her seizure of ships trying to enter blockaded +ports, took strong measures. On March 8, 1780, Russia issued a +proclamation declaring that neutral ships must be allowed to come and go +on the sea as they liked. They might be searched by a nation at war for +arms and ammunition but for nothing else. It would moreover be illegal +to declare a blockade of a port and punish neutrals for violating it, +unless their ships were actually caught in an attempt to enter the +port. Denmark and Sweden joined Russia in what was known as the Armed +Neutrality and promised that they would retaliate upon any nation which +did not respect the conditions laid down. + +In domestic affairs Great Britain was divided. The Whigs and Tories were +carrying on a warfare shameless beyond even the bitter partisan strife +of later days. In Parliament the Whigs cheered at military defeats +which might serve to discredit the Tory Government. The navy was torn +by faction. When, in 1778, the Whig Admiral Keppel fought an indecisive +naval battle off Ushant and was afterwards accused by one of his +officers, Sir Hugh Palliser, of not pressing the enemy hard enough, +party passion was invoked. The Whigs were for Keppel, the Tories for +Palliser, and the London mob was Whig. When Keppel was acquitted there +were riotous demonstrations; the house of Palliser was wrecked, and he +himself barely escaped with his life. Whig naval officers declared that +they had no chance of fair treatment at the hands of a Tory Admiralty, +and Lord Howe, among others, now refused to serve. For a time British +supremacy on the sea disappeared and it was only regained in April, +1782, when the Tory Admiral Rodney won a great victory in the West +Indies against the French. + +A spirit of violence was abroad in England. The disabilities of the +Roman Catholics were a gross scandal. They might not vote or hold public +office. Yet when, in 1780, Parliament passed a bill removing some of +their burdens dreadful riots broke out in London. A fanatic, Lord George +Gordon, led a mob to Westminster and, as Dr. Johnson expressed it, +"insulted" both Houses of Parliament. The cowed ministry did nothing +to check the disturbance. The mob burned Newgate jail, released the +prisoners from this and other prisons, and made a deliberate attempt to +destroy London by fire. Order was restored under the personal direction +of the King, who, with all his faults, was no coward. At the same time +the Irish Parliament, under Protestant lead, was making a Declaration of +Independence which, in 1782, England was obliged to admit by formal act +of Parliament. For the time being, though the two monarchies had the +same king, Ireland, in name at least, was free of England. + +Washington's enemy thus had embarrassments enough. Yet these very years, +1779 and 1780, were the years in which he came nearest to despair. The +strain of a great movement is not in the early days of enthusiasm, but +in the slow years when idealism is tempered by the strife of opinion +and self-interest which brings delay and disillusion. As the war went +on recruiting became steadily more difficult. The alliance with France +actually worked to discourage it since it was felt that the cause +was safe in the hands of this powerful ally. Whatever Great Britain's +difficulties about finance they were light compared with Washington's. +In time the "continental dollar" was worth only two cents. Yet soldiers +long had to take this money at its face value for their pay, with the +result that the pay for three months would scarcely buy a pair of +boots. There is little wonder that more than once Washington had to face +formidable mutiny among his troops. The only ones on whom he could rely +were the regulars enlisted by Congress and carefully trained. The worth +of the militia, he said, "depends entirely on the prospects of the day; +if favorable, they throng to you; if not, they will not move." They +played a chief part in the prosperous campaign of 1777, when Burgoyne +was beaten. In the next year, before Newport, they wholly failed General +Sullivan and deserted shamelessly to their homes. + +By 1779 the fighting had shifted to the South. Washington personally +remained in the North to guard the Hudson and to watch the British in +New York. He sent La Fayette to France in January, 1779, there to urge +not merely naval but military aid on a great scale. La Fayette came back +after an absence of a little over a year and in the end France +promised eight thousand men who should be under Washington's control as +completely as if they were American soldiers. The older nation accepted +the principle that the officers in the younger nation which she was +helping should rank in their grade before her own. It was a magnanimity +reciprocated nearly a century and a half later when a great American +army in Europe was placed under the supreme command of a Marshal of +France. + + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE WAR IN THE SOUTH + +After 1778 there was no more decisive fighting in the North. The British +plan was to hold New York and keep there a threatening force, but to +make the South henceforth the central arena of the war. Accordingly, +in 1779, they evacuated Rhode Island and left the magnificent harbor of +Newport to be the chief base for the French fleet and army in America. +They also drew in their posts on the Hudson and left Washington free to +strengthen West Point and other defenses by which he was blocking the +river. Meanwhile they were striking staggering blows in the South. On +December 29, 1778, a British force landed two miles below Savannah, in +Georgia, lying near the mouth of the important Savannah River, and by +nightfall, after some sharp fighting, took the place with its stores +and shipping. Augusta, the capital of Georgia, lay about a hundred +and twenty-five miles up the river. By the end of February, 1779, the +British not only held Augusta but had established so strong a line of +posts in the interior that Georgia seemed to be entirely under their +control. + +Then followed a singular chain of events. Ever since hostilities had +begun, in 1775, the revolutionary party had been dominant in the South. +Yet now again in 1779 the British flag floated over the capital of +Georgia. Some rejoiced and some mourned. Men do not change lightly +their political allegiance. Probably Boston was the most completely +revolutionary of American towns. Yet even in Boston there had been a sad +procession of exiles who would not turn against the King. The South +had been more evenly divided. Now the Loyalists took heart and began to +assert themselves. + +When the British seemed secure in Georgia bands of Loyalists marched +into the British camp in furious joy that now their day was come, and +gave no gentle advice as to the crushing of rebellion. Many a patriot +farmhouse was now destroyed and the hapless owner either killed or +driven to the mountains to live as best he could by hunting. Sometimes +even the children were shot down. It so happened that a company of +militia captured a large band of Loyalists marching to Augusta to +support the British cause. Here was the occasion for the republican +patriots to assert their principles. To them these Loyalists were guilty +of treason. Accordingly seventy of the prisoners were tried before a +civil court and five of them were hanged. For this hanging of prisoners +the Loyalists, of course, retaliated in kind. Both the British and +American regular officers tried to restrain these fierce passions but +the spirit of the war in the South was ruthless. To this day many a tale +of horror is repeated and, since Loyalist opinion was finally destroyed, +no one survived to apportion blame to their enemies. It is probable that +each side matched the other in barbarity. + +The British hoped to sweep rapidly through the South, to master it up +to the borders of Virginia, and then to conquer that breeding ground of +revolution. In the spring of 1779 General Prevost marched from Georgia +into South Carolina. On the 12th of May he was before Charleston +demanding surrender. We are astonished now to read that, in response +to Prevost's demand, a proposal was made that South Carolina should be +allowed to remain neutral and that at the end of the war it should join +the victorious side. This certainly indicates a large body of opinion +which was not irreconcilable with Great Britain and seems to justify the +hope of the British that the beginnings of military success might +rally the mass of the people to their side. For the moment, however, +Charleston did not surrender. The resistance was so stiff that Prevost +had to raise the siege and go back to Savannah. + +Suddenly, early in September, 1779, the French fleet under d'Estaing +appeared before Savannah. It had come from the West Indies, partly to +avoid the dreaded hurricane season of the autumn in those waters. The +British, practically without any naval defense, were confronted at +once by twenty-two French ships of the line, eleven frigates, and many +transports carrying an army. The great flotilla easily got rid of the +few British ships lying at Savannah. An American army, under General +Lincoln, marched to join d'Estaing. The French landed some three +thousand men, and the combined army numbered about six thousand. A siege +began which, it seemed, could end in only one way. Prevost, however, +with three thousand seven hundred men, nearly half of them sick, was +defiant, and on the 9th of October the combined French and American +armies made a great assault. They met with disaster. D'Estaing was +severely wounded. With losses of some nine hundred killed and wounded in +the bitter fighting the assailants drew off and soon raised the siege. +The British losses were only fifty-four. In the previous year French +and Americans fighting together had utterly failed. Now they had failed +again and there was bitter recrimination between the defeated allies. +D'Estaing sailed away and soon lost some of his ships in a violent +storm. Ill-fortune pursued him to the end. He served no more in the +war and in the Reign of Terror in Paris, in 1794, he perished on the +scaffold. + +At Charleston the American General Lincoln was in command with about six +thousand men. The place, named after King Charles II, had been a center +of British influence before the war. That critical traveler, Lord +Adam Gordon, thought its people clever in business, courteous, and +hospitable. Most of them, he says, made a visit to England at some time +during life and it was the fashion to send there the children to be +educated. Obviously Charleston was fitted to be a British rallying +center in the South; yet it had remained in American hands since the +opening of the war. In 1776 Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander, +had woefully failed in his assault on Charleston. Now in December, 1779, +he sailed from New York to make a renewed effort. With him were three +of his best officer--Cornwallis, Simcoe, and Tarleton, the last two +skillful leaders of irregulars, recruited in America and used chiefly +for raids. The wintry voyage was rough; one of the vessels laden with +cannon foundered and sank, and all the horses died. But Clinton reached +Charleston and was able to surround it on the landward side with an army +at least ten thousand strong. Tarleton's irregulars rode through +the country. It is on record that he marched sixty-four miles in +twenty-three hours and a hundred and five miles in fifty-four hours. +Such mobility was irresistible. On the 12th of April, after a ride +of thirty miles, Tarleton surprised, in the night, three regiments of +American cavalry regulars at a place called Biggin's Bridge, routed them +completely and, according to his own account, with the loss of three men +wounded, carried off a hundred prisoners, four hundred horses, and +also stores and ammunition. There is no doubt that Tarleton's dragoons +behaved with great brutality and it would perhaps have taught a +needed lesson if, as was indeed threatened by a British officer, Major +Ferguson, a few of them had been shot on the spot for these outrages. +Tarleton's dashing attacks isolated Charleston and there was nothing for +Lincoln to do but to surrender. This he did on the 12th of May. Burgoyne +seemed to have been avenged. The most important city in the South had +fallen. "We look on America as at our feet," wrote Horace Walpole. The +British advanced boldly into the interior. On the 29th of May Tarleton +attacked an American force under Colonel Buford, killed over a hundred +men, carried off two hundred prisoners, and had only twenty-one +casualties. It is such scenes that reveal the true character of the war +in the South. Above all it was a war of hard riding, often in the night, +of sudden attack, and terrible bloodshed. + +After the fall of Charleston only a few American irregulars were to be +found in South Carolina. It and Georgia seemed safe in British control. +With British successes came the problem of governing the South. On the +royalist theory, the recovered land had been in a state of rebellion and +was now restored to its true allegiance. Every one who had taken up +arms against the King was guilty of treason with death as the penalty. +Clinton had no intention of applying this hard theory, but he was +returning to New York and he had to establish a government on some legal +basis. During the first years of the war, Loyalists who would not accept +the new order had been punished with great severity. Their day had now +come. Clinton said that "every good man" must be ready to join in arms +the King's troops in order "to reestablish peace and good government." +"Wicked and desperate men" who still opposed the King should be punished +with rigor and have their property confiscated. He offered pardon for +past offenses, except to those who had taken part in killing Loyalists +"under the mock forms of justice." No one was henceforth to be exempted +from the active duty of supporting the King's authority. + +Clinton's proclamation was very disturbing to the large element in South +Carolina which did not desire to fight on either side. Every one must +now be for or against the King, and many were in their secret hearts +resolved to be against him. There followed an orgy of bloodshed which +discredits human nature. The patriots fled to the mountains rather than +yield and, in their turn, waylaid and murdered straggling Loyalists. +Under pressure some republicans would give outward compliance to royal +government, but they could not be coerced into a real loyalty. It +required only a reverse to the King's forces to make them again actively +hostile. To meet the difficult situation Congress now made a disastrous +blunder. On June 13, 1780, General Gates, the belauded victor at +Saratoga, was given the command in the South. + +Camden, on the Wateree River, lies inland from Charleston about a +hundred and twenty-five miles as the crow flies. The British had +occupied it soon after the fall of Charleston, and it was now held by +a small force under Lord Rawdon, one of the ablest of the British +commanders. Gates had superior numbers and could probably have taken +Camden by a rapid movement; but the man had no real stomach for +fighting. He delayed until, on the 14th of August, Cornwallis arrived +at Camden with reinforcements and with the fixed resolve to attack Gates +before Gates attacked him. On the early morning of the 16th of August, +Cornwallis with two thousand men marching northward between swamps on +both flanks, met Gates with three thousand marching southward, each of +them intending to surprise the other. A fierce struggle followed. Gates +was completely routed with a thousand casualties, a thousand prisoners, +and the loss of nearly the whole of his guns and transport. The fleeing +army was pursued for twenty miles by the relentless Tarleton. General +Kalb, who had done much to organize the American army, was killed. The +enemies of Gates jeered at his riding away with the fugitives and hardly +drawing rein until after four days he was at Hillsborough, two hundred +miles away. His defense was that he "proceeded with all possible +despatch," which he certainly did, to the nearest point where he could +reorganize his forces. His career was, however, ended. He was deprived +of his command, and Washington appointed to succeed him General +Nathanael Greene. + +In spite of the headlong flight of Gates the disaster at Camden had only +a transient effect. The war developed a number of irregular leaders on +the American side who were never beaten beyond recovery, no matter what +might be the reverses of the day. The two most famous are Francis Marion +and Thomas Sumter. Marion, descended from a family of Huguenot exiles, +was slight in frame and courteous in manner; Sumter, tall, powerful, and +rough, was the vigorous frontiersman in type. Threatened men live +long: Sumter died in 1832, at the age of ninety-six, the last surviving +general of the Revolution. Both men had had prolonged experience in +frontier fighting against the Indians. Tarleton called Marion the "old +swamp fox" because he often escaped through using by-paths across the +great swamps of the country. British communications were always in +danger. A small British force might find itself in the midst of a host +which had suddenly come together as an army, only to dissolve next day +into its elements of hardy farmers, woodsmen, and mountaineers. + +After the victory at Camden Cornwallis advanced into North Carolina, and +sent Major Ferguson, one of his most trusted officers, with a force +of about a thousand men, into the mountainous country lying westward, +chiefly to secure Loyalist recruits. If attacked in force Ferguson +was to retreat and rejoin his leader. The Battle of King's Mountain is +hardly famous in the annals of the world, and yet, in some ways, it +was a decisive event. Suddenly Ferguson found himself beset by hostile +bands, coming from the north, the south, the east, and the west. +When, in obedience to his orders, he tried to retreat he found the way +blocked, and his messages were intercepted, so that Cornwallis was not +aware of the peril. Ferguson, harassed, outnumbered, at last took refuge +on King's Mountain, a stony ridge on the western border between the two +Carolinas. The north side of the mountain was a sheer impassable cliff +and, since the ridge was only half a mile long, Ferguson thought that +his force could hold it securely. He was, however, fighting an enemy +deadly with the rifle and accustomed to fire from cover. The sides and +top of King's Mountain were wooded and strewn with boulders. The motley +assailants crept up to the crest while pouring a deadly fire on any of +the defenders who exposed themselves. Ferguson was killed and in the end +his force surrendered, on October 7, 1780, with four hundred casualties +and the loss of more than seven hundred prisoners. The American +casualties were eighty-eight. In reprisal for earlier acts on the other +side, the victors insulted the dead body of Ferguson and hanged nine of +their prisoners on the limb of a great tulip tree. Then the improvised +army scattered.¹ ¹See Chapter IX, Pioneers of the Old Southwest, by +Constance Lindsay Skinner in The Chronicles of America. + +While the conflict for supremacy in the South was still uncertain, in +the Northwest the Americans made a stroke destined to have astounding +results. Virginia had long coveted lands in the valleys of the Ohio and +the Mississippi. It was in this region that Washington had first seen +active service, helping to wrest that land from France. The country was +wild. There was almost no settlement; but over a few forts on the upper +Mississippi and in the regions lying eastward to the Detroit River there +was that flicker of a red flag which meant that the Northwest was under +British rule. George Rogers Clark, like Washington a Virginian land +surveyor, was a strong, reckless, brave frontiersman. Early in 1778 +Virginia gave him a small sum of money, made him a lieutenant colonel, +and authorized him to raise troops for a western adventure. He had less +than two hundred men when he appeared a little later at Kaskaskia near +the Mississippi in what is now Illinois and captured the small British +garrison, with the friendly consent of the French settlers about the +fort. He did the same thing at Cahokia, farther up the river. The +French scattered through the western country naturally sided with the +Americans, fighting now in alliance with France. The British sent out +a force from Detroit to try to check the efforts of Clark, but in +February, 1779, the indomitable frontiersman surprised and captured this +force at Vincennes on the Wabash. Thus did Clark's two hundred famished +and ragged men take possession of the Northwest, and, when peace was +made, this vast domain, an empire in extent, fell to the United States. +Clark's exploit is one of the pregnant romances of history.¹ ¹See +Chapters III and IV in The Old Northwest by Frederic Austin Ogg in The +Chronicles of America. + +Perhaps the most sorrowful phase of the Revolution was the internal +conflict waged between its friends and its enemies in America, where +neighbor fought against neighbor. During this pitiless struggle the +strength of the Loyalists tended steadily to decline; and they came at +last to be regarded everywhere by triumphant revolution as a vile people +who should bear the penalties of outcasts. In this attitude towards them +Boston had given a lead which the rest of the country eagerly followed. +To coerce Loyalists local committees sprang up everywhere. It must be +said that the Loyalists gave abundant provocation. They sneered at rebel +officers of humble origin as convicts and shoeblacks. There should be +some fine hanging, they promised, on the return of the King's men to +Boston. Early in the Revolution British colonial governors, like Lord +Dunmore of Virginia, adopted the policy of reducing the rebels by +harrying their coasts. Sailors would land at night from ships and commit +their ravages in the light of burning houses. Soldiers would dart out +beyond the British lines, burn a village, carry off some Whig farmers, +and escape before opposing forces could rally. Governor Tryon of New +York was specially active in these enterprises and to this day a special +odium attaches to his name. + +For these ravages, and often with justice, the Loyalists were held +responsible. The result was a bitterness which fired even the calm +spirit of Benjamin Franklin and led him when the day came for peace to +declare that the plundering and murdering adherents of King George +were the ones who should pay for damage and not the States which had +confiscated Loyalist property. Lists of Loyalist names were sometimes +posted and then the persons concerned were likely to be the victims of +any one disposed to mischief. Sometimes a suspected Loyalist would find +an effigy hung on a tree before his own door with a hint that next time +the figure might be himself. A musket ball might come whizzing through +his window. Many a Loyalist was stripped, plunged in a barrel of tar, +and then rolled in feathers, taken sometimes from his own bed. + +Punishment for loyalism was not, however, left merely to chance. Even +before the Declaration of Independence, Congress, sitting itself in +a city where loyalism was strong, urged the States to act sternly in +repressing Loyalist opinion. They did not obey every urging of Congress +as eagerly as they responded to this one. In practically every +State Test Acts were passed and no one was safe who did not carry a +certificate that he was free of any suspicion of loyalty to King George. +Magistrates were paid a fee for these certificates and thus had a golden +reason for insisting that Loyalists should possess them. To secure a +certificate the holder must forswear allegiance to the King and promise +support to the State at war with him. An unguarded word even about the +value in gold of the continental dollar might lead to the adding of the +speaker's name to the list of the proscribed. Legislatures passed bills +denouncing Loyalists. The names in Massachusetts read like a list of +the leading families of New England. The "Black List" of Pennsylvania +contained four hundred and ninety names of Loyalists charged with +treason, and Philadelphia had the grim experience of seeing two +Loyalists led to the scaffold with ropes around their necks and hanged. +Most of the persecuted Loyalists lost all their property and remained +exiles from their former homes. The self-appointed committees took in +hand the task of disciplining those who did not fly, and the rabble +often pushed matters to brutal extremes. When we remember that +Washington himself regarded Tories as the vilest of mankind and unfit to +live, we can imagine the spirit of mobs, which had sometimes the further +incentive of greed for Loyalist property. Loyalists had the experience +of what we now call boycotting when they could not buy or sell in the +shops and were forced to see their own shops plundered. Mills would not +grind their corn. Their cattle were maimed and poisoned. They could +not secure payment of debts due to them or, if payment was made, they +received it in the debased continental currency at its face value. They +might not sue in a court of law, nor sell their property, nor make a +will. It was a felony for them to keep arms. No Loyalist might hold +office, or practice law or medicine, or keep a school. + +Some Loyalists were deported to the wilderness in the back country. +Many took refuge within the British lines, especially at New York. Many +Loyalists created homes elsewhere. Some went to England only to +find melancholy disillusion of hope that a grateful motherland would +understand and reward their sacrifices. Large numbers found their way to +Nova Scotia and to Canada, north of the Great Lakes, and there played +a part in laying the foundation of the Dominion of today. The city of +Toronto with a population of half a million is rooted in the Loyalist +traditions of its Tory founders. Simcoe, the first Governor of Upper +Canada, who made Toronto his capital, was one of the most enterprising +of the officers who served with Cornwallis in the South and surrendered +with him at Yorktown. + +The State of New York acquired from the forfeited lands of Loyalists +a sum approaching four million dollars, a great amount in those days. +Other States profited in a similar way. Every Loyalist whose property +was seized had a direct and personal grievance. He could join the +British army and fight against his oppressors, and this he did: New +York furnished about fifteen thousand men to fight on the British side. +Plundered himself, he could plunder his enemies, and this too he did +both by land and sea. In the autumn of 1778 ships manned chiefly by +Loyalist refugees were terrorizing the coast from Massachusetts to New +Jersey. They plundered Martha's Vineyard, burned some lesser towns, +such as New Bedford, and showed no quarter to small parties of American +troops whom they managed to intercept. What happened on the coast +happened also in the interior. At Wyoming in the northeastern part +of Pennsylvania, in July, 1778, during a raid of Loyalists, aided by +Indians, there was a brutal massacre, the horrors of which long served +to inspire hate for the British. A little later in the same year similar +events took place at Cherry Valley, in central New York. Burning houses, +the dead bodies not only of men but of women and children scalped by +the savage allies of the Loyalists, desolation and ruin in scenes +once peaceful and happy--such horrors American patriotism learned to +associate with the Loyalists. These in their turn remembered the slow +martyrdom of their lives as social outcasts, the threats and plunder +which in the end forced them to fly, the hardships, starvation, and +death to their loved ones which were wont to follow. The conflict is +perhaps the most tragic and irreconcilable in the whole story of the +Revolution. + + +CHAPTER X. FRANCE TO THE RESCUE + +During 1778 and 1779 French effort had failed. Now France resolved to do +something decisive. She never sent across the sea the eight thousand men +promised to La Fayette but by the spring of 1780 about this number were +gathered at Brest to find that transport was inadequate. The leader was +a French noble, the Comte de Rochambeau, an old campaigner, now in his +fifty-fifth year, who had fought against England before in the Seven +Years' War and had then been opposed by Clinton, Cornwallis, and Lord +George Germain. He was a sound and prudent soldier who shares with La +Fayette the chief glory of the French service in America. Rochambeau had +fought at the second battle of Minden, where the father of La Fayette +had fallen, and he had for the ardent young Frenchman the amiable regard +of a father and sometimes rebuked his impulsiveness in that spirit. He +studied the problem in America with the insight of a trained leader. +Before he left France he made the pregnant comment on the outlook: +"Nothing without naval supremacy." About the same time Washington was +writing to La Fayette that a decisive naval supremacy was a fundamental +need. + +A gallant company it was which gathered at Brest. Probably no other land +than France could have sent forth on a crusade for democratic liberty a +band of aristocrats who had little thought of applying to their own land +the principles for which they were ready to fight in America. Over some +of them hung the shadow of the guillotine; others were to ride the storm +of the French Revolution and to attain fame which should surpass their +sanguine dreams. Rochambeau himself, though he narrowly escaped during +the Reign of Terror, lived to extreme old age and died a Marshal of +France. Berthier, one of his officers, became one of Napoleon's marshals +and died just when Napoleon, whom he had deserted, returned from Elba. +Dumas became another of Napoleon's generals. He nearly perished in the +retreat from Moscow but lived, like Rochambeau, to extreme old age. One +of the gayest of the company was the Duc de Lauzun, a noted libertine in +France but, as far as the record goes, a man of blameless propriety in +America. He died on the scaffold during the French Revolution. So, too, +did his companion, the Prince de Broglie, in spite of the protest of +his last words that he was faithful to the principles of the Revolution, +some of which he had learned in America. Another companion was the +Swedish Count Fersen, later the devoted friend of the unfortunate Queen +Marie Antoinette, the driver of the carriage in which the royal family +made the famous flight to Varennes in 1791, and himself destined to be +trampled to death by a Swedish mob in 1810. Other old and famous names +there were: Laval-Montmorency, Mirabeau, Talleyrand, Saint-Simon. It has +been said that the names of the French officers in America read like a +list of medieval heroes in the Chronicles of Froissart. + +Only half of the expected ships were ready at Brest and only five +thousand five hundred men could embark. The vessels were, of course, +very crowded. Rochambeau cut down the space allowed for personal +effects. He took no horse for himself and would allow none to go, but +he permitted a few dogs. Forty-five ships set sail, "a truly imposing +sight," said one of those on board. We have reports of their ennui +on the long voyage of seventy days, of their amusements and their +devotions, for twice daily were prayers read on deck. They sailed into +Newport on the 11th of July and the inhabitants of that still primitive +spot illuminated their houses as best they could. Then the army +settled down at Newport and there it remained for many weary months. +Reinforcements never came, partly through mismanagement in France, +partly through the vigilance of the British fleet, which was on guard +before Brest. The French had been for generations the deadly enemies of +the English Colonies and some of the French officers noted the reserve +with which they were received. The ice was, however, soon broken. They +brought with them gold, and the New England merchants liked this relief +from the debased continental currency. Some of the New England ladies +were beautiful, and the experienced Lauzun expresses glowing admiration +for a prim Quakeress whose simple dress he thought more attractive than +the elaborate modes of Paris. + +The French dazzled the ragged American army by their display of +waving plumes and of uniforms in striking colors. They wondered at the +quantities of tea drunk by their friends and so do we when we remember +the political hatred for tea. They made the blunder common in Europe of +thinking that there were no social distinctions in America. Washington +could have told him a different story. Intercourse was at first +difficult, for few of the Americans spoke French and fewer still of the +French spoke English. Sometimes the talk was in Latin, pronounced by an +American scholar as not too bad. A French officer writing in Latin to +an American friend announces his intention to learn English: "Inglicam +linguam noscere conabor." He made the effort and he and his fellow +officers learned a quaint English speech. When Rochambeau and Washington +first met they conversed through La Fayette, as interpreter, but in time +the older man did very well in the language of his American comrade in +arms. + +For a long time the French army effected nothing. Washington longed +to attack New York and urged the effort, but the wise and experienced +Rochambeau applied his principle, "nothing without naval supremacy," +and insisted that in such an attack a powerful fleet should act with +a powerful army, and, for the moment, the French had no powerful fleet +available. The British were blockading in Narragansett Bay the French +fleet which lay there. Had the French army moved away from Newport their +fleet would almost certainly have become a prey to the British. For +the moment there was nothing to do but to wait. The French preserved an +admirable discipline. Against their army there are no records of outrage +and plunder such as we have against the German allies of the British. We +must remember, however, that the French were serving in the country of +their friends, with every restraint of good feeling which this involved. +Rochambeau told his men that they must not be the theft of a bit of +wood, or of any vegetables, or of even a sheaf of straw. He threatened +the vice which he called "sonorous drunkenness," and even lack of +cleanliness, with sharp punishment. The result was that a month after +landing he could say that not a cabbage had been stolen. Our credulity +is strained when we are told that apple trees with their fruit overhung +the tents of his soldiers and remained untouched. Thousands flocked to +see the French camp. The bands played and Puritan maidens of all grades +of society danced with the young French officers and we are told, +whether we believe it or not, that there was the simple innocence of +the Garden of Eden. The zeal of the French officers and the friendly +disposition of the men never failed. There had been bitter quarrels +in 1778 and 1779 and now the French were careful to be on their good +behavior in America. Rochambeau had been instructed to place himself +under the command of Washington, to whom were given the honors of a +Marshal of France. The French admiral, had, however, been given no such +instructions and Washington had no authority over the fleet. + +Meanwhile events were happening which might have brought a British +triumph. On September 14, 1780, there arrived and anchored at Sandy +Hook, New York, fourteen British ships of the line under Rodney, the +doughtiest of the British admirals afloat. Washington, with his army +headquarters at West Point, on guard to keep the British from advancing +up the Hudson, was looking for the arrival, not of a British fleet, but +of a French fleet, from the West Indies. For him these were very dark +days. The recent defeat at Camden was a crushing blow. Congress was +inept and had in it men, as the patient General Greene said, "without +principles, honor or modesty." The coming of the British fleet was a +new and overwhelming discouragement, and, on the 18th of September, +Washington left West Point for a long ride to Hartford in Connecticut, +half way between the two headquarters, there to take counsel with the +French general. Rochambeau, it was said, had been purposely created to +understand Washington, but as yet the two leaders had not met. It is +the simple truth that Washington had to go to the French as a beggar. +Rochambeau said later that Washington was afraid to reveal the extent +of his distress. He had to ask for men and for ships, but he had also +to ask for what a proud man dislikes to ask, for money from the stranger +who had come to help him. + +The Hudson had long been the chief object of Washington's anxiety and +now it looked as if the British intended some new movement up the river, +as indeed they did. Clinton had not expected Rodney's squadron, but it +arrived opportunely and, when it sailed up to New York from Sandy Hook, +on the 16th of September, he began at once to embark his army, taking +pains at the same time to send out reports that he was going to the +Chesapeake. Washington concluded that the opposite was true and that he +was likely to be going northward. At West Point, where the Hudson flows +through a mountainous gap, Washington had strong defenses on both +shores of the river. His batteries commanded its whole width, but +shore batteries were ineffective against moving ships. The embarking +of Clinton's army meant that he planned operations on land. He might be +going to Rhode Island or to Boston but he might also dash up the Hudson. +It was an anxious leader who, with La Fayette and Alexander Hamilton, +rode away from headquarters to Hartford. + +The officer in command at West Point was Benedict Arnold. No general on +the American side had a more brilliant record or could show more scars +of battle. We have seen him leading an army through the wilderness to +Quebec, and incurring hardships almost incredible. Later he is found on +Lake Champlain, fighting on both land and water. When in the next year +the Americans succeeded at Saratoga it was Arnold who bore the brunt of +the fighting. At Quebec and again at Saratoga he was severely wounded. +In the summer of 1778 he was given the command at Philadelphia, after +the British evacuation. It was a troubled time. Arnold was concerned +with confiscations of property for treason and with disputes about +ownership. Impulsive, ambitious, and with a certain element of +coarseness in his nature, he made enemies. He was involved in bitter +strife with both Congress and the State government of Pennsylvania. +After a period of tension and privation in war, one of slackness and +luxury is almost certain to follow. Philadelphia, which had recently +suffered for want of bare necessities, now relapsed into gay indulgence. +Arnold lived extravagantly. He played a conspicuous part in society +and, a widower of thirty-five, was successful in paying court to Miss +Shippen, a young lady of twenty, with whom, as Washington said, all the +American officers were in love. + +Malignancy was rampant and Arnold was pursued with great bitterness. +Joseph Reed, the President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, +not only brought charge against him of abusing his position for his own +advantage, but also laid the charges before each State government. In +the end Arnold was tried by court-martial and after long and inexcusable +delay, on January 26, 1780, he was acquitted of everything but the +imprudence of using, in an emergency, public wagons to remove private +property, and of granting irregularly a pass to a ship to enter the port +of Philadelphia. Yet the court ordered that for these trifles Arnold +should receive a public reprimand from the Commander-in-Chief. +Washington gave the reprimand in terms as gentle as possible, and when, +in July, 1780, Arnold asked for the important command at West Point, +Washington readily complied probably with relief that so important a +position should be in such good hands. + +The treason of Arnold now came rapidly to a head. The man was +embittered. He had rendered great services and yet had been persecuted +with spiteful persistence. The truth seems to be, too, that Arnold +thought America ripe for reconciliation with Great Britain. He dreamed +that he might be the saviour of his country. Monk had reconciled the +English republic to the restored Stuart King Charles II; Arnold might +reconcile the American republic to George III for the good of both. That +reconciliation he believed was widely desired in America. He tried to +persuade himself that to change sides in this civil strife was no more +culpable then to turn from one party to another in political life. He +forgot, however, that it is never honorable to betray a trust. + +It is almost certain that Arnold received a large sum in money for his +treachery. However this may be, there was treason in his heart when he +asked for and received the command at West Point, and he intended to use +his authority to surrender that vital post to the British. And now +on the 18th of September Washington was riding northeastward into +Connecticut, British troops were on board ships in New York and all was +ready. On the 20th of September the Vulture, sloop of war, sailed up the +Hudson from New York and anchored at Stony Point, a few miles below West +Point. On board the Vulture was the British officer who was treating +with Arnold and who now came to arrange terms with him, Major +John André, Clinton's young adjutant general, a man of attractive +personality. Under cover of night Arnold sent off a boat to bring André +ashore to a remote thicket of fir trees, outside the American lines. +There the final plans were made. The British fleet, carrying an army, +was to sail up the river. A heavy chain had been placed across the river +at West Point to bar the way of hostile ships. Under pretense of repairs +a link was to be taken out and replaced by a rope which would break +easily. The defenses of West Point were to be so arranged that they +could not meet a sudden attack and Arnold was to surrender with his +force of three thousand men. Such a blow following the disasters at +Charleston and Camden might end the strife. Britain was prepared to +yield everything but separation; and America, Arnold said, could now +make an honorable peace. + +A chapter of accidents prevented the testing. Had André been rowed +ashore by British tars they could have taken him back to the ship at +his command before daylight. As it was the American boatmen, suspicious +perhaps of the meaning of this talk at midnight between an American +officer and a British officer, both of them in uniform, refused to row +André back to the ship because their own return would be dangerous in +daylight. Contrary to his instructions and wishes André accompanied +Arnold to a house within the American lines to wait until he could be +taken off under cover of night. Meanwhile, however, an American battery +on shore, angry at the Vulture, lying defiantly within range, opened +fire upon her and she dropped down stream some miles. This was alarming. +Arnold, however, arranged with a man to row André down the river and +about midday went back to West Point. + +It was uncertain how far the Vulture had gone. The vigilance of those +guarding the river was aroused and André's guide insisted that he should +go to the British lines by land. He was carrying compromising papers and +wearing civilian dress when seized by an American party and held under +close arrest. Arnold meanwhile, ignorant of this delay, was waiting for +the expected advance up the river of the British fleet. He learned +of the arrest of André while at breakfast on the morning of the +twenty-fifth, waiting to be joined by Washington, who had just ridden +in from Hartford. Arnold received the startling news with extraordinary +composure, finished the subject under discussion, and then left the +table under pretext of a summons from across the river. Within a few +minutes his barge was moving swiftly to the Vulture eighteen miles away. +Thus Arnold escaped. The unhappy André was hanged as a spy on the 2d of +October. He met his fate bravely. Washington, it is said, shed tears at +its stern necessity under military law. Forty years later the bones of +André were reburied in Westminster Abbey, a tribute of pity for a fine +officer. + +The treason of Arnold is not in itself important, yet Washington wrote +with deep conviction that Providence had directly intervened to save +the American cause. Arnold might be only one of many. Washington said, +indeed, that it was a wonder there were not more. In a civil war every +one of importance is likely to have ties with both sides, regrets for +the friends he has lost, misgivings in respect to the course he has +adopted. In April, 1779, Arnold had begun his treason by expressing +discontent at the alliance with France then working so disastrously. +His future lay before him; he was still under forty; he had just married +into a family of position; he expected that both he and his descendants +would spend their lives in America and he must have known that contempt +would follow them for the conduct which he planned if it was regarded +by public opinion as base. Voices in Congress, too, had denounced the +alliance with France as alliance with tyranny, political and religious. +Members praised the liberties of England and had declared that the +Declaration of Independence must be revoked and that now it could be +done with honor since the Americans had proved their metal. There was +room for the fear that the morale of the Americans was giving way. + +The defection of Arnold might also have military results. He had +bargained to be made a general in the British army and he had intimate +knowledge of the weak points in Washington's position. He advised +the British that if they would do two things, offer generous terms to +soldiers serving in the American army, and concentrate their effort, +they could win the war. With a cynical knowledge of the weaker side of +human nature, he declared that it was too expensive a business to bring +men from England to serve in America. They could be secured more +cheaply in America; it would be necessary only to pay them better than +Washington could pay his army. As matters stood the Continental troops +were to have half pay for seven years after the close of the war and +grants of land ranging from one hundred acres for a private to eleven +hundred acres for a general. Make better offers than this, urged Arnold; +"Money will go farther than arms in America." If the British would +concentrate on the Hudson where the defenses were weak they could drive +a wedge between North and South. If on the other hand they preferred +to concentrate in the South, leaving only a garrison in New York, they +could overrun Virginia and Maryland and then the States farther south +would give up a fight in which they were already beaten. Energy and +enterprise, said Arnold, will quickly win the war. + +In the autumn of 1780 the British cause did, indeed, seem near triumph. +An election in England in October gave the ministry an increased +majority and with this renewed determination. When Holland, long a +secret enemy, became an open one in December, 1780, Admiral Rodney +descended on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, in the West Indies, +where the Americans were in the habit of buying great quantities of +stores and on the 3d of February, 1781, captured the place with two +hundred merchant ships, half a dozen men-of-war, and stores to the value +of three million pounds. The capture cut off one chief source of supply +to the United States. By January, 1781, a crisis in respect to money +came to a head. Fierce mutinies broke out because there was no money +to provide food, clothing, or pay for the army and the men were in a +destitute condition. "These people are at the end of their resources," +wrote Rochambeau in March. Arnold's treason, the halting voices in +Congress, the disasters in the South, the British success in cutting off +supplies of stores from St. Eustatius, the sordid problem of money--all +these were well fitted to depress the worn leader so anxiously watching +on the Hudson. It was the dark hour before the dawn. + + + +CHAPTER XI. YORKTOWN + +The critical stroke of the war was near. In the South, after General +Greene superseded Gates in the command, the tide of war began to turn. +Cornwallis now had to fight a better general than Gates. Greene arrived +at Charlotte, North Carolina, in December. He found an army badly +equipped, wretchedly clothed, and confronted by a greatly superior +force. He had, however, some excellent officers, and he did not scorn, +as Gates, with the stiff military traditions of a regular soldier, had +scorned, the aid of guerrilla leaders like Marion and Sumter. Serving +with Greene was General Daniel Morgan, the enterprising and resourceful +Virginia rifleman, who had fought valorously at Quebec, at Saratoga, and +later in Virginia. Steuben was busy in Virginia holding the British in +check and keeping open the line of communication with the North. The +mobility and diversity of the American forces puzzled Cornwallis. When +he marched from Camden into North Carolina he hoped to draw Greene into +a battle and to crush him as he had crushed Gates. He sent Tarleton with +a smaller force to strike a deadly blow at Morgan who was threatening +the British garrisons at the points in the interior farther south. There +was no more capable leader than Tarleton; he had won many victories; but +now came his day of defeat. On January 17, 1781, he met Morgan at the +Cowpens, about thirty miles west from King's Mountain. Morgan, not quite +sure of the discipline of his men, stood with his back to a broad river +so that retreat was impossible. Tarleton had marched nearly all night +over bad roads; but, confident in the superiority of his weary and +hungry veterans, he advanced to the attack at daybreak. The result was a +complete disaster. Tarleton himself barely got away with two hundred +and seventy men and left behind nearly nine hundred casualties and +prisoners. + +Cornwallis had lost one-third of his effective army. There was nothing +for him to do but to take his loss and still to press on northward +in the hope that the more southerly inland posts could take care of +themselves. In the early spring of 1781, when heavy rains were making +the roads difficult and the rivers almost impassable, Greene was luring +Cornwallis northward and Cornwallis was chasing Greene. At Hillsborough, +in the northwest corner of North Carolina, Cornwallis issued a +proclamation saying that the colony was once more under the authority of +the King and inviting the Loyalists, bullied and oppressed during nearly +six years, to come out openly on the royal side. On the 15th of March +Greene took a stand and offered battle at Guilford Court House. In the +early afternoon, after a march of twelve miles without food, Cornwallis, +with less than two thousand men, attacked Greene's force of about +four thousand. By evening the British held the field and had captured +Greene's guns. But they had lost heavily and they were two hundred miles +from their base. Their friends were timid, and in fact few, and their +numerous enemies were filled with passionate resolution. + +Cornwallis now wrote to urge Clinton to come to his aid. Abandon New +York, he said; bring the whole British force into Virginia and end the +war by one smashing stroke; that would be better than sticking to +salt pork in New York and sending only enough men to Virginia to steal +tobacco. Cornwallis could not remain where he was, far from the sea. Go +back to Camden he would not after a victory, and thus seem to admit a +defeat. So he decided to risk all and go forward. By hard marching he +led his army down the Cape Fear River to Wilmington on the sea, and +there he arrived on the 9th of April. Greene, however, simply would not +do what Cornwallis wished--stay in the north to be beaten by a second +smashing blow. He did what Cornwallis would not do; he marched back into +the South and disturbed the British dream that now the country was held +securely. It mattered little that, after this, the British won minor +victories. Lord Rawdon, still holding Camden, defeated Greene on the +25th of April at Hobkirk's Hill. None the less did Rawdon find his +position untenable and he, too, was forced to march to the sea, which +he reached at a point near Charleston. Augusta, the capital of Georgia, +fell to the Americans on the 5th of June and the operations of the +summer went decisively in their favor. The last battle in the field of +the farther South was fought on the 8th of September at Eutaw Springs, +about fifty miles northwest of Charleston. The British held their +position and thus could claim a victory. But it was fruitless. They +had been forced steadily to withdraw. All the boasted fabric of royal +government in the South had come down with a crash and the Tories who +had supported it were having evil days. + +While these events were happening farther south, Cornwallis himself, +without waiting for word from Clinton in New York, had adopted his own +policy and marched from Wilmington northward into Virginia. Benedict +Arnold was now in Virginia doing what mischief he could to his former +friends. In January he burned the little town of Richmond, destined in +the years to come to be a great center in another civil war. Some twenty +miles south from Richmond lay in a strong position Petersburg, later +also to be drenched with blood shed in civil strife. Arnold was already +at Petersburg when Cornwallis arrived on the 20th of May. He was now in +high spirits. He did not yet realize the extent of the failure farther +south. Virginia he believed to be half loyalist at heart. The negroes +would, he thought, turn against their masters when they knew that the +British were strong enough to defend them. Above all he had a finely +disciplined army of five thousand men. Cornwallis was the more confident +when he knew by whom he was opposed. In April Washington had placed +La Fayette in charge of the defense of Virginia, and not only was La +Fayette young and untried in such a command but he had at first only +three thousand badly-trained men to confront the formidable British +general. Cornwallis said cheerily that "the boy" was certainly now his +prey and began the task of catching him. + +An exciting chase followed. La Fayette did some good work. It was +impossible, with his inferior force, to fight Cornwallis, but he could +tire him out by drawing him into long marches. When Cornwallis advanced +to attack La Fayette at Richmond, La Fayette was not there but had +slipped away and was able to use rivers and mountains for his defense. +Cornwallis had more than one string to his bow. The legislature of +Virginia was sitting at Charlottesville, lying in the interior nearly +a hundred miles northwest from Richmond, and Cornwallis conceived +the daring plan of raiding Charlottesville, capturing the Governor of +Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, and, at one stroke, shattering the civil +administration. Tarleton was the man for such an enterprise of hard +riding and bold fighting and he nearly succeeded. Jefferson indeed +escaped by rapid flight but Tarleton took the town, burned the public +records, and captured ammunition and arms. But he really effected +little. La Fayette was still unconquered. His army was growing and the +British were finding that Virginia, like New England, was definitely +against them. + +At New York, meanwhile, Clinton was in a dilemma. He was dismayed at the +news of the march of Cornwallis to Virginia. Cornwallis had been so long +practically independent in the South that he assumed not only the right +to shape his own policy but adopted a certain tartness in his despatches +to Clinton, his superior. When now, in this tone, he urged Clinton to +abandon New York and join him Clinton's answer on the 26th of June was +a definite order to occupy some port in Virginia easily reached from +the sea, to make it secure, and to send to New York reinforcements. +The French army at Newport was beginning to move towards New York and +Clinton had intercepted letters from Washington to La Fayette revealing +a serious design to make an attack with the aid of the French fleet. +Such was the game which fortune was playing with the British generals. +Each desired the other to abandon his own plans and to come to his +aid. They were agreed, however, that some strong point must be held in +Virginia as a naval base, and on the 2d of August Cornwallis established +this base at Yorktown, at the mouth of the York River, a mile wide where +it flows into Chesapeake Bay. His cannon could command the whole width +of the river and keep in safety ships anchored above the town. Yorktown +lay about half way between New York and Charleston and from here a fleet +could readily carry a military force to any needed point on the sea. +La Fayette with a growing army closed in on Yorktown, and Cornwallis, +almost before he knew it, was besieged with no hope of rescue except by +a fleet. + +Then it was that from the sea, the restless and mysterious sea, came +the final decision. Man seems so much the sport of circumstance that +apparent trifles, remote from his consciousness, appear at times to +determine his fate; it is a commonplace of romance that a pretty face +or a stray bullet has altered the destiny not merely of families but of +nations. And now, in the American Revolution, it was not forts on the +Hudson, nor maneuvers in the South, that were to decide the issue, but +the presence of a few more French warships than the British could muster +at a given spot and time. Washington had urged in January that France +should plan to have at least temporary naval superiority in American +waters, in accordance with Rochambeau's principle, "Nothing without +naval supremacy." Washington wished to concentrate against New York, +but the French were of a different mind, believing that the great +effort should be made in Chesapeake Bay. There the British could have +no defenses like those at New York, and the French fleet, which was +stationed in the West Indies, could reach more readily than New York a +point in the South. + +Early in May Rochambeau knew that a French fleet was coming to his aid +but not yet did he know where the stroke should be made. It was clear, +however, that there was nothing for the French to do at Newport, and, +by the beginning of June, Rochambeau prepared to set his army in motion. +The first step was to join Washington on the Hudson and at any rate +alarm Clinton as to an imminent attack on New York and hold him to that +spot. After nearly a year of idleness the French soldiers were delighted +that now at last there was to be an active movement. The long march from +Newport to New York began. In glowing June, amid the beauties of nature, +now overcome by intense heat and obliged to march at two o'clock in the +morning, now drenched by heavy rains, the French plodded on, and joined +their American comrades along the Hudson early in July. + +By the 14th of August Washington knew two things--that a great French +fleet under the Comte de Grasse had sailed for the Chesapeake and that +the British army had reached Yorktown. Soon the two allied armies, both +lying on the east side of the Hudson, moved southward. On the 20th of +August the Americans began to cross the river at King's Ferry, eight +miles below Peekskill. Washington had to leave the greater part of his +army before New York, and his meager force of some two thousand was soon +over the river in spite of torrential rains. By the 24th of August the +French, too, had crossed with some four thousand men and with their +heavy equipment. The British made no move. Clinton was, however, +watching these operations nervously. The united armies marched down +the right bank of the Hudson so rapidly that they had to leave useful +effects behind and some grumbled at the privation. Clinton thought his +enemy might still attack New York from the New Jersey shore. He knew +that near Staten Island the Americans were building great bakeries as if +to feed an army besieging New York. Suddenly on the 29th of August the +armies turned away from New York southwestward across New Jersey, and +still only the two leaders knew whither they were bound. + +American patriotism has liked to dwell on this last great march of +Washington. To him this was familiar country; it was here that he had +harassed Clinton on the march from Philadelphia to New York three long +years before. The French marched on the right at the rate of about +fifteen miles a day. The country was beautiful and the roads were good. +Autumn had come and the air was bracing. The peaches hung ripe on the +trees. The Dutch farmers who, four years earlier, had been plaintive +about the pillage by the Hessians, now seemed prosperous enough and +brought abundance of provisions to the army. They had just gathered +their harvest. The armies passed through Princeton, with its fine +college, numbering as many as fifty students; then on to Trenton, and +across the Delaware to Philadelphia, which the vanguard reached on the +3d of September. + +There were gala scenes in Philadelphia. Twenty thousand people witnessed +a review of the French army. To one of the French officers the city +seemed "immense" with its seventy-two streets all "in a straight line." +The shops appeared to be equal to those of Paris and there were pretty +women well dressed in the French fashion. The Quaker city forgot its old +suspicion of the French and their Catholic religion. Luzerne, the French +Minister, gave a great banquet on the evening of the 5th of September. +Eighty guests took their places at table and as they sat down good news +arrived. As yet few knew the destination of the army but now Luzerne +read momentous tidings and the secret was out: twenty-eight French ships +of the line had arrived in Chesapeake Bay; an army of three thousand men +had already disembarked and was in touch with the army of La Fayette; +Washington and Rochambeau were bound for Yorktown to attack Cornwallis. +Great was the joy; in the streets the soldiers and the people shouted +and sang and humorists, mounted on chairs, delivered in advance mock +funeral orations on Cornwallis. + +It was planned that the army should march the fifty miles to Elkton, at +the head of Chesapeake Bay, and there take boat to Yorktown, two hundred +miles to the south at the other end of the Bay. But there were not ships +enough. Washington had asked the people of influence in the neighborhood +to help him to gather transports but few of them responded. A deadly +apathy in regard to the war seems to have fallen upon many parts of the +country. The Bay now in control of the French fleet was quite safe for +unarmed ships. Half the Americans and some of the French embarked and +the rest continued on foot. There was need of haste, and the troops +marched on to Baltimore and beyond at the rate of twenty miles a day, +over roads often bad and across rivers sometimes unbridged. At Baltimore +some further regiments were taken on board transports and most of them +made the final stages of the journey by water. Some there were, however, +and among them the Vicomte de Noailles, brother-in-law of La Fayette, +who tramped on foot the whole seven hundred and fifty-six miles from +Newport to Yorktown. Washington himself left the army at Elkton and rode +on with Rochambeau, making about sixty miles a day. Mount Vernon lay +on the way and here Washington paused for two or three days. It was the +first time he had seen it since he set out on May 4, 1775, to attend the +Continental Congress at Philadelphia, little dreaming then of himself as +chief leader in a long war. Now he pressed on to join La Fayette. By the +end of the month an army of sixteen thousand men, of whom about one-half +were French, was besieging Cornwallis with seven thousand men in +Yorktown. + +Heart-stirring events had happened while the armies were marching to +the South. The Comte de Grasse, with his great fleet, arrived at the +entrance to the Chesapeake on the 30th of August while the British fleet +under Admiral Graves still lay at New York. Grasse, now the pivot upon +which everything turned, was the French admiral in the West Indies. +Taking advantage of a lull in operations he had slipped away with his +whole fleet, to make his stroke and be back again before his absence had +caused great loss. It was a risky enterprise, but a wise leader takes +risks. He intended to be back in the West Indies before the end of +October. + +It was not easy for the British to realize that they could be outmatched +on the sea. Rodney had sent word from the West Indies that ten ships +were the limit of Grasse's numbers and that even fourteen British ships +would be adequate to meet him. A British fleet, numbering nineteen ships +of the line, commanded by Admiral Graves, left New York on the 31st of +August and five days later stood off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. On +the mainland across the Bay lay Yorktown, the one point now held by the +British on that great stretch of coast. When Graves arrived he had an +unpleasant surprise. The strength of the French had been well concealed. +There to confront him lay twenty-four enemy ships. The situation was +even worse, for the French fleet from Newport was on its way to join +Grasse. + +On the afternoon of the 5th of September, the day of the great rejoicing +in Philadelphia, there was a spectacle of surpassing interest off Cape +Henry, at the mouth of the Bay. The two great fleets joined battle, +under sail, and poured their fire into each other. When night came the +British had about three hundred and fifty casualties and the French +about two hundred. There was no brilliant leadership on either side. One +of Graves's largest ships, the Terrible, was so crippled that he +burnt her, and several others were badly damaged. Admiral Hood, one +of Graves's officers, says that if his leader had turned suddenly and +anchored his ships across the mouth of the Bay, the French Admiral with +his fleet outside would probably have sailed away and left the British +fleet in possession. As it was the two fleets lay at sea in sight of +each other for four days. On the morning of the tenth the squadron from +Newport under Barras arrived and increased Grasse's ships to thirty-six. +Against such odds Graves could do nothing. He lingered near the mouth of +the Chesapeake for a few days still and then sailed away to New York +to refit. At the most critical hour of the whole war a British fleet, +crippled and spiritless, was hurrying to a protecting port and the +fleurs-de-lis waved unchallenged on the American coast. The action +of Graves spelled the doom of Cornwallis. The most potent fleet ever +gathered in those waters cut him off from rescue by sea. + +Yorktown fronted on the York River with a deep ravine and swamps at the +back of the town. From the land it could on the west side be approached +by a road leading over marshes and easily defended, and on the east side +by solid ground about half a mile wide now protected by redoubts and +entrenchments with an outer and an inner parallel. Could Cornwallis hold +out? At New York, no longer in any danger, there was still a keen desire +to rescue him. By the end of September he received word from Clinton +that reinforcements had arrived from England and that, with a fleet of +twenty-six ships of the line carrying five thousand troops, he hoped to +sail on the 5th of October to the rescue of Yorktown. There was delay. +Later Clinton wrote that on the basis of assurances from Admiral Graves +he hoped to get away on the twelfth. A British officer in New York +describes the hopes with which the populace watched these preparations. +The fleet, however, did not sail until the 19th of October. A speaker in +Congress at the time said that the British Admiral should certainly hang +for this delay. + +On the 5th of October, for some reason unexplained, Cornwallis abandoned +the outer parallel and withdrew behind the inner one. This left him in +Yorktown a space so narrow that nearly every part of it could be +swept by enemy artillery. By the 11th of October shells were dropping +incessantly from a distance of only three hundred yards, and before this +powerful fire the earthworks crumbled. On the fourteenth the French +and Americans carried by storm two redoubts on the second parallel. The +redoubtable Tarleton was in Yorktown, and he says that day and night +there was acute danger to any one showing himself and that every gun was +dismounted as soon as seen. He was for evacuating the place and marching +away, whither he hardly knew. Cornwallis still held Gloucester, on the +opposite side of the York River, and he now planned to cross to that +place with his best troops, leaving behind his sick and wounded. He +would try to reach Philadelphia by the route over which Washington had +just ridden. The feat was not impossible. Washington would have had a +stern chase in following Cornwallis, who might have been able to live +off the country. Clinton could help by attacking Philadelphia, which was +almost defenseless. + +As it was, a storm prevented the crossing to Gloucester. The defenses +of Yorktown were weakening and in face of this new discouragement the +British leader made up his mind that the end was near. Tarleton and +other officers condemned Cornwallis sharply for not persisting in the +effort to get away. Cornwallis was a considerate man. "I thought it +would have been wanton and inhuman," he reported later, "to sacrifice +the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers." He had already +written to Clinton to say that there would be great risk in trying to +send a fleet and army to rescue him. On the 19th of October came the +climax. Cornwallis surrendered with some hundreds of sailors and about +seven thousand soldiers, of whom two thousand were in hospital. The +terms were similar to those which the British had granted at Charleston +to General Lincoln, who was now charged with carrying out the surrender. +Such is the play of human fortune. At two o'clock in the afternoon the +British marched out between two lines, the French on the one side, the +Americans on the other, the French in full dress uniform, the Americans +in some cases half naked and barefoot. No civilian sightseers were +admitted, and there was a respectful silence in the presence of this +great humiliation to a proud army. The town itself was a dreadful +spectacle with, as a French observer noted, "big holes made by bombs, +cannon balls, splinters, barely covered graves, arms and legs of blacks +and whites scattered here and there, most of the houses riddled with +shot and devoid of window-panes." + +On the very day of surrender Clinton sailed from New York with a +rescuing army. Nine days later forty-four British ships were counted off +the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. The next day there were none. The +great fleet had heard of the surrender and had turned back to New York. +Washington urged Grasse to attack New York or Charleston but the French +Admiral was anxious to take his fleet back to meet the British menace +farther south and he sailed away with all his great array. The waters +of the Chesapeake, the scene of one of the decisive events in human +history, were deserted by ships of war. Grasse had sailed, however, to +meet a stern fate. He was a fine fighting sailor. His men said of him +that he was on ordinary days six feet in height but on battle days six +feet and six inches. None the less did a few months bring the British +a quick revenge on the sea. On April 12, 1782, Rodney met Grasse in a +terrible naval battle in the West Indies. Some five thousand in both +fleets perished. When night came Grasse was Rodney's prisoner and +Britain had recovered her supremacy on the sea. On returning to France +Grasse was tried by court-martial and, though acquitted, he remained in +disgrace until he died in 1788, "weary," as he said, "of the burden of +life." The defeated Cornwallis was not blamed in England. His character +commanded wide respect and he lived to play a great part in public life. +He became Governor General of India, and was Viceroy of Ireland when its +restless union with England was brought about in 1800. + +Yorktown settled the issue of the war but did not end it. For more +than a year still hostilities continued and, in parts of the South, +embittered faction led to more bloodshed. In England the news of +Yorktown caused a commotion. When Lord George Germain received the first +despatch he drove with one or two colleagues to the Prime Minister's +house in Downing Street. A friend asked Lord George how Lord North +had taken the news. "As he would have taken a ball in the breast," he +replied; "for he opened his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced up and +down the apartment during a few minutes, 'Oh God! it is all over,' words +which he repeated many times, under emotions of the deepest agitation +and distress." Lord North might well be agitated for the news meant the +collapse of a system. The King was at Kew and word was sent to him. +That Sunday evening Lord George Germain had a small dinner party and the +King's letter in reply was brought to the table. The guests were curious +to know how the King took the news. "The King writes just as he always +does," said Lord George, "except that I observe he has omitted to mark +the hour and the minute of his writing with his usual precision." It +needed a heavy shock to disturb the routine of George III. The +King hoped no one would think that the bad news "makes the smallest +alteration in those principles of my conduct which have directed me in +past time." Lesser men might change in the face of evils; George III was +resolved to be changeless and never, never, to yield to the coercion of +facts. + +Yield, however, he did. The months which followed were months of +political commotion in England. For a time the ministry held its +majority against the fierce attacks of Burke and Fox. The House of +Commons voted that the war must go on. But the heart had gone out of +British effort. Everywhere the people were growing restless. Even +the ministry acknowledged that the war in America must henceforth be +defensive only. In February, 1782, a motion in the House of Commons for +peace was lost by only one vote; and in March, in spite of the frantic +expostulations of the King, Lord North resigned. The King insisted that +at any rate some members of the new ministry must be named by himself +and not, as is the British constitutional custom, by the Prime Minister. +On this, too, he had to yield; and a Whig ministry, under the Marquis +of Rockingham, took office in March, 1782. Rockingham died on the 1st of +July, and it was Lord Shelburne, later the Marquis of Lansdowne, under +whom the war came to an end. The King meanwhile declared that he would +return to Hanover rather than yield the independence of the colonies. +Over and over again he had said that no one should hold office in his +government who would not pledge himself to keep the Empire entire. But +even his obstinacy was broken. On December 5, 1782, he opened Parliament +with a speech in which the right of the colonies to independence was +acknowledged. "Did I lower my voice when I came to that part of my +speech?" George asked afterwards. He might well speak in a subdued +tone for he had brought the British Empire to the lowest level in its +history. + +In America, meanwhile, the glow of victory had given way to weariness +and lassitude. Rochambeau with his army remained in Virginia. Washington +took his forces back to the lines before New York, sparing what men he +could to help Greene in the South. Again came a long period of watching +and waiting. Washington, knowing the obstinate determination of the +British character, urged Congress to keep up the numbers of the army so +as to be prepared for any emergency. Sir Guy Carleton now commanded the +British at New York and Washington feared that this capable Irishman +might soothe the Americans into a false security. He had to speak +sharply, for the people seemed indifferent to further effort and +Congress was slack and impotent. The outlook for Washington's allies in +the war darkened, when in April, 1782, Rodney won his crushing victory +and carried De Grasse a prisoner to England. France's ally Spain had +been besieging Gibraltar for three years, but in September, 1782, +when the great battering-ships specially built for the purpose began a +furious bombardment, which was expected to end the siege, the British +defenders destroyed every ship, and after that Gibraltar was safe. +These events naturally stiffened the backs of the British in negotiating +peace. Spain declared that she would never make peace without the +surrender of Gibraltar, and she was ready to leave the question of +American independence undecided or decided against the colonies if she +could only get for herself the terms which she desired. There was a +period when France seemed ready to make peace on the basis of dividing +the Thirteen States, leaving some of them independent while others +should remain under the British King. + +Congress was not willing to leave its affairs at Paris in the capable +hands of Franklin alone. In 1780 it sent John Adams to Paris, and John +Jay and Henry Laurens were also members of the American Commission. The +austere Adams disliked and was jealous of Franklin, gay in spite of his +years, seemingly indolent and easygoing, always bland and reluctant to +say No to any request from his friends, but ever astute in the interests +of his country. Adams told Vergennes, the French foreign minister, that +the Americans owed nothing to France, that France had entered the war +in her own interests, and that her alliance with America had greatly +strengthened her position in Europe. France, he added, was really +hostile to the colonies, since she was jealously trying to keep them +from becoming rich and powerful. Adams dropped hints that America might +be compelled to make a separate peace with Britain. When it was proposed +that the depreciated continental paper money, largely held in France for +purchases there, should be redeemed at the rate of one good dollar +for every forty in paper money, Adams declared to the horrified French +creditors of the United States that the proposal was fair and just. At +the same time Congress was drawing on Franklin in Paris for money to +meet its requirements and Franklin was expected to persuade the French +treasury to furnish him with what he needed and to an amazing degree +succeeded in doing so. The self interest which Washington believed to be +the dominant motive in politics was, it is clear, actively at work. +In the end the American Commissioners negotiated directly with Great +Britain, without asking for the consent of their French allies. On +November 30, 1782, articles of peace between Great Britain and the +United States were signed. They were, however, not to go into effect +until Great Britain and France had agreed upon terms of peace; and it +was not until September 3, 1783, that the definite treaty was signed. So +far as the United States was concerned Spain was left quite properly to +shift for herself. + +Thus it was that the war ended. Great Britain had urged especially +the case of the Loyalists, the return to them of their property and +compensation for their losses. She could not achieve anything. Franklin +indeed asked that Americans who had been ruined by the destruction of +their property should be compensated by Britain, that Canada should +be added to the United States, and that Britain should acknowledge her +fault in distressing the colonies. In the end the American Commissioners +agreed to ask the individual States to meet the desires of the British +negotiators, but both sides understood that the States would do nothing, +that the confiscated property would never be returned, that most of +the exiled Loyalists would remain exiles, and that Britain herself +must compensate them for their losses. This in time she did on a scale +inadequate indeed but expressive of a generous intention. The United +States retained the great Northwest and the Mississippi became the +western frontier, with destiny already whispering that weak and grasping +Spain must soon let go of the farther West stretching to the Pacific +Ocean. When Great Britain signed peace with France and Spain in January, +1783, Gibraltar was not returned; Spain had to be content with the +return of Minorca, and Florida which she had been forced to yield to +Britain in 1763. Each side restored its conquests in the West Indies. +France, the chief mainstay of the war during its later years, gained +from it really nothing beyond the weakening of her ancient enemy. The +magnanimity of France, especially towards her exacting American ally, is +one of the fine things in the great combat. The huge sum of nearly eight +hundred million dollars spent by France in the war was one of the chief +factors in the financial crisis which, six years after the signing of +the peace, brought on the French Revolution and with it the overthrow +of the Bourbon monarchy. Politics bring strange bedfellows and they have +rarely brought stranger ones than the democracy of young America and the +political despotism, linked with idealism, of the ancient monarchy of +France. + +The British did not evacuate New York until Carleton had gathered there +the Loyalists who claimed his protection. These unhappy people made +their way to the seaports, often after long and distressing journeys +overland. Charleston was the chief rallying place in the South and from +there many sad-hearted people sailed away, never to see again their +former homes. The British had captured New York in September, 1776, and +it was more than seven years later, on November 25, 1783, that the last +of the British fleet put to sea. Britain and America had broken forever +their political tie and for many years to come embittered memories kept +up the alienation. + +It was fitting that Washington should bid farewell to his army at New +York, the center of his hopes and anxieties during the greater part of +the long struggle. On December 4, 1783, his officers met at a tavern to +bid him farewell. The tears ran down his cheeks as he parted with these +brave and tried men. He shook their hands in silence and, in a fashion +still preserved in France, kissed each of them. Then they watched him as +he was rowed away in his barge to the New Jersey shore. Congress was +now sitting at Annapolis in Maryland and there on December 23, 1783, +Washington appeared and gave up finally his command. We are told that +the members sat covered to show the sovereignty of the Union, a quaint +touch of the thought of the time. The little town made a brave show and +"the gallery was filled with a beautiful group of elegant ladies." With +solemn sincerity Washington commended the country to the protection of +Almighty God and the army to the special care of Congress. Passion had +already subsided for the President of Congress in his reply praised the +"magnanimous king and nation" of Great Britain. By the end of the +year Washington was at Mount Vernon, hoping now to be able, as he said +simply, to make and sell a little flour annually and to repair houses +fast going to ruin. He did not foresee the troubled years and the +vexing problems which still lay before him. Nor could he, in his modest +estimate of himself, know that for a distant posterity his character and +his words would have compelling authority. What Washington's countryman, +Motley, said of William of Orange is true of Washington himself: "As +long as he lived he was the guiding star of a brave nation and when he +died the little children cried in the streets." But this is not all. To +this day in the domestic and foreign affairs of the United States the +words of Washington, the policies which he favored, have a living and +almost binding force. This attitude of mind is not without its dangers, +for nations require to make new adjustments of policy, and the past +is only in part the master of the present; but it is the tribute of a +grateful nation to the noble character of its chief founder. + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +In Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. VI (1889), +and in Larned (editor), Literature of American History, pp. 111-152 +(1902), the authorities are critically estimated. There are excellent +classified lists in Van Tyne, The American Revolution (1905), vol. V of +Hart (editor), The American Nation, and in Avery, History of the United +States, vol. V, pp. 422-432, and vol. VI, pp. 445-471 (1908-09). The +notes in Channing, A History of the United States, vol. III (1913), +are useful. Detailed information in regard to places will be found in +Lossing, The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, 2 vols. (1850). + +In recent years American writers on the period have chiefly occupied +themselves with special studies, and the general histories have been +few. Tyler's The Literary History of the American Revolution, 2 +vols. (1897), is a penetrating study of opinion. Fiske's The American +Revolution, 2 vols. (1891), and Sydney George Fisher's The Struggle +for American Independence, 2 vols. (1908), are popular works. The short +volume of Van Tyne is based upon extensive research. The attention +of English writers has been drawn in an increasing degree to the +Revolution. Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, +chaps. XIII, XIV, and XV (1903), is impartial. The most elaborate and +readable history is Trevelyan, The American Revolution, and his George +the Third and Charles Fox (six volumes in all, completed in 1914). If +Trevelyan leans too much to the American side the opposite is true of +Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. III (1902), a scientific +account of military events with many maps and plans. Captain Mahan, U. +S. N., wrote the British naval history of the period in Clowes (editor), +The Royal Navy, a History, vol. III, pp. 353-564 (1898). Of great value +also is Mahan's Influence of Sea Power on History (1890) and Major +Operations of the Navies in the War of Independence (1913). He may be +supplemented by C. O. Paullin's Navy of the American Revolution (1906) +and G. W. Allen's A Naval History of the American Revolution, 2 vols. +(1913). + + +CHAPTERS I AND II. + +Washington's own writings are necessary to an understanding of his +character. Sparks, The Life and Writings of George Washington, 2 vols. +(completed 1855), has been superseded by Ford, The Writings of George +Washington, 14 vols. (completed 1898). The general reader will probably +put aside the older biographies of Washington by Marshall, Irving, and +Sparks for more recent Lives such as those by Woodrow Wilson, Henry +Cabot Lodge, and Paul Leicester Ford. Haworth, George Washington, Farmer +(1915) deals with a special side of Washington's character. The +problems of the army are described in Bolton, The Private Soldier under +Washington (1902), and in Hatch, The Administration of the American +Revolutionary Army (1904). For military operations Frothingham, The +Siege of Boston; Justin H. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth +Colony, 2 vols. (1907); Codman, Arnold's Expedition to Quebec (1901); +and Lucas, History of Canada, 1763-1812(1909). + + + +CHAPTER III. + +For the state of opinion in England, the contemporary Annual Register, +and the writings and speeches of men of the time like Burke, Fox, Horace +Walpole, and Dr. Samuel Johnson. The King's attitude is found in Donne, +Correspondence of George III with Lord North, 1768-83, 2 vols. (1867). +Stirling, Coke of Norfolk and his Friends, 2 vols. (1908), gives +the outlook of a Whig magnate; Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl +of Shelburne, 2 vols. (1912), the Whig policy. Curwen's Journals and +Letters, 1775-84 (1842), show us a Loyalist exile in England. Hazelton's +The Declaration of Independence, its History (1906), is an elaborate +study. + + +CHAPTERS IV, V, AND VI. + +The three campaigns--New York, Philadelphia, and the Hudson--are covered +by C. F. Adams, Studies Military and Diplomatic (1911), which makes +severe strictures on Washington's strategy; H. P. Johnston's "Campaign +of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn," in the Long Island Historical +Society's Memoirs, and Battle of Harlem Heights (1897); Carrington, +Battles of the American Revolution (1904); Stryker, The Battles +of Trenton and Princeton (1898); Lucas, History of Canada (1909). +Fonblanque's John Burgoyne (1876) is a defense of that leader; while +Riedesel's Letters and Journals Relating to the War of the American +Revolution (trans. W. L. Stone, 1867) and Anburey's Travels through +the Interior Parts of America (1789) are accounts by eye-witnesses. +Mereness' (editor) Travels in the American Colonies, 1690-1783 (1916) +gives the impressions of Lord Adam Gordon and others. + +CHAPTERS VII AND VIII. + +On Washington at Valley Forge, Oliver, Life of Alexander Hamilton +(1906); Charlemagne Tower, The Marquis de La Fayette in the American +Revolution, 2 vols. (1895); Greene, Life of Nathanael Greene (1893); +Brooks, Henry Knox (1900); Graham, Life of General Daniel Morgan (1856); +Kapp, Life of Steuben (1859); Arnold, Life of Benedict Arnold (1880). On +the army Bolton and Hatch as cited; Mahan gives a lucid account of +naval effort. Barrow, Richard, Earl Howe (1838) is a dull account of a +remarkable man. On the French alliance, Perkins, France in the American +Revolution (1911), Corwin, French Policy and the American Alliance of +1778 (1916), and Van Tyne on "Influences which Determined the French +Government to Make the Treaty with America, 1778," in The American +Historical Review, April, 1916. + +CHAPTER IX. + +Fortescue, as cited, gives excellent plans. Other useful books are +McCrady, History of South Carolina in the Revolution (1901); Draper, +King's Mountain and its Heroes (1881); Simms, Life of Marion (1844). +Ross (editor), The Cornwallis Correspondence, 3 vols. (1859), and +Tarleton, History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern +Provinces of North America (1787), give the point of view of British +leaders. On the West, Thwaites, How George Rogers Clark won the +Northwest (1903); and on the Loyalists Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the +American Revolution (1902), Flick, Loyalism in New York (1901), and +Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts (1910). + + +CHAPTERS X AND XI. + +For the exploits of John Paul Jones and of the American navy, Mrs. De +Koven's The Life and Letters of John Paul Jones, 2 vols. (1913), Don C. +Seitz's Paul Jones, and G. W. Allen's A Naval History of the American +Revolution, 2 vols. (1913), should be consulted. Jusserand's With +Americans of Past and Present Days (1917) contains a chapter on +"Rochambeau and the French in America"; Johnston's The Yorktown Campaign +(1881) is a full account; Wraxall, Historical Memoirs of my own Time +(1815, reprinted 1904), tells of the reception of the news of Yorktown +in England. + +The Encyclopœdia Britannica has useful references to authorities for +persons prominent in the Revolution and The Dictionary of National +Biography for leaders on the British side. + + + + + + +Index + +A + +Abraham, Plains of (QC), American army on, 50. + +Adams, Abigail, 49. + +Adams, John, in Continental Congress, 8; journey from Boston to +Philadelphia, 9-10; on committee to draft Declaration of Independence, +75-76; excepted from British offer of pardon, 86, 92; opinion of +Philadelphia, 120, 165; criticism of Washington, 149; sent to Paris on +American Commission, 270-271. + +Albany (NY), plan to concentrate British forces at, 133. + +Allen, Colonel Ethan, 40. + +André, Major John, at Philadelphia, 195; treats with Arnold, 241-242; +capture, 242-243; hanged as spy, 243. + +Annapolis (MD), Congress at, 275. + +Anne, Fort, 129. + +Armed neutrality, 206. + +Army, American, camp at Cambridge, 27-28; Washington reorganizes, 30-35; +food and clothing, 30-31, 32 153-156, 166; composition, 31-32, 43; +officers, 32-35, 43-44; after Canadian campaign, 51; desertions, 100, +159-160; plundering by, 111; pay, 111, 158-159, 209; in 1777, 112; +condition under Gates, 145; Washington wishes national, 151; needs +of engineers, 152; hospital service, 152-153, 166-167; weapons and +artillery, 156-158; religion in, 160-161; supplies from France, 184; +after Valley Forge, 197; mutinous, 209, 246. + +Army, British, food for, 36; press-gangs, 176; flogging, 176; relations +between officers and men, 176-177; difficulties of raising, 178; see +also Germans. + +Army, French, in America, 235-236. + +Arnold, Benedict, at Ticonderoga, 40; through Maine to Canada, 43, +44-45; at Quebec, 45-46; at Crown Point, 52-53; Coke denounces King's +reception of, 71; Washington's trust in, 110, 172-173; at Stillwater, +143; describes American Army, 155; treason, 173, 195, 240-243; at West +Point, 238; life at Philadelphia, 239; tried by court-martial, 239; +reprimanded by Washington, 239-240; in Virginia, 251. + +Articles of Confederation, 163. + +Assanpink River, Washington on, 105. + +Atrocities, 180, 212; see also Indians, Prisons. + +Augusta (GA), British take, 211-212; falls to Americans, 250. + + + +B + + + +Baltimore (MD), Congress flees to, 100. + +Barbados, Washington visits, 22. + +Barras, French naval commander, 261. + +Baum, Colonel, at Bennington, 131, 132. + +Beaumarchais sends munitions to America, 183-184. + +Bemis Heights (NY), battle, 143. + +Bennington (VT), battle of 131-132. + +Berthier, French officer, 231. + +Biggins Bridge, Tarleton's victory at, 216. + +Bordentown (NJ), Germans at, 102. + +Boston, defiance of British in, 2; seige, 3, 4, 35-36; Washington's +journey to, 9-10; American camp, 27-28; evacuated by British, 48-49; +effect of Washington's success at, 81; Howe feigns setting out for, 114; +safe, 116; Burgoyne's force at, 146; Loyalists in, 212. + +Braddock, General Edward, Washington with, 22-23. + +Brandywine (PA) battle of, 119-120, 133, 148; La Fayette at, 169; Greene +at, 171. + +Brant, Joseph (Thayendanegea), 134. + +Breed's Hill (MA) 4-5; see also Bunker Hill. + +Broglie, Comte de, suggested as commander of American army, 185. + +Borglie, Prince de, with French armies in America, 232. + +Brooklyn Heights (NY), Washington on, 88-91. + +Buford, Colonel Tarleton attacks, 217. + +Bunker Hill, battle of, 4-7, 33; Washington learns of, 10; significance, +21; officers at, 33, 35. + +Burgoyne, General John, on British behavior at Bunker Hill, 7; ordered +to meet Howe, 68, 112, 113, 124-125; Howe deserts, 116, 130; life and +character, 123-124; at Lake Champlain, 125 et seq.; Indian Allies, +125-126, 138-140, 144; takes Fort Ticonderoga, 127; lack of supplies, +129-130; at Fort Edward, 129; 130, 141; and Bennington, 131-132; at +Saratoga, 132, 141, 143; learns of failure of St. Leger, 136; crosses +Hudson, 141; at Stillwater (Freeman's Farm), 142-143; surrender at +Saratoga, 68, 122, 143-147, 149; effect on France of surrender of, 186; +effect of surrender in England, 190, 192. + +Burke, Edmund, and conciliation, 69; and Independence, 190. + +Byron, Admiral, sent to aid Howe, 200. + + + +C + + + +Cahokia, Clark at, 223. + +Cambridge, American camp, 3, 27-28; Washington at, 10, 30-31, 34, 35, +146. + +Camden (SC), battle of, 219-220, 236. + +Canada, campaign against, 37, 38-47; Washington's idea of, 40 France +and, 188; Loyalists take refuge in, 227-228. + +Carleton, Sir Guy, Governor of Canada, 42; commands at Quebec, 45-46; +operations on Lake Champlain, 52-53; Howe and, 95; superseded by +Burgoyne, 124; commands at New York, 269; and Loyalists, 274. + +Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, on commission to Montreal, 50. + +Carroll, John, on commission to Montreal, 50. + +Catherine II advises England against war, 179. + +Catholics, Quebec Act, 38-39, 41; disabilities in England, 208. + +Chadd's Ford (PA), Washington at, 118, 119. + +Champlain, Lake, plan for conquest of Canada by way of, 43; operations +on, 52-53, 95; Burgoyne at, 125 et seq.; Arnold at, 238. + +Charleston (SC), on side of Revolution, 37; British expedition to, +82-83; Prevost demands surrender, 213-214; Lincoln at, 215-217; +surrenders, 217. + +Charlestown (MA), location, 3; burned, 5, 7. + +Charlotte (NC), Greene at, 247. + +Charlottesville (VA), Cornwallis plans raid of, 252. + +Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of, and conciliation with America, 69, 190; +political status, 192, 193. + +Cherry Valley, massacre, 229. + +Chesapeake Bay, Howe on, 116, 117; see also Yorktown. + +Chew, Benjamin, house as central point in battle at Germantown, 122. + +Clark, G.R., expedition, 223. + +Clinton, General Sir Henry, 236; at Charleston, 82, 215; at New York, +116, 130, 133; up the Hudson, 143, 145; succeeds Howe in command, 195; +march from Philadelphia, 196, 197, 198; retreats at Monmouth Court +House, 199; reaches Newport, 202; sails for Charleston, 217-218; +proclamation, 218; Rodney relieves, 237; and Cornwallis, 253; delay in +reinforcing Cornwallis, 262-263, 265. + +Coke, of Norfolk, wealth, 20, 69-70; and Toryism, 70-71; on American +question, 71-72; and Washington, 71, 72, 189. + +Colonies, attitude toward England, 55 et seq.; state of society in, 60; +population, 177-178; see also names of colonies. + +Continental Congress, Washington at, 1, 259; selects leader for army, +7-9; Howe's conciliation, 92-93; flees to Baltimore, 100; loses able +men, 110; hampers Washington, 100; Gates and, 142; repudiates Gates +terms to Burgoyne, 146; Gates lays quarrel with Washington before, +150; and enlistment, 151; at York, 162, 163; ineptitude, 163-164, 236, +269-270, gives Southern command to Gates, 219; Test Acts, 226; and +French alliance, 244; borrows money from France, 271; at Annapolis, 275. +Conway, General, and Stamp Act, 69. + +Conway, General Thomas, 110; "Conway Cabal" against Washington, 149, +150; leaves America, 151. + +Cornwallis, Lord, 230; at Charleston, 82, crosses Hudson, 97; goes to +Trenton, 104-105; at Princeton, 106; and Howe, 115; at the Brandywine, +119; goes to Charleston, 216; at Camden, 219; in North Carolina, 221, +247-248; proclamation, 249; Guilford Court House, 249; advance down Cape +Fear River, 250; in Virginia, 251-252; and Clinton, 253; Yorktown, 254 +et seq.; surrender, 264-266. + +Countess of Scarborough (ship), Jones captures, 205. + +Cowpens, battle of, 172, 248. + +Cromwell, Oliver, as military leader, 170. + +Crown Point (NY), capture of, 52-53; Burgoyne at, 126. + + + +D + + + +Dartmouth, Earl of, Minister of England, 63. + +Deane, Silas, envoy to France, 184-185. + +Declaration of Independence, 75-80. + +Delaware Bay, British fleet in, 116. + +Delaware River, Washington crosses, 102. + +Denmark and armed neutrality, 206-207. + +Detroit, force to check Clark from, 223. + +Devonshire, Duke of, costly residence, 18. + +Dickinson, John, of Pennsylvania, on Declaration of Independence, 78. + +Dilworth, Cornwallis marches on, 119. + +Dinwiddie, Governor, Washington and, 16. + +Donop, Count von, at Trenton, 102, 104. + +Dorchester Heights (MA), American troops on, 47-48. + +Dumas, French officer with Rochambeau, 231. + +Dunmore, Lord, Governor of Virginia, 224. + + + +E + + + +East River, location, 87; British on, 93. + +Edward, Fort, St. Clair retires to, 127; Burgoyne at, 129, 130-141; +Indian raids at, 140; Burgoyne seeks to return to, 143. + +Elkton (MD), Howe at, 116, 118; American army at, 258. + +Emerson, chaplain, diary quoted, 35. + +England, in eighteenth century, 16-19; state of society, 19, 59; +Parliament votes tax on colonies, 23; politics, 24-25, 64 et seq., 268; +attitude toward the colonies, 54-55, 58; prosperity, 59; difficulties in +raising army, 178; France and, 182-183, 187-188, 191-192, 195-196, 206, +270; Whig attitude after French intervention, 189-190; and Spain, 187, +203-204, 206; navy in 1779, 204; domestic affairs, 207; treaty of peace, +272; see also Army, British. + +Estaing, Count d', French admiral, 195; at the Delaware, 196-197; at +Sandy Hook, 200-201; at Newport, 201-202; at Savannah, 214-215. + +Eutaw Springs, battle of, 250. + + + +F + + + +Falmouth (Portland, ME), destroyed, 81. + +Ferguson, Major Patrick, 216; King's Mountain, 221-222; killed, 222. + +Fersen, Count, with French army, 232. + +Finance, value of continental money, 209; Franklin procures money in +France, 271. + +Florida returned to Spain, 273. + +Foch, general, quoted, 101. + +Fox, C.J., and carelessness of ministers, 68; urges conciliation, 69. + +France, French in Canada, 38; alliance with, 182 et seq.; and England, +182-183, 187-188, 191-192, 195-196, 206, 270; treaty of friendship with +America (1778), 187; and Canada, 188; and Spain, 203; promises soldiers +to Washington, 210; help in 1780, 230 et seq.; bibliography of alliance, +280. + +Franklin, Benjamin, on Lexington, 2; on George III, 25; member of +commission to Montreal, 50; on committee to meet Howe, 93; satirizes +British ignorance, 138; in Congress, 164; induces Hessians to desert, +180; sent to Paris, 185; and Loyalists, 225, 270, 271. + +Fraser, General, killed, 143. + +Frederick the Great, of Prussia, estimate of Washington, 105; urges +France against England, 187. + + + +G + + + +Gage, General Thomas, 72; at Boston, 3, 4-5. + +Gates, General Horatio, 98, 110, 172, 173; in command of Lee's army, +99-100; joins Washington, 100; discourages Washington, 103; against +Burgoyne, 142-145; intrigue, 149-151; menaces Clinton in New Jersey, +198; command in the South, 219; Camden, 219; Greene supersedes, 247. + +George III, American opinions of, 25; Hamilton on, 39; character, 60-62; +speech in Parliament, 62-63; Washington and, 63, 86; statue destroyed in +New York, 80; ready to give guarantees of liberty, 115; effect of news +of Ticonderoga on, 127-128; on taxing of America, 190; and Chatham, 193; +news of Yorktown, 267-268. + +George, Fort, Burgoyne's supplies from, 129. + +Georgia, British in, 211-212, 217. + +Germain, Lord George, failure to send orders to Howe, 68, 125; +instructions to Burgoyne, 112; plans campaign from England, 130-131; +censures Howe, 194; in Seven Years' War, 230; news of Yorktown, 267. + +Germans, hold line of the Delaware, 102; plundering, 111; at Bennington, +131-132; with Burgoyne, 144, 145; Steuben's part in Revolutionary War, +174-176; benefit to British, 179-180; desertions, 180-181, 199. + +Germantown, Howe's camp at, 121; battle of, 122, 148; Greene at, 171. + +Gibraltar, Spain besieges, 270; not returned to Spain, 273. + +Gloucester, Cornwallis holds, 263. + +Gordon, Lord Adam, on Philadelphia, 215; opinion of Charleston, 215. + +Gordon, Lord George, leads London riot, 208. + +Grasse, Comte de, commands French fleet, 256; at Chesapeake Bay, 260, +261-262; sails south, 265; Rodney captures, 266, 270. + +Great Britain, see England. + +Greene, General Nathanael, 110; at Bunker Hill, 4; advocates +independence, 75; commands Fort Washington, 96-97; harasses Cornwallis, +105; at Germantown, 122; at Valley Forge, 170-171; in Rhode Island, 201; +on Congress, 236; supersedes Gates in South, 247; Guilford Court House, +249; at Hobkirk's Hill, 250. + +Grey, Sir Charles, Howe and, 115. + +Guilford Court House, 249. + + + +H + + + +Hamilton, Alexander, 238; and Washington, 16, 168; on Quebec Act, 39. + +Hancock, John, desires post as Commander-in-Chief, 8. + +Harlem River, location, 87. + +Hastings, Marquis of, 6; see also Rawdon, Lord. + +Henry, Patrick, speech, 57. + +Henry, Cape, naval battle off, 261. + +Herkimer, General Nicholas, battle of Oriskany, 135. + +Hessians, see Germans. + +Hillsborough (NC), Cornwallis issues proclamation at, 249. + +Hobkirk's Hill, Rawdon defeats Greene at, 250. + +Holkham, Lord Leicester's residence at, 18; Coke's residence at, 69-70, +71. + +Holland joins England's enemies 206, 246. + +Hood, Sir Samuel, British admiral, 261. + +Howe, Richard, Lord, commands fleet reaching New York, 84, 86; Whig +sympathy, 85; personal characteristics, 85; letter to Washington, 86-87; +seeks peace, 92-93; takes fleet to Newport, 100; proclamation, 101; +and evacuation of Philadelphia, 196-197; expects naval flight off Sandy +Hook, 200-201; at Newport, 202; refuses to serve Tory Admiralty, 207. + +Howe, General Sir William, at Bunker Hill, 5; succeeds Gage in command, +5, 36; evacuates Boston, 47-48; and Burgoyne, 68, 112, 116-117, 130, +142; personal characteristics, 84; attitude toward Revolution, 84; lands +army on Staten Island, 86; battle of Long Island, 87-90; in New York, +93-95; plans to meet Carleton, 95; battle of White Plains, 96; Fort +Washington, 96-97; takes Fort Lee, 98; and Lee, 99, 112-113; at Trenton, +100; proclamation, 101, 111; goes to New York for Christmas, 102; +dilatoriness, 109, 110; takes Philadelphia, 109, 112, 120, 149; plan +for 1777, 112-113; sails for Chesapeake Bay, 115-116; at the Brandywine, +118-119, 133; and Pennsylvanians, 120-121; at Germantown, 121-122; +leaves Philadelphia, 194; Clinton succeeds, 195. + +Hudson River, advantages of plan to sail up, 82; location of mouth, 87; +British on, 93, 96-98; Washington guards, 209-210, 211, 236, 237-238, +see also West Point. + + + +I + + + +Independence, 54 et seq.; see also Declaration of Independence. + +Independence, Fort 127. + +India, France against British in, 206. + +Indians, allies of Burgoyne, 125, 133, 138, 139-140, 144; with St. +Leger, 134-136; aid loyalists in Wyoming massacre, 229. + +Ireland, Declaration of Independence, 208. + + + +J + + + +Jay, John, on Declaration of Independence, 78; opinion of Congress, 162; +on American Commission, 270. + +Jefferson, Thomas, and Declaration of Independence, 75-77; on Lafayette, +170; British plan to capture, 252. + +Johnson, Sir John, with St. Leger, 133-134, 135. + +Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 58. + +Johnson, Sir William, 134. + +Jones, John Paul, 204-206; bibliography, 281. + + + +K + + + +Kalb, Baron de, part in Revolutionary War, 173-174; killed, 220. + +Kaskaskia, Clark at 223. + +Kenneth Square, British camp at, 118. + +Keppel, Admiral, and London riots, 207. + +King's Mountain, battle of, 221-222. + +Knox, Henry,Washington values service of, 110, 171-172. + +Knyphausen, General, and Howe, 115; at the Brandywine, 118; effective +service, 179-180. + +Kosciuszko, in American army, 173 + + + +L + + + +Lafayette, Marquis de, 182, 230, 238; and Washington, 13, 168, 169; +and independence of America, 30; personal characteristics, 169-170; +volunteers through Deane's influence, 185; with Lee at Monmouth +Court House, 198-199; sent to France (1779), 210; as interpreter for +Washington and Rochambeau, 234; in Virginia, 251-252. + +Lansdowne, Marquis of, see Shelburne, Lord. + +Laurens, Henry, on American Commission, 270. + +Lauzun, Duc de, with French army in America, 231-232, 233. + +Laval-Montmorency, French officer in America, 232. + +Lee, Arthur, on commission to Paris, 185. + +Lee, General Charles, 150, 172; Washington writes to, 30; at Fort +Washington, 98; disobeys Washington, 98-99; letter to Gates, 99; +captured, 99; and Howe, 99, 112-113; freed by exchange of prisoners, +173; personal characteristics, 173; and training of recruits, 176; at +Monmouth Court House, 198-199; court-martialed, 199; suspended, 199; +dismissed from army, 199. + +Lee. R.H., and Declaration of Independence, 75. + +Lee, Fort (NJ) 96; Washington at, 97; falls to British, 97, 98. + +Leicester, Lord , costly residence at Holkham, 18. + +Lexington, Battle of, 2, 21. + +Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 29; and Declaration of Independence, 76, +77-78. + +Lincoln, General Benjamin, at Ticonderoga, 142; southern campaign, 214, +215, 217, 264. + +Long Island (NY),battle of, 87-90, 91. + +Loyalists, Howe and Pennsylvania, 162; plundering, 203, 228; in South, +212-213; Clinton's proclamation to, 218; decline in strength, 224; +punishments, 225-226; Test Acts, 226; question of compensation of, 272; +gather in New York to claim British protection, 274; bibliography, 281. + +Luzerne, French minister, 258. + + + +M + + + +McCrae, Jennie, carried off by Indians, 140. + +McNeil, Mrs., carried off by Indians, 140. + +Maine, Arnold's expedition, 43, 44. + +Marie Antoinette, Queen, zeal for liberal ideas, 183; Fersen friend of, +232. + +Marion, Francis, guerrilla leader, 220, 247. + +Marlborough, Duke of, costly residence, 18. + +Martha's Vineyard (MA), Loyalist refugees plunder, 228. + +Maryland, and independence, 75; Howe plans to secure control of, 113. + +Massachusetts, Suffolk County defies England, 28-29; North and +constitution of, 191; list of Loyalists, 226. + +Minorca returned to Spain, 273. + +Mirabeau, French officer in America, 232. + +Mississippi River becomes western frontier of United States, 273. + +Monmouth Court House, battle of, 198-199; Lee at, 176. + +Montgomery, General Richard, expedition to Canada, 43; at Quebec, 45-46; +death, 46-47, 48. + +Montreal, Montgomery enters, 44; Commission sent to, 50; evacuated, 51; +St. Leger reaches, 136. + +Morgan, Captain Daniel, at Quebec, 46; with Greene, 247; at Cowpens, +248. + +Morris, Gouveneur, opinion of Congress, 162. + +Morristown (NJ), American headquarters at, 99, 106, 110. + +Moultrie, Fort (SC), battle at, 83. + +Mount Vernon, Washington's estate, 20, 259, 275. + +Murray, Mrs., saves Putnam's army, 94. + + + +N + + + +Narragansett Bay (RI), British blockade French fleet in, 234. + +Navy, American, Jones and, 204-206; need for supremacy, 231. + +Necessity, Fort (PA), surrender of, 148. + +New Bedford (MA), Loyalists burn, 228. + +New England, question of leader from, 8; and Washington, 11; character +of people, 29; equality in, 33; on independence, 75; revolutionary, 81; +and Indians, 137; and Burgoyne, 145; States jealous of, 164-165. + +New Hampshire offers bounty for Indian scalps, 137-138. + +New Jersey, Washington's flight across, 97, 100; Lee retreats to, 99; +loyalty, 110; Howe's proclamation, 110; Washington recovers, 106; Howe +moves across, 110, 114; Clinton crosses, 196, 197. + +New York, on independence, 75; Howe's proclamation, 101; Howe's plan to +hold, 113; acquires Loyalist lands, 228. + +New York City, on side of Revolution, 37; Washington plans to hold, +37-38; loss of, 53, 81 et seq., 108, 148; statue of King destroyed, 80; +burned, 94-95; Washington plans march to, 116; for naval defence, 195; +Loyalists take refuge in, 227; French army moves toward, 253; Washington +returns to, 269; Washington bids farewell to army at, 274. + +Newgate jail burned, 208. + +Newport (RI), Lord Howe's fleet at, 100; British hold, 201; French fleet +sails into, 233; French army leaves, 253. + +Noailles, Vicomte de, on foot from Newport to Yorktown, 259. + +Norfolk (VA), destroyed, 81. + +North, Lord, Prime Minister, 63-64, 190-191; George III writes to, 61; +seeks to retire, 192, 193; and news of Yorktown, 267; resigns, 268. + +North Carolina, and independence, 75; campaign in, 247-251. + +Northwest, United States retains, 273. + +Nova Scotia, Washington's belief of sympathy in, 42; Loyalists go to, +227. + + + +O + + + +Ogg, F.A. The Old Northwest, cited, 224. + +Oriskany (NY), battle of, 135. + + + +P + + + +Paine, Thomas, 74; Common Sense, 75. + +Palliser, Sir Hugh, and British naval quarrel, 207, + +Panther, Wyandot chief, shows scalp of Miss McCrae, 140. + +Parker, Admiral Sir Peter, before Fort Moultrie, 82-83. + +Pennsylvania, and independence, 75; loyalty, 101; Howe plans to secure +control of, 113; "Black Lists" of Loyalists, 226. + +Percy, Earl, opinion of rebels in America, 32. + +Petersburg (VA), Arnold at, 251. + +Philadelphia, second Continental Congress at, 1, 7-9; Washington sets +out from, 9; on side of Revolution, 37; Paine in, 74; Howe plans +to secure, 100, 101; loss of, 108 et seq., 148; Howe leaves, 194; +Mischianza in, 194-195; British abandon, 196; Loyalists hanged in, 226; +Arnold in command at, 238; French army reviewed in, 257-258. + +Pigot, General, at Newport, 201. + +Pitt, William, see Chatham, Earl of. + +Politics, see England. + +Prescott, Colonel, at Bunker Hill, 4; + +Preston, Major, British officer at St. Johns, 44. + +Prevost, General Augustine, at Charleston, 213-214. + +Prices, 167. + +Princeton, Cornwallis at, 106. + +Prisons, British prison-ships, 153; London riots, 208. + +Privateers, checked at Newport, 100; France and, 186. + +Providence (RI), Greene and Sullivan at, 201. + +Putnam, Israel, at Bunker Hill, 4,6; leaves New York, 94. + + + +Q + + + +Quebec (QC), Arnold and Montgomery before, 45-46, 49-50, 82, 98, 238; +Morgan at, 172, 247. + +Quebec Act, 38-39, 41. + + + +R + + + +Rahl, Colonel, at Trenton, 102; killed, 104. + +Rawdon, Lord Francis, at Bunker Hill, 6; at Camden, 219, 250. + +Reed, Joseph, charge against Arnold, 239. + +Revolutionary War, bibliography, 277-278. + +Rhode Island, British control, 100; Washington's campaign against, +201-202; British evacuate, 211. + +Richmond, Duke of, opinion of Revolution, 69. + +Richmond (VA), Arnold burns, 251. + +Riedesel, General, at Lake Champlain, 125; effective service to British, +179-180. + +Riedesel, Baroness, reports conditions in New England, 137. + +Rochambeau, Comte de, leader of French army in America, 230-231; idea +of naval supremacy, 231, 255; and Washington, 234, 236, 237; on American +situation (1781), 246; goes to Yorktown, 258; in Virginia, 269. + +Rockingham, Marquis of, Prime Minister, 268. + +Rodney, Admiral, arrives in America, 236; captures St. Eustatius, 246; +captures Grasse, 266, 270. + +Russia, British endeavor to get troops in, 179; Armed Neutrality, 206. + + + +S + + + +St. Clair, General Arthur, at Fort Ticonderoga, 127. + +St. Eustacius, captured by Rodney, 246. + +St. Johns, Montgomery captures, 44. + +St. Leger, General Barry, at Fort Stanwix, 133-134; at Oriskany, +135-136. + +Saint-Simon, French officer in America, 232. + +Sandy Hook (NY), French fleet at, 200, 201. + +Saratoga (NY), Burgoyne at, 132, 141, 143; Burgoyne's surrender, 68, +122, 143-147, 149, 186; Arnold at, 238; Morgan at, 247. + +Savannah (GA), British land at, 211. + +Savile, Sir George, opinion of the Revolution, 69. + +Schuyler, General Philip, goes to Canada by way of Lake Champlain, 43; +Gates supersedes, 142. + +Serapis (ship), Jones captures, 205. + +Shelburne, Lord, Prime minister, 268. + +Shippen, Margaret, 195; marries Arnold, 239. + +Simcoe, General J.G., with Clinton at Charleston, 216; Governor of Upper +Canada, 228. + +Skinner, C. L., Pioneers of the Old Southwest, cited 222. + +Slavery, Washington as a slave-owner, 21. + +Slave-trade, Declaration of Independence makes King responsible for, 77. + +South, war in the, 211 et seq. + +South Carolina, neutrality proposed, 213; British control, 217. + +Spain, against England, 187, 203-204, 206; navy, 187; and Gibraltar, +270; and peace treaty, 272. + +Stamp Act, 69, 183, 192. + +Stanwix (NY), Fort, St. Leger before, 133-134. + +Staten Island (NY), Howe on, 86, 87, 115. + +States, Congress and, 163. + +Steuben, Baron von, service in Revolution, 174-175; in Virginia, 247. + +Stillwater (NY), American camp at, 141; Burgoyne attacks Gates at, +142-143; Burgoyne's defeat, 143. + +Stirling, Lord, prisoner, 89. + +Stony Point (NY), 99. + +Stuart, Gilbert, and Washington, 16. + +Sullivan, General John, takes prisoner at battle of Long Island, 89; +sent by Howe to interview Congress, 92; exchanged, 99; at Morristown, +99; and Washington, 110-111; at Germantown, 122; at Providence, 201. + +Sumter, Thomas, guerrilla leader, 220, 247. + +Sweden, Armed Neutrality, 206. + + + +T + + + +Talleyrand, French officer in America, 232. + +Tarleton, Colonel Banastre, raids, 216, 217; at Camden, 219-220; and +Marion, 221; King's Mountain, 248; takes Charlottesville (VA), 252-253; +in Yorktown, 263; and Cornwallis, 264. + +Terrible (ship), 261. + +Test Acts, 226. + +Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), 134. + +Thomas, General, on Plains of Abraham, 50. + +Thompson, General, attacks Three River, 51. + +Three Rivers (QC), attack on, 51. + +Throg's Neck (NY), Howe at, 95. + +Ticonderoga (NY), Fort, captured by Allen, 39-40, 42; Arnold retreats +to, 53; Burgoyne lays siege to, 126-127; Lincoln besieges, 142. + +Tories, plundering of, 111; see also Loyalists. + +Toronto (ON), Loyalists in, 228. + +Transportation, need of military engineers for, 152. + +Trenton (NJ), Howe at, 100; attack on, 101-107, 109; Greene at, 171. + +Tryon, Governor of New York, 225. + + + +V + + + +Valley Forge (PA) Washington at, 148 et seq.; Washington leaves, 196. + +Vergennes, French Foreign Minister, 182-183, 184, 197, 271. + +Vincennes, Clark at, 223. + +Virginia, choice of a commander from, 8; state of society, 19-20, 32-33; +on independence, 73; Convention changes church service, 79; Burgoyne's +force in, 146; covets lands in Northwest, 222; Steuben in, 247; +Cornwallis in, 251. + +Vulture (sloop of war), 241, 242, 243. + + + +W + + + +Walpole, Horace 59, 64, 73-74; Gates godson of, 142; quoted, 217. + +Ward, General Artemus, and siege of Boston, 3. + +Washington, George, at second Continental Congress, 1, 259; champion of +colonial cause, 1-2, 23-24, 59; chosen Commander-in-Chief, 8-9; journey +to Boston, 9-11; personal characteristics, 11, 13-16, 109; life, 11; +as a landowner, 12; education, 13; contrasted with English country +gentlemen, 17-20; wealth; 20, 56; as a farmer, 20-21; a slave-owner, 21; +with Braddock, 22-23; opinion of George III, 25, 63; not a professional +soldier, 27; reorganizes army, 30-35; favors conscription, 34; at +Boston, 36; plans against Canada, 40-43; mourns Montgomery, 47; hated +of British, 57-58; Coke and, 71, 72, 189; advocates independence, 75; +headquarters in New York, 82, 87; Howe's letter to, 86-87; at Brooklyn +Heights, 88-91; exposed to enemy in New York, 93; and Congress, 96, 146, +163-164; Lee and, 98-99, 199; retreats across New Jersey, 100; attack +upon Trenton, 101-107, 109; on Howe's dilatoriness, 109; in New Jersey, +110; and Sullivan, 111; policy toward Loyalists, 111; on plundering, +111; need of maps, 111; and Howe, 113-115, 118, 120, 142; and Burgoyne, +116; at the Brandywine, 118-119; Germantown, 121-122; at Valley Forge, +148 et seq.; religion, 161; relations with staff, 167-168; as military +leader, 170; volunteers come to, 174; distrustful of France, 188-189; +celebrates French alliance, 193; army occupies Philadelphia, 196; +follows Clinton across New Jersey, 197-198; Monmouth Court House, 199; +despair of, 1779-1780, 208-209; guards Hudson, 209-210; French under, +210; opinion of Tories, 227; and Rochambeau, 234, 236, 237, 255; +reprimands Arnold, 239-240; and Andre, 243; plan differs from French, +255; march to Yorktown, 255 et seq.; and Carleton, 269; believes +self-interest dominant in politics, 271-272; bids farewell to army, 274; +gives up command, 275; at Mount Vernon, 275; influences upon future, +275-276; bibliography, 278. + +Washington, Fort (NY), held by Americans, 96-97; British take, 97. + +West Indies, conquests restored, 273. + +West Point (NY), fortification, 236, 237-238; Arnold in command, 238; +plot to surrender, 240-244. + +White Plains (NY), battle of, 96. + +Wight, Isle of, plan to seize, 204. + +Wilkes, John, introduces bill into Parliament, 191. + +Wilmington (NC), British fleet reaches, 82; Cornwallis in, 250. + +Winslow, Edward, quoted, 49. + +Wyoming (PA) massacre, 229. + + + +Y + + + +York, Congress at, 162, 163. + +Yorktown, Cornwallis surrenders at, 228, 247 et seq. + + + + +The Chronicles of America Series + + 1. The Red Man's Continent + by Ellsworth Huntington + 2. The Spanish Conquerors + by Irving Berdine Richman + 3. Elizabethan Sea-Dogs + by William Charles Henry Wood + 4. The Crusaders of New France + by William Bennett Munro + 5. Pioneers of the Old South + by Mary Johnson + 6. The Fathers of New England + by Charles McLean Andrews + 7. Dutch and English on the Hudson + by Maud Wilder Goodwin + 8. The Quaker Colonies + by Sydney George Fisher + 9. Colonial Folkways + by Charles McLean Andrews + 10. The Conquest of New France + by George McKinnon Wrong + 11. The Eve of the Revolution + by Carl Lotus Becker + 12. Washington and His Comrades in Arms + by George McKinnon Wrong + 13. The Fathers of the Constitution + by Max Farrand + 14. Washington and His Colleagues + by Henry Jones Ford + 15. Jefferson and his Colleagues + by Allen Johnson + 16. John Marshall and the Constitution + by Edward Samuel Corwin + 17. The Fight for a Free Sea + by Ralph Delahaye Paine + 18. Pioneers of the Old Southwest + by Constance Lindsay Skinner + 19. The Old Northwest + by Frederic Austin Ogg + 20. The Reign of Andrew Jackson + by Frederic Austin Ogg + 21. The Paths of Inland Commerce + by Archer Butler Hulbert + 22. Adventurers of Oregon + by Constance Lindsay Skinner + 23. The Spanish Borderlands + by Herbert E. Bolton + 24. Texas and the Mexican War + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson + 25. The Forty-Niners + by Stewart Edward White + 26. The Passing of the Frontier + by Emerson Hough + 27. The Cotton Kingdom + by William E. Dodd + 28. The Anti-Slavery Crusade + by Jesse Macy + 29. Abraham Lincoln and the Union + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson + 30. The Day of the Confederacy + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson + 31. Captains of the Civil War + by William Charles Henry Wood + 32. The Sequel of Appomattox + by Walter Lynwood Fleming + 33. The American Spirit in Education + by Edwin E. Slosson + 34. The American Spirit in Literature + by Bliss Perry + 35. Our Foreigners + by Samuel Peter Orth + 36. The Old Merchant Marine + by Ralph Delahaye Paine + 37. The Age of Invention + by Holland Thompson + 38. The Railroad Builders + by John Moody + 39. The Age of Big Business + by Burton Jesse Hendrick + 40. The Armies of Labor + by Samuel Peter Orth + 41. The Masters of Capital + by John Moody + 42. The New South + by Holland Thompson + 43. The Boss and the Machine + by Samuel Peter Orth + 44. The Cleveland Era + by Henry Jones Ford + 45. The Agrarian Crusade + by Solon Justus Buck + 46. The Path of Empire + by Carl Russell Fish + 47. Theodore Roosevelt and His Times + by Harold Howland + 48. Woodrow Wilson and the World War + by Charles Seymour + 49. The Canadian Dominion + by Oscar D. Skelton + 50. The Hispanic Nations of the New World + by William R. 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