real soldier and therefore his instinct told him that his next objective must be the enemy's army. Accordingly he prepared to move his own troops to New York. He

olonies, were really intriguing each for the interests of his special colony or section. Washington thought this an ominous sign, as indeed it was, for since the moment when he joined the Revolution he threw off all local affiliation. He did his utmost to perform his duty, clinging as long as he could to the hope that th

many members of Congress, in short, the representation of whole provinces, are still feeding themselves upon the dainty food of reconciliation; and though they will not allow, that the expectation of it has any influence upon their judgment, (with respect to their preparations for defence,) it is but too obvious, that it has an operation upon every part of their conduct, and is a clog to their

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the course of the Revolution there were thirty thousand Hessians in the British armies in America, and, as their owners, the German princelings, received ￡5 apiece for them it was a profitable arrangement for those phlegmatic, corpulent, and braggart personages. The Americans complained that

was nominally nineteen thousand men, but it was reduced to not more than ten thousand by the detachment of several thousand to guard Boston and of several thousand more to take part in the struggle in Canada, besides thirty-six hundred sick. The Colonists clung as if by obsession to their project of capturing Quebec. The death of Montgomery a

having commandeered every boat that he could find. He ferried his entire force across to the New York side with such secrecy and silence that the British did not notice that they were gone. A heavy fog, which settled over the water during the night, greatly aided the adventure. The result of the Battle of Long Island gave the British great exultation and correspondingly depressed the Americans. On the preceding fourth of July they had declared their Independence; they were no longer Colonies but independent States bound together by a common interest. They felt all the more keenly that in this first battle after their Independence they should be so ignominiously defeated. They might have taken much comfort in the thoug

ngress of Philadelphia, which appointed a committee of three-Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge to confer with Lord Howe. The conference, which exhibited the shrewd quality of John Adams and of Franklin, the politeness of Rutledge, and th

ld be put into better discipline and prepared either to risk a battle with the British, or to retreat across the Hudson toward New Jersey. He decided that for the moment at least he would station his army on the heights of Harlem. From the house of Colonel Morris, where he made his headquarters, he wrote on September 4, 1776,

that it is of no more importance to him than to others. The officer makes you the same reply, with this further remark, that his pay will not support him and he cannot ruin himself and family to serve his country,

re in my judgment no other possible means to obtain them but by establishing your army upon a permanent footing and giving your officers good pay. This will induce gentlemen and men of ch

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nd. Officers' pay should be increased in proportion. "Why a captain in the Continental service should receive no more than five shillings currency per day for performing the same duties that an officer of the same ra

any army in such a struggle should have expressed himself as he did, bluntly, in regard to its glaring imperfections. Doing this, however, he managed to hold the loyalty and spirit of his men. In the American Civil War, McClellan contrived to infatuate his troops with the belief that his plans were perfect, and that only the annoying fact that the Confederate generals pla

th even more unreserve. Thus he says

since I was born. To lose all comfort and happiness on the one hand, whilst I am fully persuaded that under such a system of management as has been adopted, I cannot have the least chance for reputation, nor those allowances made which the nature of the case requires; and to be told, on the other, that if I leave the service all will be lost, is, at the same time that I am bereft of every peaceful moment, distressing to a degree. But I will be done with the subject, with the precaution to you that it is not a fit one t

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emnant-some six thousand men-of his original army. The year 1776 thus closed in disaster which seemed to be irremediable. It showed that the British, having awakened to the magnitude of their task, were able to cope with it. Having a comparatively unlimited sea-power, they needed only to embark their regiments, with the necessary provisions and ammunition, on their ships and send them across the Atlantic, where they were more than a match for the nondescript, undi

d of directing the line of march, he had to cope with wholesale desertions and to make desperate efforts to raise money and to persuade some of those troops, whose term was expiring, to stay on. His general plan now was to come near enough to the British centre and to watch its movements. The British had fully twenty-five thousand men who c

ursed policy of short enlistments, and placing too great a dependence on the militia, the evil consequences of which were foretold fifteen months ago, with a spirit almost Prophetic. ... You can form no idea of the perplexity of my situation. No man, I believ

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ies, he commanded one of these himself, and during the night of Christmas he crossed the river in boats. The night was stormy and the crossing was much interrupted by floating cakes of ice; in spite of which he landed his troops safely

netrated the population of New Jersey which had been exasperatingly Loyalist, had sold the British provisions, and abetted their intrigues. Now the New Jersey people suddenly bethought them that they might have chosen the wrong side after all. This feeling was deep

supreme importance of George Washington. Had he been cut off after Princeton or had he been forced to retire through accident, the Revolution would have slackened, lost head and direction, and spent itself among thinly parcelled rivulets without strength to reach the sea. Washington was a Necessary Man. Without him the struggle would not then have continued. Sooner or later America would have broken free from England, but he wa

ction. His personal bravery, and the desire he has of animating his troops by example, makes him fearless of danger. This occasio

1: Hapgo

a very important position among the Pa

men. This being the case, you are not to depend on other people's exertions being equal to your own. One mind feeds and thrives on misfortunes by finding resources to get the better of

ssuing reports which had some streaks of the rainbow and less t

s; nor is it in my power to make Congress fully sensible of the real situation of our affairs, and that it is with difficulty (if I may use the expression) that I can, by every means in my power, keep the life and soul of this

aring something, Howe had several projects in view, any one of which might lead to important activity. If ever a war was fought at long range, that war was the American Revolution. Howe received his orders from the War Office in London. Every move was laid down; no allowance was made for the change which unforeseeable contingencies might

lkers, not doers, and they sometimes lost themselves in endless debate and sometimes they seemed quite to forget the questions Washington put to them. We find him writing in December to beg them to reply to the urgent question which he had first asked in the preceding October. He was scrupulous not to take any step which might seem d

onel St. Leger coming from Oswego and following the Mohawk River. A third army under Sir William Howe could ascend the Hudson and meet Burgoyne and St. Leger at the general rendezvous-Albany. It was a brave plan, and when Burgoyne started with his force of eight thousand men high hopes flushed the British hearts. These hopes seemed to be confirmed when a month late

chief contingent of 8000 men, under General Burgoyne, seems to have strayed from its route and to have been in need of food. Hearing that there were supplies at Bennington, Burgoyne turned aside to that place. He little suspected the mettle of John Stark a

ambush, and its leader, General Herkimer, though mortally wounded, refused to retire, but continued to give directions to the end. Oriskany

ought a battle, which the British technically claimed as a victory, as they were not driven from their position, but it left them virtually hemmed in without a line of escape. Burgoyne waited several days irresolute. He hoped that something favorable to him might turn up. He had a lurking hope that General Clinton was near by, coming to his rescue. He wavered, gallant though he w

d to risk a battle which, if he were defeated in it, would render it impossible for him to continue the war. The British, on the other hand, spread over much ground, and the destruction of one of their a

. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 had dispossessed France of her colonies in America and had left her inferior to England in other parts of the world. Here was her chance to take revenge. The new King, Louis XVI, had for Foreign Minister Count de Vergennes,

by October, 1776, he had sent clothing for twenty thousand men, muskets for thirty thousand and large quantities of ammunition. A fictitious French house, which went by the name of Hortalaz et Cie, acted as agent and carried on the necessary business from Paris. By this time milita

t that Ducoudray should command the artillery of the Continental army with the rank and pay of a major-general. Washington would take no responsibility for this appointment, which would have displaced General Knox, a hardy veteran, an indefectible patriot, and Washington's trusted friend. When th

random, the time being October, 1777, when the Commander-in-Chief is moving from place to place in northern New Jersey, watching the enemy and avoiding an engagement. A letter comes from

it will give a fatal blow to the existence of the army. Upon so interesting a subject, I must speak plain. The duty I owe my country, the ardent desire I have to promote its true interests, and justice to individuals, requires this of me. General

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elf or any of his friends after this experiment. He needed no further p

d of Conway and his cab

among the officers and men, Washington issued

might be kept of the number and the persons from whom they were taken, in order to a future settlement.-Instead of this, I am informed that under pretence of the authority derived from me, they go about the country plundering whomsoever they are pleased to denominate tories, and converting what they get to their own private profit and emolument. This is an abuse that cannot be tolerated; and as I find the license allowed them, has been made a sancti

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sitated to speak so curtly at a time when the officers and men of his army were deserting at will; but to Washington

mber 14th to Sir William Howe, the British Commander-in-Chief, in regard to t

tion of the former, it is certain but few circumstances can arise to justify that of the latter. I appeal to you to redress these several wrongs; and you will remember, whatever hardships the prisoners with us may be subjected to will be

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nt more nearly the mass of questions which came daily to Washington for decision. The decision had usually to be made in haste a

justment of sovereignty were coming in America, it would be prudent for her to be on hand to press her own claims. On February 6, 1778, the treaty between France and America was signed.[1] Long before this, however, a young French enthusiast who proved to be the most conspicuous of all the foreign volunteers, the Marqui

aty was ratified by

ington, Delaware, and Valley Forge-about twenty-five miles from Philadelphia-being especially urged upon him. Washington preferred the latter, chiefly because it was near enough to Philadelphia to enable him to ke

occupied, and previous to that the suffering of the army had become great. Although the weather was intensely cold, the men were obliged to work at the buildings, with nothing to support life but flour unmixed with water, which they baked into cakes at the open fires ... the horses died of starvation by hundreds, and the men were obliged to haul their own provisions and firewood. As straw could not be found to protect the men from the cold ground, sickness spread through their quarters with fearful rapidity. "The unfortunate soldiers," wrote Lafayette in after years, "they were i

ne, Struggle for the

in forming such an encampment, and from the start he denounced the neglect and incompetence

ve we seen them, I believe, since the Battle of Brandywine. The first, indeed, we have now little occasion for; few men having more than one shirt, many only the moiety of one, and some none at all. In addition to which, as a proof of the little benefit received from a clothier-general, and as a further proof of the inability of an army, under the circumstances of this, to perform the common duties of soldiers, (besides a number of men confined to hospitals for want of shoes, and others in farmers' houses on the same account,) we have, by a field-return this day made, no less than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men now in camp unfit for duty, because they a

er from depredation and waste the States of Pennsylvania and Jersey. But what makes this matter still more extraordinary in my eye is, that these very gentlemen,-who were well apprized of the nakedness of the troops from ocular demonstration, who thought their own soldiers worse clad than others, and who advised me near a month ago to postpone the execution of a plan I was about to adopt, in consequence of a resolve of Congress for seizing clothes, under strong assurances that an ample supply would be collected in ten days agreeably to a decree of the State (not one article of which, by the by, is yet

istress to find, that much more is expected of me than is possible to be performed, and that upon the ground of safety and poli

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with the General. Her brief allusions to Valley Forge would hardly lead the read

f this reunion Mrs. Washington wrote: "I came to this place, some time about the first of February when I found the General very well, ... in camp in what is called the great valley on the Banks of the Schuylkill. Officers and men are chiefly in Hutts, wh

Ford, The True Geo

upplies from one of the best markets in America. And the people of the place, largely made up of Loyalists, vied with each other in providing entertainment for the British army. There were fashionable balls for the officers and free-and-easy revels for the

they called the Meschianza, an elaborate pageant, said to be the most beautiful ever seen in America, after which General Howe and General Clinton had orders to take their army back to New York. As much as could be shipped on boats went that way, but the loads that had to be carried in wagons formed a cavalcade twelve miles long, and with the attending regiment advanced barely more than two and a half miles a day. Washington, whose troops entered Philadelphia as soon as the British marched out, hung on the retreating column and at Monmouth engaged in a pitched battle, which was on the point of being a decisive victory for the Americans when, through the blunder of General Lee, it co

the coast and took up

ai