No Foreign Slaves shall give us Laws, No Brittish Tyrant Reign
Tis Independence made us Free and Freedom We’ll Maintain.
Proof of the Continentals’ willing service was the way so many of them endured continuous hardships with a fortitude that made foreign observers marvel. Baron von Closen of the French army exclaimed: “I admire the American troops tremendously! It is incredible that soldiers composed of men of every age, even children of fifteen, of whites and blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed, can march so well and withstand fire so steadfastly.” And a Hessian captain asked in wonderment:
With what soldiers in the world could one do what was done by these men, who go about nearly naked and in the greatest privation? Deny the best-disciplined soldiers of Europe what is due them and they will run away in droves, and the general will soon be alone. But from this one can perceive what an enthusiasm—which these poor fellows call “Liberty”—can do!
Money could not buy, and discipline could not instill, the Continentals’ type of loyalty; an ideological motivation that promised a better life for themselves and their posterity held them in the ranks. Of course, not every Continental could tolerate prolonged deprivation, and many deserted. But the desertion rate declined as the war progressed, and the army became the heart of resistance.
Shouldering arms freely and believing freedom was the issue, Continentals never became regulars in the European sense. They became good soldiers, but they remained citizens who refused to surrender their individuality. They asserted their personal independence by wearing jaunty hats and long hair despite (or perhaps to spite) their officers’ insistence upon conformity in dress and appearance. Furthermore, they were only temporary regulars. Unlike European professionals, they understood the war’s goals and would fight until they were achieved, but then they intended to return to civilian life.
Congress was mindful of the irony in creating a standing army. Americans had consistently inveighed against regulars, their threat to liberty, and the taxes necessary to maintain them. Now Congress, having established its own regular army, shouldered two onerous burdens. First, as Samuel Adams said, since a “Standing Army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People,” it had to “be watched with a jealous Eye.” Congress was careful to keep the army subservient to civil authority. It enjoined Washington to “observe and follow” all orders from Congress and to report regularly to the legislature, and appointed all subordinate generals, who would look to Congress, not Washington, for preferment. It also determined the war’s objectives, controlled the army’s size and composition, provided money and resources for its maintenance, established disciplinary regulations, and conducted foreign affairs. At times Congress even directly guided strategy.
Considering the hypersensitive fear of military ascendancy, Congress’s selection of Washington was fortuitous. He repeatedly stated his belief in civil supremacy, remaining deferential to Congress even when its inefficiency threatened the army’s survival. Having served in the Virginia assembly and in Congress, he understood the often maddeningly slow political process in representative governments and the nation’s inadequate administrative machinery for conducting a large-scale war. By reporting to Congress on all matters great or trivial, by religiously adhering to congressional dictates, and through his immense patience in the face of nearly unbearable frustrations, Washington alleviated concern that he would capitalize on his growing military reputation to become a dictator. Although revolutions have frequently given birth to permanent presidents, kings, and emperors, Washington had no desire to become an American Cromwell. Like the men he commanded, he never forgot that he was a citizen first and only second a soldier.
The second congressional burden was furnishing logistical support for the army. The fundamental difficulties were insufficient financial resources, inadequate administrative organization, and primitive transportation facilities. War is never cheap: As General Jedediah Huntington observed, “Money is the Sinews of war.” But the colonists, having rebelled against English taxation, refused to give Congress the power to tax. To finance the war, Congress resorted to the printing press, emitting $200 million worth of paper money by the fall of 1779, when it ceased printing money. Since Congress had no source of revenue from taxation, the value of Continental bills depreciated rapidly, reducing their purchasing power. With the states also issuing paper money and many counterfeit bills in circulation, the nation wallowed in worthless paper. As the currency depreciated, inflation soared, further fueled by war-induced dislocations in agriculture and commerce and by shortages of manufactured goods. Only foreign loans, primarily from France, allowed Congress to muddle through.
To administer the army, Congress initially relied on ad hoc committees to deal with problems as they arose. Not until June 1776 did it form a five-member Board of War and Ordnance to give continuity to army administration. But board members devoted only a fraction of their time to army matters, since congressmen serving on the board usually sat on several other committees and also attended to their regular congressional duties. Congressional membership also changed rapidly, and few delegates remained long enough to comprehend the army’s needs. Thus in October 1777 Congress reconstituted the board to include military officers. Congress also created rudimentary staff departments such as a commissary general of stores and provisions and a quartermaster general. Neither the board nor the supply departments were efficient. They never attained institutional stability because of frequent reorganizations and changes in both civilian and military personnel as Congress strove to find a combination that would produce results. Finding good men was not easy. The United States had few men experienced in large-scale logistical management. Like battlefield officers, staff officers had to be nurtured, and they made mistakes as they matured. Many appointees proved to be incompetent or corrupt; others were simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of their responsibilities contrasted with the meager resources at their disposal. Persuading talented officers to forsake field command for a desk job was especially difficult. Soldiers knew that their way to glory and historical immortality lay with the sword, not the pen. Another problem was the feeble coordination among the staff departments, which often competed with each other—and with state logistical agencies and civilians—for scarce goods, driving prices up. Worst of all, the perpetual financial crisis made supplying the army virtually impossible. Supply officers had too many items to buy and too little money to pay for them.
By the winter of 1779–1780, with the treasury depleted and army storehouses empty, Congress abdicated much of its responsibility for the army to the states. It asked each state to pay its own troops in the Continental Army and adopted a system of requisitioning the states for “specific supplies.” Under this plan Congress apportioned quotas of food, clothing, fodder, and other necessities among the states according to their special resources. Unfortunately for the starving Continentals, the situation did not improve. States did not have adequate administrative machinery and were reluctant to commandeer supplies from their citizens. Almost every state argued that its quota was unfairly high and refused to cooperate until Congress made adjustments—which never quite met all the objections. The requisition system’s failure compelled Congress to reassert its own authority, and in 1781 it centralized the management of financial and military matters in executive departments. But by then active hostilities were drawing to a close.
Even if Congress had enjoyed unlimited funds and an efficient logistical organization, the army’s supply situation would have remained precarious because of the nation’s underdeveloped transportation network. The British blockade hampered coastal trade, forcing reliance on land transportation. But roads were few and all but impassible during inclement weather, wagons were in short supply, and horses and oxen were scarce. At times the army nearly perished in the midst of plenty when supplies could not be moved from wharves and warehouses to the famished troops. Unpaid, unfed, uncl
othed, and unsheltered, many Continentals became stoical, viewing themselves as martyrs to the “glorious cause.” As one colonel wrote, “We have this consolation, however, that it cannot be said that we are bought or bribed into the service.”
The militia and the Continental Army were two sides of a double-edged sword. Neither blade was keenly honed, and even in combination they usually did not make a lethal weapon. Washington’s task was never easy, but without either army it would have been impossible.
The Militia’s War, 1775–1776
The majority of men who took up arms during the “popular uprising” phase of the war in 1775–1776 were not fighting for independence, but for their rights as Englishmen within the empire. Although a growing number believed independence inevitable, most maintained allegiance to George III, who, they assumed, was being misled by corrupt ministers conspiring to enslave the colonies. Congress insisted that the colonies were only protecting themselves from these conspirators, that reconciliation would occur as soon as the King restrained his advisers.
Although colonists issued proclamations portraying the English as aggressors and themselves as aggrieved defenders, rebel forces quickly assumed the offensive. On May 10, 1775, frontiersmen under Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold overwhelmed the British garrison at Ticonderoga, and two days later another rebel force captured Crown Point. Meanwhile, the New Englanders around Boston were organized into a makeshift army, with the men enlisted until the end of the year. British General Gage considered their entrenched positions strong and pleaded for more men. Instead of reinforcements, the government sent Major Generals William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne to act as advisers. They demanded that Gage take the offensive. In mid-June, when colonists ordered to entrench on Bunker Hill mistakenly dug in on Breed’s Hill, he consented to let Howe oust them. When Howe’s effort to outflank the colonial position failed, he believed that he had no choice but to make a frontal assault. Three times the redcoats advanced, and twice the colonists hurled them off the hill. On the third try, with the colonists weary and short of ammunition, the British swarmed over the parapet and the Americans fled.
British success at the misnamed Battle of Bunker Hill was costly; more than 1,000 of the 2,500 regulars engaged were casualties. If the immediate price of victory was exorbitant, even more disturbing for British prospects was the fighting spirit Americans displayed. Gage recognized that opinions formed during the French and Indian War were wrong, and he advised the ministry to “proceed in earnest or give the business up.” The government, realizing that it faced a genuine war requiring a regular campaign, replaced Gage with Howe and began to plan for 1776.
When Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 2, he was eager to pursue an aggressive strategy. But he could do little immediately. A severe shortage of weapons and powder prevented him from attacking the British army, and his own army appalled him. The New Englanders struck him as “exceedingly dirty and nasty people” characterized by “an unaccountable kind of stupidity” and a lack of discipline. Knowing the eyes of the continent were upon him and expecting some momentous event, Washington found the inactivity around Boston galling, so in late summer 1775 he ordered Arnold to advance through the Maine wilderness to capture Quebec. Unknown to Washington, Congress had meanwhile ordered General Philip Schuyler to attack Montreal. Americans hoped the invasion would incite a Canadian revolt against Britain and convert the region into the fourteenth colony. Washington also struggled to discipline the army, but before he could achieve much success, that army almost disappeared. When enlistments expired at year’s end, most men refused to reenlist. Washington had to discharge one army and recruit another while the enemy was only a musket shot away. He did it by calling on militiamen to fill the gaps until new Continental recruits arrived.
In November 1775 the novice commander sent Henry Knox, a self-taught soldier, to Ticonderoga to fetch the artillery captured there. Knox dragged the ordnance across three hundred miles of ice and snow, arriving back at Boston in January 1776, and Washington shrewdly placed it behind hastily constructed entrenchments atop Dorchester Heights outside Boston. American artillery now dominated the British position, and Howe, unwilling to fight another Bunker Hill to dislodge the guns, had to evacuate the city. On March 17, 1776, the enemy army sailed for Halifax, leaving no British force anywhere on American soil.
Grim news from Canada offset the good news from Boston. Schuyler had relinquished command to General Richard Montgomery, who had occupied Montreal in mid-November. Arnold’s men, reduced to walking skeletons by their arduous trek, reached the St. Lawrence simultaneously, and Montgomery hastened downriver to unite forces. The commanders audaciously stormed Quebec in late December during a raging blizzard, but when Montgomery fell dead and Arnold was wounded, the attack fizzled. Arnold doggedly directed a siege from his hospital cot, but when British reinforcements arrived in May, the demoralized Americans retreated in disorder to Ticonderoga.
Even as the invasion force retreated, sentiment for independence advanced. On balance, the first year of fighting went to the Americans. The British retreat from Concord, the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the militia successes at Great Bridge and Moore’s Creek Bridge, and the evacuation of Boston all augured well for American success. But although doing tolerably well on their own, Americans believed they needed assistance to win. However, neither France nor Spain was likely to aid them openly unless independence, rather than reconciliation, was the American goal. English actions also alienated Americans. Both King and Parliament rejected conciliatory appeals for redress of grievances and instead showed a determination to conquer the colonies. Employing mercenaries, instigating Indians, and appealing to slaves to join royal armies angered men who previously favored reconciliation, as did the senseless destruction of Falmouth, Maine, in October 1775, and Norfolk, Virginia, four months later.
When Thomas Paine’s Common Sense excoriated monarchy in principle and George III in person and declared that “the weeping voice of nature cries, ’Tis time to part,” it found a receptive audience. Jefferson’s famous document severed the last strand of colonial allegiance. Americans had already rejected Parliamentary sovereignty, and now the Declaration renounced fealty to the King. Americans were aware, as John Adams said, “of the toil and blood and treasure” entailed in maintaining independence. “Yet,” Adams continued, “through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory.”
From Disaster to Victory, 1776–1781
By July 1776 the war’s “uprising” phase had ended and the last stage of the war of liberation had begun. In this phase rebels fielded their own regular army, which represented a new government claiming sovereign status. Although conventional operations never fully replaced guerrilla activity, the roles of opposing regular forces became increasingly important. The conventional war consisted of a northern period that climaxed at Saratoga in 1777 and a southern period that culminated at Yorktown in 1781.
Both the Continental Army and America’s very claim to sovereignty received a severe test in 1776 when the ministry made its largest effort of the war, hurling 32,000 troops and almost half the Royal Navy against New York City. Howe commanded the land forces; his brother, Richard, Lord Howe, commanded the naval component. Down from Canada came Sir Guy Carleton with 13,500 men, following the Richelieu River–Lake Champlain route. England aimed these formidable forces against the Hudson River for strategic reasons. New York was a superb harbor from which the navy could conduct operations. Control of the Hudson would link British forces in Canada and those in the colonies and split America’s resources and population by isolating New England. The middle colonies reportedly teemed with Loyalists, who would provide manpower and logistical support.
Washington brought the army from Boston to defend New York, splitting his forces between Manhattan Island and Long Island. To the latter’s defense he committed about half his 20,000 fit soldiers (mostly raw Continentals and even rawer militia), under the co
mmand of General Israel Putnam. The Americans entrenched on Brooklyn Heights, hoping Howe would attempt a frontal assault, but Putnam also deployed about 4,000 men in forward positions. On August 27 the British general, who had landed more than 20,000 British and Hessian troops on Long Island, moved around the left flank of the advanced units and routed them. But Howe failed to smash the rebels by assailing Brooklyn Heights and instead began a formal siege of the American position. His caution allowed the Americans to escape to Manhattan, uniting the two wings of Washington’s army.
The American situation was still desperate. Thousands of dejected militiamen deserted, and the army’s position in New York City could be outflanked by a British amphibious landing anywhere farther north on Manhattan. On September 15 the enemy landed at Kip’s Bay, threatening to trap the American army. But Howe moved across the island lethargically, and Washington escaped. The Americans took up a prepared defensive position at Harlem Heights near the northern tip of Manhattan Island, leaving New York City to the British, who made it their headquarters for the remainder of the war. Howe sent a probing party against Washington’s defenses, but in the Battle of Harlem Heights that followed the Americans repulsed the enemy and the campaign settled into another prolonged lull.
For the Common Defense Page 10
