Henry B. Carrington

“ Pending all these fermentations of the spirit of liberty, George Washington, of Virginia, was among the first to recognize the coming of a conflict in which the Colonial troops would no longer be a convenient auxiliary to British regulars, in a common cause, but would confront them in a life or death struggle, for rights which had been guaranteed by Magna Charta, and had become the vested inheritance of the American people. ”

“ THE AMERICAN BASE OF OPERATIONS ESTABLISHED.—THE SECOND NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. The narrative of Washington’s career as a Soldier, up to the time when he foiled the best efforts of Howe and Cornwallis to capture his weary band of Continentals and militia, has been a continuous story of love of country and devotion to her brave defenders. The most assiduous care for their discipline, their health, their moral deportment, and their loyalty to duty, has been the burden of his soul. ”

“ There have been youth, like Hannibal, whose earliest nourishment was a taste of vengeance against his country’s foes, and others have imbibed, as did the ancient Hebrew, abnormal strength to hate their enemies while doing battle; but if the character of Washington be justly delineated, he was, through every refined and lofty channel, prepared, by early aptitudes and training, to honor his chosen profession, with no abatement of aught that dignifies character, and rounds out in harmonious completeness the qualities of a consummate statesman and a great soldier. ”

“ One had fleets, armies, wealth, prestige, and power, unsustained by the principles of genuine liberty which had distinguished the British Constitution above all other modern systems of governmental control; while the scattered 19two millions of earnest, patriotic Englishmen across the sea, who, from their first landing upon the shores of the New World had honored every principle which could impart dignity and empire to their mother country, were to balance the scale of determining war by the weight of loyalty to conscience and to God. ”

“ Her peace, while enriching herself, blesses all nations. Her products of the shop and farm have become indispensable to the good of all. This new “centre of gravity,” has become, as Egypt once chanced to be, the famine magazine, the granary of relief, to the famishing millions of every land. The ability of America to spring from the repose of peaceful industry and protect her rights and the rights of humanity wherever assailed, has compelled the world’s consideration and respect. ”

“ No detail under orders, and no call for volunteers, to break up the investment of the city, had been made. No excited commander, as on the seventeenth of June, 1775, tendered his services to lead British regulars against Cambridge, to seize and bring back for trial, as traitor, the arch-rebel of the defiant Colonists. Red uniforms were indeed resplendent in the sunlight; but there was no irrepressible impulse to assail earthworks, which had been the work of months, and not of a single night, and behind which twenty thousand countrymen eagerly awaited battle. ”

“ On the eleventh of November, General Sullivan, having resigned, took his seat in Congress. On the twentieth, Washington thus addressed him:
“Congress will deceive themselves, if they imagine that the army, or a State, that is the theatre of war, can rub through another campaign as the last. It would be as unreasonable to suppose that because a man had rolled a snow-ball till it had acquired the size of a horse, he might do it until it was the size of a house. Matters may be pushed to a certain point, beyond which we cannot move them. Ten months’ pay is now due the army. ”

“ What sort of faith is that which inspires the utterance, which rings like that of the Hebrew Captain when about to face the horsemen and chariots of the Egyptian Pharaoh: “Tell the people that they go forward”? How dare this American soldier reckon upon chances for victory in such an unequal measurement of physical force, unless he discern, through plainest garb, the proof-panoply of those whose cause is just? ”

“ I spoke to the principal persons of the place, and told them, as I write to General Washington, that this was merely the advance guard of a greater force, and that the king was determined to support them with his whole power. In twenty-four hours their spirits rose, and last night, all the streets, houses, and steeples were illuminated, in the midst of fireworks and great rejoicing.... You see, Sir, how important it is to act with vigor.... Send us troops, ships, and money; but do not depend upon this people, nor upon their means. They have neither money nor credit. ”

“ The advance was to be “with fixed bayonets, and unloaded muskets.” Each officer and soldier had been ordered to place a white paper or cloth upon his cap, to distinguish him from an enemy; and the watchword, to be shouted aloud whenever one detachment reached its point of attack, as an encouragement to the others and a terror to the garrison, was, “The fort is ours!” Pioneer parties, carefully selected, wrenched away the abatis. The detachments moved instantly, as if impelled by some invisible, resistless force. ”

“ At that juncture the English people themselves did not apprehend rightly the merits of the dawning struggle, nor resent the imposition by Parliament, of unjust, unequal, and unconstitutional laws upon their brethren in America. Dr. Franklin thus described their servile attitude toward the Crown: “Every man in England seems to consider himself as a piece of a sovereign; seems to jostle himself into the throne with the King; and talks of ‘our subjects in the Colonies.’”
The ferment of patriotic sentiment was deep, subtle, intense, and ready for deliverance. ”

“ But Washington, skilled in the European complications of his times, never imagined that the same European nations, or any of them, would select the extreme East as the arena from which to replenish wasted home resources by force; and then convert the continent of Europe into one vast magazine of dynamite, until all chief agencies which belong to domestic prosperity and happiness should be drawn into the wild whirl of Colonial adventure, for plunder. ”

“ He knew, and Washington, with a soldier’s instinct, knew that Clinton knew, that there was no safety for New York, and no possibility of effective operations out from New York, so long as a strong, faithful American army held the fastnesses of New Jersey, and a vigorous espionage of the Hudson River region was maintained. The sweep of Washington’s arm was largely shaping the future destiny of America from very humble headquarters ”

“ The thoughtful reader, of whatever age or training, is prompted to linger here a moment, and catch a parting view of this column of earnest men, so proudly and joyfully marching to meet in battle the magnificent array of Britain’s chief captains and most honored battalions, the famous Grenadiers of Hanau, and the dragoons and lancers of Hesse. When all are waiting for the advance, who is that man who swiftly rides past the column to its front, erect in saddle, calm, self-reliant, imposing in presence, and with face radiant in confidence and trust? ”

“ It was further evident that resistance of the first attempt of the British to land, and the reduction of their numbers and supplies, by constant, persistent, and confident battle, would not only dispirit that army, but equally arouse the spirit of the American army, assure its discipline, and stimulate both Congress and the people to furnish adequate men and means to prosecute the war to success. Prolonged face to face hostilities in and about New York, therefore, indicated not only Washington’s faith in success, but prolonged the restriction of British operations to a very limited field. ”

“ The only natural alliance, in the event of monarchical combinations to stay the advancing triumph of true liberty, would be a concerted action of the United States and the mother country, through the inheritance of like bequests under Magna Charta. The pregnant future may yet give birth to that fruition.
There is an awful grandeur, more densely charged with ills than the fiercest spasms of Nature’s fury, in the visible armaments which are costing peoples, not thrones, annually, more than enough to feed and clothe every suffering member of the human race. ”

“ No self-respecting nation, elsewhere, would have as long withheld the only remedy. Cuba was dying to be free. Spain, unwilling, or unable, to grant an honorable and complete autonomy to her despairing subjects, precipitated war with the United States. The momentum of a supreme moral force in behalf of humanity at large, so energized the entire American people that every ordinary unpreparedness failed to lessen the effectiveness of the stroke. ”

“ The troops had hardly been dismissed, after their first formal parade for inspection, before a set repugnance to all proper instruction in the details of a soldier’s duty became manifest. The old method of fighting Indians singly, through thickets, and in small detachments, each man for himself, was clung to stubbornly, as if the army were composed of individual hunters, who must each “bag his own game.” ”

“ The American Census of 1890, disclosed the fact, that American eleemosynary gifts annually exceeded the cost of the largest standing army of the world.
To-day, America is able, single-handed, to defend her honor and her flag, whoever may deride her peaceful habits and her homely virtues. The words of Washington, used upon his return to White Plains in 1778, as emphatically appeal to the American people to-day, as when they were first uttered.
A Nation of nearly eighty millions stands ready to vindicate the loftiest aspirations and redeem the confidence of Washington. ”

“ Washington never counted disappointments as to single acts of men, or the operations of a single command, as determining factors in the supreme matter of final success. The vaulting ambition, headstrong will, and fiery daring of Arnold never lessened an appreciation of his real merits, and he acquired so decided an affection for him, personally, and was so disappointed that Congress did not honor his own request for Arnold’s prompt promotion, at one time, that when his treason was fully revealed, he could only exclaim, with deep emotion, “Whom now can we trust?” ”

“ Looking to the general trend of Washington’s military career, it is emphasized, throughout the volume, that the moral, religious, and patriotic motives that energized his life and shaped his character were so absolutely interwoven with the fibre of his professional experiences, that vithe soul of the Man magnified the greatness of the Soldier. ”

“ It was one of the most striking characteristics of Washington’s military life that he recognized and trusted so many of these heroic men whose lives had been nursed and developed in the cause of liberty and country. Such men as these beheld in Washington a superhuman regard for man, as man; and the youthful Lafayette almost worshipped, while he obeyed, until his entire soul was penetrated by the spirit and controlled by the example of his 306beloved Chief. ”

“ The early wars had been largely fought by Provincial troops, side by side with British regulars, so that the general conduct of armies and of campaigns had become familiar to New England men, and many veteran soldiers were prompt to volunteer service. Lapse of time, increased age, absorption in farming or other civil pursuits, had not wholly effaced from the minds of retired veterans the memory of former experience in the field. If some did not realize the expectations of the people and of Congress, the promptness with which they responded to the call was no less worthy. ”

“ Men waded in icy water to their armpits; some froze to death: others deserted. Enos, short of provisions, as he claimed, marched three hundred men back to Cambridge. And Arnold, himself, twenty-five days too late, stood upon Point Levi, in the midst of a furious tempest of wind, rain, and sleet, only to realize the substantial failure of his vaunted expedition. Most of his muskets were ruined, and but five rounds of ammunition remained for the few men that were with him in this hour of starvation and distress. Two vessels-of-war lay at anchor in the stream. ”

“ The Headquarters of the American Army remained at White Plains until the latter part of September. Upon reaching that post, immediately following the Battle of Monmouth, after two years of absence, the American Commander-in-Chief, profoundly appreciating the mutations of personal and campaign experience through which himself and army had kept company in the service of “God and Country,” thus expressed himself:
“The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith; and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to recognize the obligation.” ”

“ McClellan would have taken Vicksburg, as surely as did General Grant: the mathematics of a siege are irresistible. But he never could have marched to the sea, as did Sherman, or swept like a tornado to the rear of Lee, as did Sheridan. It appears from the correspondence of Washington, that he carefully studied the antecedents and followed the operations of his chief antagonists; that in several of the most critical periods of the war he anticipated their plans as fully as if he had shared their confidence in advance. ”

“ Possibly such a whisper as this might have pervaded the Boston barracks, and lulled anxious royalists to slumber. “Surely the rebels cannot afford further waste of powder. They impoverish themselves. Sleep on! Boston is safe!” Not so! As the sun went down, the whole American camp was alive with its teeming 77thousands; not ostentatiously paraded upon parapet and bastion, but patiently awaiting the meaning of a mysterious hint, which kept even the inmates of hospital tents from sleeping, that “Washington had promised them Boston on the morrow.” ”

“ Upon assuming command of the Virginia militia, Washington decided that a more flexible system than that of the European government of troops, was indispensable to success in fighting the combined French and Indian forces, then assuming the aggressive against the border settlements. Thrown into intimate association with General Braddock and assigned to duty as his aid-de-camp and guide, he endeavored to explain to that officer the unwisdom of his assertion that the very appearance of British regulars in imposing array, would vanquish the wild warriors of thicket and woods, without battle. ”

“ On the twenty-eighth day of April the whole army in New York amounted to ten thousand two hundred and thirty-five men, of whom eight thousand three hundred and three were present and fit for duty. Washington’s Orderly Book, of this period, rebukes certain disorderly conduct of the soldiers in these memorable words: “Men are not to carve out remedies for themselves. If they are injured in any respect, there are legal ways to obtain relief, and just complaints will always be attended to and redressed.” ”

“ The royalists and patriots of New York City, in the absence of a controlling force of either British or Continental troops, commingled daily. A few British men-of-war really controlled its waters; but the city was practically at rest. There prevailed a general understanding that each party should retain its own views; that the officers of the Crown should keep within the technical line of their official duty, and that the citizens would not interfere. Congress had no troops to spare, and there was quite a general suspension of arming, except to supply the regiments already in the field. ”