in the enemy; we should not have been the greatest part of the war inferior to the enemy, indebted for our safety to their inactivity, enduring frequently the mortification of seeing inviting opportunities to ruin them pass unimproved for want of a force which the country was completely able to afford, and of seeing the country ravaged, our towns burnt, the inhabitants plundered, abused, murdered, with impunity from the same cause.

Nor have the ill effects been confined to the military line. A great part of the embarrassinents in the civil departments flow from the same source. The derangement of our finances is essentially to be ascribed to it. The expenses of the war and the paper emissions have been greatly multiplied by it. We have had a great part of the time two sets of men to feed and pay-the discharged men going home and the levies coming in. This was more remarkably the case in 1775 and 1776. The difficulty and cost of engaging men have increased at every successive attempt, till ainong the present lines we find there are some who have received $150 in specie for five months' service, while our officers are reduced to the disagreeable necessity of performing the duties of drill sergeants to them, with this mortifying reflection annexed to the business, that by the time they have taught these men the rudiments of a soldier's duty their services will have expired and the work recommenced with a new set. The consumption of provisions, arms, accouterments, and stores of every kind has been doubled in spite of every precaution I could use, not only from the cause just mentioned, but from the carelessness and licentiousness incident to militia and irregular troops. Our discipline also has been much hurt, if not ruined, by such constant changes. The frequent calls upon the militia have interrupted the cultivation of the land, and of course have lessened the quantity of its produce, occasioned a scarcity, and enhanced the prices. In an army so unstable as ours order and economy have been impracticable. No person who has been a close observer of the progress of our affairs can doubt that our currency has depreciated without comparison more rapidly from the system of short enlistments than it would have done otherwise.

There is every reason to believe that the war has been protracted on this account. Our opposition being less, the successes of the enemy have been greater. The fluctuation of the army kept alive their hopes, and at every period of the dissolution of a considerable part of it they have flattered themselves with some decisive advantages. Had we kept a permanent army on foot the enemy could have had nothing to hope for, and would in all probability have listened to terms long since."

Further confirmed in his convictions by the defeat of General Gates, he wrote to the President of Congress on the 15th of September:

I am happy to find that the last disaster in Carolina has not been so great as its first features indicated. This event, however, adds itself to many others to exemplify the necessity of an army and the fatal consequences of depending on militia. Regular troops alone are equal to the exigencies of modern war, as well for defense as offense, and whenever a substitute is attempted it must prove illusory and ruinous. No militia will ever acquire the habits necessary to resist a regular force. Even those nearest to the seat of war are only valuable as light troops to be scattered in the woods and harass rather than do serious injury to the enemy. The firmness requisite for the real business of fighting is only to be attained by a constant course of discipline and service. I have never yet been witness to a single instance that can justify a different opinion, and it is most earnestly to be wished that the liberties of America may no longer be trusted, in any material degree, to so precarious a dependence. I can not but remark that it gives me pain to find the measures pursuing at the southward still turn upon accumulating large bodies of militia, instead of once for all making a decided effort to have a permanent force. In my ideas of the true system of war at the southward, the object ought to be to have a good army rather than a large one.

a Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. 7, pp. 162, 164.
Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. 7, pp. 205, 206.

CHAPTER VII.

CAMPAIGN OF 1781.

Be the dangers of standing armies what they may, with the opening year came ample proof of the correctness of Washington's statement, that "It is our policy to be prejudiced against them in time of war.'

MUTINY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA LINE.

The growing discontent of troops without pay, without clothing, and often without food, culminated, on the 1st of January, in a revolt of the Pennsylvania Line. Despite the efforts of their officers, several of whom were killed and wounded in the attempt to restore order, the mutineers, under the command of their sergeants, marched toward Philadelphia with the intention of demanding redress from the Government.

Fearing that the defection might extend to the rest of the Army, Congress sent a committee, preceded by the governor of Pennsylvania, to make the following propositions to the mutineers:

To discharge all those who had enlisted indefinitely for three years or during the war, the fact to be inquired into by three commissioners to be appointed by the executive and to be ascertained, where the original enlistment could not be produced, by the oath of the soldier. To give immediate certificates for the depreciation on their pay and to settle arrearages as soon as circumstances would admit. To furnish them immediately with certain specified articles of clothing which were greatly wanted.a

These terms which involved the complete surrender of the civil power, not to the Army, but to a band of mutineers, were accepted with the further stipulation that the enlisted men of the Pennsylvania Line should depute three additional commissioners to act with the others in determining what soldiers should be discharged.

General Wayne, who commanded the troops at the time of the revolt, wrote as follows in regard to this settlement:

But

I could wish that the Commissioners had given time for the officers to produce the attestations before they made the oath so common. The papers were collected the soonest possible; the enlistments were generally and expressly for the war. the birds were flown. I will not say that it was not in some degree an act of expediency, in order to get the artillery, spare ammunition, and part of the small arms out of their hands. These I have taken the precaution to forward by water to Philadelphia.

As a consequence of the mutiny, the six regiments composing the quota of Pennsylvania, under the latest resolution of Congress, were

a Sparks's Writings of Washington, voi. 7, p. 359.
Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. 7, p. 387.

dissolved for the time being and did not again reassemble at the appointed rendezvous before the month of March. A similar movement on the part of the New Jersey troops was suppressed by strong military measures.

MILITARY OPERATIONS.

The principal events in the South, during the campaign of 1781, were Morgan's victory over Tarleton at the Cowpens and the skillful retreat of Greene through North Carolina prior to taking the offensive and fighting the battles of Guilford Court-House, Hobkirk Hill, and Eutaw Springs.

Although the British in each instance remained masters of the field, these engagements were practical victories for Greene, who had been compelled to make his tactical dispositions conform to the character of his troops.

Morgan's injunction to the militia at the Cowpens was, "Just hold up your heads, boys-three fires, and you are free."

Avoiding the fatal mistake of Gates at Camden, the militia in this engagement were posted in two lines in front of the Continental regulars.

At Guilford Court-House, where Greene made a similar disposition of his troops, three rounds only were asked of the militia, as at the Cowpens; but when the enemy came in sight the first line gave way, followed shortly after by the second. The battle was then given over to the Continental regular troops, nearly all of whom, with the exception of one regiment, were raw recruits.

An incident of this battle should not be overlooked. Stevens, profiting by his experience at Camden, where he had been deserted by his brigade, placed a chain of sentinels in rear of the second line with orders to shoot the first man who should try to quit his post.

While the militia as a body did not surpass the expectations of Greene and Morgan, many of the Virginia contingent, who had been former Continental soldiers, proved the worth of instruction and discipline by their individual good conduct at the Cowpens, and the same fact was illustrated at Guilford Court House by the behavior of many of the militia officers from the same State."

In January Arnold ravaged the banks of the James, captured Richmond without opposition, and burnt the public buildings. After the battle of Guilford Court House Cornwallis withdrew to Wilmington, and then marched to Virginia.

At the north, Washington, though joined by Rochambeau, was not strong enough to attack New York. After remaining inactive until August, the two commanders marched their troops southward, joined the forces under Lafayette, and in conjunction with the French fleet, achieved at Yorktown, on the 19th of October, the crowning success of the war -the capture of Cornwallis and his army of 7,000 men. This victory proved to be the last battle of the Revolution, although it did not at the time abate Washington's preparations for another campaign.

a These officers had recently held commissions in the Continental Army, and hav ing been made supernumerary by the reduction of that establishment had been appointed to the militia by Governor Jefferson at the urgent request of General Greene.

STRENGTH OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN 1781.

On the 1st of September, 1781, the British forces in America were estimated as follows:

STRENGTH OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY AND OF THE MILITIA IN 1781, 1782, AND 1783.

The following tables show the quotas assigned to the States and the troops furnished by each during the years 1781, 1782, and 1783: a

a Accurate returns of the Continental troops and the militia were not always rendered-particularly of the militia. See report of General Knox, Secretary of War, American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. 1, pp. 14-19.

a The Army of the Northern Department was discharged on the 5th of November, 1783, and that in the Southern States on the 15th of November, 1783. (War Office of the United States, May 10, 1790. H. Knox, Secretary of War. American State Papers, Military Affairs.)

The number of soldiers furnished by the several States to the Continental Army during the war was as follows:

The number of militia furnished by the several States during the war, according to the returns and conjectural estimates of the Secretary of War, was 164,087.a

a American State Papers, vol. 1, pp. 14, 19.