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the aid of their militia when wanted.1 At the period when he addressed himself to this great undertaking of forming a new army, for the third time, the existing force which he had with him in and around New Jersey was about to be dissolved. The addıtional regiments of the regular line were to be raised by the States, and upon them alone could he depend for the supply of a new army, with which to commence the campaign in the spring of 1777. He had labored, he said, ever since he had been in the service, to discourage all kinds of local attachments and distinctions of country, denominating the whole by the greater name of AMERICAN; but he had found it impossible to overcome prejudices.

Two causes especially embarrassed his efforts in the formation of the new army; and both of them show how powerful were the centrifugal forces of our system at that period, and how little hold that great central name had taken upon the people of the different States. One of these causes was the persistence of some of the States in giving extra bounties to encourage enlistments into their quotas of the original eighty-eight battalions not yet raised. The bounty allowed by Congress was twenty dollars to every soldier enlisting into the new establishment for

affirmation, to be taken by the officers of the army, and all others holding office under Congress, which was simply a renunciation of allegiance to the King of Great Britain, an acknowledgment of the independence of the United States, and a promise to support, main

tain, and defend them against King George III. and his successors, and to serve the United States in the office mentioned with fidelity, and the best skill and understanding of the party taking the oath. Journals, IV. 49.

1 Ante, p. 100

three years or during the war.

The additional boun

ty offered by Massachusetts was sixty-six dollars and two thirds. There was thus an inducement of eightysix dollars and two thirds offered to the men then in the service of the United States, not to reënlist in their old regiments, as fast as their time of service expired, but to go to Massachusetts and enlist in the fresh quotas which were forming in that State, and which were to be afterwards mustered into the continental service. The same inconsiderate and unpatriotic policy was pursued in all the Eastern States, and before the spring opened, the consequences began to be felt in the state of the new continental battalions which General Washington was endeavoring to procure from some of the Middle States, and in which he would not sanction the allowance of an extra bounty, regarding it as an indirect breach of the union, and of the agreement entered into by the delegates of the States in Congress to give a bounty of twenty dollars only for service in the continental army.1 The month of April arrived, and he had not received a man of the new levies, except a few hundreds from Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, while the few old regiments which remained, after the dissolution of the army in January, were reduced to a handful of men, the enemy being in great force, and making every preparation to seize upon Philadelphia.

Nor did the allowance of these irregular bounties

1 Letter to General Knox, February 11, 1777. Writings, IV: 316.

help the States, in raising the old levies, as had been anticipated. They rather caused the soldiers to set a high price upon themselves, and to hold back from enlisting; while the second cause, to which I have alluded, as embarrassing the Commander-inchief, was a great hinderance to his efforts to plan and carry out a campaign, having for its object the general benefit of the whole Union.

This cause was the inability of many local authorities to comprehend the necessity of such a campaign. General Washington was, at this period, harassed by numerous applications to allow the troops, which had been raised in the States for the service of the continent, to remain for the defence of particular neighborhoods against incursions of the enemy. Nothing,

he said on one of these occasions, could exceed the pleasure which he should feel, if he were able to protect every town and every individual on the continent. But as this was a pleasure which he never should realize, and as the continental forces were wanted to meet and counteract the main designs of the enemy on the principal theatre of the war, he could not consent to divide them and detach them to every point where the enemy might possibly attempt an impression; "for that," he added, "would be in the end to destroy ourselves and subjugate our country."1

From the operation of these and other causes connected with the political system of the country, the army with which Washington was obliged to take

1 Letter to Governor Trumbull, May 11, 1777. Writings, IV. 413.

See also Letter to Major-General
Stephen, May 24, 1777. Ibid. 431.

the field, in the spring of 1777, did not exceed five thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight effective men, exclusive of a small body of cavalry and artillery. The consequence was, a necessary reliance upon militia, to a great extent, throughout that summer. The battle of the Brandywine, fought with an effective force of only eleven thousand men, including militia, against a thoroughly disciplined army of fifteen thousand British and Hessian troops, and fought for the city of Philadelphia as a stake, was lost on the 11th of September.2 The Congress broke up on the 18th. Sir William Howe took possession of the city on the 26th; and on the 27th, the Congress reassembled at Lancaster. In a few days, they removed to Yorktown, where their sessions continued to be held for several months.

The position in which they found themselves, amid the dark clouds which lowered around their cause, seems to have recalled to their recollection the Articles of Confederation, which had lain slumbering upon their table since the 8th of April. On that day, they had resolved that the report should be

1 Marshall's Life of Washington, III. 102.

2 The exact numbers of the troops on both sides, in this battle, are not known. Sir William Howe estimated the American force at 15,000, including militia; and this number is given in the Annual Register. But the effective force of the American army was always, at this period of the war, considerably less than the total number; and Chief 15

VOL. I.

Justice Marshall states it to have been, on this occasion, 11,000, including militia. The Annual Register gives the number of the royal army brought into action as 15,000. Marshall supposes it to have been 18,000, when they landed on the shores of the Chesapeake. Marshall's Life of Washington, III. 140, 141. Annual Register for 1777, XX. 127.

taken into consideration on the following Monday, and that two days in each week should be employed on the subject, until it had been wholly discussed. When the Monday came, it was postponed; and it was only after they had been driven from Philadelphia by the approach of the enemy, that they seem to have fully realized the fact, that, without a more perfect union and a more efficient government, the country could not be saved. As soon as they had reassembled at Yorktown, after the urgent business of the moment had been attended to, they passed a resolve, on the 2d of October, that the Articles of Confederation be taken into consideration the next day, at eleven o'clock. The discussion did not actually commence, however, until the 7th of October; but from that day it was continued until the 17th of November, when the Articles, as they afterwards went into operation, were adopted for recommendation to the States, and a circular letter was addressed to the several legislatures, submitting the plan of a confederacy, and urging its adoption.

We are now approaching the period when the American people began to perceive that something more was necessary to their safety and happiness than the formation of State governments; when they found, or were about to find, that some digested system of national government was essential to the great objects for which they were contending; and that, for the formation of such a government, other arrangements than the varying instructions of differ

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