erection of a work on a lofty eminence, the termination of a mountain ridge, which separates Lake George from Lake Champlain. His advice was unfortunately disregarded. The eminence, subsequently called Mount Defiance, looked down upon and commanded the narrow parts of both lakes. We shall hear more of it hereafter.

Preparations were made, also, to augment the naval force on the lakes. Ship carpenters from the Eastern States were employed at Skenesborough to build the hulls of galleys and boats, which, when launched, were to be sent down to Ticonderoga for equipment and armament, under the superintendence of General Arnold.

Schuyler soon returned to Albany, to superintend the general concerns of the Northern department. He was indefatigable in procuring and forwarding the necessary materials and artillery for the fortification of Ticonderoga.

The question of command between him and Gates was apparently at rest. A letter from the President of Congress, dated July 8, informed General Gates that according to the resolution of that body under which he had been appointed, his command was totally independent of General Schuyler, while the army was in Canada, but no longer. Congress had no design to divest General Schuyler of the command while the troops were on this side of Canada.

To Schuyler, under the same date, the president writes: "The Congress highly approve of your patriotism and magnanimity in not suffering any difference of opinion to hurt the public service.

"A mutual confidence and good understanding are at this time essentially necessary, so that I am persuaded they will take place on all occasions between yourself and General Gates."

Gates professed himself entirely satisfied with the explanation he had received, and perfectly disposed to obey the commands of Schuyler. "I am confident," added he, "we shall, as the Congress wish, go hand in hand to promote the public welfare."

Schuyler, too, assured both Congress and Washington, "that the difference in opinion between Gates and himself had not caused the least ill will, nor interrupted that harmony necessary to subsist between their officers."

Samuel Adams, however, who was at that time in Congress, had strong doubts in the matter.

"Schuyler and Gates are to command the troops," writes he, "the former while they are without, the latter while they are within, the bounds of Canada. Admitting these generals to have the accomplishments of a Marlborough, or a Eugene, I cannot conceive that such a disposition of them will be attended with any good effects, unless harmony subsists between them. Alas! I fear this is not the case. Already disputes have arisen, which they have referred to Congress; and, although they affect to treat each other with a politeness becoming their rank, in my mind altercations between commanders who have pretensions nearly equal (I mean in point of command), forebode a repetition of misfortune. I sincerely wish my apprehensions may prove groundless.

We have a letter before us, also, written to Gates by his friend Joseph Trumbull, commissary-general, on whose appointment of a deputy the question of command had arisen. Trumbull's letter was well calculated to inflame the jealousy of Gates. "I find you are in a cursed situation," writes he;

* S. Adams to R. H. Lee. Am. Archives, 5th Series, i. 347.

"your authority at an end; and commanded by a person who will be willing to have you knocked in the head, as General Montgomery was, if he can have the money chest in his power."

Governor Trumbull, too, the father of the commissary. general, observes subsequently: "It is justly to be expected that General Gates is discontented with his situation, finding himself limited and removed from command, to be a wretched spectator of the ruin of the army, without power of attempting to save them." * We shall have frequent occasion hereafter to notice the discord in the service caused by this rankling discontent.

As to General Sullivan, who repaired to Philadelphia and tendered his resignation, the question of rank which had aggrieved him was explained in a manner that induced him to continue in service. It was universally allowed that his retreat had been ably conducted through all kinds of difficulties and disasters.

A greater source of solicitude to Washington than this jealousy between commanders was the sectional jealousy springing up among the troops. In a letter to Schuyler (July 17), he says, "I must entreat your attention to do away the unhappy and pernicious distinctions and jealousies between the troops of different governments. Enjoin this upon the officers, and let them inculcate and press home to the soldiery the necessity of order and harmony among those who are embarked in one common cause, and mutually contending for all that freemen hold dear."

Nowhere were these sectional jealousies more prevalent than in the motley army assembled from distant quarters

*Gov. Trumbull to Mr. William Williams.

under Washington's own command. Reed, the adjutantgeneral, speaking on this subject, observes: "The Southern troops, comprising the regiments south of the Delaware, looked with very unkind feelings on those of New England; especially those from Connecticut, whose peculiarities of deportment made them the objects of ill-disguised derision among their fellow-soldiers." *

Among the troops thus designated as Southern were some from Virginia under a Major Leitch; others from Maryland, under Colonel Smallwood; others from Delaware, led by Colonel Haslet. There were four Continental battalions from Pennsylvania, commanded by Colonels Shee, St. Clair, Wayne, and Magaw; and provincial battalions, two of which were severally commanded by Colonels Miles and Atlee. The Continental battalion under Colonel Shee was chiefly from the city of Philadelphia, especially the officers; among whom were Lambert Cadwalader and William Allen, members of two of the principal and most aristocratic families, and Alexander Graydon, to whose memoirs we are indebted for some graphic pictures of the times.

These Pennsylvania troops were under the command of Brigadier-general Mifflin, who, in the preceding year, had acted as Washington's aid-de-camp, and afterward as quartermaster-general. His townsman and intimate, Graydon, characterizes him as a man of education and cultivated manners, with a great talent at haranguing; highly animated in his appearance, full of activity and apparently of fire; but rather too much of a bustler, harassing his men unnecessarily. "He assumed," adds Graydon, "a little of the veteran, from having been before Boston." His troops were

* Life of Reed, vol. i., p. 239.

chiefly encamped near King's Bridge, and employed in constructing works at Fort Washington.

Smallwood's Maryland battalion was one of the brightest in point of equipment. The scarlet and buff uniforms of those Southerners contrasted vividly with the rustic attire of the yeoman battalions from the East. Their officers, too, looked down upon their Connecticut compeers, who could only be distinguished from their men by wearing a cockade. "There were none," says Graydon, "by whom an unofficerlike appearance and deportment could be tolerated less than by a city-bred Marylander; who, at this time, was distinguished by the most fashionable cut coat, the most macaroni cocked hat, and hottest blood in the Union." Alas, for the homespun-clad officers from Connecticut River!

The Pennsylvania regiment under Shee, according to Graydon, promoted balls and other entertainments, in contradistinction to the fast-days and sermons borrowed from New England. There was nothing of the puritanical spirit among the Pennsylvanian soldiery.

In the same sectional spirit, he speaks of the Connecticut light-horse: "Old-fashioned men, truly irregulars; whether their clothing, equipments, or caparisons were regarded, it would have been difficult to have discovered any circumstance of uniformity. Instead of carbines and sabers, they generally carried fowling-pieces, some of them very long, such as in Pennsylvania are used for shooting ducks. Here and there one appeared in a dingy regimental of scarlet, with a triangular, tarnished, laced hat. These singular dragoons were volunteers, who came to make a tender of their services to the commander-in-chief. But they stayed not long in New York. As such a body of cavalry had not been counted upon, there was in all probability a want of forage for their