THE OUTBREAK OF REPRESSED LIBERTY.
British authority, which ought to have gladly welcomed and honored the
prodigious elasticity, energy, and growth of its American dependencies,
as the future glory and invincible ally of her advancing empire, was
deliberately arming to convert a natural filial relation into one of
slavery. The legacies of British law and the liberties of English
subjects, which the Crown did not dare to infringe at home, had been
lodged in the hearts of her American sons and daughters, until
resistance to a royal decree had become impossible under any reasonable
system of paternal care and treatment. Colonial sacrifices during Indian
wars had been cheerfully borne, and free-will offerings of person and
property had been rendered without stint, upon every demand. But it
seemed to be impossible for George the Third and his chosen advisers to
comprehend in its full significance, the momentous fact, that English
will was as strong and stubborn in the child as in the parent.
Lord Chatham said that “it would be found impossible for freemen in
England to wish to see three millions of Englishmen slaves in America.”
Respecting the attempted seizure of arms rightly in the hands of the
people, that precipitated the “skirmish,” as the British defined it,
which occurred at Lexington on the nineteenth day of April, 1775, Lord
Dartmouth said: “The effect of General Gage’s attempt at Concord will be
fatal.”
Granville Sharpe, of the Ordnance Department, resigned rather than
forward military stores to America.
Admiral Keppel formally requested not to be employed against America.
Lord Effingham resigned, when advised that his regiment had been ordered
to America.
John Wesley, who had visited America many years before with his brother,
and understood the character of the Colonists, at once recalled the
appeal once made to the British government by General Gage during
November, 1774, when he “was confident, that, to begin with, an army of
twenty thousand men would, in the end, save Great Britain both blood and
treasure,” and declared, “Neither twenty thousand, forty thousand, nor
sixty thousand can end the dawning struggle.”
During the summer of 1774 militia companies had been rapidly organized
throughout the Colonies. New England especially had been so actively
associated with all military operations during the preceding French and
Indian wars, that her people more readily assumed the attitude of armed
preparation for the eventualities of open conflict.
Virginia had experienced similar conditions on a less extended and
protracted basis. The action of the First Continental Congress on the
fifth day of September, 1774, when, upon notice that Gage had fortified
Boston, it made an unequivocal declaration of its sympathy with the
people of Boston and of Massachusetts, changed the character of the
struggle from that of a local incident, to one that demanded organized,
deliberate, and general resistance.
Notwithstanding the slow course of mail communications between the
widely separated Colonies north and south, the deportment of the British
Colonial governors had been so uniformly oppressive and exacting, that
the people, everywhere, like tinder, were ready for the first flying
spark. A report became current during September, after the forced
removal of powder from Cambridge and Charlestown, that Boston had been
attacked. One writer has stated, that, “within thirty-six hours, nearly
thirty thousand men were under arms.” This burst of patriotic feeling,
this mighty frenzy over unrighteous interference with vested rights,
made a profound impression upon the Continental Congress, then in
session at Philadelphia, and aroused in the mind of Washington, then a
delegate from Virginia, the most intense anxiety lest the urgency of the
approaching crisis should find the people unprepared to take up the gage
of battle, and fight with the hope of success. All this simply indicated
the depth and breadth of the eager sentiment which actually panted for
armed expression.
The conflict between British troops and armed citizens at Lexington had
already assumed the characteristics of a battle, and, as such, had a
more significant import than many more pronounced engagements in the
world’s history. The numbers engaged were few, but the men who ventured
to face British regulars on that occasion were but the thin skirmish
line in advance of the swelling thousands that awaited the call “To
arms.”
Massachusetts understood the immediate demand, having now drawn the fire
of the hitherto discreet adversary, and promptly declared that the
necessities of the hour required from New England the immediate service
of thirty thousand men, assuming as her proportionate part a force of
thirteen thousand six hundred. This was on the twenty-second day of
April, while many timid souls and some social aristocrats were still
painfully worrying themselves as to who was to blame for anybody’s being
shot on either side.
On the twenty-fifth day of April, Rhode Island devoted fifteen hundred
men to the service, as her contribution to “An Army of Observation”
about Boston.
On the following day, the twenty-sixth, Connecticut tendered her
proportion of two thousand men.
Each Colonial detachment went up to Boston as a separate army, with
independent organization and responsibility. The food, as well as the
powder and ball of each, was distinct, and they had little in common
except the purpose which impelled them to concentrate for a combined
opposition to the armed aggressions of the Crown. And yet, this mass of
assembling freemen was not without experience, or experienced leaders.
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.
Massachusetts selected, for the immediate command of her forces, Artemas
Ward, who had served under Abercrombie, with John Thomas, another
veteran, as Lieutenant-General; and as Engineer-in-Chief, Richard
Gridley, who had, both as engineer and soldier, earned a deserved
reputation for skill, courage, and energy.
Connecticut sent Israel Putnam, who had been inured to exposure and
hardship in the old French War, and in the West Indies. Gen. Daniel
Wooster accompanied him, and he was a veteran of the first expedition to
Louisburg thirty years before, and had served both as Colonel and
Brigadier-General in the later French War. Gen. Joseph Spencer also came
from Connecticut.
Rhode Island intrusted the command of her troops to Nathaniel Greene,
then but thirty-four years of age, with Varnum, Hitchcock, and Church,
as subordinates.
New Hampshire furnished John Stark, also a veteran of former service;
and both Pomeroy and Prescott, who soon took active part in the
operations about Boston, had participated in Canadian campaigns.
These, and others, assembled in council, for consideration of the great
interests which they had been summoned to protect by force of arms. At
this solemn juncture of affairs, the youngest of their number, Nathaniel
Greene, whose subsequent career became so significant a factor in that
of Washington the Soldier, submitted to his associates certain
propositions which he affirmed to be indispensable conditions of success
in a war against the British crown. These propositions read to-day, as
if, like utterances of the old Hebrew prophets, they had been inspired
rules for assured victory. And, one hundred years later, when the
American Civil War unfolded its vast operations and tasked to the utmost
all sections to meet their respective shares in the contest, the same
propositions had to be incorporated into practical legislation before
any substantial results were achieved on either side.
It is a historical fact that the failures and successes of the War of
American Independence fluctuated in favor of success, from year to year,
exactly in proportion to the faithfulness with which these propositions
were illustrated in the management and conduct of the successive
campaigns.
The propositions read as follows:
I. That there be one Commander-in-Chief.
II. That the army should be enlisted for the war.
III. That a system of bounties should be ordained which would provide
for the families of soldiers absent in the field.
IV. That the troops should serve wherever required throughout the
Colonies.
V. That funds should be borrowed equal to the demands of the war and
for the complete equipment and support of the army.
VI. That Independence should be declared at once, and every resource
of every Colony be pledged to its support.
In estimating the character of Washington the Soldier, and accepting
these propositions as sound, it is of interest to be introduced to their
author.
The youthful tastes and pursuits of Nathaniel Greene, of Rhode Island,
those which shaped his subsequent life and controlled many battle
issues, were as marked as were those of Washington. Unlike his great
captain, he had neither wealth, social position, nor family antecedents
to inspire military endeavor. A Quaker youth, at fourteen years of age
he saved time from his blacksmith’s forge, and by its light mastered
geometry and Euclid. Providence threw in his way Ezra Stiles, then
President of Yale College, and Lindley Murray, the grammarian, and each
of them became his fast friend and adviser.
Before the war began, he had carefully studied “Cæsar’s Commentaries,”
Marshal Turenne’s Works, “Sharpe’s Military Guide,” “Blackstone’s
Commentaries,” “Jacobs’ Law Dictionary,” “Watts’ Logic,” “Locke on the
Human Understanding,” “Ferguson on Civil Society,” Swift’s Works, and
other models of a similar class of literature and general science.
In 1773, he visited Connecticut, attended several of its militia
“trainings,” and studied their methods of instruction and drill. In
1774, he visited Boston, to examine minutely the drill, quarters, and
commissary arrangements of the British regular troops. Incidentally, he
met one evening, at a retired tavern on India wharf, a British sergeant
who had deserted. He persuaded him to accompany him back to Rhode
Island, where he made him drill-instructor of the “Kentish Guards,” a
company with which Greene was identified. Such was the proficiency in
arms, deportment, and general drill realized by this company, through
their joint effort, that more than thirty of the members became
commissioned officers in the subsequent war.
The character of the men of that period, as in the American Civil War,
supplied the military service with soldiers of the best intelligence and
of superior physical capacities. Very much of the energy and success
which attended the progress of the American army was traceable to these
qualities, as contrasted with those of the British recruits and the
Hessian drafted men.
Greene himself, unconsciously but certainly, was preparing himself and
his comrades for the impending struggle which already cast its shadow
over the outward conditions of peace. Modest, faithful, dignified,
undaunted by rebuffs or failure, and as a rule, equable,
self-sacrificing, truthful, and honest, he possessed much of that simple
grandeur of character which characterized George H. Thomas and Robert E.
Lee, of the American conflict, 1861–5. His patriotism, as he announced
his propositions to the officers assembled before Cambridge, was like
that of Patrick Henry, of Virginia, who shortly after made this personal
declaration: “Landmarks and boundaries are thrown down; distinctions
between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are
no more;” adding, “I am not a Virginian, but an American.”
By the middle of June, and before the Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed’s
Hill), the Colonies were substantially united for war. During the
previous month of March, Richard Henry Lee had introduced for adoption
by the second Virginia Convention, a resolution that “the Colony be
immediately put in a state of defence,” and advocated the immediate
reorganization, arming, and discipline of the militia.
A hush of eager expectancy and an almost breathless waiting for some
mysterious summons to real battle, seemed to pervade both north and
south alike, when a glow in the east indicated the signal waited for,
and even prayed for. The very winds of heaven seemed to bear the sound
and flame of the first conflict in arms. In six days it reached
Maryland. Intermediate Colonies, in turn, had responded to the summons,
“To arms.” Greene’s Kentish Guards started for Boston, at the next break
of day. The citizens of Rhode Island caught his inspiration, took
possession of more than forty British cannon, and asserted their right
and purpose to control all Colonial stores.
New York organized a Committee of Public Safety,—first of a hundred, and
then of a thousand,—of her representative men, as a solid guaranty of
her ardent sympathy with the opening struggle, declaring that “all the
horrors of civil war could not enforce her submission to the acts of the
British crown.” The Custom-house and the City Hall were seized by the
patriots. Arming and drilling were immediate; and even by candle-light
and until late hours, every night, impassioned groups of boys, as well
as men, rehearsed to eager listeners the story of the first blood shed
at Concord and Lexington; and strong men exchanged vows of companionship
in arms, whatever might betide. Lawyers and ministers, doctors and
teachers, merchants and artisans, laborers and seamen, mingled together
as one in spirit and one in action. An “Association for the defence of
Colonial Rights” was formed, and on the twenty-second of May the
Colonial Assembly was succeeded by a Provincial Congress, and the new
order of government went into full effect.
In New Jersey, the people, no less prompt, practical, and earnest,
seized one hundred thousand dollars belonging to the Provincial
treasury, and devoted it to raising troops for defending the liberties
of the people.
The news reached Philadelphia on the twenty-fourth of April, and there,
also, was no rest, until action took emphatic form. Prominent men, as in
New York, eagerly tendered service and accepted command, so that on the
first day of May the Pennsylvania Assembly made an appropriation of
money to raise troops. Benjamin Franklin, but just returned from
England, was made chairman of a Committee of Safety, and the whole city
was aroused in hearty support of the common cause. The very Tory
families which afterwards ministered to General Howe’s wants, and
flattered Benedict Arnold by their courtesies, did not venture to stem
the patriotic sentiment of the hour.
Virginia caught the flying spark. No flint was needed to fire the
waiting tinder there. Lord Dunmore had already sent the powder of the
Colony on board a vessel in the harbor. Patrick Henry quickly gathered
the militia in force, to board the vessel and seize the powder. By way
of compromise, the powder was paid for, but Henry was denounced as a
“traitor.” The excitement was not abated, but intensified by this
action, until Lord Dunmore, terrified, and powerless to stem the surging
wave of patriotic passion, took refuge upon the man-of-war _Fowey_, then
in the York river.
The Governor of North Carolina, as early as April, had quarrelled with
the people of that Colony, in his effort to prevent the organization of
a Provincial Congress. But so soon as the news was received from Boston
of the opening struggle, the Congress assembled. Detached meetings were
everywhere held in its support, and from all sides one sentiment was
voiced, and this was its utterance: “The cause of Boston is the cause of
all. Our destinies are indissolubly connected with those of our eastern
fellow-citizens. We must either submit to the impositions which an
unprincipled and unrepresented Parliament may impose, or support our
brethren who have been doomed to sustain the first shock of
Parliamentary power; which, if successful there, will ultimately
overwhelm all, in one common calamity.” Conformable to these principles,
a Convention assembled at Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, on the
twentieth of May, 1775, and unanimously adopted the Instrument, ever
since known as The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.
In South Carolina, on the twenty-first day of April, a secret committee
of the people, appointed for the purpose, forcibly entered the Colonial
magazine and carried away eight hundred stands of arms and two hundred
cutlasses. Thomas Corbett, a member of this committee, secured and
opened a royal package just from England, containing orders to governors
of each of the southern Colonies to “seize all arms and powder.” These
were forwarded to the Continental Congress. Another despatch, dated at
“Palace of Whitehall, December 23d,” stated that “seven regiments were
in readiness to proceed to the southern Colonies; first to North
Carolina, thence to Virginia, or South Carolina, as circumstances should
point out.” These intercepted orders contained an “Act of Parliament,
forbidding the exportation of arms to the Colonies,” and stimulated the
zeal of the patriots to secure all within their reach. Twenty days
later, the tidings from the north reached Charleston, adding fuel to the
flame of the previous outbreak.
At Savannah, Ga., six members of the “Council of Safety” broke open the
public magazine, before receipt of news from the north, seized the
public powder and bore it away for further use. Governor Wright
addressed a letter to General Gage at Boston, asking for troops, “to awe
the people.” This was intercepted, and through a counterfeit signature
General Gage was advised, “that the people were coming to some order,
and there would be _no occasion_ for _sending troops_.”
Such is the briefest possible outline of the condition of public
sentiment throughout the country, of which Washington was well advised,
so far as the Committee of the Continental Congress, of which he was a
member, could gather the facts at that time.
Meanwhile, Boston was surrounded by nearly twenty thousand Minute Men.
These Minute Men made persistent pressure upon every artery through
which food could flow to relieve the hungry garrison within the British
lines.
Neither was the excitement limited to the immediate surroundings. Ethan
Allen, who had migrated from Connecticut to Vermont, led less than a
hundred of “Green Mountain Boys,” as they were styled, to Ticonderoga,
which he captured on the tenth of May. Benedict Arnold, of New Haven,
with forty of the company then and still known as the Governor’s Guards,
rushed to Boston without waiting for orders, and then to Lake Champlain,
hoping to raise an army on the way. Although anticipated by Ethan Allen
in the capture of Ticonderoga, he pushed forward toward Crown Point and
St. John’s, captured and abandoned the latter, organized a small naval
force, and with extraordinary skill defeated the British vessels and
materially retarded the advance of the British flotilla and British
troops from the north.
These feverish dashes upon frontier posts were significant of the
general temper of the people, their desire to secure arms and military
supplies supposed to be in those forts, and indicated their conviction
that the chief danger to New England was through an invasion from
Canada. But the absorbing cause of concern was the deliverance of Boston
from English control.