[Sidenote: Washington as Commander-in-chief.]
George Washington had been assigned to the command-in-chief of the
colonial troops, just before the Battle of Bunker Hill. Thus, at the
very start, wisdom ruled the counsels and Providence guided the action
of our forefathers. The military abilities and lofty patriotism of
Washington could scarcely have been foreseen at the first in all their
breadth and scope; yet he was already known as a soldier of tried
courage and of prudent conduct, and as a Virginia gentleman of
conspicuous social and private virtues.
[Sidenote: Continental Generals.]
Washington assumed the chief direction of the Continental forces, under
the famous old elm which still stands, but a few steps from Harvard
College, in Old Cambridge, on the third day of July, 1775. At the same
time of his appointment, four major-generals--Artemus Ward, Israel
Putnam, Philip Schuyler, and Charles Lee--were designated. The principal
troops of the colonies were at this time gathered in an irregular cordon
around Boston. Their position was almost unchanged from that which they
had occupied before the Battle of Bunker Hill; for the British were
unable to follow up the success which they had achieved on that
occasion.
[Sidenote: The Continental Forces.]
The general-in-chief, on inspecting his forces, saw how ill disciplined
and ill supplied they were. They had but little clothing, a scant supply
of arms, and still less ammunition. Washington's first task was by
no means the least difficult of those which lay before him. It was to
create an army out of a brave but heterogeneous multitude of patriots.
It was to collect arms and supplies; to keep vigilant watch on the
British in Boston; to fortify and defend the surrounding circle; and
prepare to meet and drive out the pent-up foe.
At last, after preparations extending through nearly eight months,
Boston was attacked by batteries from Dorchester Heights, and on the
17th of March, 1776, Howe evacuated the town, and the first decisive
struggle of the seven years' contest had been decided in favor of the
Americans.
[Sidenote: First Campaign.]
The scene is now transferred further south. Charleston had, it is true,
already been attacked, but without favorable results to the English;
on the other hand, Arnold and Montgomery had vainly essayed to assail
British power in the Canadas. New York was the objective point of
those who had now come to be regarded as the invaders of our soil. Its
splendid harbor and its central position afforded a good standpoint. The
concentration of the troops of Howe, which had evacuated Boston, the war
ships commanded by his brother, Lord Howe, and the forces under Clinton,
which had been occupied in futile operations in the South, enabled
the British to force Washington out of New York, and to occupy it
themselves.
[Sidenote: Numerical Force of the Contestants.]
The whole British force engaged in this enterprise was scarcely less
than twenty-five thousand men; the American force did not exceed twelve
thousand; and the contrast in discipline and equipment still further
increased this inequality of strength. Then came the retreat across New
Jersey, succeeded by one of the most brilliant strokes of the war. This
was the midnight and midwinter crossing of the Delaware by the American
general and his troops, the forced march upon Trenton through the snow
and cold, and the surprise and utter defeat of the Hessians at that
place on Christmas morning.
[Sidenote: Valley Forge.]
But the colonists, though waxing in strength, were not yet able to cope
in a prolonged and active campaign with the royal army. Philadelphia,
like New York, had to be given up. The terrible winter months spent at
Valley Forge formed one of the saddest and most heroic romances of the
Revolution. The army lived in huts, which, as Lafayette exclaimed, "were
no gayer than dungeons." Bread and clothing were sadly wanting. The cold
was intense, and almost unremitting. The Pilgrims during their first
winter at Plymouth were scarcely more comfortless.
[Sidenote: Bennington.]
It was early in the following year (1777) that General Burgoyne made an
offensive movement southward from Canada, by way of Lake Champlain and
Fort Ticonderoga. A portion of his troops were sent to Bennington to
capture some stores collected there by the Vermont patriots. A vigorous
defence of these stores by the intrepid Stark resulted in the repulse,
first of the British, then of the Hessian troops. The next scene in
the drama was what may be called the second decisive action of the
war. Burgoyne, with his whole force of five thousand men, encamped at
Saratoga. There he was confronted by General Horatio Gates, who engaged
him in two battles, which, however uncertain their immediate issue, were
followed by a retreat on Burgoyne's part. The Americans succeeded in
turning his flank, and hemming him in; and then came the surrender of
Burgoyne and his entire force.
[Sidenote: Surrender of Burgoyne.]
The consequences of this event were of far greater moment than the
elimination from the contest of an able British general and five
thousand well drilled British and mercenary soldiers. It silenced the
complaints which were growing loud against the inactivity of Washington.
It once more harmonized the colonial counsels, which were becoming
seriously discordant. It inspired new effort throughout the colonies.
And it decided France to make open cause with the struggling patriots.
To the masterly diplomacy of Franklin we owe it that the great
European rival of England threw the weight of her sympathy and material
assistance on our side.
[Sidenote: Charleston Taken.]
[Sidenote: Capture of Stony Point.]
From the moment of Burgoyne's surrender, the tide of the war was
fitful, but on the whole, towards American success. There were still
vicissitudes, now and then an apparent back-sliding; Charleston was
taken by Clinton; massacres by Indians took place in Pennsylvania; the
progress of the cause at times seemed grievously slow. On the other
hand, "mad" Anthony Wayne assaulted and took Stony Point, on the Hudson;
Paul Jones made vigorous havoc with the British war-ships, conquering
the _Serapis_ and carried terror to the English by approaching close to
their coast with his doughty _Bonhomme Richard_; Marion and Sumter kept
up constant hostilities with the British in South Carolina; and the
vexatious character of the war was evidently wearying the patience, and
wearing upon the determination, of the royal government.
[Sidenote: Surrender of Cornwallis.]
The final scene of the war, at least that which most obtrusively
stands forth in its panorama, was the siege and capture of Yorktown,
in Virginia, and the surrender of General Lord Cornwallis with seven
thousand troops. On this occasion the Americans had the aid of a corps
of French troops under Count Rochambeau, while the French Admiral de
Grasse guarded York River. The siege was so vigorous that in ten
days Lord Cornwallis found himself unable to hold the town. But for
a propitious rain-storm, he might yet have saved his army, and thus
protracted the war. His attempt to leave Yorktown under cover of night
was, however, frustrated by the outburst of a tempest; and he was forced
to send word to Washington that he would surrender.
[Sidenote: Peace.]
This he did, with all the customary formalities of war, on the 19th of
October, 1781. By this act seven thousand British troops, the largest
force left on American soil, were withdrawn from the conflict. It was
the death-blow to British hopes. The war dragged on, however, for two
years more. The royalist troops held New York, Charleston, and Savannah,
but did not venture upon aggressive projects. At last, a treaty was made
at Paris, on the 3d of September, 1783, by the conditions of which Great
Britain grudgingly acknowledged the independence of the United States of
America.
[Sidenote: The Revolutionary Heroes.]
There would be no justice in presenting even an outline of the American
Revolution, without referring to its triumphs of statesmanship and
diplomacy, as well as its triumphs of military achievement. Washington,
Greene, Stark, Putnam, Wayne, Lafayette, De Kalb, Steuben, Schuyler, and
their fellow-soldiers, performed a great part, and that which was the
most brilliant and conspicuous, in accomplishing our liberties. But in
the Congress were patriots quite as devoted, and not less efficient;
while Franklin, during his sojourn abroad, exercised with great skill
the delicate and subtle generalship of diplomacy. It would have been
easy for the statesmen of the Revolution to render all of Washington's
efforts vain and futile. The triumph of unworthy ambitions in the
colonial counsels might well have brought wreck and ruin upon the cause.
[Sidenote: Revolutionary Statesmanship.]
Had the revolutionary statesmen lacked capacity or courage, they would
have loaded the army with a burden which it probably could not have
supported. The marvel of the period was the almost undisturbed unity,
readiness, and practical energy of every branch of the public service;
the devotion of each one in his own sphere to the common end; the
general co-operation in the means by which that end was to be reached;
the remarkable rarity of treason, even of self-seeking; the steadfast
exercise, amid the comfortlessness of camps and the temptations of the
council-hall of the highest and worthiest public virtues.