A People's History
of the American Revolution
Page Smith
[Part 3 of 4]
PART V
The Second Continental Congress / 1
The Second Continental Congress was faced with the fact of a country
at war. It had to take on all the responsibilities of a national
government in a time of severe crisis, and it had to do so with powers
entirely inadequate to the task. [p. 543]
The first matter before Congress turned out to be a prickly one. The
Massachusetts Provincial Congress had turned its attention to the
problem of framing a constitution, and Massachusetts wished to have
the sanction of Congress to proceed with this task.
John Adams
noted that the enterprise would be a demanding one; the opportunity
facing the Colonies was unique. The people of America, people of "more
intelligence, curiosity, and enterprise" than history could show,
must all be consulted. The framers of the new constitutions must be
attentive to the "wisest writers and invite the people to erect
the whole building with their own hands, upon the broadest
foundations." This could be done "only by conventions of
representatives chosen by the people of the several colonies,"
and Congress should recommend "to the people of every colony to
call such conventions
and set up governments of their own,
under their own authority, for the people were the source of all
authority and of all power." [p. 545]
Adams' speech was one of the milestones of the Revolutionary era.
The
method that Adams proposed - the calling of constitutional conventions
- came to be the course that was followed, in fact, by most colonies
when they finally took up the task. Adams' insistence that the people
were the legitimate source of all governmental power and must be
involved as directly as possible in the framing of constitutions was
an idea that had long been voiced by liberal thinkers. Now the idea of
government by the people was to have a trial. In other words, "the
people" had never, at least in modern times, been involved in the
drafting and approval of a constitution. In fact, no such thing as a
written constitution governing a nation existed in the world, if we
except the rather unique case of the Swiss Confederation. [p. 545]
This making of constitutions, which culminated in the Federal
Constitution, was the most striking intellectual venture in American
history. [p. 545]
Adams' nomination of Washington was seconded by Sam Adams, Peyton
Randolph, perhaps displaying some envy of his fellow Virginian, argued
that New England already had a perfectly good general in Artemas Ward.
On June 15, the Virginian was nominated and unanimously elected
commander in chief of the Continental Army at Cambridge. Congress at
the same time took the army officially under its wing. John Adams
wrote to his wife two days later that "the modest, the virtuous,
the amiable, generous, and brave George Washington, Esquire," had
been appointed commander in chief, an appointment that would have "a
great effect in cementing and securing the union of these colonies,"
which "the liberties of America depend upon, in a great degree."
[p. 548] Because the myth-making popular mind worked its own
irresistible way with the idealized Washington, it has been difficult
for historians to make much headway in peeling off those layers of
pious wrapping. What is plain enough is that he is no longer a
functioning generation. And this is not simply because "the true
George Washington" has been obscured by the mythical George
Washington, but rather because that quality of self-control that his
contemporaries so much admired, is seen today as a classic form of the
"repression" that has produced the "up-tight"
American society. [p. 552]
Officers in every army and in every time have been, to the civilian
mind, inordinately sensitive about matters of rank. The most evident
reason is not that military men are more petty than their civilian
counterparts, but that rank is to the army officer corps what oil is
to the wheels of a machine; it makes the whole thing work. An army is
arranged and sorted out by rank. The soldier thus becomes conditioned
to a close and indeed not infrequently feverish attention to who
outranks whom. [p. 555]
it is almost invariably a mistake to try to fight a new war
with veterans of the old, especially if those veterans are getting on
in years. For one thing, military technology changes rapidly, and
tactics with it. One of the besetting sins of the military mind is
rigidity. That is because human beings love routine, and where that
routine has the effect of governing almost all their actions and
confirming their self-esteem, most ultimately become enslaved by it.
In addition, age produces its own rigidities that compound those that
typically accompany military life. Perhaps even more important, age,
sadly and inevitably, brings a diminution of physical strength,
energy, endurance (although that goes last), and agility. Decisions
made by tired and ailing men are usually bad decisions. There is a
direct correlation between physical robustness and military
efficiency. [p. 556]
When an old order is in the process of being sloughed off and before
a new order has taken form, there is a period of extreme
vulnerability, a period that can slide quickly into anarchy if some
guiding or controlling principal or person (preferably both) does not
emerge. This was the case with the American colonies after Lexington.
[p. 558]
Congress, in Adams' opinion, should encourage every colony to set up
its own government, then "confederate together like an
indissoluble Band, for mutual defence, and open our Ports to all
Nations immediately.
But the colonies are not yet ripe for it."
And so Congress dragged on from day to day, doing too late and under
duress and timidly what it should have done boldly and expeditiously
months before. [p. 559]
Congress
sent appeals for support to the British West Indian
Islands, to Ireland, to the Canadians, and, finally, to the Six
Nations, the most powerful and warlike confederation of Indian tribes
in the New World. It was critically important to try to insure the
neutrality of the Iroquois, whose alliance with the British had been
traditional and whose assistance had been a vital factor in the French
and Indian War. [p. 562]
As John Adams put it: "when 50 or 60 Men have a Constitution to
form for a great Empire at the same time that they have a Country of
fifteen hundred miles extent to fortify, Millions to arm and train, a
Naval Power to begin, an extensive Commerce to regulate, numerous
Tribes of Indians to negotiate with, a standing Army of Twenty seven
Thousand Men to raise, pay, victual and officer, I really shall pity
those 50 or 60 Men." [p. 563]
>Washington Makes an Army / 2
When Washington assumed command of the troops at Cambridge, he
immediately undertook the staggering labor of creating a Continental
Army. This turned out to be the most crucial enterprise of the period
from the Boston Tea Party to the framing of the Federal Constitution
in 1787. Upon its success or failure rested, quite literally, the
future of the United States - not so much in the matter of a
collection of soldiers who could fight the British to a standstill,
but in the existence of a "continental" entity, in this case
an army, which would represent in simple, practical terms the fact
that there was a reality that transcended the particular individual
colonies, a reality that could be called America. [p. 564]
One of the first problems Washington tackled, and one of the
thorniest that faced him, was the relation between officers and men.
In the simple democracy of the militia company, officers and men mixed
without distinction, called each other by their first names, and, on
the men's part, obeyed or disobeyed orders pretty much as they chose.
Under such circumstances discipline was negligible. [p. 567]
From the beginning, Washington was keenly aware of the strength of
local loyalties and prejudices among troops from different colonies.
He repeatedly reminded the soldiers that they were members of the army
of "the United Provinces of North America, and it is to be hoped
that all distinctions of colonies will be laid aside
" [p.
568]
The colonists had, as individuals, followed the issues and arguments
with a remarkably sophisticated understanding and had, as individuals,
made up their minds how they meant to respond. They could not see why
they should not continue to do so. The mere fact that they carried a
gun and marched off with their friends and relatives to fight the
British surely did not mean that they were expected to surrender the
right of individual judgment. But that, of course, was exactly what it
did mean, and it was small wonder that the "lack of a proper
subordination" - which had so offended "upper class"
Tories and amused and irritated British travelers in the colonies -
should have created a perpetual dilemma for those among their fellow
countrymen who had the responsibility of leading them in camp and in
battle. [p. 571]
As something created to fight the British, the army was, in purely
military terms, a failure. After the colonists had been formed, at
enormous cost and effort, into a more or less conventional army, they
never again were as successful in any engagement with the British as
they had been when they extemporized their tactics at Concord and at
Bunker Hill. If a general of far more imagination and originality than
George Washington had taken command of the army at Cambridge, he might
have said, in effect: "There is no point trying to teach all
these contentious individuals to behave like conventional soldiers. It
is entirely against their temperament, their mode of life, their
'native genius.' Clearly the thing to do is to encourage the
development of those tactics that they have already discovered
instinctively: constant harassment by militiamen who constitute no
organized 'army' but slip out to harass and raid, to wear down the
British by ceaseless minor forays, and then disappear into 'those
endless forests, which,' as a contemptuous Britisher wrote, 'they are
too lazy to cut down.'" [p. 573]
Such a strategy might have succeeded far better than a strategy that
called for the creation of a Continental Army modeled along a
conventional line. But it would not have answered the purpose of
providing a foundation for the eventual United States. [p. 574]
John Adams also gave an interesting analysis of the differences
between Southerners and New Englanders. "Gentlemen in other
colonies have large plantations of slaves, and the common people among
them are very ignorant and very poor. These gentlemen are accustomed,
habituated to higher notions of themselves, and the distinction
between them and the common people, than we are. I dread the
consequences of this dissimilitude of character, and without the
utmost caution on both sides, and the most considerate forbearance
with one another, and prudent condescension on both sides, they will
certainly be fatal.
[pp. 575-576]
The conventional army of the eighteenth-century was a product of the
new industrial age, which depended for its efficiency on treating
people like interchangeable parts. Every soldier was, ideally, like
every other soldier, just as every factory worker was to be, in time,
like every other factory worker. [pp. 577-578]
In order to lay a proper foundation for what was to become a
continental nation, Washington had to remodel his army as a
conventional army rather than as congeries of friends and neighbors
fighting against a common foe. However, in doing so he had to destroy
a portion of that community-based individualism that had provided, in
the deepest sense, the morale to oppose the awesome power of Great
Britain. [p. 578]
out of the drawing together and the rough fashioning of the
Continental Army came the discipline, order, and unity that made a
nation possible. Thus the question of Washington's genius as a
military commander, while an interesting question in itself, is,
strictly speaking, beside the point. Having molded an army by the most
Herculean efforts, by indomitable patience, by tact, by moral suasion,
Washington had simply to keep it in existence to ultimately triumph.
That he had created it and was able, in the face of every
discouragement, to preserve the army was the seed of the new order.
Congress existed for no other purpose than to supply it (rather
badly), to facilitate its operations, to secure allies to aid it. [p.
579]
Only half of Washington's problems involved discipline,
re-enlistments, and now modeling the army. The other half had to do
with items almost as important as soldiers - money, provisions, and
powder. [p. 581]
Clinton, Burgoyne, and Howe concerted their efforts to persuade Gage
to move his small army from Boston to New York.
From New York,
the British could move to Pennsylvania and Virginia or, probably more
profitably, up the Hudson River, destroy the American forces on Lake
Champlain, and establish contact with the Canadians and the Indians of
the Northwest. [p. 583]
Ticonderoga / 3
In the immediate aftermath of Lexington and Concord, some of the more
militant New Englanders cast about for the means of striking a blow
against British military might. Fort Ticonderoga, at the lower end of
Lake Champlain, was held by a small garrison of British soldiers -
some forty-eight men, among whom were a number of invalids. [p. 584]
What made Ticonderoga an especially tempting objective was that it
contained a large number of heavy cannon,
[p.584]
Ticonderoga and Crown Point in the hands of a strong British
garrison would be like a dagger aimed at the heart of New England. So,
offensively or defensively, politically or militarily, Ticonderoga and
Crown Point were crucial to the Americans. [p. 585]
[Benedict] Arnold had also been one of the warmest Sons of Liberty in
New Haven; the very day that word came of Lexington and Concord he set
off at once for Cambridge to volunteer his services. [p. 586] The
attackers captured some one hundred cannon of various sizes with much
ammunition, and forty soldiers, many of whom bore crippling wounds
from ancient campaigns. [p. 589]
After the capture of Ticonderoga, Arnold's joint leadership had been
flatly rejected by the Vermont soldiers and officers. Arnold claimed
it was because he tried to prevent their looting, which is not
improbable. But now Arnold had a small force of which he was the
legitimate commander.
Arnold caught the St. John's garrison of
fourteen men by surprise. He also captured the seventy-ton armed sloop
and her crew. [p. 590]
At Ticonderoga, Arnold's recruits arrived daily to augment the men
that he could claim as his own. Allen meanwhile played into Arnold's
hands by attempting an abortive expedition into Canada that was
surprised and routed at St. John's. When Allen and a remnant of his
men finally got back to Ticonderoga, they found Arnold firmly in
charge. With his ascendancy assured, Arnold promptly demonstrated his
very real gifts for military organization and his remarkable energy.
Hearing word of an impending British attack, he strengthened Crown
Point and sent off requests to Cambridge for more men and supplies.
[p. 591]
the seizure of Ticonderoga and Crown Point were acts of
reckless aggression against His Majesty, George III. These forts
belonged to the king. How could it be hoped that he would look
indulgently on his colonial children in the face of such acts of
provocation? A bitter debate followed, at the end of which, over the
opposition of most of the New England delegates - who realized how
vital Ticonderoga and Crown Point were for the safety of their region
- Congress directed that they be abandoned. The desperately needed
supplies might be carried off, but a careful inventory should be made
so that when harmony was restored between Great Britain and her
colonies, proper restitution could be made of His Majesty's property.
[pp. 591-592]
When word reached the colonies that Congress intended that the forts
be, in effect, returned to the British, there was an immediate shock
felt throughout New York and New England.
An obvious British
strategy would be to cut off New England from the rest of the colonies
by a campaign from Canada down the line of the Hudson to New York. The
possession of Ticonderoga would forestall such a move.
Faced
with explicit resistance to its authority, Congress reluctantly gave
way. The forts might be held. [p. 592]
The Invasion of Canada / 4
While Washington continued to keep watch on the British in Boston,
Congress began to dream of an invasion of Canada. Benedict Arnold
wrote letters to Philadelphia urging such a step. [p. 594]
Benedict Arnold, while still in command of Ticonderoga, had prepared
a plan
for a campaign directed against Montreal.
The
essence of Arnold's plan was speed. But speed was the one thing it was
futile to expect from Congress. [p. 595]
Schuyler's force declined daily in health and morale. It was
late in August, with good weather running out, before Schuyler was
ready to move northward with some thirteen hundred men and twenty
days' provisions.
Schuyler received word from Washington that he
was dispatching another expedition under Arnold by way of Maine to
march on Quebec - with the intention of diverting Carleton and
creating a modest envelopment of the small British force in Canada.
[pp. 597-598]
Schuyler's illness was a great piece of good fortune for his command.
Montgomery promptly surrounded St. John's and cut it off both
from the river and the roads leading to Montreal.
Ethen Allen
soon became a problem for Montgomery.
Allen with 110 men
set up to seize Montreal, a city of more than 5,000 people.
[H]is
attack was based on the belief that his assault would be supported by
inhabitants of the city who were favorable to the American cause. The
reverse happened.
Finally, with only thirty-eight men left,
seven of whom were wounded, Allen surrendered. [pp. 600-601]
Allen had been a liability from his first appearance on the
scene. His poorly conceived attack on Montreal was a disaster, not
simply in itself but because it rejuvenated the defenders of Montreal,
who congratulated themselves on having captured the feared and famous
Ethan Allen. It put a virtual end to any hope of recruiting Canadians
for the American side. Finally, Allen's failure encouraged the
Indians, always and understandably concerned with throwing in their
lot with a winner, to rally to the British standard. [p. 602]
Arnold's March / 5
Arnold's march to Quebec became one of the great military ventures in
history. Taken as an achievement of will, the expedition must always
arouse the admiration of everyone who admires skill and daring carried
to the limits of human endurance. [pp. 606-607]
Five or six members of the expedition faithfully kept diaries, and
this among men taxed to the utmost day after day is remarkable. The
diary is one of the particular achievements of the individualistic
Protestant consciousness. It was not simply the pleasure of literate
men with time on their hands; it was the crucial record, kept as often
by simple men as grand ones, of the state of the individual's soul and
the corporal embodiment of that soul, under God's care and judgment.
[pp. 608-609]
Montgomery and Arnold knew that they did not have a sufficient force
to storm the defenses of [Quebec]. Yet having come so far with such
extravagant hoes and endured such miseries, they could not bear to
withdraw. A surprise attack seemed the only possibility.
[p.
614]
It was an astonishingly bold project, and it came within a
hairsbreadth of success. In terms of conventional warfare it was more
than a little insane, but the Americans were not yet committed to
conventional warfare, and this extravagant venture came close enough
to victory to startle the world. The measure of its failure can,
indeed, be summed up in one word: "time." At every stage of
the operation, a few weeks' time would have certainly made an enormous
difference. Time meant, essentially, supplies. Supplies, in turn,
depended on the energy and resolution of those charged with providing
them. The vacillation of Congress in regard to the invasion of Canada
was certainly an inhibiting factor. [p. 617]
A soldier counts only if he is willing to fight; his simple
existence, however well-equipped and heavily armed he may be, is
otherwise of little consequence. The Americans who fought at Quebec
were undoubtedly among the best soldiers who ever fought against
discouraging odds. They were superbly led; they came to fight. The
most notable victories in warfare have, with few exceptions, gone to
those armies who forced the "breaks" by their energy and
resolution. There are no defenses, however formidable, that are proof
against a determined and well-led attack. [p. 618]
Distressed as Americans were at the news of the defeat and capture of
Arnold's force - and above all by the death of Montgomery, which
awakened memories of the tragic death of General Wolfe - they were
deeply stirred by the daring of the attack. When word of Montgomery's
death reached England, he was praised in Parliament by Edmund Burke
and Barre and Charles James Fox as a hero. To which North replied that
Montgomery was "brave, able, humane, generous; but still only a
brave, able, humane and generous Rebel.
" Fox had the last
word, however. He noted that all the great defenders of liberty had,
in their time, been called rebels, and the members of Parliament "even
owed the Constitution which enabled them to sit in that House to a
rebellion," a reference to the English Civil War of 1640. [p.
619]
The fact is that Arnold's march to Quebec could not have been carried
through by any other soldiers in the world. It was an achievement
unique to a people whose individualism was so powerful a reality that
it enabled them to overcome innumerable practical difficulties with an
innate resourcefulness, and beyond that, to support the will to
survive and persevere in the face of incredible hardships. Much credit
must go, of course, to Arnold. That cold, hard, ambitious man was a
superb leader, the type who leads by inspiring emulation, by doing
first himself the most arduous and demanding tasks. [p. 619]
Although Congress had ordered printed what seemed to its members
enormous quantities of money, the presses could not keep up with the
demand, nor could the signers of the bills sign them fast enough. "For
God's sake," Washington wrote, "hurry the signers of money,
that our wants may be supplied. It is a very singular case, that their
signing cannot keep pace with our demands. [p. 620]
Clinton Attacks Charles Town / 6
The British ministry had already begun to make plans for a campaign
in the South, the purpose being to join forces with the large groups
of Loyalists who, North was assured by Governors Tryon and Lord
William Campbell, waited only for some indication of British support
to rise and annihilate the their rebel persecutors. [p. 624]
As the battle approached, Charles Town had become impressively well
fortified. The city's other fort, Fort Johnson, had some 380 defenders
and twenty heavy cannon... [p. 630]
When eighteenth-century warships anchored to deliver sustained fire
against a land installation, they put out anchors, bow and stern, on
cables with springs attached to absorb the recoil of the guns and
thereby prevent the anchors from dragging or the planks of the vessel
from being sprung. [p. 631]
Americans interpreted the battle (if it could be called them) as a
humiliating setback for the British. The campaign of which the battle
was the culmination was a classic example of the difficulties of a
combined land and sea operation, as well as of British dilatoriness
and arrogance. From the time that Congress got wind of the intended
attack on Charles Town until the time Parker's ships opened fire on
Fort Sullivan, more than six months elapsed. In that interval, the
South Carolina patriots had had ample time to assemble a substantial
force and almost complete an excellent fort. [p. 635]
As in most military decisions made by British commanders, career
considerations were prominent if not paramount. Officers almost
invariably approached engagements with an eye to the effect of victory
or defeat on their careers. [p. 636]
Guerrilla Warfare on the Water / 7
The war in New England continued to be a stalemate. Gage and his army
sat in Boston; Washington and his troops ringed the city - and did
nothing. [p. 637]
The navy, like the army, was weakened by patronage and corruption, by
the buying and selling of commissions, and, of course, by the wretched
conditions that characterized the life of a sailor in His Majesty's
Navy. Any system that depended on the press gang's seizure of men who
were hardly to be distinguished from kidnapped slaves must have been
cruel and inhuman beyond measure. Little or no care was taken for the
health of sailors, who were crowded below decks in what were most
commonly foul holds. Deaths from sickness and disease far outnumbered
casualties in battle. Scurvy and dysentery were as prevalent as the
common cold and made men susceptible to every kind of contagious
infection. [p. p. 638]
While Washington was laboriously augmenting his little auxiliary
navy, Rhode Island placed before Congress a proposal to establish a
continental navy. Congress was mired down in a peculiarly complicated
and frustrating debate over what action to take in regard to colonial
trade. Those who still clung to the hope of reconciliation with the
mother country wish to maintain nonimportation and nonexportation; to
abandon it would be, in effect, to abandon the hoe (or delusion) that
Britain could be forced to change her policy by economic pressures.
[p. 644]
It was October, 1775, before the ships were ready to sail. Mowat
decided to pass up Gloucester for the time being and headed for
Falmouth. Anchoring off the town, he sent an officer ashore with a
sanctimonious statement to be read to the people of the town
The
citizens had two hours grace to [leave]. At the end of that time the
town would be set afire. [p. 645]
The destruction of Falmouth was a capricious and vindictive act that
served no important purpose and did far more to stimulate American
bitterness and strengthen the patriot cause than any conceivable
advantage that could have accrued to the British. If it was intended
to frighten other towns into compliance, it had just the opposite
effect. Efforts were made everywhere to augment the defenses of
seaport towns, and additional impetus was given to the movement to
build up a navy. Considerations of humanity aside, punitive actions
against civilians in wartime are both foolish and cowardly; they
degrade those who perform them as surely as they punish the guilty and
innocent indiscriminately. [p. 646]
Dorchester Heights / 8
Impatient with the British inaction, Washington consulted his
generals about the practicality of an attack on Boston by the
Continental Army.
It is hard to believe that Washington, shrewd
judge of military capabilities that he was, could have thought that
his raw and undisciplined troops could have stormed Boston, which had
been made virtually impregnable by the British. [p. 649]
on the night of March 2, Washington opened a heavy diversionary
bombardment of Boston Neck. Knox, starting from scratch, had produced
a highly efficient corps of artillerymen. His achievement was the more
remarkable since the colonials did not have enough powder to do much
cannonading. [p. 650] While the British prepared for a re-enactment of
Bunker Hill, the Americans strengthened their position until it was
far more formidable than the works on Breed's Hill had ever been.
Howe
began to plot his attack immediately. Plans were hastily drawn for the
assault, and troops were told off to carry them out. [p.651]
Archibald Robertson, a young British engineer, spent much of the day
of March 5 trying to get an audience with Howe to tell him that he
thought the colonial defenses were virtually impregnable, and that an
attack upon them by the modest force available to Howe could only be a
disaster.
It is
possible that without the storm Howe
would have attacked, but that is hard to believe. Had Howe done so, it
seems as certain as anything can ever be that his troops would have
been driven back and much more than decimated. If, at the same time,
the American counterattack on Boston had succeeded, the British would
have suffered a defeat that might have ended the war then and there.
[p. 652]
The fact was that Howe had been completely outmaneuvered. Boston, of
course, should never have been occupied to begin with. No military
purpose had been served. Between five and ten thousand British
soldiers had been immobilized for more than a year - almost half the
entire British army in North America - when they would certainly have
been put to better use in a dozen other places. The colonials had been
given great encouragement by Bunker Hill; precious time had been given
Washington to form the nucleus of an army. Congress had been allowed
ample opportunity to get itself together and to begin the laborious
task of supplying an army and developing agencies and instruments of
self-government. The whole continent had been permitted time enough to
ponder the idea of independence. Almost any disposition of British
troops would have been preferable to sitting in Boston for more than
sixteen months. [pp. 652-653]
As the British prepared to depart, Washington, assuming that Howe
would set sail for New York and determined, if possible, to be there
to intercept him, began to send off units of his army to begin the
long march south, meanwhile keeping a wary eye on the British lest
Howe, at the last moment, should try to catch the Americans off guard
and retrieve the situation. [p. 654]
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