Читать книгу Washington the Soldier - Henry B. Carrington - Страница 7

Table of Contents

The Second Continental Congress convened on the tenth day of May, 1775. On the same day, Ethan Allen captured Ticonderoga, also securing two hundred cannon which were afterwards used in the siege of Boston. Prompt measures were at once taken by Congress for the purchase and manufacture of both cannon and powder. The emission of two millions of Spanish milled dollars was authorized, and twelve Colonies were pledged for the redemption of Bills of Credit, then directed to be issued. At the later, September, session, the Georgia delegates took their seats, and made the action of the Colonies unanimous.

A formal system of “Rules and Articles of War” was adopted, and provision was made for organizing a military force fully adequate to meet such additional troops as England might despatch to the support of General Gage. Further than this, all proposed enforcement by the British crown of the offensive Acts of Parliament, was declared to be “unconstitutional, oppressive, and cruel.”

Meanwhile, the various New England armies were scattered in separate groups, or cantonments, about the City of Boston, with all the daily incidents of petty warfare which attach to opposing armies within striking distance, when battle action has not yet reached its desirable opportunity. And yet, a state of war had been so far recognized that an exchange of prisoners was effected as early as the sixth day of June. General Howe made the first move toward open hostilities by a tender of pardon to all offenders against the Crown except Samuel Adams and John Hancock; and followed up this ostentatious and absurd proclamation by a formal declaration of Martial Law.

The Continental Congress as promptly responded, by adopting the militia about Boston, as “The American Continental Army.”

On the fourteenth day of June, a Light Infantry organization of expert riflemen was authorized, and its companies were assigned to various Colonies for enlistment and immediate detail for service about Boston.

On the fifteenth day of June, 1775, Congress authorized the appointment, and then appointed George Washington, of Virginia, as “Commander-in-Chief of the forces raised, or to be raised, in defence of American Liberties.” On presenting their commission to Washington it was accompanied by a copy of a Resolution unanimously adopted by that body, “That they would maintain and assist him, and adhere to him, with their lives and fortunes, in the cause of American Liberty.”

It is certain from the events above outlined, which preceded the Revolutionary struggle, that when Washington received this spontaneous and unanimous appointment, he understood definitely that the Colonies were substantially united in the prosecution of war, at whatever cost of men and money; that military men of early service and large experience could be placed in the field; that the cause was one of intrinsic right; and that the best intellects, as well as the most patriotic statesmen, of all sections, were ready, unreservedly, to submit their destinies to the fate of the impending struggle. He had been upon committees on the State of Public Affairs; was constantly consulted as to developments, at home and abroad; was familiar with the dissensions among British statesmen; and had substantial reasons for that sublime faith in ultimate victory which never for one hour failed him in the darkness of the protracted struggle. He also understood that not statesmen alone, preëminently Lord Dartmouth, but the best soldiers of Great Britain had regarded the military occupation of Boston, where the Revolutionary sentiment was most pronounced, and the population more dense as well as more enlightened, to be a grave military as well as political error. And yet, as the issue had been forced, it must be met as proffered; and the one immediate and paramount objective must be the expulsion of the British garrison and the deliverance of Boston. It will appear, however, as the narrative develops its incidents, that he never lost sight of the exposed sea-coast cities to the southward, nor of that royalist element which so largely controlled certain aristocratic portions of New York, New Jersey, and the southern cities, which largely depended upon trade with Great Britain and the West Indies for their independent fortunes and their right royal style of living. Neither did he fail to realize that delay in the siege of Boston, however unavoidable, was dangerous to the rapid prosecution of general war upon a truly military plan of speedy accomplishment.

His first duty was therefore with his immediate command, and the hour had arrived for the consolidation of the various Colonial armies into one compact, disciplined, and effective force, to battle with the best troops of Great Britain which now garrisoned Boston and controlled its waters.

Reënforcements under Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne had already increased the strength of that garrison to nearly ten thousand men. It had become impatient of confinement, and restive under the presence of increasing but ill-armed adversaries who eagerly challenged every picket post, and begrudged every market product smuggled, or snatched, by the purveyors or officers and soldiers of the Crown. Besides all this, the garrison began to realize the fate which afterwards befell that of Clinton in Philadelphia, in the demoralization and loss of discipline which ever attach to an idle army when enclosed within city limits. When Burgoyne landed at Boston, to support Gage, he contemptuously spoke of “ten thousand peasants who kept the King’s troops shut up.” Gradually, the peasants encroached upon the outposts. An offensive movement to occupy Charlestown Heights and menace the Colonial headquarters at Cambridge, with a view to more decisive action against their maturing strength, had been planned and was ready for execution. It was postponed, as of easy accomplishment at leisure; but the breaking morning of June 17, 1775, revealed the same Heights to be in possession of the “peasant” militia of America.

The Battle of Bunker Hill followed. Each force engaged lost one-third of its numbers, but the aggregate of the British loss was more than double that of the Colonies. It made a plain issue between the Colonists and the British army, and was no longer a controversy of citizens with the civil authority. The impatience of the two armies to have a fight had been gratified, and when Franklin was advised of the facts, and of the nerve with which so small a detachment of American militia had faced and almost vanquished three times their number of British veterans, he exclaimed, “The King has lost his Colonies.”

Many of the officers who bore part in that determining action gained new laurels in later years. Prescott, who led his thousand men to that achievement, served with no less gallantry in New York. Stark, so plucky and persistent along the Mystic river, was afterwards as brave and dashing at Trenton, Bennington, and Springfield. And Seth Warner, a volunteer at Bunker Hill, and comrade of Allen in the capture of Ticonderoga, participated in the battles of Hubbardton and Bennington, and the Saratoga campaign, during the invasion of Burgoyne in 1777.

Of the British participants, or spectators, a word is due. Clinton, destined to be Washington’s chief antagonist, had urged General Howe to attack Washington’s army at Cambridge, before it could mature into a well equipped and well disciplined force. He was overruled by General Howe, who with all his scientific qualities as a soldier, never, in his entire military career, was quick to follow up an advantage once acquired; and soon after, the junior officer was transferred to another field of service.

Percy, gallant in the action of June 17th, was destined to serve with credit at Long Island, White Plains, Brandywine, and Newport.

Rawdon, then a lieutenant, who gallantly stormed the redoubt on Breed’s Hill, and received in his arms the body of his captain, Harris, of the British 5th Infantry, was destined to win reputation at Camden and Hobkirk’s Hill, but close his military career in America as a prisoner of war to the French.

The British retained and fortified Bunker Hill, and the time had arrived for more systematic American operations, and the presence of the Commander-in-Chief.

Congress had appointed the following general officers as Washington’s associates in conduct of the war.