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strance of the legislature of Pennsylvania against the going into winter-quarters. They expected Washington to keep the open field, and even to attack the British, with his starving, ragged army, in all the severity of a northern winter. They had failed him at every point and in every promise, in men, clothing, and supplies. They were not content that he covered their State and kept the Revolution alive among the huts of Valley Forge. They wished the impossible. They asked for the moon, and then cried out because it was not given to them. It was a stupid, unkind thing to do, and Washington answered their complaints in a letter to the president of Congress. After setting forth the shortcomings of the Pennsylvanians in the very plainest of plain English, he said: "But what makes this matter still more extraordinary in my eye is that these very gentlemen should think a winter's campaign, and the covering of these States from the invasion of an enemy, so easy and practicable a business. I can assure those gentlemen, that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room, by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent."

This was not a safe man for the gentlemen of

Pennsylvania to cross too far, nor could they swerve him, with all his sense of public opinion, one jot from what he meant to do. In the stern rebuke, and in the deep pathos of these sentences, we catch a glimpse of the silent and self-controlled man breaking out for a moment as he thinks of his faithful and suffering men. Whatever happened, he would hold them together, for in this black time we detect the fear which haunted him, that the people at large might give way. He was determined on independence. He felt a keen hatred against England for her whole conduct toward America, and this hatred was sharpened by the efforts of the English to injure him personally by forged letters and other despicable contrivances. He was resolved that England should never prevail, and his language in regard to her has a fierceness of tone which is full of meaning. He was bent, also, on success, and if under the long strain the people should weaken or waver, he was determined to maintain the army at all hazards.

So, while he struggled against cold and hunger and destitution, while he contended with faction at home and lukewarmness in the administration of the war, even then, in the midst of these trials, he was devising a new system for the organization and permanence of his forces. Congress meddled with the matter of prisoners and with the promotion of officers, and he argued with and checked them, and still pressed on in his plans. He insisted that officers must have better provision, for they had

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begun to resign. "You must appeal to their interest as well as to their patriotism," he wrote, "and you must give them half-pay and full pay in proper measure." "You must follow the same policy with the men," ," he said; "you must have done with short enlistments. In a word, gentlemen, you must give me an army, a lasting, enduring, continental army, for therein lies independence." It all comes out now, through the dust of details and annoyances, through the misery and suffering of that wretched winter, through the shrill cries of ignorance and hostility, the great, clear, strong policy which meant to substitute an army for militia, and thereby secure victory and independence. It is the burden of all his letters to the governors of States, and to his officers everywhere. "I will hold the army together," he said, "but you on all sides must help me build it up."

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Thus with much strenuous labor and many fervent appeals he held his army together in some way, and slowly improved it. His system began to be put in force, his reiterated lessons were coming home to Congress, and his reforms and suggestions were in some measure adopted. Under the sound and trained guidance of Baron Steuben a drill and discipline were introduced, which soon showed marked results. Greene succeeded Mifflin as quartermaster-general, and brought order out of chaos. The Conway cabal went to pieces, and as

1 These two quotations are not literal, of course, but give the substance of many letters.

spring opened Washington began to see light once more. To have held on through that winter was a great feat, but to have built up and improved the army at such a time was much more wonderful. It shows a greatness of character and a force of will rarer than military genius, and enables us to understand better, perhaps, than almost any of his victories, why it was that the success of the Revolution lay in the hands of one man.

After Howe's withdrawal from the Jerseys in the previous year, a contemporary wrote that Washington was left with the remnants of an army "to scuffle for liberty." The winter had passed, and he was prepared to scuffle again. On May 11th Sir Henry Clinton relieved Sir William Howe at Philadelphia, and the latter took his departure in a blaze of mock glory and resplendent millinery, known as the Mischianza, a fit close to a career of failure, which he was too dull to appreciate. The new commander was more active than his predecessor, but no cleverer, and no better fitted to cope with Washington. It was another characteristic choice on the part of the British ministry, who could never muster enough intellect to understand that the Americans would fight, and that they were led by a really great soldier. The coming of Clinton did not alter existing conditions.

Expecting a movement by the enemy, Washington sent Lafayette forward to watch Philadelphia. Clinton, fresh in office, determined to cut him off, and by a rapid movement nearly succeeded in so

doing. Timely information, presence of mind, and quickness alone enabled the young Frenchman to escape, narrowly but completely. Meantime, a cause for delay, that curse of the British throughout the war, supervened. A peace commission, consisting of the Earl of Carlisle, William Eden, and Governor Johnstone, arrived. They were excellent men, but they came too late. Their propositions three years before would have been well enough, but as it was they were worse than nothing. Coolly received, they held a fruitless interview with a committee of Congress, tried to bribe and intrigue, found that their own army had been already ordered to evacuate Philadelphia without their knowledge, and finally gave up their task in angry despair, and returned to England to join in the chorus of fault-finding which was beginning to sound very loud in ministerial ears.

Meanwhile, Washington waited and watched, puzzled by the delay, and hoping only to harass Sir Henry with militia on the march to New York. But as the days slipped by, the Americans grew stronger, while Sir Henry weakened himself by sending five thousand men to the West Indies, and three thousand to Florida. When he finally started, he had with him less than ten thousand men, while the Americans had thirteen thousand, nearly all continental troops. Under these circumstances, Washington determined to bring on a battle. He was thwarted at the outset by his officers, as was wont to be the case. Lee had returned

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