CHAPTER III.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 toNathaniel 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.
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 himto 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 beimmediately 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-warFowey, 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. Ourdestinies 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 beno occasionforsending 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.