An Important Role in Keeping George Washington's Continental Army - Case Study Example

The coercion used in the Continental Army by George Washington and other Army or political leaders of the of the Thecoercion used in the Continental Army by George Washington and other Army or political leaders The Revolutionary War did not go easy on the common soldier. Combat could be ugly--a far cry from the splendid and neat uniforms οf caricature--and everyday life harsh and miserable. Why did Americans, Continentals and militia, continue to serve? Did they believe in the higher cause? Did they fight, like modern soldiers, for their buddies? Did they hope for reward, in the form οf bounty money or land? Or were they, at times, just too scared to quit? Harry M. Ward, the William Binford Vest Professor οf History Emeritus at the University οf Richmond and a distinguished authority on the American Revolution, suggests that tough discipline played an important role in keeping George Washingtons Continental Army in the field. Very little scholarly work had been done on military discipline and enforcement in the American army during the Revolutionary War. The neglect is not for lack οf source material. Thousands οf orderly books, manuals οf instruction, court martial transcripts, and other primary sources exist in private collections and in local and national repositories, including the National Archives and the Library οf Congress. Most οf this material is readily available to researchers, and some οf it, most notably in George Washingtons papers, has appeared in print. Ward is the first historian to examine the primary sources in depth, however, and he has written a pioneering study οf a very important element in the military history οf the Revolutionary War. Washington was no touchy-feely general. As Ward explains, he developed his understanding οf military discipline from study and observation οf British practices during the French and Indian War. Discipline during that war followed standard eighteenth-century practice. Penalties were cruel--from whipping and riding the wooden horse to public hanging--and intended to terrify rather than to correct. Washington was as enthusiastic as any other officer in applying this discipline, often more so. And in the Revolutionary War, he made tough discipline a centerpiece οf his military philosophy. The relatively democratic, easy-going methods common to the New England militia in early 1775 were not for him; and on taking command οf the Continental Army later that year, he quickly instilled an authoritarian, hierarchic system that came down hard on everything from cowardice and desertion to foul language, gambling, and female camp followers. Wards focus is less on policy formulation than on the effect that Washingtons discipline--developed in consultation with Congress and the generals--had on the common soldiers. This emphasis on the average man helps to keep the book far more fresh and exciting than any purely administrative study. At all levels, from officers guards, pickets, and police, to provost guards, executioners, and field musicians, Ward explores what it meant to live under Continental Army discipline, making use οf numerous interesting anecdotes. At times, Wards tendency to hop from one topic to another makes for haphazard reading, but the narrative, though at times awkwardly written, never loses interest. What is missing is a coherent overall sense οf how military discipline evolved during the war, and particularly οf how lessons learned during the course οf the conflict influenced the development οf U.S. Army discipline in succeeding eras. The book lacks a concluding chapter to bring all οf the loose ends together, instead ending rather abruptly with a discussion οf military executions. Still, there is no question that Ward has written the definitive study οf American military discipline during the Revolutionary War. The inability to adequately equip the troops stemmed from the structure οf the Commissary Department, and its adjunct, the Quartermaster Department. Military officers normally headed these departments, but most οf the employees were civilians. Procurement οf goods for the army suffered from cases οf theft and other fraud. The value οf Continental currency was declining in value, which made farmers unwilling to sell goods to the military purchasing agents. Additionally, the countryside οf southeastern Pennsylvania was unable to provide resources for the armys needs, because the American and British armies had removed all the food supplies during the previous campaign. It was also difficult to get teamsters to carry supplies to the camp because οf muddy or snow-covered roads. The situation began to improve when General Nathanael Greene was appointed Quartermaster General after the restructuring οf the department on March 2, 1778. He had responsibility not only over the Quartermaster Department but also over the Commissary. Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth οf Connecticut replaced William Buchanan as Commissary General οf the Armys Middle Department on March 23, not long after Buchanans resignation. Washington had criticized Buchanan for his inactivity at his post. Life and Death in the Camp Disease ran rampant in the camp due to the lack οf proper nutrition and shelter. Hospital conditions at the camp were primitive and disheveled. After discovering medical personnels carelessness in filling out health reports, Washington ordered on January 2, 1778 that regimental surgeons must file reports every Monday morning with the Surgeon General or, in his absence, one οf the senior surgeons. Smallpox was also a constant problem, which Washington sought to counteract through the use οf inoculation. Other diseases which the soldiers suffered were putrid fever, "the itch," rheumatism, diarrhea, and dysentery. There is not much known about the presence οf women at Valley Forge. Junior officers wives most likely stayed in their husbands homes, and socialized only with each other. Enlisted mens wives lived and worked among the soldiers. Some served as housekeepers for the officers, while others worked as cooks, nurses, and laundresses. The American military tradition rests on several pillars, some explicitly articulated, others substantially less so. Among the most significant yet elusive οf these pillars is the principle οf citizen service. Stripped to its core, the principle οf citizen service is built on a single idea: the military service obligations οf citizenship. Military service is a responsibility incurred solely because οf ones membership in the political community οf citizens; and precisely because οf this duty, the state may legitimately compel military service from its citizens. Depending upon whether it is viewed from the perspective οf the state or the citizen, then, compulsion and obligation form two sides οf the same relationship. It is this particular relationship between citizen and state — one οf the obligation to serve, and οf the corresponding power to compel service — that defines citizen service. As a principle, citizen service is polymorphous. It may be embodied in a range οf discrete military institutions, most notably for the U.S. in the compulsory militia as well as the conscript army. The principle οf citizen service animates and regulates both οf these institutions, providing each with a rationale and a guide for action, yet without compromising their distinctiveness. Within any particular conscript army or compulsory militia, however, there are a number οf ways in which the principle οf citizen service may be put into practice on the ground, and an even larger array οf procedures that may be used to make citizen service a social and organizational reality. The principle alone does not dictate how any particular military institution exacts compulsory service, or even whether that institution actually compels citizens to serve. The formation οf regularized voluntary militia forces had one additional, critical consequence for the course οf Revolutionary military reform. Insofar as there was a pool οf patriots with a formal education in the martial arts to whom other revolutionary leaders might defer, it consisted οf men who had commanded the semiprofessional volunteer militias, including, most notably, George Washington. Serving alongside the British and commanding regularized forces, these leaders acquired confidence in the performance οf citizens who were made into proper soldiers through appropriate training and command. However, this same experience undermined the faith οf the pre-Revolutionary military elite in the militia as a combat force, serving rather to increase their commitment to a regular, full-time army. Support for relying exclusively on the militia was also undermined as it became increasingly clear that the war against Britain would be hard fought, no matter the way in which it was waged. Subjecting the entire population οf the former colonies to compulsory militia service under these conditions was something that population would not accept, and equally something that no political official relished imposing rigorously. Furthermore, while embracing the ideal οf the citizen-soldier, the militia plan for compulsory mobilization was in express tension with the patriot sentiment that voluntarism itself was to be the chief principle animating military service, as it had been in the voluntary militia. As Charles Royster makes clear, the revolutionary leadership believed that: an army οf freemen ought to consist οf volunteers. In 1775 the crux οf resistance to Britain was the protection and exercise οf personal, conscious responsibility for the public welfare. That is, each person used his wits and God-given will to better himself and to serve mankind because he wanted to spend his life that way — not in unthinking ease, which led to impoverished oppression. Armed service against attackers ought to flow from this state οf mind without a break, just as soldiers were to appear where before stood farmers. Οf course they would need training, good commanders, pay; but they served as volunteers. In this fact lay their greatest moral strength, which gave them physical strength. When Lee was captured willingly by British forces and his own patriotism revealed to be hollow, the "radical alternative" he represented had ceased to be an alternative at all. What emerged instead appears startling based on the Revolutionary Wars roots in militia mobilization, and even more so in light οf the often-noted aversion οf patriots toward standing armies on American soil. However, as the British lay siege to the stronghold οf Boston, the Continental Congress and a significant number οf provincial politicians joined the general officers in the view that the militia, however virtuous, would not do as the armed means by which the Americas could secure their liberties. Instead, a Continental Army was called for, offering a united command, the ability to train and discipline a standing fighting force, and the capacity to concentrate and organize that force in the most effective manner possible to wage war against British regulars. [1] "Almost all revolutionaries agreed that a standing army — no matter how suspect or unwelcome — was necessary. Every state supported the idea that a Continental Army should bear the main fighting; every state tried to recruit and supply it; every state preferred to be defended by it" [2] — as long as that force was subordinate to Congress. A Continental Army acquired additional support from leaders in the Continental Congress because οf its diplomatic and political value to the patriot cause. A standing army, embodied by the elected congress οf the states, offered a rallying point and symbolized unity in the war for liberty. The Continental Army would make abundantly clear to patriots at all levels the interdependence οf the states in the successful resolution οf the conflict. Along with the Congress, the Army would become the primary institutional expression οf the concert in which the states were acting and their commitment to that concert. Moreover, a Continental Army provided the only means by which the revolutionary leadership could hope to secure foreign support or even recognition in their war against Britain. An irregular force would insure that foreign powers could question whether revolutionary leaders had plans to consolidate a regular mode οf governance, and whether any such government was worthy οf being embraced. Only by waging a conventional war by conventional means could the political goals οf the war for liberty waged by colonials against their Crown be assured and maintained. The Continentals love οf liberty was to accept yet withstand the discipline οf the army, animating that discipline and making οf the army an assembly οf freemen invested in their own defense. This spirit was immediately realized in practice when the Continental Congress voted to create the Continental Army in June οf 1775, giving command οf the force to General George Washington. It turned to the states to fill out the Armys complement, and in turn the states turned to the established apparatus οf patriot mobilization — the local revolutionary committees, militias, and mustering authorities — to raise men. They were signed for a brief commitment in this round οf mobilization — not longer than six months — reflecting the Congress explicit desire to make οf soldiering the highest form οf political participation entered into freely by men as citizens. The social product οf this first wave οf recruitment was truly noteworthy, for it mirrored almost exactly the outpouring οf militiamen in the months around Lexington and Concord. Raised by the militia as a politicized recruitment bureau, these soldiers were in fact militiamen who now wore the colors οf the Continentals. Coming almost exclusively from the "middling classes," the vast majority were freehold farmers and tradesmen, with some number οf professionals and bourgeois in their ranks but primarily serving as officers. It was they who, in social terms, made the Continentals respectable; it was they who embodied the defense οf liberty and property. [3] Moved by the rage militaire, they entered service in the Continental Army as an individual contribution to the collective protection οf their liberties granted as British citizens. The defenders οf liberty and property, however, were in their first incarnation somewhat less than an army. Beset by lack οf discipline, drawing little if at all on the men οf lesser sorts who had made up the semiprofessional forces οf the 1760s and who possessed what experience there was οf regular warfare in the ranks, they suffered a series οf military reversals during Britains offensive οf 1775-1776. What is more, the virtuous citizenry as an armed force essentially evaporated in the face οf prolonged conflict. Many simply quit the ranks at the end οf their brief period οf enlistment at the close οf 1775, reducing the complement οf Continental forces to approximately 5500 soldiers, a fraction οf the strength voted by Congress and deemed necessary by the general officers to maintain a standing threat. The effective disappearance οf the army at the beginning οf 1776 forced Washington to raise a new force, and fired demands from among the general officers that the Continentals had to be placed on a firmer, more stable footing if the army were to become militarily proficient. Congress heeded one-half οf this call, approving one-year enlistments and retaining relatively lax articles οf war, which together, it was argued, would offer an inducement to volunteer. The hope was ultimately to encourage reenlistment, and by this means to fashion a more disciplined and experienced force. That hope was dashed, however, as the war hardened and drew out, and news οf camp life and attempts to instill discipline filtered back to villages, hamlets, and towns. Increasingly, a substantial segment οf the freeholders and tradesmen, if they chose to serve at all, chose duty in local militia companies where they could keep an anxious eye on homes and families. [4] The result was a military system bifurcated again — a system not segmented vertically, but instead stratified horizontally, in which the Continental Army existed as the federal capstone or pinnacle οf the voluntary militia organized by the states. As a force to counter British regulars, the continentals were clearly in the forefront. The voluntary militia served on the battlefield only as harassing auxiliaries beside the Continentals, and as a short-term emergency reserve available expeditiously. Where the militia excelled was in the tenacious defense οf the local community. Attacking British forage parties and intimidating the disaffected insured Patriot political control οf state institutions and territory, forced Loyalists to remain on the defensive throughout the war, and guaranteed that the British always operated in hostile territory. This division οf functions, however, underscored a tension within the stratified military system. The army was recruited by, and to an extraordinary extent from, the militia οf propertied men through 1776. As a consequence, the two were in a curious competition for the same men οf patriotic sentiment who possessed the desire to express it in military terms. The lure οf combat between standing armies had always to compete with the lure οf local defense, through which one could also serve the patriot cause. This competition, in turn, caught the general officers οf the Continental Army in a bind: deviate from the practices οf early 1776, and the model οf the citizen-soldier embodied by Congress in the creation οf the Continentals would in some measure be violated; fail to deviate from that plan, and the stability and proficiency οf the Continental Army as a military force would continue to suffer as men οf greater substance turned increasingly to local defense, with uncertain consequences for the prospects οf the Patriot cause. The dilemma posed by the military expression οf rebellion became even more pressing as the revolt was itself transformed into a war for independence. Across the late spring and early summer οf 1776, more radical delegates to the Continental Congress and representatives from several state assemblies agitated for formal separation from England, without which, they argued, their liberties would never be secure. When the British Crown showed its willingness to use the full force οf arms to suppress the rebellion embroiling the states, arranging to bring Hessian mercenaries to America and landing an army larger than the assembled forces οf the Continentals at Staten Island, even reconciliationists in the Congress acceded to the resolution to declare political independence from Britain. Placed as a resolution to seek independence before the Continental Congress on 7 June 1776, the prepared Declaration οf Independence was accepted on 4 July, and the resolution itself accepted three days later. With a formal declaration οf independence, the political situation οf the Revolution transformed in short order. Destroying any lingering hopes οf conciliation with Britain, the Declaration and the support it received within assemblies as well as among the people precipitated a wave οf Loyalist defections. Loyalist opposition merely served to sharpen the sense that the patriot cause could only be furthered by independence. In turn, it galvanized concerted resistance, recharging local revolutionary committees and militias as well as regional assemblies and conventions. [5] Furthermore, independence opened the door for national political leadership to seek allies from among foreign powers, who might be entreated to assist the revolutionaries — as France was shortly to do. The political ramifications οf independence were not limited, however, to changing relationships between supporters and opponents οf revolution. The very character οf citizenship itself was forced to shift. Whatever corporatist and socially capacitarian foundations citizenship maintained from its British, colonial origin were practically abolished. As the former colonies declared their independence, they asserted their power as a sovereign nation to establish their own form οf republican rule. In so doing, they reconstituted American citizenship along explicitly political and formally egalitarian lines as membership in the political community οf all nationals who would now and in the future rule themselves. Perhaps most important οf all, however, declaring independence fundamentally transformed the relation between the revolution and the army. Originally framed as a force to defend the liberties οf Crown citizens by those who still held out hope that the union between Britain and the former colonies could be preserved, the Continental Army was more or less immediately remade into the military instrument οf the United States effort to assert and defend its sovereignty as a nation. Under the legislative control οf the Continental Congress, the Army became the military expression οf the statehood on which the hopes οf the revolution rested. In accord, the war too was transformed — from a war to protect basic liberties, into the war for independence. [6] With this transformation οf the place οf the Continental Army in American politics, both the Congress and general officers, especially Washington, agreed on the pressing need to establish the army on still more secure grounds: enlarging the force, tightening discipline, and enhancing training οf those in arms. In short, the military demands οf a war οf independence against an empire capable οf projecting military power across an ocean spurred the revolutionary leadership to make the standing army still more like the regular and even professional force it was fighting — comprised οf citizens who would become citizens again, but those willing to accept real military discipline while under the colors. They sought primarily to do this by lengthening the term οf enlistment, from a single year to three years or the duration, and by making more stringent the articles οf war. Although constructing a more professional force for the sake οf liberty chafed against every authentically republican urge among the revolutionary leadership, the apparent contradiction was not only acknowledged but accepted in the short run. To become a nation οf free men, the United States had to build a military instrument that might indeed be used as a tool οf tyranny, and was no longer entirely compatible with the ideal οf the citizen-soldier or with the purest expression οf voluntary citizen activism. The plan to expand and strengthen the Continentals was instituted in part through the specification οf annual quotas οf new recruits to be met by each state. However, with the hardening οf the war, the immediate reversals suffered by the Patriots after Independence, the near desolation οf the Continental Army in December 1776, and the new, more European standards οf drill and discipline, attempts to recruit voluntary enlistments in early 1777 failed to produce anything approaching the numbers sought. Moreover, typical engagements started later and later in the year. As a consequence, the military force on which so much had been pinned was thrown into turmoil. In response to the downturn οf the Continentals military fortunes and the mounting pressure created by dismal returns οf voluntary recruitment efforts, Congress and the states followed a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, as had been suggested for months, Congress approved the use οf cash and land bounties above and beyond the meager Continental pay to attract men to serve. To these bounties, states and local authorities frequently added further funds, in hope οf eliciting the requisite numbers οf recruits. But the second component οf the strategy truly animated these reforms. With the sanction οf Congress, the separate states opened voluntary entry into the militia rolls and enlistment in militia companies to those social strata previously excluded from participation. Apprentices and servants were enrolled, as well as other whites in good standing who lacked sufficient property according to the prior standard, among them untaxed and unemployed laborers as well as transients. But it did not end there. Also accepted were free blacks and "mulattos," slaves with the permission οf their masters, and even convicted criminals. These persons were admitted into the exclusive preserve οf citizens — local self-defense. By their own action, these men were now subject to militia muster and call. And in each case, their willing service meant the protection οf their civil liberties, the redemption οf whatever political rights they had enjoyed, and their inclusion, at least at the local level, in the electorate. [7] Notes 1. Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 37-53; Cress, Citizens in Arms, 53-66; Don Higginbotham, The War οf American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies and Practice, 1763-1789 (New York: Macmillan, 1971), esp. 57-97; and James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender, A Respectable Army: The Military Origins οf the Republic, 1763-1789 (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1982). 2. Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 37. 3. See Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, 65-97; Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 46-51, 58-69ff. 4. Mark Lender, "The Conscripted Line: The Draft in Revolutionary New Jersey," New Jersey History 103, (1985): 25. 5. Robert M. Calhoon, "The Reintegration οf the Loyalists and the Disaffected," in The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits, ed. Jack P. Greene (New York: New York University Press, 1987). 6. See Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 96-126; and Stephen Conway, The War οf American Independence 1775-1783 (London and New York: Edward Arnold, 1995), 161-183. 7. Arthur J. Alexander, "How Maryland Tried to Raise Her Continental Quotas," Maryland Historical Magazine 42 (1947): 191-193. See also Jameson, The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement, 18-19. Bibliography Buchanan, John. The Road to Valley Forge : How Washington Built the Army that Won the Revolution. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. Chadwick, Bruce. The First American Army. Naperville: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2005. Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, for the Institute οf Early American History and Culture, 1979), 3, 6, 12-13, 23, 25-53. Cox, Caroline. A Proper Sense οf Honor : Service and Sacrifice in George Washingtons Army. Chapel Hill ; London: University οf North Carolina Press, 2004. Greenman, Jeremiah, Robert C. Bray, and Paul E. Bushnell. Diary οf a Common Soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 : An Annotated Edition οf the Military Journal οf Jeremiah Greenman. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1978. Hall, Charles S. Life and Letters οf Samuel Holden Parsons, Major General in the Continental Army and Chief Judge οf the Northwestern Territory, 1737-1789. New York: From the archives οf James Pugliese, 1968. Lengel, Edward G. General George Washington : A Military Life. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2005. Martin, James Kirby and Mark Edward Lender. A Respectable Army : The Military Origins οf the Republic, 1763-1789. The American History Series. Arlington Heights, Ill.: H. Davidson, 1982. Montross, Lynn. Rag, Tag, and Bobtail; the Story οf the Continental Army, 1775-1783. Maps and End Papers by Alice Wesche. 1st ed. New York: Harper, 1952. Neimeyer, Charles Patrick. America Goes to War : A Social History οf the Continental Army. American Social Experience Series. Vol. 33. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Robert M. Calhoon, "The Reintegration οf the Loyalists and the Disaffected," in The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits, ed. Jack P. Greene (New York: New York University Press, 1987). Royster, A Revolutionary People at War; passim, esp. 65-69, 96-97, 103-104, 127-129. Ward, Harry M. George Washingtons Enforcers : Policing the Continental Army. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006. Read More