My respects to Capt. Gibbs and young Livingston.
HAMILTON TO WILLIAM DUER, M. C.
Head-Quarters, 1778.
Dear Sir:
I take the liberty to trouble you with a few hints on a matter of some importance. Baron Steuben, who will be the bearer of this, waits on Congress to have his office[2] arranged upon some decisive and permanent footing. It will not be amiss to be on your guard. The Baron is a gentleman for whom I have a particular esteem; and whose zeal, intelligence, and success, the consequence of both, entitle him to the greatest credit. But I am apprehensive, with all his good qualities, a fondness for power and importance, natural to every man, may lead him to wish for more extensive prerogatives in his department than it will be for the good of the service to grant. I should be sorry to excite any prejudice against him on this account: perhaps I may be mistaken in my conjecture. The caution I give will do no harm if I am: if I am not, it maybe useful. In either case, the Baron deserves to be considered as a valuable man, and treated with all the deference which good policy will warrant.
On the first institution of this office, the General allowed him to exercise more ample powers than would be proper for a continuance. They were necessary in the commencement, to put things in a train with a degree of dispatch which the exigency of our affairs required: but it has been necessary to restrain them, even earlier than was intended. The novelty of the office excited questions about its boundaries; the extent of its operations alarmed the officers of every rank for their own rights. Their jealousies and discontents were rising fast to a height that threatened to overturn the whole plan. It became necessary to apply a remedy. The General has delineated the functions of the Inspectorship in general orders, a copy of which will be sent to Congress. The plan is good, and satisfactory to the army in general.
It may be improved, but it will be unsafe to deviate essentially from it. It is of course the General’s intention, that whatever regulations are adopted by him, should undergo the revision, and receive the sanction, of Congress: but it is indispensable, in the present state of our army, that he should have the power, from time to time, to introduce and authorize the reformations necessary in our system. It is a work which must be done by occasional and gradual steps; and ought to be intrusted to a person on the spot, who is thoroughly acquainted with all our defects, and has judgment sufficient to adopt the progressive remedies they require. The plan established by Congress, on a report of the Board of War when Conway was appointed, appears to me exceptionable in many respects. It makes the Inspector independent of the Commander-in-chief; confers powers which would produce universal opposition in the army; and, by making the previous concurrence of the Board of War requisite to the introduction of every regulation which should be found necessary, opens such a continual source of delay as would defeat the usefulness of the institution. Let the Commander-in-chief introduce, and the legislature afterwards ratify, or reject, as they shall think proper. Perhaps you will not differ much from me, when I suppose, that so far as relates to the Board of War, the former scheme was a brat of faction, and therefore ought to be renounced.
There is one thing which the Baron has much at heart, which, in good policy, he can by no means be indulged in: it is the power of enforcing that part of discipline which we understand by subordination, or an obedience to orders. This power can only be properly lodged with the Commander-in-chief, and would inflame the whole army if put into other hands. Each Captain is vested with it in his company; each Colonel in his regiment: each General in his particular command: and the Commander-in-chief in the whole.
When I began this letter, I did not intend to meddle with any other subject than the Inspectorship; but one just comes into my head which appears to me of no small importance. The goodness, or force, of an army, depends as much, perhaps more, on the composition of the corps which form it, as on its collective number. The composition is good or bad, not only according to the quality of the men, but in proportion to the completeness or incompleteness of a corps in respect to numbers. A regiment, for instance, with a full complement of officers, and fifty or sixty men, is not half so good as a company with the same number of men. A Colonel will look upon such a command as unworthy his ambition, and will neglect and despise it: a Captain would pride himself in it, and take all the pains in his power to bring it to perfection. In one case we shall see a total relaxation of discipline, and negligence of every thing that constitutes military excellence: in the other, there will be attention, energy, and every thing that can be wished. Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs. A corps much below its establishment, comparing what it is with what it ought to be, loses all confidence in itself; and the whole army loses that confidence and emulation which are essential to success. These, and a thousand other things that will occur to you, make it evident, that the most important advantages attend the having complete corps, and proportional disadvantages the reverse. Ten thousand men, distributed into twenty imperfect regiments, will not have the efficiency of the same number in half the number of regiments. The fact is, with respect to the American army, that the want of discipline, and other defects we labor under, are as much owing to the skeleton state of our regiments as to any other cause. What then?
Have we any prospect of filling our regiments? My opinion is, that we have nearly arrived to our ne plus ultra. If so, we ought to reduce the number of corps, and give them that substance and consistency which they want, by incorporating them together, so as to bring them near their establishment. By this measure the army would be infinitely improved; and the State would be saved the expense of maintaining a number of superfluous officers.