Faults have been, and can be, found in Washington as commander. He did not have the advantages of a good military education. He did not know, and he never quite learned, how to discipline and to drill his men. He was not a consistently brilliant strategist or tactician.... (Often) he secured advantage ... by avoiding battle. Actually he was quite willing to fight when the odds were not too heavily against him. He retreated only when he was compelled to do so, during the campaigns of 1776 and 1777.... On occasion he was perhaps too venturesome. His generalship improved as the war continued. However, his defeats in the field were more numerous than his victories; and he had to share the laurels of his great triumph at Yorktown, with the French. If Washington had his shortcomings as a tactician, he nevertheless performed superbly under the most difficult conditions. He gave dignity, steadfast loyalty, and indomitable courage to the American cause.... Indeed Congress supplied historians with convincing evidence of Washington's greatness. It not only appointed him as commander in chief, but maintained him in that post year after year, in victory and defeat, in prosperity and adversity, until the war was won.[42 ]
At first Congress was not certain Washington could command and eagerly sought European officers for field command positions. Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, two of the four major-generals appointed to serve under Washington, were residents of Virginia. Both were English army officers who had left the British army, settled in Berkeley County, and become ardent advocates of the colonials' cause. Lee, the well-bred son of English gentry had served under Braddock in the ill-fated Fort Duquesne expedition of 1756, was later wounded, left the army after the war, and became interested in western land schemes. He came to Virginia in 1775 after a stint as a general in the Polish army. Lee was courageous, ambitious, and vain. He could command when necessary, but had difficulty following Washington's orders. Given credit for stopping the British attack on Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1776, he came back north and was captured in New Jersey in December 1776. Exchanged by the British, he resumed command in 1778. However, his scandalous behavior at Monmouth in June 1778 resulted in his court martial. He was finally dismissed from the service by Congress in 1780.
Gates was the son of an English servant. Somehow he received a regular army commission, serving in the colonies during the French and Indian War. He resigned as a major in 1772 and moved to Virginia. Whereas Lee was haughty, Gates was pleasant and amiable. He also was ambitious and constantly sought military commands whose demands exceeded his talents. Commander of the northern army which won the great victory at Saratoga in 1777, Gates was willing to take over as commander in chief in the dark days of 1777-1778, but his friends in Congress could not displace Washington. Over Washington's recommendation, Congress elected him commander of the southern armies in 1780. He left that command after the blundering defeat at Camden, South Carolina, in August 1780. Gates retired to Virginia where he lived to an old age, much honored as an Englishman who loyally supported independence.
The English generals from Virginia did not give Washington his eventual victories, however. His command strength came from Virginians who learned by experience, were devoted to the Revolutionary cause, and were loyal to the general. They were with the Continental Army in its darkest days at Morristown in the winter of 1776-1777 and Valley Forge in 1777-1778. These included Colonel Theodorick Bland and his cavalry who fought at Brandywine in 1777 and Charleston in 1780; General William Woodford, the victor at Great Bridge, who commanded Virginia Continentals fighting at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777, and Monmouth in 1778, was captured at Charleston in 1780 and died in a New York prison that December; Colonel William Washington and his cavalry who fought in nearly all the battles in southern campaigns; Colonel Peter Muhlenberg, who raised the German Regiment from the Valley and Piedmont around his Woodstock home and commanded them with distinction at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Stony Point, and later led Virginia militia against Cornwallis in 1781; and the gallant Colonel Edward Porterfield, who died with many of his troops, called "Porterfield's Virginians" at Camden.
There also was a distinguished group of young men like John Marshall, James Monroe, and Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee who achieved distinction and displayed loyalty to the national cause which they never surrendered. The percentage of Virginians who fought in the Continental Army and who supported the stronger national government of the Federal Constitution was high. These were men who experienced and remembered the embarrassments and inadequacies of a weak national government during the Revolution. They did not want to see the experience repeated.
Perhaps the best Virginia field general and the prototype of the inventive, untrained American general was Daniel Morgan. A wagon master from Frederick County, Morgan had fought in the French and Indian War. He raised the first unit of Virginia Continentals, a company of Valley riflemen, and took them to Boston in 1775. He and his men fought brilliantly in the near victory of General Richard Montgomery at Quebec on Christmas 1775. Captured along with the equally bold Benedict Arnold, Morgan was exchanged. Developing effectively the Virginia riflemen into mobile light infantry units and merging frontier tactics with formal warfare, Morgan showed a real flare for commanding small units of men. His greatest moments were at Saratoga in 1777 and later in his total victory over Colonel Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens, South Carolina in 1781. The wagon master progressed steadily from captain to colonel, to general, and became one of the genuine heroes of the Revolution.
The total number of Virginians who fought in the Continental Army is difficult to determine. Records were poor, lengthy service infrequent, and troop strength constantly overestimated. There were possibly 25,000 Virginians in the Continental Army at one time or another, although the number in the field at any one time was much smaller. Another 30,000 to 35,000 might have joined the Virginia militia. In an era when European armies went into winter quarters and did not fight at all, the unorthodox Continental Army won some of its greatest victories in the dead of winter, yet it too tended to suffer from winter desertions and unauthorized leaves. Still the shriveled army always seemed to revive in the spring as the men returned to the ranks.
Troops, even continental units, tended to serve near home. Northern troops were rarely found in the deep southern colonies and vice versa. Yet Virginians, because of their proximity to all fighting zones, fought from Quebec to Charleston, contributing heavily to the units fighting to hold the middle states in 1777 and 1778 and the Carolinas in 1780 and 1781.
The Indian Wars