Washington the Soldier

by Henry B. Carrington

Jealousies and aspirations mingled with the claims of families left at home, and many local excitements attended the efforts of officers of the Crown to discharge their most simple duties. After the flash of Lexington and its hot heat had faded out, it was dull work to stand guard by day, lie upon the ground at night, live a life of half lazy routine, receive unequal and indifferent food, and wonder, between meals, when and how the whole affair would end. The capture of Ticonderoga, so easily affected, inclined many to regard the contest before Boston as a matter of simple, persistent pressure, with no provident conception of the vast range of conflict involved in this defiance of the British Crown, in which all Colonies must pass under the rolling chariot of war.

And yet, all these elements were not sufficiently relaxing to permit the enclosed garrison to go free. While thousands of the Minute Men were apparently listless, and taking the daily drudgery as a matter-of-course experience, not to be helped or be rid of,—there were many strong-willed men among them who held settled and controlling convictions, so that even the raw militia were generally under wise guardianship. Leading scholars and professional men, as well as ministers of the Gospel and teachers of the district schools, united their influence with that of some well-trained soldiers, to keep the force in the field at a comparatively even strength of numbers. The idle were gradually set to work, and occupation began to lighten the strain of camp life.

At the date of Washington’s arrival to take command, there was a practical suspension of military operations over the country at large; and this condition of affairs, together with the large display of Colonial force about Boston, gave the other Colonies opportunity to prepare for war, and for Washington to develop his army and test both officers and men.

In his tent at Cambridge, he opened the packages intrusted to his care by Congress, and examined the commissions of the officers who were to share his councils and execute his will. His own commission gave him all needed authority, and pledged the united Colonies to his hearty support. Confidence in his patriotism, his wisdom, and his military capacity was generous and complete. He represented Congress. He represented America. For a short time he withheld the delivery of a few of the commissions. Some officers, hastily commissioned, although formerly in military service, had been entirely isolated from opportunities for knowledge of men and of questions of public policy. The emergency required such as were familiar with the vast interests involved in a struggle in arms with Great Britain; men who would heartily submit to that strict discipline which preparation for a contest with the choicest troops of the mother country must involve.

Washington’s constitutional reticence deepened from his first assumption of command. Frederick the Great once declared that “if he suspected that his nightcap would betray his thoughts while he slept, he would burn it.” Washington, like Frederick, and like Grant and Lee, great soldiers of the American Civil War, largely owed his success and supremacy over weak or jealous companions in arms to this subtle power. And this, with Washington, was never a studied actor’s part in the drama of Revolution. It was based upon a devout, reverential, and supreme devotion to country and the right. His moral sense was delicate, and quick to discern the great object of the people’s need and desire. He was also reverential in recognition of an Almighty Father of all mankind, whose Providence he regarded as constant, friendly, and supervising, in all the struggle which America had undertaken for absolute independence. Under this guidance, he learned how to act with judicial discretion upon the advice of his subordinates, and then,—to execute his own sentence. Baron Jomini pronounced Napoleon to have been his own best chief of staff; and such was Washington. Congress discovered as the years slipped by, and jealousies of Washington, competitions for office and for rank, and rivalries of cities, sections, and partisans, endangered the safety of the nation and the vital interests involved in the war, to trust his judgment; and history has vindicated the wisdom of their conclusion. And yet, with all this will-power in reserve, he was patient, tolerant, considerate of the honest convictions of those with contrary opinions; and so assigned officers, or detailed them upon special commissions, that, when not overborne by Congress in the detail of some of its importunate favorites, he succeeded in placing officers where their weaknesses could not prejudice the interests of the country at large, and where their faculties could be most fruitfully utilized.

If the thoughtful reader will for a moment recall the name of some battlefield of the Revolution, or of any prominent military character who was identified with some determining event of that war, he will quickly notice how potentially the foresight of Washington either directed the conditions of success, or wisely compensated the effects of failure.

Washington never counted disappointments as to single acts of men, or the operations of a single command, as determining factors in the supreme matter of final success. The vaulting ambition, headstrong will, and fiery daring of Arnold never lessened an appreciation of his real merits, and he acquired so decided an affection for him, personally, and was so disappointed that Congress did not honor his own request for Arnold’s prompt promotion, at one time, that when his treason was fully revealed, he could only exclaim, with deep emotion, “Whom now can we trust?”

Even the undisguised jealousy of Charles Lee, his cross-purposes, disobedience of orders, abuse of Congress, breaches of confidence, and attempts to warp councils of war adversely to the judgment of the Commander-in-Chief did not forfeit Washington’s recognition of that officer’s general military knowledge and his ordinary wisdom in council.

These considerations fully introduce the Commander-in-Chief to the reader, as he imagines the Soldier to be in his tent with the commissions of subordinate officers before him.

He began his duties with the most minute inspection of the material with which he was expected to carry on a contest with Great Britain. Every company and regiment, their quarters, their arms, ammunition, and food supplies, underwent the closest scrutiny. He accepted excuses for the slovenliness of any command with the explicit warning that repetition of such indifference or neglect would be sternly punished.