ENCAMPMENT AT VALLEY FORGE, 1777-1778
[Steuben’s manual of tactics] Besides all this, it was Steuben who first taught the American army to understand the value of an efficient staff. The want of such a staff had been severely felt at the battle of Brandywine; but before the end of the war Washington had become provided with a staff that Frederick need not have despised. While busy with all these laborious reforms, the good baron found time to prepare a new code of discipline and tactics, based on Prussian experience, but adapted to the peculiar conditions of American warfare; and this excellent manual held its place, long after the death of its author, as the Blue Book of our army. In this adaptation of means to ends, Steuben proved himself to be no martinet, but a thorough military scholar; he was able not only to teach, but to learn. And in the art of warfare there was one lesson which Europe now learned from America. In woodland fights with the Indians, it had been found desirable to act in loose columns, which could easily separate to fall behind trees and reunite at brief notice; and in this way there had been developed a kind of light infantry peculiar to America, and especially adapted for skirmishing. It was light infantry of this sort that, in the hands of Arnold and Morgan, had twice won the day in the Saratoga campaign. Reduced to scientific shape by Steuben, and absorbed, with all the other military knowledge of the age, by Napoleon, these light-infantry tactics have come to play a great part on the European battlefields of the nineteenth century.
HOWE’S HEADQUARTERS IN PHILADELPHIA
[Sir William Howe resigns his command] Thus from the terrible winter at Valley Forge, in which the accumulated evils of congressional mismanagement had done their best to destroy the army, it came forth, nevertheless, stronger in organization and bolder in spirit than ever before. On the part of the enemy nothing had been done to molest it. The position at Valley Forge was a strong one, and Sir William Howe found it easier to loiter in Philadelphia than to play a strategic game against Washington in the depths of an American winter. When Franklin at Paris first heard the news that Howe had taken Philadelphia, knowing well how slight was the military value of the conquest, he observed that it would be more correct to say that Philadelphia had taken General Howe. And so it turned out, in more ways than one; for his conduct in going there at all was roundly blamed by the opposition in Parliament, and not a word was said in his behalf by Lord George Germain. The campaign of 1777 had been such a bungling piece of work that none of the chief actors, save Burgoyne, was willing frankly to assume his share of responsibility for it. Sir William Howe did not wish to disclose the secret of his peculiar obligations to the traitor Lee; and it would have ruined Lord George Germain to have told the story of the dispatch that never was sent. Lord George, who was never noted for generosity, sought to screen himself by throwing the blame for everything indiscriminately upon the two generals. Burgoyne, who sat in Parliament, defended himself ably and candidly; and when Howe heard what was going on, he sent in his resignation, in order that he too might go home and defend himself. Besides this, he had grown sick of the war, and was more than ever convinced that it must end in failure.
MAJOR ANDRÉ [The Mischianza] On the 18th of May, Philadelphia was the scene of a grand farewell banquet, called the Mischianza,—a strange medley combining the modern parade with the mediæval tournament, wherein seven silk-clad knights of the Blended Rose and seven more of the Burning Mountain did amicably break lances in honour of fourteen blooming damsels dressed in Turkish costume, while triumphal arches, surmounted by effigies of Fame, displayed inscriptions commemorating in fulsome Latin and French the glories of the departing general. In these curious festivities, savouring more strongly of Bruges in the fifteenth century than of Philadelphia in the eighteenth, it was long after remembered that the most prominent parts were taken by the ill-starred Major André and the charming Miss Margaret Shippen, who was soon to become the wife of Benedict Arnold. With such farewell ceremonies Sir William Howe set sail for England, and Sir Henry Clinton took his place as commander-in-chief of the British armies in America.
[The British evacuate Philadelphia, June 18, 1778] Washington’s position at Valley Forge had held the British in check through the winter. They had derived no advantage from the possession of the “rebel capital,” for such poor work as Congress could do was as well done from York as from Philadelphia, and the political life of the United States was diffused from one end of the country to the other. The place was worthless as a basis for military operations. It was harder to defend and harder to supply with food than the insular city of New York; and, moreover, a powerful French fleet, under Count d’Estaing, was approaching the American coast. With the control of the Delaware imperilled, Philadelphia would soon become untenable, and, in accordance with instructions received from the ministry, Sir Henry Clinton prepared to evacuate the place and concentrate his forces at New York. His first intention was to go by water; but finding that he had not transports enough for his whole army, together with the Tory refugees who had put themselves under his protection, he changed his plan. The Tories, to the number of 3,000, with their personal effects, were sent on in the fleet, while the army, encumbered with twelve miles of baggage wagons, began its retreat across New Jersey. On the morning of the 18th of June, 1778, the rear-guard of the British marched out of Philadelphia, and before sunset the American advance marched in and took possession of the city.[Arnold takes command at Philadelphia] General Arnold, whose crippled leg did not allow him to take the field, was put in command, and after a fortnight both Congress and the state government returned. Of the Tories who remained behind, twenty-five were indicted, under the laws of Pennsylvania, for the crime of offering aid to the enemy. Two Quakers, who had actually conducted a party of British to a midnight attack upon an American outpost, were found guilty of treason and hanged. The other twenty-three were either acquitted or pardoned. Across the river, seventeen Tories, convicted of treason under the laws of New Jersey, all received pardon from the governor.
MISCHIANZA HEADDRESS