But when people make up their minds to fight, they know very well, if they are sensible, that more than half the task before them is to find means for feeding and clothing not only the troops but the people who are dependent on the troops. Therefore the convention appointed another committee, of which Washington also was a member, to devise a plan for encouraging manufactures, so that the people could do without England. Heretofore, the Virginians had done scarcely any manufacturing; nearly everything they needed they had bought from England with tobacco. But if they were to be at war with England, they must be making ready to provide for themselves. It was late in the day to do anything; slavery, though they did not then see it clearly, had made a variety of industries impossible. However, the people were advised to form associations to promote the raising of wool, cotton, flax, and hemp, and to encourage the use of home manufactures.
Washington was again chosen one of the delegates to the Continental Congress, for the second Congress had been called to meet at Philadelphia. He was even readier to go than before. On the day when he was chosen, he wrote to his brother John Augustine Washington: "It is my full intention to devote my life and fortune to the cause we are engaged in, if needful."
That was at the end of March. The second Continental Congress was to meet on May 10; and just before Washington left Mount Vernon came the news of Lexington and Concord. Curiously enough, the Governor of Virginia had done just what Governor Gage had attempted to do; he had seized some powder which was stored at Fredericksburg, and placed it for safety on board a vessel of the British navy. The independent companies at once met and called upon Washington to take command of them, that they might compel the Governor to restore the powder. Washington kept cool. The Governor promised to restore the powder, and Washington advised the people to wait to see what Congress would do.
When Congress met, the men who came together were no longer strangers to one another. They had parted warm friends the previous fall; they had gone to their several homes and now had come back more determined than ever, and more united. Every one spoke of Lexington and Concord; and the Massachusetts men told how large an army had already gathered around Boston. But it was an army made up not only of Massachusetts men, but of men from Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. It was plain that there must be some authority over such an army, and the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts wrote to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, advising that body to assume control of all the forces, to raise a continental army, appoint a commander, and do whatever else was necessary to prepare for war. There had already been fighting; there was an army; and it was no longer a war between Massachusetts and Great Britain.
I do not know what other delegates to the Congress at Philadelphia came as soldiers, but there was one tall Virginian present who wore his military coat; and when the talk fell upon appointing a commander, all eyes were turned toward him. Every one, however, felt the gravity and delicacy of the situation. Here was an army adopted by Congress; but it was a New England army, and if the struggle were to come at Boston, it was natural that the troops should mainly come from that neighborhood. The colonies were widely separated; they had not acted much together. Would it not be better, would it not save ill-feeling, if a New England man were to command this New England army?
There were some who thought thus; and besides, there was still a good deal of difference of opinion as to the course to be pursued. Some were all ready for independence; others, and perhaps the most, hoped to bring the British to terms. Parties were rising in Congress; petty jealousies were showing themselves, when suddenly John Adams, of Massachusetts, seeing into what perplexities they were drifting, came forward with a distinct proposition that Congress should adopt the army before Boston and appoint a commander. He did not name Washington, but described him as a certain gentleman from Virginia "who could unite the cordial exertions of all the colonies better than any other person." No one doubted who was meant, and Washington, confused and agitated, left the room at once.
Nothing else was now talked of. The delegates discussed the matter in groups and small circles, and a few days afterward a Maryland delegate formally nominated George Washington to be Commander-in-Chief of the American Army. He was unanimously elected, but the honor of bringing him distinctly before the Congress belongs to John Adams. It seems now a very natural thing to do, but really it was something which required wisdom and courage. When one sums up all Washington's military experience at this time, it was not great, or such as to point him out as unmistakably the leader of the American army. There was a general then in command at Cambridge, who had seen more of war than Washington had. But Washington was the leading military man in Virginia, and it was for this reason that John Adams, as a New England man, urged his election. The Congress had done something to bring the colonies together; the war was to do more, but probably no single act really had a more far-reaching significance in making the Union, than the act of nominating the Virginian Washington by the New England Adams.
(To be continued.)
FOOTNOTES:
[D] The above illustration is reproduced from Irving's "Life of Washington," by kind permission of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons.