The War in the Northwest 395 



APPENDIX C TO CHAPTER VI 



IT has been so habitual among American writers 

 to praise all the deeds, good, bad, and indifferent, 

 of our Revolutionary ancestors, and to belittle and 

 make light of what we have recently done, that most 

 men seem not to know that the Union and Confed- 

 erate troops in the Civil War fought far more stub- 

 bornly and skilfully than did their forefathers at 

 the time of the Revolution. It is impossible to esti- 

 mate too highly the devoted patriotism and states- 

 manship of the founders of our national life; and 

 however high we rank Washington, I am confident 

 that we err, if anything, in not ranking him high 

 enough, for on the whole the world has never seen 

 a man deserving to be placed above him; but we 

 certainly have overestimated the actual fighting 

 qualities of the Revolutionary troops, and have 

 never laid enough stress on the folly and jealousy 

 with which the States behaved during the contest. 

 In 1 776 the Americans were still in the gristle ; and 

 the feats of arms they then performed do not bear 

 comparison with what they did in the prime of 

 their lusty youth, eighty or ninety years later. The 

 Continentals who had been long drilled by Wash- 

 ington and Greene were most excellent troops; but 

 they never had a chance to show at their best, be- 

 cause they were always mixed in with a mass of 

 poor soldiers, either militia or just-enlisted regulars. 



The resolute determination of the Americans to 

 win, their trust in the justice of their cause, their 



