WASHINGTON 



6203 



WASHINGTON 



on June 1 he fasted all day and attended the 

 divine services requested by the Committees. 



At the Virginia provincial convention, held 

 at Williamsburg on August 1, 1774, Washington 

 was foremost in insisting that the colonies 

 should have the right of self-government, and 

 made one of the few impulsive speeches of his 

 life. "I will raise a thousand men," he said, 

 -ist them at my own expense, march with 

 them, at their head, for the relief of Boston." 

 The convention elected him one of six dele- 

 gates to represent Virginia in the First Conti- 

 nental Congress. In that body he was a silent 

 member. He took no part in debates, had no 

 share in the historic documents which it 

 drafted; yet in some way his character was im- 

 pressed on all the delegates. Patrick Henry 

 said of him, "If you speak of solid information 

 and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is 

 unquestionably the greatest man on the floor." 



Washington spent the winter of 1774 and 1775 

 at Mount Vernon, and in April he started again 

 for Philadelphia. In the sessions of this Sec- 

 ond Congress he appeared every day in the 

 blue and buff uniform of a Virginia colonel 

 his way of saying that to his mind the hour for 

 action had come. On June 15 Congress unani- 

 mously voted to make him commander-in-chief 

 "of all the Continental forces raised, or to be 

 raised, for the defense of American liberty." On 

 next day Washington accepted the trust. 

 Addressing the Congress, he said that as no 

 pecuniary consideration could have induced him 

 to undertake the work, he must decline all pay 

 or emoluments, only looking to Congress to 

 pay his* expenses. He at once set out on horse- 

 back for Boston, and on July 3, 1775, standing 

 under the historic elm (see page 4986), he 

 took command of the Continental army at 

 Cambridge. 



During the Revolutionary War. The army 

 over which Washington assumed command was 

 an army by courtesy. There were about 14,000 

 men; tli i< was no discipline; the men elected 

 their own officer*, and did generally about as 

 they pleased. It had no arms, no ammunition, 

 no commissary department, no esprit de corps. 

 Out of thi* heterogeneous mass Washington 

 had to weld an army. He was in constant cor- 

 respondence with various committees of Con- 

 gress, and with irmernors of the colonies and 

 i of the states. He had to use every pos- 

 sible weapon to force these various officials to 

 grant the requests he made from time to time. 



Probably no other great general has waged 

 war successfully under as many and as great 



difficulties. Nothing was right; there was no 

 organization or coordination, political, social. 

 economic, military and as soon as Washington 

 contrived one or the other somebody was sure 

 to threaten its existence or actually destroy it. 

 He knew scarcely from one day to the next 

 how many men comprised his army. Men 

 from each state enlisted for varying terms, pay 

 was small and irregular, desertions were made 

 by the wholesale. There was incessant quarrel- 

 ing among the troops, and sectional jealousies 

 caused all kinds of plots; but through it all 

 rode the chief, sometimes irritated on one or 

 two rare occasions he is said even to have 

 cursed but for the most part hopeful, calm, 

 tactful, patient, judicial. 



In spite of all these handicaps, Washington 

 proved himself a brilliant tactician. The at- 

 tempt to take Quebec and Montreal in 1775 

 was one of the boldest and most brilliant 

 schemes of the war. It failed, but it revealed 

 the great soldier. Again, in the Trenton cam- 

 paign, Washington saw the desperate need of 

 taking the last chance; and he never failed to 

 time military with political needs. The Tren- 

 ton campaign revealed the man who recog- 

 nized the supreme moment, wh hing 

 must be risked to save the state. The victories 

 of Trenton and Princeton were decisive bat- 

 tles; but for them the Revolution would almost 

 surely have been snuffed out. Washington was 

 one of the great generals who knew how to re- 

 treat, when to retreat and when to halt. When 

 the enemy least expected him to resist, he not 

 merely halted, but assumed the offensive, as at 

 Trenton and Princeton. To the very end, at 

 Yorktown, his tactics were those of a master. 



Like a few other great commanders, like 

 Napoleon and Lee, for example, Washington 

 stands out among military leaders for the de- 

 votion he inspired in his men. i tion 

 he returned, and added to it a comprehension 

 of their difficulties and sorrows which they 

 could not reciprocate. When the army was 

 about to go into winter quarters at Vail, y 

 Forge, the Pennsylvania legislature remon- 

 strated, saying that the army should n mam in 

 the field. To them Washington replied in a 

 letter which must have reached their con- 

 sciences. After pointing out the failure of 

 Pennsylvania to supply men, food and clothing. 

 he continued as follows: 



But what makes this matter till more extraor- 

 dinary In my eye* la that thene very gentle- 

 men should think a winter's campaign and tin- 

 covering of these states from the invasion of an 



