upon the army of Washington.[1] But the British general kept himself very quiet, and, after a time, the commander-in-chief felt somewhat relieved of his anxiety on this point.
The feeling in Congress and elsewhere was, that Washington ought to do something more than besiege Boston; murmurs, more or less loud, were heard against the inactivity of the forces; and it was thought strange that Washington did not attack the city. His own impulses urged him to this step, and he called a council of war, early in January, 1776, to consider the expediency of such a movement. The council opposed the plan decidedly, and the commander-in-chief felt obliged to yield; but he yielded unwillingly. "Could I have foreseen the difficulties which have come upon us," said he, in a letter written at the time; "could I have known that such backwardness would have been discovered by old soldiers to the service, all the generals upon earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston until this time."
A month later, writing to Joseph Reed, he gives expression to his feelings, under the severe trials and discouragements which had come upon Mm during several months past: "I know the unhappy predicament in which I stand. I know that much is expected from me. I know that, without men, without arms, without ammunition, without any thing fit for the accommodation of a soldier, little is to be done; and what is mortifying, I know that I cannot stand justified to the world without exposing my own weakness, and injuring the cause, by declaring my wants, which I am determined not to do, further than unavoidable necessity brings every man acquainted with them. My situation is so irksome to me at times, that if I did not consult the public good more than my own tranquillity, I should long ere this have put every thing on the cast of a die. So far from my having an army of twenty thousand men well armed, I have been here with less than half that number, including sick, furloughed, and on command, and those neither armed nor clothed as they should be. In short, my situation has been such, that I have been obliged to use every art to conceal it from my own officers." Well
- ↑ The Connecticut troops determined to go off in a body when their term of service was about to expire, which would have left a fearful blank in the army, already weak enough. Their extraordinary conduct hurt Washington's feelings very much, and notwithstanding all his efforts, they could not be induced to remain more than ten days, to allow, meanwhile, the militia to be called in. Washington wrote to Governor Trumbull on this subject, and the latter, as quoted by Mr. Sparks, replied in the following terms: "There is great difficulty to support liberty, to exercise government, and maintain subordination, and at the same time to prevent the operation of licentious and levelling principles, which many very easily imbibe. The pulse of a New England man beats high for liberty, his engagement in the service he thinks purely voluntary; therefore, when the time of enlistment is out, he thinks himself not holden without further engagement. This was the case in the last war. I greatly fear its operation amongst the soldiers of the other colonies, as I am sensible this is the spirit and genius of our people." Mr. Irving mentions in this connection, that these Connecticut men found so little sympathy on the oad homeward, that they could hardly get any thing to eat, and also that when the women at home got hold of them, they expressed their feelings in such plain terms, that the recreant soldiers deemed it better to face the enemy and British cannon, than bear the vigorous thrusts of the patriot wives and mothers of Connecticut.
