The Balance Sheet of Disaster
Let us pass over, charitably, a multitude of such errors, insufficiencies, and humiliations, coming to the victory which decided the war. Lord Cornwallis surrendered 7,000 men at Yorktown. The allied French and Americans numbered 16,000 strong, 4,000 of whom were French veterans. Besides, we had 21 French ships of the line. So that in this affair we outnumbered the enemy by nearly two and a half to one, without counting the fleet.
I hate to harp and harp on such discordant strings, but our people ought to know. Plenty of good folks in the towns stick to it that one American patriot can lick ten soldiers of any foreign nation. I think they say ten. We can’t do it, and the sooner we learn that, the quicker we’ll put ourselves in shape to make the Stars and Stripes respected.
The record of short-term volunteer militia throughout the Revolution was an almost continuous performance of inefficiency, desertions, mutinies, and that particular brand of cowardice which comes from lack of discipline and organization. Not that the recruits
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