The Unpopular History of the United States by Uncle Sam Himself/Chapter 9

by Harris Dickson

IX

THE BALANCE SHEET OF DISASTER

The plan of voluntary enlistments, even when puffed up by outrageous bounties, having failed to raise the necessary men, Congress was forced to recommend the draft—a draft for the armies of freedom. Then what happened? To escape conscription shifty patriots began hiring substitutes, hiding behind any old scarecrow that they could shove into the ranks. They even traded for a job lot of deserters from Burgoyne’s army. Think of it! Buying and paying liberty’s money to skulkers who had sneaked out of British regiments! Thereupon Father wrote letters and told these proxy patriots exactly what he thought about them, and especially about the dangers of substituting as soldiers of the infant republic men who had already given proof of their treacherous dispositions. One of his colonels backed up Father with the proof that every British deserter, except one, had in turn deserted him, stealing properties and accouterments as they left. Anyway, they were impartial deserters.

My son, let me beat into your head something else about this whirligig of volunteer militia. It did not produce an army of soldiers. But as a mill for turning out pensioners it went on grinding day and night. The greatest force of soldiers that Washington could ever get together in one command was 17,000. But after the smoke blew away I had on my hands, in one bunch, an army of 95,753 pensioners.

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 were personal cowards. They had merely failed to learn the lesson of cohesive courage. During those eight disastrous years we employed nearly 400,000 men—practically ten times the redcoats—gaining only two victories of consequence—Stillwater and Yorktown. With overwhelming numbers in our favor, fighting on our own soil, we failed and continued to fail. Why! Because the individual American is inferior to the individual Britisher? Not a bit of it. No American is willing to admit that. It is not true. But the Briton was a trained soldier who knew his trade. Our volunteers and militia got into each other’s way. They had no conception of team work, and refused to learn. They were possessed of a mob spirit, time after time breaking into defiant insubordination and mutiny, even killing their own officers who attempted to enforce a semblance of discipline. For example: After the war was over some eighty recruits mutinied at Lancaster, and marched to Philadelphia. Here they were joined by about 200 comrades from the barracks. Proceeding with music and fixed bayonets to the State House, where Congress and the Council of Pennsylvania were in session, they stationed sentinels at every door to prevent egress, and then served upon both bodies a written demand for the redress of their grievances, threatening military violence in case their wrongs were not righted within the brief space of twenty minutes. For several hours Congress and the Pennsylvania Council found themselves at the mercy of an armed and undisciplined soldiery. In this extremity, fearing that the State of Pennsylvania could not furnish adequate protection, Congress called for regular troops, abandoned the Capital, and adjourned to meet at Princeton. Thus a few rioting recruits forced the flight of Congress. These were mere recruits, soldiers of a day who had not borne the heat and burden of the war. As against their behavior contrast the veteran Continentals. All honor to them, sturdy and steadfast, who patiently endured hunger, danger and cold; who suffered and bled without a murmur; who in perfect good order retired to their homes without a settlement of their accounts or a farthing of money in their pockets. What an absolutely convincing parallel! On the one hand the turbulent and rebellious spirit of the mob, utterly barren of results upon the battlefield, but ready to follow the dictates of passion and the mouthings of a demagogue. On the other hand, the self-restraint, the effective and competent conduct of the Continental regulars. Bear in mind, my son, keep bearing it in mind, never forget, that they were precisely the same individual men to begin with; they came from the same homes, the same families and the same blood. The only difference between them lay in their training. Let me say it again, we Americans pride ourselves upon our individualism. We love to do just as we darn please, and hate anybody to give us orders. This brand of inefficiency is part of the price we pay for democracy.

Someway or other, by the help of Providence and the French, in some kind of fashion, by main strength and awkwardness, we managed to stumble through the Revolution to a successful if not a triumphant conclusion. It was the French, however, who finally achieved our independence, and we can never repay them.

We could not have won without the French. After eight years of fighting for freedom, eight years of Washington’s begging and pleading, we now had about one-third the number of men with which we had begun the war. It means something more: Altogether we had employed near 400,000. Eliminating possible killed and wounded, it means that many thousands of the volunteers who began fighting simply got tired and quit—with their bounties, perhaps more than 300,000 of them. Think of that, 300,000 soldiers of the young republic who had once been under arms, had now quietly retired to their homes because they were willing to fight no longer.