the French who had been in America during the war carried the germs of freedom to France-the continental army revolutionized warfare. Previous to this it had been customary for hostile forces to go into winter quarters, and war being more or less of a pastime for the ruling caste in Europe it was very bad form to interfere with the social amenities and festivities of winter quarters. Washington's two most startling feats were performed in the depth of winter.

It was first in the American army that the question was asked as to the personal ability of the individual recruit. He was first, last, and all the time required to be a marksman. The object of all practice was not to have the guns all go off at the same instant, but to have the bullets each go to a selected mark. The Americans wasted very little ammunition and generally had little to waste. At the battle of Bunker Hill fifteen hundred marksmen with less than twenty rounds of ammunition, repulsed three attacks and killed more than a thousand English, paying particular attention to the officers.

It was first in the American army that the man was required to be able to take care of himself. In any emergency or emeute a British or Hessian soldier, if he got out of touch with his officer, was worse than helpless-he was a joke; even small detachments, if suddenly confronted by anything unusual or unexpected, either herded dumbly or stampeded.

The continental army was the first one in modern history to be officered on merit. A commissioned officer had nothing of caste or social prestige to give his commands weight, and little of discipline. If he did not prove himself a leader because he could lead he soon sought other lines of work. Moreover, as the pay and emoluments of an American officer were from little to nothing, only an ability to lead and a desire to devote this ability to his country was the inducement to take service. The results that may be expected when even a poor 'army is so officered were seen in the wars carried on by the first French republic; and the astounding results attained by a good and well equipped army so officered were seen in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5.

At no time during the Revolution was the continental

army as large as fifty thousand and at times it was less than ten thousand. Yet there was a continuous organization, made up of brave, devoted and skillful fighters who knew not how to give up the struggle and who felt that British dominion in the rebel colonies was doomed, could they but hold out. And hold out they did, demonstrating to the world that the volunteer army of a free people is the master of warfare. Nothing less that an overwhelming preponderance in men and treasure can hope to resist it.

Thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just, but ten times armed is the nation whose army is of its best, fighting for love of country, and not as a profession or because driven to the shambles. Leaving aside the question of years, the flower of America was in the Revolutionary army. It is estimated that twenty five thousand would cover the number of respectable tories who took arms. Only the old, the timid and the timeserving rich remained out of the struggle. From the day the veterans of England were repulsed at Bunker Hill farseeing men on both sides knew that the contest was hopeless for England. The riflemen who scourged the British column back from Concord were material upon which an invincible army could be and was built. The settler in the forests of New York, on the hills of Pennsylvania, in the brakes of the Carolinas-they were all of the same fiber and a Washington could mold them.

In the history of the world there is no tale of an army which made a better fight or whose work was of such grand and lasting benefit to humanity.

The American army of the Revolution was not the first army that had fought for freedom. The Greeks, the Swiss and the English Round Heads had done this, and successfully. The English at home during these very times were silently and peacefully striving to attain what their government refused the colonies. It was more than freedom the Americans fought for-it was the right to enjoy this freedom, to regulate it in their own way and to say who should share it, and the right to provide that freedom should come to all alike without license or privilege. Wrongs which had become vested rights, authority and privilege based on a past and not justified by

a present, were no longer to be tolerated; and these the Revolutionary soldier killed for all time in America.

The new American nation was a republic, but the American army was a true democracy and in and through it democracy came to the world and freedom lives.

THE ARMY IN THE WAR OF 1812.

BY FRANCIS W. SHEPARDSON.

[Francis Wayland Shepardson, associate professor of American history, Chicago university; born Cheviot, Ohio, October 15, 1862; graduated from Denison university, 1882; instructor Young Ladies' institute, Granville, Ohio, 1883-7; editor Granville Times, 1887-90; graduate student Yale university, 1890-2; docent University of Chicago, 1892-3; university extension assistant in history, 1893–5; instructor in American history and secretary of the lecture-study department of the university extension division, 1895-7; acting recorder 1897-8; assistant professor American history, 1897-1901; secretary to the president, 1897-1904; dean of the senior colleges, 1904.]

The second war between the United States and England, sometimes called the second war for independence, and usually referred to as the war of 1812, was a strange affair. The more carefully it is studied the more peculiar it appears. The factors entering into it were many and varied. There was the commercial greed of France and England and their rivalry in European politics; there was the ambition of Napoleon; there was the economic situation among the laboring classes of England; there were the differences of opinion in America, where the interests of the commercial element in the east came into conflict with the theories of the agricultural regions of the west; there were the wrongs of the Indians and the clamors of the border folk against them. Such were some of the elements which were to be reckoned with, and which shaped one feature of the war or another. It is a remarkable fact, too, that the principal avowed cause of the war was actually removed several days before the declaration of war, and another equally interesting fact, that what has been accepted as the greatest battle of the war was fought after the treaty of peace had been signed. In these two last mentioned matters the trouble was with the lack of speedy means of communication. Had the Atlantic cable been in existence in 1812, there might have been no declaration of war, and there certainly would have been no battle of New Orleans to make Andrew Jackson a great hero and a future president of the United States. The American people were hopelessly divided upon the wisdom of making war. The people of the east resisted with more and more

vehemence as the years went by, coming close to the verge of treason, while those of other parts of the country seemed to push matters farther than was desirable to keep the new nation harmonious. Planned as an offensive war with the capture of Canada as the definite object, it became a war of defense in which our capital city was captured, our public buildings burned, our territory seized, and from which we were glad enough to escape in the status quo ante-the condition before the war-leaving the annexation of Canada forgotten in our desire to get out whole.

The United States was not prepared for war. In fact the United States has never once been prepared for war. Our policy of peace and freedom from entangling alliances, our isolation from the powers of the old world, and our lack of a standing army have combined to make us careless of these details which are scrupulously attended to by warlike nations. No war ever illustrated this so well as the second war. In the first place we were young and undeveloped. Our territory was vast and our population had been growing and spreading far faster than our financial condition would permit us to keep pace with. There was a marked lack of means of communication. The era of canals and railroads was a score of years in the future. There were few roads or bridges or ferries. There were main lines of travel, to be sure, but when the traveler turned a little way inland from the coast it was apparent that travel was difficult, dangerous and extremely tedious. Detroit was a far distant outpost. New Orleans was a remote port, not to be visited overland, but available by water only. The east had little conception of geographical conditions in the west; the west felt isolated and ignored by the east. This lack of unity was natural. It is not to be wondered at at all. It would have been a miracle had the various sections of the country been welded together into a homogeneous mass, when every possible influence except that of blood relationship and perhaps a small sort of pride in the achievements of the Revolution, tended inevitably to separate east from west, north from south. When, now, to this geographical separation there was added the clearly defined difference of opinion regarding the advisability of en