W The History of The United States Army CHAPTER I DRAB BEGINNINGS (1775-1776) 1775 HEN Washington, accompanied by the uncertain July 2 Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, entered the American lines besieging Boston, he unconsciously marked the start of the United States Army. Although the groups of armed countrymen, scattered in a semi-circle from Charlestown Neck to Boston Neck, were not then known by such a name, they were nevertheless by his coming transformed from separate New England militia into a single force fighting for the rights of all the colonies. The thirteen little governments by this move abandoned their previous rôles of independent pioneers and for the first time united for defense under one properly constituted leader. His arrival, then, is bound up with our first national military establishment, whose growth for the next eight years is a part of him and to a great extent a result of him. It had taken eleven days for him to make the journey on horseback from Philadelphia, whence he had set out four days after the battle of Bunker Hill and five days after the Continental Congress had selected him as commander in chief. His election had been a queer one, where violent prejudices had swept aside sound judgment. John Hancock, a wholesale merchant of no military experience, desired the command of the forces. Artemas Ward, a former officer of the French and Indian wars, was, since he was already in charge of the Massa June 21 1775 chusetts troops, a rival for the office. Hancock, President of Congress and an ardent patriot, appealed to the people of New England. Ward was pushed by Paine, who had been a fellow student at Harvard, and by another member who volunteered the pleasant argument that the soldiers seemed satisfied with Ward. But the southern delegates objected, not because Hancock was a flabby merchant nor because Ward was too fat to mount a horse, but because they would have none of a New Englander. Besides, Hancock was a bit too anxious for the position in the presence of John Adams, whose natural antagonism to the wishes of others was acutely aroused. It was soon felt that the new incumbent would have to be a person who could unite the north and the south, the puritan and cavalier, the forces engaged and not engaged. Washington, a man of quiet manners, a resident of the borderland between the two parties, and the husband of the wealthiest woman in the country, answered the trifling qualifications imposed by the legislators. The more he was mentioned, the more negatively prominent he became particularly because he did not blight any one's whims. He was finally unanimously elected without the slightest question having been raised concerning his fitness as a soldier or commander. It is doubtful if many of the members knew that he had been an expert scout, the hero of Fort Necessity, the aide-de-camp to General Braddock, and the head of the Virginia militia. It is certain they did not care, any more than they had been interested in the fitness of Ward and Hancock, who possessed none. So, at the very birth of our government, feeling supplanted wisdom, pettishness crowded out calculation, and hot favoritism overruled cold reason. The ominous sound of such legislative talk is going to echo disas trously through the succeeding pages of this story. At this point it remains for us to be thankful that Washington was a meritorious accident. In spite of sewing-society methods he, the preeminent military leader of the country, became commander in chief. He accepted the honor with expressions of his unworthiness, refused a salary, and set out for Cambridge to meet his command and to attempt to bring order and discipline out of irregularity and insubordination. One year and one day before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, under the elm which afterwards bore his name, he drew his sword in the presence of his heterogeneous army and formally took command. Was ever a commander presented with a more motley throng? In the same companies were blue coats faced with buff, black coats faced with red, and hunting shirts of brown trimmed with fringes, streamers and scarlet needlework. The townsman, clad in gay hues and covered with coat or blanket, touched elbows with the woodsman wearing his dull homespun. A company of Stockbridge Indians in feathers, paint and nakedness vied in color with the Connecticut dragoons in vivid red coats not unlike the British. There were long trousers, overalls, and breeches with or without gaiters or with fringed leggings of deerskin. Stuck in the triangular hat were gaudy sprigs of various sizes and shapes. Irish, German, Scotch, Puritan, and Quaker contrasted their Caucasian faces with the shiny African in his powdered wig, while graybeard and child stood side by side. Even the officers had no distinctive uniforms. Nor did this sundry collection of male beings live in a true camp. That term implies to us regimental blocks of company streets in straight, regular rows, with officers' tents at one end and picket-lines at the other. The soldier of the Boston Siege lived in the open or in a kennel of his own making. The higher officers billeted themselves in near-by houses, Washington being accorded a deserted Tory mansion. Save in some companies of Rhode Island regiments where tents had been secured, the rank and file contented itself with rolling up in a blanket under the trees or stars. When the elements compelled some sort of shelter, it was built according to the caprice and choice of site of the occupant. There were structures of linen, sailcloth, boards, stones, brush, and turf, and all possible combinations of these. There were booths and huts of varying shapes and sizes, with or without windows. Such shacks clung in scattered patches about the various earthworks to be defended. Cooking was an individual or club performance undertaken at such hours as the stomach dictated. So long as duties were attended, it little mattered how or when nourishment might be prepared. Habakkuk Simpkins, being a reclusive puritan, broiled his steak alone meal after meal, and drank his mug of beer in holy thought; whereas Patrick O'Brien messed in company with a dozen Ezras and Ezekiels and with loud oaths smacked his lips over the savory stew concocted by one of the number. Everything bespoke irregularity, especially the organizations. Previous to Bunker Hill the barest fractions of commands had reported for duty. The shortages were accentuated by casualties in that battle and sickness afterward. Even had the organizations in the beginning been thoroughly complete, the rolls would have differed remarkably in effective strength, for each state added to the chaos by having its units independently constructed. Massachusetts varied from 590 to 649 men per regiment, whereas Connecticut authorized 1,000. Steuben later declared he saw regiments ranging from 3 to 23 companies. A Massachusetts company consisted of a captain, a lieutenant, and 59 men. A Connecticut company added 11 men, 4 corporals, and a second lieutenant. A Massachusetts general was also a colonel of a regiment. Rhode Island field officers were also captains of companies. When a colonel was absent from his company, it was commanded by a captain lieutenant. The scheme was evidently devised to reduce the number of officers, but it produced discord and placed double responsibility upon officers incapable of handling one organization. Added to the discouragements attendant upon this conglomerate mass of men, which resembled in discipline, uniform and organization more nearly a Greek ekklesia than an army, was the low type of commissioned officer. The pernicious system by which he was obtained explains his inefficiency. Any popular member of a community who could enlist the necessary quota for a company became a captain; likewise for a regiment, a colonel. The remainder of the company officers were generally elected by the privates; and the field officers, by the company officers. However, in Maryland all the officers were elected by popular vote just as municipal officials at a town meeting. Everywhere rum and bribery played important parts in recruiting and electioneering. By these methods the commander was |