I'm not sure I've ever started a blog entry when I'm less than half way through a book, but in this case I must, as some important issues with Washington's life need underscoring for emphasis. I've written about most of these same issues before, but they really bear repeating, especially as Volume V concludes the Revolutionary War and that central chapter of Washington's life.
In summary, it is an absolute miracle that the United States actually won the war.
The deck was summarily stacked against the young nation in so many ways, even if you only look from the macro perspective of a tiny new band of colonies taking on the world's largest superpower: It's simply impossible.
At the phase of the war I'm now studying, early 1780, the Americans' chances of victory are completely non existent. They have no chance.
The Army has no rations to feed the troops. None. Each brigade is forced to forage and impress food from the local area, which has effectively forced the Army to stay on the constant move so as to always have food within reach. It depletes a town of food and then moves on.
The Army has no clothing for its troops. Repeatedly during the winters many of the troops go quite literally naked all winter long, with only a blanket to keep them warm during the ravages of a New Jersey area winter. The lack of shoes is appalling and rampant. How does an Army function without shoes?
Rampant inflation has now set in, increasing prices to the alarming rate of 40-60 (!!!) times what they were a few years previously. The nation has no ability to stop this inflation, and the inflation is playing a large role in preventing the acquisition of rations, supplies, arms, etc.
The troops have not been paid in many months, which, adding to the problems above, is causing continued desertion by the troops. At a time when England is bringing in additional ships, troops and supplies, all of the same resources are either disappearing or completely depleted for the Americans.
The military leadership is dwindling in both quality and quantity. An alarming number of pages throughout the war volumes has been tied up in stories of officer malfeasance, quarreling, cowardliness, lack of patriotism and downright insubordination. And we haven't even gotten to Benedict Arnold's story just yet. He was not the only traitor to the American cause. Washington repeatedly cites the lack of American military leadership as one of his biggest problems, and the situation is worsening in 1780.
Even worse, and this is new in Volume V, is that Washington now realizes, following a rare wartime visit to Philadelphia, that the quality of the membership of Congress itself has dramatically declined over the course of the war. Adams, Hancock, Henry, Jefferson and the like have been replaced by lesser men with greater self interests and lessened influence. The senior leadership of the United States has no ability to solve the problems at hand.
Even the great alliance with the French lacks teeth at this point of the story. The French fleet has provided little actual assistance after more than a year in the American fight.
I will say it again: There is no chance that America can win this war.
But of course, somehow, it does, as I shall read in the concluding chapters of Volume V. My early conclusion at this point is that Washington makes it happen. The rock of a Commander in Chief has earned accolades around the world at this point in the fight, with even the French admiralty anxious to meet the man, the legend, at their first conference in Hartford.
Somehow Washington pulls the nation together to overcome completely insurmountable odds. I can't wait to read how it happens.
Addendum
After finishing the book I would like to add the following quote, the author's own assessment of five primary reasons as to why the "seemingly hopeless revolt had ended in victory and independence":
"The persistence of a few leaders, the cost of British campaigning so far from home, the blunders and sloth of most of King George's commanders, the inestimably valuable aid of France, and the service of Washington and the Army under him."
Washington was obviously not the only factor, and the war would certainly not have been won without French support (although that country's involvement didn't actually produce results until Yorktown itself). During the siege of Yorktown it was interesting to read how General Knox's artillerymen were embarrassed with their lack of skill when they first fired next to, and in direct view of, the French artillery. They were like children fighting next to grown adults. Again, we didn't stand a chance.
Another quote from the final pages that puts the magnitude of the "upset" into proper perspective.
As the American troops marched behind the British, block by block through the streets of New York City as the latter evacuated the city, one local woman later reminisced:
"We had been accustomed for a long time to military display in all the finish and finery of garrison life; the troops just leaving us were as if equipped for show, and with their scarlet uniforms and burnished arms, made a brilliant display; the troops that marched in, on the contrary, were ill-clad and weather beaten, and made a forlorn appearance; but then they were our troops, and as I looked at them and thought upon all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my eyes were full, and I admired and gloried in them the more, because they were weather beaten and forlorn."
Well said.
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