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A Short History of the Army and Navy
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'
A 5HUHI Hl:i I UK
!!f the
ARMYMdNAVY
BY FLETCHER PRATT
ACompletely New and Concise History
Written Especially for This Series
MAY WE HAVE A WORD
WITH YOU?
BOOK contains the vital military facts
THIS
that have been left out of the history books.
Why they have been omitted from the regular
texts is anybody's guess; for the military history of the United States is rich with clues that
help explain the America we know today.
As Fletcher Pratt ably demonstrates, our
Army and Navy started to develop a character
of their own in the Revolutionary War; and
ever since then they have been as American as
big-league baseball. Our military victories
have contributed to a tradition which is the
foundation of our armed strength today; and
the battles we have lost have taught us valuable lessons that are saving American lives
and helping us win victories today.
A Short History of the Army and Navy
tells why America never lost a war, and why
our former enemies finally met defeat every
time they matched their arms against ours. It
is a history that will make you feel like getting
right out of your chair and cheering when you
read how, time after time, the Americans
overcame the worst sort of difficulties and beat
the ears off our more militaristic enemies, who
thought we would lose because we were soft
and unprepared.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ARMY
AND NAVY
A
SHORT HISTORY
OF THE
ARMY and NAVY
by
FLETCHER PRATT
WASHINGTON
THE INFANTRY JOURNAL
Copyright, 1944, by
INFANTRY JOURNAL, !NC,
All rights reserved.
This book is complete and unabridged, and manufactured under wartime
conditions in conformity with all Government regulations controlling the
use of paper and other materials.
CONTENTS
Foreword .
. . .
.
. VII
1
Chapter 1. The Revolution: First Phase
25
Chapter 2. The Revolution: Second Phase
Chapter 3. The New Republic and the War of
46
1812
First ed ition
March, 1944
Chapter 4. The Winning of the West
77
Chapter 5. The Civil War: First Phase.
99
Chapter 6. The Civil War: Second Phase .
130
Chapter 7. The Civil War: Third Phase .
158
Chapter 8. The Civil War: Fourth Phase.
186
Chapter 9. Indians, Spaniards, Insurrectos
220
Chapter 10. The U.S. and the World Stage
. 241
Printed in the United States of America
v
FOREWORD
WHY THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN THIS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
•
WAY
THE CUNNING MULATTO; AND OTHER CASES OF ELLIS PARKER,
AMERICAN DETECTIVE
HAIL, CAESAR I
THE HEROIC YEARS: FOURTEEN YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC,
1801-1815
ORDEAL BY FIRE: AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR
THE NAVY: A HISTORY; THE STORY OF A SERVICE IN ACTION
ROAD TO EMPIRE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BONAPARTE
THE GENERAL
SECRET AND URGENT; THE STORY OF CODES AND CIPHERS
NAVAL WAR GAME
SEA PowER AND ToDAY's WAR,
1940
AMERICA AND ToTAL WAR
FIGHTING SHIPS OF THE
w HAT
y OU
u. s. NAVY
SHOULD KN ow ABOUT MODERN
w AR
THE LosT BATTALION (WITH THOMAS M. JoHNSoN)
THE NAVY HAS WINGS
Tms IS a military and naval history of the United States. It
attempts to adhere strictly to that outline, not being concerned
with political or economic questions save where they affected our
armed services as directly as the western movement after the
Civil War affected them.
It picks up the American Revolution at the point where that
movement becomes a military one instead of a political, both
because this is a military history and because it is a history of
the United States. Before the fighting around Boston there were
no united states, there were not even united colonies; the men
of 1774 thought of themselves as citize.ns of North Carolina or
New Hampshire, Englishmen beyond the seas, rather than as
fellow-citizens of the American continent. Nearly all communications were still by ship; Boston and Charleston were farther
apart than Vancouver and Melbourne today and stood less
chance of achieving common action until the military situation
forced it upon them.
For similar, but different reasons, this history stops with equal
abruptness at the close of World War I. Too much of the military and naval history of World War II is still unknown, and
will remain unknowable until many years after the conflict. It
would be to no purpose to attempt to compete with the newspapers in reporting even the most obvious events down to a certain point while it takes a matter of months to print a book and
during that time events will certainly occur that will throw into
a different perspective everything that has previously happeaed
in the war.
Which is to say that it is impossible to write current history
where it concerns conflict until that conflict has reached the stage
where one may examine with interest but without partisanship
everything connected with it.
VII
.'
· It has been equally impossible to present any ordered picture
of military and naval development between World War I and
its successor. We know what happened in World War I as a
result of the development between the Spanish War and 1917;
we do not know how the developments between 1919 and 1941
have turned out or will turn out. To take one small example,
our pre-1917 policy of building a few very large sea-going destroyers looked pretty bad about July 1917; but by the close of
the war it was dear that we had buil<led far better than we
knew.
This book is therefore presented as deliberately incomplete.
Through it, through any American military history, runs only
one consistent note-we could have avoided some of our wars
and fought all of them far less expensively from every point of
view, if we had thought about fighting them before the guns
began to shoot. That will prove true of World War II also. And
if this book succeeds in convincing even one person that the
time to think about World War III is before it begins, it will
have been worth the trouble.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ARMY
AND NAVY
I
r
VIII
CHAPTER I
The Revolution: First Phase
I
THE UNITED STATES began existence with no army, no navy, no
military policy and no idea that any of "these things would be
necessary. Our first war was begun by a lot of men with a
legitimate grievance, which consisted basically in the fact that
they were allowed to do business only with the old country
and at the old country's price. There were British soldiers in
the Colonies to make this grievance permanent, and the Colonists wanted to throw them out, then talk matters over with
the government in a nice way-at least in the beginning. After
about a year of fighting it became clear that the British government was not going to talk things over on any terms short of
absolute submission; also that most of the men doing the
fighting felt there was something peculiar about blowing the
heads off His Britannic Majesty's soldiers for no reason but to
persuade that dull-witted old gentleman to m·ake a compro- •
mise he would violate as soon as arms were laid down. So
the Declaration of Independence was issued and we became
a nation.
The amateur character of the Revolution is one of the two
most important strategic facts about it; the other is that all
communications amounting to anything, both national and international, were by water. The country was almost one hundred per cent engaged in agriculture or fur-trapping. The towns
were assembly points where the produce of the soil was exchanged for manufactured goods brought by sea from abroad.
What roads there w~re fanned out from the port towns, growing progressively worse with every mile. The journey from
New York to Philadelphia, where roads were at their best
through the well-settled Jersey flats, took a matter of days-as
long as to make the same trip by sea around the Delaware capes.
The British were fully if not always consciously aware of
this and their strategy was planned to take advantage of it.
That is, they behaved throughout the first two years of the
war as if working on a master plan to break down the structure
1
r:-c.~:
AN:A~D:A:----=;;=~;-::=:::::;'"1F==========::::=J wars
by striking at the largest centers of population and their
connections. But to think of their effort as directed against the
lines of distribution helps greatly in understanding what happened.
It also explains why they failed in spite of military successes.
America was a pioneering country of home industry, whose
people needed only a few very simple manufactured articles
'"'-\_..,..'° (needles, axes, knives, muskets, powder) from outside. They
I
were thus able to offer a prolonged resistance when deprived of
things no Englishman could do without. But they were also
I
somewhat uncertain soldiers, always willing to turn out for a
J
fight, always anxious to get back home and go on with the
I
time-consuming business of w renching a living from the hard
MAINE
I
c
0
A
I
A
/I
st.
/'-'<'r
___ __,I
conditions.
~
Chombly
II
John
THIS WAS the background. The fighting actually began on April
19, 1775, around Boston, then the commercial metropolis of
the Colonies and the center of the best organized resistance,
where British General Gage had been appointed military governor. After fortifying the narrow neck that separated the city
from the mainland, he sent agents through the back country to
discover where the Colonists were storing their arms and powder, with the idea of nipping in the bud any resistance by destroying its means of action. The agents reported there was
such a depot at Concord, eighteen miles out of town, and Gage
sent four hundred men to deal with it.
But the Colonists also had agents, who learned of the coming
move. On the. night before Gage marched they sent messengers,
one of whom was Paul Revere, to tum out the countryside.
When the British under Major Pitcairn reached Lexington,
twelve miles on their journey, they found about a hundred
militia, citizens with guns in their hands, drawn up in a straggling line across the village green with the dawn light in their
faces. Pitcairn rode forward, shouting "Disperse, you rebels,
J
··-
··
of Colonial r£ b
· ·
settlements c~u~d ~e~=:~~n~o~l~s t~e poi~ts through which the
each
other. Actually there was no suc~omlan~rope a~d
an d Cabinet were merely followi ng t~ e prece
' thed ent
K mgf
o sE generals
uropea
2
!rom
disperse!"
They did not disperse; at his order the British fired a volley
which cut down some dozen men, whereupon the rest of them
fired once and ran. Pitcairn rushed on to Concord and destroyed
3
rr=====~~==rr============:;;;;;~;::::dand
, ' /.?,o
"'"'"'""
all that he could find ~hich
morning he was con~cious fw~s not ?1uch. At about ten in the
·
o mcreasmg numb
f C l .
movmg among the trees all around h '
ers o
o omsts
forward to destroy a bridge wa fi d . im a~d a party he sent
s re mto, with three men killed
4
a number wounded. He decided to go back, a reasonable
enough decision but a mistake under the circumstances, for the
news of the Lexington shooting had spread and every man who
could move was out with his musket along the back track.
The Colonists had worked out some crude form of organization, but the emergency came so suddenly it had no chance
to function. Each man as he arrived got behind a wall or tree
and fired at the tight column of British soldiers in the road.
They could not miss and the return fire, delivered in volleys,
only rattled among the stones. Soldiers were dropping all along
the road and before noon the British commander, realizing he
was in serious trouble, sent a message to Boston for help. Help
met him at Lexington-three regiments with artillery-but t'.1e
Colonists were now on the upswing. They kept on shooting men
down from a distance and the expedition got back to Boston
with 389 casualties out of 1,800 total.
The Colonies had thought of themselves as little separate
countries, whose relations with Mother England were closer
than those with each other. But they had sent delegates to a
kind of coordinating committee called the Continental Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia to agree on a1easures which
each Colony would have to take for itself. When the news of
Lexington came, the New England delegates saw they had a
full-dress war on their hands and carried through a resolution
to organize an army, with each Colony contributing a contingent. John Adams of Massachusetts was the guiding spirit
and it was he who thought of insuring the somewhat doubtful
cooperation of the southern Colonies by naming as commanderin-chief one of their most prominent men, Mr. George Washing·
ton of Virginia, a wealthy planter who had served with distinction in a campaign against the French and Indians among
the Pennsylvania mountains, eighteen years before.
Poor transportation kept Washington from reaching the one
fighting front at Boston until July 3. In the meantime two events
of capital importance had taken place. The men from the New
England states who swiftly gathered to blockade General Gage
in Boston had no artillery. Among them was a young blackhaired captain from New Haven, named Benedict Arnold, who
said there were over a hundred cannon, leftovers from the
French wars, in the fort at Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain.
5
The provisional comm!ltee that was ru .
.
.
. .
s10ned Arnold a colonel told 1 ·
. nmng thrngs comm1 heavy guns from Ticonderoga sledded down across the snow,
'
·
t.h e guns. When he arrived
h11m
f to draise som e men an d go g and a vessel which
he armed captured a tremendous cargo of
p10neers organizina under a e o~n E ~ band of two hundre powder and shot on the sea. The Commander-in-Chief built
1
purp~se. Arnold f~lt he cou]~e~~ : ~an Allen f?r. the sa some batteries which hammered Boston so effectively the British
l k tter than JOlll the e evacuated away to Halifax-and the object of the war was
ped1t10n; it slipped across the
captured the fort, its garrison ~a~ro;
~ eon the night of_May gained. Britain was out of the Thirteen Colonies.
0
But for this the Revolution m - ha h t e J·uns .without res1stanc
Jn a way these easy victories were an advantage. The discovery
that there was nothing sacred about a man because he happened
Meanwhile General Gage wig t av~ ied m Boston.
icans would do if they did ~s worrym~ about what the Ame to wear a red coat with the badges of King George III brought
would make it impossible fe shi:ne artillery .. He decided the all the waverers to the Revolutionary side, and was of immense
planting guns on the high or ~ ips t~ stay Ill th: harbor b moral value when things began to look bad later. But the tradiopposite Boston city whose,-troc Y ~nmsu]a that JUtted fort tion thus established prov.ed one of the most dangerously perBunker Hills. In fa~t some ~otteaCslwe.re called Breed's an sistent in American history. It was dangerous during the Revo0
omst~ showed up ther lution itself-why bother to join the Regular Army when, if
on the morning of J~ne 17 a d
sent the warships into the ha nb
gaf tod dig. Gage p~ompt] the British came, you and your neighbors could get down your
and ordered two thousand m r or ~o ~yf own a covenng fir squirrel guns and shoot them to pieces? It was so dangerous to
of the hill and take it by stormenT~o at r~m boats at the foo our future history that military appropriations could be opposed
range, marched up in perfect; key ~me well ou~ of muske after World War I oy an ex-candidate for the Presidency of the
range, aimed fire of appallinga~ s d~n wefe met with a close United States on the ground that invasions would be opposed
trenches. It broke them and d ea ~nessb rom the half-mad by "a million free men springing to arms"-and presumably
taking their planes, tanks and 155mm guns down from the
second effort turned out the rove t em b ack to the .beach.
f?rcements Jed a third wave 0 ;ame ~ay, h ut by ~he time rein mantlepiece where great-great-grandpa used to keep his Redtt~n was gone and as the defen~ssauhtsd t e Amencan ammuni coat-killing musket.
dnven from their position with ~rs al no bayonets, they wer
But this was not the only effect of Bunker Hill. For the fate
of the war in the Colonies none of these things was more imBut it was a defeat wi'th all th eavy osks.
B ··h1
e earmar s f
·
f
nt1s oss was 1,054 of the first 2 ODO I d
a victory, or th
portant than the fact that the officer who led those charges up
0
cent, making it one of the blood· ' b ~n ~ ; ~ ~fty-three pe
the hill was William Howe, who succeeded Gage in general
was also one of the most perman iest. a~t es m Bntish history. I command of operations in America. He never forgot the damcompletely untrained had now ~nt· m its effects. The Colonists
age done by those marksmen. And when he came to lead armies
British soldiers and h~d given th Wice enc~1:1ntered _rrofessiona] against them, he did it always with innumerable cautious maour own people the idea that them resoun mg beatmgs. It gave neuvers and a complete unwillingness to charge home. This also
where pretty good; that they was to be a key fact in the war.
could repeat their victory any
down from the wall. Disciplineu1;t . Y m~rel~/aking muskets
The men of the Continental Congress were largely lawyers
11
educated in the Aristotelian system of logic, which is to say
were therefore unnecessary to m ' nh' an l mi ltary experienc
0
they believed in order and arrangement in all things. Having
pletely overlooked that both at Leen ~ cou ddshoot. It was com.
·
h
xmgton
d
con lt10ns ad been such as to m k d. an
. . B ~n k er Hill the
made an Army with generals they got around to a Navy and
s~nse, the preservation 0 £ strict 0 d a e ~sf.iplme m the British an admiral in the fall of 1775, voting the title to Esek Hopkins
tive drawback. Yet the verdict · r ~r an £mes of b~ttle, a posiof Rhode Island, then the leading maritime state. The service
0
was to consist of thirteen frigates (one for each colony) of a
confirmed in the following Ma;ili· ·vb ~m~~unsm seemed
as 111,<Iton got the
class that would compare with the light cruisers of today. The
6 ' w en
7
0
be
d
/Y
A
Th not
h d be furnished
b b
ships could
on a contingent basis like t im to command suldchbea groupthe
without
offenhsc
andassignment
he had failed
miserably.
•my.
ey , eo e u"
d ddeg•tion, of w h'" h his brot
. er
·1 m
· p1'"' w h "e thm w0<e m• u' no one " 1 e cou E given
,;,i, •nd fabo,, <o <he Colon;,, WO<e ;nv;<ed w d,;p ;o "' 0 ehe powedul NewN ng1
J,nd h•d , fa, done P"'""
~n
J
Bu,;, would '•ke time eo build 'hem; •nd Geo<ge W•ilill>g<o ,, , membe>, >0d hew ng
,dm;rnJ,
no one who eou11
0
who undm,ood 'he euenti•lly n•»I eh""'" of <he w" ;f 11 'he figh,;ng. So ' m
h;p
1
00
one d<e d;d, w" n•gg;ng Cong"" W equip .ome kll>d of ' omm•nd mo<e .'h• n '· " 0 • e ' .;ve ehe B,;ti,h time <o •PP"d
fo,ee •nd "P'u" munition, fo, h;m. Adm;,,1 Hopk;u, , Hi.,Jowno.• m geumg
flee". Th" p<evenee
eo•dll>gly li"ed oue' J;,de •qu•drno of live mmh•n,mefl who ff ehe eoo" w"h powef u euing oue" 'he ,;me< "C""'"
deek, wm bmed 'o '•ke "noon, enJ;,.ed •ome n••men, '" he Contineo"l fnfl''"
in
fmed ehe •h•p•
;n /•nu,., 1776 pue 'o "'·
fo• '"embly meo grnup '
, iod;v;du•i<. The N.vy be"m
The ;mprnv;<ed N.vy h,d no <ueh qu;ek '"'"'' " 'he i ; 0 ehe """ '"" eo
'g fo<ee rnpplementing 'he effo;"
ve;y effective; <he prnfi" £
prnv;<ed A•my, wh;eh ;, prnb,bly ooe ""oo why ;n •ll oue<ui, ing '°d eommme-;;"
h;"o'Y ,;nee, 'he N,.y h,, been ' mo<e prnfe,.;on•I
of p•;v.ee "med <h•p•·
v0<yone , boo>d. The eud•<mn0
1 0[ \n<ended fo< ""'b on
' b"'" "'" of '"d;n,,, du,;ng pme ,h,n ;" ''"" on fan •ingle ''"'" m"m """
The Cong<e,.;onal Mu;ne Commh<ee o•dmd Hopk;n, dow ,he N•vy " ' fme P'hm"f;' ly e<eab!;,hed •nd endu« h
'o <he Ch"'P"ke "P«, whe.e Lo<d Dunmo<e h•d eqn;ppe my'• eommme w" '
h <m •men ehem<elve<, bne 'he.w e
• Rw of •m•ll ve"eh lo, B,;,.;n •nd w,, ene.geti,.lly en";n 1898, ;nfluenemg .nae on Y ' e
ehe;, deeeed "P""""""'ii
0
off eommm;.J '"ffie. Bm 'he new •dm;,,1
oJd,;m pooplt of eht Un"' d
Rmlu,;on"y n.vy neve< "' Y
7"
1/::cl'~ '~;oebding
~hi, '"'°
0P"'~·~nwm
°;
~' '~
5~'" ~n
.,,.;,e, ;
w,. '°
'~':
°
ehe/"·' i~i
f captain and could not overcome the invincible repug
privateer
A nother result was t at tl e ervice Captains and crews alike
n•nec o pn»<e<><•mtn
eo d omg
. h ar
h s governmrne
o< pnn'
d
. w hen prnfi neon I '"ehe d ehe d'•gm'ty of a regu
.
. t owners
.
. '"Y fi g h <mg
be h•d wiehoue ;, He ., ;Jtd off 'o New Prov;denee in <ht B, "eep<ed =.ploymem
w" .'
\ en ehey pl""d, •nd bthm
f l
d the town with some military stores that prove as opportumty offeredb, qi mt wt s that is sought easy · profits
hamas, captured
ve<y u<e u •n ' qn•nhey
er - did no'' fig h ' "'Y well. By
. of rnm ' h " prnve d my " Iu, bl e eht " me W'f un der ot 1 mas ,hty
ilitn .,;i,d b"k fo, eht Rhod, 1'1,nd bbo,..
;"""d of fighemg. N''""11 y, f ,he ,h;•<een ecui""• w"h '
Off Bloek I.land h;, Aw feU ;n wkh , liuit 'wemy-gun <ht rnd of 'he w" .ev<>y
0 d , 11 ,ht "mtd meceh'n'mrn,
B,;ti,h eo<ve"e •nd fough, he< • ll n;ghe, •fr« wh;d, <he go'
•w•y, ;nH;";ng h,.v;,. Io., 'h= <he •uffmd, 'h•nk. w ;neompetem "P'""' •nd drnnken mw<. In N"''&'""" B,y •m•llpox '"' down h,Jf <he mtn •nd mo" of ehe "" d"""d ,0
p<;V.etm wht<e 'hey eould " le,., ge< <ht;, p•y. Hopkin, eould
O< would do omh;ng •bone pun;ng h;, ,h;p, eo '" ,u 'hmugh
'he rnmme< of 1776, 'nd ;n eh, fall of ili.e ye., Cong"" d;,.
m;•red h;m from 'he ""ke wieh •evernl of h;, "P";"'·
Bmh h;, dtfay 'o d the d;,m;,.,1, 'hough , Jm°'' •ee;dem,J,
wm evtnn of pmd;g;ou< ;mpo•Unec ;n the h;,.o,y of u,, n.vy
jn" born. Tht 'hto<y ;n ,h, m;nd, of eh, deleg,.,, " 'ht btg;nn;ng «em• eo hm been <ht rn,bJ;,hmene of , figh,;ng
""ke, evtn ;f' •m,LJ one, wh;eh <hould op<rn<e ;n •quadmn•
and exercise a direct strategic influence on the movements of
'be enemy. Hopk;n, w,. 'he only offim whme "nk tntid,d
8
~nt
b~•.A;·~~t
~ .,
10
numbe< of othm bmh
"h ' 0, de<noytd in h"bo>, urn•lly
h•d bern "ken by 'ht
of eht w" om my eonw;ehoue mueh dtfen'\
ifn from Frnnec.
'''"d of ewo •h•p•, boe g k . " 'hi' downw"d eurn on. eht
Bm wh;Je evenn weft
'°"W'> be;ng J,;d by • fa , doff«·
oee•n, eh< eornm,one 0.
w;,h Bmdk' Arnold, 'he
'YP' of n."'1
ff td w,,hing<on ' pbn fo, 'he
eolonel of T•eondemg•h
,ht M.;ne wildcm"' •nd <ht
0
;n n•ion of Can•d• ng ';ou\ ."" " " y rnough eo meetd,
Comm•ndmn-Ch"\' •;
from ,h, A<my bdme Bm•u<hm;u d hrm 'o tn "\ ' h m •kill in woodmfe. Arnold lo•
, 0n, •ll •pee;•lly ehmrn
nd 'PP""d befo.e Quebee
h•lf h;, fmee m <he w•ldtmt" ' •nd •Imo" wiiliou' •mmumNovember with the rest
tatters
111
6on.
9
'°'
~·
"':~6,,.,
"mP"~·h t~
~·
l~~g ' t~
°' ' '"
0
·~
Even then he almost captured the place-would have, but
for treason. Congress had authorized General Philip Schuyler of
New York to raise an army for the invasion of Canada via Lake
Champlain and the Richelieu River. He had trouble persuading
New Yorkers to volunteer; it was mid-September of 1775 before
the expedition started under General Richard Montgomery, one
of the best and bravest men of the Revolution. He reached Montreal on November 12 and took the place out of hand, but the
incidental delays had been such that most of his men had run
out their terms of enlistment, and when he sent these home he
had barely three hundred left for operations.
At this point the treason; Arnold sent Montgomery a letter
making arrangements for them to join forces for the Quebec
attack, but the messenger delivered it to the British instead, their
first warning of the expedition from Maine, and just in time to
set up defense enough to hold off Arnold. A duplicate finally
did reach Montgomery, who dropped the reorganization he was
doing and hurried forward with his three hundred and the ammunition Arnold needed. Together they tried an assault on
Quebec in a blinding snowstorm on the last day of the year. But
the British had now scraped up men from everywhere; Montgomery was killed, Arnold desperately wounded, and the men
under their command broken, while 424 of those who did get
into the high-walled town were captured among its narrow and
crooked streets. What was left of the Army encamped nearby
and began a weak sort of siege.
Reinforcements for the British came down the Richelieu
during the winter, but the greater numbers came from across the
ocean. The American camp had a smallpox epidemic and all the
fire went out of the Army when Arnold and Montgomery were
replaced by General John Sullivan. He tried an attack with 2,500
men against Three Rivers as soon as spring broke in June of
1776; was heavily repulsed by a new British General, John Burgoyne; and had to make a disastrous retreat up the Richelieu
with the British at his heels.
They might have pushed right through to Albany but for
Arnold. Invalided to Skenesboro on Lake Champlain, he had set
to work with his usual furious energy, building a squadron to
hold the lake against the British counter stroke he foresaw as
certain. The long lake with its annex, Lake George, furnishes
10
the only transportation route through the hills and w_ood°s of
that region. Arnold assembled a couple of schooners, four big
row-gal leys with ten guns apiece, and eight 3-gun flat-bottomed
gondolas; manned them with soldiers and took them up to lie. 111
a crescent formation off Valcour Island. Burgoyne was commg
in great strength, with ship carpenters to build vessels for th.e
transport of his army at the outlet of the lake. News of Arnold s
squadron made him pause to mount guns on them and add some
fight ing vessels, and it was October 11 before. he came down. to
Valco ur and into contact with Arnold . The Bnush were superior
in force by at least four to one, but Arnold 's little fleet stood up
to them in an all-day action, slipped cables at night and were not
cut down till two days later, after a long runnmg fight. This
gave Burgoyne control of the lake, but a control that did not do
him much good; his ships had been so badly battered they .had
to go back to the outlet for a complete refit. T~at t~ok time;
time brought winter and stopped the campaign t.J.11 better
wea ther.
Burgoyne's movement was not merely the formal . counterattack that follows any successful defense. It was part of a thor~
oughly sound, coordinated plan to seize the Colonial lines of
communication. The British won those by sea along the coast as
soon as their blockade clamped down. A small force was now to
attack Charleston, chief entry port for the extreme South; another small one under General St. Leger was to ascend the St.
·Lawrence to Oswego, make a short portage and cut into New
York State down the line of the Mohawk River to Albany,
where it would connect with the big army under Burgoyne
moving up Lake Champlain and then down the Hudson. A
still larger force under General Howe himself ( 33,000 mer;-) was
to come up from New York, driving Washington before it, and
meet the other two at Albany, then shoot out a column across
the Berkshires to take Boston from the rear. The combined
movement would split the American centers of supply in the
South from the center of resistance in New England. It would
be supported at every step by some form of Brit!sh naval ~ower,
to which the Colonists had no answer, and it would isolate
Cavalier Virginia and Quaker Pennsylvania, which were _be- .
lieved at tpis time to be less warm in the cause of the rebellion
than the other provinces.
11
We have seen Burgoyne advancing; that same summer of
1776 General Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Parker arrived off
Charleston with two battleships, three frigates and a convoy of
troops. There are sandbar islands at the entrance, with the only
landing points inside, and on the most important of the islands
was a fort built of soft palmetto logs banked with sand. On the
morning of June 28 the warships stood in to shoot the fort down.
They stood out again at twilight with half their crews casualties, one of the frigates on fire and about to blow up and the
fort unharmed. That was the end of the Charleston expedition,
a failure which did as much to encourage the South as Bunker
Hill had the North, and for the same reason-it was the first
time a British squadron had been so beaten in nearly a hundred
years .
The blow at New York was better planned and delivered
with more strength. Howe got ashore with 20,000 men at
Gravesend Bay on August 2, 1776, :md moved up to the long
low ridge of Brooklyn Heights which runs from southwest to
northeast across Long Island. Behind it lay Putnam's division
of Washington's army, 7,000 strong.
The American commander had perceived that New York
City and the line of the Hudson would be the point of attack
and had moved his troops there as soon as the British cleared out
of Boston. It was a rag-tag army with very little artillery and
no horse, still on much the same basis as the morning of Lexington-short-term-enlistment men in federal service, seldom
paid and almost without discipline, a force built up to 20,000
all told by local militia called out for the campaign. But many
of the troops were parcelled out in batteries along the river and
many more held by Washington in a line of fortifications along
the narrowest neck of Brooklyn till the enemy's intention became clear.
Washington had not wanted General Putnam to hold the
whole length of the seven-mile ridge but Putnam did spread his
forces along this line and Howe, the British commander who
had adequate cavalry, soon scouted the position. He then put
5,000 men in along the shore; 6,000 more to attack the center by
Flatbush Pass; and 10,000 by a night march for a wide turning
movement through Jamaica. August 27 was the date; the manuever was performed to perfection. The encircling column came
12
o North Co!tll e
YORK
13
down behind Putnam's forces and by 3:00 p.m. had near!
wiped them out, capturing General Sullivan. Most of the Britis
officers wanted to charge in on Washington's weak lines fro
Gowanus Bay to Wallabout and destroy what was left of th
Continental Army, which they might have done; but How
would not try it again against Americans in entrenchments
not after Bunker Hill.
Instead he brought up artillery and began a siege of th
Brooklyn lines, with the intent of landing behind them from th
ships as soon as the batteries pinned Washington down. But th
American leader never let the trap close. He spent the day as
sembling boats, and that night, under cover of a rainstorm fol
lowed by fog, got every man out of the trenches and across t
Manhattan in one of the most brilliant surprise retreats .o
history.
This retreat saved W ashington's army but did not do muc
for the campaign. Like all amateur soldiers the men were muc
discouraged over their first reverse. Desertions grew dismayin
and Washington's sound plan of burning the city to keep i
from being a British base while he retired to the highlands wa
turned down by Congress-the first but not the last effort i
our history to manage military strategy by a majority vote.
Meanwhile Howe moved slowly, passing ships up the Eas
River through the Continental batteries till September 15, whe
he forced a crossing into Manhattan under naval fire. Our me
were panicked. Not even Washington, swearing mightily as h
rode through the rout, sword in hand, could bring them back
More dispirited than ever, the little army retreated to Harle
Heights . But next morning an outpost skirmish carried some o
the British too far forward. Washington swung a brigade ou
to cut them off, then fed men gradually into the growing com
bat in such a way that each new outfit could see those alread
in the fight standing firm. They stood too, and though the bat
tle broke off with a draw, the British were thrown back and ou
morale restored.
Howe studied the Harlem Heights position for a month, an
the more he studied it the less he liked the idea of assaulting th
Continental intrenchments. He decided to outflank the
through Westchester by using his sea power. One landing wa
a failure, but a second in October got him ashore on the nort
14
side of Long Island Sound and he was marching to get behind
Washington when he found the American forces again intrenched at White Plains. A partial attack gave the British a
commanding height for their artillery at the cost of some fairly
stiff casualties. But before they could use it the wily Washington had slipped away again and was dug in at North Castle.
So far, good; but Congress imposed some more of its brand
of strategy on the campaign by passing a resolution that Fort
Washington in M11nhattan and Fort Lee opposite in New Jersey, should not be given up. This left the Continental Army in ·
a bad position, with 2,700 men in each of these now useless
fortifications, w hile Howe lay between them and Washington's
field force of 8,000 with a concentrated strength of 20,000. Of
course Howe, who was excellently informed by his spies and
scouts, decided to hit the forts and gain control of the river, the
object of his campaign. He threw 13,000 men against Fort
Washington on November 16 and the garrison was killed or captured to a. man. The loss was more than the position or the
troops; it included 146 pieces of artillery with ammunition in
proportion, which left the Continental resources at their lowest
ebb of the war.
Howe instantly crossed for an attack on Fort Lee, but Washington, who had himself been in that place when the fort on
the New York side was attacked, was already out and away,
drawing his whole army down across New Jersey toward Philadelphia. The British only pursued him with contact detachments and then went into winter quarters.
Washington paused behind the line of the Delaware in misery
and despair. Most of his men's short terms of enlistment had
run out and they were going home; the Army had no pay, no
clothes, no shoes, little artillery or ammunition. Charles Lee,
one of its ranking generals, was writing to Howe to make terms
for himself. Congress did little but intrigue for places, and even
stout-hearted old John Adams had given up and gone home to
Massachusetts. One good blow by the British might have ended
the whole thing.
v
BuT IT WAS Washington, not the British, who delivered the
blow. Howe had quartered some 12,000 of his men along the
15
•
•
• d t h at t h ey wouId k eep
ruits
at h ome. W as h•mgton 1magme
Christm.as in Teutonic fashion b.y g~tting go.ad and drunk .. And
n the mght of December 25, rce m the nver and blowmg a
0
lizzard, he put nearly his whole force across it and came down
to wish the Hessians the compliments of the occasion. At dawn
1
wfok '"" he was all around the town; thirty-five minutes later the Hessian
commander was dead, three-quarters of his force prisoners, and
the rest in a disorderly flight from which they never again reassembled.
Now, Washington could persuade his men to stay in service
for six weeks longer and decided to use the time for an offensive campaign of astounding boldness. He camped just south of
Trenton behind the w ide and deep Assanpink Creek and waited
to see what would happen. What happened was that Lord
Cornwallis, Howe's divisional commander in New Jersey, came
roaring down to Trenton, drawing in his detachments till he
faced the Continentals across the creek with 6,000 men and numerous artillery on the afternoon of January 2. w ashington had
3,600 and at his back a river packed with ice and uncrossable.
Cornwallis opened a cannonade and made preparations for an
attack in the morning that would have virtually ended the Revolution. But during the night Washington left his campfires
burning, made a long and fast march around the British left
flank, and fell on their line of communications at Princeton .
He ran head-on into Cornwallis's rear detachments, three
regiments just coming through, smashed them in a sharp action, switched off the main road and moved up to Morristown.
There he went into winter quarters, taking in some reinforcements from New England and sendin g out raiding parties
against Cornwallis's line of supply . The British commander had
to go all the way back to Brunswick on the seashore. New Jersey, which had begun to lie down under British occupation,
turned completely hostile; even the British at New York could
L.:::::::=====~~====~=~==~~~~~~~~§!I get food and forage only by fighting for it and the difficulty
dragged at the feet of every movement like a leaden ball.
More important still, the Trenton-Princeton campaign conleft ba nk of the Delawa re, with the largest single detachmen
vinced
General Howe that he could not afford to follow through
about 1,500 stron g, at Trenton. These men were G ermans, pa
of a large contingent the British hired from the P rince of Hes the London plan of campaign by marching off up the Hudson
YJhen the unpopul ari ty of the war m ade it impossible to get r while an opponent so swift, adroit, and altogether dangerous
was left in his rear. He recast his whole strategy to make Wash16
Ve-plAn'
1
..·
I
''-.... wi,, 1,' Plarns
....
I
~
)§
17
ington's army his first objective; but this involved moves
which no preparation had been made, it could not be got go·
for another six months-and there was no way of notify i
Burgoyne of these things in his winter camp on Lake Cha
plain.
Most important of all was the effect of the little fourteen-cl
campaign on America. Trenton and Princeton convinced C
g:ress that it had made an extremely good bargain in the sel
t10n of a general. It voteq Washington practically unlimit
authority to raise troops and stopped interfering with how
used them. The difficulty about pay was to persist to the e
for Congress had no power to impose taxes . But never ag
was the Commander-in-Chief to be faced with the dissoluti
of his entire force on the eve of battle. This is why the Trento
Princeton engagements are the key of the war.
VI
HowE THEN determined to wipe out the Continental Ar
and as a means to that end, to attack Philadelphia, then t
· largest city in the country. He was convinced that Washin
ton must fight to destruction to hold it.
His_ first effort was a campaign of feints aimed at drawing t
Amencan commander from his position in the Jersey highlan
down to open country, where the better-drilled British could
pect to outmaneuver them on the battlefield. It failed; ev
when _Howe marched past toward Philadelphia, Washingt
held his ground and only jabbed at the enemy communicatio
. On the las~ day of June, Howe gave this effort up as a b
JOb, put all his men aboard transports at New York and sa il
arou?d to anack Phi'.adelphia from the water with the supp
of his w~rsh1ps, hoping for the same happy result which t
combmat1on had g<iined at New York . Contrary winds held h"
long at sea and he went up Chesapeake Bay instead of t
Delaware.
It was September 11 before he came marching up from He
of Elk to find the Continentals behind the Brandywine Riv
prepared to dispute the passage of that stream. They were abo
11,000 strong, all raw troops and a good many of them milir"
farmers with no idea of war. Eastwardly some forts, sunk
18
hulks, a boom and a handful of warships formed a barrier in
the D elaware and kept the position from being outflanked.
Howe's cavalry enabled him to feel out the position, discover
that he was fifty per cent stronger, and plan a repetition of the
Battle of Long Island, with a holding attack across the stream in
fron t, while Cornwallis took 10,000 men by a wide circuit
around the Continental left. The circling attack got right in our
rear before it was discovered; but this time Washington himself was up on the fir ing line. He changed front with Sullivan's
division to meet Cornwallis. Sullivan's force was broken , but
another division under Nathanael Greene covered the retreat
and halted the British under heavy loss at a narrow way between
two woods . The formations covering the river could now no
longer hold against the press of numbers, and it was a defeat,
with the total losses two to one against our side, and Washington forced back behind the Schuylkill.
Howe followed, showing so alert and menacing a concentration that Washington could find no opportunity to attack him
in detail, and was forced . to follow when the British
leader extended toward the upstream fords. Having thus
pulled his enemy out of position Howe suddenly countermarched, reaching Philadelphia on September 25, then moved
north to cover the city w ith a camp at Germantown on the left
bank of the Schuylkill. On October 1 the General's brother,
Admiral Lord Howe, brought his fleet around to clear the forts
and river obstructions, but the defense was extrao rdinarily
stout. He was beaten off with a battleship blown up and another vessel sunk .
The British general had already spread part of his force
across New Jersey to open the land line of communications with
New York. Now he sent anothe r part downstream against the
forts (which fe ll on October 6) leaving so few in the Germantown camp that Washington felt he co uld bring off a surprise
like the victory at Trenton.
It was to be a night march fo llowed by a double envelopment
attack, but everything went wrong. One of the American division commanders was drunk; a heavy fog confused all movement among the badly disciplined troops and two brigades fired
into each other. In the center a good British regiment turned
a big stone house into a fortress from which it could not be dis-
19
lodged, thus leaving a gap in the line. On our right a body
militia failed to close with the enemy. The British, recoveri
from their first surprise, swung inward across their front, cou
ter-enveloping Washington's center and drove him from t
field with a defeat that paralyzed both the morale and the
ganization of his army.
Washington's force had been retreating without a single su
cess since its enlistment practically a year before. It began
break up by mere desertion. In the camp at Valley Forge, up t
Schuylkill, there was neither food nor firewood rior adequa
clothing. "These are the times that try men 's souls," wro
Thomas Paine. But to George Washington, Valley Forge w
something more than a test of endurance; it was an opportuni
to remedy what he had finally seen was the fatal defect of t
Continental Army-its discipline.
General Howe made himself very comfortable in Philadelph
that winter and his men went much to dances. His summ
campaign had been a great success and he was completely u
aware that he had lost the war.
VII
FoR THAT summer campaign kept Howe from his appointme
with Burgoyne and St. Leger at Albany.
Burgoyne was a good officer. He was under way as soon as t
ice left the northern rivers; with 8,600 men, especially strong ·
artillery. He came floating down toward the fortress of Tico
deroga which covers Champlain at its narrowest point whe
the river from Lake George falls in. Some 3,400 men und
General Arthur St. Clair were in the fort and occupying t
outwork on Mount Independence across the lake. Ticondero
fort lies on low ground. South, across the river, is a great Rom
nose of a hill, Mount Defiance, so steep and tree-covered that
had not been used during all the French wars. General St. Cla
did not t~!nk it would be used this time and neglected it, but
smart Bnt1sh officer got two guns hauled up to the crest by ha
power and opened a plunging fire right into the fort. St. Cla
got _out of the fort the night of July 5, leaving his heavy gu
be~md, a severe loss made worse by the fact that the Continent
levies proved as unsteady in retreat as usual. Over a thousand
20
hem were cut to pieces in a pursuit action near Hubbardton,
uly 7. That same day another wing of Burgoyne's took Skenesoro.
Ticonderoga was not only the great fortress of the north. It
ad also been our first trophy of the war and the news of its loss
pread consternation through the Colonies. Congress reacted by
emovmg the able General Philip Schuyler from charge of operaions and repl'acing him with Horatio Gates, whose talents we&e
oughly those of a stock salesman. Washington's response also
as characteristic; he was in the midst of Howe's New Jersey
aneuvering campaign, but he spared the best regiment in his
rmy, Morgan's squirrel-hunting Virginia riflemen, to go north.
e sent two brigades of infantry besides, and ordered General
incoln in with all the New England militia he could raise.
These reinforcements were still to come when Burgoyne
orked through to Fort Edward on the upper waters of the
udson. He was already in difficulty about supplies, with his
ine of communications back to Montreal excessively long and
othing to be had from the country, which Schuyler had painsakingly stripped. There were other troubles as well. The Brit"sh were deep in the woods now, and they found that wherever
hey moved Schuyler had hacked down trees and woven the
ranches together, while riflemen behind these tangles turned
upon them a ceaseless accu rate and galling sniper fire.
A month and a half passed while the British army merely
'nched along. In mid-August Burgoyne's Loyalist spies brought
word that the Continentals had a big depot of horses and cattle
beyond the Green Mountain range at Bennington. He dispatched a force of 600, headed by some German dismounted
dragoons under Lieutenant Colonel Baum to get this reinforceent for his breadbasket.
On the 14th Baum reached Bennington and found no supplies. But he did find a great many Vermont woodsmen, who
began to shoot at him from behind trees with an enthusiasm
that mounted rapid! y as they discovered the dragoons in their
heavy boots could not give chase. Baum got a message through
to Burgoyne, who sent 700 more men and artillery. But it rained
and the reinforcement was a whole day covering the distance.
They reached Bennington on the 16th just in time to find Baum
dead and the last remnants of his command breaking up in a
21
hand-to-hand struggle of the fiercest kind. The relieving force
was instantly attacked when it came in sight. It held formation,
but lost so heavily in retreat that only 200 men of the combined
parties got back to Burgoyn e and these without guns or wagons.
John Stark, the country general who had led the attackers,
joined the forces facing Burgoyne and now Burgoyne's difficulties were beyond repair.
For almost at the same time St. Leger's flanking movement
from Lake Ontario had also come to grief. He had left Oswego
in July with a small force of Regulars and a very considerable
one of Loyalists and Indian aux iliaries. They penetrated readily
enough to the portage of the Mohawk where they found a small
fort, Fort Stanwix, with 200 Continenta l soldiers inside, and sat
down to besiege it. Schuyler sent to the relief of the fort some
mi litia under General Nicholas Herkimer, whose own idea was
to do some intelligent guerrilla fighting. But his militia were determined to attack in battl e form, and as they moved forward
they were ambushed at Oriskany. Herkimer was mortally
wounded, but the ·fight was in woods where there were no lines
of troop to break and run. The pioneers stood up to it till they
had taken-and given-losses over a third of those engaged.
A sortie from the fort at the same time captured St. Leger's
camp, and when his Indians, who had not bargained on such
rough work, deserted him after the battl e, he pulled out back to
Oswego and Montreal.
Burgoyne's letters show he would willingly have turned back
at this time but he could not. On September 13, having dragged
his boats through the woods and accumulated what he hoped
would be supplies enough for a thirty days' campaign, he set
out for Albany, moving down the right bank of the Hudson.
The America n headquarters and main body were on some islands w here the Mohawk falls into the Hudson. Gates had just
relieved Schuyler and issued some preparatory order but made
PENN
no move ment. Benedict Arnold with 1,2 00 men had been out
towa rd Fort Stanwix and when not needed there he moved toward Gates. But instead of joining Gates he advanced to Bemis
Heights nea r Saratoga in the path of Burgoyne's march and fori.!====d==::::::~=======================t tined a position on a plateau with a ravine in front and a pontoon bridge across the Hudson behind his right rear.
Gates moved up to fill in these lines, 9,000 strong, and on
22
23
September 19 Burgoyne pushed fighting through Schuyler's entanglements and a screen of skirmishes into contact. Burgoyne's
strength was down to 6,000 but he planned to envelop the Continental left while a pinning attack held their center and a small
column protected his river flank. The move was thoroughly
scouted but Gates could not be bothered to give orders, and
Arnold, on the American left, led Morgan's riflemen to attack
the turning column without any orders. He broke it up but suffered severely when the British center was put in against him.
Gates kept the bulk of his army behind its lines and after the
battle removed Arnold out of jealousy. But the British had been
thrown on the defensive with their losses of two to one. Burgoyne felt his position desperate and dug himself in, writing
letters to Sir Henry Clinton at New York.
Clinton did bring his forces up the river to Peekskill, bu
stopped there, worried about leaving New York uncovered be
hind him. On October 3 Burgoyne put his camp on half ration
and on the seventh, deciding that victory was the only way ou
of his troubles, tried again the envelopment' that had failed o
September 12, this time putting his whole strength into it sine
he had the entrenchments to hold against a counter-stroke. One
more the circling attack was discovered and Gates sent a stron
force to strike the attacking column just where it joined th
British center and another in a wide sweep outside their swee
to take Burgoyne's column on the other flank. The Hankin
force was Arnold's old division; when he heard the sound o
the guns he leaped from his tent, placed himself at the head o
it, and led it in with such fury that he not only broke the Britis
column but carried the key point in their line of entrenchment
just as twilight ended the battle.
That finished Burgoyne. His loss in the second battle ha
been extremely heavy and he could not longer hold his position
He retired to some redoubts on the river and began preparation
for a retreat to Montreal, but it was no use. The woodsmen wer
all around his force now with not less than 18,000 men and h
had no more food. On October 17 he surrendered what was le
of his a.rmy.
24
CHAPTER II
Th e R evolution: Second Phase
I
0:-< DECEJMBER 4, 1777, the news of Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga reached Paris. Benjamin Franklin had been there for some
time, conducting the business of the United States as resident•
commissioner with notable success, and W as hington 's army had
been fighting l.argely with the munitions supplied through exped1t10ns unoffici ally .s upported by the French government which
ran the British blockade. A number of experienced officers had
come over as volunteers, notably the young Marquis de La
Fayette, wounded while leading a brigade at Germantown. Now
the capture of a whole British anny convinced Louis XVI that
the Colonists could win against France's ancient rival. On December 6, he approved an alliance with the new republic, and on
Ma rch 11, 1778, threw the weig ht of the first power of Europe
into the struggle on the side of his new ally.
This changed the whole character of the war for France had
made extraordinary efforts to reconstruct the na~ional navy since
her defeat m th e Seven Years' War, a decade and a half before.
The ~ritis h navy ~ou~d no longer maintain its strangle hold on
Colonial commun1cat1ons. Control of tbe North American seas
became, in fact, a matter of dispute; it was even possible that'
the communica tions of a British army could be cut. As a secondary effort British cruisers we re forced into co ncentrations for
fighti ng, with the result that American raiders were free to disperse across th.e seas in terribly destructive attacks on ships of
con:merce. This came too ~ate to save our little navy of frigates,
which h~d bee.n nearly wiped out by the spring of '78, but it
made pnvateenn g enormously effective . The number of ships in
that service continued to increase right on to the end of the
war, and by 1781 they were tapping the British till for four million pounds a year in captures, a loss which even England could
not take with calm.
T his success founded a tradition which was to be the distin~uishing feature of American naval thought for a century. And.
11'1 1779, also as a result of the French alliance, our Navy crained
25
°