8. Washington Transforms the Army

0:00Volume 4, Chapter 8, Washington Transforms the Army Washington's first task was to assume direct command of the Continental Army before Boston, which he did upon reaching his Cambridge headquarters on July 2. Although he took up his tasks energetically, Washington accomplished nothing militarily for the remainder of the year, and more, nor did he try. His only campaign in 1775 was internal rather than external. It was directed against the American army as he found it, and was designed to extirpate the spirit of liberty pervading this unusually individualistic and democratic army of militiamen.

0:50In short, Washington set out to transform a people's army uniquely suited for a libertarian revolution into another orthodox and despotically ruled statist force after the familiar European model. His primary aim was to crush the individualistic and democratic spirit of the American forces. For one thing, the officers of the militia were elected by their own men, and the discipline of repeated elections kept the officers from forming an aristocratic ruling caste, typical of European armies of the period. The officers often drew little more pay than their men, and there were no hierarchical distinctions of rank imposed between officers and men.

1:43As a consequence, officers could not enforce their wills coercively on the soldiery. This New England equality horrified Washington's conservative and highly aristocratic soul. To introduce a hierarchy of ruling caste, Washington insisted on distinctive decorations of dress in accordance with minute gradations of rank. As one observer phrased it, new lords, new laws, the strictest government is taking place, and great distinction is made between officers and soldier. Everyone is made to know his place and keep it. Despite the great expense involved, he also tried to stamp out individuality in the army by forcing uniforms upon them, but the scarcity of cloth made this plan unfeasible.

2:38At least as important as distinctions and decoration was the introduction of extensive inequality in pay. Led by Washington and other aristocratic southern delegates and over the objections of Massachusetts, the Congress insisted on fixing a pay scale for generals and other officers considerably higher than that of the rank and file. In addition to imposing a web of hierarchy on the Continental Army, Washington crushed liberty within by replacing individual responsibility by iron despotism and coercion. Severe and brutal punishments were imposed upon soldiers whose sense of altruism failed to override their instinct for self-preservation. Furloughs were curtailed and girlfriends of soldiers Washington was expelled from camp. Above all, lengthy floggings were introduced for all practices which Washington considered aesthetically or morally offensive. He even had the temerity to urge Congress to raise the maximum number of strikes of the lash from 39 to the enormous number of 500. Fortunately, Congress refused. In a few short months, Washington had succeeded in extirpating a zealous, happy, individualistic people's army and transforming it into yet

4:08another statist army, filled with bored, resentful and even mutinous soldiery. The only thing he could not do was force the troops to continue in camp after the terms of their enlistment were up at the end of the year, and by now the soldiers were longing for home. In addition to all other factors, Americans were not geared, nor should they have been, for lengthy conflict of position and attrition. They were not professional soldiers, and they were needed at their homes and jobs and on their farms. Had they been a frankly guerilla army, there would have been no conflict between these roles. As the end of 1775 drew near, then Washington's main preoccupation was in forging a new army to replace the 17,000 men whose terms of enlistment were about to expire. His problems were aggravated by Congress's refusal to pay the bounties for enlistment New Englanders were used to receiving. Instead, caste distinctions were widened even further by raising officers' As might have been expected, the wealthy and aristocratic Washington, free from money worries,

5:45had little understanding of the economic plight of his soldiery. In contrast to the legends about his compassion, Washington railed about the defecting troops as being possessed of a dirty mercenary spirit and of basely deserting the cause of their country. A particularly colorful addition to the New England troops in the Continental Army during the summer In 1775 was a detachment of nine enlisted companies of expert riflemen from the backcountry frontier of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, five of them from Pennsylvania. There were over 1,400 of these riflemen in all.

6:30The bulk of them were hardy Ulster-Scott frontiersmen, wearing hunting outfits bearing the motto

7:07It is not surprising that these backwoodsmen proved even more individualistic and less tolerant of coercion than the New Englanders. When they terrorized British sentries with their sniping, Washington forbade such seemingly disorganized practice which spent ammunition. Whenever a rifleman was imprisoned for infringing one of Washington's arbitrary but cherished In these rules, his comrades would break into the prison and set him free. On one occasion, virtually an entire Pennsylvania company mutinied to try to free one of their own, and several regiments were needed to disarm and convict the Pennsylvanians, whose penalty consisted of less than a week's pay. The riflemen, however, were not so much unfit for any military service as they were, by nature and by experience, totally unfitted

8:34and General Howe.