American Aurora
Page 34
Monday, May 29, 1775. Today, John Adams writes Abigail:
Coll. Washington appears at Congress in his Uniform, and by his great Experience and Abilities in military Matters, is of much service to Us.699
George Washington is wearing the Virginia militiaman’s uniform he hasn’t worn for sixteen years. He is the only member of Congress in any type of military attire, and his tall, broad physique gives him an impressive military appearance.
Thursday, June 15, 1775. Today, in the Continental Congress, the Journals report:
The report of the committee being read and debated,
Resolved, That a General be appointed to command all the continental forces, raised, or to be raised, for the defence of American liberty …700
John Adams writes:
[W]e were embarrassed with more than one Difficulty … a Southern Party against a Northern, and a Jealousy against a New England Army under the Command of a New England General … I found too that even among the Delegates of Virginia there were difficulties … In several Conversations I found more than one very cool about the Appointment of Washington … Full of Anxieties … I walked with [my cousin] Mr. Samuel Adams in the State House Yard for a little exercise and fresh Air before the hour of Congress, and there represented to him the various dangers that surrounded Us. He agreed to them all, but said “What shall We do ?” I answered him … I was determined to take a Step which should compell them and all the other Members of Congress to declare themselves for or against something. “I am determined this Morning to make a direct Motion that Congress should adopt the Army before Boston, and appoint Colonel Washington Commander of it.” …
Accordingly, when congress had assembled, I rose in my place, and … concluded … that though this was not the proper time to nominate a General, yet … I had no hesitation to declare that I had but one Gentleman in my mind for that important command, and that was a gentleman from Virginia who was among Us … Mr. Hancock … Mortification and resentment were expressed as forcibly as his Face could exhibit them.
Mr. Samuel Adams Seconded the Motion … The Subject came under debate, and several Gentlemen declared themselves against the Appointment of Mr. Washington … [P]ains were taken out of doors to obtain a Unanimity, and … the dissentient Members were pursuaded to withdraw their Opposition …701
The Journals continue:
The Congress then proceeded to the choice of a general, by ballot, when George Washington, Esq. was unanimously elected.702
Friday, June 16, 1775. Today, in the Continental Congress, the Journals report:
The president from the chair informed Geo: Washington, Esq. that he had the order of the Congress to acq[uaint] him that the Congress had by a unanimous vote made choice of him to be general and com[mander] in chief to take the supreme command of the forces raised … Whereupon Colonel Washington, standing in his place spoke as follows:
“MR. PRESIDENT,
“Tho’ I am truly sensible of the high Honour done me in this Appointment, yet I feel great distress, from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important Trust …
“[L]est some unlucky event should happen, unfavourable to my reputation, I beg it be remembered, by every Gentleman in the room, that I, this day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the Command I am honored with …”703
John Adams writes:
We owe no thanks to Virginia for Washington. Virginia is indebted to Massachusetts for Washington, not Massachusetts to Virginia. Massachusetts made him a general against the inclination of Virginia. Virginia never made him more than a colonel … I was subjected to almost as bitter exprobrations for creating Washington commander-in-chief …704
Benny Bache (as an adult) will observe:
A Virginia planter by no means the most eminent, a militia-officer ignorant of war both in theory and useful practice (We do not forget the virgin public act of Mr. Washington … ), and a politician certainly not of the first magnitude; such was the outset of this gentleman in the American revolution. He was therefore paid in advance when he was suddenly made commander in chief.705
Tonight, in Boston, hearing that British troops plan to reoccupy the Charlestown isthmus, Israel Putnam of Connecticut leads patriot forces to occupy and fortify Breed’s Hill, closer to Boston and more exposed than Bunker Hill but still in command of the harbor and city.706
Saturday, June 17, 1775. Today, in the Continental Congress, the Journals report:
IN CONGRESS
The delegates of the United Colonies … To George Washington Esq. WE … do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be General and Commander in chief…
The Congress then proceeded to the choice of officers in the army by ballot: … Horatio Gates, Esq … Charles Lee, Esq.707
Today, in Boston, in an effort to reoccupy the Charlestown isthmus, British General Sir William Howe leads 1,500 British soldiers across the bay (by barge) to make an assault on Breed’s Hill, which the patriots, under Massachusetts Major General Joseph Warren, now occupy. General Howe’s troops land on the beach a half mile from Charlestown, plunder and burn the town, and then foolishly attempt a frontal attack on the hill without protection from the British men-of-war (whose guns cannot be raised sufficiently to bear upon the summit). The result is that the patriots pick off the clearly identifiable British officers and proceed to slaughter the oncoming troops.
When the British are reinforced with five hundred additional soldiers, they finally take the hill, kill General Warren, but pay a tremendous price in dead and wounded. This “Battle of Bunker Hill” (erroneously so called) shows the capabilities of the American militiamen, who inflict twice as many casualties as the British. Why did the militiamen lose the hill? They simply ran out of ammunition.708 Farmers don’t have enough gunpowder to fight a European army.709
Tuesday, June 20, 1775. Today, James Warren, president of the Massachusetts provincial assembly, reports to John Adams on the Battle of Bunker Hill:
They Landed about 2000 … [They w]ere more than once repulsed by the Bravery of our men … who, had they been supplied with Ammunition and a Small reinforcement of Fresh men, would … have in all probability beat them to pieces …710
Today, in the Continental Congress, the Journals report:
GEORGE WASHINGTON, ESQ….—you are to repair with all expedition to the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and take charge of the army of the United Colonies.711
Wednesday, June 21, 1775. Today, in the Continental Congress, the Journals report:
Mr. Thomas Jefferson appeared as a delegate for the Colony of Virginia, and produced his credentials, which were read and approved …712
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1775
The Pennsylvania Gazette
Watertown, June 20. We just received an Account by a Man, who is said to have swam out of Boston, that we killed and wounded 1000 of the Ministerial troops … The whole of the troops landed at Charlestown were 5000.
On Friday morning, the Generals WASHINGTON and [Charles] LEE set off from [Philadelphia] to take command of the American army at Massachusetts-Bay. They were accompanied from town by the troop of light horse, and by all the officers of the city militia on horseback, who attended them about five miles, when they returned, but the former continued with them.
Monday, July 3, 1775. Today, George Washington finally arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts (just outside Boston), and makes his headquarters on the Harvard College campus at the Harvard president’s house. (Harvard’s president, Samuel Langdon, compacts his living into a single room.) George Washington writes Congress:
I arrived safe at this Place on the 3d Instant; after a Journey attended with a good deal of Fatigue, & retarded by necessary Attentions to the successive Civilities which accompanied me in my whole Rout.713
Gen. Washington was “retarded by … civilities.” Benny Bache will, as an adult, observe:
Mr. Washington as appears took ten days
to go from New-York to the camp before Boston, to assume his new command at a critical moment. Had he sent an aide-de-camp or a servant to engage relays of horses and avoided these civilities, he might have arrived in half the time.714
Saturday, July 8, 1775. Today, Ben Franklin writes his London landlady and dear friend, Polly Hewson, about his five-year-old grandson, Ben Bache, and about Polly’s infant daughter, Elizabeth:
I have much Delight in my Grandsons. Mr. and Mrs. Bache join in Love to you and yours. Ben, when I delivered him your Blessing, enquired the Age of Elizabeth, and thought her yet too young for him; but as he made no other Objection, and that will lessen every day, I have only to wish being alive to dance with your Mother at the Wedding.715
Friday, July 21, 1775. The colonies must have some plan of confederation to manage the war. Today, Benjamin Franklin circulates, in the Continental Congress, his plan for a confederated national government. The Journals report:
Franklin’s Articles of Confederation
ART I. The Name of this Confederacy shall henceforth be The United Colonies of North America …
ART IV … Delegates shall be annually elected in each Colony to meet in General Congress …
ART. VI. All Charges of Wars … shall be defray’d … by each Colony in proportion to its Number of Male Polls [voters] between 16 and 60 Years of Age …
ART. VII. The Number of Delegates to be elected and sent to the Congress by each Colony shall be … one Delegate … for every [5000 voters] Polls …
ART. IX. An executive Council shall be appointed by the Congress out of their own Body, consisting of [12] Persons … Appointments for Three Years, whereby One Third of the Members will be changed annually. And each Person who has served the said Term of three Years as Counsellor shall have a Respite of three Years before he can be elected again …716
Ben Franklin believes that a federal (confederated) government should consist simply of a single-chamber legislature with delegates annually elected from small voting districts of equal population throughout the country. Small districts mean that the national legislature will be large (Franklin’s would have 125 members)717 and, therefore, can’t be bribed. Equally important, small districts mean candidates don’t have to be wealthy or have wealthy connections to run for office. They can be ordinary people who know and are known to the neighbors who must elect them.718 Each of Franklin’s voting districts has an equal number of voters, so citizens are represented equally and states strictly in proportion to their populations. For Franklin, annual elections are the final guarantee that delegates won’t stray from their constituents’ wishes.
In Franklin’s federal government, a majority of the legislature makes law. There is no veto. There is no second or upper chamber to represent individual colonies or the wealthy class. There is no separate executive branch or chief executive. Because the purpose of an executive branch is to carry out the legislature’s laws, the legislature chooses its own executive, and to assure that no individual has too much authority (as a king), the executive is to be a council rather than an individual. Finally, so the council doesn’t act too homogeneously (as an individual), one third of the council departs office each year.
Sunday, July 23, 1775. With the radical shortage of arms and ammunition, the War of Independence may have to be fought with spears! Today, George Washington gives the following order:
The people employed to make spears are desired by the General to make four dozen of them immediately, thirteen feet in length, and the wood part a good deal more substantial than those already made[. P]articularly in the New Hampshire Lines, [they] are ridiculously short and light …719
Today, John Adams writes his wife, Abigail, of the importance Europe attaches to Ben Franklin:
Dr. Franklin has been very constant in his attendance on Congress from the beginning … The people of England have thought that the opposition in America was wholly owing to Dr. Franklin; and I suppose their scribblers will attribute the temper and proceedings to him …720
WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 1775
The Pennsylvania Gazette
Extract of a letter from the Camp at Cambridge, July 11 … Our people are situated from Charles River about 200 rods below [Harvard] College, where we have a redoubt [fortified emplacement] … [W]e have a complete line of circumvallation [around Boston] from Charles River [in Cambridge] to Mistick River [in Charlestown] … nor do I expect it will be many days before the contest begins which will probably bring on a general engagement … [O]ur people … are strongly fortified … so strong that I believe every man [the British!] in Boston … must fall before they could force a passage that way into the country …
Friday, August 4, 1775. The Continental army has no gunpowder. Today, George Washington writes the Continental Congress:
Our Situation in the Article of Powder is much more alarming than I had the most distant Idea of. But on ordering a new Supply of Cartridges yesterday, I was informed to my very great Astonishment that there was no more than 36 Bbbls. in the Massachusetts Store, which with the Stock of Rhode Island, New Hampshire & Connecticut makes 9937 lb. not more than 9 Rounds a Man … I immediately went to confer with the Speaker of the [Massachusetts] House of Representatives upon some Measures to obtain a Supply from the neighbouring Townships, in such a manner as might prevent our Poverty being known as it is a Secret of too great consequence to be divulged in the General Court, some Individual of which might perhaps indiscreetly suffer it to escape him, so as to find its way to the Enemy the Consequences of which are terrible, even in Idea. I shall also write to the Governours of Rhode island, Connecticut & the Committee of Safety in New Hampshire on this Subject, urging in the most forcible Terms the Necessity of an immediate Supply if in their Power. I need not enlarge on our melancholy Situation; it is sufficient that the Existence of the Army & the Salvation of the Country depends upon some thing being done for our relief both speedy and effectual & that our Situation be kept a profound Secret.721
Thursday, August 10, 1775. The other colonies have no gunpowder either. Today, Benjamin Franklin writes General Philip Schuyler:
[I]t occurr’d to me to endeavour obtaining from our Committee of Safety a Permission to send you what powder remain’d in our Hands, which tho’ it was thought scarcely safe for our selves to part with it, they, upon my Application, … chearfully agreed to. Accordingly I this Day dispatch a Waggon with 2400 lb. weight which actually empties our Magazine …722
Saturday, August 12, 1775. Today, Benny Bache turns six years old. Benny’s home at the rear of Franklin Court is now an important place to meet for America’s revolutionary war leaders who are constantly conferring with Benny’s grandfather.
Saturday, August 26, 1775. Pennsylvania will use spears! Today, Benjamin Franklin writes the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety:
It has been regretted by some great Soldiers … that the use of Pikes [spears] was ever laid aside, and many experienc’d Officers of the present Times agree … [I]ts length reaching beyond the Bayonet, and the compound Force of the Files (every Man laying hold of the presented Pike) rendring a Charge made with them insupportable by any Battalion arm’d only in the common Manner. At this time therefore, when the Spirit of our People supplies more Men than we can furnish with Fire Arms, a Deficiency which all the industry of ours ingenious Gunsmiths cannot suddenly supply; and our Enemies, having at the same time they were about to send regular Armies against undisciplin’d and half-arm’d Farmers and Tradesmen, with the most dastardly Malice endeavour’d to prevail on the other Powers of Europe not to sell us any Arms or Ammunition; the Use of Pikes in one or two Rear Ranks is recommended to the Attention and Consideration of our Battalions. 723
Today, George Washington attributes his lack of action to gunpowder shortages:
[I]t would not be prudent in me to attempt a measure which would necessarily bring on a consumption of all the Ammunition we have, thereby leaving the Army at the Mercy of the Enemy, or to disperse; and the Country to be ravaged
and laid waste at discretion … I know by not doing it, that I shall stand in a very unfavourable light in the opinion of those who expect much & will find little done … [S]uch however is the fate of all those who are obliged to act the part I do …724
Benjamin Rush will recall to John Adams:
In the summer of 1775 or thereabouts I dined in company with General, then Colonel, [Adam] Stephen on his way from Virginia to the camp [in Cambridge]. I sat next to him. In a low tone of voice he asked me who constituted General Washington’s military party … “Are they men of talents?” said he. “Yes, I said.” “I am glad to hear it,” said the General, “for General Washington will require such men about him. He is a weak man. I know him well. I served with him during the last French war.”725
Wednesday, August 30, 1775. Today, for the first time, the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety issues spears to Pennsylvania’s militia.726
Tuesday, September 19, 1775. Today, George Washington writes the Continental Congress:
The State of Inactivity in which this Army has lain for some Time by no Means corresponds with my Wishes by some decisive Stroke to relieve my Country from the heavy Expence its Subsistence must create …
It gives me great Pain to be obliged to sollicit the Attention of the Honorable Congress to the State of this Army, in Terms which imply the slightest Apprehension of being neglected: But my Situation is inexpressibly distressing to see the Winter fast approaching upon a naked Army … [T]he Military Chest is totally exhausted … [T]he greater part of the Troops are in a State not far from Mutiny … [I]f the Evil is not immediately remedied and more punctuality observed in [the] future, the Army must absolutely break up …727