Evening star., 1915-02-21

common topic of conversation when
the people left Boston last Friday
In private letter of the same time he
wrote: such dearth of public spirit,
such stock jobbing and fertility in all
the low arts to obtain advantages in
this great change of military arrange
ment, l pray Gods mercy 1 may never
see again. What will be the end of
I tremble at the prospect. We have
been until this time enlisting about
thirty-fve hundred men. After
the last of this month our lines will
be so weakened that the mfnutemen
and militia must be called in for our
defense, and these, being under no
kind of government, will destroy the
little subordination I have been labor
evil while l am endeavoring to avoid
another. But the less must be chosen" "
There being no help for 1t, Washing
ton called upon 5000 militia. Many of
the men whose terms were expiring
refused to stay even a few days to fill
their places until the militia could be
collected This course, however, was
not so strange, and was repeated at
the close of every year of the revolu-
tionary struggle, and in every other
engaged where the men were enlisted
for less than the period of the war.
But enlistments were not the only
difficulties within the army that beset
Washington and decreased the number
and effectiveness of his forces, for de-
sertions led by the militia depleted his
ranks.
AS early as August Z. 1775. Washing
ton wrote:
Il find there are great numbers of
soldiers and non-commissioned officers
who absent themselves from duty, some
employed by their officers on their
farms, and others drawing pay from
the public while they are working on
their own plantations or for hire
Gen. Emery Upton, summarizing the
results of the campaign for the first
year. says:
NO matter how absolute the neces-
sity of calling out undisciplined troops,
history teaches that useless extrava-
gance, often accompanied by inaction
or disaster, will surely ensue. Lexing-
ton, Concord and Bunker Hill were the
only military operations near Boston,
and the campaign against Canada, un-
dertaken by undisciplined troops under
Montgomery, was unsuccessful The
total number of troops on the Ameri-
can side was over $1,000; and for the
most part this force, from want of sup
plies, organization and discipline, was
maintained at public expense in a state
of demoraliZing inactivity"
Such was the condition of things that
in January, 1776, Washington wrote:
Search the volumes of history, and
you will not find a case like ours, to
maintain. a post against the flower OF
the British troops for six months to-
gether, without powder, and then to
have one army disbanded and another
to be raised within the same distance
of a reinforced army. 1t is too much
to attempt. Thus for more than
two months past have scarcely
emerged from one difficulty before /
have been plunged into another"
In n letter to Congress IN February,
Washington discusses the danger OF
short term enliStmentS and attributes
to this evil the probable cause of the
failure of the Canadian expedition. the
loss of Quebec and the death OF Mont
gomery. pointing out that that excellent
general did not dare TO be$ieEe tne
city, lest his men should insist upon
going home because their enlistments
had expired, and he, accepting the al
tentative of retreat or assault, took the
la tier and failed. Washington gave the
weight of his name to the military
canon which by this country has so
often been disregarded to it's sorrow
and cost, when he said:
To bring men to be well acquainted
with the duties of soldier requires
time. To bring them under proper dis
cipline and subordination not only re-
uuires time but is a work of great dif-
ficulty, and in this country, where there
is so little distinction between the Of
ficers and soldiers, requires an uncom-
mon degree of attention. To expect.
then, the same service from raw and
undiSciplined recruits as from veteran