Posted on 07/05/2005 6:04:42 PM PDT by neverdem
WHEN George Washington, in a spiffy uniform of buff and blue and sitting his horse with a grace uncommon even among Virginians vain about their horsemanship, arrived outside Boston in July 1775 to assume command of the American rebellion, he was aghast.
When he got a gander at his troops, mostly New Englanders, his reaction was akin to the Duke of Wellington's assessment of his troops, many of them the sweepings of Britain's slums, during the Peninsular War: "I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me."
You think today's red state/blue state antagonism is unprecedented? Washington thought New Englanders "exceeding dirty and nasty." He would not have disputed the British Gen. John Burgoyne's description of the Americans besieging Boston as "a rabble in arms." A rabble that consumed, by one sober estimate, a bottle of rum per man each day.
If, in the autumn of 1775, a council of Washington's officers had not restrained him from a highly risky amphibious attack on Boston across the shallow Back Bay, there might never have been a Declaration of Independence.
If a young officer, Henry Knox, had not had the ingenuity to conceive, and the tenacity to execute, a plan for dragging captured mortars, some weighing a ton, and cannon, some weighing 21/2 tons, the 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain to the Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston, the British might have fought, and perhaps won, rather than evacuating the city.
If after the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn, the first great battle of the war, a fog had not allowed 9,000 of Washington's soldiers to escape across the East River, the war might have effectively ended less than two months after the Declaration.
So says David McCullough in his new book "1776,"...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
If "Ifs" and "buts" were coconuts, we would all be drinking Pina Coladas instead of water.
It was highly improbable, but it did happen. It must have been Bush's fault...:)
I want to read this book.
It's next on my reading list.
If, said the Queen, I had $%$%s I'd be King!
His book on Adams was fantastic. Adams has never sparked much imagination or even interest in me, but good grief that book was tremendous and made me rethink a lot of what I thought I knew of Adams.
I've read it. VERY good. GW WAS THE MAN!!!!!
We managed to win the Revolutionary War, but people whine that it's impossible for us to win today. Sheese!
was there luck? certainly...
I prefer to think of it as Divine fate personally...
BTW, if you liked the John Adams book, you'll like the Benjamin Franklin biography.
This is interesting. McCullough, according to this, is a conservative ...
Clear and compelling histories that don't seek to denegrate America's heroes ... who'd have guessed? /s
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/06/con05201.html
It's called real history.
Washington was truly the indispensible man. The 3,000 men who forded the Delaware on Christmas Eve in horrible weather and went on in blinding snowstorm to take the Hessians without the loss of a single soldier (excepting 2 who froze to death trying to get to Trenton)....they were indispensible to us today recongnizing and realizing we owe our freedom to them. Men we don't even know of their names. But, by God, they were Americans. Sit down and think of their hardship, really pontificate on it and it will make you want to weep for what they did for us all.
There is one big problem with the book....It stopped at January 1777.......Some things just leave you wanting more.
LOL! Don't tell me how it ends!
The people who whine and complain about "torture" and quagmires are "men" with petticoat brains.
"GW WAS THE MAN!!!!!"
Absolutely correct. He combined a toughness exceeded by no one with absolutely solid morality of the first order.
One point of personal pride. This sword of steel was "forged" right in my neck of the woods---Western PA.
As a young guy of 20 or so, obviously tough already, Washignton was given command of the Virginians who came to Western PA to counter the French move into the area (remember, he was a Brit at that point.)
Money was scarce, so they paid soldiers an absolute minimum. Hence, his "soldiers" were basically drunks and neer do wells. Washington had no military training (nor, it must be admitted, any great natural genius as a soldier---his genius--unparalleled in history, was for leadership).
I believe most men would have simply given up.
It never occured to George.
He just stuck it out---and got tougher.
He gained the complete respect and loyalty of his men. Even the leading British Indian ally, Half King, declared his complete respect for Washington, although he added he was "crazy" to work his men so hard.
Like many in the area, I have rafted down a whitewater river here---the Youghaghenny. Washington was probably the first person to write about this river---in his journal of discovery of the area in an early expedition. When he first found the river, he thought going up the Yough might be an easy way to cut travel time. Not likely, George!
"I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me."
LOL!
"It's called real history."
Complete agreement. It's wierd now that there are two views of history, the Left (lies) and the Right (nothing more than truth.)
It's a central point, though. We oppose Left Wing Ideology, but we have no Ideology. Ideology is a lie.
"The 3,000 men who forded the Delaware..."
You have touched a point that has obsessed me. The Brits and us (as I understand it) started out with 50,000 men apiece (approximately) in NYC.
By the time of Trenton, the Brits still had close to 50,000, and we had 3000. Most of our troops had simply walked away and gone back to their farms. This they could do with no penalty. The British had instituted an 'automatic pardon' for everyone but Washington (who was to be hanged.)
I agree with you, the birth of our nation depended on those 3000 guys. So why did they stay, when 40,000 or so walked away?
Patriotisim? For a country that didn't even exist yet. Democracy and Freedom? Possibly a too-abstract explanation.
I have come up with 2 reasons. 1) These were the tough guys. None of them was willing to be a chicken, no matter what. Each had too much pride in front of the other guys.
2) The one you mentioned. Washington was the man. he personally led them.
I thoroughly enjoyed Benjamin's autobiography. His description of Philidelphia when he first arrived there was amazing to me considering what it looks like today. I can't even imagine ever looking like he described it.
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