troops. He told them what he thought of them, promised to kill the evil ones himself. He told them they were thieves as well as poltroons:

"Some instance of infamous Cowardice, and some of scandalous plunder, and Riot, having lately appeared, the General is resolved, to bring the offenders to exemplary punishment, the notion which seems too much to prevail, of laying hold of property, not under immediate care, or guard, is utterly destructive of all Honesty, or good Order, and will prove the ruin of any Army, when it prevails. It is therefore hoped the Officers will exert themselves to put a stop to it on all future occasions. If they do not, e'er long Death will be the portion of some of the offenders." 23

The next day he had to write to Congress:

"Our affairs have not undergone a change for the better . The militia under various pretences are daily diminishing. . . . On Monday night a forty-gun ship passed up the Sound."

He had her bombarded to shelter behind an island, but the Admiral with the main fleet was in the bay, and other ships were in the upper river. They had come round Long Island.

"Communication is entirely cut off. . . . I have sent away and am removing above Kingsbridge, all our stores that . . . will not be immediately wanted." 24

...

If he had thought ill of his troops before, he would now behold superlatives of panic that led him to imitate old Braddock, and beat his officers and men across the backs they turned to the enemy.

Braddock had been slain in his rage, and Washington wanted to die. He stood out alone in front of his fleeing troops and invited the bullets to end his agony of shame and helplessness.

T

XXXIII

"THE CROWNING DISGRACE"

HE Hessians had been encouraged to hope that they could add to their pay by taking plunder from the sacrilegious savages who denied their divine King. By similar reasoning the Americans had justified the pillage of a continent from the Indians.

But Washington's soldiers, if he himself can be believed. among a multitude of witnesses, rivalled the Hessians in cruelty and viciousness, not only toward the loyalists whom Congress and soldiers alike robbed of their every right as Americans, but toward their fellow-patriots.

The soldiers were not entirely without excuse. Most of them had not had a cent of pay for two months. And New York even then was uncomfortable for visitors without money.

As Washington wrote:

"I must take the liberty of mentioning to Congress the great distress we are in for want of money. Two months' pay (and more to some battalions) is now due to the troops here, without any thing in the military chest to satisfy it. . . . As it may ... produce consequences of the most fatal tendency, I entreat the attention of Congress to this subject." 1

Besides, many of the soldiers were farmers who wanted to take home with them trophies of their visit to the great city of almost twenty thousand inhabitants.

2

Graydon tells that when the guards at Kingsbridge stopped one of them "with a number of notions in a bag, there was found among them, a cannon ball, which, he said,

he was taking home to his mother for the purpose of pounding mustard."

The rank and file were so loose in their attendance at camp that Washington ordered three roll calls a day to keep them in hand and prevent such "diabolical practices" as robbing houses, apple orchards and gardens.

He was particularly distressed by the Connecticut militia which was already "reduced from six thousand to less than two thousand and in a few days will be merely nominal.""

He tried to write politely to the Governor of the State that the Connecticut militia were really not feeling well, or had left home too soon, or something.

"I fear, that the militia, by leaving their homes so suddenly, and in a manner unprepared for a long absence, have sustained some injury."

But his disgust got the better of him, and he went on:

"Their want of discipline, the indulgences they claim and have been allowed, their unwillingness, I may add, refusal to submit to that regularity and order essential to every army infecting the rest of our troops more or less, have been of pernicious tendency, and occasioned a good deal of confusion and disorder." "

He praised the zealous governor for his "strenuous exertions and prudent forecast," and Connecticut tried to redeem herself by ordering heavy levies, while Massachusetts, as usual, responded swiftly to the need by drafting a fifth of her population."

Congress ordered to the North still more troops from the South. But this only increased the fires of ancient prejudice between the two sections. As usual after a defeat, acrid consolation was found in tossing the blame from one side to the other. The Southern troops had in general behaved as well as possible, and they lumped the Northern heroes and cowards in one contemptible bundle,

Doctor Gordon quotes a letter from an unnamed brigadier concerning the hostility between the different sections:

"It has already risen to such a height, that the Pennsylvania and New-England troops would as soon fight each other as the enemy. Officers of all ranks are indiscriminately treated in a most contemptible manner, and whole colonies traduced and vilified as cheats, knaves, cowards, paltroons, hypocrites, and every term of reproach, for no other reason, but because they are situated east of New-York. Every honor is paid to the merit of good men from the south; the merit, if such be possible, from the north is not acknowledged; but if too apparent to be blasted with falshood, is carefully buried in oblivion. The cowardice or misbehaviour of the south is carefully covered over, the least misconduct in the gentlemen of the north is published with large comments and aggravations."

Going about collecting material for his history from all sources, interviewing toillessly-and tiresomely, and plagiarizing freely, Dr. Gordon may be believed when he cites this statement of some eminent man to a member of Congress:

"Almost every villany and rascality that can disgrace the man, the soldier or the citizen, is daily practised without meeting the punishment they merit. So many of our officers want honor, and so many of our soldiers want virtue, civil, social, and military, that nothing but the severest punishments will keep both from practices which must ruin us. The infamous and cruel ravages, which have been made on the wretched distressed inhabitants of this unfortunate island (New-York) by many of our soldiers, must disgrace and expose our army to detestation. I have heard some tales of woe, occasioned by the robberies of our army, which would extort sighs from the hearts of tygers. Our men are at present only robbers; that they will soon be murderers unless some are hanged, I have little doubt.'

He tells of a surgeon who was drummed out of camp for selling certificates of disability "at sixpence sterling, and any one was welcome to a certificate for that sum." Others did the same. He says that some of the surgeons had never

seen an operation, and "were unlettered and ignorant to a degree scarcely to be imagined."

The diminution of Washington's army, now numbering about 20,000, was not altogether due to desertion. Washington said that "the fourth part of our whole army" was incapacitated by illness.

There were thousands of sick and wounded lying about the town in ghastly misery without proper care. The condition of the hospitals of that day, even in time of peace, was frightful; in war it was unbelievable. Washington had gone so far as to break up the regimental hospitals, because of their evils. Now he pleaded with Congress for nurses, even if their pay had to be increased to "a dollar a week . . . for less they cannot be had."

There were no women nurses, of course; for the example of a Florence Nightingale was nearly half a century away. The day of anesthetics and asepsis was still farther off.

Washington's unfortunate invalids had to be tended mainly by soldiers assigned to the task "whose service by that means is entirely lost and but little benefit rendered to the sick." He was trying to get them out of town against the day of evacuation, and he could not find fit "places for their reception. I fear their sufferings will be great and many."9

The efforts at reconciliation made Washington as sick as anything else, realizing as he did that every time the nation paused to argue peace its war morale was lessened. But he had no meddlesomeness in his nature and offered no protest against the commission sent by Congress to debate with Howe. John Adams and Franklin were on it and they had a parley that achieved everything polite and nothing political.

Lord Howe was authorized to grant pardons even to Washington. John Adams, however, was expressly excepted