The Life of John Marshall, Volume 1: Frontiersman, soldier, lawmaker, 1755-1788. Albert J. Beveridge

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СКАЧАТЬ was often abandoned by bodies of militia, before their places were filled by others… The soldiers carried off arms and blankets."268

      Bad as the militia were,269 the States did not keep up even this happy-go-lucky branch of the army. "It is a matter of astonishment," savagely wrote Washington to the President of Pennsylvania, two months before Valley Forge, "to every part of the continent, to hear that Pennsylvania, the most opulent and populous of all the States, has but twelve hundred militia in the field, at a time when the enemy are endeavoring to make themselves completely masters of, and to fix their winter quarters in, her capital."270 Even in the Continental line, it appears, Pennsylvania's quota had "never been above one third full; and now many of them are far below even that."271

      Washington's wrath at Pennsylvania fairly blazed at this time, and the next day he wrote to Augustine Washington that "this State acts most infamously, the People of it, I mean, as we derive little or no assistance from them… They are in a manner, totally disaffected or in a kind of Lethargy."272

      The head of the American forces was not the only patriot officer to complain. "The Pennsylvania Associators [militia] … are deserting … notwithstanding the most spirited exertions of their officers," reported General Livingston in the midsummer of 1776.273 General Lincoln and the Massachusetts Committee tried hard to keep the militia of the Bay State from going home; but, moaned Lee, "whether they will succeed, Heaven only knows."274

      General Sullivan determined to quit the service because of abuse and ill-treatment.275 For the same reason Schuyler proposed to resign.276 These were not examples of pique; they denoted a general sentiment among officers who, in addition to their sufferings, beheld their future through none too darkened glasses. They "not only have the Mortification to See every thing live except themselves," wrote one minor officer in 1778, "but they see their private fortune wasting away to make fat those very Miscreants [speculators] … they See their Country … refuse to make any future provision for them, or even to give them the Necessary Supplies."277

      Thousands of the Continentals were often practically naked; Chastellux found several hundred in an invalid camp, not because they were ill, but because "they were not covered even with rags."278 "Our sick naked, and well naked, our unfortunate men in captivity naked"! wailed Washington in 1777.279 Two days before Christmas of that year he informed Congress that, of the force then under his immediate command, nearly three thousand were "barefoot and otherwise naked."280 Sickness was general and appalling. Smallpox raged throughout the army even from the first.281 "The Regimental Surgeons are immediately to make returns … of all the men in their Regiments, who have not had the small Pox,"282 read the orders of the day just after New Year's Day, in 1778.

      Six years after Concord and Lexington, three hundred American soldiers, in a body, wished to join the British.283 Stern measures were taken to prevent desertion and dishonesty and even to enforce the most ordinary duties of soldiers. "In the afternoon three of our regṭ were flogged; – 2 of them received one hundred lashes apiece for attempting to desert; the other received 80 for enlisting twice and taking two bounties,"284 Wild coolly enters in his diary. And again: "This afternoon one of our men was hanged on the grand parade for attempting to desert to the enemy";285 and "at 6 ock P.M. a soldier of Col. Gimatts Battalion was hanged."

      Sleeping on duty meant "Twenty Lashes on … [the] bare back" of the careless sentry.286 A soldier convicted of "getting drunk & losing his Arms" was "Sentenc'd to receive 100 Lashes on his bare back, & pay for his Arms lost."287 A man who, in action, "turns his back on the Enemy" was ordered to be "instantly put … to Death" by the officers.288 At Yorktown in May, 1781, Wayne ordered a platoon to fire on twelve soldiers who were persuading their comrades not to march; six were killed and one wounded, who was, by Wayne's command, enforced by a cocked pistol, then finished with the bayonet thrust into the prostrate soldier by a comrade.289

      Such was the rough handling practiced in the scanty and ill-treated army of individualists which Washington made shift to rally to the patriot colors.290 It was not an encouraging omen. But blacker still was the disorganizing effect of local control of the various "State Lines" which the pompous authority of the newborn "sovereign and independent" Commonwealths asserted.291

      Into this desperate confusion came the young Virginia lieutenant. Was this the manner of liberty? Was this the way a people fighting for their freedom confronted their enemy? The dreams he had dreamed, the visions he had seen back in his Virginia mountains were clad in glories as enchanting as the splendors of their tree-clad summits at break of day – dreams and visions for which strong men should be glad of the privilege of dying if thereby they might be won as realities for all the people. And indeed at this time, and in the even deadlier days that followed, young John Marshall found strong men by his side willing to die and to go through worse than death to make their great dream come true.

      But why thus decrepit, the organization called the American army? Why this want of food even for such of the soldiers as were willing and eager to fight for their country? Why this scanty supply of arms? Why this avoidable sickness, this needless suffering, this frightful waste? What was the matter? Something surely was at fault. It must be in the power that assumed to direct the patriot army. But whence came that power? From Congress? No. Congress had no power; after a while, it did not even have influence. From the States? Yes; that was its source – there was plenty of power in the States.

      But what kind of power, and how displayed? One State did one thing; another State did another thing.292 One State clothed its troops well; another sent no supplies at all.293 One regiment of Maryland militia had no shirts and the men wrapped blankets about their bare bodies.294 One day State troops would come into camp, and the next day leave. How could war be conducted, how could battles be fought and won, through such freakish, uncertain power as that?

      But how could this vaunted liberty, which orators had proclaimed and which Lieutenant Marshall himself had lauded to his frontier companions in arms, be achieved except by a well-organized army, equipped, supplied, and directed by a competent central Government? This was the talk common among the soldiers of the Continental establishment in which John Marshall was a lieutenant. In less than two years after he entered the regular service, even officers, driven to madness and despair by the pusillanimous weakness of Congress, openly denounced that body; and the soldiers themselves, who saw their wounds and sufferings coming to naught, cursed that sham and mockery which the jealousy and shallowness of State provincialism had set up in place of a National Government.295

      All through the latter half of 1776, Lieutenant Marshall of the Third Virginia Regiment marched, suffered, retreated and advanced, and performed his duties СКАЧАТЬ