CHAPTER XXIV THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1775-1782 It was no simple strategical situation which confronted King George's ministers when at last the opposition in the North American Colonies developed into armed rebellion. The mother country's superiority in population and resources was virtually neutralised by the geographical conditions. To maintain an army in so distant and difficult a theatre of war was well calculated to tax the most efficient administration, let alone the cumbrous, complicated, haphazard machinery by which the British Army of 1775 was controlled.1 The country was vast in extent, thinly populated, cultivated only in patches, ill-supplied with roads and in large degree forest-clad. Far from being able to "live on the country", the British forces were largely dependent on home for provisions as well as for military stores and equipment. At every turn the British generals were hampered by administrative difficulties, arising from the delays and uncertainties then inevitably attending upon the transport of reinforcements and supplies across 3000 miles of stormy seas, while the consequent obstacles to framing and pursuing a sound strategy were considerably increased by the rudimentary political and economic development of the thirteen colonies. If it made them weak for offensive purposes their very want of political union made them hard to hit effectively. Military objectives would have been easier to find and victories in the field more effective against a more centralised and highly organised community. To conquer Canada it had sufficed for Wolfe to defeat Montcalm's regulars on the Plains of Abraham and for Amherst's converging columns to corner Montcalm's successor at Montreal, but Washington's defeats at Brooklyn and the Brandywine mattered little to communities of hardy and self-reliant farmers and fishermen economically independent of each other, on whose stubborn wills the small forces of King George found any lasting impression exceedingly hard to produce. For the difficult task before it the British army had no advantage in point of numbers, except in the campaign of 1776, or in equipment and arms, or in superior mobility, except so far as the Navy could enable it to move freely along the coast and in tidal waters. Its establishment was low, there was no provision for rapid expansion, 1 Fortescue, J. W., History of the British Army, vol. m; Curtis, Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution, esp. chap. ii. 2 Curtis, p. 81. it had to rely on improvised transport, and its weapons differed but little from those of its adversaries, who if they sometimes lacked bayonets could equally often oppose "Brown Bess" with a rifled flint-lock. If it included many who had seen active service in the Seven Years' War, the Americans enjoyed this advantage also; and of higher organisation or settled military policy there was no trace. It was "an army of regiments" only, though many of its regiments were well trained and disciplined, and in their discipline, their traditions and their spirit the British army possessed invaluable assets, as the record of the pitched battles of the war was to show. Still the odds against it were heavy, and not the least charge against North and his fellow-ministers is that, while they were not prepared to avoid the otherwise inevitable contest by conceding the colonists' demands, they failed altogether to make adequate preparation for war either by land or sea. Even in September 1774 Gage had at Boston only four battalions, barely 2000 men, not nearly enough to enforce the coercive Acts directed against Massachusetts or to maintain the royal authority which was openly defied that autumn by the seizure at Newport of the cannon mounted to protect the harbour and by the authorisation by Congress of the collection and manufacture of arms.1 Gage had warned Dartmouth plainly that to make New England submit would require 20,000 men, but the Government's measures for asserting its challenged authority fell far short of the requirements, and though during the winter his force was raised to nearly 6000, it lacked transport and camp equipment. 2 Hostilities actually began when, on 17 April 1775, 800 men whom Gage had despatched to destroy stores which the Provincial Congress had collected at Concord, twenty miles away, encountered armed resistance at Lexington. Overcoming this, the detachment pushed on to Concord, discharged its errand despite further opposition, and then started its return journey to find the whole countryside up in arms. Harassed by superior numbers of sharp-shooters the party only escaped annihilation because Gage had sent four battalions to Lexington to assist it; these, though suffering severely themselves, extricated the survivors of the first detachment. Nearly 300 officers and men were casualties, and the Americans, elated by their first encounter with British regulars, flocked to arms so eagerly that Gage soon found himself beleaguered in Boston by 20,000 men. Moreover, a party of New Englanders under Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had surprised the weakly-held posts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, thereby securing control of Lake Champlain and the direct route to Canada, while from the other colonies the royal governors were driven out headlong, Lord Dunmore in Virginia, where a few regulars were available, alone offering any resistance. Canada, however, though * Ibid, m, 216. 1 Correspondence of George III (ed. Fortescue), m, 158–61. Mackenzie, F., A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston. weakly garrisoned, did not join the insurgents, and in Nova Scotia and the Floridas British authority remained unshaken. Gage's situation was highly unsatisfactory.1 Though his communications by sea were open, the inadequacy of the squadron on the station and the inertness of its admiral, Samuel Graves,2 allowed the privateers who soon swarmed out from every New England fishing village to become a serious menace, while he had let the Americans anticipate him in fortifying the dominating heights south and west of Boston harbour. To the north, the Charleston peninsula projected into the harbour and from it artillery could command both town and anchorage. Gage, therefore, decided to seize it, but the Americans discovered his intention and during the night of 16-17 June they occupied the peninsula and started entrenching themselves on Breed's Hill. This rash venture should have been signally punished had Gage only landed troops in rear of the entrenchment and used his light-draught warships to co-operate in intercepting the American retreat. But he plunged headlong into a frontal attack, which gave every chance to the already well-entrenched American marksmen, and only succeeded at a third attempt after two had been bloodily repulsed, with 1200 British casualties, amounting to nearly half the force engaged. "Bunker's Hill", as the action is usually known, ranks among the finest achievements of British infantry and largely explains the Americans' reluctance to endeavour to dislodge the garrison of Boston by direct attack. Nevertheless it showed clearly that any attempt to raise the blockade by assaulting the investing lines would be prohibitively costly, and Gage resigned himself to an inert defensive which depressed and disgusted the troops. Howe, who replaced him in September, realised that even if he could storm the enemy's lines, want of land transport would render that success barren. The true road to the repression of the rebellion was to him the capture of New York as a preliminary to isolating New England, the heart of the insurrection, by securing the line of the Hudson. This he thought would be greatly facilitated if combined with an advance from Canada by Lake Champlain.5 But at the moment it was doubtful whether Canada, like New York, would not first need to be recaptured. The Canadians, though little disposed to bestir themselves for the Crown, had no sympathy for the thirteen colonies and their attitude. had emboldened Sir Guy Carleton, the governor, to spare several battalions to reinforce Gage. Canada was ill-prepared, therefore, for the vigorous attack delivered in the autumn of 1775 along the Lake 1 Corresp. of George III, m, 215 seqq. Hist. MSS Comm., Stopford-Sackville MSS, п, 2, 6; cf. James, W. M., The British Navy in Adversity, p. 27. 3 Hist. MSS Comm., Rutland MSS, m, 2; Corresp. of George III, m, 220-5. 4 Stuart, A Prime Minister and his Son, pp. 68 seqq. (quoted as "Stuart”). 5 Stopford-Sackville MSS, 11, 9; Corresp. of George III, ш, 2424. Champlain route by a force under Richard Montgomery.1 Though held up by the stout defence of St John's, by capturing Chambly Montgomery obtained enough ammunition and supplies to reduce St John's also (3 November); whereupon he pushed on to Montreal which Carleton had hastily to evacuate. Quebec, meanwhile, was seriously threatened by another force under Arnold which had appeared before its walls on 13 November after an adventurous march through a wilderness of mountains and forests in Maine, though fortunately for Carleton a regiment recently raised from Highland settlers had arrived at Quebec just before Arnold. Montgomery joined Arnold early in December, but on 31 December their assault on Quebec was decisively repulsed, Montgomery being killed and Arnold disabled. The Americans maintained a blockade till May, but disease and desertion so thinned their ranks that Carleton had little cause for further anxiety.2 The year 1775 had gone better for the insurgents than for the British because the ministry, being quite unprepared for war, could not despatch a really strong force to America directly they heard of Lexington, and thereby missed all chance of nipping the insurrection in the bud, besides giving the Americans a year for their preparations. With a home establishment, including Ireland, of 30,000, from which the Boston garrison had already been drawn, and recruiting none too good3 except in Scotland, North had to fall back on hiring mercenaries. An effort to obtain Russians failed, but treaties were concluded with Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, Waldeck and Anspach for 18,000 men, though none of these contingents could start till the spring of 1776. Had Gage had 20,000 men by August 1775 success would have been within his reach. If the most persistent error of North's ministry was to base its plans on expectations of help from Loyalists who were never as numerous or as ready to run risks for the royal cause as Whitehall imagined, the zealous partisans of independence were in a minority outside New England and Virginia, and the New England militia, though formidable when fighting under conditions that favoured them, had the defects of their qualities and entirely lacked discipline and organisation. George Washington, who was appointed to command the "Continental Army" on 15 June, had a gigantic task in making an efficient army out of some excellent but very raw material. He had to contend against ridiculously short terms of enlistment, inter-colonial jealousies-the New Englanders criticised his partiality for Virginians-deficiencies of equipment, insubordination both of officers and men, and indifferent administrative arrangements. Supplies were cheap and plentiful, but the troops 1 Hist. MSS Comm., Dartmouth MSS, 1, 395. 2 Ibid. 1, 405-7. Corresp. of George III, ш, 249. BOSTON EVACUATED 721 suffered nearly as much from eating too much meat as from bad sanitation and the want of camp discipline.1 Men came and went practically as they liked, showed little readiness to re-enlist when time-expired and resented all efforts to establish proper subordination. If Ticonderoga had provided the insurgents with ample artillery, ammunition was exceedingly scarce, hardly any was manufactured in the country, and a vigorous attack could hardly have been withstood for want of cartridges.2 The royal troops, however, were in scarcely better case, and the ubiquitous American privateers assisted Washington appreciably by intercepting Howe's storeships. The critical situation at Quebec had been accentuated by the capture of a brig carrying ordnance stores3 and the troops suffered severely from the loss of a ship laden with warm clothing. For these losses and for failing to prevent the importation of munitions from the French West Indies Graves was generally blamed, but it was difficult to suppress the privateers without troops to attack their bases, and troops Howe did not feel able to provide. Moreover, the Admiralty's failure to reinforce his squadron handicapped him severely, and was the more serious error because the fishing and trading interests of the colonies rendered them peculiarly susceptible to vigorous and systematic naval action. Some people, indeed, including Lord Barrington, the Secretary at War, were so impressed with this idea that they would have relied mainly on naval pressure to reduce the colonists to obedience, though an effective naval blockade would have required the assistance of troops not only against the harbours which served the colonists as bases, but for the protection of the Navy's own bases along the coast. 6 The winter thus passed away without material change at Boston, but on 5 March 1776 the Americans secured a commanding position by occupying Dorchester Neck. Bad weather prevented an immediate counter-attack and allowed them to complete their entrenchments, so there was no alternative to evacuating the city forthwith. This was the more difficult through shortage of tonnage' and the necessity for removing Loyalists, but it was accomplished without molestation (17 March). Howe would have preferred to attack New York at once, but shortage of supplies and the crowding of his transports forced him to make for Halifax, where his troops had to remain from 2 April till 11 June, awaiting supplies and reinforcements. Of the latter six battalions had been diverted, despite Howe's vigorous protests, to North Carolina to co-operate with the local Loyalists, 1 Stopford-Sackville MSS, 11, 13-16. 2 Stephenson, O. W., "Ammunition in 1776", Am. H.R. xxx. Evelyn, W. G., Memoir and Letters, p. 74; Stopford-Sackville MSS, 11, 20. ♦ Ibid. n, 10; Hist. MSS Comm., Knox MSS, p. 121. 5 Howe to Dartmouth, 13 Dec. 1775, C.O. v, 93. • Stuart, pp. 76-80. 8 Howe to Germain, 7 May, C.O. v, 93. 7 Howe, Narrative, p. 3. • Howe to Dartmouth, 16 Jan., C.O. v, 93. CHBE I 46 |