Washington was chairman of a meeting at Alexandria in July that adopted the Fairfax Resolves, and he was elected one of the delegates to the 1st Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia in September. There the Fairfax Resolves provided the basis for the principal agreement signed by its members--the Continental Association. This forbade the importing into the colonies of all goods from Britain and all goods subject to British taxes. Moreover, it authorized all towns and counties to set up committees empowered to enforce its provisions. The Continental Congress thus enacted law and created a new government dedicated to resisting British rule. Washington spent the winter of 1774-1775 in Virginia, organizing independent military companies which were to aid the local committees in enforcing the Continental Association and, if need be, to fight against British troops.
The American Revolution
When the 2d Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775, the fighting near Boston (Lexington-Concord) had occurred. The British Army was cooped up in Boston, surrounded by nearly 14,000 New England militiamen. On Feb. 2, 1775, the British House of Commons had declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. This imputed to the people of that colony the crime of treason. Washington, by appearing at the 2d Congress in uniform (the only member thus attired), expressed his support of Massachusetts and his readiness to fight against Britain. In June, Congress created the Continental Army and incorporated into it the armed New Englanders around Boston, undertaking to supply and pay them and to provide them with generals. On June 15, Washington was unanimously elected general and commander in chief.
The tribute of a unanimous election reflected his influence in Congress, which endured throughout the American Revolution despite disagreements among the members. In 1775 they divided into three groups. The militants, led by Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Richard Henry Lee, favored vigorous military action against Britain. Most of them foresaw the need of effective aid from France, which the colonies could obtain only by offering their commerce. Before that could be done they must become independent states. Another group, the moderates, represented by Benjamin Harrison and Robert Morris, hoped that a vigorous prosecution of the war would force Britain to make a pro-American settlement. Only as a last resort would the moderates turn to independence. The third group, the conciliationists, led by John Dickinson, favored defensive measures and looked to "friends of America" in England to work out a peace that would safeguard American rights of self-taxation, thereby keeping the colonies in the British Empire. Washington agreed with the militants and the moderates as to the need for offensive action. The conciliationists and the moderates, as men of fortune, trusted him not to use the army to effect an internal revolution that would strip them of their property and political influence.
Early in the war, Washington and the army had to act as if they were agents of a full-grown nation. Yet Congress, still in an embryonic state, could not provide suddenly a body of law covering all the issues that figure in a major war. Many actions had to be left to Washington's discretion. His commission (June 17, 1775) stated: "You are hereby vested with full power and authority to act as you shall think for the good and welfare of the service." There was a danger that a strong general might use the army to set up a military dictatorship. It was therefore urgent that the army would be under a civil authority. Washington agreed with the other leaders that Congress must be the superior power. Yet the army needed a good measure of freedom of action. A working arrangement gave such freedom, while preserving the authority of Congress. If there was no need for haste, Washington advised that certain steps should be taken, and Congress usually approved. In emergencies, he acted on his own authority and at once reported what he had done. If Congress disapproved, he was so informed, and the action was not repeated. If Congress did nothing, its silence signified assent. So attentive was Washington to Congress, and so careful was he when acting on his own initiative, that no serious conflict clouded his relations with the civil authority.
Washington Takes Command
When he took command of the army at Cambridge on July 3, 1775, the majority of Congress was reluctant to adopt measures that denoted independence, although favoring an energetic conduct of the war. The government of Lord North decided to send an overpowering army to America, and to that end tried to recruit 20,000 mercenaries in Russia. On August 23, George III issued the Royal Proclamation of Rebellion, which branded Washington as guilty of treason and threatend him with "condign punishment." Early in October, Washington concluded that in order to win the war the colonies must become independent.
In August 1775, Washington insisted to Gen. Thomas Gage, the British commander at Boston, that American officers captured by the British should be treated as prisoners of war--not as criminals (that is, rebels). In this, Washington asserted that the conflict was a war between two separate powers and that the Union was on a par with Britain. He defended the rank of American officers as being drawn from "the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power." In August-September he initiated an expedition for the conquest of Canada and invited the king's subjects there to join the 13 colonies in an "indissoluble union." About the same time he created a navy of six vessels, which he sent out to capture British ships bringing supplies to Boston. Congress had not favored authorizing a navy, then deemed to be an arm of an independent state. Early in November, Washington inaugurated a campaign for arresting, disarming, and detaining the Tories. Because their leaders were agents of the British crown, his policy struck at the highest symbol of Britain's authority. He urged the opening of American ports to French ships and used his prestige and the strength of the army to encourage leaders of the provincial governments to adopt measures that committed their colonies to independence. His influence was evident in the campaigns for independence in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. He contributed as much to the decision for independence as any man. The Declaration of Independence was formally adopted on July 4, 1776.
The Military Campaigns
Washington's military record during the revolution is highly creditable. His first success came on March 17, 1776, when the British evacuated Boston. He had kept them surrounded and immobilized during a siege of more than eight months. He had organized a first American army and had recruited and trained a second. His little fleet had distressed the British by intercepting their supplies. Lack of powder and cannon long kept him from attacking. Once they had been procured, he occupied, on March 4-5, 1776, a strong position on Dorchester Heights, Mass., where he could threaten to bombard the British camp. The evacuation made him a hero by proving that the Americans could overcome the British in a major contest. For five months thereafter the American cause was brightened by the glow of this outstanding victory--a perilous time when confidence was needed to sustain morale.
Washington's next major achievement was made in the second half of 1776, when he avoided a serious defeat and held the army together in the face of overwhelming odds. In July and August the British invaded southern New York with 34,000 well-equipped troops. In April, Washington's force had consisted of only 7,500 effective men. Early in June, Congress had called 19,800 militia for service in Canada and New York. In a few weeks Washington had to weld a motley throng into a unified force. Even then his men were outnumbered three to two by the British. Although he suffered a series of minor defeats (Brooklyn Heights, August 26-29; Kip's Bay, September 15; Harlem Heights, September 16; White Plains, October 28; Fort Washington, November 16), the wonder is that he escaped a catastrophe.
After the setbacks in New York, he retreated through New Jersey, crossing the Delaware River in December. The American cause now sank to its lowest ebb. Washington's main army, reduced to 3,000 men, seemed about to disintegrate. It appeared that the British could march easily to Philadelphia. Congress moved to Baltimore. In these dire straits Washington made a dramatic move that ended an agonizing campaign in a blaze of glory. On the stormy night of December 25-26 he recrossed the Delaware, surprised Britain's Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, and captured 1,000 prisoners. This move gave him a striking position in central New Jersey, whereupon the British ceased offensive operations and pulled back to the vicinity of New York.
On Oct. 17, 1777, Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, N. Y., his army of 5,000 men--all that were left of the 9,500 who had invaded New York from Canada. To this great victory Washington made two contributions. First, in September 1775, he sent an expedition to conquer Canada. Although that aim was not attained, the project put the Americans in control of the approaches to northern New York, particularly Lake Champlain. Burgoyne encountered so many obstacles there that his advance was seriously delayed. That in turn gave time for the militia of New England to turn out in force and to contribute decisively to his defeat. Second, in 1777, Washington conducted a campaign near Philadelphia that prevented Gen. William Howe from using his large army for the relief of Burgoyne. Washington's success at Trenton had placed him where he could both defend Philadelphia and strike at British-held New York. Howe had thereupon undertaken a campaign with the hope of occupying Philadelphia and of crushing Washington's army. Although Washington suffered minor defeats--at Brandywine Creek on September 11 and at Germantown on October 4--he again saved his army and, by engaging Howe in Pennsylvania, made possible the isolation and eventual defeat of Burgoyne.
Unable to overcome Washington in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the British shifted their main war effort to the South. In 1781 their invasion of Virginia enabled Washington to strike a blow that virtually ended the war. France had joined the United States as a full-fledged ally in February 1778, thereby putting French troops at Washington's disposal and, more important, giving him the support of a strong navy which he deemed essential to victory. His plan of 1781 called for an advance from New York to Virginia of a large American-French army which would act in concert with the French fleet, to which was assigned the task of controlling Chesapeake Bay, thereby preventing an escape by sea of the British forces under Lord Cornwallis. Washington's army trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va., on the York River, and the French admiral, count de Grasse, gained command of the bay. Outnumbered, surrounded on land, and cut off by sea, Cornwallis surrendered his 7,000 troops on October 19. Although Britain still had large forces in America, the Yorktown blow, along with war weariness induced by six years of failure, moved the war party in England to resign in March 1782 in favor of a ministry willing to make peace on the basis of the independence of the United States.
Political Leadership During the War
Washington's political leadership during the Revolution suggests that of an active president of later times. He labored constantly to keep people of all classes at work for the cause. He held a central position between two extremes. He strove to retain the support of the common people, who made up the army and--as farmers and workers--produced the supplies. Composing the left wing, they cherished democratic ideas that they hoped to realize by popular rule in the state governments. Washington appealed to them by his faith in popular sovereignty, his sponsorship of a republic and the rights of man, and his unceasing efforts to assure that his soldiers were well paid and adequately supplied with food, clothing, arms, medical care, and shelter. His personal bravery, industry, and attention to duty also endeared him to the rank and file, as did his sharing of dangers and hardships, as symbolized by his endurance at Valley Forge during the bleak winter of 1777-1778. The right wing consisted of conservatives whose leaders were men of wealth. Washington retained their confidence by refusing to use the army to their detriment and by insisting on order, discipline, and respect for leadership. It was his aim that the two wings should move in harmony. In this he succeeded so fully that the American Revolution is rare among political upheavals for its absence of purges, reigns of terror, seizures of power, and liquidation of opponents.
Before 1778, Washington was closely affiliated with the left wing. Afterward, he depended increasingly on the conservatives. In the winter of 1777-1778 there was some talk of replacing him with Gen. Horatio Gates, the popular hero of Saratoga. This estranged Washington from some of the democratic leaders who sponsored Gates. The French alliance, coming after the American people had made heavy sacrifices, tended to relax their efforts now that France would carry much of the burden. These developments lessened the importance of the popular leaders in Washington's counsels and increased the standing of the conservatives. Washington sought maximum aid from France, but also strove to keep the American war effort at a high pitch lest France should become the dominant partner--a result he wished to avoid. His character and tact won the confidence and respect of the French, as typified by the friendship of the Marquis de Lafayette.
In 1782 some of the army officers, irked by the failure of Congress to fulfill a promise concerning their pay, threatened to march to Philadelphia and to use force to obtain satisfaction. In an address on March 15, 1783, Washington persuaded the officers to respect Congress and pledged to seek a peaceful settlement. Congress responded to his appeals by granting the officers five years' full pay, and the crisis ended. It evoked from Washington a striking statement condemning government by mere force. "If men," he wrote, "are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious ... consequences, ... reason is of no use to us, the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter."
Throughout the war, Washington retained a commanding position in the army. Generals Philip Schuyler, Henry Knox, Nathanael Green, and Henry Lee were especially attached to him. His relations with Horatio Gates became strained but not ruptured. A rebuke to Charles Lee so angered that eccentric general as to cause him eventually to retire and to denounce Washington as a demigod. General Benedict Arnold suffered a somewhat milder, though merited, rebuke shortly before he agreed to sell information to Britain about the defenses at West Point.
(In 1976 an act of Congress promoted Washington to six-star General of the Armies so that he would rank above all other American generals.)
The Confederation Years
After the war, several states were beset with troubles that alarmed Washington and conservative leaders who were close to him. British merchants flooded the United States with British goods. Inadequate markets abroad for American products obliged American merchants to export coin or to buy imports on credit. Britain excluded American ships from the trade of the British West Indies, to the distress of New England. A shortage of money depressed the prices of American products and enhanced the difficulty of paying debts--not only those owed to British merchants but also those that had been contracted by Congress or the states to finance the war. As the debt burdens grew, debtors demanded that the states issue large quantities of paper money. About half the states did so. Such paper depreciated, to the loss of creditors. The strife between debtor and creditor in Massachusetts exploded in an uprising, Shays' Rebellion, that threatened to overthrow the state government.
Apprehensive men turned to Washington for leadership. It seemed to them, and to him, that the troubles of the times flowed from the weaknesses of the central government under the Articles of Confederation. The Union could not provide a single, stable, adequate currency because the main powers over money were vested in the states. Because Congress could not tax, it could not maintain an army and navy. Nor could it pay either the principal or the interest on the national debt. Washington believed that the central government should be strengthened so that it could safeguard property, protect creditors against hostile state laws, afford the Union a uniform, nondepreciating currency, and collect taxes in order both to pay the national debt and to obtain revenues sufficient for current needs. He also thought that Congress should be empowered to foster domestic manufacturing industries as a means of lessening the importation of foreign goods. Washington's anxieties over events in the 1780's were deepened by his memories of bitter experiences during the Revolution, when the weakness of Congress and the power of the states had handicapped the army in countless ways.