General George Washington, In The Face of the Invasion of a Common Enemy, Urges the Unity of All States and Warns That Threatening That Unity Is “Manifestly injurious to the common cause – and an indirect breach of the union”

A crucial manifestation of his conviction that one must place national interests over and parochial or personal ones, a conviction that characterized his military leadership, his presidency, and indeed his life

Of all the services George Washington performed for the American people, the most important one may well have been to keep the Continental Army from disintegrating – and the Revolution being lost – at the start of 1777.

From the moment the first British soldier set foot on Staten Island in July 1776, the Anglo-Hessian forces under the command of General William Howe appeared unstoppable. In the weeks that followed, 400 warships and transports brought more than 30,000 soldiers from Canada, England and South Carolina to New York, intent on stopping the rebellion. These forces captured Brooklyn and Manhattan, driving Washington and his shrinking Continental Army across New Jersey into Pennsylvania. By winter, the Revolution was at risk of dying.

Washington began the summer of 1776 with 24,000 soldiers, preparing to meet the British in New York. By Christmas, he had only 6,500 effectives, a skeleton of his former army. Congress had originally opted to bind Continental Army recruits to one year of service, and for many of the men still remaining under Washington’s command, these terms were set to expire on December 31, 1776. Washington knew that it was essential that some victory be gained before then, while he still had the men.

Washington crossed the Delaware from Pennsylvania into New Jersey on Christmas night, and gained an unexpected victory at Trenton on December 26, capturing nearly 900 Hessian soldiers. This marked a reversal of fortunes for the Americans, and significantly raised morale within the ranks of the Continental Army. But Washington could not follow on his success unless he could persuade his men to re­enlist.

On December 31, he ordered the regiments to be paraded. These were his best troops – not short-term militia, but trained regulars who had fought beside each other for a year. “In a most affectionate manner,” according to a sergeant present, the General “entreated us to stay.” He alluded to the victory at Trenton, appealed to their patriotism, begged them to remain one month more. “My brave fellows,” Washington said, “you have done all I asked you to do, and more than can be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your houses and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably can never do under any other circumstances…The present is emphatically the crisis, which is to decide our destiny.”

Approximately 3,300 men chose to remain. Not every soldier volunteered under the impulse of patriotism, as Washington, pledging his personal fortune, promised $10 to each man who would stay six weeks. Lesser officers, such as Major John Polhemus of Hopewell, New Jersey, did the same. So at the start of 1777, the Continental Army was in the process of reducing from 6,500 men to 3,300. The British had over 20,000 men in New York and New Jersey, along with 130 ships of the line.

Learning that a British Army of 8,000 men was bearing down on them, and fearing the result, Washington executed a brilliant flanking movement and defeated that army at Princeton on January 3, 1777. This victory proved to Washington that his ragged Army could indeed fight against the best-trained professionals. So Washington was able to keep the Continental Army intact, and after Princeton led it to safety in the hills of northern New Jersey. He spent the winter at Morristown ruminating over these new lessons learned while trying to fill his thinning ranks.

In the fall of 1776, just prior to these events, to meet the manpower crisis Congress authorized a new round of recruiting based on the population of each individual state. The new enlistment period was set at three years, a more practical length of time. Governors of each state were responsible for fulfilling their quota of recruits, and sending them immediately to regional headquarters throughout the American states. As a recruiting tool, many states promised to supplement the pay of its enlisted men. Washington opposed this trend, warning that in the long run it would unbalance the amounts paid to recruits from different states and foster jealously. Congress agreed to forbid the practice on November 12, but some states continued to offer incentives. Rhode Island attempted to entice recruits with a promise of duty stations close to home – an attractive alternative, as many men were justifiably anxious about leaving their families and property with the threat British regulars roving the countryside. Such “home service” was embodied in a brigade of Rhode Island state troops then being formed. Washington saw this kind of local service option, however beneficial locally, as conflicting with recruitment for the Continental Army, and thus as a danger to the Revolution. He was thinking of the big picture, even if the governors were not.

February 2, 1777, to Rhode Island Governor Nicholas Cooke, taking the strong position that interfering with Continental Army recruitment was not merely harmful, but a breach of the compact of union. Moreover, he did something we have never seen Washington do to an American before – he threatened Cooke, saying that if Rhode Island went ahead with this, that if it needed help because of a British invasion of its territory, the national government and army may turn their backs and make the state go it alone.

“In a Letter which I did myself the honor of writing to you on the 20th ulto. I could not help expressing my sentiments of the impropriety—as it appeared to me—of raising troops on a Colonial establishment & thereby setting up a kind of separate interest, before your quota for the Continental Army was completed. At the time of my writing that letter, I was unacquainted with the terms on which these Colonial Regiments were to be raised—I little thought, that the pay of the men was to be greater than of those in the Continental Service. I foresaw indeed inconveniences enough without this, but the baneful Influence of advanced pay & bounty already begins to show itself in numberless instances, and the poisonous effects of them have reached this Army. I do not know in what light the adoption of these measures may appear to your State; to me, the contradistinctions which they are setting up appears to be fraught with every evil—Manifestly injurious to the common cause—and an indirect breach of the union; My duty therefore as commander in chief of the Armies of the united States compels me, however disagreeable the task, to remonstrate against such modes of proceeding (unless coercive measures are used to bring forth your quota of Continental Troops)—& to add, that if the defense of any particular state is the governing object of its policy it can be no recommendation to me, or inducement for Congress to bestow any extraordinary attention to the defense of such State.

“You will do me the justice to perceive Sir, that I am grounding my complaint upon an information that the Continental and Colonial Officers are recruiting indiscriminately; the first at forty shillings; the other at £3 per month—the first, for hard and dangerous service, far distant from home perhaps—the second, for easy & secure duty at, or near their own homes & firesides—If my Information is wrong, and you are pursuing coercive, or vigorous measures to complete the Continental Regiments required of your State in a short time my remonstrance drops of course, & I have to ask your pardon for the trouble I have given you—If right, the error of the policy is too obvious to need further animadversion upon it—sufficient it is to me, to warn you of the danger, and urge the completion of the Regiments for Continental Service.—the United States have a just claim upon you for these men & will have but too good cause to complain if they are deprived of them by your attempts to raise others. The importance of the subject will apologize for the freedom, & candor of my Sentiments…” The text in the hand of his aide, George Johnston.

Washington got through to Cooke loud and clear. Cooke responded promptly, assuring Washington that the men in the state militia regiment being raised receive “the same Pay as the Continental Troops; and that the Bounty given them is much less.” He went on to pledge his ongoing efforts to raise troops in Rhode Island for the Continental Army, saying, “The State hath been greatly exhausted of Arms by our former Exertions, and the Enemy having effectually blocked up our Ports, it hath not been in our Power to import any. How far we shall be able to supply the Continental Battalions raising here I am not able to say, but this I can assure your Excellency that nothing shall be wanting on Our Part to furnish them.”

The upshot of this exchange is fascinating. A year later, in January 1778, Rhode Island was still having trouble filling its quota of troops. This time Washington wrote Cooke forwarding a letter from General James Varnum, advising him that Rhode Island’s troop quota could be completed with blacks recruits. Washington was willing to let slaves and former slaves serve, and he urged Cooke to give the recruiting officers every assistance. In February 1778, the Rhode Island legislature approved the action. Enlisted slaves would receive their freedom in return for their service. The result was the first black regiment in the United States, which saw action soon after.

As for the Continental Army, by the time of the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, Washington had rebuilt it to a force of over 11,000 men.