o play a prominent part in
the selection of officers, and Washington complained that "the different
States [were], without regard to the qualifications of an officer,
quarrelling about the appointments, and nominating such as are not fit to
be shoeblacks, from the attachments of this or that member of Assembly."
As a result, so he wrote of New England, "their officers are generally of
the lowest class of the people; and, instead of setting a good example to
their men, are leading them into every kind of mischief, one species of
which is plundering the inhabitants, under the pretence of their being
Tories." To this political motive he himself would not yield, and a sample
of his appointments was given when a man was named "because he stands
unconnected with either of these Governments; or with this, or that or
tother man; for between you and me there is more in this than you can
easily imagine," and he asserted that "I will not have any Gentn.
introduced from family connexion, or local attachments, to the prejudice
of the Service."

To misbehaving soldiers Washington showed little mercy. In his first
service he had deserters and plunderers "flogged," and threatened that if
he could "lay hands" on one particular culprit, "I would try the effect of
1000 lashes." At another time he had "a Gallows near 40 feet high erected
(which has terrified the _rest_ exceedingly) and I am determined if I can
be justified in the proceeding, to hang two or three on it, as an example
to others." When he took command of the Continental army he "made a pretty
good slam among such kind of officers as the Massachusetts Government
abound in since I came to this Camp, having broke one Colo, and two
Captains for cowardly behavior in the action on Bunker's Hill,--two
Captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they had men in their
Company--and one for being absent from his Post when the Enemy appeared
there and burnt a House just by it Besides these, I have at this time--one
Colo., one Major, one Captn., & two subalterns under arrest for tryal--In
short I spare none yet fear it will not at all do as these People seem to
be too inattentive to every thing but their Interest" "I am sorry," he
wrote, "to be under a Necessity of making frequent Examples among the
Officers," but "as nothing can be more fatal to an Army, than Crimes of
this kind, I am determined by every Motive of Reward and Punishment to
prevent them in future." Even when plunderin