President of
Congress having replied in fitting words, Washington withdrew, and
continued his journey to the long-missed peace and seclusion of his
Mount Vernon home.

CHAPTER VIII.

AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE REVOLUTION

[1775-1781]

It would be foolish to say that the Revolutionary soldiers never
quailed. Militia too often gave way before the steady bayonet charge of
British regulars, at times fleeing panic-stricken. Troops whose term of
service was out would go home at critical moments. Hardships and lack of
pay in a few instances led to mutiny and desertion. But the marvel is
that they fought so bravely, endured so much, and complained so little.
One reason was the patriotism of the people at large behind them.
Soldiers who turned their backs on Boston, leaving Washington in the
lurch, were refused food along the road home. Women placed rifles in the
hands of husbands, sons, or lovers, and said "Go!"

The rank and file in this war, coming from farm, work-bench,
logging-camp, or fisher's boat, had a superb physical basis for camp and
field life. Used to the rifle from boyhood, they kept their powder dry
and made every one of their scanty bullets tell. The Revolutionary
soldier's splendid courage has glorified a score of battle-fields; while
Valley Forge, with its days of hunger and nights of cold, its sick-beds
on the damp ground, and its bloody footprints in the snow, tell of his
patient endurance.

At Bunker Hill an undisciplined body of farmers, ill-armed, weary,
hungry and thirsty, calmly awaited the charge of old British
campaigners, and by a fire of dreadful precision drove them back. "They
may talk of their Mindens and their Fontenoys," said the British
general, Howe, "but there was no such fire there." At Charleston, while
the wooden fort shook with the British broadsides, Moultrie and his
South Carolina boys, half naked in the stifling heat, through twelve
long hours smoked their pipes and carefully pointed their guns. At Long
Island, to gain time for the retreat of the rest, five Maryland
companies flew again and again in the face of the pursuing host. At
Monmouth, eight thousand British were in hot pursuit of the retreating
Americans. Square in their front Washington planted two Pennsylvania and
Maryland regiments, saying, "Gentlemen, I depend upon you to hold the
ground until I can form the main army." And hold it they did.

Heroism grander than that of the battlefield, which can calmly meet an