Washington the Soldier

The boyhood and youth of George Washington were singularly in harmony with those aptitudes and tastes that shaped his entire life. He was not quite eight years of age when his e...

In 1755, four military expeditions were planned by the Colonies: one against the French in Nova Scotia; one against Crown Point; one against Fort Niagara, and the fourth, that o...

British authority, which ought to have gladly welcomed and honored the prodigious elasticity, energy, and growth of its American dependencies, as the future glory and invincible...

The Second Continental Congress convened on the tenth day of May, 1775. On the same day, Ethan Allen captured Ticonderoga, also securing two hundred cannon which were afterwards...

On the twenty-first day of June, 1775, Washington left Philadelphia for Boston, and on the third day of July assumed command of the Continental Army of America, with headquarter...

The Continental Army about Boston was largely composed of New England troops. This was inevitable until the action of Congress could be realized by reënforcements from other Col...

As the siege of Boston advanced without decisive result, orders from England suddenly relieved Gage from command, and assigned General Sir William Howe as his successor. That of...

On the thirty-first day of December, 1775, Admiral Shuldham reached Boston with reënforcements for its garrison, and relieved Admiral Graves in command of all British naval forc...

Within twenty-four hours after General Howe embarked his army, the American Commander-in-Chief developed his matured plan to anticipate any design of General Clinton to occupy N...

In order rightly to measure the American War for Independence by fixed standards, it is both interesting and instructive to notice the systematic method adopted by Great Britain...

Only a summary analysis of the Battle of Long Island is required for explanation of the general operations indicated upon the map. Almost every hour had its incidents of eventfu...

Washington’s labors were neither lessened nor interrupted when he assembled his army on the thirtieth day of August, 1776. He had been in the saddle or on foot, without sleep, f...

The steady hold of Harlem Heights against Howe’s advance on the sixteenth day of September, sometimes called the Battle of Harlem Heights, was another “object lesson” for Genera...

Historical accuracy must recognize the First Campaign of Washington in New Jersey, as a masterly conduct of operations toward American Independence. The loss of Fort Washington...

Washington’s surprise of the garrison of Trenton, equally surprised General Howe at New York; and he made immediate requisition for twenty thousand additional troops. His last p...

The narrative of Washington’s career as a Soldier, up to the time when he foiled the best efforts of Howe and Cornwallis to capture his weary band of Continentals and militia, h...

On the twentieth of June, Washington learned that Burgoyne was approaching St. John’s; and that a detachment of British and Canadian troops, accompanied by Indians, had been org...

The British Commander-in-Chief entertained no doubts of the success of Burgoyne’s invasion from Canada. His reiterated appeals to Britain for reënforcements were not heeded, and...

Washington marched directly to Philadelphia to refit his army and secure ammunition and provisions, and thence marched to Germantown, “for one day of rest.” His confidence was n...

The struggle for American independence and the career of the American Commander-in-Chief very minutely foreshadowed the experience of most successful soldiers with the political...

Mr. Charles Stedman, who served on the staffs of Generals Howe, Clinton and Cornwallis, during the Revolutionary War, in an interesting historical narrative states that “the Bri...

The abandonment of Philadelphia by the British army, as anticipated by Washington, had become a military necessity. The city was too remote from the coast, unless its army of oc...

Upon the return of General Clinton to New York as the successor to General Howe in command of “all the Atlantic Colonies from Nova Scotia to West Indies, inclusive,” his outlook...

The Headquarters of the American Army remained at White Plains until the latter part of September. Upon reaching that post, immediately following the Battle of Monmouth, after t...

In Fennimore Cooper’s interesting romance, “The Spy,” he furnishes graphic delineations of the true character of those minor operations about New York which were parts of Genera...

If the mind weary of the recital of events which by night and by day burdened the soul and tasked the energies of the American Commander-in-Chief to their utmost strain, it cann...

The first act of General Washington upon reaching Morristown was to invoice his resources and balance his accounts. He “called the roll” of his army, made record of all supplies...

Sir Henry Clinton returned from Charleston to New York on the seventeenth day of June, 1780. He must have contrasted his report made to the British War Office, of the “conquest...

As a bird’s overlook of its wide field of vision cannot comprehend all objects within range, except in turn, so must the patient reader come back again to stand behind Washingto...

Nothing new or unfamiliar to the American student can be said as to the military operations of the British, French and American armies during the closing year of the war for Ame...

Before developing Washington’s plan for the capture of Benedict Arnold, it is advisable to glance at the military condition of the Southern Department in which Arnold was then s...

The diversion of thought from Washington’s immediate surroundings will find its compensation in the development of his plan for the capture of Benedict Arnold. Its execution had...

On the twenty-first day of May, 1781, which proved to have been that of the arrival of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Washington held a conference with Count de Rochambeau and General...

Washington was in his tent, where only the quiet of a few hours at a time interposed their opportunity for other than field duty. At one of those intervals he was compelled to m...

The story of the siege of Yorktown and the surrender of Earl Cornwallis, Lieutenant-General in command, has been so fully detailed by many writers that only a few features of th...

The blending of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries comes at a moment of such marked transition in all that directs human activity and relationship, that the promise of Washi...