CHAPTER ington's plan. Alarmed for his magazines at Bruns XXXV. wick, he hastily put his troops in motion, and by the 1777 time the Americans were ready to leave Princeton, he

At

was again close upon them. Again Washington was in great danger. His troops were exhausted; all had been one night without sleep, and some of them longer; many had no blankets; others were barefoot; all were very thinly clad. It was necessary to give over the attack upon Brunswick, and to occupy some more defensible ground, where the troops could be put under cover. Morristown, on the American right, were the skeletons of three regiments, detached, as already mentioned, from the northern army; also the troops sent forward by Heath, but stopped on the reception of Washington's countermand. Some militia had also joined them. The high ground in that vicinity offered many strong positions. As Cornwallis would hardly venture to cross the Delaware with an enemy in his rear, Washington concluded to march for Morristown, where he intrenched himself. Not anxious to continue this winter campaign, Cornwallis retired to New Brunswick. The parties sent out by Washington to assail and harass the British quarters were eagerly joined by the inhabitants, incensed by the plunder and ravage of the British and Hessians, against whom even Howe's protections had proved a very uncertain defense. Plundering, into which soldiers very easily fall, was by no means confined to the British. Washington was again obliged to issue stern orders against "the infamous practice of plundering the inhabitants under pretense that they are Tories."

Another proclamation was presently issued, requiring Jan. 25 all those who had taken British protections either to remove within the enemy's lines, or else to repair to the nearest general officer, give up their protections, and take

XXXV.

an oath of allegiance to the United States. Objections chapter were made to this proclamation, and one of the New Jer. sey delegates in Congress raised some question about it, 1777. on the ground that it was an interference with state rights, allegiance being due to the state, and not to the confederacy; but Congress sustained Washington in the course he had taken.

Huts were erected at Morristown, and there the main body of the American army remained during the winter. The right was at Princeton, under Putnam; the left in the Highlands, under Heath; cantonments were established at various places along this extended line. Skirmishes occasionally took place between advanced parties, but for six months no important movement was made upon either side. Washington, busy in organizing the new army, was, in fact, very weak. Recruits came in but slowly; and detachments of militia, principally from the Eastern States, had to be called out for temporary service. These were judiciously posted, so as to make the best possible show; but, for several months, there was little more than the shadow of an army. The enemy, made cautious by their losses, fortunately were ignorant of Washington's real situation. The strong

ground occupied by the Americans, and the winter, which had now fairly set in, seemed to forbid the hope of successful attack. In skirmishes, the Americans were generally successful; the British quarters were straitened, their supplies were cut off, and they were reduced to great distress for forage and fresh provisions.

The recovery of the Jerseys by the fragments of a defeated army, which had seemed just before on the point of dissolution, gained Washington a high reputation, not at home only, but in Europe also, where the progress of the ampaign had been watched with

CHAPTER great interest, and where the disastrous loss of New XXXV York and the retreat through the Jerseys had given a 1777. general impression that the Americans would not be able to maintain their independence. The recovery of the Jerseys produced a reaction. The American general was extolled as a Fabius, whose prudence availed his country not less than his valor. At home, also, these successes had the best effect. The recruiting service, which before had been almost at a stand, began again to revive, and considerable progress was presently made in organizing the new army.

The extensive powers which Congress had intrusted to Washington were exercised energetically indeed, but with the greatest circumspection, and a single eye to the public good. The state appointments of officers for the new army, too often the result of favoritism, were rectified so far as prudence would justify; and, by commissions in the sixteen additional battalions, Washington was enabled to provide for such meritorious officers as had been overlooked in the new appointments.

A great clamor having been raised against Dr. Morgan's management of the hospital department, he was summarily removed from office, and Dr. Shippen, his colleague in the medical school at Philadelphia, appointed in his place. The whole department was reorganized: Dr. Craik was appointed Shippen's assistant; Dr. Rush, afterward greatly distinguished in his profession, an active politician, who had signed the Declaration of Independence as one of the new delegates from Pennsylvania, was made surgeon general for the middle department. The small-pox had been a terrible scourge to the American troops, and Washington caused all the new recruits to be inoculated and carried through the disorder. This change in the medical staff was extended to the

XXXV.

northern department also. Schuyler complained that the CHAPTER officer at the head of it had been discharged without con-. sulting him; but Congress pronounced his letter disre- 1777. spectful. and required an apology. Morgan subsequently procured an inquiry into his conduct by a committee of Congress, and was honorably acquitted.

Stirling, Mifflin, St. Clair, Stephen, and Lincoln were Feb. 19. commissioned as major generals-Lincoln, taken from the ranks of the Massachusetts militia, which he had twice led to Washington's assistance, was promoted over the heads of all the brigadiers. Arnold, whose conduct while in command at Montreal, and the unsettled accounts of whose Canada expedition had left some shado on his character, complained loudly of being overlooked. Poor, of New Hampshire, was commissioned as a brig- Feb. ♪. adier; also Glover, Patterson, and Learned, of Massa- May 13. chusetts; Varnum, of Rhode Island; Huntington, of Connecticut; George Clinton, of New York; Wayne, De Haas, Cadwallader, Hand, and Reed, of Pennsylvania; Weedon, Muhlenburg, Woodford, and Scott, of Virginia; Nash, of North Carolina; Deborre, of France; and Conway, Irish by birth, but French by education, an officer of thirty years standing in the French army, but whose merit was not equal to his pretensions. The army was now well supplied with general officers, but state claims and political influence-each state claiming a number of general officers proportioned to its quota of troops had more to do with some of these appointments than considerations of merit or the good of the service.

Four regiments of horse were enlisted under Colonels Bland, Baylor, Sheldon, and Moylan. Cadwallader and Reed, to whom the command of the horse was offered, both declined their appointments. The office of adjutant general, vacant by the resignation of Reed, who had made

CHAPTER himself

1777.

very obnoxious to the Eastern troops, was given XXXV. to Timothy Pickering, a colonel of the Massachusetts line. The quarter-master's department, at the head of which Mifflin still remained, was regulated and organized by the appointment of assistant quarter-masters, wagon masters, and commissaries of forage, all of whom were required to make monthly returns. Congress also undertook to regulate the commissary department by dividing its duties between a commissary of purchases and a commissary of issues, and by assuming the appointment of the principal subordinate officers. Insisting upon the selection and entire control of all the persons employed in his department as absolutely necessary to insure uniformity and obedience, Joseph Trumbull, the commissary general, soon resigned; nor was the new system found to work so well as Congress had hoped.

In the course of the war the British had taken near five thousand prisoners, the Americans about three thousand. At first all exchanges had been refused, on the ground that the Americans were rebels; but, after Howe's arrival at New York, he had opened a negotiation on the subject. A good deal of obstruction occurred from the refusal of Congress to fulfill Arnold's stipulation at the Cedars; but, finally, a cartel was arranged, and a partial exchange effected.

As the Americans had no prisoner of equal rank with Lee, they offered in exchange for him, in the terms of the cartel, six Hessian field officers taken at Trenton. Though Howe did not choose to take the responsibility of bringing Lee to a trial, he claimed him, nevertheless, as a deserter from the British army, and refused the exchange. Congress ordered the six Hessians, together with Lieutenant-colonel Campbell, a British officer who had been taken at Boston, to be committed to close prison,