THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND THE MILITARY POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND THE MILITAEY POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES BY FRANCIS VINTON GREENE sStewwssu rfW GRADUATE OF THE TJ. S. MILITARY ACADEMY MAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS IN THE WAR WITH BPAIN AUTHOR OF The Russian Army and Its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-78 1879. Army Life in Russia 1880. Improvements in the Art of War 1882. The Mississippi Campaigns of the Civil War 1883. General Greene Great Commanders Series 1885. The United States Army 1901 NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 1911 TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN THOSE NOW LIVING AND THOSE WHO HAVJS GONE BEFORE OF . THE UNITED STATES ARMY WHO HAVE CARRIED ITS COLORS TO VICTORY ON MANY FIELDS AND IN MANY CLIMES HAVE COMPELLED THE SURRENDER OF ITS AHMED FOES AT SARATOGA AND YORKTOWN VERA CRUZ AND THE CITY OF MEXICO DQNELSON, VICKSBURG, APPOMATTOX AND DURHAMS STATION SANTIAGO AND MANILA AND WHO IN THE INTERVENING YEARS OF PEACE HAVE STTBDUED THE SAVAGE EXPLORED THE WILDERNESS PREPARED THE GREAT WEST FOR THE TEEMING MILLIONS WHO NOW INHABIT IT CONTRIBUTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE ABATED THE TROPICAL PESTILENCE DIRECTED THE NATIONS PUBLIC WORKS CONSTRUCTED THE PANAMA CANAL THIS BOOK IS WITH PROFOUND ADMIRATION AND WARM-HEARTED AFFECTION RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED PREFACE THE purpose of the book of which this is the first volume is to present, within the limited space of three small volumes, the essential facts in our military history, and to make such analyses of these facts and such comments upon them as may be useful for the future and interesting for the present. The army has always been a factor of prime importance in our national life. It was due to the skill of Washington atTrenton and Yorktown, and the fortitude of his officers and men at Valley Forge and elsewhere during eight long years, that the labors of Samuel and John Adams, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson did not prove fruitless, and that the Declaration of Independence became an immortal docu ment instead of passing into the waste-basket of forgotten revolutionary pronunciamentos. The success of Scott on the Niagara frontier in aid of the wonderful victories of the navy in the second war with Great Britain compelled the British to relinquish their control over our commerce through the right of search and acknowledge our rightful lines of frontier. The territorial expansion on the Gulf and the Pacific would have been impossible if the armies of Scott and Taylor had failed. The Union would have been disrupted and slavery perpetuated, in spite of the eloquence of Webster and Phil lips and Sumner and the consummate genius of Lincoln, if Grant and Sherman had not understood the art of war. Finally, it was not alone the unanimous resolution of Congress that made Cuba free and incidentally brought us Porto Rico and the Philippines, a commanding position in the Orient and the recognition of our greatness as a world power, but vii Vlll PREFACE also the skill, valor and endurance of the officers and men, ashore and afloat, who carried our arms to victory on both sides of the globe in a few short months of 1898. From the beginning, one hundred and thirty-six years ago, the army has been the willing and faithful subordinate of the civil power, and the indispensable instrument for carrying into effect the will of the people as expressed by their chosen representatives. In recent wars it has become anefficient in strument for that purpose. In 1812-15 we paid the deserved penalty, at Detroit and Sacketts Harbor, Bladensburg and Washington, of twelve years deliberate neglect of the military service, due to the popular belief that a well-trained army was not a necessary factor in our scheme of government. It is not likely that we shall again make that mistake...