i86
��The Siege of Boston Developed.
��Jearn the minutest details of field engineering. Gabions, fasces, abattis, and other appliances for assault or defence were quickly made, and all this practical schooling in the work of war went on, under the watchful co- operation of the very officers who afterward became conspicuous in the field, from Long Island to Yorktown. The camp about Boston made officers. Its discipline dissipated many colonial jealousies ; and there was developed that confidence in their commander, which, in after years, became the source of untold strength and solace to him in the darkest hours of the war.
The details of the personal work of the commander-in-chief read more like some magician's tale. Every staff department was organized under his personal care, so that he was able to retain even until the end of the war his chief assistants. Powder, arms, provisions, clothing, firewood, medi- cines, horses, carts, tools, and all supplies, however incidental, depended upon minute instructions of Washing- ton himself.
A few orders are cited, as an illus- tration of the system which marked his life in camp, and indicate the value of those months, as preparatory to the ordeal through which he had yet to pass.
To withhold commissions, until some proof was given of individual fitness, involved grave responsibility. He did it. To punish swearing, gambling, theft, and lewdness, evinced a high sense of the solemnity of the hour. He did it. "'"o rebuke Protestants for mocking Catholics was to recognize the dependence of all alike upon the God of battles. He did it. To re- press gossip in camp, because the reputution of the humblest was sacred ;
��to brand with his displeasure all con- flicts between those in authority, as fatal to discipline and unity of action, and to forbid the settlement of private wrongs, except through established legal methods, showed a clear con- ception of the conditions which would make an army obedient, united, and invincible. These, and corresponding acts in the line of military police regu- lations, and touching every social, moral, and physical habit which assails or enfeebles a soldier's life and im- perils a campaign, run through his papers.
It is in the light of such omnipresent pressure and constraint that we begin to form some just estimate of the rela- tions which the siege of Boston sus- tained to the subsequent operations of the war, and to the work of Lee, Putnam, Sullivan, Greene, Mifflin, Knox, and others, who were thus fitted for immediate service at Long Island and elsewhere, as soon as Boston was evacuated.
It is also through these orders that the careful student can pass that veil of formal propriety, reticence, and dig- nity which so often obscured the inner, the tentative, elements of Washington's military character.
While the slow progress of the siege afforded opportunity to study the con- tingencies of other possible fields of conflict, a double campaign was made into Canada : namely, by Arnold through Maine, and by Montgomery toward Montreal-. This was based upon the idea that the conquest of Canada would not only protect New England on the north, but compel the British commanders to draw all supplies from England. The fact is noted, as an evidence of the constant regard which the American commander had
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