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'We Began the Contest for Liberty Ill Provided': Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783 University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses August 2015 "'We Began the Contest for Liberty Ill Provided': Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783" Seanegan P. Sculley University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Military History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Sculley, Seanegan P., ""'We Began the Contest for Liberty Ill Provided': Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783"" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 397. https://doi.org/10.7275/6910785.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/397 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “‘We Began the Contest for Liberty Ill Provided’: Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783” A Dissertation Presented by SEANEGAN P. SCULLEY Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2015 History © Copyright by Seanegan Patrick Sculley 2015 All Rights Reserved “’We Began the Contest for Liberty Ill Provided’: Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783” A Dissertation Presented By Seanegan Sculley Approved as to style and content by: ________________________________ Barry J. Levy, Chair ________________________________ Guy Chet, Member ________________________________ Steven Pendery, Member ________________________________ Kevin Sweeney, Outside Member __________________________________ Joye Bowman, Chair History Department ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is with much gratitude that I acknowledge the support and guidance given by many people over these past four years. To Barry Levy and Kevin Sweeney, you guided me through both a thesis and dissertation. Thank you for encouraging me to take my investigation from the Seven Years’ War into the Revolution and for your mentorship and friendship. Guy Chet and Steve Pendery, you took a chance on an eager student you had not yet met and provided the guidance and discussions necessary to help me learn what I did not know. I could not have done this without your support. To my commanders over the past few years, Colonel Gail Yoshitani, Colonel H. Clint Kirk, and Lieutenant Colonel J. Keith Purvis, thank you for your understanding and support. You gave me the time and mentorship to accomplish both our missions and my goal. Thank you. To my parents, Mary and Pat, I owe my love of history. You encouraged me from the very start to respect the past and learn from it. And over the past four years, you have read what I read, read what I wrote, and volunteered to come on this journey with me. The gratitude I have for your support and love, both for this project and for me, cannot be expressed in words. Finally, to my best friend and partner in life, Jenny, I owe everything. For the past twenty years we have experienced the challenges that come with a military life together. Your efforts to complete this project were equal to or greater than mine. This belongs to both of us. I love you. iv ABSTRACT “‘WE BEGAN THE CONTEST FOR LIBERTY ILL PROVIDED’: MILITARY LEADERSHIP IN THE CONTINENTAL ARMY, 1775-1783” MAY 2015 SEANEGAN P. SCULLEY, B.A., TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Barry Levy In 1775, a Virginia gentleman-planter was given command of a New England army outside of Boston and the Continental Army was born. Over the course of eight years, a cultural negotiation concerning the use of and limits to military authority was worked out between the officers and soldiers of the Continental Army that we call leadership today. How this army was led, and how the interactions between officers and soldiers from the various states of the new nation changed their understandings of the proper exercise of military authority, was codified in The Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States. The result was a form of military leadership that recognized the autonomy of the individual soldiers, a changing concept of honor, and a new American tradition of military service. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………..iv ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………........v CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...1 2. OFFICERSHIP………………………………………………………………………..31 3. RECRUITING………………………………………………………………………...84 4. DISCIPLINE…………………………………………………………………………112 5. TRAINING…………………………………………………………………………..151 6. MORALE…………………………………………………………………………….191 7. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………236 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………241 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Washington wrote his first general order as commander of the Continental Army on July 3, 1775. To accurately determine how many men were fit for duty, he told the regiments surrounding Boston to conduct a muster and report their numbers to his headquarters.1 The next day he notified the troops that they were now placed under the command of the Continental Congress rather than their specific colonial governments. Distinctions (of what was not specified) by individual colony were to be ignored.2 A few days later a court-martial found Captain John Callender guilty of cowardice for his actions at Breed’s Hill and sentenced him to be cashiered from the service. Washington began mentoring his officers, exhorting them to show courage at all times.3 In less than a week, the first and only Commander-in-Chief was taking command, in a very assertive manner, of the Continental Army. Yet the army Washington took command of that week was not truly a continental army. It was largely an army from New England that had just accepted a Virginian planter as its leader. When Washington was finally able to get strength reports into his headquarters from the regiments, he learned approximately 19,500 soldiers were present 1 George Washington, “General Orders, Cambridge, July 3, 1775,” in The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, edited by Thomas J, Crackel (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008), http://0- rotunda.upress.virginia.edu.usmalibrary.usma.edu/founders/GEWN-03-01-02-0025. 2 Washington, “General Orders, Cambridge, July 4, 1775,” PGWD, http://0- rotunda.upress.virginia.edu.usmalibrary.usma.edu/founders/GEWN-03-01-02-0027. 3 Washington, “General Orders, Cambridge, July 7, 1775,” PGWD, http://0- rotunda.upress.virginia.edu.usmalibrary.usma.edu/founders/GEWN-03-01-02-0040. 1 and fit for duty. Five colonies were represented and while Pennsylvania had a contingent of 925 soldiers, the rest of the troops were from New England and 60% of those soldiers were from one colony, Massachusetts.4 The new commander-in-chief was not pleased with the soldiers and officers he met in Cambridge that summer. The officers lacked courage and the soldiers were “a dirty and nasty people.” But he did judge them willing to fight well. Writing his brother on August 20, 1775, Washington claimed these soldiers could have defeated the British regulars at Bunker Hill two months before if they had been led by good, courageous officers ready to provide the leadership needed to win.5 Why did these soldiers from New England make such a poor initial impression on their new commander? Perhaps his expectations were too high before he arrived. From the distant colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania, the battles at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775 must have appeared a validation of republican ideals. As Washington described that day to his friend, George William Fairfax, American citizens under arms successfully defended their liberties and stopped “Ministerial Troops” from destroying private property. The British retreat was a rout, despite reinforcements from Lord Percy’s Brigade and Washington hoped this would convince Lord Sandwich that Americans would fight to protect what was rightfully theirs and they would do so successfully.6 4 Charles H. Lesser, The Sinews of Independence: Monthly Strength Reports of the Continental Army (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 4-5. 5 Washington, “Letter to Lund Washington, Cambridge, August 20, 1775,” PGWD, http://0-rotunda.upress.virginia.edu.usmalibrary.usma.edu/founders/GEWN-03- 01-02-0234. 2 Of course this account, based on reports received in Philadelphia just prior to Congress assuming control of these armed men surrounding Boston, did not include an understanding of the difficulties faced by the officers in charge at Cambridge. Artemus Ward, commanding from Cambridge, spent the months from April to July trying to organize a camp of almost 20,000 soldiers who possessed little experience living in such a large community. Boston was the largest town in the region and its population was no more than 16,000 at the time. Ward gave orders regulating latrine duty and other tasks required to prevent the spread of disease among the soldiery while he prohibited prostitution, profanity, and excessive drinking. The men were to attend sermon daily and maintain the protection and sanctity of God.7 Convincing the soldiers to follow these rules was not an easy task. Though some of the officers, including Ward, had served during
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