The first phase of Washington's command covered the period from July, 1775, to the British evacuation of Boston in March 1776. In these eight months he imparted discipline to the army, which at maximum strength slightly exceeded 2o,00o ; he dealt with subordinates who as John Adams says quarrelled "like cats and dogs"; and kept the siege vigorously alive. Having him self planned an invasion of Canada by Lake Champlain, to be entrusted to General Philip Schuyler, he heartily approved of Benedict Arnold's proposal to march north along the Kennebec river and take Montreal and Quebec. Giving Arnold Lim men, he instructed him to do everything possible to conciliate the Cana dians. He was equally active in encouraging privateers to attack British commerce. As fast as means offered, he strengthened his army with ammunition and siege-guns, bringing heavy artillery from Ticonderoga over the frozen roads early in 1776. His posi tion was at first precarious, for the Charles river pierced the centre of his lines investing the town, and if Howe had moved his 20 veteran regiments boldly up the stream he might have pierced Washington's army and rolled either wing back to destruction. But all the generalship was on Washington's side. Seeing that Dorchester heights, just south of Boston, commanded the city and harbour, and that Howe had unaccountably failed to occupy it, he seized it on the night of March 4, 1776, placing his Ticon deroga guns in position. The British naval commander declared that he could not remain if the Americans were not dislodged, and Howe, after a storm disrupted his plans for an assault, evacuated the city on March 17. He left 200 cannon and invaluable stores of small arms and munitions. After stamping out the smallpox in Boston and collecting his booty, Washington hurried south by land to take up the defence of New York.
later, he often "failed in the field," he was sometimes guilty of grave military blunders, the chief being his assumption of a position on Long Island in 1776 which exposed his army to cap ture entire the moment it was defeated. At the outset he was painfully inexperienced, the wilderness fighting of the French war having done nothing to teach him the strategy of considerable armies. One of his chief faults was his tendency to subordinate his own judgment to that of the generals surrounding him; at every critical juncture, before Boston, before New York, before Philadelphia, in New Jersey, he called a council of war, and in almost every instance accepted its decision. Naturally bold and dashing, as he proved at Trenton, Princeton and Germantown, he repeatedly adopted evasive and delaying tactics on the advice of his associates; however he did succeed in keeping a strong army in existence and maintaining the flame of national spirit, and when the auspicious moment arrived, he planned the rapid movements which ended the war.
One element of Washington's strength was his sternness as a disciplinarian. The army was continually dwindling and refilling; politics largely governed the selection of officers by Congress and the States; and the ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-paid forces were often half prostrated by sickness and ripe for mutiny. Troops from each of the three sections, New England, the Middle States and the South, showed a deplorable jealousy of the others. Washing ton was rigorous in breaking cowardly, inefficient and dishonest men, and boasted in front of Boston that he had "made a pretty good sort of slam among such kind of officers." Deserters and plunderers were flogged, and he once erected a gallows 4o ft. high, writing that "I am determined if I can be justified in the proceed ing, to hang two or three on it, as an example to others." At the same time the commander-in-chief won the devotion of many of his men by his earnestness in demanding better treatment for them from Congress. He complained of their short rations, de claring once that they were forced to "eat every kind of horse food but hay." Campaigns in Middle Colonies.—The darkest chapter in Washington's military leadership was opened when, reaching New York on April 23, 1776, he placed half his army, some 9,000 men, under Isaac Putnam, on the perilous position of Brooklyn heights, Long Island, where a British fleet in the East river might cut off their retreat. He spent a fortnight in May with the conti nental congress in Philadelphia, then discussing the question of in dependence ; and though no record of his utterances exists, there can be no doubt that he advocated complete separation. His return to New York preceded but slightly the arrival of the British army under Howe, which made its main encampment on Staten Island till its whole strength of nearly 30,00o could be mobilized. On Aug. 22, 1776, Howe moved about 20,000 men across to Gravesend bay on Long Island. Four days later, sending the fleet under command of his brother Lord Howe to make a feint against New York city, he thrust a crushing force along feebly protected roads against the American flank. The patriots were out-ma noeuvred, defeated, and suffered a total loss of 5,000, of whom 2,000 were captured. Their whole position might have been car ried by storm, but fortunately for Washington, Howe delayed. While the enemy lingered, he succeeded under cover of a dense fog in ferrying the remaining force across the East river to Man hattan, where he took up a fortified position. The British, sud denly landing on the lower part of the island, drove back the Americans in a clash marked by disgraceful cowardice on the part of Connecticut and other troops. In a series of actions Wash ington was forced northward, more than once in danger of cap ture, till the loss of his two Hudson river forts, one of them with 2,600 men, compelled him to retreat from White Plains across the river into New Jersey. Here he slowly retired toward the Delaware, and as he went his army melted away, till it seemed that armed resistance to the British was about to expire.