elf for
service. Such is the story of the chief American military leaders, and
it is typical of them all. Some had seen fighting with the French and
Indians, but none of them had seen warfare on a large scale with regular
troops commanded according to the strategy evolved in European
experience. Courage, native ability, quickness of mind, and knowledge of
the country they had in abundance, and in battles such as were fought
during the Revolution all those qualities counted heavily in the
balance.

=Foreign Officers in American Service.=--To native genius was added
military talent from beyond the seas. Baron Steuben, well schooled in
the iron regime of Frederick the Great, came over from Prussia, joined
Washington at Valley Forge, and day after day drilled and manoeuvered the
men, laughing and cursing as he turned raw countrymen into regular
soldiers. From France came young Lafayette and the stern De Kalb, from
Poland came Pulaski and Kosciusko;--all acquainted with the arts of war
as waged in Europe and fitted for leadership as well as teaching.
Lafayette came early, in 1776, in a ship of his own, accompanied by
several officers of wide experience, and remained loyally throughout the
war sharing the hardships of American army life. Pulaski fell at the
siege of Savannah and De Kalb at Camden. Kosciusko survived the American
war to defend in vain the independence of his native land. To these
distinguished foreigners, who freely threw in their lot with American
revolutionary fortunes, was due much of that spirit and discipline which
fitted raw recruits and temperamental militiamen to cope with a military
power of the first rank.

=The Soldiers.=--As far as the British soldiers were concerned their
annals are short and simple. The regulars from the standing army who
were sent over at the opening of the contest, the recruits drummed up
by special efforts at home, and the thousands of Hessians bought
outright by King George presented few problems of management to the
British officers. These common soldiers were far away from home and
enlisted for the war. Nearly all of them were well disciplined and many
of them experienced in actual campaigns. The armies of King George
fought bravely, as the records of Bunker Hill, Brandywine, and Monmouth
demonstrate. Many a man and subordinate officer and, for that matter,
some of the high officers expressed a reluctance at fighting against
their own kin; but they obeyed orders.

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