of
democracy. There was the stuff for splendid soldiers in these farmers
and woodsmen, but in many lamentable instances their regiments were no
more than irresponsible armed mobs. Until as recently as the War with
Spain, the perilous fallacy persisted that the States should retain
control of their several militia forces in time of war and deny final
authority to the Federal Government. It was this doctrine which so
nearly wrecked the cause of the Revolution. George Washington had
learned the lesson through painful experience, but his counsel was
wholly disregarded; and, because it serves as a text and an
interpretation for much of the humiliating history which we are about to
follow, that counsel is here quoted in part. Washington wrote in
retrospect:

Had we formed a permanent army in the beginning, which by the
continuance of the same men in service had been capable of
discipline, we never should have had to retreat with a handful of
men across the Delaware in 1776, trembling for the fate of America,
which nothing but the infatuation of the enemy could have saved; we
should not have remained all the succeeding winter at their mercy,
with sometimes scarcely a sufficient body of men to mount the
ordinary guards, liable at every moment to be dissipated if they
had only thought proper to march against us; we should not have
been under the necessity of fighting Brandywine with an unequal
number of raw troops, and afterwards of seeing Philadelphia fall a
prey to a victorious army; we should not have been at Valley Forge
with less than half the force of the enemy, destitute of
everything, in a situation neither to resist or to retire; we
should not have seen New York left with a handful of men, yet an
overmatch for the main army of these States, while the principal
part of their force was detached for the reduction of two of them;
we should not have found ourselves this spring so weak as to be
insulted by 5000 men, unable to protect our baggage and magazines,
their security depending on a good countenance and a want of
enterprise in the enemy; we should not have been, the greatest part
of the war, inferior to the enemy, indebted for our safety to their
inactivity, enduring frequently the mortification of seeing
inviting opportunities to ruin them pass unimproved for want of a
force which the country