the end there were more than a million men
under arms,--at least one out of every five adult males in the northern
states. On the other hand, in 1779, the middle year of the Revolutionary
War, the white population of the United States was about 2,175,000, of
whom 435,000 were adult males of military age. Supposing one out of
every five of these to have been under arms at once, the number would
have been 87,000. Now in the spring of 1777, when the Continental
Congress was at the highest point of authority which it ever reached,
when France was willing to lend it money freely, when its paper currency
was not yet discredited and it could make liberal offers of bounties, a
demand was made upon the states for 80,000 men, or nearly one fifth of
the adult male population, to serve for three years or during the war.
Only 34,820 were obtained. The total number of men in the field in that
most critical year, including the swarms of militia who came to the
rescue at Ridgefield and Bennington and Oriskany, and the Pennsylvania
militia who turned out while their state was invaded, was 68,720. In
1781, when the credit of Congress was greatly impaired, although
military activity again rose to a maximum and it was necessary for the
people to strain every nerve, the total number of men in the field,
militia and all, was only 29,340, of whom only 13,292 were Continentals;
and it was left for the genius of Washington and Greene, working with
desperate energy and most pitiful resources, to save the country. A
more impressive contrast to the readiness with which the demands of the
government were met in the War of Secession can hardly be imagined. Had
the country put forth its strength in 1781 as it did in 1864, an army of
90,000 men might have overwhelmed Clinton at the north and Cornwallis at
the south, without asking any favours of the French fleet. Had it put
forth its full strength in 1777, four years of active warfare might have
been spared. Mr. Lecky explains this difference by his favourite
hypothesis that the American Revolution was the work of a few
ultra-radical leaders, with whom the people were not generally in
sympathy; and he thinks we could not expect to see great heroism or
self-sacrifice manifested by a people who went to war over what he calls
a "money dispute."[3] But there is no reason for supposing that the
loyalists represented the general sentiment of the country in the
Revolutionary War any more than the peace party