1776

by David McCullough

GEORGE III had been twenty-two when, in 1760, he succeeded to the throne, and to a remarkable degree he remained a man of simple tastes and few pretensions.

Stories that he had been slow to learn, that by age eleven he still could not read, were unfounded.

the so-called “madness” of King George III—for which he would be long remembered, did not come until much later, more than twenty years later, and rather than mental illness, it appears to have been porphyria, a hereditary disease

he could be notably willful and often shortsighted, but he was sincerely patriotic and everlastingly duty-bound.

War had come on April 19, with the first blood shed at Lexington and Concord near Boston, then savagely on June 17 at Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill.

By the time the first news of Lexington and Concord arrived, it was the end of May and Parliament had begun its long summer holiday, its members departing London for their country estates.

The ever-obliging North suggested that in view of the situation in America, it might no longer be regarded as a rebellion, but as a “foreign war,” and thus “every expedient” might be employed.

DESPITE THE WAR, or more likely because of it, the King remained popular in the country at large and could count on a loyal following in Parliament.

bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but at all levels of society.

Behind the scenes, Lord North had quietly begun negotiations with several German princes of Hesse and Brunswick to hire mercenary troops.

The magnitude of the moment was lost on no one. As expected, the King’s address would be one of the most important ever delivered by an English monarch.

In sum, he, George III, Sovereign of the Empire, had declared America in rebellion. He had confirmed that he was committing land and sea forces—as well as unnamed foreign mercenaries—sufficient to put an end to that rebellion, and he had denounced the leaders of the uprising for having American independence as their true objective, something those leaders themselves had not as yet openly declared.

IT WAS IN THE COMMONS that the longer, more turbulent conflict ensued.

For importantly it was also well understood, and deeply felt, that the historic chamber was again the setting for history, that issues of the utmost consequence, truly the fate of nations, were at stake.

the decided majority of the Commons, like the people at large, stood behind the King.

North was not a man enamored with war. He had nothing of the look or temperament of a war leader. Privately he was not at all sure it would be possible to vanquish the Americans, and he worried about the cost.

Soon after, in early November, King George III appointed a new Secretary for the American colonies, Lord George Germain, a choice that left little doubt, if any remained, that the King, too, considered the conquest of America serious work to which he was seriously committed.

the Glorious Cause was to a large degree a young man’s cause.

The commander in chief of the army, George Washington, was himself only forty-three.

John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress, was thirty-nine, John Adams, forty, Thomas Jefferson, thirty-two, younger eve...

If unacceptable as an officer, he would willingly serve in the ranks.

he marched as a private in company drills for eight months, until it became obvious that for a man of such knowledge and ability, it would be best to forget about the limp.

Almost overnight he was given full command of the Rhode...

The task at hand, therefore, seemed clear enough: to confine the King’s men in Boston, cut them off from supplies of fresh provisions, and keep them from coming out to gain what one of their generals, Burgoyne, called “elbow room.”

Not the least of Washington’s problems was that he had command of a siege, yet within his entire army there was not one trained engineer to design and oversee the building of defenses.

And though each side dispatched its spies, he put particular emphasis on “intelligence” from the start, and was willing to pay for it.

It was in the first week of August, at the end of his first month as commander, when Washington learned how much worse things were than he knew.

At present, there was powder enough only for about nine rounds per man. According to one account, Washington was so stunned by the report he did not utter a word for half an hour.

“Camp fever” or “putrid fever” were terms used for the highly infectious, deadly scourges of dysentery, typhus, and typhoid fever, the causes of which were unknown or only partially understood. Dysentery had been the curse of armies since ancient times, as recorded by Herodotus.

It was an army of men accustomed to hard work, hard work being the common lot. They were familiar with adversity and making do in a harsh climate. Resourceful, handy with tools, they could drive a yoke of oxen or “hove up” a stump or tie a proper knot as readily as butcher a hog or mend a pair of shoes. They knew from experience, most of them, the hardships and setbacks of life. Preparing for the worst was second nature. Rare was the man who had never seen someone die.

It was not just that the army was shrinking; it was due to disappear entirely in a matter of months, the troops having signed on to serve only until the end of the year.

It had been the common expectation that the rising of such an armed force as gathered outside Boston would cause the British to think again and reach an accommodation.

Seeing things as they were, and not as he would wish them to be, was one of his salient strengths.

he struggled with his own mounting contempt for New Englanders. Writing to Lund Washington, a cousin and his business manager at home at Mount Vernon, he railed against the Yankees as “exceeding dirty and nasty,” nothing like what he had expected.

“Be easy . . . but not too familiar,” he advised his officers, “lest you subject yourself to a want of that respect, which is necessary to support a proper command.”

I hope we shall be taught to copy his example and to prefer the love of liberty in this time of public danger to all the soft pleasures of domestic life and support ourselves with manly fortitude amidst all the dangers and hardships that attend a state of war.

Reed had intended to ride only as far as New York, but found himself so in awe of the general that he continued on to Cambridge to become Washington’s secretary,

George Washington was the great-grandson of John Washington,

His father, Augustine Washington, was a tobacco planter also known for his “noble appearance and manly proportions.”

By steady application he had learned to write in a clear, strong hand and to express himself on paper with force and clarity.

The great teacher for Washington was experience. At age sixteen, he had set out to make his way in the world, as a surveyor’s apprentice

In 1753, at twenty, he had been sent by the governor of Virginia to the wilds of western Pennsylvania, to challenge French claims to the Allegheny River valley,

A year later, on his first command, inexperience and poor judgment led to his famous encounter with French troops and Indians at Great Meadows,

first defeat for Washington, that set in motion the conflict that ultimately involved much of the world.

Like other planters of the Tidewater, Washington embraced a life very like that of the English gentry. English by ancestry, he was, in dress, manner, and his favorite pastimes, as close to being an English country gentleman as was possible for an American

He had an abiding dislike of disorder and cared intensely about every detail—wallpaper,

Second only to his passion for architecture and landscape design was a love of the theater,

Washington’s wealth and way of life, like his physique and horsemanship, were of great importance to large numbers of the men he led and among many in Congress. The feeling was that if he, George Washington, who had so much, was willing to risk “his all,” however daunting the odds, then who were they to equivocate. That he was also serving without pay was widely taken as further evidence of the genuineness of his commitment.

He was by no means an experienced commander. He had never led an army in battle, never before commanded anything larger than a regiment. And never had he directed a siege.

Major General Charles Lee, who was Washington’s second-in-command and the only professional soldier present.