From despair arose the greatest nation
The next time you're feeling down, remember this story. It's about
how close the name George Washington came to being nothing but a
bonus answer in a barroom trivia game.
On the same day that Congress adopted the Declaration of
Independence, 9,000 British soldiers landed in New York. Their
numbers would grow to 32,000 by September, when they attacked. And
defeated the blundering, outmatched General Washington in a series
of clashes in Brooklyn, Manhattan and White Plains.
They chased Washington and his men across the Hudson, then across
New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. By December Washington's army had
dwindled from 20,000 to about 6,000, huddled on the west bank of the
Delaware river, nervously awaiting the final British assault.
Without supplies. Without new recruits. Without hope.
The British, sensing victory and eager to end the rebellion without
a long guerrilla war, offered a generous amnesty to anyone who would
pledge obedience to the King. Thousands poured into British camps
and did, including two former members of Congress. Meanwhile, squadrons of
British cavalry roamed the countryside, looking to mop up the
remnants of Washington's army ... and Washington himself.
Within four months of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence, the cause of independence was effectively dead ...
... to just about everyone except George Washington, who refused to accept
defeat.
The British, he learned, had left for their winter camp (as armies
did in the 18th century), leaving behind a contingent of Hessian
mercenaries at Trenton on the New Jersey side of the Delaware, to
keep watch on the rebel army. They couldn't cross and attack
Washington because he had ordered his men to steal every boat along
a 25-mile stretch of the river, including several of those big
shallow-draft boats used to haul ore which, Washington surely
noticed, were great for hauling
horses, artillery or entire platoons of men.
That formed the basis of a plan, which Washington presented to his
officers on Christmas Eve: the following night they would board the
boats at three points on the river, cross by midnight, and attack
the Hessians from three directions before dawn.
Things didn't go so smoothly. The river was so icy and treacherous
that two of the contingents didn't even make it across. And the
other, fortunately the largest, didn't get across until 3 am, which
meant they wouldn't be able to attack before dawn. But attack they
did, at 8 am after a long night march in ugly weather. And luckily
it was a complete surprise. In the 45-minute fight (bolstered by the
heroics of a captain named Alexander Hamilton and a Virginia lieutenant named James Monroe) they killed 22 Hessians, wounded 90,
captured 900 and, miraculously, lost only two of their own.
After the battle, Washington was quoted as saying: "This is a
glorious day for our country." Indeed it was. News of the victory
revived the revolutionary cause.
December 26, 1776 is the day we became a nation. Because that's the
day we demonstrated that we could defend ourselves. A year later,
after the Patriot victory at Saratoga, a defeated British officer
sized up his ragged captors and later wrote that he was "looking at a new
race of men". (Who, by the way, built the greatest nation on earth.)
Many so-called 'contemporary historians' attribute our prosperity to
the fact that we settled a continent rich in natural resources.
Well, so did the Russians. How did that turn out?
What makes us different?
Shortly before the Trenton attack, one of the visitors to
Washington's camp had commented about blood in the snow, which came
from hundreds of men without proper shoes. In fact many were without
clothes! They wrapped themselves in blankets tied with twine.
Hundreds were ill. The two men lost at Trenton weren't killed in the
fight; they froze to death during the night march.
Why did these men endure such hardships and face death? Particularly
when all one had to do was proclaim loyalty to the King ... and go
home!
The answer, trite as it may sound, is ...
... freedom.
Washington's soldiers, like most 18th-century men, lacked the
world-awareness that we've developed since. Yet they understood a
crucial concept our latter-day political leaders seem to have
missed.
Freedom is the fuel that powers the engine that turns resources into
wealth.
Freedom is why a man would hack out a homestead where there was
nothing but deep woods and hostile Indians; because it's his home.
Freedom is why a woman would risk her savings to open a restaurant
and employ others; because it's her money, her ambition and
her passion.
Freedom is why we've succeeded and others have not.
And freedom, I'm sorry to say, is why we're losing jobs to India and
China today. Talk to any employer and you'll hear that hiring someone
is more like adopting a child. It's not about "low wages". There are
so many costs beyond that person's wage that to stay competitive,
businesses are willing to risk the things they value most -- product
quality and customer relations -- just to escape the henpecking of
the meddlesome nanny state.
In words attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "If we restrict liberty to
attain security we will lose them both." We're seeing the signs of
that today. We're so concerned about "fairness" in the workplace
that suddenly too many people have no workplace.
It seems we've played fast and loose with the precious liberties
secured by those men who endured so much.
Freedom is why the recovery lags. (Why invest your money when the
free market is no longer free? In many industries the government
picks the winners.)
Does this mean we should return to the days of sweatshops and no
safety net? No. But it's high time to give the pendulum a serious
push in the other direction ...
... by electing people with a sense of what made us so prosperous,
and who demonstrate the courage to stand up to those who buy votes
with your money by jealously distributing our collective wealth.
Time to elect leaders who follow the old fatherly advice: (I think
it's from a Shania Twain song)
"Dance with the one who brought you".
Her name is Freedom.
Joe Curran's notes
Hessians-- About 25 percent of the British force were mercenaries
from what is now Germany, the largest group of which were from the Hesse-Kassel region. We can't call them Germans because
there wasn't a Germany until 1871.
A word about the American Indians -- When one recounts American
expansion, the mistreatment of the native tribes comes up. Indeed
there many broken treaties. But it's my view that, had the
Indians been treated fairly, they certainly would have assimilated
themselves into western culture. They were intelligent,
accommodating and adaptable, and wouldn't have chosen to remain
primitive.And, to set the record straight, their culture
wasn't necessarily "ancient".They inhabited the
northern Plains because they were pushed from the northern
woodlands by
enemy tribes.They couldn't hunt buffalo without horses, which
were acquired from the Spanish only two centuries before Custer.
"New race of man" -- One of my favorite quotes but I couldn't verify
it until I remembered hearing it in a
PBS documentary about the
American Revolution.The source still is unclear but at
least this shows we didn't make it up.
What makes me such a know-it-all --The
History Channel.And I read four wonderful books: 1776 and John Adams by David
McCullough; His Excellency: George Washington by Robert J.
Ellis; and George Washington's War: The Saga of the American
Revolution by Robert
Leckie.Never could have I appreciated any of these without
first reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American
Revolution by Alan Axelrod.