La Fayette rendered no serious military service to the American cause.He arrived in time to fight in the battle of the Brandywine.Washington praised him for his bravery and military ardor and wrote to Congress that he was sensible, discreet, and able to speak English freely.It was with an eye to the influence in France of the name of the young noble that Congress advanced him so rapidly.La Fayette was sincere and generous in spirit.He had, however, little military capacity.Later when he might have directed the course of the French Revolution he was found wanting in force of character.The great Mirabeau tried to work with him for the good of France, but was repelled by La Fayette's jealous vanity, a vanity so greedy of praise that Jefferson called it a "canine appetite for popularity and fame." La Fayette once said that he had never bad a thought with which he could reproach himself, and he boasted that he has mastered three kings--the King of England in the American Revolution, the King of France, and King Mob of Paris during the upheaval in France.He was useful as a diplomatist rather than as a soldier.Later, in an hour of deep need, Washington sent La Fayette to France to ask for aid.He was influential at the French court and came back with abundant promises, which were in part fulfilled.
Washington himself and Oliver Cromwell are perhaps the only two civilian generals in history who stand in the first rank as military leaders.It is doubtful indeed whether it is not rather character than military skill which gives Washington his place.
Only one other general of the Revolution attained to first rank even in secondary fame.Nathanael Greene was of Quaker stock from Rhode Island.He was a natural student and when trouble with the mother country was impending in 1774 he spent the leisure which he could spare from his forges in the study of military history and in organizing the local militia.Because of his zeal for military service he was expelled from the Society of Friends.In 1775 when war broke out he was promptly on hand with a contingent from Rhode Island.In little more than a year and after a very slender military experience he was in command of the army on Long Island.On the Hudson defeat not victory was his lot.He had, however, as much stern resolve as Washington.He shared Washington's success in the attack on Trenton, and his defeats at the Brandywine and at Germantown.Now he was at Valley Forge, and when, on March 2, 1778, he became quartermaster general, the outlook for food and supplies steadily improved.Later, in the South, he rendered brilliant service which made possible the final American victory at Yorktown.
Henry Knox, a Boston bookseller, had, like Greene, only slight training for military command.It shows the dearth of officers to fight the highly disciplined British army that Knox, at the age of twenty-five, and fresh from commercial life, was placed in charge of the meager artillery which Washington had before Boston.It was Knox, who, with heart-breaking labor, took to the American front the guns captured at Ticonderoga.Throughout the war he did excellent service with the artillery, and Washington placed a high value upon his services.He valued too those of Daniel Morgan, an old fighter in the Indian wars, who left his farm in Virginia when war broke out, and marched his company of riflemen to join the army before Boston.He served with Arnold at the siege of Quebec, and was there taken prisoner.He was exchanged and had his due revenge when he took part in the capture of Burgoyne's army.He was now at Valley Forge.Later he had a command under Greene in the South and there, as we shall see, he won the great success of the Battle of Cowpens in January, 1781.
It was the peculiar misfortune of Washington that the three men, Arnold, Lee, and Gates, who ought to have rendered him the greatest service, proved unfaithful.Benedict Arnold, next to Washington himself, was probably the most brilliant and resourceful soldier of the Revolution.Washington so trusted him that, when the dark days at Valley Forge were over, he placed him in command of the recaptured federal capital.Today the name of Arnold would rank high in the memory of a grateful country had he not fallen into the bottomless pit of treason.The same is in some measure true of Charles Lee, who was freed by the British in an exchange of prisoners and joined Washington at Valley Forge late in the spring of 1778.Lee was so clever with his pen as to be one of the reputed authors of the Letters of Junius.He had served as a British officer in the conquest of Canada, and later as major general in the army of Poland.He had a jealous and venomous temper and could never conceal the contempt of the professional soldier for civilian generals.He, too, fell into the abyss of treason.Horatio Gates, also a regular soldier, had served under Braddock and was thus at that early period a comrade of Washington.Intriguer he was, but not a traitor.It was incompetence and perhaps cowardice which brought his final ruin.
Europe had thousands of unemployed officers some of whom had had experience in the Seven Years' War and many turned eagerly to America for employment.There were some good soldiers among these fighting adventurers.Kosciuszko, later famous as a Polish patriot, rose by his merits to the rank of brigadier general in the American army; De Kalb, son of a German peasant, though not a baron, as he called himself, proved worthy of the rank of a major general.There was, however, a flood of volunteers of another type.French officers fleeing from their creditors and sometimes under false names and titles, made their way to America as best they could and came to Washington with pretentious claims.
