many for to name,' come in for a rap from relentless history. Even Robert Morris does not pass quite scathless. So much of justification is there for the charge made in conversation, that Mr. Bancroft wishes to make of the history an historical romance of which Washington and Franklin are the only heroes.

But this charge is by no means just. Mr. Bancroft bears steady testimony to the constancy of the people to its determination to carry the thing through; and to the wisdom which, on the whole, characterized the popular endeavor, whenever to the people a fair appeal could be made. It is idle to pretend, as a certain sentimentalism in France did. pretend at the time, that the armies of the Revolution were armies of Arcadian shepherds, whose crooks were hardly developed into firelocks. It is the duty of the historian, writing at the end of a century, to expose what is left of such absurdities; and, if Mr. Bancroft has failed, it is a failure on the right side.

The truth is, that the first two or three years of the Revolution were spent, by officers as well as soldiers, in learning the art of war. We need only the illustration to which we have already referred, of what went on, both in the loyal and confederate armies, in 1861, 1862, and 1863, to show how impossible it is to acquire a working knowledge of that art excepting in the field. Washington himself says, in the autumn of 1776, that he had not a general officer who had ever seen more than two regiments together before the war began. It is no discredit to such men to say, that they made mistakes when they were first called upon to apply in prac tice such theoretical knowledge as they had gained. Nor do we believe that the military men whom they received from Europe rendered to them the help in this regard that they expected. It was twelve or thirteen years since the Continental wars had ended. And, although many men from Europe presented themselves wishing high command in the American armies, very few of them had held service in Europe requiring them to direct the movements of bodies of men. Lee, Montgomery, Conway, and Stirling were certainly

Steuben and

But Steuben

of very little service in the lead of men. Pulaski were probably the best of them. had attained no higher rank in Frederic's active service than that of a captain who had acted as a brigade adjutant, and Pulaski is probably correctly described by Carlyle as "having a talent for impromptu soldiering." It may be added, that the experience of three centuries now, from the time of De Soto to this moment, has shown that the military science of Europe requires immense changes before it can be adapted to America. On the other hand, indeed, the light-infantry tactics of modern times were carried from America by Cornwallis and the other foreign officers, and introduced into the English and Continental services. Very fortunately for us, there was no more experienced skill in the conduct of the English armies than in that of our own. Where we should be to-day if Clive had lived to be placed at the head of them, instead of the incompetent illegitimate uncle of the king, is a question which the students of " ifs" are fond of asking. For ourselves, we believe we should be just where we are. The steady determination of the American people was something which no skill in leadership could break down. For all that, we are glad that we were left to the very tender mercies of Howe and Clinton, directed by the waywardness of Germaine and the pig-headed obstinacy of the king.

Let us grant, then, that all the American generals were learning their business in the first years of the war. That is no disgrace to them. Let us grant, that when Putnam, at Brooklyn, sent a brigade to repulse the whole English army, he acted under the impulse of fight, which makes men determine to do something, without much study how much will come of it. It is not a disgrace to Putnam's memory. It is simply the acknowledgment that he was a brave, impulsive man, used to wood-fighting, but without any experience in the broader movements of the field. We find it necessary to say all this, because it is evident that the publication of Mr. Bancroft's volume will call forth a multitude of side-discussions as to details in the great conflict, and that half the skirmishes and battles of the war will have to be fought over againon paper.

In the limited space which we can command, we do not propose to go into any such discussions. Unless some of them assume more critical importance than we now think probable, we shall not enter into them. We have attempted, in what we have already said, to enter into the general principles which we think should govern the discussion. Certainly we do not think Mr. Bancroft is to blame in awakening it again.

Of the two commanders who led the English forces in 1777, it is hard to say whether the English people had most right to be indignant with Burgoyne or with Howe. It appears from a good-natured excursus of Mr. Carlyle, in his "Frederick," that Burgoyne won his laurels in an attack on Valencia d'Alcantara, in Spain, Aug. 27, 1762. The storm was very grand, according to the English newspapers of the time; and the troops behaved with great courage. As their loss was four killed and twenty-one wounded, the perils were not of that kind which now make reputations. Such as they were, however, Burgoyne made his. With the assistance of some good plays which he wrote for the theatre, and with the controlling advantage that he was the illegitimate son of one lord and the son-in-law of another, he was, at the end of fourteen years, put in charge of the best-equipped army which England could send out, to separate New England from the middle provinces, and to crush out the war. Burgoyne arrived in Quebec on the 6th of May; on the 6th of June, he had taken Ticonderoga; and the war minister then wrote to General Howe that he anticipated an early junction of the two armies. On the 19th of September, Burgoyne had advanced fifty miles as the bird flies, half of it by uninterrupted lake navigation, not half a mile a day. On that day, he met the repulse at Saratoga; and, on October 17th, his army capitulated.

This seems a very miracle of inefficiency. But General Howe's performances at the same time, which have not been so vividly displayed in history, deserve the palm, as it seems to us, for superior lethargy; although we cannot but regard Howe as the superior officer of the two. The whole plan of

the campaign being co-operation with Burgoyne, Howe, for his own reasons, was very languid about co-operating. He had the favor of the king and the support of Lord North, but was always at swords'-points with Lord George Germaine. But he was left free to conduct the campaign as he chose, and very remarkable choices he made.

What he chose was this. He made, in April, a raid on Connecticut, with a handful of troops, which lasted three days. In May he did nothing. In June he concentrated his forces in New Jersey. By the 12th of June, he had seventeen thousand at Brunswick, — the finest body of men in the world. But he gave up the idea of marching on Philadelphia, if he had ever had it, and, on the 5th of July, began to embark his troops to go to that city by water. The fleet was three hundred sail. The men lay in New-York harbor, in the stifling heat, till the 23d; then sailed; and on the 25th of August, after a voyage of thirty-three days, anchored in Elk River, fifty miles from Philadelphia. As Howe was but eighty miles from Philadelphia when he started, he gained twenty-six miles in the fifty-one days between the 5th of July and the 25th of August.

To compare this movement with Burgoyne's, not for rapidity but for slowness, is to measure snail against tortoise. Going more than half the way by water, Burgoyne advances at the rate of a little less than half a mile a day. Going all the way by water, Howe makes the same speed to a very small fraction, — half a mile a day.

In eight days more, the army is disembarked, and ready to march. On the 11th of September, Howe fought the battle of Brandywine successfully, a well-planned battle, in which Cornwallis's spirit and good sense, as so often in the war, won their reward; and, on the 26th, he took possession of Philadelphia. But what he went there for, or why he stayed there, it is impossible to say. "You say Howe has taken Philadelphia," said Franklin: "I think Philadelphia has taken him."

Mr. Bancroft has made large use of a body of information, wholly new to the people of this country, which he has se

cured in Germany. It is made up of the official reports, and private letters and journals, of German officers who served here with the mercenaries bought by the English Government. They are popularly called "Hessians" in this country, though all of them were not furnished by the principality of Hesse. The account of the transaction by which the smallest of sovereigns furnished these troops to the least military of war departments is a chapter of history about as disgraceful as any that has ever been written down; and, if there is left one sentimentalist who has a tear for the disposition which, in the order of Providence, has been made of many of the small German princes, and, as we hope, may be made of all, his sorrow will be relieved, and his tears will be dried, as he reads this exposition of what such principalities and dukedoms come to. Why the English Government could not recruit any troops worth speaking of in England, does not very clearly appear. Fighting has, at other times, always been sufficiently popular in England for a sufficient number of sergeants, with a sufficient number of shillings, to get together a sufficient number of recruits for foreign service. But, on this occasion, home recruiting hardly seems to have been tried. The agents of England in Germany were even instructed to say that every thing would be overlooked in supplying mercenaries, if they were only promptly furnished. But the whole scheme, for practical purposes, broke down, under the opposition of Frederick the Great, who set himself firmly against it as soon as it was attempted in the second year.

The private journals and the despatches of the German officers, with the exception of some of Baron Riedesel's, to which his wife's journal called attention, have been hardly noticed by our historians. They furnish some very interesting details in addition to those we had before, which were but scanty at the best, from the pens of English officers. Some of these were printed at the time, and have been exhumed by Mr. Bancroft from forgotten journals. Many of them are quoted from the original manuscripts first brought to light by him.