This seems to have been, in substance, the impression concerning Patrick Henry held at that time by at least two friendly and most competent observers, who were then looking on from a distance, and who, of course, were beyond the range of any personal or partisan prejudice upon the subject. Writing from Cambridge, on the 7th of March, 1776, before he had received the news of Henry's resignation, Washington said to Joseph Reed, then at Philadelphia: "I think my countrymen made a capital mistake when they took Henry out of the senate to place him in the field; and pity it is that he does not see this, and remove every difficulty by a voluntary resignation."[227] On the 15th of that month, Reed, in reply, gave to Washington this bit of news: "We have some accounts from Virginia that Colonel Henry has resigned in disgust at not being made a general officer; but it rather gives satisfaction than otherwise, as his abilities seem better calculated for the senate than the field."[228] Nevertheless, in all these contemporary judgments upon the alleged military defects of Patrick Henry, no reader can now fail to note an embarrassing lack of definiteness, and a tendency to infer that, because that great man was so great in civil life, as a matter of course, he could not be great, also, in military life,--a proposition that could be overthrown by numberless historical examples to the contrary. It would greatly aid us if we could know precisely what, in actual experience, were the defects found in Patrick Henry as a military man, and precisely how these defects were exhibited by him in the camp at Williamsburg. In the writings of that period, no satisfaction upon this point seems thus far to have been obtained. There is, however, a piece of later testimony, derived by authentic tradition from a prominent member of the Virginia Committee of Safety, which really helps one to understand what may have been the exact difficulty with the military character of Patrick Henry, and just why, also, it could not be more plainly stated at the time. Clement Carrington, a son of Paul Carrington, told Hugh Blair Grigsby that the real ground of the action of the Committee of Safety "was the want of discipline in the regiment under the command of Colonel Henry. None doubted his courage, or his alacrity to hasten to the field; but it was plain that he did not seem to be conscious of the importance of strict discipline in the army, but regarded his soldiers as so many gentlemen who had met to defend their country, and exacted from them little more than the courtesy that was proper among equals. To have marched to the sea-board at that time with a regiment of such men, would have been to insure their destruction; and it was a thorough conviction of this truth that prompted the decision of the committee."[229]