United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Campaigns; Washington, George, 1732-1799
Professor Roberts, in his “History of Canada,” already cited, represents
the migration of thirty thousand Americans to that country immediately
after the Revolutionary War, as “no less far-reaching and significant in
its results than the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.”
There have been those who regarded as the most noble and unselfish act
of Washington’s public career, his patriotic protest against the demands
of his unpaid, starving, and self-sacrificing comrades, that he accept
royal dignity or else become the Oliver Cromwell of his generation. But
the consideration, firmness, and justice with which he dismissed these
mustered-out, disbanded royalists, and, in spite of abuse and outcry,
assisted them to independence in a land of their own choice, adds
another laurel to his chaplet as the magnanimous, no less than the
great, soldier. The subsequent triumphal entry of Washington into the
City of New York, on the twenty-fifth day of November, 1783, was the
crowning military incident of the war.
The numerous Centennial observances in honor of events of the
Revolution, since the second century of American Independence began,
have helped to bring to light many family and other historical data
which otherwise would have been lost; and all of these relating to the
American Commander-in-Chief have only confirmed the world’s estimate of
Washington the Soldier.
Words, at best, are feeble exponents of principles which actions so much
better reveal; and battles on paper, however minutely described, can
never expose the brain processes through which military orders are
matured; nor can the pen portray the experiences of the “rank and file”
of a suffering army, during such an ordeal of war as that in which
George Washington was both the centra executive force and the
sympathetic guardian of the rights of all, of whatever grade of service
or duty. Stupidity, jealousy, self-sufficiency, personal ambition, and
treason, could not survive their impact upon Washington. His mastery of
every antagonistic force, whether professedly military or distinctly
political, was due to that unsought but real supremacy which incarnated
unselfish patriotism, and made American Independence the sole objective
of a righteous judgment and an irresistible will.
On the eighth anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1783,
the American Commander-in-Chief proclaimed a formal “Cessation of
hostilities between the United States and Great Britain,” as the result
of negotiations concluded with Sir Guy Carleton on the previous day.
This Proclamation, like the Letter of Louis XVI., received at Valley
Forge on the seventh day of May, 1778, was ordered to be read at the
head of every regiment and corps of the army; after which, as the order
reads:
“The chaplains with the several brigades will render thanks to Almighty
God for all His mercies; particularly, for overruling the wrath of man
to His own glory, and causing the rage of War to cease among the
nations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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