RootsRain

I just finished reading 1776 by David McCullough. Since I just read another history book, it was an interesting comparison. The writing in 1776 was much, much better than in Six Days of War. Six Days of War wasn’t bad writing, mind you. 1776 was just really good. McCullough isn’t just a historian; he’s also a very good writer.

Also, in both books, history was far, far, far sloppier than you normally hear it recounted. Stuff went wrong. Stuff kept going wrong. Heroes were very imperfect. People were sinners. My greatest surprise, though, was that George Washington was both better and worse than I had always heard. Better in the sense of having far more character than I’d been told (all that “chopping down the cherry tree” stuff). Worse in the sense of not being a very gifted general and prone to indecision. McCullough sums up Washington very well in the last paragraphs of the book:

He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up.

Again and again, in letters to Congress and to his officers, and in his general orders, he had called for perseverance—for “perseverance and spirit,” for “patience and perseverance,” for “unremitting courage and perseverance.” Soon after the victories of Trenton and Princeton, he had written: “A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.” Without Washington’s leadership and unrelenting perseverance, the revolution almost certainly would have failed. As Nathanael Greene foresaw as the war went on, “He will be the deliverer of his own country.”

Washington was very patriotic, concerned for his men, extremely loyal, and indescribably patient. Even when Washington accidently read a letter addressed to his closest confidante—a letter which was an acknowledgement, frankly, of Washington’s friend’s betrayal of trust—Washington simply deeply apologized for having read the letter and passed right over the insult. He made sure he always looked and acted the part of a leader in front of his men. Everyone—and I mean everyone—spoke of him as bringing peace and confidence wherever he walked. Men frequently called him “Excellency” (there’s a book by that name, in fact) because everything about him seemed kingly. If you take into account that he didn’t really have much to brag about except his perseverance (“not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual”), the reverence people felt for him is uncanny. It just goes to show how someone’s inner life can glow through and the weight of their character can be felt by those around. It’s a humbling lesson.

The other humbling lesson is that the pictures of Continental soldiers dressed in rags with feet bleeding in the snow is no exaggeration. The bulk of the American soldiers fighting in 1776 were poor farmers and tradesmen who volunteered for their local militia. They were fed poorly, paid only once in a while, and put through daily back-breaking labor. They went up against the largest and most powerful army on the face of the earth at the time and many didn’t even have weapons. Hundreds died from the constant disease in the camps. Sure, there were a lot who were deserters, some who looted, many who ran the first few times they saw redcoats charge with fixed bayonets. But the majority stuck with it, and, in a mirror of their commander, overcame all obstacles through experience and perseverance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Books, History.