This Constitution

Season 4, Episode 7 | Why George Washington's Greatest Victory Wasn't Winning Battles

• Savannah Eccles Johnston & Matthew Brogdon • Season 4 • Episode 7

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0:00 | 31:25

The American Revolution wasn't won by ideals alone. It required an army. But how do you build a fighting force from scratch when your citizens believe standing armies are the tools of tyrants? And how does that ragtag collection of farmers, apprentices, and adventurers end up creating something far more lasting than military victory: a shared national identity?

In this episode, Matthew Brogdon and Savannah Eccles Johnston examine the extraordinary challenge of forging the Continental Army. They trace the journey from the spontaneous militia mobilization around Boston to Washington's desperate Christmas gamble at Trenton, from the crisis of expiring enlistments to Baron von Steuben's legendary training regimen. 

Along the way, they explore the remarkable story of Deborah Sampson, who served 17 months disguised as a man, and consider what motivated ordinary people to endure years of deprivation, disease, and danger.

The hosts also examine Washington's deliberate strategy to transcend regional loyalties by mixing regiments from different states, establishing uniform drills and symbols, and creating an institution where shared suffering forged common purpose. They reveal how this experience shaped Washington's postwar vision for a national university and federal city, and why the Continental Army became the training ground for America's first generation of national leaders.

Tune in to discover how a desperate, underfed, perpetually dissolving army became the crucible of American nationhood, and why Washington believed that what worked for the army could work for the entire country.

In This Episode

  • (00:00) Introduction
  • (00:16) Creating an American identity through the Army
  • (01:55) Why the Minutemen couldn't win a long war
  • (04:03) The challenges of short-term enlistments
  • (04:34) How Revolutionary soldiers differed across the colonies
  • (07:53) Why Americans chose to fight
  • (08:11) Deborah Sampson's extraordinary military service
  • (11:34) Honor, duty, and the motivations of Revolutionary soldiers
  • (14:52) Why recruiting the Continental Army remained difficult
  • (16:13) Washington's struggle to keep his army together
  • (17:18) The Delaware campaign and an army on the brink
  • (20:32) Incentives, pensions, and recruiting soldiers
  • (21:25) Drafts, substitutes, and military service
  • (23:00) Building a national army from state militias
  • (24:13) Washington's strategy for creating unity
  • (26:39) Shared sacrifice and the birth of American identity
  • (27:03) How the Continental Army shaped future national leaders
  • (28:22) Washington's vision for a national university
  • (30:07) Why the Continental Army made Washington the Father of the Nation
  • (30:25) Final reflections

Notable Quotes

  • (01:25) "This notion of the yeoman farmer... steps out into public life to take part in a militia and defend the community." — Matthew Brogdon
  • (11:34) "There's simply the bare fact of the notion that it's a matter of honor, to defend your home, your country." — Matthew Brogdon
  • (13:08) "People don't risk their lives for things they don't believe in... but young men especially don't necessarily need good reasons to go to war." — Matthew Brogdon
  • (16:08) "Long-term, there are good reasons why enlistments struggle. But there's also a difficulty in keeping soldiers at all." — Savannah Eccles Johnston
  • (18:12) "Washington's own troops are going to have little reason to stick around if it looks like all we're going to do is lose." — Matthew Brogdon
  • (23:17) "You have to rely on states to make this army function, but you're trying to make it a national army... into a national institution." — Savannah Eccles Johnston
  • (26:43) "If you put a bunch of Americans from different parts of the country... into one thing, and you just make them suffer next to each other, you can actually forge a national identity." — Savannah Eccles Johnston
  • (29:27) "The Union wants to fly apart. And the question is, what kind of adhesive is going to hold it together?" — Matthew Brogdon
  • (30:13) "Washington's Father of the Nation, not just as first president, but as the man who first forges a national American identity... with the army itself." — Savannah Eccles Johnston

Resources and Links

This Constitution  

Savannah Eccles Johnston

Matthew Brogdon

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:00:00 - 00:00:14]

We the People do ordain and establish this Constitution. Welcome to This Constitution. My name is Savannah Eccles Johnston.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:00:14 - 00:00:16]

And I'm Matthew Brogdon.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:00:16 - 00:00:48]

And today we're going to talk about the Revolutionary soldier, but the big theme is actually how did Washington use the army to create an American identity? This is, this is kind of a great story of how we went from no army at all, nothing, Lexington and Concord, just a bunch of militiamen, to an army that is deeply American in character. The first thing you can really call an American thing, right? So that's the story we want to tell today. So let's start with Lexington and Concord. What does the militia look like, or what does the army look like at Lexington and Concord?

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:00:48 - 00:00:57]

Well, it's the Minutemen. You can see them in that statue that's at the bridge at Concord. And you can tell I'm not from New England because I say Concord, not Concord.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:00:57 - 00:00:58]

Yeah, that was wrong.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:00:58 - 00:01:00]

Yeah, it is. It is wrong. But I'm gonna stick to it.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:01:00 - 00:01:04]

You have no respect for local pronunciation, just so you know. You do this to Utah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:01:04 - 00:01:24]

I have tremendous regard for it, as long as it's my section of the country. I mean, the Minuteman is right there on top of that pedestal in Concord. And it, like the statues of Cincinnatus and George Washington himself, it's lovely because he's standing there with his one hand on a plow. and the other holding his musket.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:01:24 - 00:01:25]

Right.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:01:25 - 00:01:55]

You know, this notion of the yeoman farmer, the citizen who's going about his business, supporting his family, pursuing his livelihood, and steps out into public life to take part in a militia and defend the community. So very much this republican notion of the citizens of the republic defending it from whatever threat comes. No need for this standing army. And that's a notion that is deeply rooted in the American founding tradition, but proves to be very problematic if you actually want to win a war.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:01:55 - 00:02:13]

Yeah, it's cool at Lexington and Concord. By the way, they do reenactments at Lexington and Concord every April 19th. It's at like 5:00 AM. It's very, my in-laws host the community breakfast for it every year. It's very cool. And they now allow women to be Minutemen. So if we had stayed in Massachusetts, that would've been my life goal, is to be a Minuteman and die in the right spot.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:02:13 - 00:02:15]

And you settled for being a professor here.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:02:15 - 00:02:41]

Yeah, it's a real step down. So, Minutemen are great in Lexington and Concord, but they're not great if you wanna win a revolutionary war. And so Congress turns to the creation of a Continental Army, and Washington is appointed as the head of this army. But it's not an army. This isn't like an actual army. In no way is it comparable to the British army. So first we should ask, who joins this ragtag group of militias who form the Continental Army?

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:02:41 - 00:03:10]

Well, there's this shocking spontaneous gathering of troops around Boston, right after Lexington and Concord. The British retreat back to Boston, come along the Neck, they get into the city, and this ragtag assembly of militia from all over New England show up. I think, and this number could be wrong, something like 22,000 militia pop up around Boston, sort of surrounding Boston Harbor.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:03:10 - 00:03:16]

What we should note, this is a disproportionate share for New England in the early army. Like, the first half of the war.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:03:16 - 00:03:19]

Sure . Yeah. Well, they had made,  they started the fight. I mean, they…

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:03:19 - 00:03:20]

Okay. Yes. They started the fight.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:03:20 - 00:03:21]

They picked the fight.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:03:21 - 00:03:21]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:03:21 - 00:04:03]

They need to carry the water for the first part of this. But so there's a huge, I mean, this is a very large army for the 18th century, but completely undisciplined. It's all over the place. Before Washington arrives, you know, I think they put Israel Putnam in charge of everything. And it's a very disorganized force. They're really struggling. What little bit of officer corps they have, folks who had any military experience, and there's a fair amount of folks who had fought in the Seven Years' War, what we call the French and Indian War, who are coming to it with combat experience, but no general officers, no one who's accustomed to organizing an army. That is an organizational problem on a different scale.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:04:03 - 00:04:25]

Yeah, we should also note that these enlistments, they're coming for, you know, 1 to 3 months, maybe 6 months, and then they go home and they've got to plant or they've got to harvest. They're not committed to this long-term. They're doing their civic duty, and then they're returning to their homes as part of these town militias. So it's, you know, neighbors going together to join, and then they go home. This is not a military.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:04:25 - 00:04:34]

I mean, it's sort of like they're out the door and, see you, honey. I'll be back. I'll be back in a month. This is not the way we think of military service.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:04:34 - 00:04:51]

And we should compare this to the Middle Colonies, where the people who join the army look different. So in the Middle Colonies, you have far more loyalists than you'll have in in New England. New York, for example, is the hotbed of loyalist sentiment. They think it's the South, but actually the largest number are in New York at this time.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:04:51 - 00:04:51]

Yeah.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:04:51 - 00:05:16]

So you've got greater diversity, you have a large immigrant population, you have, uh, political divisions in the Middle Colonies. And here it seems like the character of the revolutionary soldier is different. It's less of that citizen soldier coming from his town, and it's either more ideological on one side, or it's more just economic and we're here for adventure. on the other side for the Middle Colonies. And then there's the Southern Colonies.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:05:16 - 00:05:23]

Yeah, if it was the economic motive, that wound up being a disappointment. I don't think Congress pays anybody for a good long time.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:05:23 - 00:05:25]

 I don't know. We're gonna see a story of one person for whom it was a good motive.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:05:25 - 00:05:28]

So the Southern Colonies, though, you think is a different story?

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:05:28 - 00:06:03]

Yeah. The Southern Colonies, again, in the South, the Revolutionary War has more of a civil war type character. So again, you're going to have different groups fighting in the South. It'll have a greater socioeconomic breadth in the South, but it's also going to be like brother against brother. One brother goes and joins the British or the Tory regiment, and another brother goes and joins the revolutionary regiments. Although you have, you still have militia strength in the South. North Carolina, for example, is a hotbed for militias, but it's less of that New England township militia that's joining up.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:06:03 - 00:06:48]

Yeah. And aside from early conflicts in South Carolina and Yorktown, which is going to come very late in the war, a lot of the armed conflict in the South is all Americans, essentially. All the fatalities are Americans because they're loyalists and patriots fighting each other. So very much the Civil War aspect. And that means that our picture of the citizen army applies to both sides. There are quite a lot of militia that help British forces. And that's quite important. Of course, that was a long tradition in American politics. Washington gets his first military service as part of the Virginia militia, aiding British regulars.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:06:48 - 00:06:50]

Something he's a little sore about.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:06:50 - 00:07:21]

He is sore about it. I mean, anybody who's seen,  now we have a, you know, we have this new cinematic treatment, Young Washington, which I enjoyed a great deal, but it does very vividly tell this, this story of a young Washington who aspires to British military service, and they say, no, you're a provincial, you don't get to be a British officer. And so he's confined to serving in the militia. So the idea that militia were doing some of the work of provincial militaries, well, was longstanding. In other words, the Minutemen didn't make up the idea of having militias. This was…

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:07:21 - 00:07:21]

No.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:07:21 - 00:07:43]

The British relied on militias, encouraged them. Especially in Virginia, it was very formalized, uh, had an officer corps and all that sort of thing. Recognizing the dual nature of the conflict as a conflict among Americans that's summoning support to both sides in this, and recognizing the degree to which militia kind of wind up getting a bit of a bad name.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:07:43 - 00:08:22]

In favor of a stronger national army. So let's ask just one last question here before we move on to how do you form this completely ragtag group into an army that's worth anything? Why did they join and why did some not join? And, you know, obviously on one side there's ideological reasons, and I think this is especially true in New England. Some of it is just self-defense, right? You join because your town is being attacked. Some of it is a sense of adventure, and some is the hope of economic reward, most of which will never be realized. But there's one story that I want to tell that I think kind of encapsulates both the adventure and the economic side, and maybe some ideological stuff in there too, and that's the story of Deborah Sampson. Have you heard of her?

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:08:23 - 00:08:26]

Yeah, she serves for 18 months or something.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:08:26 - 00:08:51]

Yeah, 17 months. So she's from New England. She first enlists under a male name, collects her money, her enlistment bonus, and then never shows up on the day of because someone has recognized her. And they're like, oh, that's a she as she goes to sign up. So she is, she has to pay back the little she hasn't spent. And then she's excommunicated from her Baptist church and that's it. But then she goes to another town and she does it again, this time under the name of Robert Shirtliff.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:08:51 - 00:08:52]

Mm-hmm.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:08:52 - 00:09:41]

And she's successful. No one recognizes her this time. She collects her bonus and she shows up on the day that you're supposed to meet. Fairly soon, she is assigned to the Light Infantry Unit, which is one of the elite forces, which is one of the reasons she wasn't recognized, 'cause no one is expecting to see any women in this elite fighting force where the men are taller and quicker and stronger, right? So she serves in this. light infantry unit and sees action as part of this unit. And she has a sword slash across the head and is shot in the leg. And so, they take her off to the doctor, and she lets the doctor sew up her head, but she escapes before he can see to her leg because she doesn't want to be seen as a woman. And so, she goes and digs out with a penknife and a sewing needle.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:09:41 - 00:09:41]

Mm.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:09:41 - 00:10:08]

She digs the ball out of her leg, patches it up. Some of it is still stuck in there. She gets out with a what she can and goes back to service. And she kind of walks with a limp the rest of her life. And because of this injury, she's assigned instead to be kind of a server to one of the local officers. And, it's in 1783, finally, that she's found out because she gets sick, not fighting, just from diseases that are flowing around Philadelphia. And a doctor comes to see to her and is like, oh, something is different about this one.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:08 - 00:10:08]

Yeah.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:10:08 - 00:10:16]

And tells the commander, and instead of removing her with Oh, what's the word? Disapprobation? What's the word I'm looking for?

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:16 - 00:10:16]

A discharge?

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:10:16 - 00:10:27]

Discharge. Dishonorably. Thank you. I'm not a military person. Instead of being dishonorably discharged, she's given an honorable discharge as well as pay, and then she receives a pension.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:27 - 00:10:31]

Yeah, this does become a thing because she applies for a veteran's pension later.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:10:31 - 00:10:32]

Right, right, right. So you have to ask…

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:32 - 00:10:33]

It has to be sort of litigated.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:10:33 - 00:10:51]

What motivates someone like her to join the Revolutionary Army, to join the Continental Army? Is it the sign-on bonus? Is it the adventure of the thing? Is it ideological? We don't know. She never really tells us why does she join. But you have to ask that same question for everyone else. Why did they join something that's going to be miserable?

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:51 - 00:10:52]

FOMO.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:10:52 - 00:10:53]

FOMO.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:53 - 00:10:54]

I don't know.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:10:54 - 00:10:55]

I have FOMO, but not bad enough to join.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:55 - 00:10:57]

Not bad enough to join up.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:10:57 - 00:10:57]

A militia unit.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:10:57 - 00:11:02]

I'm not sure in her case, though. Doesn't she do shows later in life?

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:11:02 - 00:11:04]

Yeah, she goes on a speaking tour.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:11:04 - 00:11:08]

Yeah. And she dresses up in a uniform with the rifle and tells the story.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:11:08 - 00:11:14]

And when she dies, her husband applies for widow's pension and receives it, which I think is brilliant.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:11:14 - 00:11:15]

It's hilarious.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:11:15 - 00:11:19]

Good for him. He deserves that. She ends up having 4 kids. But the broader question we have to ask is, why did any of them join?

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:11:19 - 00:11:22]

Mom was a soldier in the Continental Army.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:11:22 - 00:11:34]

Yeah, I don't know about Dad, but Mom was. So why do any of them join? Why do this? It's going to be miserable. You're probably actually not going to get paid. And by adventure, you mean having like standing in a line and having muskets shot at your face. That doesn't sound like an adventure.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:11:34 - 00:11:54]

Well, there's simply the bare fact of the notion that it's a matter of honor. to defend your home, your country. I'm sure there are variable reasons for this, but certainly the social fact that to fail to show up when your community is convinced that the community's in danger would be deeply dishonorable.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:11:54 - 00:11:54]

Mm-hmm.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:11:54 - 00:12:22]

You know, this would be disgraceful. What was the old flippant phrase, which I don't actually buy, but it's sort of tongue-in-cheek, that every man would be a coward if he could, You know, you know, the sort of, of course you'd save your own life if you get away. But the fact is, you are sort of obligated to put yourself at risk. I say that's a bit of an oversimplification. I think lots of occasions when people, human beings of both sexes, actually risk themselves for things they think are more valuable than their own life.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:12:22 - 00:12:42]

So you say there's this honor thing that forces people to join or compels people to join. But that might be true in New England. But if you're in the middle colonies, where you have divided political loyalties, you have this strong loyalist base, you could kind of skate under the radar. Why join there?

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:12:42 - 00:12:43]

For young men?

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:12:43 - 00:12:44]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:12:44 - 00:12:50]

Certainly, in many cases, you don't want to be seen as a coward. It's,  or think of yourself.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:12:50 - 00:12:51]

So you gotta join one of them.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:12:51 - 00:13:03]

I mean, frankly, I think it's true that the judgment that most people fear most is their own. You don't want to have to think of yourself as having failed in your duty or been a coward when you could have been brave.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:13:03 - 00:13:07]

So you're saying it's less about ideological belief here and more just social pressure?

Matthew Brogdon:

 [00:13:07 - 00:13:46]

Well, I don't think  people don't risk their lives for things they don't believe in. That's, that's not what I'm saying. In fact, it's quite a rational thing to refuse to fight for a cause you think is bad. There's a baseline. You have to think what you're doing is good. But it is also the case that there's not a well-thought-out— I mean, in 1775, especially in early '76, There's not a particularly well-thought-out rationale for doing this. Don't underestimate the power of sort of public opinion and the things seizing on the public mind. People get in a mood. You don't always have a well-worked-out argument for exactly why you would do it. I think young men especially don't necessarily need good reasons to go to war.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:13:46 - 00:13:51]

Oh, no, no, that's true. The most dangerous people on the planet are 18 to 24-year-old men.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:13:51 - 00:14:01]

Who think they're invincible. And of course, I'm just going to go to war. It'll be fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's— you develop a lot of sense and caution sometime in your 30s, you know?

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:14:01 - 00:14:07]

Yeah, I need to stop myself. I'm saying something offensive here. Okay, so you have all these reasons that you should join. It's this courage.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:14:07 - 00:14:25]

Well, it's hugely important that one of the first recipients of the Declaration of Independence when it's printed by Congress is Washington, right? Congress is eager to get this into the hands of the military because it is important that people know why they're fighting. They have some sort of reason. And the pay stinks. The Hessians are getting paid.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:14:25 - 00:14:26]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:14:26 - 00:14:52]

The Continentals are not. So I think that's critically important. A lot of people attribute a lot of importance to Thomas Paine, which we've talked about in the past. We covered Paine in an episode, how important his contribution is. And it sort of galvanizes the sense that there's a rationale here. There's more than just a movement. There's a set of ideas that are distinctly American that are going to challenge British imperialism. So there are currents of public opinion, things people pick up on, but…

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:14:52 - 00:15:16]

And yet, enlistment proves very, very difficult. So there's a lot of long-term reasons why people don't enlist. Passivism, large Quaker communities, for example, a strong loyalist base in the South and in parts of the middle colonies, and then just basic economic concerns. I can't go and join the army because my family will starve and my farm will go to pot. These are long-term, legitimate, understandable reasons why you're going to struggle with enlistment.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:15:16 - 00:15:18]

And a lot of military service is deeply boring.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:15:19 - 00:15:19]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:15:19 - 00:15:36]

I mean, you're sitting in camps where a lot of people get sick. I mean, in terms of casualties, I think it's the case that there are far more casualties from illness than from actual combat. So sitting around in a filthy camp is not an attractive prospect.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:15:36 - 00:15:36]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:15:36 - 00:15:52]

This is not what people sign up to do. Nobody signs up for the army to go sit in camp and get smallpox. And there's also just the simple fact that when you're fighting in a civil war like this, which is in essence what it is, you can walk home. These poor boys from Britain who get on a boat and come over here…

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:15:52 - 00:15:53]

They're stuck.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:15:53 - 00:16:08]

Get off in Boston. You can't walk back to Manchester, you know? You're not going home until the king says so. So, a much different situation. I mean, I can literally just pick up my pack, my gun, and be home in a few days.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:16:08 - 00:17:01]

So, long-term, there's good reasons why enlistments struggle. But there's also a difficulty in keeping soldiers at all. Even once you get soldiers, it's hard to keep them. And part of this is that short war mentality. People don't expect this to be an 8-year war, especially if you're in that New England mentality, right? You go, you do your duty for 3 to 6 months, then you go home and you do your harvest or you plant your fields. But that's not how you can win as an army. And this is something Washington will complain about a lot. He'll say, Yeah. Wait a second. As soon as we get to the point where I've disciplined these guys, they're gone and I have to start over. And Congress responds to this on January 1st, 1776, and they say, okay, 1-year enlistments. Great. You've got 1 whole year, except problem, as you're heading into the winter of 1777, so you're December 1776, your army is about to just go poof.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:17:01 - 00:17:02]

Yeah.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:17:02 - 00:17:18]

And disappear. Washington is going to have to go from soldier to soldier essentially and beg them to just stay for another 6 weeks. Just give me another 6 weeks is what he's asking. Congress will also offer a $10 bonus if they'll stay, a bounty if they'll stay. I'm not sure they ever actually paid that.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:17:18 - 00:17:55]

Well, this is one of the necessities that drives the campaign in New Jersey. Washington's army had just lost New York. We talked about this with Nat Philbrick whenever we had him on. It's a great, great conversation about this episode in the war. But they had lost New York. They've retreated into New Jersey. You know, Washington makes this bold move to cross the Delaware Christmas Eve and go attack the Hessians and then the British at Princeton and Trenton. And that succession, it's not accidental that he's,  it's urgent that he do this at the end of December because the commissions are up in a week. So one week from the crossing of the Delaware…

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:17:55 - 00:17:56]

You're not gonna have an army.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:17:56 - 00:18:17]

Washington's entire army could evaporate. So it is crucial that he do something that gives not just the country,  I mean, often we talk about this in political terms, the country would lose faith in the cause, and that is true. But even more urgently, Washington's own troops are going to have little reason to stick around if it looks like all we're going to do is lose.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:18:17 - 00:18:42]

But isn't this shocking? The army is always, or at least at the beginning, 6 weeks away from disappearing. How can you fight a revolutionary war with an army that is going to just dissipate at any given time. I don't know how Washington keeps this together. And in the new year, in 1777, Congress says, okay, new plan, either 3-year enlistments or enlistments that are simply for the duration of the war. We're not doing this 1-year stuff anymore.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:18:42 - 00:18:42]

No.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:18:42 - 00:18:55]

And this is something Washington has been pushing for. 1 year is insufficient. 3 months is insufficient. We need 3 years or to the end of the war, because I need time to discipline these soldiers. Being a good soldier requires time together. 

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:18:55 - 00:19:54]

So, well, I think it's important to keep in mind too, the family situation of a lot of these guys. It's one thing to say, Mom, I'm going to fight for the cause, or tell the family, Dad's off with the militia, or, I'm joining the Continentals. It's another thing to say, I'm doing that, and don't expect any pay to come back home, or what have you. So, not that people would judge them for it, but it's really easy to be sort of judgmental and a sort of like indignance. There is a bit of an indignance on the part on the part of Washington and others, like, how could you be going home when this— when we're in the midst of this battle? But if it's a matter of, well, my family's at home, my children, my wife, my homestead, my business, you know, there's these,  Rick Atkinson, in his history, the first volume of his trilogy, spends some time talking about some of these vignettes, some of these individuals. One soldier, he has a saddle-making business back home, and his wife is constantly writing him about how she's trying to keep the saddle-making business going, and could he send this or that.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:19:54 - 00:19:54]

Mm-hmm.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:19:56 - 00:20:23]

So there's this very real concern of what's going on on the home front. And again, you're not across an ocean, you know, I'm a long walk from home. So I think there are real demands on these guys that you've got to show me that there's a reason to stick around here and risk my life. Are we actually going to win independence? Is there something in back of this? Is this futile? Is my family going to be supported while I'm off doing this? Those are all reasonable things that aren't rooted in a lack of patriotism. They're not rooted in a lack of courage. It's just very reasonable questions that people with responsibilities to other human beings would ask.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:20:32 - 00:20:54]

So if you're Congress and you're saying, okay, enlistments need to be increased from 3 years to the duration, somewhere between there, you're going to have to give new incentives for people to sign up. And it's actually harder at this point to draw in enlistments. And the states are going to take the lead here, mostly because Congress isn't capable of doing so. Of providing those incentives. So for example, you'll have cash bounties.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:20:54 - 00:20:55]

Yep, bounties.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:20:55 - 00:21:11]

Increased cash bounties. Land grants. If you sign up for a 3 to, you know, duration enlistment, you're going to have land grants. We'll offer you clothing. That's a good one. Bonuses, pensions, right? After you've completed your service, pensions, disability pensions.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:21:11 - 00:21:13]

The clothing is funny.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:21:13 - 00:21:18]

I mean, it's clothes that— Well, it's, you're 1781. That's a substantial…

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:21:18 - 00:21:20]

These guys wandering about naked? I mean, this is…

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:21:20 - 00:21:24]

Well, they were after Valley Forge, basically. And this is true. So this is a good one.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:21:24 - 00:21:25]

Pretty rough, pretty rough go.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:21:25 - 00:21:57]

And then you have substitute systems, which is very interesting. So how this works is states will set conscription quotas for counties and townships, and these counties will use all sorts of methods to do it. They'll use the bonuses and the pension promises and whatever, and substitute systems. But if they don't meet their quota, then you basically get drafts is what will come from these states. So we should probably explain what the substitute system is. How does this work, the substitute system?

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:57 - 00:22:20]

Well, you could pay somebody to go on your behalf. So it,  members of the community who have the means and don't want everyone to be subject to the draft could provide incentives for some of their fellow citizens to go, other young men in the community. Of course, famously in the states, we often see this depicted in southern states as being Well, not just the South, actually. Slavery exists everywhere in 1776, but you'll see people

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:22:20 - 00:22:23]

Rhode Island does this. You can send…

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:22:23 - 00:22:28]

Send enslaved people to fight on your behalf, sometimes with a promise of manumission.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:22:28 - 00:22:28]

Yes.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:22:28 - 00:22:39]

If they serve long enough. But very commonly, people actually just paying young men in the community to go do this. Say, you know, I'll pay off your apprenticeship or college tuition.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:22:39 - 00:22:45]

This feels a little bit more substantial than draft dodgers, but it's a kind of similar principle. Someone else is going to go in your place.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:22:45 - 00:22:59]

And from Congress's perspective, it makes a lot of sense because they have no money. So coming up with a system that would incentivize people in the community to pony up to help pay the cost of sending young men to the front makes a lot of sense.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:22:59 - 00:23:40]

This is so interesting. You have, for the first time, an American army that is created by, at this point, the government under the Articles of Confederation. It's being run, but they don't have any means to actually run this army. They're basically a, a nothing burger of a government. So, you have to rely on states to make this army function, but you're trying to make it a national army, not a state's army, not an army of the states, but an army of the nation itself. And George Washington plays the key role in making this national army, even if all the drafting, all the conscripting, all the paying is being done by the states, into a national institution, and thereby creating this American identity.

Matthew Brogdon:

 [00:23:40 - 00:23:41]

Right.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:23:41 - 00:24:13]

Maybe for the first time, this thing that really links people. And the way he does it is really interesting. So a couple of examples. He is going to deliberately mix the states in regiments. That's interesting. So you're no longer going to have like, this is the Massachusetts regiment and this is a Maryland regiment. No, you're going to be mixing them together. Then you're going to have officers from every region based on a merit system, not based on a, each state gets this person or the wealthy family in that system. Now it's not perfect. Of course, there's still money being changed hands, but still, and then just stuff.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:24:13 - 00:24:14]

There's patronage in every army.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:24:14 - 00:24:32]

There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's common symbols. And Baron von Steuben plays a really important role in this, in giving them common drills and regulations. One standard regulation book for the entire army. There's no more like, these are Massachusetts drills and these are New Jersey drills or regulations.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:24:32 - 00:24:34]

Yeah, you can pick these up. The little blue, is it a little blue book?

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:24:34 - 00:24:35]

Little blue book, yeah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:24:35 - 00:24:38]

You can pick it up in the gift shops at the National Historic Parks.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:24:38 - 00:24:58]

This is one drill and then one uniform. One flag, common symbols, trying to not eradicate, but supersede state loyalties and town loyalties by something that's unifying and national. Again, in contradiction to the idea that all these people are actually being brought to you by the states. This is a remarkable effort.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:24:58 - 00:25:39]

Right. And it became vividly important whenever other parts of the Union did show up with militia. We've noted that you did, you know, Boston starts out with this New England force, but it's not long before you get Marylanders and Virginians, Pennsylvanians, show up to start contributing to the cause. That's especially true in New York. By the time you get to New York, you've got these different regiments. And it's interesting you mentioned the dress and the symbols because some of the most famous vignettes of Washington losing his cool and dealing with his troops actually involved brawls and fistfights breaking out between New Englanders and, you know, these guys in hunting shirts from Western Virginia and Pennsylvania. So there's a real— there's a real sectionalism that can attach to just the way that people dress. And eliminating those barriers. General Mattis referred to this one time as, you know, you have to make everybody believe that everybody here bleeds green. You know? This sort of idea that there aren't any important differences between you all is an important ethic for a fighting force. So Washington does play a big role. I think another interesting thing that he does is the circular letter to the governors. He gets quite frustrated frustrated with Congress, even though Washington is very careful to remain subordinate to civil authority, his role as commander-in-chief, he does write to the governors of the states in the area where he is in an effort to try to encourage them to cough up resources and support what's going on.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:26:29 - 00:27:03]

So you have this attempt to create a national unit, remove this sectionalism. Everyone has the same clothes, same symbols, all of this. And then you have to suffer together. And that's kind of the glue that makes it work. It turns out that if you put a bunch of Americans from different parts of the country, different backgrounds, different religions, different immigrant groups into one thing, and you just make them suffer next to each other, that you can actually forge a national identity. And that it's in this, this kind of crucible of the experience of the Army that you have a sense of Americanness emerge.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:27:03 - 00:27:44]

It's very effective if you look at the involvement of folks in the creation of the Constitution, the First Congress, the early Republic, service on the federal courts, federal military service in the Continental Army is a very common thread among a lot of our principal political leaders, our national political elites. And that really is forged in the case of combat. Washington remembers this after he's president. Even before he's president, in the interim between the war and the establishment of the federal government, there were two things that Washington consistently wrote to people about and urged people to consider. And one was the establishment of a national capital, a federal city.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:27:44 - 00:27:44]

Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:27:44 - 00:28:21]

Which he is writing back and forth to the great architect L'Enfant, who designs Washington, D.C. He had actually been an engineer in the Continental Army. Washington corresponds with him in the 1780s, before we have the Constitution, before we have the new federal government, about the importance of having a federal city. that forms the identity of which is emphatically national, and therefore patriotic, and reflects something about the character of the Union and the country. The other thing that Washington presses for consistently is the creation of a national university. He wants a university. And he expressly writes in letters to some of his correspondents that his reasoning for this is that just as The Continental Army had been a sort of national school for the officers in it, for the officer corps, and formed this sort of  gave the same manners and convictions and political ideals to the set of young leaders that were engaged in that. He wanted to see a national university that would do something similar. And so he's powerfully impacted by the effect of that and really wants to try to duplicate it in other ways to  build a national political community that can sustain American identity and America's republican character and attachment to our national Constitution and our laws. Because he, like, you know, Madison uses this phrase, but it's probably apt as applied to Washington too. Madison uses the idea of a centripetal force that wants to pushing outward. The Union wants to fly apart. And the question is, what kind of adhesive is going to hold it together? And I think Washington thinks that something more than just law has to do that. It's gotta be rooted in a political culture somehow.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:29:41 - 00:30:12]

So, if we were to kind of recap this, enlisting the revolutionary soldier, the goal, or the struggle, is to go from no national army at all to a national army made up primarily of militiamen from different parts of the country who owe their loyalty primarily to their towns or their counties or to their states, into a long-term professionalized-ish army that is national in character. And this makes us, it gives us a new understanding of Washington as Father of the Nation.

Matthew Brogdon: 

[00:30:12 - 00:30:13]

Yeah.

Savannah Eccles Johnston: 

[00:30:13 - 00:30:25]

Washington's Father of the Nation, not just as first president, but as the man who first forges a national American identity in the Revolutionary War with the army itself. If it can be done with the army, it can be done with the states.

Matthew Brogdon:

 [00:30:25 - 00:30:36]

That's right. And once you've made that investment, There's the idea of the sunk cost. You've made the investment in the Union. You fought for the country. That leaves you with a real attachment to it. 

Outro:

 [00:30:25 - 00:31:25]

The Constitution is more than parchment under glass at the National Archives. It's a blueprint for American self-government that shapes every part of our civic life, from the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's America's founding document. This Constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every 2 weeks as we hash out constitutional questions together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.