GEORGE WASHINGTON AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF BY JAMES HOSMER PENNIMAN, LITT. D. COPYRIGHT GEORGE WASHINGTON AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF To no other human cause is the success of the Americans struggling with the Mother Country in the War of the Revolution due so largely as to the tenacity of purpose of the extraordinary man who led their forces, added to the remarkable fact that he who assumed command under the Old Elm at Cambridge in 1775, remained Commander-in-Chief throughout the long war, and in 1781 forced Cornwallis to surrender at Yorktown. Though Washington exposed himself with dashing courage, there is no record of his having been wounded. Though seriously ill a number of times before and after the war, he was always in full possession of his faculties during the Revolution. When we recall that the disastrous surprise at Brooklyn has been attributed to the sickness of General Greene, we are able to form an idea of what a calamity it would have been if through wounds or disease the watchful eye of the Commander-in-Chief had grown dim and that vigorous mind had relaxed its anxious thought. The occupation of cities by the British was always of minor importance; the independence of America depended on her ability to keep an army in the field. Through Washington's efforts for eight years, an army was always ready and he was always at his post. During the war he left the army on few occasions, and then only when public business required his presence elsewhere. Washington was always the principal character on the stage of the |