YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE GERMAN ELEMENT

WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, LL. D.
non-resident peofrssoe of amkrican history in coexell
university, author of "the life of major-general
nathanael greene," 4l historical view of
the american revolution," etc., etc.

NEW YORK
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON
Camirfoge: gC&e Etoenittie Press
1876

Copyright, 1875,
Hy Geokge Washington Geeene.

RIVERSIDE, OAMDRIDOE:
PRINTED B5T H. 0. HOUGHTON AXD COMPANY.

To
THE HON. WILLIAM GREENE,
OF WARWICK, E. I.
My deak Kinsman, — I dedicate this vol
ume to jrou, in order to have the opportunity of
publicly reminding you that one so profoundly
versed in the unwritten liistory of his country
ought not to withhold his treasures from his
countrymen. Believe me ever
Your friend and kinsman,
GEORGE W. GREENE.

PREFACE.

The following pages make no pretension to
original research. They are founded on the ad
mirable monographs of Doctor Friedrich Kapp,
for many years an honored member of the New
York bar and now an active member of the Im
perial Assembly of his native Germany. Dur
ing his residence in the United States, Doctor
Kapp made special studies in the history of the
Germans in America, and especially of those
whose names have passed into American history.
The result was the lives of Steuben and Kalb,
and the history of those unfortunate men whose
blood was shed to gratify the avarice of their
sovereign ; one of the darkest chapters in the
history of wicked j-ulers. From these sources I
have drawn freely in preparing this new tribute
to the history of my country.

vi PREFACE.
The history of the American war of independ
ence has not yet taken the place which belongs
to it in historical literature. Its causes, its act
ors, and its events invest it with an interest for
the statesman, for the philosopher, and for the
lover of picturesque narrative whicli has never
been surpassed. It is a great prose epic, with
heroes whom we can love and revere, whose mar
velous truths exceed the boldest inventions of
fiction. In the first decade of the present century one
of the most attractive saloons of Paris was the
saloon of a lady whom, out of reverence for the
memory of her father, Italians loved to call Ma
dame Beccaria, although she was already the
mother of Alessandro Manzoni. The conversa
tion of authors and artists — for it was chiefly of
these that the assembly was composed — natu
rally turned upon literature ; and one evening the
question arose, which of all the events of modern
history was best adapted to epic poetry. The
discussion was long and animated, the French
Revolution and the Thirty Years' War finding
eloquent advocates. At last, after weighing the
matter deliberately and looking at it from every

PREFACE vii
point of view, it was unanimously decided that
the American war of independence was the fit
test of all. In that group of eminent men and
women was Carlo Botta, a young Canavese, al
ready tried by persecution in his own Italy, and
an eloquent defender of the purity of his na
tive tongue. Following up the train of thought
which the evening's conversation had awakened,
he took his way homeward through that square
so deeply stained with the blood of the victims
of the Reign of Terror, and, as he paused on the
spot where the guillotine had stood, said to him
self:— " If it be a good subject for an epic poem,
why not for a history ? It is, and I will write
it." The very next morning he began his studies,
and in 1809 gave his great classic to the world.
Shall I complete the story ?
The publishers of Italy republished it to their
great emolument, while the author, unrecognized
by those laws which recognize every other prod
uct of labor as the property of the producer,
was compelled to sell the last six hundred copies

Vlll PREFACE.
of his own edition to a druggist, at the price of
waste paper, in order to purchase for his wife the
privilege of dying in her native land.
GEORGE W. GREENE.
Windmill Cottage, East Geeenwich, K. I.
October, 1875.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
BARON YON STEUBEN  11
GENERAL JOHN KALB  89
GERMAN MERCENARIES  .169

BAKCOT VON" STEUBEN".

0 mostri almen ch'alla virtu latina,
0 nulla manca o sol la discipllna.
Or show at least that to Latin virtue, or nothing is wanting
or discipline alone. . Tasso, Ger. Lib.

BARON VON STEUBEN.

The name which, passing through the varia
tions of Stoebe, Steube, and Stoeben, finally took
its place in modern history under the form of Von
Steuben, first appears in the thirteenth century in
"the list of noblemen who held feudal manors and
estates as vassals of Mansfield and Magdeburg.
Like the other nobles of the part of Germany to
which they belonged, they became Protestants
from the beginning of the Reformation, and like
the rest of the minor nobility grew poor by the
changes introduced into the system of warfare,
while the territorial princes grew rich by the
confiscation of church property. During the
Thirty Years' War, the branch from which the
general descended was separated from the parent
stock, and won distinction through its successive
generations by the pen and the sword. One
among them, his grandfather, an eminent theo
logian, was known by an "able commentary on
the New Testament and the Apocalypse." An
other, his father's elder brother, was distinguished

14 STEUBEN.
as a mathematician, a writer upon military sci
ence, and the inventor of a new system of forti
fication. His father, Wilhelm Augustine, was
•educated at Halle with his two elder brothers,
.entered the military service of Prussia at the age
of sixteen, was married at thirty-one, when a cap
tain of engineers, and, after having served with
distinction in the great wars of the century and
filled positions of confidence and trust under
Frederick the Great, died in honorable poverty at
the age of eighty-four, on the 26th of April, 1783.
Of his ten children, only three, two sons and a
daughter, lived to grow up ; and of these the sub
ject of our liistory, Frederick AVilliam Augustus
Henry Ferdinand, was the eldest. At the time
of his birth, November 15, 1730, his father was
stationed at the fortress of Magdeburg on the
Elbe, and while he was yet a child he followed
him, as the duties of service called him, to Cron-
stadt and the Crimea. When the father returned
to Prussia, the son was barely ten years old.
Thus all the associations of his infancy and child
hood Avere military : guns, drums, trumpets, for-
ifications, drills, and parades. Before he was
fully turned of fourteen another chapter was
added to his rude experience : he served under
his father as a volunteer in the campaign of 1744,
and shared the perils and hardships of the long
and bloody siege of Prague.

STEUBEN. 15
Fortunately his father, who had received a
good education himself, felt the importance of
giving the best that he could command to his
son. And fortunately, too, the Jesuits' colleges
of Neisse and Breslau afforded the means of
thorough elementary instruction. Here young
Steuben laid the foundations of a superior knowl
edge of mathematics and acquired a tincture of
history and polite literature. And here also he
formed an idea of the importance of intellectual
ulture, which led him, when first called into
active life, to turn to account every opportunity
of adding to his store.
About his profession there could be no doubt.
even if all his early impressions had not filled
him with aspirations for military glory, there
could have been no question about the surest road
to distinction under Frederick the Great. At sev
enteen he entered the army as a cadet. In two
years he became an ensign ; in four more, a lieu
tenant, and first lieutenant just a year before the
breaking out of the Seven Years' War. Of this
period two letters are the only words of his own
that have been preserved, and those words are
in bad French. But the thoughts are those of an
ardent young man who knew his profession and
loved it, and asked nothing from fortune but a
chance to distinguish himself. " Yes, my dear
Henry, if there is a war, I promise you at the

16 STEUBEN.
end of a second campaign that your friend will be
either in Hades or at the head of a regiment."
And soon the war came, the great Seven
Years' War ; not indeed a war of principles and
ideas, a political war merely, yet in military sci
ence the connecting link between the great wars
of Eugene and Marlborough and the develop
ment of strategy by Napoleon. Steuben's part in
this war was neither a prominent nor a brilliant
one. The first campaign found him a first lieu
tenant; the last left him a major and in tempo
rary command of a regiment. He was wounded
at the battle of Prague in May, 1757, and shared
the triumph of Rossbach in November, 1757. The
next year gave him a wider field. The brilliant,
dashing, dare-devil hero of this war was the Gen
eral von Mayr, an uneducated, self-made soldier,
the illegitimate son of a nobleman, one of those
men whom war raises to rank and fortune, and
peace sends to the jail or the gallows. Forced
into the army by necessity he had resolutely
made his way to a command, fighting with equal
desperation under different banners, and entering
at last the Prussian service in season to take an
important part in the Seven Years' War. Fred
erick, who wanted just such a man to oppose to the
leaders of the enemy's Croats and Pandours. put
him at the head of a free corps, where his daunt
less courage and enterprising genius had full play.

STEUBEN. 17
Steuben became his adjutant-general and followed
him through his brilliant campaign of 1758. At
the beginning of 1759, death, which had so often
passed the bold adventurer by in the field, came
to him in his tent ; and then Steuben returned to
his regiment, with a knowledge of the manage
ment of light infantry and a habit of cool and
prompt decision in the tumult of battle which he
could hardly have learned so soon or so well in
any other school.
He was soon appointed adjutant to General
von Hiilsen, fought under him in the unsuccess
ful battle of Kay, in July, was wounded in the
murderous battle of Kunersdorf, where Frederick
commanded in person, and having, somewhat like
M61as at Marengo, won a victory and prepared
his bulletins, was defeated with terrible slaughter
on the same day and by the same enemy. Then
for two years, from August, 1759, to September,
1761, we lose sight of him. But that he passed
them in good service is evident from his reap
pearance as aid to General Knoblauch when
Platen made his brilliant march into Poland
against the Prussian rear. And here for a mo
ment the names of father and son appear together,
for the elder Steuben, as major of engineers, built
the bridge over the Wartha, which the younger
Steuben crossed ; too swiftly perhaps to clasp his
father's hand or do more than exchange a hur-
2

18 STEUBEN.
ried glance of recognition as the headlong torrent
of war swept him onward. Some skillful march
ing came next, with overwhelming odds to make
head against, and the scene closes for a time with
a blockade and a capitulation: a blockade in an
open town desperately defended till ammunition
and provisions failed and half the town was on fire,
and an honorable capitulation with flying colors
and beating drums and all the honors of war.
In this- surrender Steuben was the negotiator,
and by its terms he followed his general and
brother officers to St. Petersburg as prisoner of
war. But the imprisonment was a pleasant one,
for the Grand Duke Peter, a warm admirer of
Frederick, took him into special favor ; and it
proved, in the end, a surer path to promotion
than active participation in a victory, for he
did his king such good service with the grand
duke that on his return to Prussia he was made
captain, and raised from the staff of a subordinate
general to that of the great commander himself.
And here his military education received its high
est finish ; for besides what he learnt in the daily
performance of his duty under the king's own eye,
he was admitted to the lessons upon the higher
principles of the art of war which Frederick him
self gave to a limited number of young officers,
whom he had selected, not for birth or fortune,
but for talent and zeal. And thus it was as aid

STEUBEN. 19
to the king that he took part in the siege of
Schweidnitz, and saw the curtain fall upon the
checkered scenes of this long and bloody war.
The king, well pleased with his services, bestowed
upon him a lay benefice with an income of four
hundred thalers.
Peace came, and with it an unsparing reduction
of the army. " Lieutenant Bliicher may go to
the devil " was the expressive phrase with which
the future marshal was sent back to private life ;
and among the reasons assigned for Steuben's
withdrawal from the army is dissatisfaction with
the new position assigned him in it. However
this may be, we find him, soon after the peace of
Hubertsburg, traveling for amusement, staying a
short time at Halle and Dessau, then going to
Hamburg, where he made an acquaintance that
was to exercise a decisive influence upon his
future career at a decisive moment, the acquaint
ance of the Count St. Germain ; and last to the
baths of Wildbad in Suabia, where he was pre
sented to the Prince of HohenzoUern Hechingen,
and, through the influence of the Princess of Wiir-
temberg and Prince Henry of Prussia, received
the appointment of grand marshal of his court.
An honorable appointment, indeed, but dull
work, one would think, for a soldier in the flower
of his age. From infancy, with one brief excep
tion, Steuben had known no life but that of for-

20 STEUBEN.
tress and camp ; had been accustomed to be up
before day and measure his time by drum-beat and
trumpet. He had been constantly moving to and
fro with his life in his hand, subject to the chances
of a hair's- breadth more or a hair's-breadth less,
in the line of a musket-bullet or cannon-ball.
He had often seen men whom he had messed
with in the morning lying around him at night
wounded, or dying, or dead. And now he was to
lay him down calmly under a gilded canopy,
sleep softly on down, and let the summer and
winter sun outstrip him in their rising. His
companions were to be men who spoke in whis
pers, and bowed long and low ; his duties, the
ushering in and out the presence chamber those
of higher rank, and seeing that those of lower
rank were duly attended, each in his degree ;
stifling intrigues, allaying discontents, composing
discords ; watching over the details of a great
household — for a court is nothing more — and
giving them an air of dignity by personal gravity
and official decorum.
Steuben's character was passing into a new
phase, revealing, as such transitions always do,
qualities hitherto unknown to their possessor or
those who knew him best. He had had little
time for the dreams of youth. Life for him had
been full of stern realities. His only ambition,
the thirst of military glory, had been imperfectly

STEUBEN. 21
gratified. He had not won a regiment in two
years, as he had promised his friend Henry that
he would, but neither had he gone to Hades ;
and to have been an aid and a chosen pupil of
Frederick was something to dwell upon with satis
faction, even though it left him with but four hun
dred thalers over his captain's pay. How small
the prospects of advancement in peace time were,
his father's example showed him : a veteran of
forty-seven years' service, without a blot on his
escutcheon, and still only a major of engineers.
And meditating upon these things he could lay
down his sword without regret ; and bid farewell
to all the habits and associations of all his life.
But why, in place of that keen, stout sword,
with its plain leather scabbard and plain brass
guard familiar to a soldier's hand, take up the
flimsy blade fit only to rest idly on a courtier's
thigh or be crossed with some other flimsy blade
in a courtier's quarrel ? Rest, rest, rest — Steuben
was weary and wanted rest. Far down in the
depths of his nature, but overlaid hitherto and
hidden by the necessities of his position, lay a
love of ease, a longing for social life and the
pleasures of refined intercourse. But that ease, to
satisfy the old soldier's ideas of form and hierarchic
subordination, must be accompanied by dignity ;
that repose, to satisfy the old soldier's habits of
daily occupation, must wear a semblance of ac-

22 STEUBEN.
tivity. And where were these to be found in such
happy combination as in the cyclic frivolities of a
petty German court, wherein the daily trifles of
life were performed with all the pompous cere
monial of a great empire ?
And thus, too, we find the measure of Steuben's
political sentiments at this pausing point in his ca
reer. Frederick had burnt his " Antimachiavel "
years before, and reigned like a voluntary dis
ciple of the eighteenth chapter of the " Prince."
To the common eye thrones were never firmer.
The " Contrat Social " had but just come forth
from the fervid brain of Jean Jacques. The " Let-
tres Persanes " and " Esprit des Loix " were doing
their work surely but in apparent silence. Few
shared the Cardinal Fleury's dread of an approach
ing end of the world.1 But Frederick, who pro
tected the French Raynal and frowned on his own
Germans when they ventured to treat profoundly
some of the subjects of the superficial abbe's dec
lamations, was not the man to encourage the study
of Rousseau or Montesquieu in his camp, and the
camp had been Steuben's world. Personally in
dependent and possessing an almost exaggerated
] Unless Cowper's — " World that seems
To toll the death-bell of its own decree,
And by the voice of all its elements
To preach the general doom,"
is to be classed with Fleury's prognostics.

STEUBEN. 23
sense of dignity, he was still accustomed to call
a king his master and look upon the distinctions
of rank in civil life as he looked upon them in
military life. The rights of the people, the duties
of rulers, the true sources of authority, were ques
tions that he had not yet found leisure to discuss,
and when the leisure came, there was nothing in
his surroundings to invite the discussion. As
grand marshal of the court of a German prince
he found little in his new surroundings to enlarge
the conceptions of the rights of humanity which
he had formed in the army of a German king.
In the busy idleness of the petty court Steuben
passed nearly ten years ; acceptable to the prince
for his intelligent zeal and strict performance
of his duty, acceptable to courtiers for the digni
fied amenity of his manners and the justice of his
dealings. He had leisure for reading, of which
he had once been fond, and for society, in which
he was well fitted to shine. The prince loved
traveling, and Steuben traveled with him when
ever he went to other courts of Germany, and,
welcomest duty of all, to Paris, where his rank
opened for him the doors of the most celebrated
saloons and procured him the acquaintance of the
men he most desired to know. So contented was
he with this mode of life that he purchased a small
country-seat by the name of Weilheim ; and thus,
but for that1 "vice of courts" which has ever
1 Inf. xiii. 62 : " Morte comune e delle corti vizio."

24 STEUBEN.
. reigned in them supreme, he might have floated
pleasantly on the easy tide to the French Revolu
tion, and drawn his sword once more with com
rades of the Seven Years' War under the banners
of the Duke of Brunswick.
But Steuben was a Protestant, the descendant
of Protestants from Luther's day downwards ;
the court was Roman Catholic, and with priests
about it who found it hard that a heretic should
stand so high and live so intimately with their
sovereign. How they intrigued against him, and
how cunningly they strove to sow dissensions
betwixt the prince and his grand marshal, we
can readily conceive, although the story has not
come down to us in all its details. But Steuben,
well knowing that whatever the immediate result
of the actual contest might be, there could be no
return to the tranquillity which had formed the
chief charm of his position, discreetly bowed to the
blast and resigned ; carrying with him into private
life the esteem of the prince and the friendship
of many eminent men whose friendship he had
won under the prince's auspices.
Once more a free man, he seems to have expe
rienced some return of military ambition. For a
moment there was a prospect of war, and could
he have obtained without much effort the rank
he felt himself entitled to, he would have entered
the service of the emperor. But his heart was

STEUBEN 25
so little in the change that he neglected even to
present himself to Joseph, as his friend the Prince
de Ligne and General Ried had urged him to
do, and the negotiations which he had indolently
begun were suffered to fall through. In 1769 the
Margrave of Baden had conferred upon him the
cross of the order of "la Fidelite ; " and now, on
resigning his grand marshalship, he first turned
his steps towards Carlsruhe, the seat of the mar
grave's court. Even quieter than that of Hech-
ingen was the life that he led here. Absolute
master of his time and of a competent income,
he could go whither he would, still sure of meet
ing or making friends wherever he went. A visit
to the country-seat of the Baron von Waldener, in
Alsace, brought him. once more into contact with
the Count St. Germain ; and "in the winter of
1776, while Washington was struggling through
the Jerseys and striking his daring blow at the
German mercenaries in Trenton, Steuben was
making at Montpellier the acquaintance of the
Earl Warwick and Earl Spencer. So intimate
did they become that he resolved to extend his
circle of travel and make them a visit in England.
Paris lay in his way, and as the Count St.
Germain had recently been made minister of war,
he could not resist the temptation of passing a few
days there and congratulating him on his ad
vancement. It was early in May, 1777. Frank-

26 STEUBEN.
lin had already taken up his residence at Passy,
and was drawing young and old around him.
Silas Deane had been in France almost a year.
Arthur Lee was there too, busy, active, jealous,
suspicious. Beaumarchais was gliding to and
fro, as adroit, keen-eyed, and subtle as his own
Figaro. Paris was unconsciously vibrating to
the touch of the lightning-tamer, and preparing to
hail him as the breaker of misused sceptres.
But it was not of this that Steuben was
thinking as he reentered Paris on the 2d of May,-
but of the new war minister with whom he
had talked of Prussian tactics at Hamburg and
in Alsatia, and of the gay saloons he had been
so much at home in when he visited them with
the Prince of Hechingen. He would just glance
at them now, juat go out to Versailles and tell
the count how glad he was to see him in the
right place, and then cross over into England
and see what kind of a life English noblemen led
in their own castles. And as soon as he had made
himself comfortable at his hotel, he wrote to tell
the count of his arrival and that he should wait
upon him at an early day.
" Do not come to Versailles," was the answer.
" In three days I will see you at the arsenal and
will send an officer to conduct you thither. We
have important questions to discuss together."
And still pondering on this sphinx-like reply, he

STEUBEN. 27
saw the three days pass by and the officer come,
and found himself once more in the presence of
his friend.
Then for the first time, perhaps, certainly for
the first time with any approach to personal in
terest, he heard the story of the revolted colonies,
of their perils and their resources, of the sympa
thy which France and Spain felt for them, and of
the danger that with all their courage and reso
lution, with all the secret aid of their European
friends, they might still fail for want of a man
like him to organize and discipline their citizen
soldiers. Here was glory, here was fortune, here
was afield (and St. Germain laid his hand upon
the map of America as he spoke), such as no
European war could afford, for applying the les
sons of his great master and demonstrating the
superiority of the system which they both be
lieved in so firmly.
Steuben was taken by surprise. In all his
guesses at the meaning of St. Germain's letter, he
had never thought of this. At first the difficul
ties and objections rose before him in formidable
array. St. Germain answered him at length,
trying to meet them all. " What would you ad
vise me, not as a minister but as a friend?"
" Sir, as a minister I have no advice to give you
on these subjects ; but as your friend I would
never advise you to do anything which I would

28 STEUBEN
not do myself were I not employed in the king's
service." Thus ended the first interview, and Steuben
went thoughtfully down the old stairway which
Sully and France's best king but one had often
trod together, when the America that he bad
been asked to go and fight for was a wilderness.
Next day they met again. Twenty-four hours'
reflection had removed some doubts, awakened
some hopes. It was but a distant sound of the
trumpet, but the old spirit — the spirit formed in
infancy, cherished through boyhood, and accepted
in manhood as the chief spring of action — was
stirred again. It may be, too, that a still deeper
cord had been touched, and that he felt it would
be a generous as well as a glorious thing to fight
on the side of a republic contending for her lib
erty. But liberty was a word not yet familiar to
his lips. Glory had its meaning and rank its
value. Could he be sure of winning them ?
With many warnings to be cautious, to keep
away from Versailles and not allow himself to be
too freely seen in Paris, St. Germain gave him a
letter to Beaumarchais; Beaumarchais introduced
him to Deane ; Deane took him to Franklin.
Thus they stood face to face, the philosopher-di
plomatist with his Quaker-cut drab, and the sol
dier-courtier with the glittering star of the order of
" Fidelity " on his breast ; the eye that had been

STEUBEN. 29
trained to look closely into the phenomena of
nature, and read the workings of the heart in the
play of the features, looking straight into the eye
that had been trained to look into the4 cannon's
mouth and detect the signs of success or disaster
in the wild tumult of battle. " This is no en
thusiast," Franklin must have said to himself as
he scanned the sun-embrowned face, the strong
features, the well-rounded forehead, the bushy
eyebrows, uplifted as if the clear orbs they shaded
were ever on the watch, the large nose not wholly
Roman but very near it, the full lower lip sug
gestive of good cheer fully appreciated, and the
projecting chin, all borne with the upright pre
cision of a man who had worn a uniform from his
childhood. " No young Marquis de Lafayette this,
fresh from the schools, with romantic dreams of
liberty and human virtue. Here is a sword to
sell, perhaps something more ; but what are
swords good for but to cut men to pieces ? and it
is rather hard that I, who have passed over, fifty
of my seventy-one years in trying to teach men
how to take care of themselves and convince them
that they are never so happy as when they live
like brothers — I, who have often said that I never
knew a bad peace or a good war, should in my old
age become a sharpener of swords and swords
men." " A strange way this, of persuading men
to come and shed their blood for you," thought

30 STEUBEN.
Steuben as he listened incredulously to the sug
gestion of some grant of a couple of thousand
acres of land as a compensation for his services,
and with something very like indignation when
Franklin told him with " a manner to which he
was then little accustomed " (not the court man
ner, that is, but one that he became well accus
tomed to in the sequel) "that he had no au
thority to enter into engagements and could not
advance him anything for the expense of his
voyage." His blood was roused. This was not the way
to speak to a man whom the great king had hon
ored with his confidence, and in the heat of his
anger away he went to Beaumarchais, to say that
he should go immediately back to Germany and
did not want to hear anything more about
America. Next day he went to Versailles. St.
Germain seemed hurt at his decision, but what
ever his knowledge of other men may have been,
he knew Steuben thoroughly ; and instead of
breaking with him he invited him to pass a few
days at his house. This at least Steuben could
not refuse. After dinner the Spanish Embassa
dor, Count Aranda, came in ; not, perhaps, alto
gether by accident. " Here is a man," said St.
Germain as he presented Steuben to him, " who
will risk nothing, consequently he will gain noth
ing."

STEUBEN. 31
When Steuben formed at Montpellier the ac
quaintance of Earl Spencer and the Earl of War
wick, he formed at the same time the acquaint
ance of the Prince de Montbarey, who like most
of the men of distinction whom he was brought
into connection with, conceived a high opinion of
his talents and an affection for his person. He
too was at Versailles, and Steuben, as St. Ger
main had doubtless foreseen, went to wait upon
him. Another sharp attack upon his resolution
by another friend. " I can determine nothing,"
he said, " until I return to Germany." But the
idea had taken possession of his mind, and his
friends must have felt almost sure of him when
they saw him turn his steps homeward instead
of going to England.
It has taken us but three pages to tell this story,
but it took three months to act it in, and July was
near, its end when Steuben reached Rastadt. A
letter from Beaumarchais was there before him,
telling him that a ship and money were ready for
him and that Count St. Germain expected his
immediate return. A letter from the count
himself urged him to hasten back to Versailles.
Here, as with Deane, Beaumarchais was evidently
acting as the agent of the ministry, and acting
in. a manner worthy of the author of the " Ma
nage de Figaro " and the " Me'moire a Consulter."
How could a straightforward, hot-blooded, honor-

32 STEUBEN
loving Steuben hope to break through the toils
which such a hand had spread ?
Just at that time the Prince Louis William of
Baden was at Rastadt, and Steuben, who placed
great confidence in his judgment, told him the
story and showed him the letters. Prince Louis,
himself a lieutenant-general in the service of
Holland, could see no room for hesitation, and
thus between two princes, three counts, and the
adroitest of negotiators, the aid-de-camp of the
most absolute of kings surrendered himself to the
service of the most democratic of republics.
There were still difficult details to arrange.
First, Frederick's consent to transfer to Steuben's
nephew, the Baron von Canitz, his canonry of
Havelberg which now brought him an income of
four thousand six hundred livres. Then the fix
ing upon a definite character to present himself
in, and securing, as far as possible, the means of
making his application to Congress successful.
It was already known in France that a strong
feeling had been excited in America by the facil
ity with which the Congress had given commis
sions to foreign officers. On the very day that
Steuben returned to Paris to resume his negotia
tions, Washington, from the camp in which he
was watching the movements of Sir William
Howe, wrote to Franklin " that every new arrival
was only a new source of embarrassment to him
self, and of disappointment and chagrin to the

STEUBEN. 33
gentlemen who came over." -1 It was evident
that no Major, no Colonel Steuben could be ad
vanced to a position in which he could introduce
the reforms which the French minister felt it to
be so important to effect, without seriously offend
ing the just susceptibilities of the native officers.
The refusal to confirm Dearie's contract with Du
Coudray was one of the objections which Steuben
had urged after his interview with Franklin.
And yet St. Germain and Vergennes were both
convinced that without a reform in the organiza
tion of the American army, the money and stores
of France would be given in vain.
It was decided, therefore, that Steuben should
assume the rank of a lieutenant-general, an as
sumption imperfectly borne out by his actual
rank of General of the Circle of Suabia ; and to
meet the objection that the American agents had
no authority to treat with him, that he should
merely wait upon them to announce his intention
of serving one or two campaigns as a volunteer,
and ask letters to the leading members of Con
gress. He had not yet seen Vergennes. On the third
day after his return Montbarey introduced him
to the minister in a special audience. " You are
determined, then, to go to America," said the vet
eran diplomatist. 1 Sparks, Writings of Washington, v. 33.
3

34 STEUBEN.
"Do you think the idea extravagant? " asked
Steuben. " On the contrary, it is the road to
fame and distinction ; but I strongly recommend
you to make an agreement beforehand, and not
rely too implicitly on republican generosity."
Steuben replied that he should make no condi
tions ; but that if the republic should prove un
grateful he was sure that the King of France
would not, and that Count Vergennes and the
Prince de Montbarey would take care that his
services should not go unrewarded. The minister
was instantly on his guard. " You know very well
that it is impossible for us to make conditions
with you. I can only say to you, Go, succeed, and
you will never regret the step you have taken."
His preparations were now made rapidly.
With St. Germain he discussed the reforms he
proposed to introduce into the American army.
From Beaumarchais he received as a loan the
money for his outfit and passage. He chose
four officers for aids, De l'Enfant, De Romanai,
Des Epinieres, and De Ponthiere. Not knowing
English he required a secretary and interpreter,
and at Beaumarchais' house he found Peter S.
Duponceau, well known some thirty years ago to
the citizens ©f Philadelphia as a hale old- man,
to the legal world as a skillful lawyer, to pub
licists as the translator of Bynkershoeck, to the
world of letters as the author of a treatise on the

STEUBEN. 35
Chinese language which won the prize of the In
stitute of his native France ; but then a gay, light-
hearted young Frenchman of seventeen, with a
remarkable talent for the study of language, and
a premonitory passion for English which won him,
at the Benedictine convent where he studied, the
nickname of L' Anglais. Two vessels were upon
the point of sailing for America with part of the
arms and stores furnished by Beaumarchais under
the name of Hortalez & Co., and the royal com
missioner gave Steuben his choice of the two.
By the advice of Count Miranda he fixed upon
the Heureux, a twenty-four gun ship which waa
to sail from Marseilles under the name of Le
Flamand. Steuben, also, assumed a new name,
Frank, and as a protection in case of capture by
the English, received dispatches under that name
to the governor of Martinique. Then, cheerful,
self-reliant, nothing doubting but that two or
three years would see him safely returned with a
full purse and laureled brow, to talk over his
campaigns in the saloons of Paris and at the
watering-places of Germany, he embarked with
his military family on the 26th of September,
1777, just fifteen days after the battle of Brandy
wine, and while the weary and half-trained band
which before another campaign he was to form
into a disciplined army was slowly making its way
to the position from whence, in eight days more,
it was to make its bold dash upon Germantown.

36 STEUBEN.
The Flamand's passage was long, boisterous,
and perilous ; first down the Mediterranean, along
the bold, mountainous coast of Spain, and then,
with Africa slowly receding on the left and Spain
on the right, and sailing unconsciously over Tra
falgar, Steuben took his last look of the Old
World with its memories, and stretched boldly
out into the Atlantic, on the path of a New
World and its hopes.
He was familiar with the monotony of a camp,
and found it no bad preparation for the monotony
of a ship. To while away the time he amused
himself with mathematical calculations, shot at a
mark with his companions, read the Abbe Raynal,
kindling the hitherto dormant fires of republic
anism, and doubtless also often thought long and
deeply on the best methods of applying Prussian
tactics to an army of freemen. More than once,
too, the monotony was broken. A severe gale off
the coast of Africa may have awakened unpleasant
thoughts of slavery among the Moors. Another,
off the coast of Nova Scotia, gave him a fore
taste of American winds in November. There
were seventeen hundred-weight of gunpowder on
board, and the forecastle was three times on fire.
There were some gunpowder spirits on board, also,
who stirred up a mutiny which was only put down
by hard fighting, fourteen against eighty-four. At
last the land came in sight, and on a bright, clear,

STEUBEN. 37
1st of December the Flamand entered the har
bor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Steuben
saw for the first time the flag of the republic
waving over an American fortress.
Assuming at once the dignity of his rank, he
sent Duponceau ashore to announce his arrival
to the American commander. And then the wag
gish youngster, in his scarlet regimentals turned
up with blue, won the bet he had made on the
passage, that he would kiss the first girl he saw.
For walking up to one, as none but a Frenchman
could, he told her that he was come to fight the
battles of her country, and that before he left his
own he had solemnly vowed to ask, as a token
of success, a kiss from the first lady he met.
The damsel listened, and moved either by a sense
of patriotism, or by reverence for the sanctity of a
vow, or by the eloquence of young eyes and a
fresh uniform, or because she did not disapprove
of kissing, held with a becoming blush her cheek
or her lips — the record does not say which — to
the adventurous salute.
As soon as General Langdon learned that the
anchoring ship held a Prussian lieutenant-general,
a veteran of the Seven Years' War, he hastened
on board to welcome him, and, taking him and
his suite in his barge, brought them to the land
ing, whither the whole town was flocking to gaze
at and greet them. Meanwhile the guns of the

38 STEUBEN.
fortress fired a lieutenant-general's salute, and the
ships in the harbor, displaying their flags, joined
in the national welcome. At that day's dinner
Steuben first heard of the surrender of Burgoyne,
and hailed the tidings as a happy omen. The
day following he visited the fortifications, and the
next reviewed the troops. One of his earliest
cares, also, was to write to Washington and Con
gress, expressing his " desire " to deserve the title
of a citizen of America by fighting for her liberty.
With his own letters he forwarded copies of those
of Franklin, Deane, and Beaumarchais. Then,
on the 12th of December, he set out for Boston.
Here his chief entertainer was John Hancock,
who was just returning to private life after honor
able service in Congress ; and often, during the five
weeks that the bad roads kept Steuben waiting for
the answers to his letters, his feet trod that long
flight of steps and crossed that hospitable thresh
old which but a few years ago were still standing
to tell of the olden time and Boston's provincial
splendor. At last Washington's answer came,
courteous though formal, and referring him to
Congress as the only body authorized to accept
offers of service or make appointments. At the
same time Hancock informed him that he had
been directed by Congress to make every prepa
ration for securing him and his suite a comfortable
journey to York, in. Pennsylvania, where Congress

STEUBEN. 39
was then sitting. Hancock was not the man to
do this work negligently. The ground was cov
ered with snow, and sleighs with five negroes for
drivers and grooms were prepared for the bag
gage, and saddle-horses for the general and his
suite. A purveyor, too, accompanied them to
provide provisions and quarters. The enemy
were in possession of Newport and New York, and
made frequent incursions into the interior. A
roundabout course, extending to four hundred
and ten miles, was the only course Steuben and
his party could take without exposing themselves
to unnecessary danger. The journey began on
the 14th of January, and it was the 5th of Febru
ary before they reached York. Thus at the very
outset Steuben gained what to his military eye
was an invaluable view of a large section of his
new country. He got also a few glimpses of one
of its elements of danger, the tory element.
In Worcester County, near the Connecticut bor
der, was a tavern notorious by the ill fame of its
tory landlord, and which Steuben had been coun
seled to avoid. But a snow-storm left him no
alternative, and at nightfall his weary train drew
reins at the door of evil name. True to his rep
utation, the landlord told them that if they would
atop at his house they would have to take up with
bare walls ; for he had neither beds, bread, meat,
drink, milk, nor eggs for them. Remonstrances

40' STEUBEN.
and even entreaties were powerless. Steuben's
blood began to boil ; a copious shower of Ger
man oaths was tried and all in vain. " Bring me
my pistols," he cried in German, to his German
servant, and while the landlord was looking on
with malignant satisfaction he suddenly found a
pistol at his breast, " Can you give us beds ? "
" Yes," trembled the affrighted miscreant.
" Bread ? " " Yes." " Meat, drink, milk, eggs ? "
and still " Yes," to each demand. The loyalist
saw that the terrible German was in earnest.
The table was quickly spread, all wants abun
dantly supplied, and after a comfortable night
and a good breakfast the party resumed their
journey, not forgetting to pay the tory liberally
in Continental money.
One feature of the journey, however, was very
grateful to Steuben's German pride. The Seven
Years' War was still a recent event, and Freder
ick a popular name everywhere, more especially
among the Germans. Hence town, village, or
wayside inn displayed the well-known sharp feat
ures and high shoulders as a sign, and decked its
walls with prints in honor of the great king, and
sometimes to the disparagement of the " great
nation." At Manheim in particular the baron,
with a significant glance and great internal en
joyment, called the attention of his French secre
tary to an engraving on the dining-room wall,

STEUBEN. ' 41
representing a Prussian knocking down a French
man, with the motto, '" Ein Franzmann zum
Preuszen wie eine Miicke " (A Frenchman to a
Prussian is like a gnat).
And now opens the serious chapter of Steuben's
American life. The Congress at York was not
that wise Congress which had declared independ
ence and launched the new " ship of state " upon
its perilous voyage, but that weak and divided Con
gress which had opened its ears to calumnies upon
Washington and almost resolved to set up Gates
as his rival. Gates himself, with a brain whirling
with the excitement of unmerited success, was en
joying the good dinners and warm quarters at the
temporary seat of government, while Washington
was starving and freezing with his army in the
huts and hovels of Valley Forge. How was Steu
ben with his five weeks' stock of English to dis
tinguish between the true hero and the false one ?
St. Germain had chosen his man well ; an ex
perienced and scientific soldier, for no other could
have done such work as he was appointed to do ;
a man experienced in men, also, and both too wise
and too honorable to become the tool of a faction.
Gates loaded him with civilities and urged him to
stay at his house. But, meeting the civilities
with polite appreciation, he refused the danger
ous hospitality.
It became apparent that in counseling Steuben

42 STEUBEN.
to assume a rank unknown in the American
army, Vergennes, St. Germain, Montbarey, and
Miranda had proved themselves wise in their gen
eration. Dazzled by the claim which was so well
borne out by his professional knowledge and per
sonal dignity, Congress appointed a special com
mittee to wait upon him and listen to his pro
posals. They were not such as Congress had
been in the habit of receiving ; for he told them
that he asked for neither rank nor pay, that he
wished to enter the army as a volunteer and per
form any duty which the commander-in-chief
might assign him, and that commissions for his
aids and the payment of his actual expenses were
the only conditions which he should stipulate, leav
ing the question of ultimate compensation to be
decided by the success or failure of the struggle.
No time was lost in idle discussions. The com
mittee reported without delay. The next day he
received a formal entertainment from Congress
as a mark of special honor ; members and guests
gazing upon him, as in his rich uniform and with
the star of his order which never left his breast
he sat at the right hand of President Laurens,
and arguing well for the army which was to be
trained by a man of such a keen eye and soldierly
bearing. Then when the dinner was over, the pres
ident handed him the resolutions of Congress.
" Whereas, Baron Steuben, a lieutenant-gen-

STEUBEN. 43
eral in foreign service, has in a most disinterested
and heroic manner offered his services to these
States as a volunteer,
" Resolved, That the president present the
thanks of Congress, in behalf of these United
States, to Baron Steuben, for the zeal he has
shown for the cause of America and the disinter
ested tender he has been pleased to make of his
military talents, and inform him that Congress
cheerfully accepts of his services as a volunteer in
the army of these States, and wish him to repair
to General Washington's quarters as soon as con
venient." Steuben lost no time in setting out for camp.
The ovations continued. At Lancaster the Ger
man population felt all their national pride re
vived at the approach of such a German. A sub
scription ball was given in honor of his arrival,
and great was the mutual satisfaction as they
looked upon his noble bearing and brilliant deco
rations, and he heard once more from woman's
lips the accents of his native tongue. While he
was yet some miles from camp, Washington came
out to meet him and conduct him to his quarters.
There a guard of twenty-five men had been sta
tioned, with an officer at their head. Steuben
would have declined the honor, saying that he
was merely a volunteer. " The whole army,"
said Washington, " would gladly stand sentinel

44 STEUBEN.
for such volunteers." The next day the troops
were mustered, and Washington accompanied
Steuben to pass them in review.
During part of his life, at least, Washington
was a soldier at heart. When he first heard the
bullets whistle he found " something charming in
the sound." 1 He had often said that " the most
beautiful spectacle he had ever beheld was the
display of the British troops " on the morning of
Braddock's defeat.2 And even after he had de
clared that " he scarcely could conceive the cause
that would induce him to draw his sword again," 3
he wrote to Lafayette that " as an unobserved spec
tator he would be glad to peep at the Prussian
and Austrian troops at their manoeuvrings on a
grand field-day." 4 Thus, when Steuben came to
him as a Prussian veteran, he felt that there was
a bond between them which they might both
cheerfully acknowledge. And, perhaps, he also
felt that to bring him at once before the army as
the object of uncommon honors was the surest
way of preparing it to look up to him as a man
capable of imparting to it the knowledge and
habits in which it was so universally deficient.
1 The discovery of a letter of Washington's with these very
words in it, confirms Walpole's story, hitherto called in ques
tion as inconsistent with Washington's character. Vide Irving,
i. 12+, note.
- Sparks, Life of Washington, p. 65.
* Lett, to Marquis de la Rouerie, Oct. 7, 1795.
1 Sparks, Writings of Washington, ix. 145.

STEUBEN. 45
It was a great relief to Washington's mind to
find that he had no longer an unprincipled in
triguer like Conway to look to for the reform of
discipline, but " a gentleman — a man of military
knowledge," 1 and with that knowledge of the
world without which the highest military knowl
edge would have been of no avail. But it was a
serious drawback that he could talk with him
only through an interpreter, even though the
interpreter was Hamilton or Laurens. At no time
in the course of the war had the condition of the
army been more distressing. The life at Valley
Forge was a daily struggle with cold and hunger ;
the log and mud huts in which the troops lived
were an imperfect protection against the rigor of
the winter, made doubly severe by the want of
proper clothing and nutritious food. The fre
quent failure of supplies had familiarized the
minds of the men with the idea of mutiny, and
brought the officers to feel that if not almost
justifiable, it was at least inevitable. There was
no assurance of greater regularity or abundance
in the future to help bear up against the pressure
of the present. Out of the original force of sev
enteen thousand men, there were three thousand
nine hundred and eighty-nine without clothes
enough to enable them to mount guard or appear
on parade. From desertion and disease, five
1 Sparks, Writings of Washington, v. 244.

46 STEUBEN.
thousand and twelve men were all that could be
called out for duty, and these were so imperfectly
armed that muskets, fowling-pieces, and rifles
were found in the same company, with a few bay
onets scattered here and there ; guns and bayonets
alike rusty and unfit for service. These, however,
were the men with whom Washington had ma
noeuvred in front and on the flanks of the well-
armed and well-disciplined army of Sir William
Howe ; had fought the battle of the Brandywine,
where a portion of them under Greene had
marched four miles in forty-nine minutes, seizing
and holding a favorable position for covering
the retreat of the main body ; and the battle of
Germantown, where a dense fog and an error
of judgment were all that saved the British
army from defeat and capture. And they had
done all this because they possessed what Bur
goyne 1 attributed to the northern army, " the
fundamental points of military institution, so
briety, subordination, regularity, and courage.
.... Their panics were confined and of short
duration ; their enthusiasm extensive and perma
nent." It was to the honor of Steuben's sagacity
that, with an eye accustomed to the faultless
equipments and precision of movement of Prus
sian troops, he should have detected those funda-
1 Letter to Lord G. Germain. Sparks, Correspondence of the
Revolution, ii. 96, 97, note.

STEUBEN. 47
mental points, or the capacity for acquiring them,
under the rags and rusty equipments and in the
awkward " Indian file " of the American troops.
And it was still more to the honor of his energy
and force of will that, " without understanding a
word of the English language, he should think
of bringing men born free, and united for the
defense of their freedom, into strict subjection ;
to teach them to obey without a question the
mandates of a master, — and that master once
their equal, or possibly beneath them in whatever
might become a man." 1
One of the characteristic acts of the Conway
cabal had been the creation for Conway of the
office of inspector-general, with powers so exten
sive as to justify the expression of " imperium in
imperio" which Marshall applies to the organi
zation of the commissariat.2 But, happily for the
army, the conspiracy was detected before he had
entered fully upon the performance of his duties,
and thus one of the immediate results of the at
tempt to forward the malignant aims of a vile
intriguer was to prepare the way for a high-
minded and honorable man. In another way,
too, the Providence that watched over us had
educed good from this evil. Mifflin, the quarter-
1 A Biographical Sketch of the Life of Baron Steuben, etc., by
General W. North, Steuben's Aid. Kapp, p. 129, 130.
2 Marshall's Washington, i. 215, 2d ed.

48 STEUBEN.
master-general, though originally a member of
Washington's family, and intrusted by him with
this responsible office " from a thorough persua
sion of his integrity," l had proved false both to
Washington and to his country ; neglecting his
official duties and entering deeply into the plots of
the intriguers. During the hardships of this try
ing winter he had held himself aloof from camp,
and contributed nothing either directly or indi
rectly to the feeding or clothing of the army. At
last a committee was sent by Congress to take
counsel with Washington and see what could be
done to avert the dangers of " a dissolution, or star
vation, or mutiny "2 which were becoming more
and more imminent every day. One of the effects
of their exertions and representations was the
appointment of General Greene as Mifflin's suc
cessor. One of the chief obstacles to the estab
lishment of discipline was thus removed, and if
zeal and energy could accomplish it, the army
would henceforth be fed and clothed.
Steuben's first step was to draw up a plan of
inspectorship, and after revising it with the assist
ance of Greene, Hamilton, and Laurens, submit it
to Washington for approval. Washington ap
proved it, and transmitted it to Congress. There
1 Sparks, Writings of Washington, iii. 68.
2 Nearly Washington's words. Vide, also, for a vivid picture
of the state of things at Morristown, Washington to Wayne,
Sparks, v. 232, and to Geo. Clinton, v. 238.

STEUBEN. 49
was no time to lose. Winter was passing, and
the day for opening a new campaign drawing
menacingly near. " Will you undertake to ex
ecute this plan?" asked Washington. "With
your support and assistance, I will," replied Steu
ben. He began by drafting from the line a
hundred and twenty men, as a guard for the
commander-in-chief and a military school for
himself. These men he drilled twice a day ; and
striking from the outset an effective blow at the
prejudice (one of England's legacies) which led
officers to regard the drilling of a recruit as a
sergeant's and not an officer's business, he took
the musket into his own hands and showed them
how he wished them to handle it. At every
drill his division inspectors were required to be
present, and doubtless many officers and soldiers
were present, too, without requisition. " In a fort
night," he writes, " my company knew perfectly
how to bear arms, had a military air, knew how
to march, to form in column, deploy, and execute
some little manoeuvres with excellent precision."
Hitherto, every attempt to instruct the soldiers
had been begun, according to rule, by the manual
exercise ; and, now from one cause and now from
another, every such attempt had failed. In noth
ing did Steuben's superiority to a mere martinet
appear more decidedly than in his passing the
manual by and beginning with manoeuvres. The

50 STEUBEN.
sight of men advancing, retreating, wheeling, de
ploying, attacking with the bayonet, changing
front, and all with promptness and precision,
made an impression upon the spectator which no
perfection in the mere handling of the musket
could have produced. The actors, too, moved by
a common impulse, felt that confidence in them
selves which men always feel when acting harmo
niously together, and learnt, from the outset, to
look with double confidence upon the man who
had awakened them to a consciousness of their
short-comings by " skillfully yielding to circum
stances " in the development of their capacities.
Every scholar of this school became an apostle of
reform. The army that looked on and admired
longed to be permitted to share in the lesson.
Battalions came next, then brigades, and then
divisions. It was on the 24th of March that the
elementary manoeuvres began, and by the 29th
of April, American troops, for the first time since
the opening of the war, were able to execute the
grand manoeuvres of a regular army. On the
5th of Maj-, Steuben was appointed by Congress
inspector-general, with the rank and pay of
major-general. Steuben's success is easily explained. His
heart was in his work. He was up before day,
Bmoked a single pipe, swallowed a single cup of
coffee, had his hair carefully dressed, his uni-

STEUBEN. 51
form carefully put on ; and then, as the first
sunbeam appeared, he was in the saddle and off
for the parade-ground. There was no waiting
for loitering aids. No part of his work was be
neath him. He took the guns into his own
hands, examined the equipments with his own
experienced eye. Not a voice was to be heard
but his, and that of his officers as they repeated
his orders. Not a mistake passed unreproved.
" Ah," said one of his captains, a captain once,
but then the keeper of a country tavern, "how
glad I am to see you, baron, in my house ; but I
used to be dreadfully afraid of you." " How so,
captain ? " " You hallooed and swore and looked
so dreadfully at me once, baron, that I shall
never forget it. When I saw you so strict to the
officers on my right, I felt very queer ; and when
you came np to me, baron, I hardly knew what
to do, and I quaked in my shoes." " Oh fie, dear
captain." " It was bad, to be sure, but you did
halloo most tremendously."
The conviction that he was thoroughly master
of what he was teaching them would hardly have
reconciled officers and men to his severity and
" sudden gusts of passion," if they had not been
equally convinced of his justice. Once at a
review near Morristown, Lieutenant Gibbons, a
brave and good officer, was arrested on the spot
and ordered into the rear for a fault which it aft-

52 STEUBEN.
erwards appeared another had committed. At
a proper moment the commander of the regiment
came forward and informed the baron of Mr.
Gibbons's innocence, of his worth, and of his acute
feelings under this unmerited disgrace. " Desire
Lieutenant Gibbons to come to the front, colonel."
" Sir," said the baron to the young gentleman,
" the fault which was made, by throwing the line
into confusion, might, in the presence of an enemy,
have been fatal. I arrested you as its supposed
author ; but I have reason to believe that I was
mistaken, and that in this instance you were
blameless ; I ask your pardon : return to your
command. I would not deal unjustly by any,
much less by one whose character as an officer is
so respectable." 1 All the while he was saying
this it was raining violently ; and the men who
saw him standing there hat in hand before his
subaltern, heedless of the rain that poured down
upon his unprotected head, never forgot the
scene. Thus far all went on well. Even in their tat
ters the men began to feel a pride in being sol
diers. If some officers were still compelled to
mount guard in an old blanket cut into the shape
of a dressing-gown, they knew, at least, how to
perform the duty of officers on guard. Washing
ton, in general orders, praised their progress and
1 North in Thacher's Military Journal, p. 416.

STEUBEN. 53
thanked the man to whom they owed it. But
now arose the question of converting this tempo
rary inspectorship into a permanent inspectorship
with corresponding rank in the line. A reform
in drill was but a small part of the real work to
be done. The whole organization of the army
required reform in all its parts. The quarter
master-general's department was now secure;
the commissariat also. " The internal administra
tion of a regiment and a company was a thing
completely unknown." " The number of men in a
regiment as well as in a company was fixed by
Congress," but some were three months' men,
some six, some nine. There was a constant ebb
and flow, a constant coming and going. Accu
rate returns of such regiments were out of the
question. " Sometimes a regiment was stronger
than a brigade ; " sometimes it contained but thirty
men, and a company but a single corporal. The
men " were scattered about everywhere." Offi
cers acted as if the army were but a nursery of
servants ; each claiming one, many two or three.
And thus many hundred soldiers were converted
into valets. But on the regimental books they
still held their places unchanged ; and long after
many of them had ceased to belong to the army
even as valets, pay was still drawn in their
names from the impoverished treasury. Leaves
of absence and even dismissals were given by
colonels and sometimes by captains at will.

54 STEUBEN.
While men went and came in this manner, and
were thus employed, there could be little hope of
preserving the public property intrusted to their
hands. Every musket was valued at eighteen
dollars with a bayonet, and at sixteen without
one. And yet for every campaign from five to
eight thousand muskets were required, to replace
those lost by negligence or carried off by the men
whose terms of enlistment had expired. With
the most methodical and systematic of men at
their head, it had been utterly impossible to intro
duce method or system into this ebbing and flow
ing mass.
Steuben aimed at the correction of all these
abuses ; but unfortunately, in asking for the pow
ers which he deemed essential for the accomplish
ment of his task, he asked for some which seemed
to trench upon the rights of other officers. Some
of the major-generals became alarmed. All the
brigadiers, it was apprehended, would resign if
his demands were complied with. Whatever
Washington's private opinion may have been, he
publicly conformed to the public opinion, and is
sued in June the general orders by which — Con
gress with its wonted dilatoriness putting off a de
cision from day to day — the office continued to be
regulated till 1779. These orders not only de
fined the duties but greatly limited the powers
of the inspector-general. Steuben saw the cause

STEUBEN. 55
and understood it, foresaw, too, the consequences
and deplored them ; but, faithful to his resolu
tion, adapted himself to circumstances, and con
tinued to labor with unabated energy in his daily
drills and special reforms.
Events were already demonstrating the excel
lence of his work. In May, 1778, Lafayette, upon
the point of seeing himself outnumbered and cut
off from the main body of the army, was able
to save his men by an orderly retreat, in which
their good discipline was manifest. Washing
ton, however, anxious for Lafayette's detachment,
ordered out the whole army to support it ; and
in less than fifteen minutes the whole army was
under arms and ready to" march. At Monmouth,
not long after, at the sound of Steuben's now
familiar voice, Lee's broken ranks rallied and
wheeled into line under a heavy fire as calmly
and precisely as if the battle-field had been a
parade-ground. But the roar of the cannon stirred the' old sol
dier's blood, and he began to feel keen longings
for more exciting work than teaching manoeuvres
and examining reports. It so chanced, also, that,
most of the brigadiers being called away by Lee's
court-martial, Washington found it necessary to
give Steuben the temporary command of a divis
ion, on the march to the Hudson in July, 1778.
And thus, when directed to resume his duties as

56 [ STEUBEN.
inspector-general, all the vexation and disgust he
had felt at the obstacles which had been unnec
essarily thrown in his way were renewed, height
ened by the refusal of De Neuville, the inspector
of Gates's army, to receive orders from him as
inspector-general. He now talked freely of his
dissatisfaction, objected to the position which he
had hitherto worked in so cheerfully, and more
than intimated his intention to resign unless his
desire for a command in the line were complied
with. It was natural, but it was unfortunate, and
there can be little doubt but that in a calmer
mood he regretted it. Here again Washington's
serene wisdom appeared, as it appeared in so
many other decisive moments. He did not ap
prove of Steuben's aims, but he appreciated his
services at their full value, and continued to
treat him with his wonted urbanity, freely ac
knowledging how much he had done, but care
fully abstaining from everything that might have
been interpreted into an encouragement of his
new pretensions. It was with Congress to de
cide what the inspectorship was to be and what
place the inspector was to hold in the line ; and
it is not improbable that Washington saw the
discontented and more than half angry baron set
out for Philadelphia, with confidence that before
that dilatory Congress could come to a decision,
his natural good sense and love of his profession

STEUBEN 57
would prepare him to return willingly, if not
cheerfully, to his original position.
For Congress was once more sitting in Phila
delphia, in the old hall where the Declaration of
Independence had been made. But it was there
with a task to perform, to which legislative bodies
are altogether unequal : with a responsibility
weighing upon it which none but a strong execu
tive could have borne, vainly trying to govern by
treasury boards and boards of war, to call out
the resources of the country by requisitions and rec
ommendations, and to decide questions which de
manded immediate decision as they decided upon
laws and acts which demanded careful, full, and
deliberate discussion. It was shorn also of some
of its brightest ornaments, disturbed by internal
dissensions which it no longer had the self-con
trol to conceal, and brought to its discussions a
spirit poisoned by jealousy of the army on which
it depended for its existence.
It was to this Congress that Steuben brought
his claims, and if Washington had counted upon
their dilatoriness for giving the baron's anger
time to cool or to turn towards a new object, he
did not count in vain. One important question
was decided at once : De Neuville was made re
sponsible to the inspector-general, thus soothing
tbe German, whose value was felt, and inviting
to resignation the Frenchman, whose value was

58 STEUBEN.
doubted. This made it easier to meet his appli
cation for a command in the line, and, appoint
ing a committee to consider the new plans con
cerning the inspectorship, Congress seemed ready
to proceed at once to the discussion of them. But
before any decision could be reached, the unfa
vorable turn which things were taking in Rhode
Island afforded an opportunity for postponing the
matter indefinitely, and Steuben was requested to
go to the assistance of General Sullivan. Thus
by the end of August, Sullivan's expedition be
ing ended before he could reach him, although
he traveled with the utmost dispatch, he again
found himself with the main army. When the
army removed to Fredericksburg he was once more
actively engaged in the dull routine of manoeuvres,
drills, and reports.
He seems meanwhile to have become convinced
that this was the field in which he could do the
most good, and, with the exception of an occa
sional return of his longing for a more dazzling
glory, he resolved henceforth to content himself
with the glory of being useful. To induce Con
gress to place his department upon a permanent
footing was henceforth his immediate object ; and
when the army went into winter quarters he again
repaired to Philadelphia. It was an irritating
business for a hot-tempered, earnest man, con
vinced of the correctness of his views, convinced,

STEUBEN. 59
too, that important as many other things which
Congress was busy about might be, there was
none in the wide circle of their competency more
important than this. All Washington's influence,
all the force of Hamilton's representations, were
employed in his favor : but still week after week
wore away, and February, 1779, was near its end
before the question was seriously taken up. Then
at last a series of resolutions embodying nearly
the substance of his later plans, as revised and
approved by Washington, was passed, and, much
as they fell short of his original expectations,
he was glad to find himself in a position to set
himself effectively to work.
But he had not idled away the winter in at
tendance upon Congress. To make his inspector
ship successful it was necessary that every officer
should be provided with a uniform system of reg
ulations for the order and discipline of the troops.
He had congratulated himself at the outset that
no existing work had attained to a sufficient de
gree of popularity to make it a general standard.1
1 The military bibliography of that period is briefly given by
Washington in a letter to a young officer. Bland (the new
est edition) stands foremost; also an Essay on the Art of War :
Instructions for Officers, lately published at Philadelphia. The
Partisan, Young and others. Sparks, Writings of Washington,
iii. 154. Among General Greene's books is a New System of
Military Discipline by a General Officer, published by K. Ait
ken, printer and book-seller, Philadelphia, 1776, with an ap
pendix containing nine sections of " rules, maxims, etc.," some of

60 STEUBEN.
He had found every colonel, almost every cap
tain, with a system of his own, and agreeing only
in marching their men in Indian file. The ground,
therefore, was free, and to fill it aright he com
posed that volume so long known in the army
of the United States as " Steuben's Regulations,"
or the " Blue Book." And here again we see his
superiority over mere formalists and drill masters .
With a thorough knowledge of all that had been
done, he knew also what it was possible to do.
Fully aware that in European armies a man who
had been drilled three months was still held to
be nothing more than a recruit, he was equally
aware that in the American army he could not
count upon more than two months for transforrrj-
ing a recruit into a soldier. Accordingly, taking
less the Prussian system than his own perfect
familiarity with the subject for guide, and with
a wise consideration for the English prejudices
which had struck such deep root in the American
mind, he set himself to his task, with Fleury and
Walker for assistants, De l'Enfant for draughts
man, and Duponceau for secretary. On the 25th
of March the first part was ready for the action
of Congress, having already received the sanc-
the most brilliant of which are " Nothing but principle can con
duct a man through life ; " " Bad habits are more difficult to
correct than to prevent;" " The mind must be prepared before
it can receive;" "That -attack has least effect which is most
obstructed," etc., etc.

STEUBEN. 61
tion of Washington and of the board of war.
On the 29th, Congress resolved to accept and
print it.
Here, again, Steuben's patience was put to a
severe test. The printing of his book cost him
more oaths than the composing of it. There were
but two copper-plate printers in Philadelphia, and
one of them so bad that it was found necessary
to throw away above six hundred prints. Only
one binder was employed, and though a good one,
the attractions of privateering were so great that
neither he nor the printer could keep men enough
together to do half the work they were called upon
to do. Steuben was anxious to have two copies
richly bound, one foi the commander-in-chief,
and one for the French minister, but in the whole
city there was not gold leaf enough to gild them .
His temper failed him more than once, but for
tunately the men he had chiefly to do with were
Pickering and Peters, who admired and loved
him too much to take offense at his sallies. Pick
ering in one of his letters enters into a full ex
planation of the causes of delay, and closes with
a delicate appeal to Steuben's better feelings :
" Should I again discover marks of extreme im
patience and even asperity in the inspector-gen
eral, I will impute them to his anxiety to intro
duce a perfect order and discipline in the army,
and to his zeal in securing the safety and inde-

62 STEUBEN.
pendence of America." Peters writes with a
happy mixture of jest and gravity, promising
" to distinguish between the Baron Steuben unin
formed, and the Baron Steuben acquainted with
facts and difficulties ; between the Baron Steuben
in good humor and the same gentleman (zoon-
ically) angry and fretted."
At last the work was done ; copies were sent to
governors of States and distributed through the
army, and for .the first time since the war be
gan American officers had a clear and definite
guide for the performance of their duties.
" Steuben made no delay in putting his the
ories into practice. He reviewed all the regi
ments and ordered the introduction of the system
of manoeuvres contained in the ' Regulations.' "
Regiments were formed into battalions, each bat
talion consisting of a definite number of men. To
make sure that the arms and equipments were fit
for immediate use, and that the men were not
merely men on paper but actually in the ranks,
he continued his rigorous monthly inspections.
In these inspections there was no trifling, no
hurrying over details. Seven hours were not
thought too long for the inspection of a brigade of
three small regiments. " Every man not present
was to be accounted for ; if in camp, sick or well,
he was produced or visited ; every musket han
dled and searched, cartridge-boxes opened, even

STEUBEN. 63
the flints and cartridges counted ; knapsacks un-
slung and every article of clothing spread on the
soldier's blanket, .and tested by his little book,
whether what he had received from the United
States within the year was there ; if not, to be
accounted for. Hospitals, stores, laboratories,
every place, every thing was open to inspection
and inspected." The exact, careful man was sure
to be praised and often rewarded ; the careless
to be sternly reproved. It took little to move
Steuben's anger ; undue delay, misplaced hesi
tation were sure to do it, and out came a storm of
oaths, German first, then French, and then both
ludicrously mingled ; and when the stock was ex
hausted, turning to his aid, he would say, " My
dear Walker, or my dear Duponceau, come and
swear for me in English ; these fellows will not do
what I bid them." A smile would steal silently
over the faces of the men, and the movement be
carefully studied till it was accurately executed.
The crowning labor and complement of all was
the establishment of a system of minute written
reports according to prescribed forms, extending
throughout the whole army and embracing every
department of the service.
In all this work Steuben was but adapting
established principles to the exigencies of a new
case. But in the formation of the light infantry
he became an inventor, sending back a lesson

64 STEUBEN.
from the New World to the Old, from Frederick's
pupil to Frederick himself. The wars with the
Indians had taught Americans to fight, like their
adversaries, in loose bodies instead of close masses,
each man using his rifle or musket to the best
advantage according to his own judgment. These
bodies of skirmishers had turned the day against
English and German regulars at Bemis's Heights
and Stillwater. Steuben organized them into a
light infantry with a drill and discipline of their
own. Frederick, meditating upon the suggestions
of the American war, saw how much such troops
might be made to assist the operations of his dense
masses, and accepted the improvement. The
other armies of Europe followed his example, and
from that time they have formed an essential part
of every great army and done important service
on every great battle-field.
It was soon evident that a new spirit had en
tered the army. Encampments exhibited the
regularity of scientific disposition. Reviews dis
played in officers and men familiarity with com
plex evolutions and that harmony o'f movement
which gives thousands the appearance of a single
body under the control of a single will. Inspec
tions demonstrated the possibility of enforcing
neatness and exactness and bringing responsibility
home to every door. The treasury, which had
been repeatedly called upon to pay the services

STEUBEN. 65
of men who had long ceased to render service of
any kind, was relieved from a heavy burden by
the introduction of exact rolls and regular reports.
The war office, instead of having to count upon
an annual loss of from five to eight thousand
muskets, could enter upon its record that in one
year of Steuben's inspectorship only three mus
kets were missing, and they were accounted for.
The opposition and jealousy which had clogged
his first steps, gradually gave way before the
perfect demonstration of his success. Officers
ceased to shrink from labor with the example of
industry hke his before them, or to consider any
part of their duty as beneath them when they
saw him come down from so much greater a
height to do.it. "Do you see there, sir, your
colonel instructing that recruit?" he one day
said to North. " I thank God for that, sir."
And no sooner did the soldier find himself in
the presence of the enemy than he showed even
more evidently the change which had taken place
within him. Hamilton declared that till he saw
the troops forming and manoeuvring at Mon
mouth he had never felt the full value of disci
pline. The only use which the few soldiers who
were provided with bayonets had hitherto made
of them, had been as forks to roast their meat
with. But within less than four months from
the organization of the inspectorship by Con-

66 STEUBEN.
gress, on the night of the 15th of July, 1779,
these same soldiers took Stony Point, at the point
of the bayonet and without firing a gun.
Henceforth Steuben's life becomes so mixed up
with the general history of the army, or sq filled
with minute details, that it is impossible to follow
it step by step, within limits like ours. It was
not all at once that he could carry out his far-
reaching views. The army was once more to be
remodeled, and he passed weeks at Philadelphia
in close communication with Congress and the
board of war, keeping up all the time a corre
spondence with Washington, to whose wishes,
from first to last, he was ever ready to conform
his own. But Congress again wearied and vexed
him by delays, for which the embarrassed condi
tion of the public finances was but a partial justi
fication, and which caused, at times, " the loss of
months where it was dangerous to lose days."
Private jealousies and personal claims still contin
ued to interfere with the introduction of essential
changes. They who have studied the history of
this period in the letters of the actors, know that
not all our statesmen were wise, not all our offi
cers high-minded, not all our citizens more de
voted to their country than to their own pockets.
There were times when the whole country seemed
heartily sick of the war ; and when, perhaps, a
Wood or a Seymour, a " New York World " or

STEUBEN. 67
an " Evening Express," might have stirred up
thousands to open resistance or lured them on to
treason to their children and their God. For a
time, too, the condition of our finances seemed
hopeless. The currency was worthless ; the pub
lic credit gone. The " promise to pay " of the
United States or of the individual States was not
worth the " promise to pay " of a private citi
zen ; and it was not until the treasury board had
been replaced by a skillful financier that the real
wealth of the country could be brought to the
support of its real interest. In his personal as
well as in his public capacity, Steuben suffered
from these things. But he suffered without los
ing heart if he sometimes lost patience ; and be
fore the war was brought to a close he had the
satisfaction of seeing himself recognized as the
true organizer of the American army.
Meanwhile he rendered other important serv
ices. He accompanied Reed in his survey of the
fortifications of Philadelphia. He took an impor
tant part in the movements which preceded the
battle of Monmouth as well as in the battle it
self. He rendered valuable service on Washing
ton's staff — the best staff in many respects which
the world had ever seen. He wrote elaborate
opinions and plans of operations which contrib
uted much to Washington's assistance in forming
his own opinions and plans. Some minor services,

68 STEUBEN
too, he performed. He taught the etiquette of
receptions and intercourse, when the new French
minister visited camp, and trifling as such cares
may appear when compared with the grave duties
of a general in ' the midst of such a war, they
cease to be trifling when we consider how im
portant it was that the minister's dispatches
should represent us as not wholly devoid of a
knowledge which the Old World prized so highly.
He did service, twice, of a more difficult nature,
when he was sent without any ostensible com
mand to supply at West Point the deficiencies of
General Howe ; and of a more serious nature when,
under the presidency of Greene, and with some of
the best officers in the army for his colleagues, he
sat in judgment upon AndreF And in all these
various duties he demeaned himself so wisely, so
tempered and controlled his ardent nature, and
manifested throughout such elevation of sentiment
and such pure devotion to his adopted coun
try, as to prove that Pickering had interpreted
his character well, when in the midst of his per
plexities he wrote to him, " Courage, dear baron ;
those talents which know how to do good without
giving umbrage and causing jealousy are always
sure to triumph ultimately over all obstacles."
But next to the inspectorship, the field of his
most important services was Virginia, in the
winter of 1780-81, and during the memorable

STEUBEN. 69
and decisive siege of Yorktown. When Greene
was appointed to the command of such fragments
of the southern army as had survived the fatal
day of Camden, Steuben went with him because
there was "an army to be created." With Greene
his relations had been of the friendliest and most
intimate kind, from the day when they sat down
with Hamilton and Laurens, in Steuben's strait
ened quarters at Valley Forge, to discuss the first
draft of the inspectorship. And now they set out
from Philadelphia together for the field on which
they both felt that the fate of the war was to be
decided, riding the whole of the first day's jour
ney in company ; and how pleasantly they jour
neyed on and how confidentially they talked,
Duponceau in his old age dearly loved to tell ; re
calling with special satisfaction the evening at
Chester, where Greene, to his astonishment, turned
the conversation upon the Latin poets, and talked
about them like a man who had studied them well.
Greene's chief reliance for men and supplies
was Virginia, and as it was by the organization
of the means of reinforcement and support that
the serious work was to begin, he directed Steu
ben to take command there and do whatever his
judgment suggested for the accomplishment of it.
And thus the pupil of the Prussian despot was
brought into contact with the American demo
crat, for Jefferson was then governor of the

70 STEUBEN.
State, and governing in a way which has afforded
his adversaries an ample field of crimination, and
cost his eulogistic biographers much labor to de
fend. The disorder of the finances was great,
but, being an evil common to the whole country,
cannot be accepted as an excuse for the utter
prostration of the government. The departments
were without a head. The executive acted only
by expedients. The resources were wantonly
wasted by neglect and peculation. The public
arms were scattered ; the soldiers and recruits
naked. The militia were so thoroughly demoral
ized that they plundered with a wantonness that
would have excited wonder in hirelings. A
body of volunteers had been raised at great ex
pense for six months' service. Before they were
all collected the time was so nearly run out that
it was thought better to dismiss them at once
than to send them to the support of the southern
army. Other corps were raised with the same
shortsightedness, and dismissed to save the ex
pense of feeding them. How far a vigorous ex
ecutive might have prevented these abuses and
errors, and how far it became a party to them by
retaining a hopeless position, we shall not now
pause to inquire.
That in this situation Steuben should have
often lost his temper is easily conceived ; that
he should sometimes have strained his authority

STEUBEN. 71
to the utmost was perfectly natural. His mili
tary eye saw that the fate of Virginia was bound
up with that of the Carolinas, and that the surest
way to defend her was to strengthen Greene's
army. The militia that refused to follow the
southern commander beyond Ramsay's Mills, be
cause, unless they set out for home immediately,
the time they were called out for would expire be
fore they could reach it, might have enabled him
to overtake the retreating and disheartened en
emy, follow up the blow which had almost shat
tered Cornwallis at Guilford, and 'avert the in
vasion which cost Virginia some blood and much
treasure. In spite of obstacles Steuben persisted
in his labors. It was by his energy and judgment
that Arnold's invasion was so far checked that
the traitor was able to accomplish but a part of
the evil he had meditated. It was to him, also,
that part of Lafayette's success was owing ; the
old general having prepared the way which the
young general followed so happily. But still,
of all his hard experience of life, this was the
hardest ; and it was with an indescribable feeling
of relief that he found himself in the lines before
Yorktown. His first siege had been the siege of Prague, as
a volunteer, when a boy of fourteen ; his last the
siege of Schweidnitz, as Frederick's aid, at the
close of the Seven Years' War. And now, in the

72 STEUBEN.
trenches at Yorktown, he saw another great war
drawing rapidly to its end, and bringing with it
the end of his own long and honorable military
career. He was the only American officer who
had ever been present at a siege, and here, as on
so many occasions, his experience was of great
service. It was the only time, too, that he had
ever had the command of a division, and fortune
so far smiled upon him as to bring on the first
overtures for surrender during his term of duty
in the trenches ; thus giving him the privilege,
so highly prized by soldiers, of being in actual
command when the enemy's flag came down.
When the victorious army returned northward
he returned with it, to resume his place as inspec
tor-general ; a minute, laborious, and for most
men a wearisome round of monotonous duties, but
which, under the influence of the spirit which he
brought to it, was now universally recognized as
the indispensable basis of good military organiza
tion. Never was the discipline of the troops more
perfect than during the last two years of the war;
and it is surely not claiming too much for Steuben
to say that the sense of duty and subordination
which that discipline cultivated was not the least
among the causes which enabled an impotent
Congress peacefully to disband an injured and
irritated army. Authentic anecdotes have been
preserved of the pride which he took in showing

STEUBEN. 73
off to the best advantage the acquisitions of his
military children, and of the confidence with
which they came to look up to him as a father.
One of the reviews at Verplanck's Point was
roughly sketched by North. If we imagine
Washington's marquee on an eminence, with the
richly wooded scenery of the North River for a
background; Washington himself standing be
fore it, surrounded by French and American offi
cers ; in the foreground Steuben, on horseback,
with a glow of triumph in his hazel eye as he
watches with proud bearing the evolutions which
it was supposed none but a Prussian army could
execute, and the Hudson girding in the scene and
partly reflecting it in its dark waters, we shall
have a noble subject for a painter.
Steuben's last public service during the war
was a journey to Canada to make arrangements
for taking possession of the military posts which
were to be ceded to us at the signing of the
peace ; a service for which his familiarity with
the laws and usages of war peculiarly fitted him.
Another service which he rendered was in the
formation of plans for a military academy ; and
we commend to the attention of those whose
duty it is to watch over our great institution at
West Point a careful meditation of that part of
his project in which he provides for full profes
sorships of history and geography, of civil and in-

74 STEUBEN.
ternational law, and of eloquence and belles-let
tres. It was probably from him, too, that the
first suggestion of the " Cincinnati " came, and,
had his counsels been followed, the disbanding of
the army, instead of being done stealthily, like
something that Congress was afraid to do, would
have been done in the broad daylight with the
solemnity with which a great people performs a
great duty.
And now, the war being at an end, he would
gladly have gone back to Europe to enjoy his
glory and talk over his American life with his old
friends. But in coming to America he had trans
ferred his benefice of Havelsberg to a nephew,
and exhausted all his other resources ; freely ex
changing the independence which he had won by
long service for the chances of success in the new
cause to which he devoted himself. Unfortunately,
however, instead of following Vergennes' advice
and Lee's example, and making a definite con
tract with Congress, he had contented himself
with their unrecorded acquiescence in his offer
to make his compensation depend upon the suc
cess of the war. And thus, when the war had
succeeded and he asked for a settlement of his
claims, Congress asked for the proof of his con
tract; and although unquestionable proof of the
nature of his original agreement with the Con
gress committee was given by the members of

STEUBEN. 75
that committee, although the importance of his
services was established by the testimony of
the whole army, although Hamilton supported
his claims in Congress and out of Congress, and
Washington went in his favor to the utmost ex
tent which the limits he had prescribed to him
self in his relations with Congress permitted, it
was not till after an eight years' struggle with
poverty that Steuben obtained a final settlement.
Then, indeed, his claims were partly, if not fully
acknowledged, and an annuity of twenty-five
hundred dollars settled upon him. How he suf
fered meanwhile, he, the large-hearted, free
handed, high-spirited man, from personal pri
vations and public insult ; how he suffered, not
merely from the actual want of the day, but from
the ever present menace of the morrow, and,
keenest pang of all for a heart like his, from the
inability to relieve the sufferings of others, is a
story which" fortunately our limits do not permit
us to repeat. We commend it to the serious at
tention of our readers in the clear, minute, and
incontrovertible narrative of Mr. Kapp.
During this interval most of his time was
passed in New York, where his extensive informa
tion, refined manners, and genial sympathies made
him a general favorite. Disqualified by his age
from entering upon a new profession, he could not
settle contentedly down in idleness, or see the new

76 STEUBEN.
republic, which he had helped build up, silently
drifting into anarchy and bankruptcy, without
a strong desire to see what lessons might be
drawn from history for his instruction. His
papers bear witness to the interest which he took
in the political occurrences and questions of the
day, as well as to the extent of his reading and
his habit of patient thought. Like most of those
who had been brought into close relations with
the Congress of the confederation, he was the
advocate of a strong and effective central gov
ernment, and, had he lived, would have witnessed
the overthrow of the federalists with as keen
regret as Hamilton himself. Among his studies
of this period is a plan for a peace establishment
of the army which Washington approved, and a
few years later he proposed a plan of fortifica
tions for New York which became the basis of
the plan adopted upon the approach of our sec
ond war with England. At one moment, de
spairing of obtaining a settlement with Congress,
he turned his thoughts westward and drew up a
plan for the establishment, with the sanction of
the Spanish government, of a colony in the Span
ish territories on the Mississippi. But Spain
wanted no such colonists, and his memorial re
mained unanswered. In 1797 he was chosen one
of the regents of the University of New York ;
a tribute of respect which must have been sin-

STEUBEN. 77
gularly gratifying to his feelings. A more im
portant expression was given by New York, Vir
ginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, to their
sense of his services by large grants of land, and
could he but have got money enough to have
made these grants available he would have been
an independent man.
At length, as we have said, his claims upon
the nation were acknowledged. Henceforth he
had a fixed income, knew what he could afford
to undertake and how he could afford to live.
To take up and settle his lands would supply
a pleasant occupation for his declining years.
Wherever an old soldier was to be found he
was sure to find a friend, and as disappointment
had neither hardened nor embittered his heart, it
was to friendship that he looked for " happiness."
It was too late to think of returning to Europe,
even if his pecuniary embarrassments had per
mitted it. America was now his home. And
thus, with such hopes as childless old age may
indulge in, and such aspirations as had survived
thirteen years of active participation in great
events and a ten years' experience of court, he
entered upon the last phase of his career.
The sixteen thousand acres of land which New
York had given him lay in Oneida County, about
twelve miles north of old Fort Schuyler, the
Utica of our day, and formed part of the town-

78 STEUBEN.
ship which still bears his name. It was a rough,
stony tract, fitter for grazing than planting, with
a high ridge running across it, from which, as his
eye became familiar with the landscape, he could
distinguish the highlands of seven different coun
ties, and, gleaming over the tree-tops on the far
thest verge of the horizon, the bright waters of
Oneida Lake. This was to be his home during
the active months of the year, and when the cold
months came and armies went into winter quar
ters, he would turn his face southward and re
sume his station at 216 Broadway, opposite St.
Paul's Church. As a landholder he could in
dulge his generous impulses, and more than one
who had no other claim upon him than what
the name of old soldier gave, received a grant
of sixty or a hundred acres, either as a free gift
or on terms that differed little from it. As a
farmer he could indulge his old habits of me
thodic organization and a methodic division of
his time. Sixty acres were set apart and cleared
for the manor-house, which was to be a building
suited to his rank and habits of life. Meanwhile
he contented himself with a log-house, enlarged
after a short time by the addition of a frame-
house of two rooms. Here Mulligan, then a
young man fresh from Columbia College, and
who served him as secretary, was his constant
inmate ; North, or , Walker, or some other old

STEUBEN. 79
companion, would often come to stay a week or
more with him, and some of his nearer neighbors,
the most welcome among whom was a Dutch
emigrant named Mappa, a gentleman of distin
guished ability and high culture, loved to visit
him and talk over the questions of the day and
the news from Europe. This news he got from
the " Leyden Gazette," the " Galignani's Mes
senger " of those days, and inexplicably strange it
seemed to him, at times, especially when he read
therein that the Prussian eagles had turned back
in ignominious retreat before the tricolored flag
of the new republic.
He studied farming as he had studied the art
of war, by method and rule, entering everything
in his diary and recording his progress step by
step. The minute accuracy of the inspector-gen
eral pervaded the daily habits of the farmer in his
clearing. And never, perhaps, even as he rode his
war-horse down the line, looking, as one who saw
him describes him, " like the god of war him
self," did he feel a truer pleasure than when he
guided Molly, his quiet little mare, through the
stumpy and half-worn paths of Steuben. In the
evening chess or a book filled up the time pleas
antry, Voltaire being one of his chief favorites,
and Gibbon, whose great history had soon found
its way across the Atlantic, coming in for a share
of his attention. Of German literature, although

80 STEUBEN.
it had already entered upon the brightest period
of its marvelous development and might have
held out, at least in the " Revolt of the Nether
lands " and the " Thirty Years' War," great at
tractions for one who had himself been an actor in
a great revolt and a great war, his biographer
makes no mention, leaving us thereby to conclude
that, like Frederick, he had failed to comprehend
this part of the great changes that were going on
around him. And thus the last four years of his
life glided smoothly away, with little in them to
recall Frederick's camp, or the drawing-rooms at
Hechingen, but with something of a grateful
variety, and much to awaken a placid interest.
Loving much and much beloved, he had reached
unconsciously, but not unprepared, the brink of
the grave.
His last appearance in public was as president
of the German Society, in New York, when with
drums beating and banners displayed he marched
at their head from the Lutheran school-house in
Nassau Street, down Broadway and through
Whitehall, to see them do their voluntary day's
work upon the fortifications of Governor's Island.
His last service to the country was in the summer
of 1794, as president of the board of commis
sioners for fortifying the northern and western
frontiers of the State ; a work which filled up the
whole summer, and was very near ending in
capture by the Indians.

STEUBEN. 81
The winter of 1794 began early. In November
the ground was already covered with snow. The
log-hut began to look sad and lonely in the cold,
white landscape. Little Molly could no longer
make her way through the clearing. North's visit
was over. Mulligan was alone with him, with the
two servants. The regular time for going to New
York was not quite come, but he resolved to an
ticipate it, and made all his preparations for the
journey. The 25th of November came. There
was no change in his firm tread, or the clear ring
of his voice, or the kindly light of his hazel eye.
He played his game of chess, he listened while
Mulligan read ; at eleven, his usual bedtime, they
parted for the night. He had been for some years
a communicant of the Lutheran Church, and be
fore he laid his head upon his pillow, we may well
believe that he had bowed it in prayer. Then
came a few hours of sleep, and in sleep the death-
stroke, sudden but not instantaneous, and made
bitter by great agony. His servant ran to call
Mulligan. " Do not be alarmed, my son," Steu
ben said, as he saw his young friend rush into the
room in terror. The motion of the left side was
gone. He asked to be taken up, but returned
quickly to bed again. The agony continued. By
six he was speechless. It was not till the after
noon of the next day that a physician could be
procured. He was still breathing and, for a while,
6

82 STEUBEN.
sensible. Remedies were applied, and with a mo
mentary gleam of hope. Then he became uncon
scious, though breathing still. The night wore
away, with occasional returns of convulsions but
none of consciousness. The vigorous frame which
had borne up so stoutly against cold and hunger,.
against sleepless nights and days of toil, strug
gled painfully with death. The faint breathing
alone told the weeping attendants that he was
yet alive. Towards noon it grew fainter and
fainter, and at half past twelve of the second day
it ceased. North had been sent for, but the roads were
so bad that all was over before he arrived. Mul
ligan had made most of the preparations for the
funeral, and as the two mourners talked them
over, they remembered that their friend had once
pointed out a hemlock-tree on the north of the
house as a good place to be buried in. There,
then, they had a grave dug, although the snow
around it melted and made it hard to keep it
clear ; and thither on the next day about noon,
the neighbors, some thirty in all, joining with
them, they bore him in silence and laid him down
to his rest.
Alas that for this wearied and war-worn frame
it should not have been the last rest ! But early
in the present century the town, which had out
grown the memory of its highest honor, wanted a

STEUBEN. 83
road, and the engineer who laid it out ran it over
Steuben's grave. The coffin was laid bare, re
maining exposed for some days to idle gazers and
, the chances of the weather. It is even said, and
we fear with too much truth, that some one, a
•little more daring in sacrilege, hfoke it open and
tore off a piece of the military cloak. At last the
shameful story reached the ears of Colonel Walker,
who, hastening to the spot, had the coffin taken
up and removed to a neighboring hill-side, where,
under the shade of primeval trees, with fragrant
flowers laughing all around, and within sound of a
little brook whose waters chime sweetly with the
music of the winds and the birds, a simple slab
still bears the name of Steuben.
And now, if we undertake to assign him his
rank in general history, although we should hesi
tate to call him a great man, we should feel fully
justified in assigning him a prominent place among
eminent men. In all the situations wherein he
was placed he rose above the common level, and
that he rose no higher must be attributed to the
force of circumstances rather than to any want on
his part of the power to rise. To have risen dur
ing the Seven Years' War from a lieutenant of
infantry to a responsible office on Frederick's own
staff was a surer mark of superiority than the
command of a division in any other army of those
days. To have adapted the improvements of

84 STEUBEN.
Prussian discipline to an army of freemen fighting
for freedom required a fertility of resources, a
familiarity with general principles, and a knowl
edge of human nature, which none but minds of a
high order possess. To have done well whatever
he undertook to do justifies the assumption that
if circumstances had permitted him to undertake
more he would still have done it well. Yet his
methods were rather those of laborious industry
than of that pervading power which constitutes
greatness, or those rapid intuitions which consti
tute genius. He studied, thought, elaborated his
thoughts, and translated them into action. But
the paths that he marked out could all be dis
tinctly traced to a well-known starting-point ; and
while you follow him with implicit confidence,
you feel nothing in your confidence of that enthu
siasm which was inspired by Napoleon, or that
awe which was inspired by Washington. You
would trust, obey, admire him ; but there would
be no absolute renunciation of self in your trust,
no enchaining of will in your obedience, no over
whelming wonder in your admiration. Men
looked up to him, and justly ; but not as they look
up to those heights which rise immeasurably be
yond the reach of industry and force of will. For
industry and force of will he possessed in a re
markable degree, combined with clearness of con
ception, steadiness of purpose, and accuracy of

STEUBEN. 85
thought. His mind was eminently sound, his
heart . warm, and all through a life of camps and
courts, overflowing with sympathy and benevo
lence. His culture was drawn mainly from French
sources, but largely modified by strong German
instincts, and the habits of German life. A few
years later and he would have been a German
patriot ; and it was happy for him that, born in
the age of cosmopolitan civilization, when the sol
dier of fortune was free to choose his banner and
held to fight faithfully for it only as long as he
remained under it, circumstances should have led
him, after having won his training in the service
of a great king, to apply it faithfully and honor
ably to the defense of a new republic.
In the military history of our Revolution, if
we class men according to their services, no one
after Washington and Greene stands so high as
Steuben. For the service's which Lafayette ren
dered, important as they were, were rather the
effects of influence and position than of individual
superiority. All that Steuben owed to position
was the opportunity of action ; the action itself
was the fruit of his own strong will and thorough
knowledge of his science. He was the creator of
our regular army, the organizer of our military
economy. The impress which he made upon our
military character remained there long after his
hand was withdrawn. The system of drills and

86 STEUBEN.
manoeuvres which in 1779 he drew up in German,
to pass through bad French into English, con
tinued to be the system by which all our regulars
and militia were formed, until new modifications
had been introduced into the art of war by the
great wars of the French Revolution. Upon this
point the testimony of Washington, Greene, Knox,
Hamilton, Pickering, Peters, is uniform and de
cisive. He claimed nothing to which his claim is
not fully borne out by what they wrote and said.
His system of reviews, reports, and inspection
gave efficiency to the soldier, confidence to the
commander, and saved the treasury not less than
six hundred thousand dollars.
The private life of a man so large a portion of
whose life was passed in the performance of pub
lic duties affords little room for the growth of
distinctive characteristics. There was a slight
haughtiness in his manner which would appear
to have been the reflection of his military habit of
command rather than the product of arrogance or
unbecoming pride ; a manner which seemed to
say, I know my own position and worth, and ex
pect you to recognize them ; but I am equally
ready to acknowledge yours. His pride never
seems to have degenerated into vanity, that unbe
coming mantle in which so many great men have
more than half enveloped their greatness, but was
a soldierly pride throughout, founded upon the

STEUBEN. 87
consciousness of what he had done and was still
able to do. In society he always appeared to ad
vantage, particularly in that test of true refine
ment, the society of ladies ; and if his bow savored
somewhat of formality, his vein of compliment and
humor was always happy. " Ah, madam," said
he, bowing low, on being presented to a beautiful
Miss Sheaf, and studiously mispronouncing the
name, " I have always been cautioned to avoid
mischief, but I never knew till to-day how dan
gerous she was."
Of his generosity innumerable anecdotes have
been preserved. Like Goldsmith, he could not
withhold even the last penny in his purse when
want or suffering asked for it. How often he
shared it with the destitute, how bitterly he felt
the ungenerous conduct of Congress which made
it impossible for him to give as freely as his heart
would have dictated, how munificently he em
ployed his opportunities as a land-holder to pro
vide some old soldier with a home, are things
which his contemporaries well knew and which
posterity should not forget.

GENEEAL JOHN KALB.

Verga gentil di picciola gramigna.
The noble scion of ignoble seed.
Dante, Purgatorio, xiv.

GENERAL JOHN KALB.

On the 29th of June, 1721, John Kalb, the
child of Hans Kalb and Margaret, his wife, peas
ants, was born in the German town of Hiitten-
dorf. On the 19th of August, 1780, Major-
General Baron de Kalb died prisoner of war in
the American town of Camden, of wounds re
ceived three days before, in the defeat of the
American General Gates by the English General
Cornwallis. How and when did this peasant
become a baron, and mingle his name with great
historic names and great historic events ? We
find him at school at Kriegenbronn, a peasant
boy still. We see him leave his native place
at sixteen to earn his living as a butler. We
lose sight of him for six years, and suddenly
1 Leben des Amerikanischen Generals Johann Kalb. Von
Friedrich Kapp, mit Kalb's Portrait. " In deiner Brust sind
deines Schicksals Sterne." — Schiller. Stuttgart : Cotta' scher
Verlag. 1862.
The Life of John Kalb, Major-General in the Revolutionary
Army. By Friedrich Kapp. New York : privately printed.
MDCCCLXX.

92 KALB.
find ourselves face to face with him again to
wards the end of 1743, with the distinctive de
between the Jean and Kalb of his half galli-
cized name, and the rank of lieutenant in the
regiment of Lowenthal, a body of German infan
try in the service of France. Had his regiment
been composed of Frenchmen, it would have been
easier to conceive how this young Ariovistus, six
feet high, with his searching brown eyes, his am
ple forehead that suggested thought, his dis
tinctly chiseled nose which like the great Condi's
suggested the beak of the eagle, the self-control
and quiet consciousness of strength which min
gled upon his lips somewhat as they did on Frank
lin's, and the aristocratic double chin and haughty
mien, could have passed himself as a noble in
times when the herald's office was consulted less
than the air and bearing of the claimant of a
title. But it was composed of Germans, familiar
with the name and grades of German nobility and
rigorous advocates of its privileges. By what arts
or by what chance did our young adventurer suc
ceed in persuading them that he was a noble
man ? How, too, did he, in six short years, suc
ceed in transforming the obsequious butler into
the proud baron ? That he did thus pass from
a peasant to a noble, and put on, as though they
had been his birthright, the air and bearing of
nobility, is a fact which Mr. Kapp has fully es-

KALB. 93
tablished, although he has not been able to ex
plain it, and, accepting it as one of the secrets
of history, we pass directly with him from the
peasant's cottage to the camp in Flanders.
Frederick of Prussia, the greatest general of his
own day, was the teacher of Steuben, the sub
ject of Mr. Kapp's first contribution to American
history. Kalb's teacher was Marshal Saxe, "the
professor," according to Frederick himself, "of all
the European generals of his age." And thus
the lessons of the two greatest soldiers of their
time passed through two brilliant adventurers to
the camp of Washington. Both lives belong in
part to the American historian. Toward the
end of 1743, when Washington was going to Mr-
Williams's school at Brydges Creek, and Greene
was a babe in the arms, Kalb comes into the light
of history as a lieutenant in one of the most brill
iant German regiments in the service of France.
In a single year he took part in three sieges and
one hotly contested battle ; and still following
the history of his regiment, through which only
we can trace his own, we find him at Fontenoy
and every decisive action of the war except the
battles of Lafeld and Raucoup. In 1747 he was
made captain and adjutant, and was intrusted
with the important duties of " officer of detail,"
an office of great responsibility, comprehending
the internal administration of the regiment and

94 KALB.
an active correspondence with the minister of
war. In his brief intervals of leisure he found
time for study, devoting himself chiefly to mod
ern languages and those branches of the higher
mathematics which were essential to the scien
tific departments of his profession.
The eighteenth century, it will be remem
bered, was still an age of mercenary soldiers.
Men of hereditary rank let themselves out for
military rank and the chances of military dis
tinction. To be colonel and give your name to a
regiment was to open the way to a new ribbon or
a new star and the choicest circles. Even the
lowest commission was a patent of nobility; for
none were entitled to it in the French service
who could not trace their claims through four
generations. The German regiments in the
French service were especially favored, and com
missions in them eagerly sought after. " There
is not a general officer in Germany," said Prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick to Boisgelin, "whatever
his nobility, who would not consider himself as
very fortunate in being able to enter the service
of France. What a happiness to fight by the
side of Frenchmen, and live with them in Paris
during peace ! "
The foreign regiments in the French service
were not all upon the same footing. Each had
its own contract, and its own articles of war.

KALB. 95
Questions of discipline were decided differently
in different regiments, one capitulation approv
ing what another condemned. It was the duty
of the officer of detail to make himself familiar
with all these distinctions, and be prepared to
defend the rights of his own regiment before the
minister of war ; an office of toil and difficulty,
comprising the whole internal administration of
the regiment, from the minutest detail to the most
difficult question of jurisprudence. The colonel
commanded in battle, but the officer of detail con
ducted the correspondence with the minister of
war and the commanding general.
Such were Kalb's duties in the garrisons of
Pfalzburgh and Cambrai, during the peace which
preceded the Seven Years' War. The records of
his regiment bear witness to his intelligence and
zeal. But war was approaching. While decid
ing the European question, the treaty of Aix la
Chapelle had left the American question unde
cided ; and the American question was the ques
tion of the age, carrying with it the transforma
tion of dependent colonies into the greatest of
republics. War with England was inevitable.
Kalb looked to it for honor and fortune. As a
first step toward them he addressed a memorial
to the minister of marine, containing a detailed
plan for the formation of a foreign regiment of
marine infantry. Germany, Denmark, Sweden,

96 KALB.
England, and above all, Ireland, were to furnish
the men, who were to be thoroughly trained to
service in different parts of the world, and es
pecially to sudden landings on a foreign coast.
An invasion of England has long been a cher
ished idea of France, and that it is not altogether
a vain idea may be argued from the anxiety,
amounting almost to terror, with which every rep
etition of the menace has been received. Kalb
aimed high, but he aimed justly. He would
have made Irish discontent a source of weak
ness to England and of strength to France. But
he lacked court patronage, and failed.
A minute history of the Seven Years' War
would hardly bring the name of Kalb into prom
inence. He took part in nearly all its great battles,
however, and won the favor of De Broglie, the
best of the French generals. But his subordinate
position kept him in the. shade, and his useful de
vices were counted only as a part of the general
history of his regiment. The court intrigue
which removed the successful De Broglie in order
to make room for the incompetent Soubise, very
nearly deprived him of his position. The peace
of 1763 found him a lieutenant-colonel in rank,
though in fact only a captain by purchase in the
regiment of Anhalt. It gave him, however, an
opportunity of adding largely to his private fort
une, by his successful advocacy of the claims of

KALB. 97
several princely and noble families of Wetterau
for supplies furnished the French army during
the war.
The war was over-; what was to become of
those for whom war was a profession ? Assistant
quartermaster-general, with the rank of lieuten
ant-colonel, Kalb had strong claims to promo
tion ; but none of his hopes in this direction were
realized. Fortunately the customs of the age
had allowed him to purchase a captaincy in the
Anhalt regiment, for one of whose companies he
had been reported as if in actual command dur
ing the last three years of the war. Upon this
he now fell back for the moment, resolved, mean
while, to push his fortune in another direction.
He had once before tried to make his way by
personal application, and had failed for want of
protection. He was stronger now,'by the friend
ship and protection of men of rank, and for a
while his hopes were high. Eight new staff offi
cers were to be created, and the Marquis de Cas
tries exerted himself to procure one of the ap
pointments for him. But the new creations were
not made. A vacant lieutenant-colonelcy for which
he had made application was given to another.
It was a severe disappointment. Still, fortune
had not forsaken him.
During the administration of the provident Col
bert, a Hollander, named Robin, skilled in the

98 KALB.
manufacture of cloth, had been allured to France,
where his services were rewarded by a patent of
nobility. The occupation was handed down from
father to son, and at the time of Kalb's visit to
Paris, a grandson of the original immigrant was
living with his wife upon the fruits of his own
and his ancestors' industry, in pleasant retirement
at Courbevoye, near Paris. A younger daughter,
" accomplished, sprightly, and beautiful," lived
with them. How and when Kalb learnt to know
them, no record tells ; but it is easy to understand
how, as he listened to her intelligent and sprightly
conversation and looked upon her beautiful face,
he thought that with such a being by his side he
might forego his commission ; and how, as she
looked upon his noble form and listened to his
tales of siege and encampment and battle-field,
she felt that his would be a strong arm to go
through life with. She was betrothed to Kalb
in the first winter after the peace, and married on
the 10th of April, 1764. They were both Protes
tants, and the marriage service was performed in
the Protestant chapel of the Dutch legation.
Kalb was very happy. He had never fallen
into the dissolute habits of his times and profes
sion. Temperate in all things but the thirst of
glory, he sought happiness at his own fireside.
His wife, who had married him because she loved
him, felt her love increase as she became more

KALB. 99
familiar with his sterling qualities of mind and
heart. An adventurer hitherto, dependent upon
his sword and the protection of the great, he was
now the head of an honorable family and the
master of an independent fortune. Money, like
other gifts of fortune, came flowing in upon him
from many sources. He threw up his captain's
commission, and retired from service with a pen
sion as lieutenant-colonel.
But he had not read his own heart aright.
The memories of his old life, of its adventures,
its vicissitudes, its brilliant rewards, began to stir
within him. There were higher grades to win,
honors and crosses to decorate his breast with, and
point him out to the common eye as a man of mark.
Before a year of that domestic life which prom
ised such happiness was over, he was once more
knocking at the doors of men in power. His let
ters to his wife show how warmly he loved her,
and how readily she entered into his feelings.
A brilliant opening seemed prepared for him.
A celebrated warrior of the school of the great
Frederick, Count William of Schaumburg-Lippe,
having successfully defended Portugal from a
Spanish invasion, had been employed to raise three
German regiments for the Portuguese service.
Supported by both the De Broglies, Kalb asked
for a brigadier's commission in them. He hoped
that after a few campaigns in the Portuguese

100 KALB.
army, he might return to the French army as a
general. But the war was not renewed, and the
new regiments were not raised.
Thus far Kalb had aimed only at military pro
motion. A general's commission would have sat
isfied his highest aspirations ; a cross of St. Louis
would have made him happy for the rest of his
life. But a new field was opening for him, in
which his power of accurate observation and his
sound judgment were to be brought into active
exercise. It was now that his attention was called
for the first time to the dispute between England
and her colonies.
French indignation at the ignominious treaty
of Paris of 1763, which stripped France of her
colonies in North America, had found utterance
in the ministry of the Duke of Choiseul. France
had reached the lowest depths of humiliation.
Her troops had lost their moral strength by a
succession of defeats. Her ships of war had been
annihilated. Her ships of commerce had been
driven from the seas. Even in the Mediterra
nean, which she had learnt to look upon as her
own, they crept stealthily from port to port.
Had Pitt remained at the head of the ministry,
the house of Bourbon, which he hated so bitterly,
would have become a third-class power both in
France and in Spain. But the fall of Pitt opened
the way, if not for the recovery of all that had
been lost, at least for revenge.

KALB. 101
Choiseul availed himself skillfully of the op
portunity. He resolved to renew the struggle
for the mastery of the ocean, and in a few years
had sixty-four ships of the line and thirty-six
frigates afloat. To make up for the losses in the
East Indies and North America, he encouraged
the development and commerce of the French
Antilles. Santo Domingo, Guadaloupe, and Mar-
tinico began to pour their rich harvests into the
French markets and extend French commerce
into new fields. Already in the first year of his
administration he had formed that compact of
the Bourbon family which plays so important a
part in the history of the times. In the very
same year he had begun, through skillful emissa
ries, to open the way for extending the French
power in Corsica and enlarging French commerce
in the Levant. Like the great Napoleon nearly
half a century later, he resolved to make Egypt
his base of operations against the English posses
sions in the East Indies. The treaty of Paris
had been signed in 1763. In 1764 M. de Font-
leroy, an agent of the active minister, was sent
to North America to study on the spot, and see
whether the report that a question of taxation
was fast alienating the affections of the British
colonists from the mother country was true. In
1766 the answer came. Fontleroy, entering fully
into the views of his employer, traveled over the

102 KALB.
land in its length and breadth, taking careful
note of its rich soil, its abundance of grain-, its
vast stores of iron, its boundless forests of timber,
its capacious harbors, and mighty rivers. The
inhabitants, he said, were a hardy, bold, and
enterprising race, growing daily in wealth and
power, and fully conscious of their strength.
Choiseul smiled at the flattering report, so favor
able to his own wishes, and continued his inquir
ies. How well they were conducted the extracts
from New England sermons still preserved in
the French archives attest.
It was evident 'that there was a general fer
mentation in the colonies, but how extensive, and
how like to prove lasting, it was difficult to say.
The minister resolved to send a new agent, and
fixed upon Kalb for the delicate and difficult
office. " M. de Kalb," say his instructions, " will
repair to Amsterdam and there direct his partic
ular attention to the rumors in circulation about
the English colonies. Should they appear to be
well founded, he will immediately make prepa
rations for a journey to America.
" On his arrival he will inquire into the in
tentions of the inhabitants, and endeavor to ascer
tain whether they are in want of good engineers
and artillery officers, or other individuals, and
whether they should be supplied with them.
" He will acquaint himself with the greater

KALB. 103
or lesser strength of their purpose to withdraw
from the English government.
" He will examine their resources in troops,
fortified places, and forts, and will seek to discover
their plan of revolt and the leaders who are ex
pected to direct and control it.
" Great reliance is placed in the intelligence
and address of M. de Kalb in the pursuit of a
mission requiring an uncommon degree of tact
and shrewdness, and he is expected to report prog
ress as often as possible."
Honorable as this mission was, it was not with
out hesitation that Kalb accepted it. " Do not
decline the mission with which I have intrusted
you," said Choiseul. " I know that it is difficult
and requires great sagacity. But I have fixed
my choice upon you after much deliberation, and
know that you will see no reason to regret it.
Ask of me the means which you think neces
sary for its execution; I will furnish you with
them all." It was no longer time to hesitate.
On the 2d of May he received his passports, let
ters, letters of introduction to the French ambas
sadors at Brussels and the Hague, and twelve
hundred francs for his traveling expenses. On
the 15th of July he addressed his first dispatch to
Choiseul from the Hague.
He had done his duty thoroughly, visiting all
the sea-ports of Holland, and conversing with men

104 KALB.
who had lived in the colonies. A German who
had passed fifteen years there, and was actually
collecting new colonists to carry back with him,
assured him that, in spite of appearances, the
breach between the colonies and the mother
country was as wide as ever. The English troops
were but twenty thousand in number, and those
twenty thousand were so widely scattered that
they would find it hard to cope with the four
hundred thousand militia of the colonies. The
Germans of Pennsylvania could raise sixty thou
sand men. The Irish population was numerous
and ready for revolt. The provincial assembly
were resolved to maintain their rights by the
sword. The English, on the contrary, asserted
that the spirit of resistance had been laid by the
repeal of the Stamp Act. Kalb listened attent
ively to both statements, and suspected exagger
ation in both. " This may be said for effect,
and to conceal the actual condition of things,"
was his comment on the English report. " I am
only repeating his assertions, without being con
vinced of their truth," he says of the German
emigrant. He had early learnt the art of ju
dicious doubt. Choiseul, with his hot Celtic
blood, was more sanguine than his Teutonic
agent. Meanwhile, the work of raising emigrants for
the colonies went briskly on. At Rotterdam he

KALB. 105
saw twelve hundred of them, traveling from Co
logne, by way of Maestricht and Herzogenbush.
Frederick had forbidden them to pass through his
territories. We can form some idea of the dis
comforts of their passage across the Atlantic from
the fact that they were all crowded into four of
the small and inconvenient ships of those days.
If we would form an idea of the manner in which,
at about this same time, Englishmen were lured
into emigration, we have only to follow George
Primrose in the " Vicar <jf Wakefield " to the
emigrant agent's office in London : " In this office
Mr. Crispe kindly offers all bis majesty's sub
jects a generous promise of £30 a year, for
which promise all they give in return is their lib
erty for life, and permission to let him transport
them to America as slaves."
Kalb's first dispatch had hardly reached the
minister, when tidings of the temporary lull in
the tempest which followed the repeal of the
Stamp Act reached Europe. He asked for new
instructions. " As it is possible and even proba
ble," answered Choiseul, with the sure percep
tion of a true statesman, '" that this quiet will not
be of long duration, it is the will of his majesty
that you should make immediate preparations for
a speedy tour to America, in order to satisfy your
self by personal inspection as to the condition of
the country, its harbors, ships, land forces, re-

106 KALB.
sources, weapons, munitions of war, and provis
ions — in short, as to the means at our command
if disposed, in case of a war with England, to
make a diversion in that direction. You will
adopt the greatest precautions in sending me your
report, and will immediately upon your arrival
inform me where to direct such letters as I shall
have occasion to write you."
It throws a pleasant light upon Kalb's relations
with his wife that he asked the minister to send
his " commands and answers " through her. The
instructions of Choiseul were promptly obeyed.
On reaching London he found that to wait for
the monthly packet would cause a delay of ten
days. " I prefer, therefore," he writes, " to take
the merchantman Hercules, Captain Hammet,
which sets sail from Gravesend to-morrow for
Philadelphia." Had he been inclined to super
stition he might have looked upon his stormy pas
sage of three months as the forerunner of disas
ter. On the 12th of January, 1768, he landed at
Philadelphia. An expression in his first report, written three
days after his arrival, shows how promptly he had
fathomed the real nature of the relations of the
mother country to the colonies. He calls them
an " invaluable magazine of raw productions, and
a most profitable market for English manufact
ures." Looking at them from this point of view

KALB. 107
he cannot conceive that the British government
will spare any efforts to secure such a mine of
wealth. He quickly saw, also, that the dispute
was far from being adjusted. In Holland the
English party had assured him that the repeal of
the Stamp Act had been voluntary. In Phila
delphia he learnt that it had been wrung from
the ministers by organized resistance. He was
struck by the substantial union of the provincial
assemblies. He attached great importance to
the renunciation by Boston of British commerce.
He saw the full significance of the part borne by
women in the dispute, a part of sacrifice and self-
denial. " They deny themselves tea, they deny
themselves foreign sugar. They will have no
more fine linens from England, but sedulously ply
their spinning-wheels to prepare them linens of
their own. Silks, which they cannot yet make
for themselves, they will do without." He de
tects, also, signs of forbearance on the part of the
Parliament. The troops treat the colonists with
greater forbearance. The commanding general,
instead of prosecuting libels and pasquinades,
pretends to ignore them ; and the authors, though
well known, go unpunished. He has not had
time to study the military question, but foresees
many obstacles to carrying on war with militia,
and obstacles equally great to the formation of
an army in a country so extensive and so divided.

108 KALB.
In one thing he saw that the temper of the colo
nists had been misjudged. The remoteness of
the centre of government inspired them with a
spirit of freedom and enterprise ; and their taxes
were very light ; but they had no desire to " shake
off the English supremacy with the aid of for
eign powers." The immediate object of popular
hatred was the House of Commons ; of popular
admiration, William Pitt.
On the 20th of January he writes again. He
has had time to look about him, and to sift and
verify his observations. It is very interesting to
study the impressions of an intelligent foreigner
at this critical moment, and compare them with
those of our own public men. America was so
little known that the wildest stories were re
peated without exciting a doubt ; and it required
no common sagacity to form a calm and deliber
ate opinion in the midst of so many contradic
tions. A circumstance which caused him no little
alarm was to find that his letters had been opened
in their passage through the post-office. Would
they not all be opened and the information which
he had so laboriously collected be read in Down
ing Street before it reached Versailles ? What,
too, would become of his mission if the letters of
the minister should be intercepted ? He resolved
to forestall the danger by hastening his tour of
observation and returning home in April. The

KALB. 109
few days that had passed between his first and
second dispatches were sufficient to convince
him that the indignation excited by the Stamp
Act had not been appeased by its repeal. The
declaratory act, by which Parliament claimed the
right to bind the colonies in all cases whatever,
was equally unacceptable, and the tax on tea,
paper, and glass which followed was interpreted
as an indirect method of enforcing the principle
of the Stamp Act. Concerning the nature of this
principle the colonists had no doubt. With taxa
tion went representation. By the English con
stitution no province could be taxed without being
represented, and " England ought to be content
with the profits it derives from selling the colo
nists worthless goods at high prices, and purchas
ing necessaries from them for a song." Neither did
it escape Kalb's attention that an equally bitter
feeling had been awakened by the restraints with
which the Parliament had hampered American
industry. No sooner had the manufacture of iron
become almost equal to that of England than it
was prohibited by law. The same repression of
manufacturing enterprise had been extended to
other branches of industry. Could the colonists
doubt that they were to be systematically cut off
from the most important sources of wealth, and
their prosperity made to depend upon the caprice
of the mother country ? And he esteemed the

110 KALB.
restrictions imposed upon American commerce
equally unwise and unjust. It was not with raw
material alone that the colonists purchased En
glish goods. The balance of trade was against
them and they were compelled to drain themselves
of their gold and silver to make up the difference.
Now the specie required to meet the demands
of the English merchant was drawn from the
commerce of the colonists with the West Indies
and the Spanish Main ; and as fast as it reached
the hand of the American merchant it passed to
those of the English merchant. But instead of
promoting this commerce, Parliament prohibited
it. Kalb thought that the decrease of specie was
real, but that it was an exaggeration to attribute
it wholly to the decay of the commerce with the
West Indies. " There is reason to suppose," he
writes, " that it is hoarded on account of the dis
turbed state of affairs. I cannot believe the state
ments made with regard to the sums exported to
England ; it is pretended that the article of tea
alone has netted them three hundred thousand
pounds. As soon as I can obtain an insight into
this matter I shall report upon it." He looked
to the non-intercourse resolves as a fatal blow to
English industry. " The result of all these facts,"
he writes, " is that the colonies are more than
ever willing to retrench their expenditures and
live exclusively upon their own productions."

KALB. Ill
On the 25th of January, 1768, he started for
New York. It was a long, tedious, and disastrous
journey. The land carriage was cold and slow ;
the passage of the Delaware was difficult and
dangerous. It took three days to reach Princeton.
A fresh wind was blowing when he reached the
Kill, but it was fair, and the landlord of the Ferry
Inn and the ferryman himself said that the pas
sage was safe. There were five men to cross and
four horses, and although it was already between
eight and nine in the evening they set sail. But
no sooner had they reached the middle of the
stream than the wind chopped round, and drove
the helpless little craft upon a small island half
way between the ferry and the mouth of Fish-
Kill Creek, where she sank. The horses were
drowned and the baggage lost ; but the passengers,
partly by wading and partly by swimming, reached
the shore. It was but half a mile from the ferry,
but they could not make themselves heard. There
was neither tree nor shrub to shelter them from
the bleak wind. They huddled close together to
get what warmth they might from the contact of
their bodies. They stamped with their feet and
thrashed with their arms, and walked up and down
to keep off the sleep which leads to death. The
heavy hours wore slowly on. At eleven the ferry
boy died. At three, Mr. George, a passenger.
Day came at last, but it was not till nine that

112 KALB.
they were seen from the shore and a boat sent for
them. Benumbed, unconscious, hardly able to
move their limbs, they were placed in a sleigh and
conveyed to the house of Mr. Mercerau, whose
name reappears a few years later in a useful,
though not brilliant position in the war of inde
pendence. The first instinct of the half-frozen
men was to crowd around the fire, and they paid
for the imprudence by the loss of fingers or toes,
and in one instance, of a leg. The wiser Kalb
bathed his feet and legs in ice-water and then
ate and went to bed. His baggage was lost, and
with it " several hundred louis d'or, the badge of
his order, and the key to his cipher." It was not
till the end of February that he was able to re
new his correspondence with the minister. His
time had not been lost, and his report bears the
marks of a careful study of his subject.
" The colonies," he writes on the 25th of Feb
ruary, " seem to intrench themselves more and
more in their system of opposition and of econo
my. It is said that the merchants of London are
already beginning to feel the effects of this policy ;
that in consequence of it the wages of labor are
fallen off ; that a number of the trades, by com
bining among themselves, have destroyed the
business of those who worked for less than the
established prices." Then passing to the subject
of taxation, which he has evidently studied with

KALB. 113'
great intelligence and care, he embodies bis con
clusions in these words : " The assembly at Bos
ton have just resolved to remonstrate with the-
court against the tea tax, as will appear from
the accompanying English documents, which I
inclose in the original in order to excite less sus
picion in case this letter should be intercepted.
The dissatisfaction with the impost grows out of'
their aversion to being taxed by the Parliament
instead of by the representatives of their own.
provinces. It would seem to me that the court of
St. James mistakes its own interest. If the king;
would ask the colonies for sums much larger than.
the proceeds of the imposts in dispute, they would-
be granted without any objection, provided the-
colonists were left at liberty to tax themselves,,
and, as free subjects, to give their money with
their own consent. During the late war they
have paid enormous sums, larger ones than the-
king demanded', because he approached their as
semblies with the same formalities as he observed
in calling upon Parliament for subsidies. It is a
matter of surprise that the court has discarded
this advantageous method, and that the people
of Great Britain are ready to subvert the funda
mental polity of the kingdom by taxing their fel
low-citizens without their consent, when they
submit to the same proceeding only at the hands
of their representatives in the House of Commons.
8

114 KALB.
The colonies have the same right ; they can only
be taxed by their own assemblies. The king
would therefore have to make an application for
that purpose to every single colony. But the col
onies themselves would not favor the last alter
native, partly on account of the expense involved,
.and partly on account of the certainty of finding
themselves in a minority on all occasions, which
would unavoidably constrain them to participate
in every war waged in Europe by England or by
the Elector of Hanover. They would prefer a
Parliament or a continental assembly, a power
which, however, would soon become dangerous to
the crown. All classes of people here are imbued
with such a spirit of independence and freedom
from control that if all the provinces can be
united under a common representation an inde
pendent state will soon be formed. At all events,
it will certainly come forth in time. Whatever
may be done in London, this country is growing
too powerful to be much longer governed at such
a distance. The population is now estimated at
three million, and is expected to double itself in
less than thirty years. It is not to be denied
that children swarm everywhere like ants. The
people are strong and robust, and even the En
glish officers admit that the militia are equal to
the lilie in every respect.
" I have not yet obtained accurate information

KALB. 115
as to the number of the militia, but shall soon
be able to submit a reliable report. The English
troops under General Gage, occupying the coun
try from New England to the Gulf of Mexico,
muster sixteen regiments, each of ten companies,
numbering seventy men in time of peace and a
hundred in time of war, besides a company of
artillery and a number of engineers. I believe
I have already mentioned that' these troops are
changed every three years." Nor does he hesi
tate to touch by the wayside upon a kindred ques
tion. " From conversations with several promi
nent individuals here I have "learned that the
English government greatly regrets having made
peace with Spain without demanding possession
of the island of Porto Rico, the possession of
which is in every respect so favorable to English
interests. Under the pretext of protecting their
trade, the English government has many men of
war at sea and a large number of troops on the
continent, not to mention those already stationed
on the islands. It is evident that these troops
are so distributed for the special purpose of being
prepared to pounce upon the French and Spanish
settlements on these islands at the first speck of
war. That the English have treated as good
prizes several ships captured near the island of St.
Juan in the course of last year, you have doubt
less been informed."

116 KALB.
His observations at Boston confirm his obser
vations at Philadelphia and New York. " I
meet," he writes, " with the same opinions as in
the provinces already visited, only expressed with
greater violence and acrimony. The four prov
inces composing New England — Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire
— appear to be more firmly united among them
selves, on account of the community of interests,
than the remaining colonies. Massachusetts in
particular, the most wealthy and populous, gives
the impulse and the signal of independence to
the rest. In spite of this restive spirit, how
ever, they all, from the leaders down to the
humblest citizen, seemed to be imbued with a
heartfelt love of the mother country. The in
habitants of this province are almost exclusively
Englishmen or of English stock, and the liberties
so long enjoyed by them have only swelled the
pride and presumption peculiar to that people.
All these circumstances go to show but too
clearly that there will be no means of inducing
them to accept of assistance from abroad. In
fact they are so well convinced of the justice of
their cause, the clemency of the king, and of
their own importance to the mother country, that
they have never contemplated the possibility of
extreme measures. The government is accused
of fomenting the existing discontent for selfish

KALB. 117
purposes. The inclosed English slip will ac
quaint you with the internal dissensions on this
subject, and reveal the causes of complaint which
are urged against the government. I adhere to
the opinion that the incendiaries will not alone
succumb, but that the colonies will yet have the
satisfaction of seeing the mother country admit
herself to have been in the wrong, and do her
best to repair it."
Nothing struck him with such surprise as the
commercial spirit of the colonists. " I am more
and more astonished," he writes, " at the number
of merchantmen to be seen in the ports, rivers,
and bays, from the Potomac and Chesapeake to
Boston harbor. And in addition to these, num
berless ships are in course of construction. What
must have been the trade of these colonies before
the disturbances began ? Nor am I less struck
with the flourishing appearance of the interior.
On my return to France I shall report the most
minute particulars in this connection."
From Boston, Kalb went to Halifax, making
everywhere the same inquiries and obtaining the
same answers. The ultimate separation of the
colonies from the mother country he looked upon
as inevitable, but did not believe that they would
ever call in a foreign power to their aid. It was
to the steady increase of their population and
prosperity, and not to foreign bayonets, that he
looked for the final separation.

118 KALB.
He had done a great deal of work in a very
short time, and developed civil talents of a very
high order. His reports contain views of the col
onies which threw a clear but sober light upon
the aims and character of the colonists and the re
sources of the country. He saw from the first
what our own statesmen were several years in
seeing, that the Canadians could not be counted
by the French government as allies. " There
are," he writes, " but few persons in those im
mense provinces in sympathy with France. The
most devoted to us have left the country since
the close of the war, and" those who remain are
satisfied with their present condition or expect
no improvement of it from a change of rulers.
Their lands have risen in value, they pay but
trifling taxes, enjoy unqualified freedom of con
science as well as all the privileges of the En
glish people, and take part in the management of
public affairs. Besides, they have become closely
allied with the inhabitants of the neighboring
provinces by intermarriages and other ties. I
regard it as my duty to speak candidly on all
these matters, because I will not deceive you,
and do not wish you to be deceived by others.
In case of a war with our neighbors beyond the
Channel, it would be difficult, therefore, to make
a diversion to this part of their possessions. I
always recur to my belief that the quarrels of

KALB. 119
the English with their colonies will terminate
to the satisfaction of the latter. A war with us
would only hasten their reconciliation, and on
the footing of restored privileges, the English
court would even direct all the troops, resources,
and ships of this part of the world against our
islands and the Spanish Main. A foreign war
is less hurtful to England than internal discord,
which, however, would at once yield to the ne
cessity of defense against a common foe."
To extend the field of his observations, Kalb
proposed to go from Halifax to Maine, thence
by sleigh to Lake Champlain, and return to
New York by the valley of the Hudson. But,
meanwhile, a grave difficulty arose. In spite of
all the pains he had been at to secure the trans
mission of his letters, they had reached his wife
with the seals broken. It was evident that he
was an object of suspicion, and should his com
munication with the minister be interrupted, it
would be impossible for him to continue his
work. A task so delicate as that which had
been assigned him could not be performed with
out frequent instructions. He resolved, there
fore, to return to France, make new arrange
ments for his correspondence, and hold himself
at the minister's orders if a new mission should
be thought necessary. " Even admitting the
possibility of a positive rupture," he writes, " the

120 KALB.
opening of positive hostilities between the court
and the colonies cannot but be far distant, as
it presupposes the participation of the people,
the shipment of large masses of troops, and
extensive levies of soldiers and sailors. On the
other hand, the colonies, if hard pressed, would
make a pretense of submission, to gain time for
erecting a navy, concentrating and disciplining
their forces, and making other needful prepara
tions." These reasonings and conjectures of an intelli
gent foreigner have a deep interest for the stu
dent of our revolutionary history. It is evident
that Kalb had been strongly impressed with the
resources and rapid growth of the colonies. It
is equally evident that he detected the foreshad-
owings and the eventual necessity of independ
ence. Such sources of wealth could not long
remain at the unquestioned disposal of a dis
tant central government. A people so enter
prising and intelligent and bold could not failto
become independent by their natural growth.
Would they begin the struggle now, or, although
the quarrel seemed almost forced upon them,
would they wait till they were more fully pre
pared? They had not yet been pushed far
enough to make them willing to accept foreign
aid. They still loved their mother country, al
though she did nothing to win their love. What

KALB. 121
was the part of France to be in the impending
contest? Evidently that of an interested state,
seeking for an opportunity to avenge itself on an
enemy. And how could that revenge be made
sure ? The period of enthusiastic sympathy had
not yet been reached. A premature foreign war
would efface the sense of their wrongs in the
hearts of the colonists and check the crown in its
career of usurpation. Kalb believed that France
would only obtain her end by watching. The
day of separation would surely come. To en
deavor to hasten it would be risking all on a sin
gle throw when the game was already in her
hands. There is another value in these reports. They
bear directly on the question of the motives of
France in the treaty of 1778. Of these I have
already spoken in my " Historical View of the
American Revolution." But I would call atten
tion to them again, as Kalb's mission affords the
strongest evidence that whatever may have been
the aims of Vergennes, Choiseul was seeking the
humiliation of England.
In April Kalb sailed for England, and on the
12th of June was in Paris. Of all his reports, five
only had reached the minister. But he had the
materials of other reports in his portfolio, which
he arranged and sent to the duke. Through the
rest of the summer and early fall Choiseul's in-

122 KALB.
terest in the colonies was unchanged. But an
other question had risen which now absorbed his
attention. He had long been trying to strengthen
France in the Mediterranean by the subjugation
of Corsica. And here first comes to view the
Garibaldi of the eighteenth century, the Italian
Paoli. To seize upon Corsica was to weaken
England. Still more deadly was the blow which
he meditated through the colonies. By a system
common to all, the commerce of each was con
fined to the mother country. Could this restric
tion be removed and the productions of North
America be admitted into the colonies of France
and Spain, what a blow would be given to the
commercial prosperity of England ! So thought
Choiseul. So thought Count Chatelet, the
French ambassador at the court of St. James.
But the Spanish ambassador, Grimaldi, saw in it
the building of the English colonies into a pow
erful republic, an evil example to the French and
Spanish colonies, and his reasoning prevailed.
Had he gone a little further he would have fore
seen that the colonies were making rapid strides
towards independence by virtue of a law more
powerful than the decrees of parliaments or
kings. Absorbed by these questions the French
minister felt that he had no more need of Kalb
and his reports, and coolly threw him off. Choi
seul was a great minister, but, like most of his

KALB. 123
class, regarded men as tools, to be taken up
and laid down at will. A few months later he
found that in spite of all his services, and while
his brain was still teeming with designs for the
glory of France, he too was but a tool to be cast
aside at the caprice of a vile woman and still
viler king. Had Choiseul remained in power it is
difficult not to believe that the war of independ
ence would have begun under different auspices
and led to speedier results. Still, Kalb's mission
was not lost, and his reports and the documents
which he collected are still classed among the
most valuable records of the early efforts of
France, after the treaty of Paris, to undermine
the power of England in North America.
The next two years were years of deep humil
iation for those who loved France. The power
of the infamous Du Barry had become absolute.
Ministers and officers of every grade were depend
ent upon her favor. The king himself was seen
standing hat in hand by her carriage at a public
review. The downward impulse whicli society
had received from the licentious administration
of the Duke of Orleans reached the lowest point
of degradation during the last years of Louis
XV. The position which the bold bearing and
broad statesmanship of Choiseul had won for
France was lost by the incompetence and corrup
tion of his successor. A bold and resolute inter-

124 KALB.
vention might have prevented the partition of
Poland. D'Aiguillon could only negotiate and
intrigue ; and it should not be forgotten that
England was compelled by the menacing charac
ter of her relations with her colonies to confine
her action to an unheeded protest. Individual
sympathy found a stronger expression, and French
and English officers, acting upon their own re
sponsibility, were found in the Polish army.
Kalb was urged to join them, but upon terms
that he could not accept. It was not till Ver
gennes was firmly seated in the chair of foreign
affairs that America was again a subject of in
terest in the French cabinet.
For Kalb these years were not without their
pleasures, although tranquil beyond any others
of his restless life. They were years of domestic
happiness and that pleasant provision for the fut
ure which so naturally follows the appearance of
children at the fireside. He bought the chateau
of Milon la Chapelle with its lands and feudal
rights. He made a general arrangement of his
affairs ; and, carrying into private life all the
order and method of his public life, won for him
self that independence which accompanies free
dom from pecuniary cares. Still the ambitious
and active nature would out. No chance of pro
motion escaped his watchful eye. He was only
a colonel ; he longed to be a brigadier. He had

KALB. 125
done meritorious service. He could not be happy
without a ribbon or a cross to tell it by. Nat
ure had given him a vigorous frame and great
powers of endurance. Tranquil walks over his
own grounds, though accompanied with the feel
ing that they were his own, that every tree that
he planted, every path that he opened, would
add to their value for himself and his children,
could not satisfy his longing for excitement and
motion. The duties and resources of domestic
life were insufficient to satisfy the demands of his
active and aspiring nature. But while Louis
XV. lived, all his efforts to obtain active service
failed. The accession of Louis XVI. opened
brighter prospects. His friends and early pa
trons, the two brothers De Broglie, returned to
court, and soon we find Kalb in active life. A
new rule of service required that retired staff
officers should from time to time do duty in gar
rison, and when in 1775 the Count de Broglie
went to Metz as military commander-in-chief, he
took Kalb with him. His exemplary perform
ance of his duties won him a warm recommen
dation to the Count of St. Germain, the new min
ister of war. " When you shall have returned
here, M. le Comte," wrote the minister, " we
shall see what disposition may be made of M. de
Kalb." America, too, was looming up on the
political horizon again, and Vergennes, like Choi-

126 KALB.
seul, hated England. Kalb's hopes were now
high. The minister of war gave him a private
audience, and he obtained a furlough of two
years. He asked for a brigadiership, but there
was no vacancy, and the grade of mare'chal de
camp was promised him instead. In November
the question of promotion was decided by a
commission of brigadier-general for the islands.
It was in the colonies that he was to win his
grade. This period of his career deserves a care
ful study for its connection with the history of
the French alliance. It was a period of secret
negotiations and public disavowals, of promises
made or broken according to the exigencies of
the hour, of half-concealed distrust and secret
preparation. Never was diplomacy more stained
with deceit. Lord Stormont had spies on the
track of Vergennes. The spies of Vergennes kept
close on the traces of Lord Stormont. France
and Spain were in sincere accord with regard
to England. But the full story of the wiles and
craft by which the way was prepared for the
treaty of 1778 would carry us too far beyond
the circle of Kalb's individual action. We con
fine ourselves to that, and find enough there
to afford important side lights for the general
picture. Kalb now knew what was expected of him by
the government, and what he might expect from

KALB. 127
it in return. Assistance was to be given to the
colonies as far as it could be done without com
promising France. War was to be avoided as
long as possible, and accepted only when the
Americans had given unequivocal proofs of their
strength and perseverance. With this view arms
and money were to be supplied secretly, and for
this purpose Colonel du Coudray, an artillery
officer of distinction, was sent on an apparent tour
of inspection to the forts and arsenals, but with
secret instructions to select an ample supply of
arms for the use of the insurgents. It is in this
connection that we first meet the name of Beau
marchais in American history. Kalb was to go
as a volunteer, on leave, and without imperil
ing his position in the French army. Too cau
tious to hazard himself without a positive agree
ment with some trustworthy agent, he resolved
to wait the arrival of Silas Deane, the secret
agent of the Americans, who was daily expected
at Paris. Of this somewhat equivocal character
in American history I have already told as much
as the occasion required in the work referred to
above. He eagerly grasped at the opportunity of
securing the services of so experienced an officer,
and assured him of the grade of major-general,
with rank from the 7th of November, 1776. Kalb
and Vergennes would have smiled could they
have seen the closing sentence of the dispatch in

128 KALB.
which the unskilled agent announced the nego
tiation to Congress. " This gentleman," he
writes, " has an independent fortune, and a cer
tain prospect of advancement here, but being a
zealous friend to liberty, civil and religious, he
is actuated by the most independent and generous
principles in the offer he makes of his services to
the States of America." On the 1st of December
a formal contract was signed, Kalb affixing his
name to it for himself and fifteen others. On
the 7th of December a new contract was signed,
and on this we find the name of Lafayette, the
first time that we meet this beloved name in
American history. This important transaction
did not escape the watchful eye of the English
ambassador, who immediately reported it to his
government. But England did not want a war
with France, and delayed her revenge.
Meanwhile the arms and military stores des
tined for the insurgents reached different ports at
which they were to be embarked ; a large number
of officers also appeared in the streets of Havre
and other seaport towns. Love of adventure,
thirst for distinction, an ill-defined zeal for the
rights of men, had kindled the enthusiasm of the
young nobility. Some of them, of large fortunes
and high rank, resolved to take an active part in
the contest. But instead of following the course
which the relations between France and England

KALB. 129
required, they talked loud in the streets, dis
cussed their plans in coffee-houses, and went fur
ther than Lord Stormont's spies in supplying
him with materials for remonstrance. Even the
shrewd Beaumarchais, forgetting his rdle, gave
the rein to his vanity as a dramatist, and had
some of his plays brought out on the stage at
Havre. On the 14th of December the Amphitrite sailed
with Du Coudray and his suite. Like Kalb,
Du Coudray, on reaching Philadelphia, was to
rank as major-general, thus outranking native
officers of the highest merit. When the tidings
reached the colonies it excited a menacing dis
satisfaction. But for the moment the danger
was averted. The accommodations of the Am
phitrite and the storage of her cargo were found
unsuitable for a long voyage, and she returned to
L' Orient. With such evidence in his hands
Lord Stormont addressed an energetic remon
strance to the French minister, who, not yet pre
pared for war, forbade the expedition. At this
critical moment arrived the tidings of the disheart
ening campaign of 1776. Vergennes felt that
the hour was not yet come, and ordered the
stores which had already been put on shipboard
to be detained. Du Coudray sailed alone on the
14th of February, 1776. Kalb resolved to wait
a more favorable opportunity.

130 KALB.
And now I have a story to tell which has lain
hidden for near a century among the papers of
Kalb, and was brought to light by the exhaust
ive researches of Mr. Kapp. It is a striking
confirmation of the importance of the preserva
tion of documents. At first blush it seems al
most too strange to be believed. But the cir
cumstances under which it was found leave no
doubt of its authenticity. It throws so strong a
light on the motives by which some, at least, of
our foreign assistants were actuated, that I should
do injustice to the reader were I to weaken it by
abridgment. " I have seen with pleasure," writes De Broglie
at his country seat, Ruffec, the 11th of Decem
ber, " from the relations of M. Dubois Martin,
as well as from your last letter of the 5th in
stant, the good progress of your affairs, and hope
that all your wishes will continue to be realized.
You may rest assured that, on my part, I shall
not neglect your interests, which, as you will not
fail to remember, I have at all times advocated,
the more cheerfully that I know that the favor
of the king could not be better bestowed.
" I do not doubt that the plan communicated
to you by M. Dubois meets your entire approba
tion. It is clearly indfspensable to the perma
nence of the work. A military and political

KALB. 131
leader is wanted, — a man fitted to carry the-
weight of authority in the colony, to unite its
parties, to assign to each his place, to attract a
large number of persons of all classes and carry
them along with him, not courtiers, but brave,
efficient, and well educated officers, who confide
in their superior and repose implicit faith in him.
There need not be many grades of a higher
order ; but there is need of some, because the
corps and the country are separate from each
other. Not but what there is room enough for
a number of persons from among whom a selec
tion may be made. The main point of the mis
sion with which you have been intrusted will
therefore consist in explaining the advantage,.
or rather the absolute necessity, of the choice of
a man who would have to be invested with the-
power of bringing his assistants with him and
of assigning to each the position for which he
should judge him to be fitted. The rank of the
candidate would have to be of the first eminence ;
such, however, would have to be confined to the
army, excluding the civil service, with perhaps
the single exception of the political negotiations
with foreign powers. In proposing such a man,
you must of course not appear to know whether
he entertains any wish for such a position ; but
at the same time you must intimate that noth
ing but the most favorable stipulations would in-

132 KALB.
duce him to make the sacrifices expected of him.
You would have to observe that three years
would be the longest period for which he could
possibly bind himself, that he would claim a
fixed salary, to continue after the expiration of
that period of service, and that on no account
would he consent to expatriate himself forever.
What should make you particularly explicit on
this point is, that the assurance of the man's
return to France at the end of three years will
remove every apprehension in regard to the
powers to be conferred, and will remove even the
semblance of an ambitious design to become the
sovereign of the new republic.
" You will therefore content yourself with stip
ulating for a military authority for the • person in
question, who would unite the position of a gen
eral and president of the council of war with
the title of generalissimo, field marshal, etc.
" Of course, large pecuniary considerations
would have to be claimed for the preparations
for the journey, and for the journey itself, and a
liberal salary for the return home, much in the
same way as has been done in the case of Prince
Ferdinand. You can give the assurance that
such a measure will bring order and economy
into the public expenses, that it will reimburse
its cost a hundred fold in a single campaign, and
that the choice of officers who follow their leader

KALB. 133
at his word, and from attachment to his person,
is worth more than the reinforcement of the
army with ten or twenty thousand men. You
well know the persons who adhere to this leader,
and the unlimited number of subalterns ; you
know that they are not courtiers, but excellent
and well tried soldiers ; you know better than
others the great difference between the one can
didate and the other, and will lay particular
stress upon this point. You will be equally
mindful to dwell upon the effect necessarily pro
duced by such an appointment on its mere an
nouncement in Europe. Even in a good Euro
pean army, everything depends upon the selection
of a good commander-in-chief ; how much more
in a cause where everything has yet to be created
and adjusted ! It is not easy to find a man qual
ified for such a task, and at the same time willing
to undertake it. If matters down there — ' la.
bas ' — should turn out well, you should induce
Congress to send immediately little Dubois back
to Mr. Deane, with full powers and directions.
These powers should be limited in no respect,
except in so far as to remove all danger of a too
extensive exercise of the civil authority or of
ambitious schemes for dominion over the repub
lic. The desire is to be useful to the republic in
a political and military way, but with all the
appropriate honors, dignities, and powers over

134 KALB.
subordinate functionaries ; in short, with a well-
ordered power.
" If you send back little Dubois, advise me at
the same time of the true condition of affairs
and of the state of public feeling, adding your
suggestions of what is best to be done. Also
inform me of the nature of the power conferred
upon the agents of the insurgents. Farewell ! I
wish you and your caravan a pleasant journey. I
shall execute your commissions, and shall see M.
de Sartiges, when I get to Paris.
" Acquaint me with the receipt of this letter,
and with the moment of your departure, and
write to me under the direction of Abbe* St.
Evrard, at the bureau of M. St. Julien, treasurer
general of the clergy. I leave this unsigned.
You know who I am."
It is hard to say how far Kalb shared in the
delusion of his patron. His knowledge of the
colonies was the result of personal intercourse,
and is so correct in most particulars that it seems
impossible that he could have fallen into so great
an error upon so important a point as their will
ingness to put a foreigner at the head of their
government. The visions of power and wealth
and glory which dazzled the eyes of De Broglie
can hardly have disturbed the imagination of the
cool-headed and deliberate German. Yet Silas

KALB. 135
Deane, fresh from Congress, believed that the
young nation, distrustful of its actual leaders,
would gladly put a general of approved skill at
its head. The affair of Du Coudray soon taught
him better, and when Kalb reached Philadel
phia, and saw what grave dissatisfaction the in
troduction of foreigners into places of trust and
authority awakened, he shut up in his portfolio
the record of his patron's ignorance and presump
tion. The secret, so wounding to the French
general's vanity, was well kept, and no attempt
was made to carry out the foolish and impracti
cable scheme.
The closing days of 1776 were not favorable to
the American cause in France. None but the
bad news from the American army had reached
Europe. The brilliant movements on Trenton
and Princeton were unknown, and the American
cause, if not desperate, was looked upon as too
doubtful to justify so bold- an intervention as the
transmission of arms in French bottoms, even
though it was ostensibly made for the service of
the French colonies. Lord Stormont's remon
strances were loud and apparently successful.
Kalb returned to Paris to await a more auspi
cious moment.
His name now becomes intimately associated
with the name of Lafayette. It was a profitable
union for both. Kalb had age, experience, and

136 KALB.
practical knowledge ; Lafayette, wealth, high
rank, and the ardor and enthusiasm of youth.
Both had firmness of purpose and strong wills.
For them the expedition possessed a singular
charm : the charm of generous sympathy and ro
mantic adventure for the young man, of military
distinction and honorable activity for the old.
They resolved that the temporary delay should
not prevent them from carrying out their plan.
Lafayette had serious obstacles to apprehend
from the opposition of his family, especially from
that of his father-in-law, the Duke d'Ayen. At
his request, in fact, rather than from any political
considerations, the ardent young nobleman was
ordered to renounce his project and travel in Italy
with his family.' In a conversation with the
Comte de Broglie, in which Kalb and the count's
secretary, Dubois Martin, took a part, it was
resolved that Lafayette should buy and freight a
ship, and sail without delay for the colonies, Kalb
and eleven officers accompanying him. Kalb's
letters to his wife contain a minute history of the
embarrassments, both small and great, which de
layed their embarkation. At length, on the 20th
of April, they sailed, and on the 13th of June
made land on the coast of South Carolina.
It may not be undeserving of remark that
Lafayette, one of the earliest of abolitionists,
should have been brought for the first time into

KALB. 137
contact with slavery on his first landing in the
country in which he first fought the battles of
freedom. The captain was out in his reckoning
and did not know where he was. Lafayette and
Kalb, with one of their companions and seven
sailors, took to the boat and rowed towards the
shore to look for a pilot. The first persons they
met were three negro oystermen, who could only
tell them that they belonged to a major in the
American army, and that the coast was infested
by hostile cruisers. The negroes guided them to
their master's house. They reached it about
ten in the evening, and were received with char
acteristic hospitality. There was much to ask and
to tell. Huger, for that was the major's name,
told the progress of the war. Kalb and Lafayette
could speak of the public sentiment in France, to
which American eyes were turned with such deep
anxiety. It was an auspicious beginning of their
adventurous career.
From Huger's hospitable mansion they pro
ceeded to Charleston, where their ship had al
ready arrived, and, disposing profitably of the
cargo, hastened towards Philadelphia with as
much speed as the heat of July would permit.
The day after their arrival they presented them
selves at the door of Congress ; and now, for the
first time, they saw what trouble Deane had
caused by his unauthorized promises of rank and

138 KALB.
high pay to foreigners. Du Coudray's position
was still equivocal, and here was a new body to
provide for, three of them major-generals. The
president of Congress referred them to Mr. Lov
ell, chairman of the committee of foreign affairs,
who, receiving their letters and recommendations,
told them that Congress had refused to ratify
the agreements made by Mr.. Deane. They had
come at an unfortunate moment. Du Coudray's
arrogant claims had raised a general ferment of
indignation. Congress was fast losing the confi
dence of the army. Greene, Knox, and Sullivan
had offered their resignations. Would it be just
or even safe to accept them, and fill their places
with foreigners ? Congress resolved to make the
best of its awkward position. It was resolved
that the officers for whom no provision could be
made should have their expenses paid, and return
home. Lafayette asked to be allowed to serve
as a volunteer and without pay. He had brought
private letters from Franklin, as well as Deane,
which called attention to the moral strength
which his name would give to the American
cause in France. His prayer was granted, and
he received the commission of major-general.
But his generous nature did not allow him to
stop here. He felt himself drawn towards Kalb
by a sense of gratitude, and a conviction that the
services of the experienced soldier would be very

KALB. 139
useful to the half-trained army of the new re
public. He resolved to use all his influence
to secure them, and assured his friend that he
would not accept his own commission unless one
of equal rank should be given to him. With
equal generosity Kalb refused the offer, and ad
vised the young general to join the army with
out delay.
The position of Congress was a difficult one,
even for very wise men. To ratify Deane's con
tracts would be not only to offend their own offi
cers, and through them their immediate constitu
ents, but, what could not be done without danger,
it would put the most important positions in the
army in the hands of foreigners, who had no other
interest in the contest than that of pay and rank.
The contracts, on the other hand, were technic
ally binding, and if brought before a court would
be decided against the Congress. Another point
also required their careful consideration. Without
the aid and sympathy of France it would be im
possible for them to obtain arms and military
stores in the quantity which their needs required.
The commerce with England, whence the colo
nies had drawn their annual supplies for house and
home, was broken off, and they looked to that of
France and Spain for a. compensation. To send a
body of discontented officers home to tell in every
coffee-house that the young nation had begun its

140 KALB.
career by violating a solemn contract would have
dulled the edge of sympathy and excited the sus
picions of commerce. The discarded officers took
their disappointment to heart, and even the cool
and judicious Kalb gave vent to his indignation
in a bitter letter to the president of Congress.
But bitterly as Kalb felt on this occasion, he had
seen too much of the world not to feel that Con
gress was substantially in the right, and that an
army commanded by foreigners would be a dan
gerous foundation to build upon in a civil war.
In a letter to his wife, to whom he seems to
have communicated all his thoughts and feelings
with the utmost confidence, he acknowledges that
" his company was too numerous and invested
with too many positions of a high grade not to
have excited the natural discontent of the Amer
ican officers." In this dangerous dilemma Con
gress took the wisest course, disavowed Deane,
and assumed the expenses of the rejected offi
cers. Kalb was employed to arrange and pre
sent their accounts, which were accepted and
promptly paid.
Meanwhile the shrewd diplomatist had not
passed so many weeks in Philadelphia in vain.
Part of the time, it is true, he was confined to a
sick bed, but even that was a means of bringing
him into personal contact with some of the lead
ing members of government. No one could con-

KALB. 141
verse with him often without being convinced of
his fine parts, extensive observation, and sound
judgment. As these gentlemen compared their
observations, they became convinced that Kalb
was too valuable a man to be rejected. Ac
cordingly Congress resolved to appoint another
major-general, and offered the commission to
him, with the same date as that of Lafayette.
The offer found him at Bethlehem, where he was
making a visit to his Moravian brethren. His
first impulse was to reject it, for he did not know
in what light his acceptance would be looked
upon by his patrons, the De Broglies, and the
officers who had accompanied him. Further re
flection convinced him that there was no good
reason for a refusal. On the 13th of October he
set out for the army.
He was welcomed by the officers as a brother
in arms. Conway alone, who was already en
gaged in the infamous cabal which bears his
name, looked coldly upon him, complaining that
Kalb had been his inferior in France and could
not justly be allowed to outrank him here. But
Conway was already well known in the army, and
little importance was attached to his opinion, al
though in Congress he had friends enough to pro
cure him the coveted promotion, even in direct
opposition to the avowed wishes of Washington.
Kalb's story now becomes closely interwoven with

142 KALB.
the story of the war. He was sent in November,
with St. Clair and Knox, to examine the fortifi
cations of Red Bank, by which Washington still
hoped to starve Howe out of Philadelphia. He
was present at the council of war which was
called to decide upon the propriety of an attack
upon Philadelphia, and voted with the majority
against it. Fortunately for the historian he was
as fond of his pen as of his sword, and his mi
nute and frequent letters to his wife and the
Comte de Broglie are full of history, and valua
ble not merely as a record of events but of opin
ions. It was some time before he was able to
form a correct idea of Washington. His per
sonal qualities he was struck with at once ; but
the campaign of '77 had not been a brilliant one,
and mistakes had been made which he errone
ously laid at the door of the commander-in-chief.
" I have not yet told you anything of the char
acter of General Washington," he writes to the
Comte de Broglie, on the 24th of September.
" He is the most amiable, kind-hearted and up
right of men ; but as a general he is too indolent,
too slow, and far too weak ; besides he has a tinge
of vanity in his composition, and overestimates
himself. In my opinion, whatever success he may
have will be owing to good luck and to the blun
ders of his adversaries rather than to his abilities.
I may even say that he does not know how to

KALB. 143
improve even upon the grossest blunders of the
enemy. He has not yet overcome his old preju
dices against the French." This language sounds
strangely as applied to Washington ; yet it is
historically important to know that it was act;
ually used. If we inquire when, we shall find
that it was at the time of the Conway cabal, when
Washington's enemies were bold and loud, al
though there is no reason to suppose that Kalb
was in any way connected with them.
A few weeks later his opinion is materially
modified. " He is the bravest and truest of men,"
he writes, "has the best intentions and a sound
judgment. I am convinced that he would ac
complish substantial results if he would only act
more upon his own responsibility ; but it is a pity
that he is so weak and has the worst of advisers
in the men who enjoy his confidence." 'He had
already written : " It is unfortunate that Wash
ington is so easily led." This is nearly the lan
guage of Lee and Reed a year before. They had
all mistaken for want of decision the self -distrust
which arose from a consciousness of inexperience.
It was not long before Kalb's opinion was still
farther modified. " He must be a very modest
man  He did and does more every day than
could be expected from any general in the world
in the same circumstances, and I think him the
only proper [person (nobody actually being or

144- KALB.
serving in America excepted), by his natural and
acquired capacity, his bravery, good sense, up
rightness, and honesty, to keep up the spirits of the
army and people, and I look upon him as the
sole defender of his country's cause. Thus much
I thought myself obliged to say on that head. I
only could wish, in my private opinion, he Avould
take more upon himself, and trust more to his
own excellent judgment than to councils." This
language was a decided renunciation of the
schemes of De Broglie. "If I return to Eu
rope," he writes to the count himself, " it will be
with the greatest mortification, as it is impossible
to execute the great design I have so gladly come
to subserve. M. de Valfort will tell you that the
project in question is totally impracticable : it
would be regarded no less as an act of crying in
justice towards Washington, than as an outrage
on the honor of the country."
Kalb was with the army during its last oper
ations before Philadelphia, and its bleak winter
encampment at Valley Forge. He was restless
and dissatisfied. Among his many hard expe
riences this was the hardest. His judgment as
a scientific soldier was offended. His aspira
tions for military distinction were thwarted.
He longed for the well clad and thoroughly dis
ciplined armies with which he had fought under
Saxe and against Frederick. He pours out his

KALB. 145
soul to his wife and his friend, and there was a
great deal of bitterness in it. Like all his letters,
those of this period are full of materials for his
tory. He writes with freedom of acts and opin
ions, often using strong expressions, though sel
dom speaking of persons by name. He condemns
in unmeasured terms the choice of encampment,
saying that none but an enemy of the command
er-in-chief could have advised him to risk his
army in such a position. His picture of camp-
life is almost a satire. He hardly seems to know
how to speak of the love for titles which makes
every man a colonel ; or of the love of display
which wearied the troops with unprofitable pa
rades, and led officers of every grade to strip the
ranks in order to secure a full array of unneces
sary servants. The expense of living he finds
enormous, and believes that many bills are paid
which will not bear examination. " I am the-
only general," he writes, " who practices econ
omy. Nevertheless, at the last camp I had to
pay my purveyor of milk and butter two hun
dred and forty-two francs for the. consumption of
two weeks." He does not know what his pay is,
whether a hundred and fifty dollars a month or
two hundred, but whichever it may be it will be
paid in paper and subjected to a discount of
four hundred per cent, before he can get silver
for it. The contractors make, he has no doubt,
10

146 KALB.
fifty per cent, on their contracts ; and throughout
the whole department of supplies he finds a dan-
¦gerous spirit of peculation. Nothing, however,
•gives him greater pain than the jealousies and
•bickerings of the French officers. Few as they
comparatively were, they were divided into par
ties, and embittered against each other by an in
tolerant party spirit. The only exception was
Lafayette, who, attaching himself to Washing
ton, seemed to have no other view than the suc
cess of the cause to which he had dedicated his
fortune and life. " I always meet him," Kalb
writes, " with the same cordiality and the same
pleasure. He is an excellent young man, and
we are good friends. It were to be wished that
.all the Frenchmen who serve here were as rea
sonable as he and I. Lafayette is much liked ;
he is on the best of terms with Washington ;
both of them have every reason to be satisfied
with me also." With Greene and Knox he does
not seem to have formed any close association,
«ve:i if he did not go further and avoid them as
Washington's evil counselors.
Be this as it may, the winter at Valley Forge
was a trying winter to Kalb. He could not
adapt himself to American camp life, and, what
tried him yet more, he could not see those
prospects of laurels in it which had been his
chief aim in coming to America. Then came

KALB. 147
rumors of European wars, and visions of hon
ors won under his old commander, De Broglie,
began to float before his dazzled eyes. Then
his diplomatic ambition was awakened, and he
thought it would be a pleasant thing to be the
French envoy to Congress, or to represent France
in Protestant Geneva. Sometimes, also, while
he wrote to his wife, he longed for more tranquil
scenes and a purer happiness ; he would throw
np his commission and go home to live with
her and their children. Dreams, all of them.
The weeks and months passed on, and every day
the fetters which his ambition had forged grew
firmer. But the winter was not altogether an inactive
one. It was the winter of the Conway cabal, and
Kalb's good sense led him to the side of Wash
ington. From the Conway cabal sprang the ex
pedition to Canada, framed solely to detach La
fayette from the commander-in-chief. The snare
was avoided by Lafayette's insisting upon Kalb
instead of Conway for the second in command.
When the two generals reached Albany, they
found that no preparations had been made for
the opening of the campaign ; neither men nor
stores had been collected. It was too late to be
gin, and they returned to camp. During this
fruitless expedition Kalb was brought more di
rectly into collision with Conway, who, claim-

148 KALB.
ing to have outranked him in France, claimed
not to be outranked by him here.
Meanwhile came the tidings of the French al
liance, which seemed to make the victory of the
Americans sure. They were received in camp
with great exultation, and a day set apart for
public rejoicing. On this occasion Kalb com
manded the centre, and Lafayette the left wing.
A council of war was called to decide how this
accession of a great ally could be made avail
able. " But for the late treaty," Kalb writes to
his wife on the 25th of May, 1778, " I should
have returned to you ere this. Now I cannot and
will not do it for various reasons, two of which I
shall here specify. In the first place, war between
England and France having become inevitable,
should I fall into the hands of the English while
at sea my treatment would be that of a French
prisoner of war, possibly without a claim to being
exchanged, inasmuch as I should have left Amer
ica without leave from my own government. In
the second place, the alliance with the United
States transforms me from an officer on two years'
furlough into a general of the French army,
with the same, if not a better, title to promotion
than if I had never quitted France. Hencefor
ward, therefore, I shall only return by express
command of the minister."
Kalb was one of those who thought the con-

KALB. 149
test virtually ended by the alliance with France.
" Since France has interfered in the war," he
writes to his wife, on the 7th of October, " the
subjugation of the continent by the English is out
of the question. Possibly they will even surren
der Rhode Island, New York, Long Island, and
Staten Island, to defend their own country and
their remaining colonies. At all events, there
will be no more movements of importance. I
therefore regard the war as ended, as far as I
am concerned, having no disposition to do battle
against the savages on the frontier." But his
conjecture was not realized. It was not merely
her rebellious colonies that were in arms against
England, but her rival and natural enemy, France.
The same narrow policy which had cost so much
blood and treasure was desperately clung to in
this day of trial and danger, and although there
could be but one end to such a war, she declared
war against France. For four more campaigns
Kalb remained with the army, sharing all its
hardships, but by a singular fatality not being
present at any of its battles. Among its hard
ships was that of the second winter encampment
at Morristown, when the ice in the Hudson
was six feet thick, and cavalry and heavy ord
nance went from New York to Staten Island on
it. These were not the laurels which Kalb had
left his pleasant home and beautiful wife to win.

150 KALB.
His patience was sorely tried. " As often as a
Frenchman returns home," he writes to his wife,
" my heart is ready to burst with homesickness."
New campaigns come and go monotonously. I
shall not follow his steps in detail, but content
myself with gathering a few side lights to bring
out the characteristic points of my picture more
faithfully. " What I am doing here," he writes to his
wife on the 15th of July, " is extremely disa
greeable. Without my excellent constitution, it
would be impossible to bear up long under this
service. Yesterday I made the most wearisome
trip of my life, visiting the posts and pickets of
the army in the solitudes, woods, and mountains,
clambering over the rocks, and picking my way
in the most abominable roads. My horse having
fallen lame, I had to make the whole distance on
foot. I never suffered^more from heat. On my
return I had not a dry rag on me, and was so
tired that I could not sleep. My temperate and
simple habits greatly contribute to keep me in
good health. My general health is very good,
and I hardly notice the annoyances of camp
life. Dry bread and water make my breakfast
and supper ; at dinner I take some meat. I
drink nothing but water, never coffee, and rarely
chocolate or tea, in order to avoid irritating my
eyes, which are the more useful to me as my four

KALB. 151
aids, partly from ignorance and partly from lazi
ness, leave the writing incident to the service un
attended to. So I am compelled to do it all my
self, while they cultivate their digestions. I have
now no more earnest wish than soon to see you and
the children again, and never to leave you more.
If our separation is destined to be of any advan
tage to us, it is dearly paid for."
Earnest as this longing for home unquestion
ably was, it may well be doubted whether a few
weeks of domestic repose would not have brought
back his yearning for active life.
7ro(?e'ecrKe 8' dijri'v re irToXefxov re.
For well he loved clamor and combat.
He bears emphatic testimony to the barbarity
with which the war was carried on on the part
of the enemy. The English peace commission
ers had threatened it when they saw that their
mission had failed, and Sir Henry Clinton did not
scruple to put the threat in execution. " General
Clinton," Kalb writes, "having left a garrison
in New York, is amusing himself with plunder
ing, burning, and ravaging. Fairfield, Bedford,
Norwalk, New Haven, and West Haven have al
ready felt his rage. The mode of warfare here
practiced is the most barbarous that could be
conceived ; whatever the enemy cannot carry off
in their forays is destroyed or burned. They

152 KALB.
cannot possibly triumph in the end. Their cru
elty and inhumanity must sooner or later draw
down upon their heads the vengeance of Heaven,
and blast a government which authorizes these
outrages." Such words from an officer who had
gone through the Seven Years' War, and seen
with his own eyes the inhumanity with which it
was waged, afford a strong confirmation of the
charges which the Americans brought against the
English. Wo have seen that there was a great mystery
hanging over Kalb's education. From this point
of view the following passage has a peculiar
interest. " Yesterday," he writes in the letter
from which I last quoted, " I was reconnoitring
all day in the vicinity of my post, of course on
foot; I must repeat the same operation forthwith,
in order to be familiar with my position by din
ner time  Though very tired I have already
returned from my excursion," he continues at four
o'clock of the same day, " and I have just dined.
The staff officers of my division were my guests.
We were all very hungry, and did full justice to-
the mutton and beef which constituted the re
past ; large round crackers served as plates in the
absence of any kind of crockery. The scene
forcibly reminded me of the conquest of Italy by
JEneas, and the words of Ascanius, when they
had reached the future site of Rome. There,

KALB. 153
too, hunger compelled them to devour the cakes
upon which their food had been served up, and
recalled the oracle of the harpies, that they would
not reach the end of their wanderings and toils,
nor call Italy theirs, until they should have eaten
their tables with their meals. I have, unfortu
nately, no Ascanius with me, but I desire most
ardently that my fate may be decided as was
that of .FEneas, that the independence of America,
like the conquest of Italy, may now be realized,
and that, after we too have eaten our tables, the
close of our warfare and toils may be likewise
approaching." It is pleasant to find a burst of enthusiasm- in
so deliberate a man as Kalb. A letter from
Washington, announcing the capture of Stony
Point, came while his party was still at table.
" I drank no wine," he writes, " as the others did,
yet I was carried away by the same enthusiasm.
I called Mr. Jacob, and told him to bring me a
bottle of champagne. He stared at me with
astonishment, saying he had none. ' Then there
must be some port wine at least ? ' ' That is on
the baggage wagons.' I apologized for my defect
ive memory, and was sorry to have tantalized
the company with delusive hopes ; but they were
satisfied to take my good will for the deed. I
promised all my guests to give them the best of
champagne at Paris, and shall be delighted to
keep my word."

154 KALB.
We meet another trait, in these letters, worth
remembering : " The taking of Stony Point forms
an epoch in the history of the war of American
independence, because it was on this occasion
that our troops first ventured to attack the in
trenchments of the enemy, and because they dis
played great valor in doing so. The action
lasted only twenty-five minutes. A hundred or
a hundred and twenty of the British were killed
and wounded, while we had thirty killed and
sixty wounded. I mean to tell the truth, in spite
of what the newspapers will say about our losses,
greatly exaggerating, of course, the number of the
fallen foe, and cutting down our own casualties.
But I am unable to appreciate the subtlety of
this system of lies told by everybody and believed
by no one, and prefer to comfort myself with the
well tried proverb, ' On ne fait point d'omme-
lette sans casser des ceufs.' " (You cannot make
an omelet without breaking some eggs.)
From the French alliance to the spring of 1780,
Kalb was constantly with the army, sharing all
its hardships, cold, hunger, fatigue, the nights
¦on a camp-stool or on the bare ground, clothes
falling about him in rags, and his ink freezing in
his pen as he writes close by the fire. He resolves
to go to Philadelphia to buy clothes. He has to
pay four hundred dollars for a hat, for a pair of
boots the same, and other things in proportion.

KALB. 155
He wants a good horse, but is asked a price
equivalent to ten years of his pay, and therefore
falls back on his old stock. His letters to his
wife are filled with interesting details, some of
them not very creditable to the public spirit of
the times. His division was composed of one reg
iment from Delaware and seven from Maryland,
divided into two brigades, the first under Small-
wood and all Marylanders, the second under Gist,
and containing three Maryland and one Dela
ware regiment ; two thousand and thirty men in
all. From time to time some of the States sent
their officers supplies of a kind which could not
be found in the market, coffee, cognac, tea, and
sugar. As commanding officer, Kalb would be
entitled to a share, but Smallwood, violating both
the laws of military subordination and the laws
of good breeding, set a watch over them to pre
vent any of them from going into the hands of
Kalb, who, he said, not being a Marylander, had
no right to them. Fortunately not all of our
officers were so churly or so ignorant of the pro
prieties of life.
" My march," he writes to a German friend
from Petersburg, Virginia, when on his way to
reinforce the southern army, " my march costs
me enormous sums. I cannot travel with my
equipage, I am therefore compelled to resort to
inns. My six months' earnings will scarce defray

156 KALB.
the most indispensable outlay of a single day.
Not long since I was compelled to take a night's
lodging at a .private house. For a bed, supper,
and grog for myself, my three companions, and
three servants I was charged, on going off with
out a breakfast next day, the sum of eight hun
dred and fifty dollars. The lady of the house
politely added that she had charged nothing for
the rooms, and would leave the compensation for
them to my discretion, although three or four
hundred dollars would not be too much for the
inconvenience to which she had been put by my
self and my followers." No wonder that he
should add, " And these are the people who talk
of sacrificing their all in the cause of liberty."
I give these details with reluctance, but I feel
myself bound to give them, because they are a
part of the history of the times. Those who look
upon the liistory of our war of independence as
an unqualified history of generous sacrifices, take
a false view of the subject. Base and ignoble
passions manifested themselves by the side of the
noblest passions. Some men were always true,
as some were always false. We had but one
Arnold, but we had many lesser villains, who
played the spy on both sides, sometimes fought
on both sides, and grew rich by speculating upon
the necessities of their country. Our national
history, like the early liistory of Rome, has suf
fered greatly from apocryphal heroism.

KALB. 157
Meanwhile a change had taken place in the
strategy of the British general. Experience had
shown the impossibility of conquering the Amer
icans by the north. He resolved to carry the
war into the south. Savannah was taken ; siege
was laid to Charleston. Lincoln, who was in
command in the south, called earnestly for rein
forcements ; and, on the 3d of April, Kalb was
ordered to march with his division to the succor
of the besieged city. It was a long and weary
march, during which men and officers were ex
posed to great hardships. It was an occasion,
also, which called out Kalb's military and execu
tive talents to tbe best advantage. Supplies of
all kinds were wanted, and he hurried on to
Philadelphia to urge upon Congress the necessity
of employing all its authority in order to collect
thern. The means of transportation, in particular,
were wanting. " Virginia promised them, but,"
he writes to his friend, Dr. Phyle of Philadelphia,
" I meet with no support, no integrity, and no
virtue in the State of Virginia, and place my sole
reliance on the French fleet and army which are
coming to our relief." With every step in ad
vance his embarrassments increased. " What a
difference between war in this country and in
Europe," he writes to his wife. " Those who do
not know the former know not what it is to con
tend against obstacles." At Petersburg he received

158 KALB.
the tidings of the fall of Charleston, an event
which had been foreseen and provided for. The
enemy had as yet no firm footing in the Carolinas,
and he was to prevent them from gaining one.
He presses on, his difficulties daily increasing, for
the further he advanced the more difficult he
found it to obtain wagons and food. North Car
olina had prepared no supplies for the Union
troops, reserving all her stores for the militia ; a
body utterly untrustworthy for a campaign of
marches and countermarches, and which in North
Carolina was deeply tainted with toryism. As
chief in command, and consequently brought into
frequent contact with dilatory legislatures and
ignorant militia, Kalb had much to endure. He
had physical trials also, hardly less annoying,
which he describes to his wife in those long and
frequent letters that give so pleasant a picture
of his married life. " Here I am at last," he
writes from Goshen, on the borders of North
Carolina, " considerably south, suffering from in
tolerable heat and the worst of quarters, and the
most voracious insects of every hue and form.
The most disagreeable of the latter is what is
commonly called the tick, a kind of strong black
flea, which makes its way under the skin, and by
its bite produces the most painful irritation and
inflammation, whicli last a number of days. My
whole body is covered with their stings."

KALB. 159
One of his worst foes was hunger. Failing to
obtain provisions from the State executive, he
was compelled to send out foraging parties, a
painful and yet an insufficient resource, for the
farmers were living on the last year's crop, which
was nearly exhausted, while the new crop, though
full of promise to the eye, was not yet ripe ; and
although the commanders of these parties were
ordered to treat the inhabitants with the greatest
leniency, they could not but add materially to
the miseries of the suffering country. When this
resource failed, he was compelled to advance to
wards the richer districts.
It is only by minute details that such pictures
as these can be made faithful, or such services as
Kalb's be placed in their true light. Yet even in
this hasty sketch there is enough to prove that
he possessed some of the soldier's highest qualities
in the highest degree. But we are near the end.
On the 13th of July a letter from General Gates
announces to Kalb that the command of the
southern army has been transferred to the suc
cessful leader of the northern army of 1777.
Kalb replies, on the 16th, from his camp on
the Deep River, giving a concise description of
his condition and prospects, and expressing his
satisfaction at the promise of being relieved from
so difficult a command. If anything could have
prepared Gates's mind for a true conception of

160 KALB.
the condition of his army, it would have been an
unvarnished tale like this. But his brain had
been heated by success, and, fancying that the
men who had turned a deaf ear to the repre
sentations of Kalb would act with energy and
promptitude at the call of the favorite of Con
gress, he pushed on to Wilcox's Mills on the Deep
River, where the famishing army lay encamped.
Kalb received him with a salute of thirteen guns
and all the pomp and circumstance that his
scanty means would permit, and then sank, with
a lightened heart, into the subordinate positioh
of a commander of division. Gates paid him the
compliment of confirming his standing orders,
but startled officers and men by ordering them to
hold themselves in readiness to set out, the next
morning, on the direct route to Camden. When
reminded in a written memorial, signed by all
the leading officers, that the direct route led
through a desolate and barren region, and that
there was not food enough in camp for a single
day, he replied that supplies of provisions and rum
were on their way from the north, and would reach
the army in two days at the furthest. " I have
but to stamp my foot," said Pompey, " and
armed men will start from the soil of Italy." " I
have but to show myself," thought Gates, " and
Cornwallis will take refuge in Charleston."
The disastrous march began. Disease, heat,

KALB. 161
and hunger fought for the enemy. Mutiny was
twice at the door. Neither supplies nor reinforce
ments came. Molasses was used to temper the
brackish water. The meat was the meagre beef
of the pine barrens, in small quantities. For
bread they ate unripened- corn and peaches still
half green. By the 13th of August they were
within thirteen miles of the enemy. On the
15th, the heavy baggage, camp equipage, the
sick, and women and children were sent to the
rear, and orders issued for a night inarch. A
council of war was called, not for consultation,
but to confirm the general's plan of action. The
confidence in his judgment had not been in
creased by the knowledge that he had estimated
his strength at 7000 men, when he had but 3052
fit for duty. The confidence in his tactics was
shaken when it was seen that, against all the laws
of tactics, he had placed at the head of a column
in a night march Armand's cavalry, a body of
raw and undisciplined foreigners. Kalb urged
that they should remain at Clermont, a place
strong by nature and capable of being made
stronger by art. This, too, he argued, was the
true course for the American army, the motley
composition of which was much better adapted
to defense than to attack ; but this wise counsel
was not heeded. " We may have Cornwallis
against us," said an officer. " He will not dare
n

162 KALB.
to look me in the face," was Gates's reply. " I
wonder where we shall dine to-morrow," said an
other. " Dine, sir," was the answer, " why,
where, but in Camden ? I would n't give a
pinch of snuff for the certainty of eating my
breakfast at Camden to-morrow, and seeing Lord
Cornwallis my guest at table."
At ten in the evening the tents were struck,
and the troops, filing into position, began their
march. The sky was clear, the stars shone
brightly, but the air was sultry, and night had
none of its wonted coolness to repair the strength
consumed by the burning heat of the day. Si
lence was enjoined under penalty of death. The
deep sand deadened the rumbling of the artillery
and the heavy tread of the men. The air
gleamed with myriads of fire-flies. But every
now and then men sickened and fell out of the
ranks. Meanwhile Cornwallis, little dreaming
that his enemy was so near, was advancing at the
head of -2233 men, in the hope of coming upon
the Americans by surprise at Clermont. Thus
the two armies were fast approaching each other,
each ignorant of the proximity of his enemy. At
about two in the morning they met in a glade in
the pine forest which fell off with a gentle dec
lination towards Saunder's Creek, about half a
mile distant, and was covered on both flanks by
impenetrable marshes ; a position not wanting in

KALB. 163'
strength, but too narrow for the easy manage
ment of troops. A brisk fire followed the col
lision, and in the skirmish Armand's cavalry
was thrown back upon the first Maryland brigade,.
which caught the panic and broke. But Porter-
field's light infantry held its ground and drove
the English, though with the loss of their gal
lant leader. Both sides paused, and drawing a
little back, waited with throbbing hearts to see
what daylight might reveal.
From some prisoners, who had been taken
in the skirmish, Williams, the adjutant-general,,
learned that Cornwallis himself was at the head
of the hostile army, and hastened with the in
telligence to Gates. The inconsiderate general1
could not conceal his amazement. " Let a coun
cil be called," was his comment upon the un
welcome tidings. Williams hurried to Kalb.
" Well," said the veteran, " did not the com
manding, general immediately order a retreat ? "
The council met in the rear of the American
lines. " You know our situation, gentlemen,"
said Gates, " what had we better do ? " A deep
and ominous silence followed. Kalb had already
twice offered wise council which had been re
jected. It was not in his nature to offer it again.
The first to speak was the impetuous Stevens.
" We must fight, gentlemen: it is not yet too
late: we can do nothing else, we must fight."

164 KALB.
" We mnst fight then," said Gates. " Gentle
men, to your posts ! "
At break of day the battle began. The first
scene was soon ended. Unable to stand the
fierce onset of Cornwallis's veterans, the Virginia
militia broke and fled, carrying the North Caro
linians with them in their headlong flight. " I
will bring the rascals with me back into line,"
exclaimed Gates, and spurred after them, not
stopping till he reached Charlotte, sixty miles
from the field of battle. And now the interest
centres in Kalb. The final hour of the veteran,
who had fought under Saxe, and taken an hon
orable part in the Seven Years' War, was come
in the last and only honorable hour of the battle
of Camden. He had drawn up the army, put
ting himself at the head of the men of Dela
ware and Maryland. A dense fog hung over the
battle-field, pressing the smoke so low that it was
impossible to distinguish objects even at a small
distance, and it was some time before he became
aware of the flight of the left wing and centre.
Then, gathering all his forces around him, con
scious of his danger but not despairing of vic
tory, he led them to the charge. It must have
been a thrilling sight to see how firmly they held
their ground, how they fired volley after volley
into the enemy's ranks, how, when they had
opened their way by their musketry, they fol-

KALB. 165
lowed it up by the bayonet. Above them all tow
ered the gallant German at their head. His
sword was stained deepest, his battle-cry rang
clearest ; there Avas triumph in the keen flash of
his eye, if not the victor's triumph, the triumph of
duty done. Three times he led his willing men
to the charge. Three times they were forced
back by superior numbers. For numbers began
to tell. His horse was shot under him. His
head was laid open by a sabre stroke. Jaquette,
ithe adjutant of the Delaware regiment, bound up
the wound Avith his scarf and besought him to
withdraw from the fight. Without heeding the
appeal, Kalb led the charge on foot. Wound
folloAved Avound, but he held his ground desper
ately. At last, concentrating his strength in a
final charge, Cornwallis came on. The Mary
landers broke. Kalb fell, bleeding from eleven
wounds; still at this supreme moment strong
enough to cut down a soldier who was aiming his
bayonet at his breast. " The rebel general, the
rebel general ! " shouted the enemy, as they
caught sight of his epaulettes. " Spare the
Baron de Kalb," cried his adjutant, Dubuysson,
vainly throwing himself upon his body and try
ing to shield it Avith his own from the thirsty
bayonets. He spoke to hearts hardened by the
fierce spirit of battle. The furious English
raised the helpless warrior from the ground, and

166 KALB.
leaning him against a wagon began to strip him.
At this moment Cornwallis and his suite rode up .
They found him already stripped to his shirt and
with the blood streaming from eleven Avounds.
" I regret to see you so badly wounded, but am
glad to have defeated you," said the victorious
general, and immediately gave orders that his
brave antagonist should be properly cared for.
For three days Kalb's strong frame struggled
with death. Dubuysson w.atched by his bedside.
English officers came to express their sympathy
and regret. Soldier to the last, his thoughts Avere
with the brave men who had faced the enemy so
gallantly at his command, and just before he ex
pired he charged his faithful adjutant to give
them his "thanks for their valor, and bid them
an affectionate farewell."
On the 19th he died, — three days after the
battle. The masons of the British army took
part in his funeral, and buried him with masonic
rites. Gates announced his death to Congress in
terms of warm admiration ; and Congress voted
a monument to his memory which has never been
erected. Till 1821, the solitary tree under which
he had been buried was the only record of the
spot where he lay. Then proposals were made
to erect a- monument to him at Camden, and
after some delay the work Avas begun. Little
progress had been made, when Lafayette's last

KALB. 167
visit to this country in 1825 revived, for a mo
ment, the sense of local rather than of national
obligation, and the illustrious Frenchman, who
had been Kalb's first companion, was, with pe
culiar propriety, asked to lay the corner-stone of
this tardy tribute to the memory of his heroic
friend.

GEEMAlsT MEEOENAEIES.

Vende la came loro, essendo viva.
He sells their flesh, it being yet alive.
Dante, Purgatorio; xiv.

GERMAN MERCENARIES.

In the states of antiquity all citizens owed
military service to the state. During the Mid
dle Ages this military relation assumed the
form of a personal obligation, which bound the
vassal to answer the call to arms of his liege
lord with a number of men proportioned to the
extent of the domain which he held of him.
When wars became longer and more expensive,
the sovereign found himself dependent upon the
good-will of his vassals for the success of his
arms. His right to command was unquestion
able. The vassal, if dissatisfied, might disobey ;
and thus the final question between them Was a
question of power — of power to enforce, or of
power to rebel.
Among the more active of the German em
perors Avhose aspirations exceeded their means of
action was Maximilian the First, known to his
contemporaries as Maximilian the Moneyless.
Though married to the powerful Mary of Bur
gundy, he received no aid from her vassals ;

172 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
though active and energetic, he Avas abandoned
by his own. The Swiss had fallen from him,
and he had neither the money to buy, nor the
strength to force them back. It was then, and
probably with no conception of the full signifi
cance of Avhat he was doing, that, instead of ad
dressing himself to his nobles as feudal vassals, he
raised an army of free burghers and peasants in
eastern Austria, Suabia, and the Tyrol. This
army Avas composed of infantry. Gunpowder
had already reduced the fully armed knight to
the level of the soldier on foot, or in other Avords
the contest between the noble and the plebeian,
which had been waged so long and so disastrously
in Rome, was renewed in modern Europe under
different circumstances and in a new form. It
was a war between industry and privilege, be
tween mechanical skill, or physical power under
the control of an intelligent will, and brute
force ; a question, as time developed it, between
the longest purse and the longest sword. It is
no part of my present object to folloAV the prog
ress of this contest from the first landsknechts
of Maximilian to the perfect machines of the
Great Frederick. I wish only to call attention
to the fact that the reinstatement of the infantry
to their true position soon opened the way for the
decline of the old feudal armies and the enlist
ment of troops for longer terms of service. He

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 173
who could pay best was surest of finding willing
soldiers. Commercial states like Venice could
always raise whatever sums they Avanted at five
per cent., Avhile Charles VIII. Avas checked in
the very beginning of his Italian wars and com
pelled to pay forty-two per cent, for the means
of continuing them. Thus new resources Avere
opened for the formation of armies. Princes
could carry on war as long as their subjects could
be made to pay for it, and war itself became a
lucrative and honored pursuit. From regular
bands of mercenaries came standing armies and
that oppressive military system of modern Eu
rope Avhich has Aveighed so heavily upon the la
boring classes and retarded the moral, the intel
lectual, and the industrial development of society.
All the great wars of modern Europe, till the
wars of the French Revolution, had been car
ried on in a large measure by mercenary troops,
among Avhich the Germans were perhaps the
foremost for aptitude to arms, power of endur
ance, cruelty, rapacity, and, as long as they were
regularly paid, for fidelity to their banner. But
no sooner did their pay fall in arrears than they
grew disobedient and discontented, and if not
bought over Avere presently found fighting and
plundering on the other side. Would you see
the mercenary in his perfect form, study the Cap
tain Dalgetty of Scott's " Legend of Montrose,"

174 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
who cannot be induced by any temptation to en
ter upon neAv service until he has fulfilled all the
conditions of the old ; who loves his horse, and
grooms and feeds him before he provides for him
self, yet who, when the faithful animal is killed,
skins him with his own hands. But Dalgetty
was an officer, and the distinction between offi
cer and soldier was sharply drawn. For the offi
cer there was promotion and social position. He
embraced arms as a profession because he pre
ferred them to any other profession. Of the po
litical questions connected with war he knew and
cared little. Of the moral question connected
with it he knew and cared nothing. He was
trained to look unmoved upon human suffering.
The battle-field and hospital seldom appealed to
his sympathies, for habit had blunted them. To
fight and attract the eye of his commander was
his ambition. To win a ribbon or a cross was
his highest aspiration. If he were, a captain, he
might become a colonel. If he were a colonel, he
might become a brigadier. And when peace
came, there were Paris and garrisons to lounge
and be idle in.
In these rewards the soldier of the ranks had
no part. To be an officer required a nobility of
four descents, and the private, once enlisted, be
came a mere machine in the hands of his supe
riors. But let us study this victim of a barba-

GERMAN MERCENARIES 175
rous usage somewhat more in detail, for it is only
by getting close to a subject that we can form a
correct idea of it. These details bring into strong
relief the difference between the present and the
past, enabling us to measure for ourselves the
progress and the effects of civilization. It is in
the lessons drawn from this thorough comprehen
sion of the past that the instruction of history
lies, and among these lessons there is none truer
than that institutions, like men, have their pe
riods of strength and weakness, of growth and
decay. The formation of regular troops was the
beginning of a great revolution, which, while it
strengthened the hands of the prince, opened
new fields for the intellectual and moral growth
of the peasant : not intentionally, indeed, but be
cause human events obey subtle laws, and re
sults often cover much broader ground than we
think of in directing our aim.
When regular armies had taken the place of
feudal armies, and military adventurers were
ready to sell their own blood and that of their
followers to the best paymaster, the question most
urgent upon them all was how to fill their ranks
and keep them full. Some were found who took
service readily of their own accord. These were
chiefly either middle-aged men, whom the hab
its of the camp had unfitted for any other kind
of life, or young men easily dazzled by the splen

176 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
dor of military display. They formed, however,
but the skeleton of an army. Many more were
wanted to fill its ranks. Of the cunning, the
guile, the fraud, the heartless inhumanity with
which the nefarious art of recruiting was carried
on, we should find it impossible to form any idea
had not the story been often told in forms Avhich
leave no room for doubt. We will borrow one
of these dark pages from the Frederick of Mr.
Carlyle.1 " All countries, especially all German coun
tries, are infested with a new species of preda
tory tAvo-legged animals — Prussian recruiters.
They glide about, under disguise if necessary ;
lynx-eyed, eager almost as the Jesuit hounds are;
not hunting the souls of men as the spiritual Jes
uits do, but their bodies, in a merciless, carniv
orous manner. Better not be too tall in any
country at present ! Irishmen could not be pro
tected by the asgis of the British constitution it
self. Generally, however, the Prussian recruiter
on British ground reports that the people are too
well off ; that there is little to be done in those
parts  Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the
Netherlands, these are the fruitful fields for us,
and there we do hunt with some vigor.
"For example, in the town of Jiilich there lived
and worked a tall young carpenter. One day, a
1 Life of Frederick IL, book v. ch. 5.

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 177
well-dressed positive-looking gentleman (Baron
von Hompesch, the records name him) enters the
shop ; wants * a stout chest with lock on it, for
household purposes ; must be of such and such
dimensions, six feet six in length especially, and
that is an indispensable point — in fact, it will be
longer than yourself, I think, Herr Zimmer
mann; Avhat is the cost ? when can it be ready?'
Cost, time, and the rest are settled. ' A right
stout chest, then ; and see you don't forget the
size ; if too short it will be of no use to me,
mind ! ' ' Ja wohl ! Gewiss ! ' and the positive-
looking gentleman goes his ways. At the ap
pointed day he reappears ; the chest is ready ;
we hope, an unexceptionable article. ' Too short,
as I had dreaded,' says the positive gentleman.
' Nay, your honor,' says the carpenter, ' I am cer
tain it is six feet six,' and takes out his foot-rule.
' Pshaw ! it was to be longer than yourself.'
' Well, it is.' ' No it is n't.' The carpenter, to
end the matter, gets into his chest and will con
vince any and all mortals. No sooner is he in,
rightly flat, than the positive gentleman, a Prus
sian recruiting officer in disguise, slams down
the lid upon him, locks it, whistles in three stout
felloAVS, who pick up the chest, gravely walk
through the streets with it, open it in a safe
place, .and find — horrible to relate — the poor
carpenter dead ! "
12

178 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
Once enlisted, how were recruits to be got
safely to the camp or the garrison where they
were to be converted into machines? The in
structions framed for the guidance of the men
entrusted with this difficult task will tell us.
The first and most important point was to secure
the safety of the recruiting officer charged with
their transportation. He Avas to be provided with
good side-arms, ahrays carry a pistol, and never
allow the recruit to walk behind him, or come
near enough to him to seize him by the body.
And to give additional force to the precaution, the
recruit was told that the first false step would cost
him his life. If practicable, the recruiting officer
in choosing a route was to avoid the province
where his recruit had served before, or was born.
He was to avoid also all large cities and prosper
ous villages. In choosing quarters for the night
he was to give the preference to inns frequented
by recruiting officers, and where the landlord was
on their side. Even here the most watchful fore
sight was required. The recruit was made to un
dress by word of command, and the clothes both
of the officer and the recruit were handed to the
landlord for safe-keeping over night. The officer
slept between the recruit and the door.
On the march the recruit must not be allowed
to look about him, or stop, much less converse
with passers-by, and particularly in a foreign

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 179'
language. The officer guides the recruit as you;
would guide a horse. The Avords halt, march,
slow, fast, right, left, forward, must be obeyed.
on the instant ¦; the slightest hesitation would be
a bad omen for the authority of the officer. At
the inns where they stopt overnight they were
put, if possible, in an upper room, with iron bars;
to the windows. On no account could the recruit
be allowed to leave the room overnight. A lamp
was kept burning all night long, and close by an.
unlighted one must be ready for immediate use.
To prevent the recruit from seizing the officer's-
arms in the night, they were given to the land
lord, as his clothes were, for safe-keeping ; and.
in the morning, when they were given back, they
were examined anew and the priming freshened.
When he, the officer, is dressed and armed, he-
orders the recruit to rise and dress. In entering-
an inn or a room, the recruit goes first ; in going
out, last. In the inn itself, the officer sits in
front of the table, the recruit behind it. If the
recruit has a wife she is subject to the same laws
Avhich govern his motions, obeys the same word
of command, and never walks before her hus
band ; but in every way is made to feel that the
eye of the vigilant guard is constantly upon her.
Care, too, is taken, on the route, to cut off the
recruit from all communication with anybody but
his guard. He must not be allowed pen or ink

180 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
or paper or pencil. To prevent him from rising
upon his guard by the way, all his dangerous
weapons, even to a large knife, are taken away,
and neither he nor his Avife is alloAved the use of
a cane. As with a novice among the Jesuits, all
his gestures and words are noted down and re
ported, with the remarks and comments of the
reporter. If he actually makes an attempt to
escape, he must be instantly put in irons, or
have the thumb-screw put on him. It is a bad
affair if the officer is under the necessity of using
his weapons and wounding or killing the recruit.
Care must be taken, also, that the recruit be
not an over match for his guard. Every stout,
well-built, bold-faced recruit must be closely
watched, and it may even become necessary to
double the guard. The danger of escape pre
sents itself in lively forms to the imagination of
the author of the instructions. He calculates cau
tiously how many recruiting officers may be re
quired for a given number of recruits, and comes
to the conclusion that under the most favorable
circumstances three officers may take charge of
seven or even nine recruits.
" But two recruits should never be entrusted
to one officer. Should this, however, seem to be
unavoidable, it is extremely unfortunate for the
officer. When it is absolutely impossible for the
officer to keep the recruits back till he becomes

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 181
strong enough to give them a proper guard, he
must hire somebody to help him. It is better to in
cur expense for the sake of foresight, than to injure
the recruit or expose the life of the officer to in
evitable danger." The tone of regret in this last
sentence reminds us that it was not awakened by
apprehension for the loss of a human being, but
from fear that a name might be stricken from the
muster-roll. One more provision completes the
picture. " For the recruiting officer, and even
more for his subordinate, a good dog Avill be very
useful. He must be taught not to alloAV recruits
to carry sticks in their hands ; to bark if he sees
one rise or move in the night ; to drive him back
if he sees one leave the road ; to seize him if he
sees him run, and only let go of him at his
master's command ; not to allow him to pick up
anything, and many other precautions which may
serve to lighten the task of the officer and his
subaltern. " And finally, if in passing a crowd or a city,
the recruit should make a desperate attempt to
escape by calling for help and declaring that he
has been forced to enlist, the officer is directed to
appeal to the authorities, who, after seeing his
papers, will doubtless give him the necessary
aid." Suppose now that this watchfulness has been
successful, that the recruit has been safely con-

182 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
veyed to the camp or garrison where he is to take
the first steps in this passage from a man to a
machine. Handcuffs, thumb-screws, heavy chains,
and, above all, the cane in strong hands, break
in time the strongest will ; repeated humiliations
destroy self-respect ; familiarity with scenes of
violence and barbarity undermines the moral
sense ; the recruit has no motive but to escape
punishment, and no comforter but the brandy
bottle. Yet even in these ashes liAre some sparks
of humanity, some of those sympathies which,
perhaps, are never altogether extinguished in the
human breast. Daily association in the same
duties, daily gatherings under the same flag,
awaken a certain sense of common interest and
feeling, and supply in a certain measure the hu
man necessity of love. WhateArer of pride is left
him centres in his flag. Such was the training
of the men who were hired to fight against the
Declaration of Independence. What mattered it
to them whether they fought in Germany or in
America, for a prince or for a people ? If one
wishes to form a vivid conception of these
wretched men, looking straight into the picture,
he should read some of the scenes in George
Sand's " Consuelo," and Thackeray's " Memoirs
of Barry Lyndon." If one 'wishes to take the no
bler point of view and look down upon the' pict
ure, he should read the life of Baron Riedesel

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 183
and the memoirs of his wife. And now for the
bearings of this sketch upon American history.
It soon became evident to the English govern
ment that it must either give up the contest with
America or strengthen its armies. The popula
tion of the colonies was generally estimated at
three millions. To reduce these fhree millions
to obedience, England had only fifteen thousand
men in arms between Nova Scotia and Florida ;
allowing all that could be claimed for the differ
ence between well-armed and well-disciplined
men and an undisciplined and imperfectly armed
militia, it was still easy to see that in a protracted
contest, such as this was sure to be, numbers must
prevail. Her own subjects England could not
fully count upon for filling the ranks, for by many
of them the war was disliked from the beginning.
The city of London itself was notoriously opposed
to it. It was necessary, therefore, for the minis
try to cast about them for a man-market from
whence to draw their supplies. The first that
presented itself to their minds was Russia. The
two sovereigns were upon the friendliest terms.
England had virtually consented to the partition
of Poland, in 1772. The treaty of Kutschuk-
Kainardsche, in 1774, had left Russia with a pow
erful army. What more profitable use could she
make of it than by selling it to England for so
many guineas a head ? Gunning, the English

184 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
minister to the Russian court, was instructed to
begin negotiations for twenty thousand men : for
it was not mere auxiliaries but an army that
England sought to bring into the field, thus
crushing the insurrection by a well-directed blow.
In an interview with Count Panin, Catherine's
prime minister, the British envoy asked, as if in
casual conversation, whether, if the present meas
ures for the suppression of the insurrection should
fail, and his master should find himself under the
necessity of calling in foreign troops, he could
count upon a body of Russian infantry ? The
trained diplomat made no answer, but referred
the question to the empress, who, replying in
terms of general politeness, professed to feel her
self under great obligations to George, which she
would gladly repay in the manner most agreeable
to him. Without waiting to Aveigh these words,
which in diplomacy might mean much or might
mean nothing, Gunning Avrote to his court, in all
haste, that the empress would furnish the twenty
thousand infantry. The important tidings were
received by the "British court Avith delight. The
commanders serving in America were told on
what powerful succor they might rely, and the
king in his rapture wrote with his own hand
a letter of thanks to his royal sister. Gunning
was ordered to push on the negotiations, and, as
if he had never known before how Httle faith can

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 185
be placed in the language of diplomacy, was over
whelmed Avith astonishment Avhen he was coolly
told that the Avords of the empress Avere but the
general expression of a friendly feeling, and that
she had said nothing of the Russian infantry.
Great Avas the indignation of the English king,
not that the negotiation had failed, but that the
empress had answered his royal autograph by
the hand of a private secretary.
Holland came next, and on a superficial view
the relations between the tAVO countries seemed
to justify the application. But it was met by an
opposition which found an eloquent expositor in
a nobleman of Oberyssel, the Baron van der Ca-
pellen, who, speaking boldly in the name of free
dom and national honor, and setting the question
of succor in its true light, succeeded in awaken
ing his countrymen — themselves the descendants
of rebels — to a sense of Avhat they owed to the
memory of their fathers and the cause of free
dom. But there Avas a country where the name of
freedom was not known, whose nationality was
lost in small principalities and dukedoms, whose
vast resources were sacrificed to the luxury and
vanity of petty sovereigns, each ambitious of
aping on his little stage the splendid corruption
of the French court ; yet having strong arms
and hardy bodies to sell, and caring only for the

186 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
price that could be extorted for them. To Ger
many, then, England turned in her need, and her
prayer was heard.
There was one part of Germany of which
England could freely dispose. George III. was
not only King of England, but Elector of Hanover,
and as elector could send his Hanoverian troops
wherever he saw fit. The garrisons of Gibraltar
and Minorca were English. By recalling these
and putting Hanoverians in their place, five well-
trained battalions of infantry, amounting in all to
two thousand three hundred and sixty-five men,
were secured for service against the colonies. In
vain did the parliamentary opposition appeal to
the bill of rights, and deny the king's right to in
troduce foreign troops into the kingdom in time of
peace. They were told that Minorca and Gibral
tar were not parts, .but merely dependencies, of
the kingdom, and that the American insurrection
constituted a state of war. The debate was long
and bitter, but the decisive vote of two hundred
and three to eighty-one in the Commons, and
seventy-five to thirty-two in the Lords, showed
how much the partisans of government exceeded
the friends of the colonists in number.
No sooner was England's intention to raise
troops in Germany known, than officers of all
grades, who had been thrown out of service by
the close of the Seven Years' War, and the conse-

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 187
quent reduction of the armies for which it had
found employment, came crowding with proposals
to open recruiting offices and raise men. How
men were raised has already been told. George,
in spite of his royal convictions, felt a humane
scruple. " To give German officers authority to
raise recruits for me is, in plain English, neither
more nor less than to become a man-stealer, which
I cannot look upon as a very honorable occupa
tion." But royal scruples seldom go far in the
interest of humanity. Recruiting officers with
full permission to steal men were soon busily at
work in the name of the King of England. Busi
est and chief amongst them were the German
princes, who had found this a very profitable
branch of commerce in former times, and were as
much in want of English guineas as England was
in want of German soldiers.
There was no time to lose. If the campaign
of 1776 was to open with vigor, reinforcements
must be speedily on their way. Sir Joseph Yorke,
an experienced diplomatist familiar with the
ground, Avas instructed in the summer of 1775 to
ascertain on what terms and in what numbers
men could be obtained. In September he re
plied that Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Wiir-
temberg, Saxe-Gotha, and Baden were ready to
furnish any number of troops at a given time and
for a fair price. The Crown Prince of Hesse-

188 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
Cassel, in particular, was A'ery earnest to strike a
bargain, and close upon his heels came the Prince
of Waldeck. Their oavii letters, mostly in bad
French, remain to this day in the English
archives, to bear witness to their degradation.
I will give a specimen of their English, which is
every Avay worthy of their French.
"My Lord " (writes the Hereditary Prince of
Hesse to Lord Suffolk), " the luck I have had to
be able to show in some manner my utmost re
spect and gratitude to the best of kings, by offer
ing my troops to his majesty's service, gives me
a very agreeable opportunity of thanking you,
my lord, for all your kindness and friendship to
me upon that occasion, and begging your pardon
for all the trouble I may have provided you in
this regard.
" My only wishes are that all the officers and
soldiers of my regiment now to his majesty's or
ders may be animated of the same respectful at
tachment and utmost zeal I shall ever bear for
the king, my generous protector and magnani
mous support. May the end they shall fight for
answer to the king's upper contentment, and your
laudable endeavors, my lord, be granted by the
most happiest issue. The continuation of your
friendship to me, sir, Avhich I desire very much,
assures your goodness and protection to my

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 189
troops. I ask in their name this favor from you,
and hope you will deserve it.
" Excuse me, sir, if I am not strong enough in
the English language for to explain as I should
the utmost consideration, and sincere esteem,
with which I am forever, my lord, your most
humble and very obedient servant,
" William, H. P. of Hesse."
The most important among these petty princes
was the Duke of Brunswick, Avho paid thirty
thousand thalers a year to the director of his
opera and purveyor of his pleasures, and three
hundred to his librarian, the great Lessing. His
little territory of about sixty square miles had a
population of one hundred and fifty thousand
souls, and an income of a million and a half. His
debts amounted to nearly twelve millions. A
lover of pomp, capricious and reckless in his ex
penditure, he had been compelled to admit his
son, the crown prince, to a partnership of author
ity, making the signatures of both essential to
the validity of a document. Fortunately for the
duke's creditors, the son was as parsimonious as
the father was extravagant, and let no opportu
nity of raising money escape him. Such was the
condition of the court of Brunswick when En
gland sent Colonel William Fawcitt to ask for
troops.

190 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
Had the English envoy been as well versed in
the higher as in the lower arts of diplomacy, he
would have obtained all that he asked without
modification or delay. But, ignorant of the
straits to which the duke was reduced for want
of money, he began by asking for what he might
have commanded, and involving himself in ne
gotiations Avhere a few firm words Avould have
brought both father and son to his feet. The
crown prince was not slow to turn to account the
advantage which the slow-witted Englishman had
given him, and using artfully and skillfully the
name and coequal authority of his father, pres
ently gained virtual control of the negotiation,
which in itself Avas little more than a higgling
over details. Fawcitt boasts of the perseverance
with Avhich he has beat down the German's
prices, and the persistence with which he has re
sisted some of his claims. The main object of
the transaction was won, England got her sol
diers, — four thousand infantry and three hun
dred light dragoons, — Brunswick her money,
her duke and minister their special pickings, and
the English envoy a diamond ring worth one
hundred pounds as a reward for his good offices.
The first division was to start at once for the
seat of war. On examination by the British
commissioner, it was found to contain too many
old men. The duke's zeal for the king's service

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 191
did not prevent him from palming off upon him
men altogether unfit to bear arms. " The front
and rear," wrote Fawcitt to Lord Suffolk, " are
composed of sound and strong men, but the cen
tre is worthless. It is composed of raw recruits,
who not only are too small, but also imperfectly
grown, and in part too young." Nor did the
trickery end here. This same duke, who lived
surrounded by expensive mistresses, sent off his
soldiers upon a late spring voyage Avith uniforms
unfit for service, and no overcoats or cloaks. It
was not till they got to Portsmouth that they ob
tained their first supply of shoes and stockings.
Their commander, Baron Riedesel, was compelled
to borrow five thousand pounds from the English
government in order to procure for his starving
and freezing men the simplest articles of neces
sity. Thus far they had had the rapacity of their
own sovereign to contend with. They now came
into contact with the rapacity of English trades
men. When they got to sea and opened the
boxes of dragoon shoes, they found them to be
thin ladies' shoes, utterly unfit for the purpose
for which they were designed. Such are some
of the fruits of that great demoralizer — war.
We need not go far back for the parallel.
Towards the end of -May the second division
was mustered into service. They were nearly all

192 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
recruits, levied especially for service in America ;
many of them, as in the first, too old or too
young, or imperfectly grown and too feeble to
carry a musket. But the blame called forth by
the condition of the first division was not alto
gether vain, and the arms and uniforms were
good. The officers did not escape without their
share of suffering. The cabins were so small
that their occupants were compelled to lie on one
another in heaps. The Bristol merchants, who
had supplied the transports Avith bedding, had
made the most of their bargain. The pillows
Avere five inches long and seven broad, the size
of a common pincushion ; and the mattresses so
thin that Avith a coarse woolen blanket and cov
erlid they hardly weighed seven pounds. The
food was prepared upon the same honest scale.
The ham was worm-eaten, the Avater dirty, and
the ship's stores had been ripened by lying in the
English magazines ever since the Seven Years'
War. Thus the poAverful King of England and
the petty sovereigns of Germany leagued to
gether to buy and sell the blood of the unpro
tected German peasant.
Let us carry this study a little further. Elated
with the success of his first negotiation, Fawcitt
turned his face towards Hesse-Cassel. Germany
" was all before him where to choose," and he
chose, or rather Lord Suffolk chose for him, the

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 193"
brilliant court of Hesse-Cassel for the next scene
of his labors. The Duke of Hesse-Cassel, like
his brother of Brunswick, felt no Christian scru
ples, no humane misgivings, no paternal doubts,
about trafficking in the blood of his subjects.
Landgrave Charles I. had set the example, and
his successors had followed it. He let out his
soldiers to Venice, and it might have been ac
cepted as a mitigation of his crime that it was to-
serve against the Turks, the deadly enemies of
Christian civilization. . But it was not to the Ve
netians as the defenders of Christianity that he
let them, but as the best paymasters in the mar
ket. From 1687, when Charles I. sent one thou
sand men to fight for the Venetians, till the end
of the Seven Years' War, Hessians were found in
one or the other of the contending armies, and
always among the best disciplined and bravest of
its soldiers. With the proceeds of their blood
Charles I. built barracks and churches, con
structed the water-works of the Weissenstein,
and set up the statue of Hercules. His succes
sors followed close in his footsteps, holding at one
time twenty-four thousand men under arms, and
always commanding the highest prices for their
blood. Marble palaces, galleries rich with paint
ings and statues, spacious villas, and all the lux
uries of the most advanced civilization bore wit
ness to the wealth of the sovereign ; their homes,
13

194 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
and the boys, old men and women doing the
work of ripe manhood, attested the oppression
of the subject. There was a deep-set melancholy
on the faces of the women. " When Ave are
dead Ave are done with it," was a common saying
with the men. When a father asked for his son,
whom the conscription had torn from him, he was
sent to the mines. If a mother besought that he
to whom she had looked for the support of her
age might be restored to her, she Avas sent to the
workhouse. Some of the barbarous punishments
by which soldiers were terrified into obedience
were inflicted in the streets. " Never," says
Weber, in his " Travels of a German in Ger
many," " did I see so many poor wretches chased
through the streets as in Cassel. It is less inju
rious to the health than running the gauntlet,"
the officers told him ; and well it might be, for
that gauntlet Avas run through a narrow lane of
men, each provided with a stout cane and bound
to apply it Avith full force to the backs of the de
linquents. In cases of desertion, the greatest of
crimes, the offender Avas made to run this gaunt
let two days in succession, and tAvelve times each
day. Can we wonder that the terrible punish
ment often ended in death ?
The poet tells us that —
Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores nee sinit esse feros.

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 195
I could Avish that this were always true, but I
fear that history will not bear us out in the be
lief. Landgrave Frederick IL, whose reign from
1760 to 1785 covers the Avhole period in Avhich
we are most interested, can hardly be regarded
as an illustration of the rule. His mixed char
acter Avill repay a more attentive study.
He had inherited from his father a territory of
one hundred and fifty-six German square miles,
with a population of three hundred thousand
souls. Over this population he exercised an ab
solute control, and by his wealth, his connec
tions, and the favorable position of his territories,
he Avas counted among the most powerful of his
brother princes. From his ancestors he inher
ited business talent, indiscreet selfishness, coarse
sensuality, and obstinate self-Avill. He had found
Protestantism too rigorous, and became a Cath
olic in order to enjoy greater religious freedom,
though he was not only indifferent to religion,
but prided himself on playing the part of an il-
luminato, a protector of the arts and sciences,
and a correspondent of Voltaire. He founded
schools of a higher order, and even made some
humane laws ; but his culture was all on the sur
face, and his life Avas defiled by an indecent lib
ertinism. French manners, French literature,
and, above all, French licentiousness, reigned at
his court, and to form some idea of its corrupting

196 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
power we have only to remember that at the be
ginning of his career he was a contemporary of
Louis XV. If he spent freely upon churches
and museums, he spent more freely for the grati
fication of his voluptuousness. Yet with all this
love of pleasure and display, he left at his death
sixty million thalers in ready money. Where
did he get it ? A skillfully managed lottery fur
nished part ; but the traffic in soldiers the greater
part. For him also the American war was a godsend,
awakening new hopes for himself, and, as with
his brother princes, new zeal and grateful attach
ment to " the best of kings." We have seen
how Fawcitt had been outwitted in his negotia
tions Avith the prime minister of Brunswick. He
was still less able to cope with Von Schlieffen,
the prime minister of Hesse-Cassel, — a man of
both military and civil experience, a skillful ne
gotiator, profoundly versed in the practical study
of human nature, and thoroughly familiar Avith
the aims and wishes of his sovereign. Fortu
nately for that sovereign, his minister was en
tirely devoted to his interests.
The negotiation began by a master stroke,
Avhich represented the landgrave as sensitive and
nervous, and therefore in a state of mind that re
quired delicate management. The English en
voy bit eagerly at the bait, and made no secret of

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 197
the dependence of his sovereign upon foreign aid.
" How many men does he want ? " was the first
question. From ten thousand to twelve thou
sand, answered Fawcitt, little dreaming that the
small state could furnish so many. He was told
that the Hessian troops were on the best footing,
and the king could have all that he asked for.
Fawcitt was very happy, for the main object of
his mission seemed secure. The troops promised,
all the rest was merely a discussion of details.
But in the skillful diplomacy of his opponent
these details became concessions, cunningly inter
woven, and leading by subtle interpretations from
one admission to another. First came a claim
for hospital expenses during the last war, — a
claim the envoy had never heard of before, and
concerning Avhich he was therefore obliged to
write home for instructions.
Meanwhile he urged on the preparation of the
contract, which, to the wonder of diplomatists
and the disgust of thoughtful Englishmen, took
the form, not of a convention for hiring soldiers,
as in the case of Brunswick, but of a treaty on
equal terms between the mistress of the seas and
a petty German landgrave, as high contracting
powers. We need not, however, look far for the
cause of the unwonted pliability of the English
government. The margrave had money, and
could wait. The king had no troops, and could
not wait.

198 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
I will not follow the details of this negotia
tion any further. Both parties obtained their
object. England got the men ; the landgrave
got his money. The time for tbe embarkation
was fixed, and Avhen it came, the first division
of 8397 Avas mustered into the English service
by Fawcitt, who seemed at a loss for words to ex
press his admiration of their soldierly appearance.
On the 12th of August, 1776, they entered New
York Bay. On the 27th they took a brilliant
part, under De Heister, in the battle of Long
Island. A gale of wind, a persistent calm, any
of the common chances of the ocean, and they
would have been too late, and Howe Avould not
have dared to fight the battle which Avon him his
knighthood ; Washington would have had time
to strengthen his works on both islands ; Greene,
who of all the American officers was the ovAy one
perfectly familiar Avith the ground, would have
recovered sufficiently from his untimely fever to
resume his command, and the whole aspect of the
campaign of 1776 would have been altered. So
much, in great enterprises, often depends upon
a happy concurrence of incidents. Henceforth
let it be borne in mind that in every battle of
the Avar of independence, hired men of Germany
play an important part.
On the 2d of June the second division Avas
mustered into service. On the 18th of October

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 199
it landed at New Rochelle. It consisted of 3997
men, not the trained men of well-knit sinews who
formed the first division, but chiefly young men
of seventeen or eighteen, who had been raised to
serve in America. As general of division we
find Knyphausen, whose name soon became famil
iar to both armies. Among the colonels of the
first division Ave find Rahl, Avho commanded at
Trenton Avhen Washington came upon it by sur
prise in the cold gray of a morning after Christ
mas ; and Donop, Avho fell mortally Avounded, as
he led his men to the attack of Redbank, and
died exclaiming, " I die the victim of my own
ambition and the avarice of my sovereign." Did
those bitter Avords ever reach the ears of that
sovereign? Not if we may judge by the cold,
business-like method Avith Avhich he bargained
that three Avounded men should count as one
killed, and one killed as one newly levied, or
thirty crowns banco.
But this second division was not so easily
raised as the first. The alarm had spread rap
idly among a people still suffering from the
wounds of the Seven Years' War. The only
refuge was desertion, and although the front
iers Avere closely guarded, deserters passed daily
into the neighboring territories, where, from the
people at least, they found a ready reception.
To check this the king, as Elector of Hanover,

200 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
put forth all his authority to restore these poor
wretches to their sovereign ; and the sovereign,
to prove his paternal tenderness, reduced the war
taxes by half ; taking good care to secure for him
self an ample compensation from England. "The
treasury," to borrow the energetic language of a
German historian, " was filled with blood and
tears." Yet in spite of all the efforts both of
the king and the landgrave, the desertion con
tinued ; the difficulty of finding recruits increased ;
native Hessians able to bear arms disappeared
from the toAvns and fields ; and it was only by
stealing men wherever they could be found that
the landgrave could fulfill his promises. Mean
while he went to Italy to enjoy his money and
form new plans of embellishment.
From Cassel FaAvcitt hastened to Hanau,
Avhere he found the CroAvn Prince of Hesse-Cas
sel, and, following up his negotiations, had a new
convention all ready in the course of the first
twenty-four hours. He was delighted with the
"impetuous zeal" of the prince. But the diffi
culty of his task was increasing ; not from any
hesitation on the part of the sovereign, who
thought only of his gains, but because the subject
had conceived a strong aversion for service be
yond the sea. Excellent soldiers as the Germans
were, they shrank with repugnance and terror
from a voyage across the Atlantic. Those of

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 201
my readers Avho have walked through a steerage
crowded Avith emigrants will readily conceive
what the sufferings of those poor soldiers must
have been, badly fed, badly lodged, and worse
than crowded. DraAV the picture as you may,
you cannot color it too highly. Little thought
did either the king or the prince take of this.
Each had his immediate object, and cared little
for anything besides.
The Waldeckers came next ; and Fawcitt press
ing them on through new difficulties, they were
ready in November 'to take a decided part in the
assault of Fort Washington. For they fought
gallantly, it will be remembered, on the north
side, where both attack and defense Avere blood
iest and hottest. German writers tell us how the
wounded cursed and swore, bewailing their lot ;
but if the prince was to be trusted, they only
" longed for an opportunity to sacrifice them
selves for the best of kings."
The avarice of the German princes grew with
success. All longed to come in for a share of this
abundant harvest. Bavaria asked to put in her
little sickle, but was refused. England might
have raised her tone, for every applicant wrote as
if all Germany were at her feet. But in truth
the aversion to the service grew daily, and the
difficulty of conveying troops to the place of mus
ter caused serious embarrassments, which if En-

202 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
gland had been less in need might have led to
the renunciation of the contract. But as has been
already said, England Avanted men and the princes
Avanted money, and thus the evil work Avent on,
till there Avere no longer men to be bought or stolen.
There is a painful monotony in this story of in
humanity and crime, of the avarice of money and
the avarice of poAver. It is common to speak of
George III. as a man of a narrow mind but of
an excellent heart ; a moral king Avhile so many
of his contemporary kings disgraced the thrones
on Avhich they sat. This is too light a view of
so grave a subject. Superiority of power carries
with it superiority of moral obligation, and the
man from Avhose will good or evil flows, compel
ling millions to go with it, must be held to a
sterner reckoning than his fellow-men. Let us
not pass lightly over this grave subject. The
balancing of responsibilities, the just meting out
of judgment to the strong and to the weak, is one
of the most serious duties of the historian. The
man who accepts a post of responsibility is bound
to do Avhatever this responsibility imposes. Weigh
the British king in this balance and grievously
will he be found Avanting.
And what shall we say of the German princes ?
Their lives speak for them. The pervading char
acter of their relations to their subjects AA'as cold-
hearted selfishness, a Avanton sacrifice of the labor

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 203
and lives of their subjects to their own caprice
and pleasure. Compare their spacious palaces
with the comfortless cottages of the peasant ; their
sumptuous tables, covered with the delicate in
ventions of French cookery, Avith the coarse
bread, almost the peasant's only meal ; see their
splendid theatres, maintained by taxes that rob
the laborer of half the fruits of his toil ; see how
desolate the fields look, how deserted the high
ways, how silent the streets ; see what sadness
sits upon the brows of the Avomen, Avhat despair
on the faces of the men ; and think what manner
of man he must be who reigns over subjects like
these !
It has been said that the convention with the
crown prince at Hanau was discussed and signed
in twenty-four hours. The Prince of Waldeck
followed, and soon the name of Waldeckers —
fi-rst Avritten in blood on the northern ridge of
Fort Washington — became a name of fear and
hatred to Americans. It Avonld be useless —
disgusting, rather — to clwell upon the monoto
nous record of this buying and selling of human
blood. I Avill give a few incidents only to com
plete the picture.
A spirit of rivalry had groAvn up among these
dukes and landgraves and princes, such rivalry
as only avarice could awaken. They crowded
around Fawcitt, and, Avhile protesting that devo-

204 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
tion to the majesty of England was their only
motive, took good care to drive keen bargains and
insist upon the uttermost farthing. They in
trigued against each other in all the tortuous
Avays familiar to petty princes, bringing even re
ligion to their aid, reminding Fawcitt how dan
gerous an element so large a proportion of Cath
olics would be in an English army. England
wanted an army of twenty thousand men, with
which she hoped to bring the Avar to a close in
the course of another year ; for till the Christmas
of 1776 the campaign had gone all in her favor,
and her hired troops had borne themselves bravely.
She might have spoken in a more commanding
tone. But the surprise of Trenton had thrown
nearly nine hundred of these valiant mercenaries
into the hands of the Americans and changed the
Avhole aspect of the war. New troops Avere more
needed than ever. She was again obliged to ask
urgently and accept the hardest conditions.
The American service was now better under
stood, but not better liked. The Margrave of
Anspach encountered serious obstacles in sending
his troops to the place of embarkation. At Och-
senfurt they revolted and refused to embark. A
skillful leader might have opposed a formidable
resistance, but their officers were not with them
in heart, and information of the untoward event
was immediately sent to the margrave. He in-

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 205
stantly mounted his horse, not stopping long
enough to take a change of linen or even his
watch, and, followed by only two or three at
tendants, rode at full speed to the scene of the
revolt. At the sight of their master the hearts
of these bold men, so daring in the face of the en
emy, misgave them, and they penitently returned
to their allegiance.
Other difficulties awaited other corps on their
march. The electors of Mainz and Trier stopped
them as they passed through their territories,
and claimed some of them as deserters. At Cob-
lentz seventeen Hessians were taken out of the
boats at the suggestion of the imperial minister,
Metternich. Another element of dissension was
introduced, and deep menaces Avere uttered for
the insult to the Hessian flag. But this, also,
was presently forgotten ; the work Avent on, and
the new band of mercenaries reached New York
in safety.
Among the mistakes of the English govern
ment, the greatest, perhaps, of all Avas the failure
to understand the spirit and resources of the col
onies, and the consequent prolongation of the
war. The surprise of Trenton was, both by the
actual loss of men and the still more fatal loss of
prestige, a heavy blow. The privation of such
troops under such circumstances imposed the
necessity of immediate reinforcements. The only

206 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
market in Avhich they could be found was Ger
many, and that market Avas nearly drained. But
as long as a man Avas to be had, his sovereign
was eager to sell him and England to buy.
As early as December, 1776, the Duke of Wiir-
temberg had offered four thousand men, and
Fawcitt had been instructed to enter into negoti
ations Avith him. But upon a closer examination
it was found that he was bankrupt. He had no
arms and no uniforms. To prevent the men from
deserting they Avere kept Avithout pay. The
officers' tents had been cut up to eke out the dec
orations of the duke's rural festivals. The pros
pect was gloomy. Sir Joseph Yorke was called
into council, but he had no new market to recom
mend. Saxe-Gotha and Darmstadt might furnish
a few. The Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst was Avilling
to furnish two battalions. He was a brother of
Catherine II. , and a hearty hater of the great
Frederick. His territories were wretchedly poor.
His eagerness to get money embarrassed his ne
gotiations, which were broken off by Suffolk, but
resumed in the autumn of 1777 on the recom
mendation of Sir Joseph Yorke. But England
wanted more men. Then adventurers began to
come forward Avith propositions more or less fea
sible, but all aiming at the fathomless purse of
England. A Baron Eichberg offered to open a
recruiting office in Minorca ; then a regiment of

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 207
Sclavonians, Avho Avere also good sailors, and after
the war were to found a colony for holding the
Americans in check. The offer Avas not accepted.
Other offers Avere made, but by impoverished
men, Avho, when the time came, failed to meet
their engagements. And thus was it till the end
of the Avar ; the only contracts that held were the
first six : the contracts, namely, with Brunswick,
Cassel, Hanau, Waldeck, Anspach, and Zerbst.
The history of these six contracts covers the whole
ground to the spring of 1777, when the difficulty
of finding recruits increased. All that follows is
in the main but a repetition of the original nego
tiations. For a year the disgraceful work pros
pered. But early in 1777 the market was nearly
drained, and though new engagements continued
to be made, they were seldom fulfilled. The
story Avas still sad and humiliating ; I shall follow
its details no further.1 Here I must pause a mo
ment to call attention to the heartless betrayal of
his oavii soldiers by the Duke of BrunsAvick. Two
thousand of these wretches had been made pris
oners at Saratoga ; and the duke, fearing that to
exchange them would interfere with his profit and
diffuse a general dissatisfaction Avith the service,
when so many Avitnesses against it were scattered
l The reader who wishes to study this subject more fully
should read Der Soldatenliandel deutscher Furslen nach Amerika
(1775 bis 1783), von Friedrich Kapp, Berlin, 1864.

208 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
through the country, urged the English govern
ment to delay their exchange till the war was
ended. Frederick of Prussia and the emperor were op
posed to the selling of men for foreign service ;
not from any feeling for the misery which it
caused, but because their own political horizon
was overcast and they might soon need them for
their own service. It has been said that Fred
erick was moved by sentiments of humanity, and
that Avith a bitter practical satire he imposed the
same tax upon the passage of these men through
his territories that he had been accustomed to im
pose upon cattle. But we' have very little reason
to count humanity among Frederick's virtues.
He hated England for her desertion of him vrfren
Bute became minister and Chatham was forced
to retire. In November, 1777, he refused the
Anspachers and Hanauers a passage through his
territories ; sorely embarrassing the German sov
ereigns and their English customers. They knew
not which way to turn. If they should attempt
to pass through Holland and the Netherlands, the
discontented and ill-provided men Avotild desert
by hundreds. When at last the march began,
three hundred aud thirty-four men did desert in
ten days. The disgraceful drama closed in 1778
with the embarkation of the levies of the Prince
of Zerbst. And thus Frederick was our involun
tary ally.

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 209
There was another ordeal to pass before the
bargain was brought to a close. Would Parlia
ment approve this degradation? The debates
were long and bitter, and brought out the think
ers and orators of both houses. In the Commons,
Burke characterized the bargain as shameful and
dear. In the Lords, Camden branded it as a sale
of cattle for the shambles. Even the butcher of
Culloden condemned it as an attempt to suppress
constitutional liberty in America. But the min
istry prevailed by large majorities in both houses.
England had not yet opened her eyes to the in
humanity and bad statesmanship of the Avar.
But England was not alone. The moral sense
of Europe had not yet awakened. The old spirit
of feudalism had not yet lost its hold upon the
nobles nor upon the people. The noble still" felt
that the commoner Avas infinitely below him.
The commoner and day-laborer could not but be
lieve that the noble was really far above them.
A few voices were raised in the defense of human
rights. The most powerful of these in France
Avas the voice of Mirabeau, who, though a noble
himself, had also been tlie victim of tyranny.
And in Germany, it is pleasant to find Schiller
on the side of humanity, stigmatizing the trade in
men in his " Kabale und Liebe ; '' while the great
Kant went still further, and embraced the cause
of the American colonists with all the energy of
14

210 GERMAN MERCENARIES.
his vast intellect. Klopstock and Lessing spoke
in low tones, and we listen in vain for the voice
of Goethe.
It is impossible to give with perfect accuracy
the numbers of the Germans employed by En
gland in this fatal war. The English archives
contain one part of the story, and that the most
important — the numbers actually mustered into
service. But the various German archives, which
contain the record of all who were put on the
rolls, are not all accessible to the historical in
quirer. This part of the subject has been care
fully studied by Schlozer, and the result compared
by Mr. Kapp with the statements in the English
state paper office. Mr. Kapp's figures are as fol
lows : —

No. Men

No. returned

furnished.

home.

Brunswick

5,723

2,708

Hesse-Cassel

. 16,992

10,492

Hesse-Hanau .

2,422

1,441

AValdeck

1,225

505

Anspach

1,644

1,183

Anhalt-Zerbst

. 1,160

984

Total" .

17,313

Thus the total loss was 11,853.
It is difficult to establish with certainty the
sums which this army of foreigners took from the
tax-payers of England. Strongly supported as
they were in Parliament, ministers did not dare

GERMAN MERCENARIES. 211
to tell the whole story openly, but put many
things under false titles. They did not dare
frankly to say, Every man that is killed puts so
many thalers into the sovereign's pocket, every
three wounded men count for one dead man.
Even the Parliament of Lord North might have
shrunk from the contemplation of figures thus
stained Avith tears and blood. As near as it can
be established by a careful comparison of the
English authorities, the sums paid under various
names by the English treasury amounted in round
numbers to seven million pounds sterling, or, at
the present standard, fourteen million pounds
sterling. Had these fourteen millions been used
for the good of the people by whose sweat and
blood they were won, Ave might still find some
grounds for consolation in the reflection that ,the
good thus done to one would, by a common law
of humanity, sooner or later 'extend to all. But
this fruit of .the blood of the people went to
satisfy the vain ambitions of display and the un
bounded sensuality of the sovereign. Men Avhose
nanies might have stood high in the annals of war,
if they had fought for their country, are known
in history as fighters for hire.

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