The people of the American colonies were self-governing in the extremest sense, that is, they were accustomed to very little government interference of any sort.  They were also poor and entirely unused to war.  Suddenly they found themselves plunged into a bitter and protracted conflict with the most powerful of civilized nations.  In the first flush of excitement, patriotic enthusiasm supplied many defects; but as time wore on, and year after year passed, and the whole social and political fabric was shaken, the moral tone of the people relaxed.  In such a struggle, coming upon an unprepared people of the habits and in the circumstances of the colonists, this relaxation was inevitable.  It was likewise inevitable that, as the war continued, there should be in both national and state governments, and in all directions, many shortcomings and many lamentable errors.  But for the treatment accorded the army, no such excuse can be made, and no sufficient explanation can be offered.  There was throughout the colonies an inborn and a carefully cultivated dread of standing armies and military power.  But this very natural feeling was turned most unreasonably against our own army, and carried in that direction to the verge of insanity.  This jealousy of military power indeed pursued Washington from the beginning to the end of the Revolution.  It cropped out as soon as he was appointed, and came up in one form or another whenever he was obliged to take strong measures.  Even at the very end, after he had borne the cause through to triumph, Congress was driven almost to frenzy because Vergennes proposed to commit the disposition of a French subsidy to the commander-in-chief.

If this feeling could show itself toward Washington, it is easy to imagine that it was not restrained toward his officers and men, and the treatment of the soldiers by Congress and by the States was not only ungrateful to the last degree, but was utterly unpardonable.  Again and again the menace of immediate ruin and the stern demands of Washington alone extorted the most grudging concessions, and saved the army from dissolution.  The soldiers had every reason to think that nothing but personal fear could obtain the barest consideration from the civil power.  In this frame of mind, they saw the war which they had fought and won drawing to a close with no prospect of either provision or reward for them, and every indication that they would be disbanded when they were no longer needed, and left in many cases to beggary and want.  In the inaction consequent upon the victory at Yorktown, they had ample time to reflect upon these facts, and their reflections were of such a nature that the situation soon became dangerous.  Washington, who had struggled in season and out of season for justice to the soldiers, labored more zealously than ever during all this period, aided vigorously by Hamilton, who was now in Congress.  Still nothing was done, and in October, 1782, he wrote to the Secretary of War in words warm with indignant