=Commanding Officers.=—­On the score of military leadership it is difficult to compare the contending forces in the revolutionary contest.  There is no doubt that all the British commanders were men of experience in the art of warfare.  Sir William Howe had served in America during the French War and was accounted an excellent officer, a strict disciplinarian, and a gallant gentleman.  Nevertheless he loved ease, society, and good living, and his expulsion from Boston, his failure to overwhelm Washington by sallies from his comfortable bases at New York and Philadelphia, destroyed every shred of his military reputation.  John Burgoyne, to whom was given the task of penetrating New York from Canada, had likewise seen service in the French War both in America and Europe.  He had, however, a touch of the theatrical in his nature and after the collapse of his plans and the surrender of his army in 1777, he devoted his time mainly to light literature.  Sir Henry Clinton, who directed the movement which ended in the capture of Charleston in 1780, had “learned his trade on the continent,” and was regarded as a man of discretion and understanding in military matters.  Lord Cornwallis, whose achievements at Camden and Guilford were blotted out by his surrender at Yorktown, had seen service in the Seven Years’ War and had undoubted talents which he afterward displayed with great credit to himself in India.  Though none of them, perhaps, were men of first-rate ability, they all had training and experience to guide them.

[Illustration:  GEORGE WASHINGTON]

The Americans had a host in Washington himself.  He had long been interested in military strategy and had tested his coolness under fire during the first clashes with the French nearly twenty years before.  He had no doubts about the justice of his cause, such as plagued some of the British generals.  He was a stern but reasonable disciplinarian.  He was reserved and patient, little given to exaltation at success or depression at reverses.  In the dark hour of the Revolution, “what held the patriot forces together?” asks Beveridge in his Life of John Marshall.  Then he answers:  “George Washington and he alone.  Had he died or been seriously disabled, the Revolution would have ended....  Washington was the soul of the American cause.  Washington was the government.  Washington was the Revolution.”  The weakness of Congress in furnishing men and supplies, the indolence of civilians, who lived at ease while the army starved, the intrigues of army officers against him such as the “Conway cabal,” the cowardice of Lee at Monmouth, even the treason of Benedict Arnold, while they stirred deep emotions in his breast and aroused him to make passionate pleas to his countrymen, did not shake his iron will or his firm determination to see the war through to the bitter end.  The weight of Washington’s moral force was immeasurable.