Of the generals who served under him, none can really be said to have been experienced military men when the war opened.  Benedict Arnold, the unhappy traitor but brave and daring soldier, was a druggist, book seller, and ship owner at New Haven when the news of Lexington called him to battle.  Horatio Gates was looked upon as a “seasoned soldier” because he had entered the British army as a youth, had been wounded at Braddock’s memorable defeat, and had served with credit during the Seven Years’ War; but he was the most conspicuous failure of the Revolution.  The triumph over Burgoyne was the work of other men; and his crushing defeat at Camden put an end to his military pretensions.  Nathanael Greene was a Rhode Island farmer and smith without military experience who, when convinced that war was coming, read Caesar’s Commentaries and took up the sword.  Francis Marion was a shy and modest planter of South Carolina whose sole passage at arms had been a brief but desperate brush with the Indians ten or twelve years earlier.  Daniel Morgan, one of the heroes of Cowpens, had been a teamster with Braddock’s army and had seen some fighting during the French and Indian War, but his military knowledge, from the point of view of a trained British officer, was negligible.  John Sullivan was a successful lawyer at Durham, New Hampshire, and a major in the local militia when duty summoned him to lay down his briefs and take up the sword.  Anthony Wayne was a Pennsylvania farmer and land surveyor who, on hearing the clash of arms, read a few books on war, raised a regiment, and offered himself for service.  Such is the story of the chief American military leaders, and it is typical of them all.  Some had seen fighting with the French and Indians, but none of them had seen warfare on a large scale with regular troops commanded according to the strategy evolved in European experience.  Courage, native ability, quickness of mind, and knowledge of the country they had in abundance, and in battles such as were fought during the Revolution all those qualities counted heavily in the balance.

=Foreign Officers in American Service.=—­To native genius was added military talent from beyond the seas.  Baron Steuben, well schooled in the iron regime of Frederick the Great, came over from Prussia, joined Washington at Valley Forge, and day after day drilled and manoeuvered the men, laughing and cursing as he turned raw countrymen into regular soldiers.  From France came young Lafayette and the stern De Kalb, from Poland came Pulaski and Kosciusko;—­all acquainted with the arts of war as waged in Europe and fitted for leadership as well as teaching.  Lafayette came early, in 1776, in a ship of his own, accompanied by several officers of wide experience, and remained loyally throughout the war sharing the hardships of American army life.  Pulaski fell at the siege of Savannah and De Kalb at Camden.  Kosciusko survived the American war to defend in vain the independence of his native land.  To these distinguished foreigners, who freely threw in their lot with American revolutionary fortunes, was due much of that spirit and discipline which fitted raw recruits and temperamental militiamen to cope with a military power of the first rank.