Washington Plans Research Articles

<i>The Philadelphia Campaign, Volume II: Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge</i> (review)

Reviewed by: The Philadelphia Campaign, Volume II: Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge Joseph R. Fischer Thomas J. McGuire . The Philadelphia Campaign, Volume II: Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2007. Pp. 432, illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $34.95.) The Battle of Brandywine left Washington's army bowed but not beaten. With his flank turned, Washington and his subordinates fought a successful delaying action that allowed the army to escape destruction. Nonetheless, it had been a close thing. A more aggressive general than General William Howe might well have smashed the Continental army and forced an end to the two-year-old rebellion, but what might have been was not what was, and the American army lived to fight another day. Thomas J. McGuire addresses the campaign that followed Brandywine in the second volume of The Philadelphia Campaign. The focus is on Washington's attempt to reverse the decision at Brandywine with an audacious night attack on British positions in and around Germantown. The author then ably describes the move toward winter quarters at Valley Forge. [End Page 254] In the spirit of the first volume, the second features lively prose and varied perspectives ranging from generals to privates as well as the civilians caught up in the maelstrom of war. It is a work more focused on key leaders than the first volume. Despite his intellect and insight, General William Howe's tragic flaw was that he was willing to hesitate at just the right moment to allow his opponent opportunity. Washington appears to be a man growing in his job, able to find the advantage when offered to ensure that there would be a tomorrow for the army he led. The war eventually proved that Washington's ability to sustain an army in being for years eventually exhausted the British government and its people. The days following the American defeats at Brandywine and Paoli could have been psychologically devastating for the American cause. Philadelphians watched powerless as British troops marched along the streets of William Penn's city. Fort Mifflin, along with the small Pennsylvania Navy, kept the Delaware River closed to British warships, but it seemed clear that this was but a temporary stay. Washington sought a solution to the disintegrating civil-military solution by attempting something he had not yet done, an attack on the main British army. In the past, he had limited himself to the defensive, allowing his foe to come to him. The victories at Trenton and Princeton had been against an exposed garrison or a rear guard action, not main force engagements. Washington understood that his army was not the equal of its foes, thus he sought to leverage circumstances to compensate for the inexperience of his soldiers. Washington's solution was to have his army carry out a night attack employing four different avenues of approach to the British encampment at Germantown. On the wings of his army he placed militia, while Continental regulars under John Sullivan and Nathanael Greene held the center. If all went according to plan, the Continental army would fall upon its foe in the early morning light of 4 October 1777 in a double envelopment. Unfortunately, Washington's plan exceeded the capabilities of his army. Night marches and limited visibility attacks are some of the most difficult operations for highly skilled soldiers using modern communications equipment, let alone an eighteenth-century army of relative novices. The frictions of war overcame Washington's best intentions. Washington's men had to cover roughly sixteen miles between their assembly area and the British/Hessian encampment on a moonless night. Continental cavalry had not clearly marked the routes causing moments of confusion and delay. The right wing, consisting of militia, arrived first, fired [End Page 255] a few shots at Hessian units and then without orders, withdrew. Sullivan's column moved down the Germantown Road encountering resistance from British forces barricaded in the house of John Chew, a substantial stone construction. Sullivan, at the insistence of Henry Knox, elected to reduce the house rather than bypass it. Fog delayed Greene although most of his men did arrive to drive British forces...

Notes from the Editors, September 2005

» Notes from the EditorsMore than a year after the supposed "transfer of sovereignty" the war of aggression that the United States is waging in Iraq shows no sign of abating. Washington's plan is to continue to occupy Iraq by force until it is brought securely within the American Empire. After that U.S. troop presence in the major urban centers can be sharply reduced and its remaining forces relocated to a few strategic military bases, with the new Iraqi government security forces stepping in to replace American troops in most parts of the countryThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic

Thomas Jefferson's tombstone bears inscription he composed for it, identifying him as Author of Declaration of American Independence, of Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, & Father of University of Virginia. Of great man's many achievements and services to his country, he selected these three as ones by which I wish most to be remembered.1 Self-government, religious freedom, and public education were all fundamental to American republicanism as he defined it. Jefferson believed that disestablishment of religion, freeing mind from monkish ignorance and superstition, would firmly ground the blessings and security of self-government.2 But general history of American education between 1815 and 1848 did not confirm Jefferson's hopes; statesponsored secular education did not provide foundation for American republicanism. In principle, Enlightenment presupposed state responsibility for popular education.3 In American practice, state significantly defaulted on this obligation. On other hand, organized Christianity continued to play a much more active role in American life than Jefferson had expected. Often religious freedom turned out to -mean freedom for religion rather than freedom from religion. As a result, religious institutions sometimes proved more effective means for Americans to exercise their self-government than did political ones. THE STRANGE PASSIVITY OF THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT One of striking anomalies of American history is discrepancy between founders' grand plans for education and paucity of their actual accomplishments. This is nowhere more evident than in failure of project for founding a national university in District of Columbia. George Washington had conceived idea. As president, Washington proposed university to Congress in his first annual message, worked on various plans for its establishment, and was still commending it strongly in his famous Farewell Address-but all in vain. In a final gesture, Father of His Country willed a portion of his large estate to form a core endowment for a future national university. But Congress ignored his bequest, until in 1823 fund finally became worthless when company in whose shares it was invested went bankrupt.4 Opposition to a national university came partly from doubts about its constitutionality, partly from jealousy of existing colleges that feared being overshadowed, and partly from sheer parsimony. Washington evidently envisioned national university as a mixed public-private corporation analogous to Hamilton's national bank, so university inherited some of enemies of bank. Originally, Jefferson supported Washington's plans for a national university and had advised him to staff it with emigre professors from University of Geneva, Switzerland. As president, however, Jefferson came to conclusion that, although a national university would be welcome, a constitutional amendment would be required to authorize it.5 Given his belief that national bank had been unconstitutional, Jefferson thus protected himself against a charge of inconsistency. One portion only of Washington's plans for national higher education was fulfilled by Jefferson's administration: founding of United States Military Academy at West Point in 1802. The Naval Academy at Annapolis was not founded until 1845, by Secretary of Navy George Bancroft during Polk administration's build-up to war against Mexico.6 All of first six presidents supported a national university one way or another, but one who worked hardest for it was James Madison. Three times-in 1810, 1815, and 1816-Madison urged a national university in his annual message to Congress. The university formed a part of Madison's legislative program of Republican nationalism, along with internal improvements, a protective tariff, and a second national bank. …

Towards a Nuclear Weapons Free World?

NEW ZEALAND'S VOCAL SUPPORT for global nuclear disarmament predates the end of the cold war by several years. During the 1980s, for example, anti-nuclear sentiment played a prominent role both in New Zealand's domestic politics and in shaping the country's foreign and defence policies. More recently, New Zealand has been an enthusiastic member of the New Agenda Coalition, a small group of member states of the United Nations dedicated to raising the profile of nuclear disarmament.(1) Wellington's anti-nuclear credentials were confirmed at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in New York, 24 April-19 May 2000, when it was appointed to chair a subsidiary body responsible for securing agreement on the disarmament obligations of the major nuclear weapons states.With the help of that subsidiary body, the 2000 review conference elicited a major and 'unequivocal commitment' from the five nuclear weapons states (the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China) to accomplish complete nuclear disarmament. At the very least this will provide a standard against which the five can be held to account in future negotiations at the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD) and elsewhere. At the conclusion of the conference, New Zealand's minister for disarmament and arms control, Matt Robson, observed that 'there is a new mood of optimism'(2) about the future prospects for disarmament.However, the pledge made by the nuclear weapons states was not accompanied by an explicit timetable for elimination, and it is hard to deny that the possession of nuclear weapons remains an attractive proposition for a number of states. Moreover, bargaining between the United States and Russia over Washington's plans for a limited national missile defence (NMD) system at times overshadowed the work of the NPT conference. The strains placed on the arms control and disarmament agenda by this issue alone are enough to raise questions about the future prospects for nuclear disarmament and to make the task confronting New Zealand and other pro-disarmament countries all the more daunting.This article assesses the opportunities and challenges facing New Zealand as a strong advocate of a nuclear weapons free world. An overview of the place of nuclear weapons issues in New Zealand's approach to world affairs during the last decade of the cold war and the first decade of the post-cold war era sets the stage. In accounting for New Zealand's commitment to nuclear disarmament reference will be made to both domestic and international political influences and the relationship between the two. This in turn is used to analyse the prospects in the early twenty-first century for significant global movement towards the abolitionist goals held by New Zealand.NEW ZEALAND'S NUCLEAR-FREE POLICIES & THE 'SECOND' COLD WARIn the early 1970s East-West relations prospered under detente, and the first of two treaties arising out of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) was signed. By the end of the same decade political and military relations between Moscow and Washington had taken a turn for the worse. During this 'second' cold war, ushered in by the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Ronald Reagan's victory in the 1980 American presidential elections, international concerns about the risks of a superpower nuclear confrontation were once more on the rise.(3)The decision by member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to install intermediate range nuclear forces in Europe in response to a perceived threat from such Soviet systems as SS20 missiles was particularly significant. This attempt to bring peace through nuclear strength helped stimulate a wave of anti-nuclear protests in the northern hemisphere that included the Greenham Common demonstrations in England(4) and the nuclear freeze campaign in the United States.(5)Such international concern was a further stimulus to existing anti-nuclear sentiment in New Zealand, which had for several years focused on French nuclear testing in the South Pacific(6) and on port visits by American naval vessels that were nuclear powered and/or seen as capable of carrying nuclear weapons. …

Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency

This groundbreaking new book challenges the notion that covert operations are a twentieth-century phenomenon, recounting a wide array of operations sanctioned by America's Founding Fathers. These include George Washington's plan to kidnap King George III's son; Thomas Jefferson's proposal to burn down St Paul's Cathedral in London; James Madison's procuring of a prostitute for a prominent foreign visitor; and Daniel Webster's use of British secret service money to influence American public opinion. In describing these operations and more, Stephen F. Knott challenges the conclusions of the Church and the Iran-Contra Committees that America's Cold War presidents broke faith with the Founding Fathers. While Knott acknowledges the rise of a large clandestine bureaucracy such as the CIA as a twentieth-century innovation, he nonetheless argues that the type of operations conducted by the Founders were remarkably similar to those of their Cold War successors such as Truman and Bush.