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The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 1, January, 1884 by Various
page 78 of 124 (62%)

From the third of July, 1775, until the seventeenth of March, 1776,
there was gradually developed a military policy with an army system,
which shaped the whole war.

Many battles have been styled "decisive." many slow tortures of the
oppressed have prepared the way for heroic defiance of the oppressor.
Many elaborate preparations have been made for war, when at last some
sudden outrage or event has precipitated and unlooked-for conflict, and
all preparations, however wisely adjusted, have been made in vain. "I
strike to-night!" was the laconic declaration of Napoleon III, as he
informed his proud and beautiful empress, that "the battalions of France
were moving on the Rhine." The march of Lord Percy to Concord was
designed to clip off, short, the seriously impending resistance of the
people to British authority. With full recognition of all that had been
done, before the arrival of Washington to assume command of the
besieging militia, _as the "Continental Army" of America_, there
are facts which mark the months of that siege, as months of that wise
preparation which ensured the success of the war. Washington at once
took the offensive. He was eminently aggressive; but neither hasty nor
rash. Baron Jomini said that "Napoleon discounted time." So did
Washington. Baron Jomini said, also, that "Napoleon was his own best
chief-of-staff." So, pre-eminently, was Washington.

The outlook at Cambridge, on the third of July, 1775, revealed the
presence of a host of hastily-gathered and rudely-armed, earnest men,
well panoplied, indeed, in the invulnerable armor of loyalty to country
and to God; fearless, self-sacrificing, daring death to secure liberty;
but lacking that discipline, cohesion, and organized assignment to place
and duty, which convert a mass of men into an army of soldiers.
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