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Show 'If Gen. George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln Were Living Today . . .' i What Would They "Say to Their America as It Enters Second Year of a Great War? . By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. THIS month, which finds America entering the second year of the greatest war in her history, also finds her honoring again the memory of her two greatest sons men who led her successfully through two other conflicts. A - t ' f ', h v ' - " tf5 '. , 1 if i1- .-i What were their prospects of victory as they entered the second year of those conflicts the War for American Independence In-dependence and the War Between Be-tween the States? "If George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were alive today," what message would they give to the embattled America of 1943? When the second year of the Revolution began George Washington Washing-ton found himself commander-in-chief of what was little better than a "rabble in arms." To the members mem-bers of the Continental congress he had declared "Lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered, by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with." Washington little realized then how soon "some unlucky event should happen" nor what a long succession succes-sion of such misfortunes would devil him for the next six years. But he must have had a foreshadowing of them, for, within a week after he He looked forward to "the peaceable enjoyment oj my own vine and fig-tree." of a "house divided against itself but even in his own "family" there was dissension and disunity. When the war began many Democrats, Demo-crats, among them Stephen A. Douglas, Doug-las, steadfastly supported the President Presi-dent but others violently opposed to a war which they declared had resulted re-sulted from the election of a Republican Repub-lican President. It was this group who brought into existence the Knights of the Golden Circle, the secret organization of the Copperheads, Copper-heads, who criticized the conduct of the war, hoped to gain control of the government and make some sort of compromise peace with the South. Even within his own party Lincoln had enemies who tried to thwart his efforts to. save the Union. One faction fac-tion induced congress to create a Committee on the Conduct of the War which was almost as damaging to the war effort as the activities of the Copperheads. Stormy as was the political situa- Continental congress was debating independence from the Mother country coun-try and on the immortal Fourth of July it took the decisive step. Up to this time Washington had been leading a fight for the rights of himself him-self and his compatriots as Englishmen. English-men. Now the congress had given him something else to fight for. They called it Liberty the king of England Eng-land called it Treason. Witty old Ben Franklin had told his fellows that they "must hang together or assuredly as-suredly we shnll hang separately." If the Revolution failed, one of the first candidates for the hangman's rope would be that arch-rebel, the commander-in-chief of the rebels-inarms. That danger seemed perilously near soon after Washington had his troops drawn up on parade and the Declaration of Independence read to them. Up the bay came a British armada 400 transports and 32,000 soldiers, convoyed by 10 battleships and 20 frigates, manned by more than 10,000 sailors. A little later they were joined by 10,000 Hessian mercenaries. Against this aggregation aggrega-tion of British might Washington had a motley horde of not more than 20,000 men, many of them unfit for service or unwilling to fight because congress had failed to pay them or even to provide them with enough clothing, arms and food. A Series of Disasters. Then followed the series of disasters disas-ters which was to make the "Year of Independence" one of the blackest years in the whole struggle for liberty. lib-erty. In August General Putnam's army was cut to pieces at the Battle of Long Island and narrowly escaped es-caped capture. In September Washington Wash-ington was driven out of New York and his army retreated to Harlem Heights in panic rout. In October he was defeated at the Battle of White Plains. In November Novem-ber the British captured Fort Washington, Wash-ington, one of the chief defenses of the Hudson, .and forced the Ameri- assumed command of the army, he was writing to his friend, Richard Henry Lee: "We are in an exceedingly exceed-ingly dangerous situation. We have tlon when trie second year of the war began, the military situation was more encouraging. In the West Fort Henry had fallen, "Unconditional "Uncondition-al Surrender" Grant had taken Fort Donelson, and Farragut had captured cap-tured New Orleans. But in the East, then regarded as the most important impor-tant theater of war, a military genius named Robert E. Lee was threatening threaten-ing Washington and another military genius named "Stonewall" Jackson was outmaneuvering and outfighting every Union commander sent against him in the Shenandoah valley. McCletlan Falls. In March, General McClellan, the Union commander, had begun his but about sixteen thousand effective men in all this department, whereas, where-as, by the accounts which I received from even the first officers in command, com-mand, I had no doubt of finding between be-tween eighteen and twenty thousand; out of these are only fourteen thousand thou-sand fit for duty" . . ." - The smallness of his army was,, however, only one of his many problems. prob-lems. Not only were the soldiers poorly armed, poorly clothed and poorly fed, but there was a shocking lack of discipline. Men accepted bounties to enlist, then deserted immediately. im-mediately. ' - Low Morale."' Peninsular- campaign --"which - for numbers engaged and losses suffered suf-fered surpassed any previous operation opera-tion in North America." By June it was apparent that the campaign had failed and that the volunteer system could not produce the number num-ber of men needed for replacements replace-ments after the blood bath McClel-lan McClel-lan had given the Union army. In a confidential message to the state governors Lincoln appealed for 100,-000 100,-000 new troops, saying "I would publicly pub-licly appeal to the country for this new force were it not that I fear a general panic and stampede would follow, so hard it is to have. a thing understood as it is." This appeal brought him the troops he needed but, having lost confidence in McClellan, he placed General Pope in command. The result re-sult was the terrible defeat at tha Morale among the officers was not much better, for in their attitude toward each other they reflected all the jealousies and suspicions which had prevented unity of the English colonies in the struggle with the French and Indians. "Washington had to face not only wholesale desertions and ' furious mutinies among the private pri-vate soldiers, but also the most exquisitely embarrassing feuds among his officers with threats of wholesale resignations," writes his biographer, Rupert Hughes. "His prudence, fairness and devotion de-votion to the government were tested to the last degree ... It seemed to him, and it seems te the later Inspector of the records, rec-ords, that at this time Washington Washing-ton was almost the only man In America who had a sense of na- ; second Battle of Manassas and McClellan Mc-Clellan was again in the saddle. Thereupon Lee invaded Maryland and was stopped at the Battle of Antietam, after which he recrossed the Potomac. McClellan might have crushed Lee but failed to do so. Lincoln again removed "Little Mac" and gave command to General Burn-side, Burn-side, whose attack on Fredericksburg Fredericks-burg resulted in the loss of 10,000 Union dead and wounded. So the year ended in failure and a deep gloom settled over the North. Even greater was the depression in the White House, for the election of Horatio Seymour, the Democrat, in New York, was regarded as a repudiation re-pudiation of Lincoln's conduct of the .war. He could not foresee that the next year would bring the turning point of the war with the victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg both achieved on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of independence. inde-pendence. Four months later the Great Emancipator journeyed to one of those battlefields and there delivered deliv-ered an immortal address. "If Abraham Lincoln were alive today," the message that he might give to an America engaged in a struggle with the most deadly enemy of freedom the world has ever known would be a quotation from the Gettysburg Address. It is the reassurance: "That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the. people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth!" . . government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not per-ish per-ish from the earth!" cans to evacuate Fort Lee, the other. oth-er. The last month of this dismal second year of the war found him retreating across New Jersey and, although his splendid victory at Trenton on Christmas night somewhat some-what lightened the gloom, there was still many a discouragement and many a defeat ahead of him before the next year should bring the turning turn-ing point of the war at Saratoga. But despite the seemingly impossible impos-sible nature of his task and the mountainous difficulties which he overcame, the record is clear that George Washington never lost his courage and his belief in the Tightness Tight-ness of the cause for which he was fighting. If in this second year of our great struggle America suffers severe reverses and at the end of it victory may still seem far away, then may George Washington's fel-low-Americajis draw new courage from a sentence in a letter he Wrote to his brother during the retreat across New Jersey. It was an expression ex-pression of his unshaken faith that he would "be once more fixed among you in the peaceable enjoyment of my own vine and fig-tree." A House Divided. While the second year of the War Between the States was not so dark for Abraham Lincoln as 1776 had been for George Washington, there was many a reverse in 1862 that would have caused a lesser soul to despair. Not only was he the head tional entity and national duty. The rest talked of liberty, and indignation at tyrants, but their interests were almost altogether individual, municipal, or provincial." pro-vincial." Such was the situation as the year 1776 opened. Up in Canada Benedict Bene-dict Arnold's forces had settled down to their fruitless siege of Quebec. Washington's siege of Boston seemed equally futile until early in March when he occupied Dorchester Heights. Then on St. Patrick's day Lord Howe evacuated the city and Washington and his motley army marched in. It was a victory for the Patriot cause, of course, but it was far from decisive. For Howe's army was still intact and there was no telling where it would strike next Washington Wash-ington guessed correctly that it would be New York. So in April he marched his army there only to find himself in a nest of Tory intrigue in-trigue and, two months later, narrowly nar-rowly to escape assassination at the hands of a member of his own bodyguard. body-guard. Meanwhile, outside of Quebec, Arnold's Ar-nold's army was rotting away with cold, hunger and smallpox and by the middle of June its shattered remnants had been chased out of Canada. Thus ended in failure the expedition upon which Washington had counted so much the addition of the Canadians to the Patriot cause. While this was taking place, the |
