by no means made up for the difference of population. On the average,
33,000 men were under the American colors each year; but the army
sometimes fell, as at the battle of Princeton, Jan. 2, 1777, to but 5,000.
The English had an average of 40,000 troops in the colonies, of whom from
20,000 to 25,000 might have been utilized in a single military operation;
and in the crisis of the general European war, about 1780, Great Britain
placed 314,000 troops under arms in different parts of the world. The
efficiency of the American army was very much diminished by the fact that
two kinds of troops were in service,--the Continentals, enlisted by
Congress; and the militia, raised by each colony separately. Of these
militia, New England, with one fourth of the population of the country,
furnished as many as the other colonies put together. The British were
able to draw garrisons from other parts of the world, and to fill up gaps
with Germans hired like horses; yet, although sold by their sovereign at
the contract price of thirty-six dollars per head, and often abused in
service, these Hessians made good soldiers, and sometimes saved British
armies in critical moments. Another sort of aliens were brought into the
contest, first by the Americans, later by the English. These were the
Indians. They were intractable in the service of both sides, and
determined no important contest; but since the British were the invaders,
their use of the Indians combined with that of the Hessians to exasperate
the Americans, although they had the same kind of savage allies, and
eventually called in foreigners also. In discipline the Americans were far
inferior to the English. General Montgomery wrote: "The privates are all
generals, but not soldiers;" and Baron Steuben wrote to a Prussian officer
a little later: "You say to your soldier, 'Do this,' and he doeth it; but
I am obliged to say to mine, 'This is the reason why you ought to do
that,' and then he does it." The British officers were often incapable,
but they had a military training, and were accustomed to require and to
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