It may be so; but
it is a sound principle in warfare to destroy the enemy when this
is possible. There was a time when in Washington's whole force
not more than two thousand men were in a condition to fight.
Congress was responsible for the needs of the army but was now,
in sordid inefficiency, cooped up in the little town of York,
eighty miles west of Valley Forge, to which it had fled. There
was as yet no real federal union. The seat of authority was in
the State Governments, and we need not wonder that, with the
passing of the first burst of devotion which united the colonies
in a common cause, Congress declined rapidly in public esteem.
"What a lot of damned scoundrels we had in that second Congress"
said, at a later date, Gouverneur Morris of Philadelphia to John
Jay of New York, and Jay answered gravely, "Yes, we had." The
body, so despised in the retrospect, had no real executive
government, no organized departments. Already before Independence
was proclaimed there had been talk of a permanent union, but the
members of Congress had shown no sense of urgency, and it was not
until November 15, 1777, when the British were in Philadelphia
and Congress was in exile at York, that Articles of Confederation
were adopted.
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