The British practice of leaving
recruits to be trained by sergeants, often ignorant, coarse, and
brutal, was discarded, and officers themselves did this work. The
last letter which Washington wrote before he resigned his command
at the end of the war was to thank Steuben for his invaluable
aid. Charles Lee did not believe that American recruits could be
quickly trained so as to be able to face the disciplined British
battalions. Steuben was to prove that Lee was wrong to Lee's own
entire undoing at Monmouth when fighting began in 1778.
The British army in America furnished sharp contrasts to that of
Washington. If the British jeered at the fighting quality of
citizens, these retorted that the British soldier was a mere
slave. There were two great stains upon the British system, the
press-gang and flogging. Press-gangs might seize men abroad in
the streets of a town and, unless they could prove that they were
gentlemen in rank, they could be sent in the fleet to serve in
the remotest corners of the earth. In both navy and army flogging
outraged the dignity of manhood. The liability to this brutal and
degrading punishment kept all but the dregs of the populace from
enlisting in the British army. It helped to fix the deep gulf
between officers and men.
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