The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

354 THE FREEMAN JuneIndeed, the army did seem to beon the verge of dissolution. "InDecember 1777, for example, overtwo thousand men went home.Hundreds of officers tendered theirresignations; on one day alone,fifty threw up their commissions."!>Nor are these resignations and desertionsto be wondered at whenthe hardships of the army are contrastedwith the relatively goodlife of civilians. It is generally be..;lieved that about the only peoplein America suffering privationwere in the army. One historiansays, "Civilians·declined to forgotheir pleasures merely because thearmy was in want; at a ball atLancaster, Pennsylvania, in January1778, over one hundred ladiesand gentlemen gathered in alltheir finery to enjoy a 'cold collationwith wine, punch, sweet cakes... , music, dancing, singing ... "which lasted until four o'clock inthe morning."lO These revels weretaking place only a short distancefrom Valley Forge.The incongruities here accountfor the American impotence. Thereason for their existence needsnow to be explained. t)1 Quoted in Merrill Jensen, The Foundingof a Nation (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1968), p. 663.2 John R. Alden, The American Revolution(New York: Harper Torchbooks,1954), p. 85.3 Ibid., p. 86.4 Piers Mackesy, The War for America(Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1965), p. 36.5 Quoted in ibid., p. 91.• FOOTNOTES •N ext: The Scourge of Inflation.G John R. Alden, A History of theAmerican Revolution (New York: AlfredA. Knopf, 1969), pp. 203-05.7 Samuel E. Morison, The Oxford Historyof the American People (New York:Oxford UniversIty Press, 1965), p. 244.8 Douglas S. Freeman, Washington,abridged by Richard Harwell (NewYork:Scribner's, 1968), pp. 373-74.9 John C. Miller, Triumph of Freedom(Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1948),p. 225.10 Ibid., p. 223.IDEAS ONLIBERTYDisciplineCALL it high training, or culture, or discipline, or high breeding,or what you will, it is only the sense of what we owe to ourselves,and it is greater and greater according to our opportunities.From an essay by WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER