The American Revolution: A History by Gordon S. Wood Page B

state militia units of varying sizes. In most cases inexperienced amateur officers served as the American military leaders. Washington, the commander in chief, for example, had been only a regimental colonel on the Virginia frontier and had little firsthand knowledge of combat. He knew nothing about moving large masses of soldiers and had never conducted a siege of a fortified position. Many of Washington’s officers were drawn from the middling ranks of the society and were hardly traditional gentlemen. There were innkeepers who were captains and shoemakers who were colonels, exclaimed an astonished French officer. Indeed, “it often happens that the Americans ask the French officers what their trade is in France.” Not surprisingly, most British officers thought that the American army was “but a contemptible band of vagrants, deserters and thieves” and no match for His Majesty’s redcoats. One British general even boasted that with a thousand grenadiers he could “go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the males, partly by force and partly by a little coaxing.”
    Yet such a contrast of numbers and abilities was deceptive, for the British disadvantages were immense and perhaps overwhelming—even at the beginning when their opportunities to put down the rebellion were greatest. Great Britain had to carry on the war three thousand miles across the Atlantic, with consequent problems of communications and logistics; even supplying the army with food became a problem. At the same time, Britain had to wage a different kind of war from any the country had ever fought in the eighteenth century. A well-trained army might have been able to conquer the American forces, but, as one French officer observed at the end, America itself was unconquerable. The great breadth of territory and the wild nature of the terrain made conventional maneuverings and operations difficult and cumbersome. The fragmented and local character of authority in America inhibited decisive action by the British. There was no nerve center anywhere whose capture would destroy the rebellion. The British generals came to see that engaging Washington’s army in battle ought to be their main objective; but, said the British commander in chief, they did not know how to do it, “as the enemy moves with so much more celerity than we possibly can.”
    Washington for his part realized at the outset that the American side of the war should be defensive. “We should on all occasions avoid a general Action,” he told Congress in September 1776, “or put anything to the risque unless compelled by a necessity into which we ought never to be drawn.” Although he never saw himself as a guerrilla leader and concentrated throughout on creating a professional army with which he was often eager to confront the British in open battle, his troops actually spent a good deal of time skirmishing with the enemy, harassing them and depriving them of food and supplies whenever possible. In such circumstances the Americans’ reliance on amateur militia forces and the weakness of their organized army made the Americans, as a Swiss officer noted, more dangerous than “if they had a regular army.” The British never clearly understood what they were up against—a revolutionary struggle involving widespread support in the population. Hence they continually underestimated the staying power of the rebels and overestimated the strength of the loyalists. And in the end, independence came to mean more to the Americans than reconquest did to the English.
    From the outset the English objective could never be as simple and clear-cut as the Americans’ desire for independence. Conquest by itself could not restore political relations and imperial harmony. Many people in England were reluctant to engage in a civil war, and several officers actually refused on grounds of conscience to serve in America. Although the king, the bulk of the Parliament, and most members of the