French playwright and polymath Caron de Beaumarchais, one of the early proponents of French aid to America during the Revolutionary War. Wikimedia
19. Washington’s New Jersey campaign led to increased aid from the French
By striking at the British in New Jersey, Washington demonstrated to the French the Continental Army was far from defeated in early 1777. This in turn led to increased covert support from French operatives, who purchased arms stored in French arsenals and shipped them to America via the free port of Eustatius. French support throughout 1777 increased, including guns, flints, gunpowder, clothing, medical supplies, and other vital material. Through Benjamin Franklin and other American agents, lobbying for the French to support the Revolution openly increased. The French had experienced military campaigns in North America, and were well aware of the difficulties the British and their German mercenaries would face in subduing Washington’s army.
The increased aid strengthened both Washington’s main army and the Northern Army which fought the Saratoga Campaign in 1777. Had Washington’s army withered away in December 1776, the aid would not have been forthcoming. Many of the troops who served in both American armies carried French muskets, wore French-made uniforms and shoes, and were supported by French cannons. The British Minister to France reported the steadily increasing hostility directed toward the British, even in those days of punctilious courtesy and flamboyant manners. The New Jersey campaign opened the door for the eventual French military intervention in North America, as well as in the West Indies, India, and Africa, making the American Revolution an early World War.
George Washington, posed with regimental standards taken from the British at Princeton, painted in 1782. Wikimedia
20. There is little doubt Washington saved the American cause in 1776-77
As Washington’s army retreated before the British in October, 1776; as men deserted and enlistments began to run out, he contemplated retreating into the mountains and conducting a guerrilla war. That’s how desperate the situation was for the Patriots in the months following independence. In just a few months he had lost most of his army, several battles, America’s largest city, his second-in-command, and much of his reputation. But he hadn’t lost his faith in himself, nor in the men he led. His actions of December 1776 and January 1777 were bold, daring, and possibly even reckless. Had he failed the Continental Army would have been destroyed. But he didn’t fail. He succeeded at a time when success was the only option for the cause, no matter how remote the possibility for success may have been.
In recent years it has become fashionable to disparage George Washington. His generalship, his leadership, and his character have all been questioned, largely due to his ownership of enslaved people. In late 1776 his character was such that he would not succumb to impossible odds. He was enough of a leader to get defeated, demoralized men to follow him against imposing physical barriers and the guns of a numerically superior enemy, in bitterly cold and snowy weather. He brought the best out of hungry, poorly clothed, long-suffering men. And he was general enough to see and seize an opportunity no one else could see. In doing so, he and the men he led, under the password “Victory or Death” saved the American Revolution.
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