A Respectable Army

List of illustrations ix Preface x 1 Of Lexington and Concord, and the Myths of the War, 1763-1775 1 Lexington and Concord 1 Of Standing Armies (Power) and Militia (Liberty) 5 Ideological Transmission 9 The Provincial Militia Tradition 14 The Tyranny of Standing Armies 19 Notes 27 2 The Republican War, 1775-1776 29 A Republican Order as the Goal 29 Regulars Versus Republicans: The British at Bay 33 The Adoption of a Continental Army 39 The British Military Counterthrust 47 The New York Campaign 52 Success and Failure 61 Notes 64 3 Toward an American Standing Army, 1776-1777 66 The Nature of the Continental Army 66 A New Model Rebel Army 70 William Howe's Campaign of 1777 78 The Saratoga Campaign 83 The American Search for Manpower 87 The Old Myth and the New Soldiery 97 Notes 99 4 On and Off the Road of Despair, 1777-1779 102 Valley Forge 102 Mounting Anger in the Officer Corps 106 Tables Turned: New Life for the Cause 113 The British Dispersal of 1778 120 Growing Internal Division: Army and Society 127 Notes 136 5 Moral Defeat and Military Turnabout, 1779-1781 139 Dispersed Warfare 139 Patriot Naval Exploits 146 Financial Morass on the Home Front 151 The War in the Southern States 157 Treason, Pensions, and Mutinies 164 Sudden Turnabout: The Road to Yorktown 171 Notes 176 6 Of War, National Legitimacy, and the Republican Order, 1781-1789 179 The Yorktown Campaign 179 Formulating a Peace Settlement 187 The Newburgh Conspiracy 194 Transition to a Postwar World 202 Myth and Tradition: A Political/Military Settlement 210 Notes 217 A Note on Revolutionary War History and Historiography 219 Index 232