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Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO WILLIAM FITZHUGH. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. IX (1780-1782) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. IX (1780-1782).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO WILLIAM FITZHUGH.

Dear Sir,

* * * The favorable prospect, which at one stage of the campaign was held up to view, has vanished like the morning dew, leaving scarce a trace behind it, but the recollection of past distresses on the score of Provisions, the want of which continues to threaten us.

Our accounts from the Southward are vague and uncertain, but agreeable. If it be true that a body of French and Spanish Troops have landed in South Carolina, it may aid in the total destruction of Cornwallis’ Army. Another Embarkation is talked of at New York—but this also is a matter suggestion—not certainly as to numbers.

It is devoutly to be wished that the late resolves of Congress for regulating the Army and completing the Regiments for the War may receive all the energetic force of the respective States. Certain I am that if this measure had been adopted four, or even three years ago, that we might, at this time, have been sitting under our vines and fig-trees in full enjoyment of Peace and Independence. To attain which, the delay of the measure is unfortunate, it does not make it too late, but more necessary to enter upon it vigorously at this late hour.

An Army for the war, proper magazines, and sufficient powers in Congress for all purposes of war will soon put an end to it—but the expensive and ruinous system we were pursuing was more than the friends of any Nation upon Earth would bear, and served to increase the hopes of the enemy in proportion as the minds of our people were depressed, by a boundless prospect of expence, which was increasing as it rolled on like a snow ball. * * *