The Volumes:
Volume 1, June-September 1775
Volume 2, September-December 1775
Volume 3, January-March 1776
Volume 4, April-June 1776
Volume 5, June-August 1776
Volume 6, August-October 1776
Volume 7, October 1776-January 1777
Volume 8, January-March 1777
Volume 9, March-June 1777
Volume 10, June-August 1777
Volume 11, August-October 1777
Volume 12, October-December 1777
Volume 13, December 1777-February 1778
Volume 14, March-April 1778
Volume 15, May-June 1778
Volume 16, July-September 1778
Volume 17, 15 September-31 October 1778
Volume 18, 1 November 1778-14 January 1779

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THE PAPERS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
Philander D. Chase, Editor

The Papers of George Washington
Revolutionary War Series

The massive Revolutionary War Series (1775-1783) presents in documents and annotation the myriad military and political matters with which Washington dealt during the long war for American independence.

 

 

Volume 1: June-September 1775


Volume 1 of the Revolutionary War Series begins with Washington's address of 16 June 1775 accepting command of the Continental army and continues to the middle of September 1775. The focus of the volume is on Washington's initial effort to make an effective fighting force out of the green provincial army that he found besieging the city of Boston.

His military letters and orders for these three months deal extensively with his reorganization of the army, the instituting of new administrative procedures and standards of discipline, the teaching of duties to both officers and men, and the measures taken to overcome the army's perplexing supply problems, most notably the alarming shortage of gunpowder. They also touch on matters of strategy and tactics relating to schemes for reducing the British garrison in Boston, the arming of American vessels to intercept enemy supplies at sea, and the planning for Benedict Arnold's bold march to Quebec.

Much of the information upon which Washington based his decisions is contained in the letters that he received from his numerous correspondents. Included here are detailed reports of British military activities in and about Boston, along with the New England coast, in Canada, and in Virginia, as well as news of legislative actions and recommendations of men, to fill positions both high and low in the Continental army.

Supplementing the portrait of Washington the general provided by his official correspondence are a number of letters to and from relatives and friends in Virginia. These offer a more intimate view of the private man and his personal affairs. Of particular interest are the two letters that he wrote in June 1775 from Philadelphia to Martha Washington, rare survivals of the correspondence that Mrs. Washington destroyed shortly before her death

513 pages • 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 cloth • 1985
ISBN 0-8139-1040-4 • $85.00
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Volume 2: September-December 1775

Edited by Philander D. Chase

This volume covers the middle months of the siege of Boston when George Washington faced the delicate task of disbanding one army and recruiting another, all within musket shot of the British forces. Throughout the fall of 1775, assisted and sometimes thwarted by congressmen, New England officials, and fellow officers, Washington laid plans not merely to keep a besieging force around Boston and provide his men with winter necessities but also to remodel the army to make it more efficient and truly continental, intermixing officers and men without regard to their colonial identity. The numerous official letters Washington wrote and received during this period, his daily general orders, the records of his councils of war, and the minutes of his important October conference reveal a competent military administrator and a committed patriot attempting to create a professional American army which would transcend the narrow localism of the colonial past well in advance of the Declaration of Independence.

Unwilling to risk an attack on the main British army in Boston during the fall of 1775, Washington encouraged and monitored two major offensive efforts elsewhere: the outfitting of a small fleet of armed vessels to disrupt the flow of British supplies by sea to Boston and Canada and the two-pronged invasion of Canada led by Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold. Washington also dealt with the treasonous intrigues of Benjamin Church and John Connolly and with the burning of the seaport of Falmouth. He also received several unsolicited schemes for attacking the British fleet in Boston harbor, a steady stream of personal pleadings for discharges, and a laudatory verse written by the black poet Phillis Wheatley.

Substantial portions of Washington's correspondence for this period concern his personal business and family affairs. Most notable are the fourteen letters from his Mount Vernon manager, Lund Washington. They offer rare views into the daily operations of the plantation as well as into Washington's finances and land dealings. They provide valuable information about plans for remodeling the mansion house, proposals for defending it against British attack, and Martha Washington's travels culminating in her journey to join her husband at Cambridge.

671 pages • 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 cloth • 1987
ISBN 0-8139-1102-8 • $85.00
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Volume 3: January-March 1776

Edited by Philander D. Chase

Volume 3 covers the final months of the siege of Boston. It opens with General Washington proclaiming the commencement of the remodeled Continental army on New Year's Day 1776 and closes at the end of March as he prepares to depart for New York in the wake of the British evacuation of Boston.

Washington's correspondence and orders for this period reveal an uncompromising attitude toward reconciliation with Britain and a single-minded determination to engage the enemy forces in Boston before the end of the winter. Washington's bold proposal to attack Boston across the frozen back bay in the middle of February was rejected as too risky by a council of war, but the council did approve occupying the strategic Dorchester Heights overlooking the city and harbor. During the last weeks of February and the first days of March, Washington devoted himself to mobilizing artillery and gunpowder for a massive cannonade of Boston and assembling materials for portable fortifications to be erected on the frozen soil of Dorchester Heights. The successful execution of this operation on the night of 4 March failedto provoke General William Howe into assaulting the American lines and thereby open the way to counterattack on the city as Washington hoped it would. It did, however, compel the British to withdraw from Boston in haste a few days later, giving Washington and his army a spirit of confidence with which to embark on the New York campaign. The volume also includes a number of documents relating to Washington's private affairs in Virginia, the most important of which are eight letters from his Mount Vernon manager Lund Washington.

615 pages • 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 cloth • 1988
ISBN 0-8139-1167-2 • $85.00
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Volume 4: April-June 1776

Edited by Philander D. Chase

Volume 4 completes the documentary record of Washington's first year as commander in chief of the Continental army. It opens with his final preparations to leave Cambridge following the successful siege of Boston and concludes with news that General William Howe's British army was soon to arrive at New York, an event that would mark the beginning of the New York campaign. In the interim between campiagns, Washington established his headquarters at New York and began wrestling with the perplexing problems of defensing the strategically important corridor between New York and Canada formed by the Hudson River and Lake Champlain.

Throughout the spring of 1776, Washington faced a choice of difficulties in allotting the scarce military resources at his disposal. Long uncertain of British intentions for the coming campaign, he felt obliged to strengthen both ends of the Hudson-Champlain corridor. In April Washington seriously depleted his army at New York by sending two large detachments of Continental troops to reinforce the weak and dispirited American forces in Canada. At the same time he pushed vigorously to complete fortifications in and around New York City and in the Hudson highlands. A continuing shortage of men and arms, rumors of Loyalist conspiracies, and discipline problems aggravated by the exposure of young soldiers to urban vices added to his burdens during this time. In late May Washington went to Philadelphia to consult with the Continental Congress for the first time since commissioning in June 1775. His discussions of strategy with the delegates resulted in a series of resolutions on which Washinton was to base many of his decisions in the troubled days ahead. In a personal sense the trip to Philadelphia was significant because Martha Washington, who accompanied the general to the city, was innoculated successfully for smallpox during her stay, freeing her to continue traveling with her husband without fear of contracting that dreaded disease. After an absence of more than two weeks, Washington returned to his New York headquarters in early June to resume preparations for what he frankly told his brother Jack would be "a very bloody Summer."

589 pages • 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 cloth • 1991
ISBN 0-8139-1307-1 • $85.00
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Volume 5: June-August 1776

Edited by Philander D. Chase

Volume 5 covers the preliminary phase of the New York campaign, the period from mid-June to mid-August 1776 when the stage was set for Washington's greatest challenge yet as commander in chief of the Continental army. As the summer weeks passed, the British concentrated a massive military force in New York Harbor, bringing in thousands of Redcoats and German mercenaries backed by the guns of a large fleet. "The Powers of Despotism," Washington wrote in August, "are all combined against [America], and ready to strike their most decisive Stroke." Not knowing exactly where the stroke would fall, Washington wrote urgently to Congress and the states seeking reinforcements for the extensive lines that he was obliged to defend, while vigorously pushing forward construction of fortifcations and efforts to obstruct the Hudson River. At every opportunity he sought and read any piece of intelligence regarding the enemy force and its intentions.

Washington could not focus his thoughts solely on the defense of New York City, however, for letters from the north informed him of the disastrous American retreat from Canada. That alarming situation elicited from Washington detailed consideration of the strategy to be pursued in defensing the upper end of the vital Hudson River-Lake Champlain corridor. Other correspondence concerned threats from internal enemies, conspiracies allegedly fomented by disaffected persons to undermine the American cause through subversion and sabotage. Such reports resulted in the execution of Thomas Hickey, a soldier in Washington's personal guard, for treachery in late June and the forced removal of many suspicious persons from New York City a short time later. Although the reading of the Declaration of Independence to the Continental army in early July boosted its morale, Washington continued his unrelenting efforts to check disorder and discord at all levels and to overcome the spirit of disunity that threatened the American cause as much as did British arms. "Let all distinctions of Nations, Countries, and Provinces," he told his men on 1 August, "be lost in the generous contest, who shall behave with the most Courage against the enemy, and the most kindness and good humor to each other." Washington's roles as miltary commander and political leader cannot be separated.

739 pages • 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 cloth • 1993
ISBN 0-8139-1447-7 • $85.00
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Volume 6: August-October 1776

Edited by Philander D. Chase

Volume 6 documents Washington's decisions and actions during the heart of the New York campaign--the period from late summer to early fall 1776 when his British opponent, General William Howe, took the offensive and outmaneuvered the American forces in and around New York City through a series of amphibious landings. Faced with an enemy superior in numbers, mobility, and discipline, Washington attempted to defend New York by placing his green troops behind fortifications on high ground and hoping that courage and patriotism would offset their lack of experience and training. That strategy failed at the Battle of Long Island on 27 August when Howe's army outflanked and routed a larger American force on the Heights of Guana. Two nights later Washington reunited his dangerously divided army by skillfully evacuating every man and most stores and equipment from Long Island to New York City.

During the following weeks Washington spared no one including himself in an effort to restore order and confidence to his badly dispirited troops. He also reassessed his strategy and concluded "that on our side the War should be defensive" and "that we should on all occasions avoid a general Action or put anything to the risque unless compelled by a necessity into which we ought never to be drawn." Reluctantly deciding to abandon New York City, Washington narrowly avoided being forced into a disadvantageous general engagement on 15 September when he marched his army north to defensive positions on Harlem Heights ahead of British and Hessian soldiers landing at Kip's Bay. Although the Battle of Harlem Heights on the following day was an indecisive skirmish between detachments, it raised American morale by showing that some of their troops could and would fight well against enemy regulars in limited actions.

Military concerns so preoccupied Washington that at times his secretary Robert Hanson Harrison had to write the president of Congress and other public officials for him. This volume, nevertheless, includes four long letters that Washington wrote to his plantation manager Lund Washington describing his situation in New York and giving detailed instructions regarding such matters as the sale of flour from the Mount Vernon mill, the remodeling of the mansion house, and the planting of trees around it.

651 pages • 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 cloth • 1994
ISBN 0-8139-1538-4 • $85.00
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Volume 7: October 1776-January 1777

Edited by Philander D. Chase

Volume 7 documents the dramatic events of the New York campaign and the ensuing New Jersey campaign, a seemingly endless string of American reverses and retreats terminated by surprising victories at Trenton and Princeton. The volume opens with Washington's withdrawal of most of his army from Manhattan Island north to White Plains, where on 28 October British and Hessian troops routed the American right wing on Chatterton hill. Although Washington subsequently succeeded in blocking any further British advance to the north, his indecisiveness about ordering the evacuation of Fort Washington, the sole remaining American post on Manhattan Island, led to the disastrous loss of the fort's large garrison and many valuable stores when General Howe's forces overran it on 16 November.

After the fall of Fort Lee on the west bank of the Hudson River four days later, Washington began retreating across New Jersey with his rapidly dwindling army. His repeated appeals for reinforcement by local militia and Continental troops remaining in New York fell largely on deaf ears, and in early December Washington was obliged to cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, leaving New Jersey in enemy hands. From his Bucks County Headquarters Washington wrote his brother Samuel on 18 December: "If every nerve is not strained to recruit the New Army with all possible Expedition I think the game is pretty near up. . . . No Man I believe ever had a greater choice of difficulties & less the means of extricating himself than I have--However under a full perswation of the justice of our Cause I cannot but think the prospect will brighten." Washington's optimism was justified by his subsequent actions. His daring counterstrokes against a Hessian brigade at Trenton on 27 December and a British detachment at Princeton on 3 January not only reversed the strategic situation but also turned the tide of political defection that had theatened to engulf the middle states.

599 pages • 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 cloth • 1996
ISBN 0-8139-1648-8 • $85.00
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Volume 8: January-March 1777

Edited by Philander D. Chase

Volume 8 documents Washington's first winter at Morristown. Situated in the hills of north central New Jersey, Morristown offered protection against the British army headquarters in New York City yet enabled Washington to annoy the principal enemy outposts at Newark, Perth Amboy, and New Brunswick. To discover Howe's intentions for the next campaign, Washington refined his intelligence-gathering network in New Jersey and New York during the winter months and kept a watchful, if distant, eye on the British armies in Rhode Island and Canada.

Most of the remainder of Washington's time and efforts were directed toward the reorganization of the continental army, which dwindled away rapidly following the victories at Trenton and Princeton. Unwilling to face the usual hardships of winter or the dangers of a new outbreak of smallpox, many men returned home when their enlistments expired. Desertion also rose dramatically, and Washington was reluctantly forced to depend upon militia. By mid-March Washington's army in New Jersey numbered only about 4,000 troops, nearly two-thirds of which were militia enlisted only to the end of the month.

Other important matters demanding Washington's attention included the reorganization of the hospital department and the creation of new hospitals, the reorganization of the commissary and clothier generals departments, the appointment of a wagonmaster, the establishment and placement of a new "Magazine, Laboratories, & Foundery for casting Cannon &c.," and continuing negotiations with the British on prisoner exchanges. The volume closes in late March with the good news that a much-anticipated shipment of arms, ammunition, and cloth had arrived from France for the Continental army.

768 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth • 1998
ISBN 0-8139-1787-5 • $85.00
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Volume 9: March-June 1777

Edited by Philander D. Chase

Volume 9 covers the spring of 1777, a period when Washington's resourcefulness and perseverance were tested as much as at any time during the war. Instead of opening the new campaign by taking the field with a reinvigorated Continental army as planned, Washington was obliged to spend much of his time pleading with state authorities to fill their recruiting quotas and with officers to bring in the men whom they had enlisted. He was further hampered by a high desertion rate, which he blamed on the failure of many officers to pay their men regularly.

Painfully aware of the weakness of his army, Washington was puzzled but relieved that General Howe did not launch a major offensive during the spring. Although British raids on Peekskill, N.Y., Boundbrook, N.J., and Danbury, Conn., stirred local fears,Washington remained focused on the larger threat posed by Howe's forces. Employing a network of spies, Washington attempted to discover whether Howe planned to attack the strategically important Hudson highlands or politically important Philadelphia, and if the latter, whether he intended to move by land or sea. Believing that Philadelphia would be Howe's target but unable to prove it, Washington concentrated most of his forces at Middlebrook, N.J., in late May, in order to be able to move rapidly north or south as events dictated.

Unhappy officers added to Washington's woes with complaints of ill treatment and threats to resign. "It seems to me," Washington wrote John Hancock in April, "as if all public Spirit was sunk into the means of making money by the Service, or quarrelling upon the most trivial points of rank." Foreign officers, who arrived in unprecedented numbers, were the most troublesome. Often unable to speak English and having little attachment to the American cause, they demanded extravagant ranks and pay that could not be granted without disrupting and demoralizing the Continental officer corps. "The management of this matter," Washington wrote Richard Henry Lee in May, "is a delicate point. . . . In the mean while I am Haunted and teazed to death by the importunity of some & dissatisfaction of others."

720 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth • 1998
ISBN 0-8139-1825-1• $85.00
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Volume 10: June-August 1777

Volume 10 of the Revolutionary War Series opens with Washington headquartered at the Continental army's encampment at Middlebrook, New Jersey, about seven miles northeast of New Brunswick, the location of the main British force under General William Howe. From this strategic vantage point in the Watchung Mountains, Washington could survey the country between Perth Amboy and New Brunswick while keeping an eye on the road to Philadelphia. Here he weighed contradictory intelligence reports. "The views of the Enemy," surmised Washington, "must be to give a severe blow to this Army and to get possession of Philada. Both are objects of importance; but the former of far the greatest—while we have a respectable force in the field, every acquisition of territory they may make will be precarious and perhaps burthensome." Washington also considered the possibility that Howe might attempt torendezvous his army with General Burgoyne's, thought to be en route fromQuebec to Albany by way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.

For his part, Howe, whose army outnumbered the Americans by a margin of more than two to one, hoped to lure Washington away from his defensive positions and force a general engagement. When a series of British maneuvers in late June failed to bring on the desired fight, Howe evacuated his army from New Jersey to Staten Island, leaving Washington completely in the dark as to the enemy's next move and keenly aware of "the great advantage they derive from their navy." Although Howe had abandoned the idea of attacking the main Continental army, from his new disposition the British commander easily could join with Burgoyne via the Hudson, move upon Philadelphia by way of the Delaware River or the Chesapeake Bay, sail farther south into Virginia or to Charleston, South Carolina, or sail northward and invade one of the New England states.

Washington's repositioned his army back at its old camp at Morristown, where it could better assist the American troops at Peekskill, New York, if Howe moved up the Hudson and yet still interfere with any British designs upon Philadelphia. Although surveillance reports revealed that the British were preparing for "a longer Voyage than up the North River," the British capture of Ticonderoga, New York, convinced Washington that Howe would take the northern route, and he swiftly marched the Continental army into New York state, where it remained until it became clear that the British fleet had gone out to sea. Washington then returned to New Jersey, where he made preparations for the defense of Philadelphia, but with several critical weeks of the summer campaign already passed, he confessed his puzzlement at his foe's decision to sail south.

718 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth • 2000
ISBN 0-8139-1901-0 • $85.00


Volume 11: August-October 1777

Edited by Philander D. Chase and Edward G. Lengel

Volume 11 of the Revolutionary War Series contains correspondence, orders, and other documents covering one of the most militarily active periods of the war. The volume begins with Washington's army camped about twenty miles north of Philadelphia. Having planned to march toward the Hudson River to engage General John Burgoyne's northern expedition, Washington had to change course when scouts sighted the British fleet carrying General William Howe's army in the Chesapeake Bay on 22 August. Three days later Washington's troops were at Wilmington, Delaware, when Howe's army began landing at the head of the bay. Having personally led reconnaissance parties quite close to British lines, Washington then positioned his army on Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania to halt Howe's subsequent march to Philadelphia, but on 11 September the Americans suffered a nearly disastrous defeat. After another American attempt to stop the advancing British was frustrated by a fierce rainstorm, Howe skillfully outmaneuvered Washington before turning to Philadelphia, taking possession on 26 September as Congress fled the city.

Washington still hoped to reverse Howe's apparent victory, but his attack on British positions at Germantown, Pennsylvania, on 4 October was hampered by his complicated plan of attack, battlefield confusion, and stout British resistance, which combined to defeat the Americans. No longer able to come to grips with Howe's main army, Washington turned his attention to blocking passage of the Delaware River to prevent supplies from reaching the British in Philadelphia. American hopes of recapturing Philadelphia looked dim.

730 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth • 2001
ISBN 0-8139-2026-4 • $85.00


Volume 12: October-December 1777

Edited by Frank E. Grizzard Jr.

Volume 12 of the Revolutionary War Series documents Washington's unsuccessful efforts to capitalize on the American victory at Saratoga and his decision to encamp the Continental army for the winter at Valley Forge. The volume opens with the British forces at Philadelphia, where they had returned following the Battle of Germantown, and the Continental army, in Washington's words, "hovering round them, to distress and retard their operations as much as possible." Recognizing the importance of restricting communication between General William Howe and the British fleet, Washington dispatched a brigade to New Jersey to assist in the defense of Forts Mifflin and Mercer, key components in the American effort to obstruct the Delaware River.

Upon receiving news of the surrender of British general John Burgoyne's army to Major General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, Washington called a council of war to consider his army's options. Although his generals advised against an immediate assault on Philadelphia, Washington perceived an opportunity to defeat Howe and dispatched his aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton to the northern department to urge upon General Gates the "absolute necessity" of sending a "very considerable" reinforcement to the main army. If those troops arrived before the British could open a supply route on the Delaware or be reinforced from New York, then the American forces could "in all probability reduce Genl Howe to the same situation in which Genl Burgoine now is." There was little further that Washington could do to strengthen the Delaware River defenses, however, and despite the determined efforts of Fort Mifflin's defenders, the Americans were forced to evacuate the fort in mid-November following a sustained bombardment from British land and naval artillery. Moreover, British and Hessian troops from New York arrived before Washington's reinforcement and joined in the British occupation of Fort Mercer a few days later.

After the fall of the Delaware River forts, Washington and his generals began extensive deliberations about the related questions of a possible winter campaign and where to quarter the troops for the winter. The generals were nearly unanimous that a winter campaign was not feasible, but they were divided between quartering the troops at Wilmington, Delaware, or in Pennsylvania along a line from Bethlehem to Lancaster. Washington settled on the third option discussed: hutting in the Great Valley of Pennsylvania. Consequently, the volume closes in December with Washington establishing his headquarters at Valley Forge, about twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia. Valley Forge provided the army with an adequate defensive position to guard against a British surprise attack, the ability to limit British depredations in Pennsylvania, and a base to cover Lancaster and York, where the Pennsylvania state government and the Continental Congress, respectively, had moved after the evacuation of Philadelphia.

Other subjects arising in the correspondence include Thomas Conway's reputedly disparaging letter to Gates about Washington; a variety of army reforms embracing reorganization of the cavalry, the establishment of a maréchaussée, or provost corps, and the improvement of the lot of the officers and enlisted men; and a purported British peace proposal. Private correspondence discusses Mount Vernon and Washington's other landholdings.

768 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth • 2002
ISBN 0-8139-2077-9• $85.00


Volume 13: December 1777-February 1778

Volume 13 of the Revolutionary War Series documents a crucial portion of the winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, when the fate of Washington’s army hung in the balance. The volume begins with Washington’s soldiers hard at work erecting log huts to the general’s specifications and building a bridge over the Schuylkill River under the direction of Major General John Sullivan. Most of the fighting that characterized the bloody year of 1777 had drawn to a close by Christmas, and although British foraging and raiding parties ventured out of Philadelphia from time to time, Washington’s priority was no longer to fight General William Howe but to preserve his own army and prepare it for the next campaign.

The American army was badly in need of reform. Attrition and ineffective recruitment had left most of the Continental regiments dangerously weak, and the rising pace of officer resignations made apparent the need for an equitable pay and pensionary establishment. At the same time the battle losses of the previous summer and autumn had exposed severe problems in military organization, drill, and discipline. Washington hoped that a congressional camp committee would rectify some of these problems, and after consulting his officers on army organization, he submitted to the committee one of the longest, most detailed, and most thoughtful letters he ever wrote. The arrival in camp of a Prussian volunteer who styled himself the Baron von Steuben, meanwhile, promised to bring about improvements in drill and discipline. Washington also had to look to his own authority, as a dispute with Major Generals Thomas Conway and Horatio Gates seemingly threatened to undermine his command of the Continental army.

The turning point of the Valley Forge encampment came in February 1778, when a provision shortage led to what Washington called a “fatal crisis” that threatened the continued existence of the army. Poor management of the commissary department and a breakdown of transport, resulting from bad weather and an insufficiency of wagons, combined to bring about a logistical collapse that brought provision supplies almost to a halt. For many days bread was scarce and meat almost nonexistent. Soldiers, many dressed literally in rags because of the incompetence of the clothier general, threatened mutiny. Washington’s efforts to save his army in this crisis mark one of the highest points of his military career and make up an important part of this volume.

832 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
$75.00 S • cloth
ISBN 0-8139-2220-8


Volume 14: March-April 1778


Volume 14 of the Revolutionary War Series opens in March 1778 with Washington praising his troops for their "uncomplaining Patience" at Valley Forge. By late April, he is ready to consult his generals about his upcoming camapaign, and whether it is best to attempt to drive the British from Philadelphia by assualt or siege, to shift the campaign with a strike against New York City, or remain in camp drilling the Army until the British took the field.

832 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
$85.00 S • cloth
ISBN 0-8139-2282-8


Volume 15: May-June 1778

Volume 15 of the Revolutionary War Series documents a period that includes the Continental Army’s last weeks at Valley Forge, the British evacuation of Philadelphia, and the Battle of Monmouth Court House. The volume begins with George Washington’s army at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, celebrating the new alliance between the United States and France.

832 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
3 maps
$85.00 S • cloth
ISBN 0-8139-2522-3


Volume 16: July-September 1778

 

Volume 16 documents a time of unusual optimism for Washington and his army. Following the great victoiry at the Battle of Monmouth, Wasington received the welcome news that a French flet had arrived in American waters. Understanding the advantages usually afforded to the Britsh army by their control of the seas, Washington looked to deliver a decisive blow that might end the war.

800 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
3 maps
$85.00 S • cloth
ISBN 978-0-8139-2579-0

Volume 17: 15 September-31 October 1778

 

Although Washington could not foresee in October 1778 that the British would soon try their hand at conquering the southern states and that the war would last another five years, he sensed that the British Ministry still had both the financial means and the political will to continue the struggle. Ever a realist, Washington recognized that American victory would not come cheaply in what had become a war of attrition as well as an international conflict involving North American, European, and Caribbean theaters. As he had done since 1775, Washington was once more adjusting his thoughts to meet new realities on the long road to American independence.

784 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
$85.00 S • cloth
ISBN 978-0-8139-2684-1

   

Volume 18: 1 November 1778-14 January 1779

 

Volume 18 of the Revolutionary War Series covers the period 1 November 1778 through 14 January 1779. It begins with George Washington at Fredericksburg, New York, watching New York City for signs that the British were about to evacuate North America. The British had very different intentions, however, dispatching the first of several amphibious expeditions to invade and conquer the Deep South.

784 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
$85.00 S • cloth
ISBN 978-0-8139-2721-3

 

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The Papers of George Washington:

"Thoughts of Home: General Washington Kept a Picture of Mount Vernon in His Mind's Eye During the Revolutionary War," by Philander D. Chase

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Volume 1: ISBN 0-8139-1040-4 • $85.00
Volume 2: ISBN 0-8139-1102-8 • $85.00
Volume 3: ISBN 0-8139-1167-2 • $85.00
Volume 4: ISBN 0-8139-1307-1 • $85.00
Volume 5: ISBN 0-8139-1447-7 • $85.00
Volume 6: ISBN 0-8139-1538-4 • $85.00
Volume 7: ISBN 0-8139-1648-8 • $85.00
Volume 8: ISBN 0-8139-1787-5 • $85.00
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Volume 11: ISBN 0-8139-2026-4 • $85.00
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Volume 18: ISBN 978-0-8139-2721-3 • $85.00
  http://www.upress.virginia.edu/pgw_rev.html
  Revised 12/3/07