Revolutionary War Veterans

In 1783 William Alld was discharged from the Continental Army. The eight-year war, the longest in American history until the Vietnam War, was over. Like thousands of other veterans of the Revolutionary War, Alld made his way home alone. No parade, no public homecoming ceremony welcomed the veteran when he arrived at his father's house in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The country had tired of the long and costly war. Veterans like Alld received no benefits. These men were soon forgotten by the country they had liberated from Britain's empire. Proud veterans felt betrayed by the nation's ingratitude.

The United States neglected its veterans because Americans were hostile toward regular armies. The lessons of history taught by Rome's Caesar and England's Cromwell were well known in Colonial America: generals used their armies to impose tyranny. Colonial experience with Britain also taught that regular armies were corrupt and dangerous because they were filled with mercenaries, men hired or forced into military service. Britain's soldiers were the dregs of society: uneducated, crude, and lawless, they preyed upon defenseless civilians.

Although British officers came from the upper classes, Americans viewed them as more dangerous than the British rank and file. Officers were notorious for their ambition and their willingness to use the army to extort payments and privileges from civilians and their governments. In King George's War (1744–1748) and the French and Indian War (1754–1763), British officers confirmed American hostility toward regular armies. They antagonized Colonial Americans with their aristocratic behavior and their conviction that the militia were rabble in need of the lash to discipline them into fighting men.

In contrast to Britain's troops, Americans viewed themselves as citizen-soldiers. They treated military service as a form of voluntary, temporary employment in which soldiers retained their civil rights. When enlisting, Americans expected to be paid bounties in cash and land. Militiamen served short enlistments under officers who often were elected and who used persuasion rather than harsh discipline to lead troops. Soldiers had the right to return home when their enlistments expired even if in the middle of a campaign. Veterans resumed their place in society as ordinary citizens without additional rewards.

When the Revolution began in 1775, Americans believed that the war would be fought by its militia, that the war would be short, and that the natural courage of poorly trained citizen-soldiers would defeat harshly disciplined Britain regulars. British use of hired German troops reinforced American anti-army sentiment and reliance upon its militia. In 1777, however, because of defeats and the prospect of a long war, America created a regular army to win independence.

The Continental Army under George Washington recruited men for long enlistments and subjected them to discipline borrowed from European armies. Although they needed a regular army to fight the British, Americans retained their fear of it as a threat to civilian authority and liberty. Congress kept the army weak, undermanned, and undersupplied to prevent it from turning on its own government but strong enough to stalemate British forces. Despite the crucial role of the army, Americans lavished their praised on the militia and the patriotic people for winning independence. Anti-army sentiment shaped the Revolutionary generation's account of the war, which undervalued the Continental Army and overlooked veterans such as William Alld. That sentiment led to public rejection of the Society of Cincinnati, a hereditary organization formed by officers of the Continental Army—including Washington himself—because it was viewed as elitist and aristocratic.

Within forty years of independence a new generation changed how Americans viewed the Continental Army and its veterans. By 1825 the army, more than the militia, was credited with winning independence. The Continental Army, rather than being viewed as dangerous misfits led by ambitious and greedy officers, was celebrated as an army of patriotic warriors. Its veterans were regarded as idols rather than outcasts. No longer shunned, veterans became models of American character to be emulated by the younger generation.

This elevation of veterans to heroes and model citizens came about during the troubled period leading to the War of 1812. Americans needed heroes to unite a nation divided by slavery, partisan politics, sectionalism, and conflicts over foreign policy. Histories of the Revolution written at the turn of the nineteenth century helped to make Continental soldiers models of patriotism and courage. They praised soldiers for their devotion to liberty. Valley Forge, which Americans had all but forgotten, became a symbol of the soldiers' heroism and suffering in the accounts of the camp's hardships vividly portrayed by bloody footprints in the frozen snow.

The War of 1812 also required heroes. To arouse patriotism and unify a nation divided by war, Fourth of July orators celebrated Revolutionary War veterans for achievements that were regarded as surpassing those of mythical Greek warriors. In 1813, Port Folio, a national magazine, assured its readers that tributes to America's veterans would form a "new moral bond" that would unify the county. After the war, an outpouring of nationalism added to the stature of veterans. In Fourth of July speeches and newspapers, American were told that they should never forget the nation's gratitude owed its Revolutionary War veterans. The deaths of aging soldiers spurred the public to honor their memory in art, poetry, books, and monuments. In 1818 Congress approved service pensions to aid and reward Continental Army veterans.

In the early nineteenth century a new generation of Americans rewrote the history of the Revolutionary War. Rather than seeing the army as a necessary evil and as a threat to liberty, they idealized the soldiers as patriots and citizen-soldiers who deserved the nation's honor and gratitude. This younger generation treated veterans as models of national character and patriotism. The nation erected monuments to their glory and memorialized their achievements in art and literature to unite the country and to inspire future generations. Not only did Americans elevate the status of veterans as icons, they also set the precedent in public policy that continues today. By 1834 military pensions expanded to include militia and widows of veterans. This new way of remembering the Revolutionary War, through celebrations of its once maligned Continental Army and the honors, gratitude, and benefits bestowed upon its veterans, left a lasting imprint on the nation.

Lafayette's Tour; Memory and Early Histories of the Revolution; Valley Forge; Veterans' Benefits.

Resch, John. Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.

Royster, Charles. A Revolutionary People at War. New York: Norton, 1979.