George Washington's Enforcers: Policing the Continental Army

A well-disciplined army was vital to win American independence, but policing soldiers during the Revolution presented challenges. "George Washington's Enforcers: Policing the Continental Army" examines how justice was left to the overlapping duties of special army personnel and how an improvised police force imposed rules and regulations on the common soldier. Historian Harry M. Ward describes these methods of police enforcement, emphasizing the brutality experienced by the enlisted men who were punished severely for even light transgressions. This volume explores the influences that shaped army practice and the quality of the soldiery, the enforcement of military justice, the use of guards as military police, and the application of punishment. Washington's army, which adopted the organization and justice code of the British army, labored under the direction of ill-trained and arrogant officers. Ward relates how the enlisted men, who had a propensity for troublemaking and desertion, not only were victims of the double standard that existed between officers and regular troops, but also lacked legal protection in the army. The enforcement of military justice afforded the accused with little due process support. Ward discusses the duties of the various personnel responsible for training and enforcing the standards of behavior. He includes the roles of life guards, camp guards, quarter guards, picket men, and safe guards, whose responsibilities ranged from escorting the commander in chief, intercepting spies and stragglers, and protecting farmers from marauding soldiers to searching for deserters, rounding up unauthorized personnel, and looking for delinquents in local towns and taverns. "George Washington's Enforcer"s, which includes sixteen illustrations, also addresses the executions of the period, as both ritual and spectacle, and the deterrent value of capital punishment. Ward explains how Washington himself mixed clemency with severity and examines how army policies tested the mettle of this chief disciplinarian, who operated by the dictates of military necessity as perceived by the time.

About the Author :
Harry M. Ward, William Binford Vest Professor of History Emeritus, at the University of Richmond, is the author of fifteen books, including Major General Adam Stephen and the Cause of American Liberty, Between the Lines: Banditti of the American Revolution, and The American Revolution: Nationhood Achieved, 1763-1788.

Review :
When he asked Congress for a "respectable army," George Washington had in mind an army on the European professional model. That also meant an army with the behavior norms of an Old World military, and many careful studies have addressed aspects of soldierly conduct and military justice in­herent in Washington's efforts to discipline his Continentals. But scholarship has said relatively little about the men who actually enforced discipline in Washington's army-that is, about the soldiers directly concerned with the policing and punishment of their comrades in arms. In George Washington's Enforcers: Policing the Continental Army, Harry M. Ward has offered the first comprehensive treatment of the troops who were, in effect, the republic's first military police. Responsibilities for army policing fell to no single military command. Rather, a broad assortment of duty officers, camp guards, quarter guards, pickets, adjutants, brigade majors, provost marshals, guards in the retinues of senior officers (including Washington's Life Guards), and even musicians, who often doubled as floggers, all shared aspects of police work. Jurisdictions often overlapped, and so many troops were involved that there was plenty of grousing over just who was supposed to be doing what. But Ward does an admirable job of sorting out the duties of those engaged in military policing and of pointing out the scope of the effort. At any given time the Continentals probably devoted a quarter of their strength to providing security against the enemy, policing camp order and behavior, catching spies and stragglers, pre­venting desertions, meting out discipline, dealing with truculent soldiers, and similar tasks. Policing the army was no mean feat. By 1778 problems of army discipline were such that Congress authorized a mounted Maréchaussée Corps of some sixty men, tasked specifically with military police duties. Washington always hoped for the best from them, but he never got it. Indeed, the Maréchaussée were unpopular. The often barbaric army punishments fell almost exclusively on the enlisted ranks (a point Ward emphasizes), and they resented anyone directly connected with the enforce­ment of military justice. Moreover, Maréchaussée duties sometimes over­lapped those of Washington's Life Guards, and bad blood arose between the units. In the end, as Ward correctly observes, the Maréchaussée ended up as little more than an "unusual experiment," and military policing never suc­cessfully became a discrete command during the Revolution (p. 153). Ward's study is grounded in impeccable scholarship and a mastery of the secondary literature. He also has mined the primary sources thoroughly, dig­ging out details of day-to-day camp policing from the papers of officers tasked with the duty and, in many cases, from the recorded observations of soldiers who witnessedpunishments given to comrades. It can make for grim reading. See page 192, for instance, for troops' reaction to the hanging of one of their own: they stoned the executioner and officers who tried to restore order. Ward has written a fine book, and while one hesitates to label any history definitive, George Washington's Enforcers certainly will stand for some time as the final word on this important but often overlooked subject. --Mark Edward Lender "The Journal of Southern History" (10/2/2008 12:00:00 AM) Harry M. Ward examines military justice in the Continental army and the troops who enforced it. He is particularly interested in the experiences of enlisted men. Ward finds that the Continental army was similar to eighteenth-century European armies in its emphasis on strict discipline and use of brutal punishments. However, the revolutionaries experimented with various means of policing the army. Ward shows that most troops per­forming police functions temporarily rotated to this duty from other units. As a result, the revolutionaries did not create significant pro­fessional military police forces. Ward also ar­gues that punishment in the American army was slightly more humane than in the British military system" (p. xi). The book begins with several contextual chapters. Ward surveys the late colonial expe­rience with military discipline. He then briefly profiles the social composition of Continental troops and offers an overview of revolutionary military justice policies. The heart of the analy­sis unfolds as Ward explains the development of police roles for George Washington's Life Guard, the Maréchaussée Corps (a mount­ed military police force), camp guards, fifers, drummers, the provost marshal, and others. Additional chapters focus on soldiers' experi­ence of the enforcement of military discipline during marches, corporal punishment, and ex­ecutions. Ward notes throughout how bodily punishment for infractions was meted out to enlisted men and how officers largely presided over it. This is a very valuable and comprehensive history of police roles within the Continental army. It will be a useful reference tool for early American and military historians. Ward casts new light on courts-martial records. While re­cent historians have previously addressed the experience of military justice during the Rev­olution, this work explicates the development of policies governing discipline and specifies who executed them. Additionally, the book of­fers several important comparisons. It shows the similarities of harsh discipline in the Continental and British armies. Ward notes that such brutalities were based on history and on prevailing norms that endorsed treating sol­diers as the dregs of society. The author dem­onstrates that the more humane treatment American forces enjoyed was the result of the political realities of the revolutionary situa­tion: short-term enlistments and traditional aversion to the full brutality of the British sys­tem. Ward also probes the disparity between the punishments of officers and soldiers. A fuller analysis of how officers were disciplined would have enhanced this contrast. Another connection that Ward might have developed more completely is the relationship between military justice and Anglo-American criminal law. Finally, the book's evidence suggests some intriguing racial issues entwined with polic­ing the army. Col. Henry Emanuel Lutterloh of the Marechaussee Corps proposed "4 Ne­groes to performe the Executions, as White­men would not do as well" (p. 142). Ward else­where explains that in 1780, several 'refugee negroes' were impressed into the role of hang­man" (p. 191). It would be worthwhile to ex­plore the possible relationship between Lutter­loh's presumptions and the subsequent use of African American executioners. Nonetheless, Ward has written a deeply researched, infor­mative, and insightful account of policing the revolutionary army. --Gregory T. Knouff "The Journal of American History" (12/1/2006 12:00:00 AM) Harry Ward is an esteemed historian of the Revolutionary War. He has written exceptionally good biographies of four Continental army gener­als, a book on the banditti in the no-man's-land between the rival armies, and a general history of the American Revolution. Now Ward, a professor emeritus at the University of Richmond, has turned his attention to a ne­glected subject. Though he focuses on how the American army was policedin the Revolutionary War, in reality;George Washington's Enforcers is aboutfar more than policing the Continental army. It offers valuable insights into the lives of those soldiered. In the fall of 1777, just before the army marched into Valley Forge, the Continental Congress sent a committee to meet with General Wash­ington in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. Congress had many things on its mind, but it was especially interested in improving discipline within the army. Allegations were flying inside and outside of Congress that autumn that Washington's army behaved like a mob. In contrast, some also alleged, the army in the Northern Department, commanded by General Horatio Gates, was the very model of what an army should be. Indeed, Gates's army had just defeated and captured an entire British army at Saratoga, while Washington had unsuccessfully defended Philadelphia against another British army. Congress put Washington on notice to make changes in his , army. Washington got the message, and the army that emerged from Valley Forge six months later was strikingly different.Keeping discipline in the army was essential for numerous reasons, including protecting health and safeguarding nearby civilians. It was crucial as well that the soldiers learn to follow orders, so that in the heat of battle they would do as they were told. Ward explains the military justice system in detail, showing how it grew more draconian as the war progressed. Under the initial Articles of War there were only two capital crimes, but fourteen others had been added by the end of 1776. Ward estimates that up to one hundred Continental soldiers were sent to the gallows or before firing squads. At the outset of the war, the military code permitted courts-martial to or­der up to thirty-nine lashes for certain acts; after one year, punishments of one hundred lashes were authorized, and for a wider range of infractions. Corporal punishment occurred almost daily in the Continental army and included many gruesome practices that today would be seen as cruel and unusual. Ward chronicles the various types of guard duty that existed, includ­ing protecting officers, securing the camp, and patrolling detached areas toprevent spying, hunting down deserters, and overseeing commerce between civilians and soldiers. The number of guard officers grew to scandalous proportions. At times, more than 5 percent of the soldiery were assigned to the personal guard units that protected battalion and regimental com­manders. Ward devotes a chapter to the Maréchaussée Corps, a mounted police unit that was responsible, among other things, for guarding prisoners and carrying out executions. Soldiering and warfare is often scorned in academic circles. It should not be, and particularly in regard to the War of Independence. At least a quarter of the free adult males of military age soldiered in that war, severaltimes the percentage that served in the American armed forces in World WarII. What Ward has done in his exceptionally well-written book is to open awindow onto the world of those men who served in the Continental army, by showing how they lived, what they experienced, and the discipline and hardships they endured. This is at once an excellent history of the Conti­nental army and wonderful social history. --John Ferling "West Virginia History" (10/2/2008 12:00:00 AM) In 16 largely stand-alone chapters, Ward (emer., Univ. of Richmond) argues that while the often-brutal punishments (ranging from hundreds of lashes to executions) inflicted under Washington proved inadequate as a deterrent, his efforts nonetheless fostered professionalism among the Continental Army's ranks. Further, Ward argues, the disciplining and controlling of the army reflected the norms of early American society itself, in that the enlisted/lower ranks invariably received higher rates of conviction and severer punishments for transgressions than the genteel officers, and they were generally treated similarly to the enslaved Americans of the era. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the work is its clear, concise, detailed description of the various--and occasionally overlapping layers of enforcement that Washington (ironically) adopted and adapted, primarily from the British Army. Washington emerges as a pragmatic disciplinarian who, while trying to fight a war, had his hands full in trying to professionalize and retain the oft transient and easily distracted troops. Rooted in primary sources and comprehensive in nature, Ward's work will certainly be a boon to anyone interested in the intricacies of the Continental Army--although the absence of the Newburgh Conspiracy in such a work is curious. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries. --M.D. Bergmann "CHOICE" (10/2/2008 12:00:00 AM) "Harry Ward has labored for over four decades to expand our understanding of how armed forces were used in the Revolutionary era. George Washington's Enforcers offers new perspectives on how military discipline was established and maintained in the Continental Army, an achievement that was a key element in turning American soldiers into an effective army. Ward provides a thorough account and examines the problems and personalities with insight and sympathy." --Harold E. Selesky, author of War and Society in Colonial Connecticut and Demographic Survey of the Continental Army at Valley Forge "George Washington's Enforcers comprehensively treats a subject that has been largely omitted from the literature on the War of Independence. Harry M. Ward illustrates how Washington's efforts, with the backing of Congress, created an infrastructure that kept men from deserting in considerable numbers and made them follow prescribed forms of obedience. Few, if any, historians know the literature of the Revolution as well as Ward."--R. Don Higginbotham, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill