The Balance Sheet of Disaster
ion, by main strength and awkwardness, we managed to stumble through the Revolution to a successful if not a triumphant conclusion. It was the French, however, who finally achieved our independence, and we can never repay them.
We could not have won without the French. After eight years of fighting for freedom, eight years of Washington’s begging and pleading, we now had about one-third the number of men with which we had begun the war. It means something more: Altogether we had employed near 400,000. Eliminating possible killed and wounded, it means that many thousands of the volunteers who began fighting simply got tired and quit—with their bounties, perhaps more than 300,000 of them. Think of that, 300,000 soldiers of the young republic who had once been under arms, had now quietly retired to their homes because they were willing to fight no longer.
[53]
