Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/52

 Washington succeeded in stopping the rout for a minute, until a squad of 60 or 70 redcoats appeared in the distance. Then the panic-stricken militia bolted away from their Commander-in-Chief and hustled hot-foot through the woods without even remembering that they carried guns.

A standing army might have stood, but the running militia didn’t. They got started, and kept going, going, gone—never halting this side of home. They deserted Washington by companies, by half regiments, almost by whole regiments. On account of their lack of discipline and refusal to submit to any kind of restraint, Father at this time admitted that he had lost confidence in the generality of his troops. As a result of which the British occupied the City of New York.

Washington immediately wrote to Congress that “our liberties must be greatly handicapped, if not entirely lost, if their defense is left to anything but a permanent standing army. I mean, one to exist during the war.”