It has been 245 years today since the "mutiny of the Pennsylvanian line," an important though now often overlooked moment in the history of our war for independence.
It happened on the first day for a new year, 1781. The year would eventually see Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown and the effective end of the war, but that was not obvious on the first of its days.
The "Pennsylvania line," the human contribution of the state of Pennsylvania to the fighting of the war, had hundreds of soldiers who had signed up three years before under contracts in which they offered their service for "three years or during the war." The wording was ambiguous. Did it mean they were enlisted until the first-to-occur of the elapse of three years or the end of the war? or the later-to-occur?
Three years having passed, many of the soldiers took the view that they had completed their obligation. Their officers took the view that they were in for the duration.
On this day, then, 245 years ago about 15 hundred soldiers at Morristown seized weapons and supplies with the expectation apparently of creating their own fighting force which could then dissolve itself. Three officers were killed in the confusion of that day.
The outcome was surprisingly successful for the mutineers. Under the Articles of Confederation they were Pennsylvania's problem, and the Pennsylvanian government agreed to negotiate. By the end of January many of the soldiers had been discharged, others had re-enlisted on improved terms. Nobody was punished for those three deaths in the original melee.
General Washington was furious about the success of mutineers and feared that it would inspire imitation. (It did, but he was allowed to treat the imitators more harshly -- no state government intervening). The incident may have pushed Washington into recognizing the need for a stronger central government, with full responsibility for the armed defense of the emerging nation-state. In other words, it set the stage for a constitutional convention.
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