Papers of George Washington : 1 January?6 March 1781

This volume 30 of the Revolutionary War series opens in January 1781 with a mutiny in the Continental army’s Pennsylvania regiments, presenting Gen. George Washington with one of the most formidable crises of the war. Although a negotiated settlement resolved the problem, he feared the implications for discipline in the rest of the army. Washington’s concerns were well founded, as news reached him that the New Jersey troops had followed suit. He sent a detachment of New England troops to put down the rebellion. In the meantime, a coastal storm that damaged British ships offered Washington an opportunity to defeat and capture Benedict Arnold, now in command of British and Loyalist troops in Virginia. The subsequent joint naval and land offensive with the French shifted the main theater of war from New York to the southern states, foreshadowing the coming campaign of Yorktown.