viii Introduction.

Maryland Archives. Here indeed is a tale of purpose strongly and patiently
held. The military story of the struggle, glorious as it is in many respects,
is actually less interesting in the pondering than this day by day record of
recruiting with a " small Bounty & the want of Music "; of keeping in the
field of action men who wanted to be in the wheat field, where indeed they were
equally needed; of purchasing food and clothing and supplies without money
or credit; of guarding against the effects of blockade, against treachery or
open enmity, and worst of all, against that indifference to the outcome which
for various reasons infected the people of the whole country. In reading such
collections of documents as this, one realizes anew that wars are fought and
won in the council chamber; the victory of the troops in the field is but a seal
put upon the more fundamental victory that has previously occurred, an out-
ward and visible sign of the spiritual grace to which the people behind the
armies have attained.

In this particular struggle Maryland was putting forth efforts of self denial
that resulted in good things for the nation. " It is vain to veil our situation,
the Army must disband, unless other states will do as Maryland has done,"
John Henry, Jr., writes to the Governor from Congress, and the reference is
not to that singularly effective service the Maryland troops were performing
in the field but to the unremitting and successful efforts the State was making
to supply the army with the flour, beef, pork, clothing and arms that were its
essentials of existence. An act of Assembly of November, 1779, had provided
for the seizure of food stuffs for the army and for the payment of tax assess-
ments in kind or in the certificates of seizure given the producer by the commis-
sioners, and acts of the same tenor in 1780 and 1781 had resulted in a success
not less notable than the internal bitterness the system inevitably produced.

Only the hand and intelligence of the late editor of the Archives of Maryland
could have analyzed succinctly this mass of material, and that statement brings
us to a consideration of the service of Bernard Christian Steiner as editor of
this series. It was in this task that his knowledge of events in the history of
his native state, as shown in his numerous writings on the subject, and his
knowledge of the sources upon which that history is based found their finest
exposition. To this peculiar comprehension of the material, he added a degree
of industry almost alarming to the man of ordinary habits, a determination to
complete a task once assumed and a passion for the particular work in hand
that made him an ideal editor of archival material. A trained investigator,
he understood the importance of comparing documents, of checking manuscript
by printed sources and of avoiding repetition by the use of cross reference.
In the handling of masses of printer's copy, the mere carpenter work of paste