The Lesson of Newburgh

Two hundred and forty years ago this week, a group of officers of the Continental Army gathered in Newburgh, New York. The officers—relatively youthful men, many of them with their professional lives still ahead—had fought for seven years against the military might of the British Empire. On the Virginia Peninsula a year and a half earlier, they defeated Earl Cornwallis and his army at the Battle of Yorktown. Their fame spread across the world. Now forever a part of one of the great fighting forces of the age, the men of the Continental Army might have met in Newburgh to celebrate their exploits.