Justice before obedience

The story, from several sources

This account blends Rothbard’s chapter with the other sources listed below and has not yet been separated into Rothbard’s own account and the fuller story. Read Rothbard’s chapter 49 for his account.

By the winter of 1780, the Continental Army was falling apart. Congress had printed paper money until it was nearly worthless, and the soldiers were paid in it, when they were paid at all, and the states’ price controls only shut off supplies. The Pennsylvania Line, camped in log huts at Morristown, had enlisted for three years, and the officers insisted they stay until the war ended. On the night of New Year’s Day 1781, the men turned out under arms, seized the artillery and left. One officer was killed and two wounded. Six regiments, Rothbard says, set out under Sergeant William Bonzar to march on Congress with their demands for discharge and back pay. Congress sent a committee under Joseph Reed to Princeton and gave way. Everyone who had served three years was discharged and the arrears paid, with an allowance for the paper dollar’s fall. General Clinton sent two emissaries to offer the mutineers pardon and British pay, and they handed the men over to Wayne, who hanged them as spies. Offered a gold reward for their fidelity, Bonzar said the men were not entitled to any other reward but the love of their country. When New Jersey regiments tried the same, Washington crushed them and had two men shot.