The Liberty Archive FREECAPITALISTS.ORG

Illustrated Episode · Volume IV, chapter 8 · 10 September 1775

Ground your arms

On a wooded hill a tall rider in a blue coat holds out a hand to frontiersmen in pale fringed hunting frocks, who lower long rifles to the ground, while a ring of infantry with fixed bayonets surrounds them.
Near Cambridge, September 10, 1775. Thirty-two Pennsylvania riflemen, marching to free a jailed sergeant from the camp guard, are caught on a wooded hill and ringed with bayonets by New England regiments. George Washington orders them to ground their arms, and they do it at once. Rothbard sees a people's army meeting camp discipline, and backcountry men who would not take it. Chapter 8 of Conceived in Liberty.

Download the painting, full size (JPEG)CC BY 4.0

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit freecapitalists.org. How to credit.

Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

When Washington reached Cambridge on July 2 he found a people's army: its officers elected, its pay nearly level, its men free to come and go. Rothbard says he set out to crush that, with ranks and ribbons, floggings and curfews. The riflemen from the Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia backcountry, wearing hunting shirts and carrying long rifles, took the discipline worst. On September 10 the battalion's adjutant jailed a sergeant for neglect of duty and "murmuring" at Prospect Hill. Some of Captain James Ross's company, with men from others, broke out and set off with loaded rifles to free him, swearing to do it or lose their lives. Washington put five hundred men with fixed bayonets on the main guard at Cambridge and rode out with Generals Lee and Greene. He found thirty-two riflemen on a wooded hill half a mile from camp, and a rifle company and two New England regiments soon ringed them. When he ordered them to ground their arms, they did it immediately. They were fined twenty shillings each, and one man got six days in prison, a light sentence for a mutiny. Washington soon ended their exemption from fatigue duty. The riflemen, in Rothbard's words, were "totally unfitted for inactive life in camp." Their chance came in the autumn, on the march to Quebec.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. IV, ch. 8, 'Washington Transforms the Army', pp. 1157-1159. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. 'Riflemen Run Riot: The Mutiny at Prospect Hill', Journal of the American Revolution (2021; accessed 2026-10-02, through a fetch summary): Ziegler's confinement of a sergeant for 'neglect of duty and murmering'; thirty-two armed riflemen; Washington's five hundred men with fixed bayonets and loaded pieces; Nagel's rifle company, Hitchcock's and Little's regiments; the order to ground arms; thirty-three fined twenty shillings, Leamon six days' imprisonment. Secondary source
  3. 'Mutiny at Prospect Hill' (episode 256), HUB History (accessed 2026-10-02, through a fetch summary): Washington with Generals Lee and Greene rode to the hill; 'they did it immediately'; the riflemen in 'white frocks or rifle shirts and round hats'; thirty-two mutineers of Captain Ross's company; the fine and the six days. Secondary source
  4. Arlington Historical Society, 'Blue and Buff' (accessed 2026-10-02, through a search summary): the blue coat faced buff of the Fairfax County Independent Company worn by Washington at the Congress in May 1775 and adopted for general officers. Secondary source