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During these marchings and inspections he caused all trees which were so near to a post as to shelter an advancing enemy, to be felled. The militia were scattered over an extensive range of wild country, in small detachments, and he was charged with the defence of more than four hundred miles of frontier, with an available force of only one thousand men. He at once initiated a system of sharp-shooters for each post. Ranges were established, so that fire would not be wasted upon assailants before they came within effective distance. When he resumed command, after returning from the Braddock campaign, he endeavored to reorganize the militia upon a new basis. This reorganization drew from his fertile brain some military maxims for camp and field service which were in harmony with the writings of the best military authors of that period, and his study of available military works was exact, unremitting, and never forgotten. Even during the active life of the Revolutionary period, he secured from New York various military and other volumes for study, especially including Marshal Turenne’s Works, which Greene had mastered before the war began.


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