But it wasn’t the first time that such selfish and shallow irresponsibility had been shown to American soldiers. Joseph J. Ellis, writing in The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-9 (page 60) describes the response of a majority of low-minded politicians to veterans of the Revolutionary War.
“Congress eventually voted to provide full pay for five years for officers in lieu of half pay for life, but doing so was a purely rhetorical exercise, since there was no money in the federal coffers to pay anyone. Even that meaningless commitment generated widespread criticism, especially in New England, where returning officers were greeted with newspaper editorials describing them as blood-beaked vultures feeding at the public trough.
At least in retrospect, the dissolution of the Continental Army in the spring of 1783 was one of the most poignant scenes in American history, as the men had stayed the course and won the war were ushered off without pay, with paper pensions and only grudging recognition of their service. Washington could only weep: “To be disbanded… like a set of beggars, needy, distressed, and without prospect…will drive every man of Honor and Sensibility to the extreme Horrors of Despair.’”
