George Washignton: Soft on Terror?

[winterbadger]

A friend of mine sent me this quote:

During the Revolutionary War, the historian David Hackett Fischer noted, Gen. George Washington had 'often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies.' This compassion toward prisoners was extended by Washington expressly in the face of the cruel British handling of American captives. Washington ordered Lt. Col. Samuel Blachley Webb, in a passage quoted by Fischer, 'Treat them with humanity, and Let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.'