Notes

Abbreviations used in notes:

Diaries Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds., The Diaries of George Washington, 6 vols. (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1976–79)

GW George Washington

JCC Worthington C. Ford et al., eds., The Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, 34 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1904–37)

PMHB Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

PWCW W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, and Philander D. Chase, eds., The Papers of George Washington: Colonial Series, 10 vols. (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1983)

PWRW W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, and Philander D. Chase, eds., The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series, 20 vols. to date (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1985–)

WMQ William and Mary Quarterly (3rd Series)

WW John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1931–39)

Note: After the first full citation, all other titles are given in shortened form.

Introduction

1. The Annual Register . . . for 1776, p. 148.

2. Patrick Ferguson to Dr. Adam Ferguson [?],January 31, 1778, in Howard H. Peckham, ed., Sources of American Independence: Selected Manuscripts from the Collections of the William L. Clements Library (Chicago, 1978), p. 300.

3. Message to the Delaware Nation, May 12, 1779, in PWRW, 20, pp. 447–48.

4. London Chronicle, January 5, 1782, quoted in Troy O. Bickham, “Sympathizing with Sedition? George Washington, the British Press, and British Attitudes During the American War of Independence,” WMQ, 59 (2002), pp. 101–22: 120.

5. “Particulars of the Life and Character of General Washington . . . Signed an OLD SOLDIER,” Gentleman’s Magazine, August 1778, pp. 368–70: 370. This first appeared in two newspapers, Lloyd’s Evening Post and Public Advertiser, on August 17, 1778.

6. The Annual Register . . . for 1777, p. 20.

7. See, for example, Dave Richard Palmer, The Way of the Fox: American Strategy in the War for America, 1775–1783 (Westport, Connecticut, 1975), p. 143; John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York, 2007), p. 100; Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency George Washington (New York, 2004), pp. 74, 100–101; Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington: A Military Life (New York, 2005), p. 366.

8. For a discussion of these two paintings that reaches a different verdict on their effectiveness, see David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York, 2004), pp. 429–31.

9. On West, Copley, Peale, and Trumbull see Chapter 2, “Transatlantic Journeys,” in Holger Hoock, Empires of the Imagination: Politics, War, and the Arts in the British World, 1750–1850 (London, 2010), pp. 83–116.

10. Isaac J. Greenwood, “Remarks on the Portraiture of Washington,” in The Magazine of American History, with Notes and Queries, 2 (1878), pp. 30–38: 38. The author of the article was the grandson of the dentist John Greenwood.

11. Ibid., p. 31.

12. GW to Greenwood, January 6, 1799, in WW, 37, p. 83.

13. Greenwood, “Remarks on the Portraiture of Washington,” Magazine of American History (1878), p. 38. For Houdon’s bust and statue, see William M. S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1999), pp. 155–58, 164.

14. Ibid., pp. 165, 205, 215–16, 222–25.

15. Stuart’s portrait of “Washington at Dorchester Heights” in 1776, which was painted in 1806, is in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. See Richard McLanathan, Gilbert Stuart (New York, 1986), pp. 127–31.

16. This memoir is given and discussed in Fred Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers: Reflections on the French and Indian War (Lanham, Maryland, 2004).

17. For Washington’s revision of the genesis of the Yorktown campaign, see below, p. 393.

18. William S. Powell, ed., “A Connecticut Soldier Under Washington: Elisha Bostwick’s Memoirs of the First Years of the Revolution,” WMQ, 6 (1949), pp. 94–107: 95, 101, 103–104.

1: Finding a Path

1. David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York, 1989), p. 214.

2. “The American Ancestry of Mary Ball,” Appendix 1 of Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, 7 vols. (New York, 1948–57), 1, p. 530.

3. Ibid., p. 15.

4. Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settlement of North America to 1800 (New York, 2001), p. 142.

5. See J. Frederick Fausz, “‘Engaged in Enterprises Pregnant with Terror’: George Washington’s Formative Years among the Indians,” in Warren R. Hofstra, ed., George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry (Madison, Wisconsin, 1998), pp. 115–55: 118.

6. James Thomas Flexner, George Washington: The Forge of Experience (1732–1775) (Boston, 1965), p. 11.

7. A. Roger Ekirch, Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718–1775 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 17, 26–27.

8. See Franklin’s editorials in the Pennsylvania Gazette, April 11 and May 9, 1751.

9. On the rise of Virginian slavery, see especially Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1975).

10. For the Vernon phenomenon, see Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 140–48.

11. David Syrett, “The Raising of American Troops During the War of the Austrian Succession,” in Historical Research, 73 (2000), pp. 20–32: 21–25.

12. Dated June 9, 1740, and delivered to him on July 10, 1740, Lawrence Washington’s commission is preserved at Mount Vernon (Record no. 6236/W–734).

13. D. E. Leach, Roots of Conflict: British Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677–1763 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1986), pp. 51–52.

14. Richard Harding, Amphibious Warfare in the Eighteenth Century: The British Expedition to the West Indies, 1740–1742 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1991), p. 149.

15. Lawrence Washington to Augustine Washington, May 30, 1741, in The Magazine of American History, with Notes and Queries, 2 (1878), pp. 435–37: 437.

16. Ibid.

17. Smollett’s “An Account of the Expedition Against Carthagena in the West Indies” first appeared in A Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages (1756). The citation here is from The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias Smollett . . . 6 vols. (2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1800), 4, p. 444.

18. Ibid., p. 432.

19. See Vernon to General Wentworth and to the Governor of Jamaica, both from aboard Princess Carolina, at anchor off Terra Bomba, March 20, 1741, in B. Mcl Ranft, ed., The Vernon Papers (Navy Records Society, 1958), pp. 193–95.

20. [Charles Knowles] An Account of the Expedition to Carthagena (Dublin, 1743), pp. 11, 33n, 46–47.

21. Miscellaneous Works of Smollett, 4, pp. 440, 442–43.

22. “George Washington’s ‘Remarks,’” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 15.

23. For the “cherry tree story,” see Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, pp. 13–14.

24. I am extremely grateful to Dr. R. Scott Stephenson, director of Collections and Interpretation at the American Revolution Center, Philadelphia, for bringing this intriguing relic at Mount Vernon to my attention.

25. On the significance of the Rules of Civility, see especially Paul K. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1988), p. 7; Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, pp. 11–12.

26. Don Higginbotham, “George Washington and Revolutionary Asceticism: The Localist as Nationalist,” in Hofstra, ed., Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, pp. 223–50: 229; C. R. Markham, Life of Robert Fairfax of Steeton (London, 1885), pp. 187–88.

27. On this point, and the extent to which English-built and occupied Belvoir was “exceptional” among Virginia’s Georgian mansions, see Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, pp. 20–21.

28. See Washington’s “Journal of my Journey over the Mountains . . . ,” in Diaries, 1, pp. 6–23.

29. This is the consistent verdict of two influential Washington biographers writing half a century apart. See Flexner, Washington: The Forge of Experience, p. 39; Ellis, His Excellency George Washington, p. 37.

30. Diaries, 1, p. 73.

31. Ibid., p. 81.

32. Ibid., p. 82; Max Farrand, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: A Restoration of a “Fair Copy” (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1949), p. 123: Franklin wrote his account in 1784, adding: “This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it—my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen.”

33. Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (new ed., Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1999), pp. 104–10.

34. Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001), p. 168.

35. See Donald H. Kent, The French Invasion of Western Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1954).

36. Earl of Holderness, Secretary-of-State, to Dinwiddie, London, August 28, 1753, in National Archives, Kew, CO [Colonial Office], 5/211, fols. 11–15.

37. Instructions from Robert Dinwiddie, October 30, 1753, in PWC, 1, pp. 60–61.

38. The letter credited to Mercer, and believed to describe Washington’s appearance in 1759, is cited in Freeman, Washington, 3, p. 6.

39. For Washington’s journal of his “Journey to the French Commandant, October 31, 1753–January 16, 1754,” see Diaries, 1, pp. 130–61.

40. See “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 16. That Washington may have “prompted” the Half-King to invoke Colonel John Washington’s Indian name is suggested by Professor Fred Anderson. See his “Speculations on George Washington’s Autobiographical ‘Remarks’ of 1787,” in ibid., pp. 137–78, note 21. Interestingly, although Washington certainly used the name “Caunotocarious” (or “Caunotaucarious” etc.) from 1754 onward, it does not appear in the Indian speeches included in his journal of the 1753 Ohio expedition.

41. On these tattoos, see “The Journal of Robert Cholmley’s Batman,” in Charles Hamilton, ed., Braddock’s Defeat (Norman, Oklahoma, 1959), p. 26 note.

42. For Saint-Pierre’s distinguished career, see F. G. Halpenny, ed., Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 13 vols. (Toronto, 1966–94), 3, pp. 374–76.

43. Kent, French Invasion of Western Pennsylvania, pp. 75–76.

44. For example, the Maryland Gazette carried the journal in its editions of March 21 and 28, 1754, with the Boston Gazette printing it between April 16 and May 21, 1754.

2: Hearing the Bullets Whistle

1. GW to Augustine Washington, August 2, 1755, in PWC, 1, p. 352.

2. “Instructions to be observed by Major George Washington on the expedition to the Ohio [Jan. 1754],” in PWC, 1, p. 65.

3. GW to Dinwiddie, March 7 and 9, 1754, in PWC, 1, pp. 72, 73.

4. Diaries, 1, pp. 174–75.

5. GW to James Hamilton,. ca. April 24, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 83.

6. GW to Dinwiddie, April 25, 1754, in PWC, 1, pp. 88–89.

7. GW to Horatio Sharpe, April 24, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 86.

8. GW to Dinwiddie, May 18, 1754, in PWC, 1, pp. 99–100.

9. Diaries, 1, pp. 191–92.

10. GW to Dinwiddie, May 27, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 105.

11. Ibid.; Diaries, 1, pp. 193–95. See “The Ohio Expedition of 1754. By Adam Stephen,” PMHB, 18 (1894), pp. 43–50: 46.

12. This account of the Jumonville episode draws on the following sources: Diaries, 1, pp. 194–95; Maryland Gazette, June 13, 1754 (this, and other issues of the Maryland Gazette cited in these notes, were accessed via the Archives of Maryland online); GW to Dinwiddie, May 29 (two letters), May 31, and June 3, in PWC, 1, pp. 110–13, 116, 124; also GW to John Augustine Washington, May 31, 1754, in ibid., p. 118.

13. See Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge and New York, 1991), p. 241; Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York, 2000), pp. 5–6, 52–59. For the grisly detail of the Half-King handling Jumonville’s brains, Professor Anderson cites the testimony of Private John Shaw. Although not present during the Jumonville skirmish, Shaw served during Washington’s 1754 Ohio campaign and must have spoken with eyewitnesses. His description certainly squares with the convincing account in the Maryland Gazette of June 13, 1754, which reported that Ensign Jumonville was tomahawked by the Half-King.

14. Diaries, 1, p. 197; Washington to Dinwiddie, May 29, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 111.

15. Holderness to Dinwiddie, August 28, 1753 (National Archives, CO 5/211, fol. 12).

16. Virginia Gazette, June 13, 1754 (digital reproductions of this, and other issues of the Virginia Gazette cited here, are available online via the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).

17. Dinwiddie to the Board of Trade, June 18, 1754 (National Archives, CO 5/1328, fol. 117).

18. Francis Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, 2 vols. (Boston, 1884), 1, p. 156.

19. GW to John Augustine Washington, May 31, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 118.

20. Jeremy Black, George II: Puppet of the Politicians? (Exeter, 2007), p. 38; Horace Walpole, Memoirs of King George the Second, ed. John Brooke, 3 vols. (New Haven and London, 1985), 2, p. 18.

21. The Half-King’s speech as reported in Weiser’s journal, in Paul. A. W. Wallace, Conrad Weiser, 1696–1760: Friend of Colonist and Mohawk (Philadelphia, 1945), p. 367.

22. See Fox to Demeré, August 25, 1754, National Archives, CO 5/211, fol. 69; “Draught of orders for settling the rank of the officers of His Majesty’s Forces, when joined or serving with the Provincial Forces in North America,” November 12, 1754, ibid., fol. 115.

23. Diaries, 1, pp. 202–207.

24. Wallace, Conrad Weiser, p. 367.

25. Dinwiddie to GW, June 1 and June 27, 1754, in PWC, 1, pp. 119, 150.

26. Major Adam Stephen’s report, in Maryland Gazette, August 29, 1754. For the “siege” of Fort Necessity, see also Washington and Mackay’s report, published in the Virginia Gazette, July 19, 1754, and George Washington’s later “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, pp. 17–18.

27. Reporting gossip circulating in Williamsburg, Landon Carter noted Muse’s alleged misbehavior in his diary for August 22, 1754. See Jack P. Greene, ed., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752–1778, 2 vols. (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1965), 1, pp. 110–11.

28. John Robinson to GW, September 15, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 209.

29. La Péronie to GW, September 5, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 194.

30. Despite some minor editorial tinkering, the published French translation was essentially the same as Washington’s manuscript. See the discussion in Diaries, 1, pp. 171–73.

31. Donald H. Kent, ed., Contrecoeur’s Copy of George Washington’s Journal for 1754 (first published in Pennsylvania History, January 1952; repr. Eastern National Park & Monument Association, 1989), pp. 3–4.

32. Dinwiddie expressed this opinion to both Maryland’s lieutenant governor Sharpe and Horace Walpole in London. See Freeman, Washington, 1, p. 416.

33. Sir Thomas Robinson to Sharpe, July 5, 1754, National Archives, CO 5/211, fol. 33.

34. British Library, Add. MS [Additional Manuscripts] 32850, fol. 289: Albemarle to the Duke of Newcastle, September 11, 1754.

35. “Sketch for the Operations in North America, November 16, 1754,” in Stanley Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America 1748–1765: Selected Documents from the Cumberland Papers in Windsor Castle (New Haven, Connecticut, 1936), pp. 45–48.

36. GW to Colonel Fitzhugh, November 15, 1754, in PWC, 1, pp. 225–26.

37. Orme to GW, March 2, 1755, in PWC, 1, p. 241.

38. GW to Orme, March 15, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 243–44.

39. GW to William Byrd, Carter Burwell, and John Robinson, all April 20, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 249–57.

40. GW to Sarah Cary Fairfax, April 30, 1755, in PWC, 1, p. 261.

41. “Orme’s Journal,” in Winthrop Sargent, ed., The History of an Expedition Against Fort Du Quesne in 1755 (Philadelphia, 1855), pp. 287, 309, 314–15. See also Adam Stephen to GW, November 7, 1755, in PWC, 2, p. 159.

42. “Journal of Cholmley’s Batman,” in Hamilton, ed., Braddock’s Defeat, p. 12.

43. For a detailed and thoughtful examination of the 1755 expedition against Fort Duquesne, see Paul E. Kopperman, Braddock at the Monongahela (Pittsburgh, 1977). On the composition of Braddock’s army, see the returns enclosed with Braddock to Robert Napier, in Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America, pp. 86–89.

44. See “Return of Ordnance,” Little Bear Camp, July 18, 1755, in ibid., pp. 96–97. For Wood’s testimony, see Rex Whitworth, ed., Gunner at Large: The Diary of James Wood, R.A. 1746–1765 (London, 1988), pp. 40, 53. For an overview of smoothbore artillery and its capabilities, see B. P. Hughes, Firepower: Weapons Effectiveness on the Battlefield, 1630–1850 (London, 1974), pp. 13–18, 29–35.

45. Braddock to GW, May 15, 1755, in PWC, 1, p. 281.

46. See “Memorandum,” in PWC, 1, pp. 282–83.

47. GW to William Fairfax, June 7, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 298–99.

48. “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 21.

49. Ibid, pp. 18–19.

50. See “Orme’s Journal,” in Sargent, ed., History of the Expedition, pp. 293–98, 318.

51. See Beverley W. Bond Jr., ed., “The Captivity of Charles Stuart,” in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 13 (1926), p. 63; also, “A Journal of the Proceedings of the Seamen,” in Sargent, ed., History of an Expedition, pp. 378, 380.

52. “Journal of Cholmley’s Batman,” in Hamilton, ed., Braddock’s Defeat, pp. 17–19.

53. GW to William Fairfax, June 7, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 299–300.

54. GW to Sarah Cary Fairfax, June 7, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 308–309.

55. Ellis, His Excellency George Washington, p. 36.

56. “Memorandum,” May 30–June 11, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 293–94.

57. GW to John Augustine Washington, June 28 –July 2, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 319–21.

58. “Journal of a British Officer,” in Hamilton, ed., Braddock’s Defeat, p. 45; “Orme’s Journal,” in Sargent, ed., History of an Expedition, p. 341.

59. Roger Morris to GW, June 23, 1755, GW to John Augustine Washington, June 28–July 2, 1755, and to Orme, June 30, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 315, 319–24, 329.

60. “Orme’s Journal,” in Sargent, ed., History of an Expedition, p. 350.

61. GW to Dinwiddie, July 18, 1755, in PWC, 1, p. 339.

62. Duncan Cameron, The Life, Adventures, and Surprizing Deliverances of Duncan Cameron, Private Soldier in the Regiment of Foot, Late Sir Peter Halket’s (3rd ed., Philadelphia, 1756), p. 13.

63. GW to Dinwiddie, July 18, 1755, in PWC, 1, p. 339.

64. “Orme’s Journal,” in Hamilton, ed., Braddock’s Defeat, pp. 356–57.

65. Ibid; “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 20.

66. James Smith, An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith (Lexington, Kentucky, 1799), p. 9.

67. “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 20.

68. Ibid, p. 21.

69. Cited in Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 30.

3: Defending the Frontier

1. Letter of July 26, 1755, in PWC, 1, p. 346.

2. “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 21.

3. GW to Mary Ball Washington, and to Warner Lewis, August 14, 1755, in PWC, 1, pp. 359, 362.

4. Commission and Instructions from Robert Dinwiddie, August 14, 1755, in PWC, 2, 3–5.

5. GW to Andrew Lewis, September 6, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 23–4.

6. Orders, Fort Cumberland, September 17, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 40–41.

7. GW to Joshua Lewis, September 18, 1755, in PWC, 2, p. 48.

8. Stephen to GW, September 25 and October 4, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 62, 72.

9. Warren Hofstra notes that while the backcountry settlers were often reluctant to answer the calls of Washington and other officers for the “common” defense, they fought tenaciously to protect their own communities. See Hofstra, “‘A Parcel of Barbarian’s and an Uncooth Set of People’: Settlers and Settlements of the Shenandoah Valley,” in Hofstra, ed., George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, pp. 87–114: 104.

10. GW to Dinwiddie, October 11–12, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 102–4.

11. On the need for Indian allies, see especially Washington’s letters to Dinwiddie and John Robinson from Winchester on April 7, 1756, in PWC, 2, pp. 333, 338.

12. GW to Andrew Montour and Christopher Gist, October 10, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 97–99.

13. See GW to Lieutenant John Bacon, October 26, 1755, in PWC, 2, p. 137.

14. On the Dagworthy dispute, see Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 37–38; also GW to Dinwiddie, December 5, 1755, and Dinwiddie to GW, December 14, 1755 and January 22, 1756, in PWC, 2, pp. 200, 213, 291–92.

15. GW to Stephen, November 18, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 172–73. See also James Titus, The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia (Columbia, South Carolina, 1991), pp. 91–92.

16. For the New England provincials, see Fred Anderson, A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years War (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1984), pp. 123–25. The limit of thirty-nine lashes followed the teachings of the Old and New Testaments: Deuteronomy 25: 3 specified that punishment floggings must not exceed forty strokes; if they did, the recipient would be “degraded.” To avoid this, it became customary for one lash to be withheld. Describing his sufferings, the apostle Paul boasted that he had five times “received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one”(II Corinthians 11: 24).

17. GW to Stephen, November 28, 1755, and GW to Dinwiddie, December 5, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 185, 201–202.

18. See Hog to GW, November 29, 1755, and GW to Hog, December 27, 1755, in PWC, 2, pp. 188, 236.

19. Titus, Old Dominion at War, p. 78.

20. GW to Dinwiddie, January 13, 1756, in PWC, 2, p. 278.

21. See Lester J. Cappon, ed., Atlas of Early American History: The Revolutionary Era, 1760–1790 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1976), p. 97.

22. Boston Gazette, March 1, 1756.

23. Shirley to GW, March 5, 1756, in PWC, 2, p. 323.

24. Freeman, Washington, 2, pp. 165–67.

25. See “Memorandum,” January 7, 1756, and note 1 giving the court proceedings, in PWC, 2, pp. 254–56.

26. “Address,” Winchester, January 8, 1756, in PWC, 2, pp. 256–57. On the popularity of Bland’s Treatise, see J. A. Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army 1715–1795 (Oxford, 1981), pp. 182–84. See also O. L. Spaulding, “The Military Studies of George Washington,” in American Historical Review, 29 (1924), pp. 675–80.

27. Stephen to GW, March 29, 1756, in PWC, 2, p. 325; GW to Dinwiddie, April 18, 1756, in PWC, 3, p. 14.

28. Robinson to GW, ca. March 31–April 2, 1756, in PWC, 2, p. 329; GW to Robinson, April 18, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 15–16.

29. Carter to GW, April 21, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 30–31.

30. Dinwiddie to GW, April 15, 1756, in PWC, 2, pp. 355–56; GW to Dinwiddie, April 16, 1756, and Robinson to GW, April 17, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 1, 12.

31. See Lieutenant William Stark to GW, “Sunday Night [April 18, 1756] 8 Oclock”; GW to Dinwiddie, April 19, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 17–18, 20.

32. Pennsylvania Gazette, May 13, 1756.

33. For a perceptive analysis of the devastating impact of captive taking upon frontier communities, see Fred Anderson, The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War (New York, 2005), pp. 153–55.

34. GW to Dinwiddie, April 22, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 33–34.

35. Orders, Winchester, May 1, 1756: “Memorandum Respecting the Militia,” May 8, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 70, 99.

36. William Fairfax to GW, May 13–14, 1756, in PWC, 3, p. 125.

37. Orders for the militia, Winchester, May 15, 1756, Dinwiddie to GW, May 27 and August 19, 1756, and GW to Dinwiddie, June 25 and August 4, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 136–37, 179, 224, 313, 359; Muster for July 13, 1756, cited in PWC, 3, p. 263, note 1. See also Titus, Old Dominion at War, pp. 79–80.

38. Roll of Washington’s Company, August 28, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 389–92. Details for one man are missing. For the overall statistics for Virginia and Massachusetts provincials, see Matthew C. Ward, Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754–1765 (Pittsburgh, 2003), p. 264, table 1. On the backgrounds of the men of the Virginia Regiment in 1756–57, see also Titus, Old Dominion at War, pp. 81–88.

39. GW to Dinwiddie, April 27, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 59–60.

40. Orders, Fort Cumberland, July 6–8, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 239–41.

41. Stephen to GW, July 25, 1756, in PWC, 3, p. 294.

42. PWC, 3, p. 354.

43. GW to Dinwiddie, August 14, 1756, in PWC, 3, p. 350.

44. The Virginia Gazette of September 3, 1756 is one of only two issues of the newspaper surviving from that year. The “Virginia-Centinel” article was reprinted in the Maryland Gazette of November 25, 1756.

45. Kirkpatrick and Ramsay to GW, both September 22, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 410, 413.

46. Brian Leigh Dunnighan, ed., Pierre Pouchot, Memoirs on the Late War in North America Between France and England (Youngstown, New York, 1994), p. 88.

47. See Stanley Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America (New Haven, Connecticut, 1933).

48. GW to Dinwiddie, October 10, 1756, and GW to Stephen, October 23, 1756, in PWC, 3, pp. 431–32: 440; “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 22. For Washington and religion, see Ellis, His Excellency George Washington, p. 45; Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 169.

49. GW to Dinwiddie, November 9, 1756, in PWC, 4, pp. 1–5.

50. Dinwiddie to GW, November 16, 1756, in PWC, 4, pp. 25–26.

51. Dinwiddie to GW, December 10, 1756, GW to Captain William Bronaugh, December 17, 1756, in PWC, 4, pp. 50, 59.

52. Loudoun’s comments were enclosed in Dinwiddie to GW, December 10, 1756, in PWC, 4, p. 51.

53. GW to Dinwiddie, December 19, 1756, in PWC, 4, p. 65.

54. GW to Loudoun, January 10, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 79–90.

55. PWC, 4, p. 92, note 29.

56. GW to Cunningham, January 28, 1757, in PWC, 4, p. 106.

57. GW to Dinwiddie, March 10, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 112–15. For his shorter, edited “Memorial” to Loudoun, dated Philadelphia, March 23, 1757, see PWC, 4, pp. 120–21.

58. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 43–44.

59. See the discussion in Diaries, 1, pp. 166–71.

60. Lawrence Henry Gipson, The British Empire Before the American Revolution, Vol. 7: The Great War for the Empire: The Victorious Years, 1758–1760 (New York, 1949) pp. 98–99.

61. While “Billy” was awaiting a vacancy in the regulars, Colonel Fairfax lobbied Washington to find him a place in the Virginia Regiment. Although commissioned in the Virginia Regiment, he never served in it, instead taking the first opportunity to purchase a regular commission. See William Fairfax to GW, July 17, 1757 in PWC, 4, p. 310; and William Henry Fairfax to GW, December 9, 1757, in PWC, 5, pp. 71–72.

62. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 54.

63. GW to Richard Washington, April 15, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 132–33. Despite their shared surname, the two men were not related.

64. GW to Stanwix, May 28, 1757, in PWC, 4, p. 169.

65. Dinwiddie to GW, May 16, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 153–54.

66. Mercer to GW, April 24, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 139–40.

67. GW to Dinwiddie, July 11, 1757; GW to Stanwix, July 15, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 295, 306.

68. General court-martial, Fort Loudoun, July 25–26, 1757; GW to Dinwiddie, August 3, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 329–34, 360.

69. “Particulars of the Life and Character of General Washington,” in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1778, p. 369. The anonymous veteran who authored this sketch served alongside Washington during the 1758 campaign against Fort Duquesne.

70. See Ian K. Steele, Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the “Massacre” (New York, 1990).

71. Stanwix to GW, June 18, 1757, and GW to Stanwix, July 15, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 228, 306.

72. Instructions to Company Captains, Fort Loudoun, July 29, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 341–45.

73. Baker to GW, June 10, 1757, and GW to Dinwiddie, June 12, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 200, 208–209; Maryland Gazette, July 7, 1757, giving extract of a letter from Fort Loudoun, June 12, 1757.

74. Atkin to GW, June 19, 1757, Captain Thomas Waggener et al. to GW, June 19, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 232–34, 239.

75. GW to Stanwix, July 15 and 30, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 306–307, 353.

76. GW to Dinwiddie, October 5, 1757, in PWC, 5, pp. 2–3.

77. See William Peachey to GW, August 22, 1757, and GW to Dinwiddie, September 17, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 381–83, 411–12.

78. Dinwiddie to GW, September 24, 1757, in PWC, 4, p. 422.

79. Stewart to Dinwiddie, November 9, 1757, in PWC, 5, p. 46.

4: Tarnished Victory

1. GW to Sarah Cary Fairfax, November 15, 1757, and February 13, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 56, 93.

2. GW to Stanwix, March 4, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 101–102.

3. Mercer to GW, August 17, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 370–71.

4. Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, pp. 43–44, 80; G. M. Trevelyan, England Under Queen Anne: Blenheim (London, 1930), pp. 405, 409–410.

5. GW to Richard Washington, April 5, 1758, in PWC, 5, p. 112.

6. For Loudoun’s plan for 1758, see copy of a letter to “Duke of B–d [Bedford],” New York, unsigned and undated but in the hand of John Forbes and written in February 1758, in National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, Microfilm RH 4/86/1: “Military Papers of Brig-Gen John Forbes in North America” (no piece reference).

7. Pitt to General James Abercromby, December 30, 1757, in G. S. Kimball, ed., The Correspondence of William Pitt, When Secretary of State, with Colonial Governors and Military and Naval Commissioners in America, 2 vols. (London, 1906; repr. New York, 1969), 1, pp. 143–46.

8. Pitt to the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, December 30, 1757, ibid., pp. 141–42.

9. GW to Stanwix, April 10, 1758, and to Gage, April 12, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 117, 126.

10. Anderson, The War That Made America, pp. 120–21.

11. GW to Stanwix, April 10, 1758, in PWC, 5, p. 117.

12. GW to Forbes, April 23, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 138–39, and note 1; St. Clair to Forbes, May 19, 1758, cited in PWC, 5, p. 198, note 1.

13. Mercer to GW, August 17, 1757, and Stephen to GW, August 20, 1757, in PWC, 4, pp. 372–73, 375.

14. GW to St. Clair, April 18, 1758, in PWC, 5, p. 131; Gipson, The Victorious Years, pp. 261–62.

15. Forbes to Pitt, October 20, 1758, in Alfred Proctor James, ed., Writings of General John Forbes, Relating to His Service in North America (Menasha, Wisconsin, 1938), p. 240.

16. Forbes to Bouquet, June 27, 1758, in ibid., p. 125.

17. William A. Hunter, ed., “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” PMHB, 95 (1971), pp. 431–83: 449–50; Bouquet to Forbes, Raystown Camp, August 20, 1758, in S. K. Stevens, Donald H. Kent, and Autumn L. Leonard, eds., The Papers of Henry Bouquet, Volume II, The Forbes Expedition (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), 1951, p. 397.

18. Forbes to Pitt, July 10, 1758, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, p. 141.

19. GW to Bouquet, July 21, 1758, in PWC, 5, p. 311. On this point, and the Frederick County election in general, see Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 58–60.

20. See Bouquet to GW, July 24, 1758, and Bouquet to Forbes, July 26 and 31, 1758, in Stevens, Kent and Leonard, ed., Bouquet Papers, II, pp. 269, 277–78, 290–93; Bouquet to GW, July 27, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 344–45.

21. GW to Halkett, August 2, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 360–61.

22. GW to Bouquet, August 2, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 353–60; Forbes to Bouquet, August 9, 1758, and to Abercromby, August 11, 1758, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, pp. 171, 173.

23. Forbes to Bouquet, September 4, 1758, in ibid., p. 199.

24. GW to Robinson, September 1, 1758, also John Kirkpatrick to GW, August 23, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 432–33, 413.

25. On the impact of Lord Howe and his brothers Richard and William, see Stephen Brumwell, “Band of Brothers,” History Today, 58, no. 6 (June 2008), pp. 25–31; Washington to Bouquet, July 21, 1758, in PWC, 5, p. 311.

26. Forbes to Pitt, Philadelphia, June 17, 1758, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, p. 118.

27. West, War for Empire in Western Pennsylvania, pp. 55–56; Forbes to Bouquet, August 9, 1758, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, p. 171.

28. Hunter, ed., “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” PMHB (1971), pp. 458–59; GW to Bouquet, August 24, 1758, in PWC, 5, p. 417.

29. Stephen to GW, August 2, 1758, in PWC, 5, pp. 363 and 364, note 4.

30. Bouquet to Forbes, July 31, 1758, in Stevens, Kent, and Leonard, eds., Bouquet Papers, II, p. 293; Hunter, ed., “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” PMHB (1971), p. 445.

31. Ibid., pp. 468, 470.

32. GW to Sarah Cary Fairfax, September 12, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 11.

33. GW to Sarah Cary Fairfax, September 25, 1758, in PWC, 6, pp. 41–42. Washington’s admiration for Cato supports the interpretation that his own martial ambition was partially driven by a desire for Sally’s acclaim. For example, at one point Juba announces that Marcia’s declaration of love for him “ . . . will give new vigor to my Arms / Add strength and weight to my descending sword, / And drive it in a tempest on the foe.”

34. Hunter, ed., “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” PMHB (1971), p. 473.

35. Bouquet to Forbes, September 11, 1758, in Stevens, Kent, and Leonard, eds., Bouquet Papers, II, p. 493.

36. Howard H. Peckham, ed., “Thomas Gist’s Indian Captivity 1758–1759,” in PMHB, 80 (1956), pp. 285–311: 291.

37. Grant to Forbes, ca. September 14, 1758, Bouquet to Forbes, September 17, 1758; Joseph Shippen to Edward Shippen, September 19, 1758, in Stevens, Kent, and Leonard, eds., Bouquet Papers, II, pp. 499–504, 519–20, 527–28. For a detailed analysis of “Grant’s Defeat,” see Douglas R. Cubbison, The British Defeat of the French in Pennsylvania 1758: A Military History of the Forbes Campaign Against Fort Duquesne (Jefferson, North Carolina, 2010), pp. 122–40.

38. Ian McCulloch and Timothy Todish, eds., Through So Many Dangers: The Memoirs and Adventures of Robert Kirk, Late of the Royal Highland Regiment (Fleischmanns, New York, 2004), p. 42. The author’s real surname was Kirkwood. See also “Extract of a Letter from Pittsburgh (Lately Fort Duquesne),” in Pennsylvania Gazette, December 14, 1758.

39. GW to George William Fairfax, September 25, 1758, in PWC, 6, pp. 38–39.

40. Forbes to Bouquet, September 23, 1758, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, pp. 218–21.

41. GW to Fauquier, September 25, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 45.

42. Orderly Book, Raystown, 24–25 September 1758, in PWC, 6, pp. 36–38; for Hanna, see p. 37 note 3.

43. Hunter, ed., “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” PMHB (1971), p. 482.

44. Orderly Book, Raystown, September 28, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 50.

45. GW to Forbes, with enclosed plans, October 8, 1758, in PWC, 6, pp. 66–68.

46. West, War for Empire in Western Pennsylvania, p. 55.

47. GW to Fauquier, October 30 and November 5, 1758, in PWC, 6, pp. 99–100, 113–14.

48. GW to Bouquet, November 6, 1758, in PWC, 6, pp. 115–16.

49. Stevens, Kent, and Leonard, eds., Bouquet Papers, II, pp. 600–601.

50. Pennsylvania Gazette, November 30, 1758; Forbes to Abercromby, November 17, 1758, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, p. 255; “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 23; Lengel, General George Washington, p. 75.

51. Peckham, ed., “Thomas Gist’s Indian Captivity,” PMHB (1956), pp. 295–8.

52. Chew to Washington, September 11, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 9.

53. Bouquet to William Allen, Fort Duquesne, November 25, 1758, in Stevens, Kent, and Leonard, eds., Bouquet Papers, II, p. 610; “A Letter from an Officer who attended Brigadier Gen. Forbes” (dated February 25, 1759), in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1759, pp. 173–74; Orderly Book, “Camp at Loyal Hannon,” November 14, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 125.

54. GW to Forbes, November 16, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 131.

55. GW to Forbes, November 17, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 135.

56. See General Court Martial, “Camp at Loyal Hannon,” November 11, 1758, in National Archives, WO [War Office] 71/67, pp. 18–22, 28.

57. Forbes to Bouquet, October 21, 1758, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, p. 241.

58. Orderly Book, “Bouquet’s Camp,” November 24, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 156; “Letter from an Officer,” Gentleman’s Magazine, 1759, pp. 173–74; National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, Dalhousie Papers, GD 45/2/102/3: “American and other papers of Lieutenant-Colonel (later Brigadier-General) John Forbes,” undated pencil sketch of an order of battle. This is reproduced in Cubbison, British Defeat of the French in Pennsylvania, p. 164.

59. Bouquet to William Allen, November 25, 1758, in Stevens, Kent, and Leonard, eds., Bouquet Papers, II, p. 610.

60. See “Extract of a Letter from Pittsburgh (Lately Fort Duquesne),” and “Letter from General Forbes’ Army, Pittsburgh (formerly Fort Duquesne), Nov. 28, 1758” both in Pennsylvania Gazette, December 14, 1758.

61. Bouquet to Anne Willing and William Allen, November 25, 1758, in Stevens, Kent, and Leonard, eds., Bouquet Papers, II, pp. 608, 610–11; GW to Fauquier, November 28, 1758, in PWC, 6, p. 158; “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 22.

62. See E. E. Curtis, “Mercer, Hugh,” in Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1929), 6, pp. 541–42.

63. “Remarks,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, p. 23.

64. “Address from the Officers of the Virginia Regiment,” December 31, 1758, in PWC, 6, pp. 178–81.

65. GW to the Officers of the Virginia Regiment, January 10, 1759, in PWC, 6, p. 186.

66. GW to Richard Washington, May 7, 1759, in PWC, 6, p. 319.

5: Between the Wars

1. “Resolution of the House of Burgesses,” February 26, 1759, in PWC, 6, p. 192.

2. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 60.

3. Marriage among Washington’s peers is discussed in Emory G. Evans, “A Topping People”: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, 1680–1790 (Charlottesville, Virginia, 2009), pp. 121–27. On Washington’s relationship with his wife, see especially, Ellis, His Excellency George Washington, p. 42. For the declaration of “unalterable affection,” see GW to Martha Washington, Philadelphia, June 23, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 27.

4. Esmond Wright, Washington and the American Revolution (New York, 1962), pp. 42–43.

5. Freeman, Washington, 2, p. 383. Rogers would achieve an even higher profile that autumn after leading a daring raid against the Abenaki village of St. Francis. See Stephen Brumwell, White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery, and Vengeance in Colonial America (London, 2004; Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2005).

6. For the following overview, two essays were especially useful: Don Higginbotham, “Young Washington: Ambition, Accomplishment and Acclaim,” in Anderson, ed., George Washington Remembers, pp. 66–87; and John E. Ferling, “School for Command: Young George Washington and the Virginia Regiment,” in Hofstra, ed., George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, pp. 195–222.

7. Wright, Washington and the American Revolution, p. 43.

8. See Gipson, The Victorious Years, pp. 336–38.

9. Mercer to GW, September 16, 1759, in PWC, 6, p. 343.

10. Stewart to GW, September 28, 1759, in PWC, 6, p. 361.

11. Forbes to Amherst, February 7, 1759, in James, ed., Writings of Forbes, pp. 289–90; Huntington Library, San Marino, California, LO [Loudoun Papers] 6043: Richard Huck-Saunders to Loudoun, February 20, 1759. Forbes died on March 11, 1759.

12. On the 48th Foot, see Stephen Brumwell, Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755–1763 (Cambridge and New York, 2002), pp. 75, 318, table 5; for Alexander Stephen’s service, see his obituary in Pennsylvania Gazette, May 19, 1768.

13. GW to William Henry Fairfax, April 23, 1758, in PWC, 5, p. 137; “A list of the killed and wounded at the Plains of Abraham, near Quebec, 13th Sept. 1759,” in Boston News-Letter, October 26, 1759; Brigadier-General George Townshend to Pitt, September 20, 1759, in Kimball, ed., Correspondence of Pitt, 2, p. 166.

14. Anderson, The War that Made America, pp. 206–210.

15. On Lord Howe’s monument, see Brumwell, “Band of Brothers,” History Today (June 2008), pp. 25–31.

16. Invoice to Robert Cary & Co, September 20, 1759; and invoice from Robert Cary & Co, March 15, 1760, in PWC, 6, pp. 353, 358, note 77, 400. See also Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, pp. 88–89.

17. See GW’s reports to the House of Burgesses, November 10 and 14, 1760, in PWC, 6, pp. 371–72.

18. Stewart to GW, June 3, 1760, in PWC, 6, p. 431.

19. GW to Richard Washington, August 10, 1760, in PWC, 6, p. 453.

20. See Paul David Nelson, General James Grant: Scottish Soldier and Royal Governor of East Florida (Gainesville, Florida, 1993), p. 31.

21. David H. Corkran, The Cherokee Frontier: Conflict and Survival, 1740–62 (Norman, Oklahoma, 1962), p. 246.

22. See “Journal of an Expedition to South Carolina,” by Captain Christopher French, 22nd Foot, Journal of Cherokee Studies, Summer 1977, pp. 275–301: 279; Ensign John Carden, 17th Foot, to William Johnson, February 8, 1762, and Richard Shuckburgh to Johnson, April 12, 1762, in J. Sullivan and A. C. Flick, eds., The Papers of Sir William Johnson, 14 vols. (Albany, New York, 1921–65), 3, pp. 625, 682.

23. Barré to Major-General Amherst, October 22, 1760, in Richard Middleton, ed., Amherst and the Conquest of Canada (Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2003), p. 239.

24. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Fletcher of Saulton Papers, MS. 16523, fols. 178–79: Fletcher to his sister, July 16, 1762.

25. See Brumwell, Redcoats, pp. 225, 262; National Library of Scotland, MS 16523, fol. 172: Fletcher to his sister, February 28, 1762.

26. This synthesis follows Colin G. Calloway, The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America (New York, 2006), pp. 10–14.

27. For the origins and course of this Indian war, see Gregory Evans Dowd, War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations and the British Empire (Baltimore, 2002), and David Dixon, Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac’s Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America (Norman, Oklahoma, 2005).

28. McCulloch and Todish, eds., Through So Many Dangers, pp. 92–94.

29. Letter from New York in Pennsylvania Gazette, September 1, 1763; British Library, Add. MSS. 21,649, fol. 369: Gordon to Bouquet, Philadelphia, September 4, 1763.

30. Diaries, 2, pp. 120–21, 226. Appropriately enough, the rise of Virginian fox hunting in the early 1730s coincided with Washington’s birth; it resulted from an increase in the amount of cleared land. See Evans, “A Topping People,” pp. 152–53.

31. Diaries, 1, pp. 321–26.

32. Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1999), pp. 7–8.

33. GW to Crawford, September 17, 1767, in PWC, 8, p. 28; Charles H. Ambler, George Washington and the West (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1936), p. 7.

34. See Holton, Forced Founders, pp. 10–11; Colin G. Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America (New York, 2007), pp. 44–48.

35. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 104.

36. Diaries, 2, p. 289.

37. Diaries, 2, p. 304. On the role of Guyasuta (Kiashuta) as an advocate of Indian unity, see Richard Middleton, Pontiac’s War: Its Causes, Course and Consequences (New York, 2007), pp. 35–38, 41–42; Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America, p. 32.

38. Wright, Washington and the American Revolution, p. 49; Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 104–105.

39. GW to Muse, January 29, 1774, in PWC, 9, pp. 460–62.

40. Charles Coleman Sellers, Charles Willson Peale: Early Life, I (Philadelphia, 1947), p. 109.

41. Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, p. 37; Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 100.

42. Anderson, Crucible of War, pp. 643–44.

43. GW to Dandridge, September 20, 1765, in WW, 2, pp. 425–26.

44. GW to George Mason, April 5, 1769, in PWC, 8, pp. 177–81.

45. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 112–13.

46. GW to Bryan Fairfax, July 4, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 109–11.

47. For this brief overview, see especially Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 5, 119–21, 172–73.

48. Annual Register for 1766, cited in Sheila O’Connell, London 1753 (London, 2003), p. 177.

49. See Alan Axelrod, Patton: A Biography (New York, 2006), p. 10.

50. London Gazette Extraordinary, March 23, 1762; Paul David Nelson, General Horatio Gates: A Biography (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1976), pp. 34–35.

51. See “American Strategy: Charles Lee and the Radical Alternative,” in John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (New York, 1976), pp. 137–38.

52. “Strictures on a Pamphlet Entitled a ‘Friendly Address to All Reasonable Americans,’” in Collections of the New-York Historical Society: The Papers of Charles Lee, 4 vols. (New York, 1872–75) 1, pp. 151–66: 161–62; John Richard Alden, General Charles Lee: Traitor or Patriot? (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1951), pp. 51–53, 62–65.

53. GW to Thomas Lewis, February 17, 1774, and to James Wood, February 20, 1774, in PWC, 9, pp. 481–83, 490.

54. The Continental Association of October 20, 1774 is given in Peter D. G. Thomas, Revolution in America: Britain and the Colonies 1763–1776 (Cardiff, 1992), pp. 76–78.

55. Mackenzie to GW, September 13, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 151–62; also McKenzie to GW, August 12, 1760, in PWC, 6, p. 454; GW to McKenzie, November 20, 1760, in PWC, 6, pp. 479–80; National Archives, WO 1/5, fols. 309–310: “State of the 58th Regiment of Foot When Captured by the French, July 21st 1762.”

56. GW to Mackenzie, October 9, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 171–172.

57. William Milnor to GW, November 29, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 189–98.

58. GW to George William Fairfax, May 31, 1775, in PWC, 10, pp. 367–68.

6: His Excellency General Washington

1. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1961), 3, pp. 322–23. This is the only account of the debate over Washington’s appointment to command the Continental Army.

2. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 160–62.

3. The “Olive Branch Petition” was formally adopted by Congress on 8 July 1775. It is reprinted in Thomas, Revolution in America, pp. 83–4.

4. Although it has been suggested that Washington attended Congress wearing his old Virginia Regiment uniform, as depicted in Peale’s 1772 portrait, the one he had recently worn as head of the Fairfax Independent Company is more likely. This outfit—dark blue, with buff breeches, waistcoat, and facings—became the model for general officers’ uniforms in the Continental Army.

5. Rush to Thomas Ruston, October 29, 1775, in L. H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, 2 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey, 1951), 1, p. 92; Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 16, 1775, in L. H. Butterfield, ed. Adams Family Correspondence, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963–65), 1, p. 246.

6. Address to the Continental Congress, June 16, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 1.

7. Cited in George W. Corner, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush (Princeton, New Jersey, 1948), p. 113; GW to Martha Washington, June 18, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 3–4.

8. Instructions from the Continental Congress, June 22, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 21–22.

9. Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789 (New York, 1971), p. 211; see also the same author’s George Washington and the American Military Tradition (Athens, Georgia, 1985), pp. 76–77. On Wolfe’s rejection of his brigadiers’ plan at Quebec, see Stephen Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (London, 2007), pp. 249–51, 260–62.

10. Address from the New York Provincial Congress, June 26, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 40.

11. GW to New York Provincial Congress, June 26, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 41.

12. Charles K. Bolton, ed., The Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York, 1774–1776 (Boston, 1902), pp. 52–53.

13. John C. Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence (Chicago, 1980), pp. 2–4. Both men gave their testimony in old age to support their pension applications.

14. Houlding, Fit for Service, pp. 214–15.

15. Loftus’s medal is illustrated in 1776: The British Story of the American Revolution (London, 1976), p. 50.

16. GW to John Augustine Washington, July 27, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 183.

17. General Orders, Cambridge, July 4, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 54.

18. GW to Lund Washington, August 20, and to Richard Henry Lee, August 29, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 372–73.

19. General Orders, Cambridge, July 7, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 71–72, 74, note 1.

20. Petition from Captain Spaulding’s company, August 10, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 285.

21. GW to Hancock, August 31, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 390–91.

22. General Orders, Cambridge, July 17 and August 1 and 28, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 114, 207, 371.

23. General Orders, Cambridge, July 17 and 23, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 114–15, 158.

24. James Thacher, Military Journal of the American Revolution (Boston, 1827), p. 33.

25. GW to John Hancock, July 10–11, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 88–89.

26. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 33–34.

27. GW to Samuel Washington, September 30, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 73. For Washington’s ownership of a rifle in the Fort Necessity campaign, see James Mackay to Washington, August 27, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 194.

28. Greene to GW, September 10, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 445, and note 1, pp. 445–46; also Aaron Norcross Diary, September 10, 1775, cited in John A. Ruddiman, “‘A record in the hands of thousands’: Power and Negotiation in the Orderly Books of the Continental Army,” WMQ, 67 (2010), pp. 747–74: 755–56.

29. General Orders, Cambridge, September 11 and 13, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 449, 454–55; Proceedings of the Committee of Conference, Cambridge, October 18–24, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 195.

30. See Trask’s testimony in Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered, pp. 408–409. This recollection is accepted as genuine by Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York, 2010), pp. 197–98. David Mccullough, 1776 (New York, 2005), p. 61, notes that while Trask’s story “may or may not be entirely reliable” it “portrays vividly the level of frustration and tension among the troops and Washington’s own pent-up anger and exasperation.”

31. GW to John Hancock, August 4–5, 1775, and to Nicholas Cooke, August 4, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 227, 221.

32. GW to Gage, August 11, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 289–90.

33. Gage to GW, August 13, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 301–302.

34. “Royal Proclamation of Rebellion, August 23, 1775,” in Thomas, Revolution in America, pp. 86–87.

35. See French to GW, August 15, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 311; and September 18, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 10; Thomas Seymour, Chairman, Hartford Committee of Safety, to GW, September 18, 1775, and GW to French, September 26, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 13, 47–48.

36. GW to Hancock, September 21, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 24–30. The enlistments of the Connecticut troops actually expired on December 10. See General Orders, Cambridge, December 3, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 475.

37. Circular to General Officers, Cambridge, September 8, 1775, and Council-of-War, Cambridge, September 11, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 432–44, 450–51.

38. Council-of-War, Cambridge, October 18, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 184; JCC, 3, p. 270.

39. General Orders, Cambridge, September 5, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 415.

40. See Stephen Conway, “Britain and the Revolutionary Crisis, 1763–1791,” in P. J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998), pp. 325–46: 338–39.

41. James Wilkinson, Memoirs of My Own Times, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1816), 1, p. 29.

42. Council-of-War, Cambridge, October 8, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 123–25; General Orders, Cambridge, November 12, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 353–55. On the question of whether the “new army,” like the old one, should utilize black manpower, it was agreed unanimously “to reject all slaves, and by a great majority to reject negroes altogether,” in PWRW, 2, p. 125.

43. Reuben Fogg to GW, October 20, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 208; GW to the Falmouth Committee of Safety, October 24, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 225–26.

44. GW to Reed, November 30, 1775, and to Arnold, December 5, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 463, 494.

45. GW to Hancock, December 4 ,1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 486.

46. Instructions to Col. Henry Knox, November 16, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 384–85.

47. GW to Reed, November 28, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 448–49.

48. Jonathan Trumbull Snr to GW, December 7, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 511.

49. Lund Washington to GW, December 10, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 526–28.

50. GW to Hancock, December 18, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 574.

51. GW to Arnold, December 5, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 493.

52. GW to Schuyler, December 5, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 498.

53. GW to Reed, January 4, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 24; General Orders, Cambridge, December 30, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 620.

54. General Orders, Cambridge, January 1, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 3; GW to Reed, January 4, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 24.

55. GW to Woodford, November 10, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 346–47.

56. See Robert K. Wright, Jr., “‘Nor Is Their Standing Army to Be Despised’: The Emergence of the Continental Army as a Military Institution” in R. Hoffman and P. J. Albert, eds., Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1984), pp. 50–74: 66.

57. Quebec veteran Captain William DeLaune noted this point inside a copy of the 6th edition of Bland’s book that Wolfe gave him in the early 1750s. See John Clarence Webster, ed., Wolfiana: A Potpourri of Facts and Fantasies, Culled from the Literature Relating to the Life of James Wolfe (privately printed, 1927), pp. 16–17. For the relevant coverage in Bland’s Treatise of Military Discipline, see pp. 133–34 of the 6th edition (London, 1746). On Bland and Washington’s other recommended titles for Woodford, see Spaulding, “Military Studies of Washington,” in American Historical Review (1924), pp. 678–79.

58. See, for example, GW to Major General Philip Schuyler, August 20, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 332.

59. Freeman, Washington, 4, p. 6.

60. GW to Hancock, February 18, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 335.

61. GW to Reed, February 26–March 9, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 373.

62. Powell, ed., “Elisha Bostwick’s Memoirs,” WMQ (1949), pp. 98–99.

63. GW to Hancock, March 7–9, 1776, in PWRW, 3, pp. 422–24.

64. See Matthew H. Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775–1783 (Norman, Oklahoma, 2008), pp. 141, 217.

65. GW to Hancock, March 19, 1776, in PWRW, 3, pp. 489–90.

7: The Times that Try Men’s Souls

1. Lee to GW, February 19, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 340.

2. GW to Lee, March 14, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 468.

3. Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783 (1964; repr. Lincoln, Nebraska, 1993), pp. 39–40, 61–62.

4. GW to John Augustine Washington, May 31–June 4, 1776, in PWRW, 4, p. 412.

5. Wright, Washington and the American Revolution, p. 104; GW to Howe, in PWRW, 2, p. 576.

6. Lee to Rush, June 29, 1776, Lee Papers, 2, p. 95. On the siege of Charleston, see David K. Wilson, The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780 (Columbia, South Carolina, 2005), pp. 36–58.

7. Butterfield, ed. Letters of Rush, 1, p. 103.

8. General Orders, New York, July 9, 1776, in PWRW, 5, p. 246.

9. General Orders, New York, July 10, 1776, in PWRW, 5, pp. 256–57.

10. GW to Hancock, July 10, 1776, in PWRW, 5, p. 260.

11. Nathan Schaner, ed., “Alexander Hamilton Viewed by His Friends: The Narratives of Robert Troup and Hercules Mulligan,” WMQ, 4 (1947), pp. 203–25: 210.

12. See Franklin’s “Journal of Negotiations in London,” in a letter to his son William Franklin, March 22, 1775, in Leonard W. Labaree and William B. Willcox, eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 36 vols to date. (New Haven, Connecticut, 1959–), 21, pp. 565–74.

13. GW to Hancock, July 14, 1776, in PWRW, 5, pp. 305–306.

14. Edward H. Tatum, Jr., ed., The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe, 1776–1778 (San Marino, California, 1940), p. 35.

15. Ira D. Gruber, The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution (New York, 1972), pp. 94–95.

16. GW to Stephen, July 20, 1776, in PWRW, 5, pp. 408–409.

17. General Orders, Head Quarters, New York, August 1, 1776, in PWRW, 5, p. 534.

18. General Orders, Head Quarters, New York, August 13, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 1–2.

19. GW to Jonathan Trumbull, Snr, August 24, 1776, and to Lund Washington, August 26, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 123, 136.

20. W. B. Wilcox, Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence (New York, 1964), p. 105.

21. Nelson, General James Grant, pp. 85–87.

22. “Extract of a letter from New-York, dated Sept. 1,” in Maryland Gazette, September 12, 1776.

23. Grant to Edward Harvey, September 2, 1776, cited in Mccullough, 1776, p. 179.

24. Henry Clinton, The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of his Campaigns, 1775–1782, with an Appendix of Original Documents, ed. William B. Willcox (New Haven, Connecticut, 1954), p. 44.

25. Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War, 2 vols. (London, 1794), 1, pp. 198–99.

26. GW to Hancock, August 31, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 177–78.

27. GW to Hancock, September 2, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 199–200.

28. Tatum, ed., Journal of Serle, p. 91.

29. Greene to GW, September 5, 1776, in Richard K. Showman, ed., The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 13 vols. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1976–2005), 1, pp. 294–95.

30. GW to John Hancock, September 8, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 248–52.

31. “From Certain General Officers” to GW, September 11, 1776, GW to Hancock, September 11, 1776, and Council-of-War, New York, September 12, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 279, 280–81, 288–89.

32. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of Adams, 3, p. 422. Adams’s recollection on this point is corroborated by the minutes of the meeting made by the peace commission’s secretary, Henry Strachey, and given in Labaree and Willcox, eds., Papers of Franklin, 22, p. 599.

33. Rush to Mrs. Rush, Philadelphia, September 14, 1776, in Butterfield, ed., Letters of Rush, 1, p. 109.

34. See Gruber, Howe Brothers; also Brumwell, “Band of Brothers,” History Today (June 2008), pp. 25–31.

35. Rawdon to Lord Huntington, September 23, 1776, cited in Paul David Nelson, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of Hastings: Soldier, Peer of the Realm, Governor-General of India (Cranbury, New Jersey, 2005), p. 47.

36. GW to Hancock, September 16, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 313; Weedon to John Page, President of the Virginia Council, September 20, 1776, in Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants (New York, 1975), p. 467; Greene to Governor Cooke of Rhode Island, September 17, 1776, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 1, p. 300.

37. GW to Hancock, September 16, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 314.

38. Joseph Reed to his wife, September 17, 1776, cited in Commager and Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, pp. 468–69.

39. Greene to Governor Cooke, September 17, and to William Ellery [?],October 4, 1776, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 1, pp. 300, 307.

40. JCC, 5, p. 762–63; JCC, 6, pp. 944–45, 971. See also GW to Hancock, September 2 and October 4, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 200, 463.

41. GW to Hancock, September 25, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 393–400.

42. GW to Patrick Henry, October 5, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 482.

43. GW to Hancock, October 4, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 464.

44. William Tudor to John Adams, New York, September 6, 1776, and John Adams to James Warren, September 25, 1776, in Robert J. Taylor, ed., The Papers of John Adams, 8 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979), 5, pp. 13, 38, and pp. 39–40, notes; Butterfield, ed., Autobiography of John Adams, 3, pp. 409–410.

45. “Howe’s Orders, 1776,” in Collections of the New-York Historical Society: The Kemble Papers, Volume 1, 1773–1789 (New York, 1883), pp. 287–88.

46. See Charles Patrick Neimeyer, America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (New York, 1996), pp. 134–35; Caroline Cox, A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington’s Army (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2004), pp. 94–96.

47. GW to Lund Washington, September 30, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 441–42.

48. Tatum, ed., Journal of Serle, p. 107.

49. Ibid., pp. 107–108.

50. Mackesy, War for America, pp. 95–96.

51. Gruber, Howe Brothers, pp. 124–26.

52. See Council-of-War, October 16, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 576; also Freeman, Washington, 4, pp. 217–20.

53. General Orders, Head Quarters, Harlem Heights, October 21, 1776, in PWRW, 7, p. 1.

54. Rawdon to Lord Huntingdon, November 3, 1776, cited in Nelson, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, p. 51.

55. Gruber, Howe Brothers, p. 133.

56. Howe to Germain, New York, November 30, 1776, in K. G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 21 vols. (Shannon, 1972–81), 12, p. 259.

57. Council-of-War, White Plains, November 6, 1776; GW to Hancock, November 6, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 92, 96–98.

58. GW to Greene, November 8, 1776, and Greene to GW, November 9, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 115–16, 120.

59. Instructions to Major General Charles Lee, White Plains, November 10, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 133–35.

60. GW to Hancock, November 14, 1776, in PWRW, 7, p. 154.

61. See Colonel Magaw to Greene, November 15, 1776, and Greene to GW, “4 o’clock,” November 15, 1776, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 1, pp. 350–51.

62. Greene to Henry Knox, November 17, 1776, in ibid., p. 352.

63. Grant to Edward Harvey, November 22, 1776, cited in Mccullough, 1776, p. 244.

64. GW to John Augustine Washington, November 19, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 103–104.

65. Ira D. Gruber, ed., John Peebles’ American War, 1776–1782 (Stroud, Gloucestershire, 1998), p. 63.

66. See National Archives, WO/34/41, fol. 122: Amherst to Bouquet, New York, August 25, 1763.

67. A. French, ed., The Diary of Frederick Mackenzie, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1930), 1, pp. 111–12.

68. Tatum, ed., Journal of Serle, pp. 88, 106.

69. GW to Hancock, November 19–21, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 182–83.

70. GW to Lee, November 21, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 193–94.

71. Reed to Lee, November 21, 1776, in Lee Papers, 2, pp. 293–94.

72. GW to Hancock, November 23, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 196 and 197, note 2.

73. Heath to GW, November 24, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 205–206.

74. GW to Hancock, November 30, 1776, in PWRW, 7, p. 233.

75. Lee to Reed, November 24, 1776, in Lee Papers, 2, pp. 305–306; GW to Reed, November 30, 1776, in PWRW, 7, p. 237.

76. Mackesy, War for America, p. 97.

77. GW to Hancock, “Decr 1st 1776 ½ after 7. P. M.,” and to Colonel Richard Humpton, December 1, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 245, 248.

78. Lee to GW, November 30, 1776, and GW to Lee, December 1, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 235, 249.

79. Howe to Germain, December 20, 1776, in Davies, ed. Documents of the American Revolution, 12, p. 266; Captain Johann Ewald, Diary of the American War, trans. and ed. Joseph P. Tustin (New Haven, Connecticut, 1979), pp. 24–25.

80. GW to Hancock, December 5, 8, and 9, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 262–64, 273, 283; and to Brigadier-General William Maxwell, December 8, 1776, in PWRW, 7, p. 278–79.

81. Lee to GW (two letters), December 8, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 276–77.

82. GW to Lee, December 10, 1776; GW to Lund Washington, December 17, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 288, 290.

83. Alden, General Charles Lee, pp. 158–61.

84. Lee to Gates, December 13, 1776, in Lee Papers, 2, p. 348.

85. JCC, 6, p. 1027.

86. GW to Hancock, December 20, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 382–83; Greene to Hancock, December 21, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 1, 372–74.

87. GW to Samuel Washington, December 18, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 370–71.

88. Rush to Congressman Richard Henry Lee, December 21, 1776, in Butterfield, ed., Letters of Rush, 1, p. 121.

89. GW to Lund Washington, December 17, in PWRW, 7, p. 291.

8: Victory or Death

1. Mackesy, War for America, pp. 109–12.

2. R. Atwood, The Hessians: Mercenaries from Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 88–89.

3. GW to Major General Gates, December 14, 1776, and Robert Morris to GW, December 21, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 333, 404.

4. Nelson, General James Grant, p. 108.

5. Reed to GW, December 22, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 415–16.

6. GW to Reed, December 23, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 423–24.

7. Ewald, Diary of the American War, pp. 42, 44.

8. Ibid., p. 39.

9. See Jac Weller, “Guns of Destiny: Field Artillery in the Trenton-Princeton Campaign, December 25, 1776 to January 3, 1777,” in Military Affairs, 20 (1956), pp. 1–15: 7.

10. General Orders, December 25, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 434–36. For the plan of attack and Washington’s most detailed account of the entire Trenton operation, see GW to Hancock, December 27, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 454–56.

11. See GW to Cadwalader, December 24 and 25, 1776, in PWRW, 7, pp. 425, 439.

12. David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York, 2004), pp. 203–205.

13. “General Joseph Reed’s Narrative of the Movements of the American Army in the neighborhood of Trenton in the winter of 1776–1777,” in PMHB, 8 (1884), pp. 391–402: 393; Corner, ed., Autobiography of Rush, p. 125.

14. GW to Hancock, December 27, 1776, in PWRW, 7, p. 454.

15. Corner, ed., Autobiography of Rush, pp. 124–25.

16. “Elisha Bostwick’s Memoirs,” in WMQ (1949), p. 102.

17. “Joseph Reed’s Narrative,” in PMHB (1884), p. 398. On this episode see also Mccullough, 1776, p. 279; and Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, pp. 231–33.

18. “Elisha Bostwick’s Memoirs,” in WMQ (1949), p. 102.

19. See Monroe’s “Autobiography,” extracted in Daniel Preston, ed., The Papers of James Monroe, Volume II: Selected Correspondence and Papers, 1776–1794 (Westport, Connecticut, 2006), p. 2.

20. Weller, “Guns of Destiny,” Military Affairs (1956), p. 1.

21. Greene to Catherine Greene, December 30, 1776, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 1, p. 377.

22. Tatum, ed., Journal of Serle, p. 163; Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 44.

23. General Orders, Head Quarters, Newtown, Pennsylvania, December 27, 1776, in PWRW, 7, p. 448.

24. “The Battle of Princeton, by ‘Sergeant R,’” in PMHB, 20 (1896), pp. 515–19: 515–16. This account was originally published on March 24, 1832 in The Phoenix, Wellsborough, Pennsylvania. The identification of the author as Sergeant Nathaniel Root rests upon very close similarities in the account of “Sergeant R” and Root’s Revolutionary War pension application of August 1832. These are established in The Battle of Princeton Mapping Project: Report of Military Terrain Analysis and Battle Narrative (West Chester, Pennsylvania, 2010), Appendix I: Items 111–12, pp. 1–6. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Will Tatum of the David Library at Washington’s Crossing, Pennsylvania, for alerting me to this important research project, which sheds fresh light on several aspects of the battle.

25. Isaac J. Greenwood, ed., The Revolutionary Services of John Greenwood of Boston and New York, 1775–1783 (New York, 1922), pp. 43–45, 48.

26. Greene to Christopher Greene, January 20, 1777, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, p. 9; JCC, 6, pp. 1043–46; GW to Executive Committee of Congress, and to Hancock, January 1, 1777, in PWRW, 7, pp. 500, 503–504.

27. “Joseph Reed’s Narrative,” in PMHB (1884), pp. 400–401; Corner, ed., Autobiography of Rush, pp. 126–27.

28. Washington to Hancock, January 5, 1777, in PWRW, 7, pp. 519–21.

29. Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, pp. 281–83; Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 48.

30. Wilkinson, Memoirs, 1, p. 138; “Extract of a letter from an officer of distinction [John Cadwalader] in General Washington’s Army, dated Pluckemin, Jan 5, 1777” in PMHB (1884), pp. 310–12: 310.

31. Alfred Hoyt Bill, The Campaign of Princeton 1776–1777 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1948), p. 88.

32. St. Clair’s recollection is contained within an account of his disastrous defeat by the Ohio Indians in 1791. See A Narrative of the manner in which the Campaign against the Indians . . . was conducted, under the command of Major-General St. Clair (Philadelphia, 1812), p. 242; see also Wilkinson, Memoirs, 1, pp. 139–40.

33. Bill, Campaign of Princeton, pp. 90–92; GW to Hancock, January 5, 1777, in PWRW, 7, p. 521.

34. Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 49.

35. Caesar Rodney, ed., The Diary of Captain Thomas Rodney, 1776–1777 (Wilmington, Delaware, 1888), p. 32.

36. Ibid.

37. “The Good Soldier White,” in American Heritage, 7, no. 4 (June 1956), pp. 73–79: 78; see also Robert E. Lee, Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1974), p. 12.

38. Wilkinson, Memoirs, 1, p. 142.

39. See especially Battle of Princeton Mapping Project, tables 2–3, pp. 38–42, giving detailed orders of battle.

40. “Battle of Princeton, by ‘Sergeant R,’” PMHB (1896), p. 517; “George Inman’s Narrative of the Revolution,” in PMHB, 7 (1883), pp. 237–48: 240.

41. “Battle of Princeton, ‘By Sergeant R,’” PMHB (1896), p. 517; “Letter from an officer of distinction,” PMHB (1884), p. 311; Wilkinson, Memoirs, 1, pp. 145–46.

42. Ibid., pp. 148–49.

43. For British criticism of the 55th and 40th Foot, see especially the information supplied by an eyewitness, Andrew Wardrop (the surgeon of the 17th Foot) and reported by John Belsches to Lord Leven, Edinburgh, May 21, 1777, in Marianne M. Gilchrist, ed., “Captain Hon. William Leslie (1751–77). His Life, Letters and Commemoration,” in David G. Chandler, ed., Military Miscellany II: Manuscripts from Marlborough’s Wars, the American War of Independence and the Boer War (Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2005), pp. 133–96: 172.

44. Greene to Paine, January 9, 1777, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, p. 3.

45. See “Letter of James Read, of Philadelphia, 1777,” in PMHB, 16 (1892), pp. 456–66: 466; and letter of Shaw, from Morristown, New Jersey, cited in William S. Stryker, The Battles of Princeton and Trenton (Boston, 1898), p. 481.

46. Greene to Paine, January 9, 1777, and to Christopher Greene, January 20, 1777, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, pp. 3, 8.

47. “An Officer of the Army [Captain William Hall, 28th Foot],” The History of the Civil War in America (London, 1780), 1, pp. 245–46, cited in Battle of Princeton Mapping Project, Appendix II, Item 2, p. 2; J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army: Volume III, 1763–1793 (London, 1903), p. 205; Gruber, Howe Brothers, pp. 154, 157.

48. For the implications of Howe’s “fixation” upon Washington and Pennsylvania, see especially Conway, War of American Independence, pp. 88–89.

49. “Battle of Princeton, By ‘Sergeant R,’” PMHB (1896), p. 519; GW to the New York Convention, February 10, 1777, in PWRW, 8, pp. 299–300.

50. Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, pp. 95–98, 102.

51. John Adams to Nathanael Greene, May 9, 1777, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, pp. 74–75.

52. GW to Hancock, Morristown, May 12, 1777, in PWRW, 9, pp. 396–97.

53. Samuel Adams to Greene, May 12, 1777; and Greene to Adams, May 28, 1777, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, pp. 77–78, 100.

54. Council-of-War, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, May 2, 1777, in PWRW, 9, p. 324.

55. GW to John Hancock; Stephen to GW; and GW to Stephen, all May 12, 1777, in PWRW, 9, pp. 396, 404–406.

56. GW to Heath, February 3, 1777, in PWRW, 8, p. 229.

57. GW to Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, July 9, 1777, in PWRW, 10, p. 233.

58. GW to John Augustine Washington, August 5–9, 1777, in PWRW, 10, pp. 514–15.

59. GW to Israel Putnam, August 22, 1777, in PWRW, 11, p. 46.

60. General Orders, headquarters, Wilmington, September 5. 1777, in PWRW, 11, pp. 147–48.

61. See Lieutenant Colonel James Ross to GW, “Sept 11, ’77, Great Valley Road, Eleven O’clock A.M.”; and Major General Sullivan to GW, Brintons Ford, September 11, 1777, in PWRW, 11, pp. 196–97. In following the confusing sequence of events at Brandywine, the detailed Editorial Note (ibid., pp. 187–95) is most helpful.

62. “The Actions at Brandywine and Paoli described by a British Officer,” in PMHB, 29 (1905), pp. 368–69: 368.

63. GW to Hancock, “12 o’Clock at Night,” September 11, 1777, in PWRW, 11, p. 200.

64. Greene’s role is briefly described in a letter written ten months later. See Greene to Henry Marchant, July 25, 1778, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, p. 471.

65. “George Inman’s Narrative,” in PMHB (1883), p. 241.

66. GW to Hancock, September 23, 1777, in PWRW, 11, p. 301.

67. “The Actions at Brandywine and Paoli,” in PMHB (1905), p. 369. For a thoughtful analysis of this controversial episode, see Armstrong Starkey, “Paoli to Stony Point: Military Ethics and Weaponry during the American Revolution,” in Journal of Military History, 58 (1994), pp. 7–27.

68. GW to Hancock September 23, 1777, in PWRW, 11, pp. 301–302.

69. Proceedings of a Council of General Officers, headquarters at Pennibeckers Mills, September 28, 1777, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, pp. 167–69; GW to Hancock, October 5, 1777, PWRW, 11, p. 393.

70. General Orders for attacking Germantown, October 3, 1777, in PWRW, 11, pp. 375–76.

71. GW to Howe, October 6, 1777, in PWRW, 11, p. 410. If Howe acknowledged the return of his dog, which was identified as his property by its collar, his letter has not been found.

72. GW to Hancock, October 5 and 7, 1777, in PWRW, 11, pp. 393–95, 416–17. My brief account of Germantown draws heavily upon the excellent editorial notes in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, pp. 171–77.

73. Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, p. 140.

74. JCC, 9, p. 785.

75. Major André’s Journal: Operations of the British Army under Lieutenant-Generals Sir William Howe and Sir Henry Clinton, June 1777 to November 1778 (Tarrytown, New York, 1930), p. 57.

76. In February 1781, Peebles noted that heavy drinking was “constantly the custom”: at dinner “above two bottles of Madeira or port is generally the quantity that most people carry off.” See Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, p. 429; Corner, ed., Autobiography of Rush, p. 157; Rush to John Adams, October 31, 1777, in Butterfield, ed., Letters of Rush, 1, p. 164.

77. For the court of inquiry on Stephen, see General Orders, headquarters, Whitpain Township, October 25, 1777, in PWRW, 11, pp. 605–606; for his court-martial and dismissal, see General Orders, HQ, White Marsh, November 20, 1777, in PWRW, 12, pp. 327–28.

78. Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 96.

79. See E. C. Joslin, A. R. Litherland, and B. T. Simpkin, British Battles and Medals (London, 1988), p. 16.

80. Clinton, American Rebellion, pp. 80–81.

81 GW to John Augustine Washington, August 5, 1777, in PWRW, 10, p. 515.

82. Washington to Benjamin Harrison, August 19, 1777, in PWRW, 11, p. 4. For the French cannon captured at Brandywine, see Major André’s Journal, p. 47.

83. “Memoir of 1776” in Stanley J. Idzerda, ed., Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776–1790, 5 vols. (Ithaca, New York, 1977–83), 1, pp. 8–9, 11, 90, 100. On the relationship between Washington and Lafayette, see especially Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, pp. 138–39.

84. General Orders, headquarters, “Towamensing,” October 15, 1777, in PWRW, 11, pp. 512–13.

85. GW to Carter, October 27, 1777, in PWRW, 12, p. 27.

86. GW to Gates, October 30, 1777, in PWRW, 12, pp. 59–60.

87. Circular to the General Officers, October 26, 1777, and Council-of-War, October 29, 1777, in PWRW, 12, pp. 2–3, 46–48.

88. See Brigadier General John Cadwalader’s Plan for Attacking Philadelphia (ca. November 24, 1777) and the opinions on it sent to Washington by Generals Greene (November 24), Armstrong, Duportail, Irvine, Kalb, Maxwell, Paterson, Poor, Scott, Smallwood, Stirling, Sullivan, Wayne, and Woodford (November 25) and Knox (November 26), in PWRW, 12, pp. 371–73, 379–80, 383–84, 387–88, 391–94, 396–404, 414–17.

89. Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 108; Armstrong Starkey, “War and Culture, a Case Study: The Enlightenment and the Conduct of the British Army in America, 1755–1781,” in War and Society, 8 (1990), pp. 1–28: 13–14.

90. Major André’s Journal, pp. 67–70.

91. General Orders, headquarters at the Gulph, December 17, 1777, in PWRW, 12, pp. 620–21.

9: Treason of the Blackest Dye

1. GW to Henry Laurens, December 23, 1777, in PWRW, 12, pp. 683–85.

2. Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin (new ed., New York, 2001), p. 88; “Memoir of 1779” in Idzerda, ed., Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, 1, p. 170.

3. GW to the Board of War, January 2–3, 1778, in PWRW, 13, p. 112.

4. See GW to Lieutenant Colonel James Innes, January 2, and GW to a Continental Congress Camp Committee, January 29, 1778, in PWRW, 13, pp. 116 and 116–17 (note 1), 379–80; Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, pp. 53–54; GW to Lund Washington, February 28, 1778, in PWRW, 13, p. 699; Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, pp. 88–92. For a revealing regional case study of recruitment, see Michael A. McDonnell, “‘Fit for Common Service?’ Class, Race, and Recruitment in Revolutionary Virginia,” in John Resch and Walter Sargent, eds., War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts (DeKalb, Illinois, 2007), pp. 103–131.

5. Scholarship on the composition of the Continental Army is extensive and ongoing, but for useful overviews see Charles Patrick Neimeyer, America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (New York, 1996), and Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, especially pp. 69–77, 87–99. Another study, which places greater emphasis upon ideology as a motivator for the rank and file, is Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775–1783 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1979), especially pp. 373–78.

6. For Bragg and Ingram, see Chelsea Boards of May 12 and June 18, 1787, in National Archives, WO 121/1, and for Haymer, Board of May 3, 1790, WO 121/8.

7. Stephen Conway, The British Isles and the War of American Independence (Oxford, 2000), pp. 34–35.

8. See the discussion in Spring, Zeal and Bayonets, pp. 28–29.

9. This overview follows Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, pp. 100–103.

10. Paul David Nelson, Anthony Wayne: Soldier of the Early Republic (Bloomington, Indiana, 1985), p. 66; General Johann de Kalb to Count Charles Francis de Broglie, Valley Forge, December 25, 1777, in Commager and Morris, eds., Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, p. 646; JCC, 7, pp. 196–97 (March 24, 1777); see also Higginbotham, War of American Independence, p. 211.

11. John Adams to Abigail Adams, October 26, 1777, in P. H. Smith. ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789, 26 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1976–2000), 8, p. 187. For widespread public praise of Washington, and the extent to which American propagandists depicted him as a virtuous replacement for the “tyrant” George III, see Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 202–11.

12. Rush to John Adams, October 21, 1777, in Butterfield, ed., Letters of Rush, 1, p. 161.

13. Wilkinson, Memoirs, 1, pp. 331–32.

14. Stirling to GW, November 3, 1777, in PWRW, 12, p. 111.

15. GW to Conway, ca. November 5, 1777; Conway to GW, November 5, 1777, in PWRW, 12, pp. 129–30. A paraphrased extract from Conway’s original letter to Gates was copied by Henry Laurens, who passed it to Washington’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Col. John Fitzgerald; he in turn enclosed it in a letter to Washington of February 16, 1778 (PWRW, 13, pp. 555–56).

16. Conway to GW, January 10, 1778, in PWRW, 13, p. 195.

17. See H. James Henderson, Party Politics in the Continental Congress (New York, 1974), p. 119. The notion of a “cabal” was comprehensively debunked by Bernhard Knollenberg in Washington and the Revolution: A Reappraisal (New York, 1940), pp. 65–77.

18. Craik to GW, January 6, 1778, in PWRW, 13, p. 160; Lafayette to Henry Laurens, ca. January 5, 1778, and Laurens to Lafayette, January 12, 1778, in Idzerda, ed., Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, 1, pp. 213, 231–32.

19. Lovell to Adams, January 20, 1778, in Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 8, p. 618.

20. See Rush to Patrick Henry, January 12, 1778, in Butterfield, ed., Letters of Rush, 1, p. 183.

21. GW to Conway, December 30, 1777; Conway to GW, December 31, 1777, in PWRW, 13, pp. 66–67, 78.

22. Lafayette to GW, December 30, 1777, in PWRW, 13, p. 69.

23. See “Conway, Thomas,” in Johnson and Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 2, pp. 365–66. While most accounts assume that Cadwalader “called out” Conway, Freeman suggested that Conway was the challenger (Washington, 5, p. 39). For Conway’s letter to Washington from Philadelphia (misdated to February 23, instead of July 23, 1778), see Thacher, Military Journal, p. 129 note.

24. Gates to GW, December 8, 1777, and February 19, 1778, in PWRW, 12, pp. 576–77, and PWRW, 13, p. 590; and GW to Gates, January 4 and February 24, 1778, in PWRW, 13, pp. 138–39, 654–55.

25. For the “witch hunt” comparison and a thoughtful overview of the “Conway Cabal,” see Higginbotham, War of American Independence, pp. 216–22.

26. GW to Continental Congress Camp Committee, January 29, 1778, in PWRW, 13, pp. 377–78; Henderson, Party Politics in the Continental Congress, p. 124.

27. See Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, pp. 208–10.

28. Ewald, Diary of the American War, Introduction, pp. xxv–xxvi.

29. Thacher, Military Journal, p. 205 (mispaged as p. 189).

30. Joseph J. Ellis argues that Valley Forge was the “honor-driven place where dueling first became a fixture in national politics.” See His Excellency George Washington, p. 295, note 9.

31. See Mark Evans Bryan, “‘Slideing into Monarchical extravagance’: Cato at Valley Forge and the Testimony of William Bradford Jr.,” WMQ, 67 (2010), pp. 123–44.

32. Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, pp. 181–83; Tatum, ed. Journal of Serle, p. 294. For a detailed account of the “Mischianza” written by one of the organizers, Captain John André, dated Philadelphia, May 23, 1778, see the Annual Register for 1778, pp. 267–70. On the event’s “Gothic” dimension, see Starkey, “War and Culture: a Case Study,” in War and Society (1990), pp. 17–18.

33. GW to Henry Laurens, April 30, 1778, in PWRW, 14, pp. 681–83.

34. Baron von Steuben to Franklin, September 28, 1779, in Labaree and Willcox, eds., Papers of Franklin, 30, p. 412; Clinton, American Rebellion, p. 95, note 16.

35. See Paul Lockhart, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (New York, 2008), pp. 193–94.

36. General Orders, headquarters, Valley Forge, May 5, 1778, in PWRW, 15, pp. 38–40, 41, note 6.

37. Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, p. 188.

38. See William B. Wilcox, “Sir Henry Clinton: Paralysis of Command,” in George A. Billias, ed., George Washington’s Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution (New York, 1969), pp. 73–102: 74.

39. Lee to GW, April 13, 1778, enclosing his “Plan of an Army, Etc” in Lee Papers, 2, pp. 382–89: 388; and June 15, 1778, in PWRW, 15, p. 404.

40. Council-of-War, Hopewell Township, New Jersey, June 24, 1778, in PWRW, 15, pp. 520–21; Hamilton to Elias Boudinot, July 5, 1778, in Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 27 vols. (New York, 1961–87), 1, p. 510.

41. See Greene, Lafayette, and Wayne to GW, June 24, 1778, and Hamilton to GW, June 26, 1778 in PWRW, 15, pp. 525–26, 528–29, 535. and 547.

42. Lee to GW, June 25, 1778, in PWRW, 15, p. 541.

43. Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, pp. 110–11.

44. Despite much colorful speculation, exactly what was said is unclear from the evidence, although Lee maintained that Washington made use of “very singular expressions.” Washington denied doing so and could only recall using language “dictated by duty and warranted by the occasion.” See Lee to GW, and GW to Lee, both June 30, 1778, in PWRW, 15, pp. 594–95; also, the discussion of the episode in James Thomas Flexner, George Washington in the American Revolution, 1775–1783 (Boston, 1967), p. 305.

45. Hamilton to Boudinot, July 5, 1778, in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 2, p. 512; Nathanael Greene to [his brother] Jacob Greene, July 2, 1778, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 2, p. 451.

46. Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 136.

47. General Orders, headquarters, Freehold, and GW to Laurens, both June 29, 1778, in PWRW, 15, pp. 583, 587.

48. See Lee to GW, June 30, 1778 (three letters), and GW to Lee, June 30 (two letters) in PWRW, 15, pp. 594–97.

49. For the charges, see Lee Papers, 3, p. 2, with the verdict at p. 208. The voluminous court testimony fills the intervening pages.

50. Shy, A People Numerous and Armed, p. 159.

51. Clinton, American Rebellion, p. 96.

52. See the “Account” of the duel prepared by the “seconds,” Alexander Hamilton and Major Evan Edwards, in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 1, pp. 602–604.

53. Rush to John Adams, October 13, 1777, in Butterfield, ed., Letters of Rush, 1, p. 158. A leading modern historian of the war concludes that Lee “would have been a disaster as the army’s commander.” See Ferling, Almost a Miracle, p. 573.

54. On the war at sea, see especially William M. Fowler, Rebels Under Sail: the American Navy During the American Revolution (New York, 1976); David Syrett, The Royal Navy in American Waters, 1775–1783 (Aldershot, 1989); and Daniel A. Baugh, “Why Did Britain Lose Command of the Sea During the War for America?,” in Jeremy Black and Philip Woodfine, eds., The British Navy and the Use of Naval Power in the Eighteenth Century (Leicester, 1988), pp. 149–69.

55. GW to d’Estaing, July 17, 1778, in PWRW, 16, p. 88.

56. Washington to Nathanael Greene, September 1, 1778, in PWRW, 16, pp. 458–59.

57. For the diverging views of British officers, see Stephen Conway, “To Subdue America: British Army Officers and the Conduct of the Revolutionary War,” in WMQ, 43 (1986), pp. 381–407.

58. Freeman, Washington, 5, p. 87.

59. Washington to Henry Laurens, November 14, 1778, in PWRW, 18, pp. 149–51.

60. See Mackesy, War for America, p. 232; Fortescue, History of the British Army, 3, pp. 268–71; Spring, Zeal and Bayonets, p. 192; Mark Urban, Fusiliers: Eight Years with the Redcoats in America (London, 2007), p. 306.

61. Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, p. 271.

62. See GW to Wayne, July 10, 1779, in WW, 15, pp. 396–97; also, Nelson, Anthony Wayne, pp. 94–101; and Starkey, “Paoli to Stony Point,” Journal of Military History (1994), pp. 20–27.

63. Washington to Major General Lord Stirling, August 21, 1779, and to Lafayette, September 12, 1779, in WW, 16, pp. 145–46, 267–68.

64. Ewald, Diary of the American War, pp. 166–67.

65. On this episode, known as the “Indian Field” skirmish, see Ewald, Diary of the American War, pp. 144–45, and Brigadier General Charles Scott to GW, August 31, 1778, in PWRW, 16, p. 448; also Colin G. Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (Cambridge and New York, 1995), pp. 96–97.

66. Instructions to Major General John Sullivan, May 31, 1779, in PWRW, 20, pp. 717–18. For an analysis of Sullivan’s expedition that emphasizes the different “rules” governing war against Indians, see Wayne E. Lee, Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500–1865 (New York, 2011), pp. 209–31.

67. See Isabel Thompson Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 1743–1807: Man of Two Worlds (Syracuse, New York, 1984), pp. 62, 161–74, 182–83.

68. Tatum, ed., Journal of Serle, p. 55.

69. GW to Lafayette, September 12 and 30, 1779, in WW, 16, pp. 268, 375. For the extent to which this wholesale destruction conformed to a well-established pattern of targeting Indians’ food resources, see John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier (Cambridge and New York, 2005), especially pp. 166–67.

70. See Fausz, “‘Engaged in Enterprises Pregnant with Terror’: George Washington’s Formative Years Among the Indians,” in Hofstra, ed., George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, p. 137.

71. Circular to Governors of the States, headquarters, Morristown, December 16, 1779, in WW, 17, pp. 273–74.

72. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 181–82.

73. General Orders, January 28, 1780, in WW, 17, pp. 459–60.

74. Thacher, Military Journal, p. 182.

75. Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, p. 157.

76. Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, pp. 372–73.

77. Lee Kennett, The French Forces in America, 1780–1783 (Westport, Connecticut, 1977), pp. 29–30.

78. GW to Rochambeau, July 16 ,1780, and General Orders, Head Quarters, “Pracaness [New Jersey],” July 20, 1780, in WW, 19, pp. 186, 220–21.

79. Williams to Alexander Hamilton, August 30, 1780; Hamilton to James Duane, September 6, 1780, in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 2, pp. 385, 420–21.

80. GW to Samuel Huntington, September 15, 1780, in WW, 20, pp. 49–50.

81. See Anthony J. Scotti, Jr., Brutal Virtue: The Myth and Reality of Banastre Tarleton (Bowie, Maryland, 2002), p. 134. While focused on Tarleton and his British Legion, Scotti’s book also provides a nuanced analysis of the factors behind the brutality of warfare in the Carolinas.

82. See Washington’s “Answers to Queries by the Comte de Rochambeau and the Chevalier de Ternay,” and “Conference at Hartford,” Hartford, September 22, 1780, in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 2, pp. 435–38. See also Kennett, French Forces in America, pp. 59–61.

83. Clinton to Germain, October 11, 1780 in Clinton, American Rebellion, pp. 462–65.

84. See Robert E. Cray Jr., “Major John André and the Three Captors: Class Dynamics and Revolutionary Memory Wars in the Early Republic, 1780–1831,” in Journal of the Early Republic, 17 (1997), pp. 371–97: 375–76.

85. General Orders, headquarters, Orangetown, September 26, 1780, in WW, 20, p. 95.

86. GW to Clinton, September 30, 1780, in WW, 20, pp. 103–104.

87. Robertson to Clinton, October 1, 1780, in Carl Van Doren, Secret History of the American Revolution (New York, 1941), pp. 488–89.

88. Ibid., p. 475.

89. André to GW, October 1, 1780, in Major André’s Journal, p. 9; Hamilton to Lt. Col. John Laurens, October 11, 1780, in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 2, p. 468.

90. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 222–23; Gibbs’s account is reproduced in Major André’s Journal, p. 112.

91. Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 250.

92. Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, p. 140.

93. Given in Commager and Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy Six, p. 763.

94. Clinton, American Rebellion, p. 217.

95. Washington to Laurens, October 13, 1780, in WW, 20, p. 173.

96. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 224–5; Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, p. 161.

97. Arnold to GW, “On Board the Vulture,” September 25, 1780, enclosed in Alexander Hamilton to GW, September 25, 1780, in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 2, pp. 439–40.

10: The World Turned Upside Down

1. See Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, pp. 302–303.

2. James Kirby Martin, “A ‘Most Undisciplined Profligate Crew’: Protest and Defiance in the Continental Ranks, 1776–1783,” in Hoffman, ed., Arms and Independence, pp. 119–40: 134.

3. Kennett, French Forces in America, pp. 83–84.

4. GW to Wayne, January 3–4, 1781, in WW, 21, pp. 55–58.

5. GW to the President of Congress, January 23, 1781, in WW, 21, pp. 135–36.

6. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 244–46.

7. Kennett, French Forces in America, pp. 96–97.

8. GW to Lafayette, February 20, 1781, in WW, 21, pp. 253–55; Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 295.

9. See Berthier’s “Journal” in Howard C. Rice Jr. and Anne S. K. Brown, eds., The American Campaigns of Rochambeau’s Army, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, 2 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey, and Providence, Rhode Island, 1972), 1, p. 241.

10. Evelyn M. Acomb, ed., The Revolutionary Journal of Baron Von Closen (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1958), p. 64.

11. See “Diary of a French Officer, 1781, presumed to be that of Baron Cromot du Bourg, Aid to Rochambeau, Part 2,” in The Magazine of American History, 4 (1880), pp. 293–308: 296.

12. For Washington’s reception, see Kennett, French Forces in America, p. 98.

13. Ibid, pp. 98–100.

14. Diaries, 3, p. 356.

15. See Lawrence E. Babits, The Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1998).

16. GW to Greene, April 18, 1781, in WW, 21, pp. 471–72.

17. See Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York, 1984), p. 54.

18. This synthesis draws especially on Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, pp. 198–200; Conway, The War of American Independence, p. 30; and Howard H. Peckham, ed., The Toll of Independence: Engagements and Battle Casualties of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1974), pp. 132–33. Since 1818, half-pay pensions had been available to all Continental officers and men, along with members of the US Navy and Marines, who were in financial distress. By contrast, applicants under the 1832 law didn’t have to prove disability or hardship. The many thousands of testimonies taken to support pension applications have been described as “a remarkable body of historical data” amounting to “one of the largest oral history projects ever undertaken.” See Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered, pp. xv–xvii.

19. On Hobkirk’s Hill, see Nelson, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, pp. 94–96; Terry Golway, Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution (New York, 2006), pp. 267–69.

20. Acomb, ed. Journal of Closen, p. 78; Kennett, French Forces in America, pp. 104–105.

21. Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America, trans. and ed. Howard C. Rice Jr., 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina), 1, pp. 106–14.

22. See Kennett, French Forces in America, p. 105.

23. “Conference with Comte de Rochambeau,” Wethersfield, May 23 [actually 22], 1781, in WW, 22, pp. 105–107; GW to Sullivan, May 29, 1781, in WW, 22, pp. 131–32.

24. This interpretation follows Kennett, French Forces in America, pp. 107–109; also Jonathan R. Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774–1787 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1975), pp. 242–43. See also GW to Rochambeau, June 13, 1781, in WW, 22, p. 208.

25. See Rice and Brown, eds., American Campaigns of Rochambeau’s Army, 1, p. 33; Acomb, ed., Journal of Closen, pp. 89–92.

26. For a detailed examination of the controversial issue of the black contribution to the Continental Army, see Neimeyer, America Goes to War, pp. 65–88.

27. Diaries, 3, p. 397.

28. See John Austin Stevens, “The Operations of the Allied Armies before New York, 1781,” in Magazine of American History, 4 (1880), pp. 1–31.

29. Diaries, 3, pp. 403–405.

30. Nelson, Anthony Wayne, pp. 128–33.

31. See Clinton to Cornwallis, June 11 and June 15 (extract) in Clinton, American Rebellion, Appendix, pp. 529–32; Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 315.

32. On Green Spring, see F. and M. Wickwire, Cornwallis, pp. 342–47; Nelson, Anthony Wayne, pp. 135–37.

33. See extracts of letters from Clinton to Cornwallis, June 28 and July 11, 1781 (extracts of two letters), in Clinton, American Rebellion, pp. 534, 543–54.

34. Ewald, Diary of the American War, p. 319.

35. Diaries, 3, pp. 409–10.

36. Diaries, 3, p. 411.

37. GW and Rochambeau to de Grasse, August 17, 1781, in WW, 23, pp. 7–10.

38. Acomb, ed., Journal of Closen, p. 115.

39. “Diary of a French Officer, 1781: Part 3,” Magazine of American History, 4 (1880), pp. 376–85: 377–79.

40. Thacher, Military Journal, p. 263.

41. Acomb, ed. Journal of Closen, pp. 120–21.

42. See GW to Lafayette, August 27 and September 2, 1781, and to Greene, September 4, 1781, in WW, 23, pp. 52–53, 75–78, 84–86.

43. Acomb, ed., Journal of Closen, p. 123; “Diary of a French Officer, 1781: Part 3,” Magazine of American History (1880), p. 384.

44. GW to Noah Webster, July 31, 1788, in WW, 30, pp. 26–28.

45. GW to the Superintendent of Finance, September 6–7, 1781, in WW, 23, pp. 89, 95; Acomb, ed., Journal of Closen, p. 124.

46. Diaries, 3, p. 419, and note 1; Acomb, ed., Journal of Closen, p. 129.

47. For a balanced discussion of this controversial episode, see M. M. Boatner, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (New York, 1958), pp. 787–88.

48. Edward M. Riley, ed., “St. George Tucker’s Journal of the Siege of Yorktown, 1781,” in WMQ, 5 (1948), pp. 375–95: 377.

49. Kennett, French Forces in America, pp. 143–44.

50. GW to de Grasse, September 25, 1781, in WW, 23, p. 136.

51. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 269–70.

52. For Cromwell’s story and a reproduction of his discharge certificate, see Sidney Kaplan, The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution 1770–1800 (Washington, D.C., 1973), pp. 47–48.

53. General Orders, headquarters, Williamsburg, September 27, 1781, WW, 23, pp. 147–48; Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, p. 197.

54. Steuben to Franklin, September 28, 1779, in Willcox, ed., Papers of Franklin, 30, p. 413.

55. See Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America (New York, 1956), pp. 286–89. See also General Orders: Valley Forge, December 22, 1777, in PWRW, 12, p. 663; Morristown, April 4, 1780, in WW, 18, pp. 214–15; Newburgh, August 9, 1782, in WW, 24, pp. 491–92. For the incident at White Plains, see Clinton, American Rebellion, pp. 51–52, and note 27.

56. Golway, Washington’s General, pp. 280–84.

57. F. and M. Wickwire, Cornwallis, pp. 369–70.

58. Diaries, 3, p. 423.

59. Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, p. 199.

60. Thacher, Military Journal, p. 274.

61. Diaries, 3, p. 425; Acomb, ed., Journal of Closen, pp. 152, 156.

62. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 274–75.

63. Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered, pp. 244–45. Sarah Osborn’s story survives in the testimony she provided in 1837, when aged eighty-one, to secure her dead husband’s military pension.

64. Freeman, Washington, 5, p. 369.

65. GW to the President of Congress, October 16, 1781, in WW, 23, p. 228.

66. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 275–76.

67. See Hamilton to Lafayette, October 15, 1781, and to Elizabeth Hamilton, October 16, 1781, in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 2, pp. 679–82.

68. Suddarth’s testimony was included in the narrative he submitted in 1839 to support his successful application for a revolutionary war pension. See Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered, pp. 239–40.

69. See the terms in GW to Cornwallis, October 18, 1781, in WW, 23, pp. 237–38.

70. Griffiths’s story emerges from a testimonial that Simcoe wrote on his behalf in 1789 to support his belated application for a Chelsea pension. See National Archives, WO/121/6, Chelsea Board of August 5, 1789. The registers of Royal Hospital Chelsea for the same date (in WO/116/9) show that Griffiths, who was then aged twenty-six, was appointed to a company of invalid soldiers as an alternative to being placed upon the “out-pension.” Although appointed to the invalids at Chester Castle, he was discharged on Christmas Eve, 1790 (see WO/12/11600: Musters of the Invalids, Chester, 1783–1802).

71. Gruber, ed., Peebles’ American War, pp. 480, 483–4.

72. This follows Count Mathieu Dumas, Memoirs of His Own Time, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1839), 1, 52n–53n, cited in George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin, Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It (New York, 1957), p. 494, supplemented by Thacher, Military Journal, p. 279. See also the balanced account in Freeman, Washington, 5, pp. 388–90.

73. Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered, p. 245. Lieutenant O’Hara was described as “a spirited young officer.” See Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781, in the Southern Provinces of North America (London, 1787), p. 280.

74. The evidence is discussed in Freeman, Washington, 5, p. 388, note 47.

75. See National Archives, Kew, WO/121/8 (Chelsea Board of June 8, 1790). Both men must have served in the 2nd Battalion of the 71st, as the 1st/71st was captured at Cowpens in January 1781.

76. See Greene to GW, May 31, 1779, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 4, p. 108; Millett and Maslowski, For the Common Defense, p. 55.

77. GW to the President of Congress, November 5, 1780, in WW, 20, p. 293.

78. Ewald, Diary of the American War, pp. 339–41.

79. Conway, “Britain and the Revolutionary Crisis,” in Marshall, ed., Oxford History of the British Empire: The Eighteenth Century, pp. 342–43.

80. See F. and M. Wickwire, Cornwallis, p. 978, citing Bill, Campaign of Princeton, p. 121.

81. Acomb, ed., Journal of Closen, pp. 239–40; GW to John Jay, October 18, 1782, in WW, 25, p. 275.

82. GW to Brigadier General William Irvine, July 10 and August 6, 1782, in WW, 24, pp. 417, 474. See also Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America, p. 72.

83. GW to Lincoln, October 2, 1782, in WW, 25, pp. 226–28.

84. On this episode, see especially, Richard H. Kohn, “The Inside Story of the Newburgh Conspiracy: America and the Coup d’Etat,” in WMQ, 27 (1970), pp. 187–220; and the same author’s Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802 (New York, 1975), pp. 17–39; also Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, pp. 333–38.

85. Hamilton to GW, February 13, 1783 in Syrett, ed., Papers of Hamilton, 3, pp. 253–55.

86. GW to Hamilton, March 4, 1783, in WW, 26, p. 186; also Freeman, Washington, 5, p. 429.

87. Nelson, General Horatio Gates, pp. 271–73.

88. JCC, 24, pp. 295–97.

89. GW to Joseph Jones, March 12, 1783, in WW, 26, pp. 213–14; General Orders, headquarters, Newburgh, March 11, 1783, in WW, 26, p. 208; JCC, 24, pp. 297–99.

90. GW to the Officers of the Army, headquarters, Newburgh, March 15, 1783, in WW, 26, pp. 224–27.

91. See Freeman, Washington, 5, p. 435, and note 39; also Flexner, Washington in the American Revolution, p. 507. For “virtuoso performance,” see Millett and Maslowski, For the Common Defense, p. 83; for “finest hour,” see Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition, p. 99. Paul Longmore observes that Washington increasingly saw himself as an actor “playing the primary role in a great historical drama,” capable of delivering restrained, but highly effective performances. See Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 182–83.

92. See GW to Boudinot and Jones, March 18, 1783, in WW, 26, pp. 230–34.

93. See Richard H. Kohn, “American Generals of the Revolution: Subordination and Restraint,” in Don Higginbotham, ed., Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War (Westport, Connecticut, 1978), pp. 104–23: 117; GW to Colonel Nicola, May 22, 1780, in WW, 24, pp. 272–73; Freeman, Washington, 5, p. 416.

94. On divisions between the Continental Army’s officers and men and the implications for any attempted coup, see Martin, “‘A Most Undisciplined Profligate Crew,’” in Hoffman and Albert, eds., Arms and Independence, pp. 137–39; also Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, pp. 335–36; Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, pp. 218, 226.

95. See General Orders, headquarters, Newburgh, March 29 and April 18, 1783, in WW, 26, pp. 268–69, 334–36.

96. Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, pp. 243–44.

97. Orders to the Armies of the United States, November 2, 1783, in WW, 27, pp. 223–27.

98. GW’s “Address to the Continental Congress on Resigning his Commission,” December 23, 1783, WW, 27, pp. 284–85.

99. See Martin and Lender, A Respectable Army, pp. 201–203.

100. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, p. 13

101. This overview of Harmar’s and St. Clair’s defeats follows Armstrong Starkey, European and Native American Warfare, 1675–1815 (Norman, Oklahoma, 1998), pp. 141–47. For Cornwallis’s guns, see Wiley Sword, President Washington’s Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790–1795 (Norman, Oklahoma), p. 188.

102. Ibid., pp. 204–205.

103. See “Opinion of the General Officers,” March 9, 1792, in WW, 31, pp. 509–15.

104. Starkey, European and Native American Warfare, p. 150; Kohn, Eagle and Sword, p. 124.

105. Quoted in Nelson, Anthony Wayne, pp. 266–67.

106. Diaries, 6, p. 192 and note.

107. On French veterans at the Bastille, see Kennett, French Forces in America, xii–xiii; for Lafayette and d’Estaing, see Boatner, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, pp. 350, 593.

108. Lengel, General George Washington, pp. 359–60.

109. GW to the secretary at war, December 13, 1798, and to William Fitzhugh, August 5, 1798, cited and discussed in Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, pp. 113–14.

110. See Kohn, Eagle and Sword, p. 253; Ellis, His Excellency, George Washington, pp. 158–60; Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 297, note 25.

111. Martin, Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, pp. 249–52. Martin published his memoir anonymously in 1830, two years before the introduction of pensions for all eligible Revolutionary War veterans, including militiamen.

112. GW to Sarah Cary Fairfax, May 16, 1798, in WW, 36, pp. 262–64.

113. GW to Chastellux, April 25–May 1, 1788, in WW, 29, pp. 484–85. The engraving of Wright’s painting was issued in 1797. See Robert Rosenblum, “Sources of Two Paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby,” in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, 25 (1962), pp. 135–36: 136.

114. See James Thomas Flexner, George Washington: Anguish and Farewell (1793–1799) (Boston, 1969), p. 459.

115. For this description, see Congressman Thomas Cushing to James Bowdoin Snr., June 21, 1775, in Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1, p. 530.

116. Fortescue, History of the British Army, 3, pp. 409–10.