American troops were learning their bloody business and tactically were by no means as inferior to the British as they had been a year previously. Many officers were increasing both in understanding and in appreciation of their seniors. Washington rose, rather than waned, in esteem, as a result of the Battle of Germantown. His plan was not criticized; his boldness in attacking so soon after the defeat on the Brandywine was applauded. He and his Army received the thanks of Congress. Hope for the future was buttressed by the spirit of the Army. American soldiers had shown, Washington reminded them, that “the enemy are not proof against a vigorous attack, and may be put to flight when boldly pushed.”
During the night of October 12/13, Washington had news that on the sixth a British force had stormed successfully the two guardian defences of the Hudson, Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton, on the west bank of the river, approximately four miles northwest of Peekskill and about forty-eight from New York harbor. Washington had said often that the loss of the passes of the highlands would be well nigh fatal to the American cause in New York and the eastern States. It was for this reason, among others, that he had regretted the necessity of calling on Putnam after the Battle of the Brandywine for 2500 troops. Washington had directed that the garrisons of all non-essential outposts under Putnam’s command at Peekskill be recalled. He had hoped that Connecticut militia would replace the withdrawn Continentals and, in the gamble of probability, thought it likely that if Sir Henry Clinton’s British troops made any move from the vicinity of New York, they would attempt an overland march to join Howe. Washington now was proved in error. He took pains to make clear the circumstances in which he had felt compelled to recall troops from Putnam and did not blame that officer for the reverse. Neither did he attempt to minimize the possible consequences for which both Congress and he were held by some to be responsible.
Then came a strange revival of good fortune. By their capture of Forts Montgomery and Clinton the British had unlocked the southern gate to the region in which Clinton and Burgoyne were to meet; the very next day Horatio Gates slammed the northern gate. For a second time on Freeman’s Farm Burgoyne offered battle, October 1, and advanced a column which the Americans repulsed and pursued in a savage action that continued till late evening. Burgoyne could not hope to penetrate farther southward. General Gates hoped that even retreat would not be possible. Incomplete news of this action reached Washington late on the fourteenth and changed instantly the outlook on the Hudson. It was confirmed on the eighteenth when an express laid before him this dispatch from George Clinton:
Last night at 8 o’clock the capitulation, whereby General Burgoyne and the whole army surrendered themselves prisoners of war, was signed, and this morning they are to march out towards the river above Fisher’s Creek with the honors of war (and there ground their arms). They are from thence to be marched to Massachusetts Bay. We congratulate you on this happy event and remain, yours &ca.
Great possibilities seemed to lie ahead—the Hudson no longer a possible boundary line between free and subjugated States; troops to reenforce the thin divisions that confronted Howe, restoration of faith in victory and the rally of militia to the cause. Hopes built up at Germantown were raised higher. Washington was gratified personally as well as officially, because he had done all in his power to assist first Schuyler and St. Clair at Ticonderoga and then Gates, but he and many other persons were now to be much irritated. Gates was guilty of incomprehensible tardiness in forwarding a detailed report. When the triumph was confirmed, it was so “important and glorious,” in Washington’s words, that he stifled the anger he felt because of the failure of Gates to send the dispatch through Headquarters. There was no undertone of jealousy in anything Washington said of the victory. Perhaps the closest approach was in the observation that Gates was said to have had fourteen thousand militia with him. Washington remarked of the New England States that mistakenly were supposed to have sent so many men to the Northern Department:
Had the same spirit pervaded the people of this and the neighboring States, we might before this have had General Howe nearly in the situation of General Burgoyne, with this difference, that the former would never have been out of reach of his ships, whilst the latter increased his danger every step he took having but one retreat in case of a disaster, and that blocked up by a respectable force.
Never for an hour, while operating close to deep water, could Washington forget seapower.
As if in acknowledgment of the change in its prospect the Royal Army vacated Germantown on the night of October 18/19 and drew back to Philadelphia. Washington moved his camp to White Marsh, but he could do no more than “hover” around the Quaker City. Below that city an effort was being made by the British to clear the way for the supply ships, without which Howe could not hope to hold the town. Washington was responsible for manning the forts and selecting the officers to command them, but the defence on the water was in the hands of officers responsible to the Navy Board and working in cooperation with Commodore John Hazelwood, who had full power over the Pennsylvania Navy. In so clumsy an engine of war, loss of motion was unavoidable; friction was all too likely. Two days before the Battle of Brandywine, the British had occupied Billingsport on the Jersey shore of the Delaware but they made no effort to seize Red Bank, five miles above Billingsport. On the Pennsylvania shore, the British were hoping to place batteries on Province Island, a marshy part of the mainland cut off by small creeks. The Americans worked steadily on the defences at Red Bank, styled Fort Mercer. The other principal American fortification consisted of four blockhouses and a battery of ten eighteen-pounders. These works were known as Fort Mifflin and were located on the treacherous ground of Port Island, nineteen hundred yards from Fort Mercer. The defenders had fashioned heavy timber obstructions which had been sunk across the channel. If the enemy tried to remove these chevaux-de-frise they could be swept by artillery in the forts. Above these barriers were light craft, most of which were galleys that could be maneuvered rapidly and with precision.
With patient enterprise, the British succeeded in planting their siege guns on Province Island and began, October 10, a steady bombardment of Fort Mifflin. By the twenty-first, it was manifest that a general assault on the river defences was impending. The destruction of Fort Mifflin was undertaken October 22 by British land batteries and by six men-of-war that came through an opening where two of the chevaux-de-frise had been pulled up. Fort Mercer and American craft gave hearty help to the guns of Fort Mifflin. At length, badly punished, the British vessels started back down the river, but a sixty-four-gun ship, the Augusta, and the frigate Merlin ran aground. The same day a force of about twelve hundred Hessians attempted to storm Fort Mercer. The effort was defeated completely at a cost to the assailants of about four hundred casualties. The final stroke of this successful phase of the defence came on the twenty-third, when an explosion wrecked the Augusta and fire destroyed the Merlin.
This repulse, in Washington’s judgment, was nothing more than a respite, but it afforded time to strengthen Fort Mercer and it gave him a few more hours each day in which to meet, as far as he could, increasing needs of an enlarged Army. The Commissary still was demoralized by loss of men and by the regulations Congress had shaped unwisely. Quartermaster General Mifflin had neglected his duties for months and was now in such ill health that he had to quit his office. Where the issue of shoes was concerned, the men in the ranks doubtless would have insisted that no change could be for the worse. The need of blankets was equally desperate. During November Washington was to write: “There are now in this Army by a late return 4000 men wanting blankets, near 2000 of which have never had one, although some of them have been twelve months in service.”
Washington faced all his familiar difficulties and some he had not experienced previously. Over certain periods, he lost more men by desertion than he gained by enlistment. Now that the forests around the camps were flying the red and yellow warnings of autumn, the Army began to dissolve. Besides losing the militia, Washington soon would have to say farewell to some and perhaps all the troops of the first nine Virginia regiments because their time was expiring. In their place, if for a short period only, Washington must get Pennsylvania militia, but how he did not know. There was one other area from which men might be drawn, trained men at that: the line of the Hudson no longer would need as many troops as were with Gates and Putnam. Many could be sent to Pennsylvania, but in this, as in much besides, the gulf between could and would was wide.
Washington did not have the uniform support of able lieutenants who understood his perplexities and intelligently endeavored to relieve them. Though he had some senior officers like Greene, Lincoln and Knox, who were developing steadily, several lacked essential qualities of leadership. The Army had been for weeks without sufficient generals and now Francis Nash, a promising North Carolina Brigadier, died of wounds. In addition, five general officers of experience faced charges—Prudhomme de Borre for mismanagement or worse at Brandywine, Sullivan for the affair on Staten Island and for the action of September 11, Wayne for the attack on his troops near Paoli, Stephen for misconduct and excessive drinking, and Maxwell for substantially the same charges. De Borre resigned; Sullivan was acquitted unanimously and given by Congress a vote that was an apology in all but explicit words; Wayne was said by the court to deserve “highest honor.” Maxwell was given something of a Scotch verdict, but Adam Stephen was not that fortunate. He was convicted of “unofficerlike behavior” and of “drunkenness” and was recommended for dismissal. Washington approved the sentence. While the Commander-in-Chief did not say so, he undoubtedly was glad to be rid of Stephen, but the need of additional officers remained. Congress named Alexander McDougall of New York a Major General and gave like rank to Robert Howe, a North Carolina Brigadier, whom Washington did not know. Among the effects of this shortage of senior officers was a lack of discipline among ambitious, place-hunting colonels. Other regimental commanders were discouraged by the low purchasing power of their pay and promotion over them of foreigners and staff officers regarded as pets of powerful generals. The main Army was outraged, in particular, by the compliance of Congress with the request of Gates that Lt. Col. James Wilkinson be given brevet as Brigadier for bringing the news of Burgoyne’s surrender. There was, as always, the canker of controversy over seniority.
Applications of foreigners for high rank in the American service continued. The Commissioners in France were embarrassed by what Silas Deane styled the “rage” among Frenchmen for this adventure. The agents in Paris were told firmly that the decision of Congress to refuse commissions to foreigners who did not understand the English language must not be construed to mean that all those who had knowledge of that tongue would be employed. Meantime, Congress begrudgingly advanced money to French officers who either were extravagant or were without funds of their own. In the embarrassing case of du Coudray accident served where diplomacy had failed. On September 15 this ambitious officer had insisted on remaining astride his horse when he was going aboard the Schuylkill ferry. The animal had taken fright and plunged into the river. Du Coudray was drowned—a “dispensation,” said John Adams, “that will save us much altercation.” Thanks to the example set by Lafayette, Duportail and a few others, Washington was undergoing a change of mind concerning qualified foreign officers, but at this time most of them added to burdens which soon led Greene to say: “I think I never saw the Army so near dissolving since I have belonged to it.” Apparent disintegration had been a continuing process, the worst of which had not been realized yet; but this time it had not brought Washington as low in spirit as he had been in 1776 when he had written his brother: “If every nerve is not strained to recruit the New Army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty near up. . .” Now, when he sketched for the same brother’s eye the perplexities he faced, Washington said: “I am doing all I can in my present situation to save them; God only knows which will succeed.”
A shocking incident on October 15 would have justified Washington in saying of the moral fibre of Americans substantially what he had written of their war for independence: God alone knew whether it would outwear adversity. A devout woman of culture, Mrs. Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson, came to Headquarters that day and asked to see the General. Washington knew her not only by her own reputation for literary attainments but also as the daughter of a distinguished Philadelphian, Dr. Thomas Graeme, who had died five years previously, and had full faith in her. Mrs. Ferguson handed Washington a bulky package of fourteen folio pages. It proved to be a letter to Washington from a man he admired, the Rev. Jacob Duché, a Philadelphia clergyman whose eloquence had stirred the heart of every Delegate to Congress in 1774. It was a blow in the face to read long, fervent paragraphs in which the minister urged that Washington call on Congress to rescind the Declaration of Independence and open negotiations for peace. Duché was confident that such a move would meet with favor in America. “If it should not,” the former Chaplain of Congress said, without abashment, “you have an infallible recourse still left; negotiate for your country at the head of your Army.”
Washington reflected immediately that if he had been given an inkling of the contents of the letter he would have returned the paper unopened. As he could not do that now, he would transmit it to Congress lest it be found among his records in event they were stolen or he was killed or made prisoner. Congress shared his amazement and decided to make the paper public. Delegates, attachés and Pennsylvanians talked of the incident with a zest little below that of discussion of Burgoyne’s surrender. As Duché saw them, “cause” and “commander” were almost synonyms. He believed this was the opinion of “the whole world” and he set in contrast to the rise of Washington the decline of Congress. Said Duché:
Take an impartial view of the present Congress, and what can you expect from them? . . . These are not the men you engaged to serve; these are not the men that America has chosen to represent her. Most of them were chosen by a little, low faction, and the few gentlemen that are among them now are well known to lie on the balance, and looking up to your hand alone to turn the beam. ’Tis you, sir, and you only that support the present Congress; of this you must be fully sensible.
Had Washington been disposed to discuss the composition of Congress he would have insisted that Duché erred in generalizing, but he would have been compelled to admit that Congress no longer represented America’s best. Nearly all the members of that body who had voted unanimously in June 1775 to put their Virginia colleague at the head of the Army had died, terminated their service or taken long leave. Seven only remained—John Adams, Samuel Adams and John Hancock of the Massachusetts delegation, Eliphalet Dyer of Connecticut, James Duane of New York, Samuel Chase of Maryland, and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Of these, Chase was saying his farewells and the three senior members from Massachusetts were preparing to leave York, where Congress now held its sessions. Before December arrived, Dyer and Duane were to be the only Delegates in a shrunken body of twenty-one or twenty-two who had seen Washington in uniform when Congress had filled the seats during the late spring of 1775 and a majority still had hoped for reunion with England. Newcomers were acquainted, of course, with Washington’s high reputation; most of them had never seen him in committee or council of war and did not know the quality of his judgment.
Duché wrote that Washington alone supported Congress, but the question in reality was, would Congress continue to support Washington? His good name was at the mercy of strangers, some of whom were divided by sectional jealousies and were dazzled by Gates’s easy success in the Northern Department. Inexperienced Delegates did not realize that Washington had to do much more than maneuver an army. When these men compared Gates’s decisive victory near Saratoga with Washington’s defeats on the Brandywine and at Germantown, they naturally would reason that Gates was the better General. He had captured an entire army. While he was achieving that, what had been Washington’s next accomplishment? The loss of Philadelphia—so members of Congress might be disposed to answer. In doing so, they failed to perceive the vast difference between Gates’s task and Washington’s.
Gates made the utmost of the praise he received. One immediate effect was an abrupt change of attitude towards Washington. Most of the careful deference to “Your Excellency” disappeared from his communications, which became less and less frequent. When young Colonel Wilkinson at last reached Headquarters with the dispatches, which were addressed to the President of Congress, not to Washington, the aide observed the surprise over Gates’s disregard of “channels of command” and wrote back to his chief in partisan spirit: “The dissensions, the jealousies, calumnies and detractions which pervade a certain quarter must be reserved for some other opportunity. I am often asked the cause of your not writing to General Washington, so that this omission has been noticed publicly.” Gates continued to communicate directly with Congress and later forwarded to the President the news of the British evacuation of Ticonderoga, though by that time he had received, along with Washington’s congratulations on the defeat of Burgoyne, a mild reprimand for failing to send official notice to Headquarters.
Washington did not build a grudge on this disregard of his position as Commander-in-Chief; but he could not fail to observe how promptly some officers now became his critics and Gates’s avowed supporters. In the foreground, rather because of arrogance than of eminence, was Thomas Conway, the Irish-French officer who had made a somewhat favorable impression on Washington. Conway had been in Sullivan’s Division and at Brandywine had won in the mind of Sullivan a respect that amounted almost to awe. Two weeks after Brandywine Conway addressed to President Hancock a letter that began: “It is with infinite concern that I find myself slighted and forgot when you have offered rank to officers who cost you a great deal of money and have never rendered you the least service. Baron de Kalb to whom you have offered the rank of Major General after having given him large sums of money is my inferior in France.” Then in a tone half boastful, half scolding, Conway set down seven reasons why he thought he should be made a Major General and ended with more of a bark than a bow: “Your very speedy and categorical answer will very much oblige him who is with respect. . . .”
This letter greatly offended Congress but it by no means included all that Conway had to say. He visited widely and discussed personalities without restraint. “No man,” said he of the Commander-in-Chief, “was more a gentleman than General Washington, or appeared to more advantage at his table, or in the usual intercourse of life; but as to his talents for the command of an Army they were miserable indeed.” Washington ignored such of this as may have come to his ears. Although he was scarcely less sensitive than he had been, he did not have the time to notice every man who disliked or disparaged him. Nor, in this instance, was he inclined to put a high estimation on Conway’s abilities or judgment.
Conway found after Saratoga that what he had been saying in dispraise of Washington fitted perfectly into the arguments advanced by those who were trying to exalt Gates. Some members of Congress previously incensed by Conway’s arrogance now were willing to listen, accept his estimate of himself and ask whether, after all, it might not be in the country’s interest to use his much applauded military knowledge by giving him the rank he sought. One report reached Washington that this had been done, or soon would be voted, and it both aroused his fears and outraged his sense of justice. The Army was suffering already from a downpour of resignations; men considered their duties so difficult and were themselves so tired that obligation to country no longer had first place in their minds. Besides, their pay in depreciated currency left them little or nothing for their families. All twenty-three of the American Brigadiers were Conway’s seniors in date of commission. If now a boastful self seeker, a foreigner at that, and the most recently created Brigadier were promoted over these men, they would have a grievance that would seem to justify what some were anxious to do anyway. The best method of preventing this seemed to be for Washington himself to protest to Congress against the elevation of Conway.
Washington addressed his appeal to Richard Henry Lee, the only member of the Virginia Delegation of 1777 with whom he had served. He told Lee the appointment of Conway would be “as unfortunate a measure as ever was adopted” and “I may add (and I think with truth) that it will give a fatal blow to the existence of the Army.” Forthrightly he explained: “General Conway’s merit . . . as an officer, and his importance in this Army, exists more in his imagination than in reality: For it is a maxim with him to leave no service of his untold, nor to want anything that is to be had by importunity.”
Lee’s reply was reassuring and at the same time alarming. Conway had not been elected Major General and would not be “whilst it is likely to produce the evil consequences you suggest.” The Virginia Delegate then proceeded somewhat coldly to discuss the reorganization of the Board of War and the identity of three individuals who were to take the place of Congressmen and constitute the membership. Washington doubtless needed all his self-control as he read what some members of Congress favored: they wanted to put on the board Joseph Reed, Timothy Pickering, who was Washington’s Adjutant General, and Robert H. Harrison, the indispensable Headquarters secretary, and they talked of electing Conway Pickering’s successor as Adjutant General. Did Congress wish to make life intolerable for him?
During the evening of November 8 a messenger brought Washington a letter written by Lord Stirling at Reading on the third, principally a report on numerous small affairs. At the end was this sentence: “The enclosed was communicated by Col. Wilkinson to Major McWilliams”—Stirling’s aide—”such wicked duplicity of conduct I shall always think it my duty to detect.” The enclosure itself consisted merely of this: “In a letter from Genl. Conway to Genl. Gates he says—’Heaven has been determined to save your country; or a weak General and bad Counsellors would have ruined it.’ “ Conway in correspondence with Gates—that, and not the Frenchman’s sarcastic reference to Washington, struck home. Had Conway and Gates made common cause against their senior officer? Washington’s amiability led him to conclude that Wilkinson had communicated the message at the instance of Gates and as a means of warning him. Nothing could be done about the matter, but the next day he let Conway know that his contemptuous criticism had been reported.
Washington knew members of his military family would see this note, and he talked with them confidentially about Conway’s apparent effort to stir up strife, but little time or thought could be given the incident because every officer was busy with preparations to meet the enemy’s anticipated final attacks on the river defences of Philadelphia. Washington did his absolute to reenforce Fort Mifflin and Red Bank, eliminate bickering, employ and then preserve the armed craft, and try every tactical device that ingenuity could suggest and common sense approve; but the task was almost hopeless. The end of a gallantly stubborn defence was the evacuation of the ruins of Fort Mifflin on the night of November 15/16 and of Fort Mercer on the night of November 20/21 before Cornwallis could deliver an intended assault. The river now would be open to the British.
What next? The Army was not strong enough to attack. “Our situation, . . .” Washington told Greene,
is distressing from a variety of irremediable causes, but more especially from the impracticability of answering the expectations of the world without running hazards which no military principles can justify, and which, in case of failure, might prove the ruin of our cause; patience and a steady perseverance in such measures as appear warranted by sound reason and policy must support us under the censure of the one, and dictate a proper line of conduct for the attainment of the other; that is the great object in view.
More specifically, he would put his Army in winter quarters close to Philadelphia and would try to keep his barefoot men from starving or freezing. The more vigilant part of the light horse and such infantry as could move swiftly with decent shoes and satisfied stomachs, he would employ to guard against surprise, discourage raids by Howe’s forces and prevent the movement of supplies into Philadelphia. If Washington saw an opening, he would try to make the most of it; in general, he would remain on the defensive.
The struggle for the forts on the lower Delaware and the reconcentration that followed their loss so occupied Washington during November that he had little time to study a bright event of that dark month—the completion by Congress of the Articles of Confederation and the dispatch on the seventeenth of the text to the States for ratification. In Washington’s eyes the close cooperation of the States had been and still was the first essential of success in the attainment of independence, but not one line had he, the soldier, written of the compact Congress had been discussing at intervals since July 12, 1776. The perfection of those articles, as far as it was attainable at all, was the work of the civil arm of government. He who held the sword must not use its point as a pen.
Conway made immediate reply to Washington’s blunt note of November 9 which had enclosed the text of the Frenchman’s observations in his letter to Gates. He asserted:
. . . I am willing that my original letter to General Gates should be handed to you. This, I trust, will convince you of my way of thinking. I know, sir, that several unfavorable hints have been reported by some of your aide de camps as the author of some discourse which I never uttered. These advices never gave me the least uneasiness because I was conscious I never said anything but what I could mention to yourself.
In its entirety this letter could be regarded either as candid or as cunning. At Headquarters, Washington’s opinion probably was echoed some weeks later by John Laurens, a most intelligent aide, who said of the Frenchman, “the perplexity of his style, the evident insincerity of his compliments, betray his real sentiments and expose his guilt.” Washington did not think Conway’s explanation called for a reply and probably felt some satisfaction when he learned that, in a letter of November 14 to the President of Congress, the French officer had submitted his resignation. This was followed by a request to Washington from Conway for a leave of absence in which to collect his scattered effects. The request was granted through Colonel Harrison the evening it was received. Washington himself signed a letter in which he explained that acceptance of the resignation of Conway was the prerogative of Congress.
When the Frenchman’s resignation was presented to Congress there was no motion to accept it, but, instead, an order to refer it to the Board of War, on which, at this stage of the reorganization, the most powerful member was Thomas Mifflin. He had consented on November 18 to serve and was entering on the discharge of his duties. Pickering had agreed to become a member, though as yet he could not leave Headquarters in the absence of anyone who was qualified to be the Adjutant General. As Colonel Harrison had declined, Congress filled out the membership of five by electing Gates, Joseph Trumbull, and Richard Peters, who had been Secretary of the “old” Board. Delegates voted that Gates should be President, should retain his military rank, and should “officiate at the Board, or in the field, as occasion may require.”
Washington probably was aware by this time that Mifflin, though cautious and adroit, was regarded as head of the movement to make the largest use of the abilities of Gates. That was the best face to put on the activities of Mifflin, who had been among the most useful and active of Washington’s supporters until, in the summer of 1777, he had been alienated by the refusal of the Commander-in-Chief to disregard the possibility of a British attack based on New York. Mifflin had wanted all the American forces employed to save Philadelphia. Increasingly his name was being associated with those of men who sometimes spoke mysteriously of their unwillingness to pay homage to “the image.”
So far as Conway and his resignation were entangled in these matters, the Board did not report to Congress on his resignation, but some leaders in York began to support a proposal for which Conway took credit, that Congress name an Inspector General who would instruct troops, apprehend deserters and see that public property had careful custody. When the Board of War asked the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief on what such an inspector might do, Congress did not wait on Washington’s views, expression of which was delayed until December 14 by field duties. On the thirteenth the Delegates adopted a long resolve on the establishment of a system of inspection. Conway forthwith was elected Inspector General and was made a Major General.
Washington might well have regarded the resolve as a carefully planned affront. Had such an incident occurred while he had been in the French and Indian War, he would have resigned wrathfully and at once. Now it was different. When liberty was at stake, pride and personalities dwindled in perspective. He would see to it that official dealings with Conway were in every way correct, though personally he would not pretend to like a man he distrusted. Moreover, if Congress wished to decide questions that previously had come to his desk, he would tell correspondents to communicate directly with that body. Was there dissatisfaction with him as Commander-in-Chief? Did Congress think Gates a superior General? Washington would make no defence of what had been the best he could do; if another were preferred, let the gentleman have the sash, the epaulettes, and the daily, devouring duties!
Doubts and resentments in Congress created for Washington an opportunity of showing members depressing realities it had not been prudent to set down even in a letter read behind closed doors. A committee of Delegates was named to consider means for conducting a winter campaign. Congress voted to scrutinize the “causes of the evacuation of Fort Mercer” and followed that with orders for like investigation of the loss of Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton. The failure of the Rhode Island expedition also was to be investigated. This, in turn, was fortified with bristling assurance that whenever an operation failed or a post fell to the enemy, Congress would seek to establish the reason by inquiry conducted “in such manner as [it] shall deem best adapted for the investigation of truth in the respective cases.”
When the committee came to White Marsh, Washington told the members how nearly naked and how ill-shod his troops were. When the committee inquired if a large body of militia could not be called out to give him added strength for an attack on Philadelphia, he asked his Generals for their views, with full assurance of what their answers would be. The commanders pointed out that the season was too far advanced to summon militia from distant States and that, even if the men reached the camp, it was doubtful “whether they could be furnished with provisions and forage, and brought to act in concert with the regular Army.” Committeemen questioned and consulted and informed Congress that, in their opinion, a winter offensive was “ineligible.” The Army should take up winter quarters where it would “be most likely to overawe the enemy,” protect the country and find provisions and shelter. In like understanding of unhappy realities and long disregarded needs, the committee endorsed Washington’s proposals for improving the corps of officers and for assuring the continued service of leaders qualified to “introduce that order and discipline amongst the troops so essential to the military character.”
Congress was not content to accept the committee’s findings without the papers on which the report was based. By resolves of December 19 the Delegates called for these documents. The facts might not satisfy the element critical of Washington but they were a final answer to those who looked at the actual condition of the Continental Army vis-á-vis Howe’s. Congress did not have to rely on Washington’s interpretation only. The testimony of all the senior officers was the same: strategical mistakes and tactical blunders had been made but none of these meant as much as the fundamental inferiority of the Army in almost every thing fighting men required. At bottom, the issue was not that of supplanting Washington but that of supplying him where he and his officers decided they would post the Army.
Warm argument and sharp division arose over the selection of winter quarters, because the extent of the area open to British depredation might depend on the distance of the American camp from Philadelphia. If Washington’s divisions were close to the city, they would be exposed to surprise, an excessive price to pay for reducing by a few square miles the district exposed to British pillaging. Conversely, if the Army were remote, it would not be able to deal with parties that might improve British rations by stripping bare a prosperous countryside. A related subject of discussion was whether the forces should or could requisition quarters in nearby towns and villages, which already were overcrowded with refugees from Philadelphia. The Council and Assembly of Pennsylvania sent Congress a vigorous remonstrance in which they pointed out the danger of exposing lower Jersey and that part of Pennsylvania east of the Schuylkill. The Pennsylvanians maintained, also, that many families had fled from Philadelphia and had so crowded nearby towns that soldiers could not be quartered there. Before this paper reached Congress or came to Washington’s hand the choice of a campsite had been made—a wooded region on the south side of the Schuylkill, eighteen miles northwest of the occupied city, at a place called the Valley Forge.
The area into which the Army was to move a week before Christmas 1777 formed a crude right-angle triangle that covered the Fatland Ford, about four and a half miles north and slightly east of the scene of the “Paoli Massacre.” A few redoubts and a line of entrenchments would consolidate the hills and high ground into a strong defensive position. Thick woods would offer fuel and logs for the construction of quarters. Streams would supply water in abundance. A few scattered dwellings and farm buildings were the sole man-made facilities of which the Army could avail itself. Most of the precinct was windy and forbidding hillside. On that bleak and comfortless soil the troops must camp in their tattered tents until axemen went into the woods, felled trees and brought in logs that must be raised and roofed and made into cabins which the soldiers were to fit with hearths and chimneys.
The shortage of provisions continued and rapidly became worse. Some brigades had a small amount of salt pork issued them December 21 from a Commissary in the last stages of collapse. Then provisions gave out entirely. Many soldiers got nothing and, in their mounting misery, made loud complaint. A sombre chant was repeated endlessly in the tents of one regiment after another till the long hillsides rang with the wail, “No meat, no meat.” Although officers were able promptly to put an end to this defiance of discipline, they warned Headquarters they might have more trouble unless the men were fed.
By strained effort enough food was brought up overnight to permit an issue, but early on December 22 Washington was aroused by news that a British force had left Philadelphia and was moving towards Derby on what appeared to be a foraging expedition. When he ordered the Army made ready to march against this column he received a report the like of which never had come to him in the two and a half years of his command: the troops could not stir from their camps. Washington was compelled to send this alarming dispatch to Congress:”. . . unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place . . . this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can. . . .” As he put this on paper his wrath mounted against those who had sought to prevent the occupation of quarters in Pennsylvania towns nearby: “I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold, bleak hill and sleep under frost or snow without clothes or blankets. . . .”
Previously, at every twist of the revolutionary struggle, some essential of successful war had not been available; at Valley Forge everything was lacking. The Army might freeze before it starved; and if it found shelter and food, the shortage of clothing and footgear would keep it from taking the field. The fault was not with the place but with equipment and supplies.
Little had been accomplished either by Congress or by most of the States to collect garments. Congress and the Commander-in-Chief had been compelled to say in plain words that the Clothier General could not meet the requirements of shivering thousands. This had been followed by a pessimistic committee report to Congress on what might be expected from importation. New inquiry into the competence of the Clothier General’s management, a summons of that harassed individual to Headquarters, the assurance that officers would join him in trying to find new supplies, the dispatch of representatives to Boston—these were four only of numerous desperate moves of December. So low was the stock of clothing near the end of the year that after some of the veterans of the nine original Virginia regiments offered to continue in service if the bounty was doubled and the promised clothing was allowed them, Congress had to tender money instead of garments. From “Head Quarters, Valley Forge” on the last day of a dreadful year, Washington compassed the misery of thousands in a single exclamation: “Our sick naked, our well naked, our unfortunate men in captivity naked!”
Thus, at the beginning of 1778, the Army was witnessing one of the strangest of races, a contest between the axes of the men building huts and the harsh wear-and-tear on the remaining garments of those who still had sufficient clothing to permit outdoor duty. The huts had to be finished speedily, or nakedness would be fatal to the Army. Sickness increased with exposure. Although hospital huts were built early and in what was believed to be sufficient number, they soon were overcrowded with miserable men who died fast or, if they survived, received little attention. In spite of all exertion, it was the middle of January when the last of the troops were under roof. Even then they did not always have straw to take the chill from the earthen floor of their huts. Thousands had no bed covering. The shortage of blankets had become so critical that when Virginia troops reached the end of their term of enlistment, Washington had to order taken from these men the blankets, belonging to the Army, that would have made their bivouacs endurable on the long road home.
Part of the blame rested on the shoulders of Quartermaster General Mifflin, who had not maintained his office at Headquarters from the time the Army had entered Pennsylvania. Washington had himself tried to give a measure of supervision to the department but had not been able to devote to the task time to get the best performance from Mifflin’s deputies. Washington should have called on Congress to replace Mifflin or insist that the Quartermaster General discharge the duties of office. Instead, his amiability had led him to hope against hope for some betterment until, in this respect, he was unjust to his troops.
Food, of course, was the absolute essential—and food, more than even clothing or blankets or straw, was lacking at Valley Forge. Commissary General Trumbull was an able and diligent man, but he had been sick for months and in New England, with the result that his department, like that of the Quartermaster General, did not have the daily supervision of an experienced and competent head. The Commissary was in a condition so tangled that Washington did not attempt to assess blame for the scarcity of provisions, now approaching famine. “Fire cakes” frequently were all the half-naked men had to eat in their overcrowded, smoky huts. Early in the New Year most of the regiments had to be told the Commissary could issue no provisions because it had none, none whatsoever. After this second period of fasting had become almost intolerable, some flour and a few cattle reached camp. Meagerly after that, a half-allowance of meat or of bread was issued daily, until about the beginning of the second week in February, when winter fired all its siege guns. The bombardment by the gray skies was so overwhelming that no teams could reach camp. All reserve provisions were exhausted—to the last thin cow and the bottom slab of pork in the one remaining barrel. A week and more passed before any flesh was available for the men in the ranks. As Washington, intensely anxious, walked through the camp during that dreadful week he heard an ominous chant—”no pay, no clothes, no provisions, no rum.”
Washington expected the disintegration of his forces or open mutiny and desertion en masse—alternatives so ruinous that they frightened even those members of Congress who had appeared skeptical concerning the breakdown of the Commissary. The most stubborn-minded Delegates were shaken from their persistent confidence in the dual system of purchase and supply they had set up in 1777. Fundamental changes were projected. If possible, Congress must have again the services of Trumbull, from the date of whose departure, Washington said, the Army had lived precariously. Time would not wait on deliberation.
These were desperate hours. Washington continued to watch and to warn. “A prospect now opens,” he said February 17, “of absolute want such as will make it impossible to keep the Army much longer from dissolution unless the most vigorous and effectual measures are pursued to prevent it.” He had been inclined to suspect that mutiny was near; thereafter it looked as if the alternative would prevail—that the Army simply would fall apart as the men left their huts and scattered in quest of food. They would have to walk because, even if they were disposed to steal the horses, the animals that had survived the lack of forage were too few and too feeble to carry them far.
The men exceeded the faith of their officers in them. They neither mutinied nor marched away. Desertion actually diminished when the shortage of provisions was most depressing. The troops had confidence in Washington and they deserved everything that John Laurens implied when he spoke of “those dear, ragged Continentals whose patience will be the admiration of future ages. . . .” Nathanael Greene was privileged to pay tribute and to relate the climax of the story as it concerned part of his command:
MAP / 13
CAPE ANN TO BALTIMORE:
PRINCIPAL TOWNS AND HIGHWAYS, 1775-1778
Such patience and moderation as they manifested under their sufferings does the highest honor to the magnanimity of the American soldiers. The seventh day [without rations] they came before their superior officers and told their sufferings in as respectful terms as if they had been humble petitioners for special favors; they added that it would be impossible to continue in camp any longer without support.
Through the worst of the ordeal, even in the dreadful third week of February, Washington retained outwardly his unshaken composure as the days of late winter dragged by and concern over provisions was aggravated by a hundred problems. His was the task of planning for the victorious long life of an Army that might die of starvation the very next week. He had, fortunately, the companionship of Martha who lighted the long evenings and directed the Spartan entertainment at Headquarters. Simple as were the diversions in officers’ quarters, they were in heartrending contrast to the life of the soldiers. As his duties multiplied, Washington used increasingly a staff he now was free to augment as he saw fit. Col. Alexander Scammell, the new Adjutant General, proved competent, but he had to confess that his duties were intolerably heavy.
Washington, while laboring to prevent the starvation of his men, was busy with the hard, anxious administration of the Army and with plans for making it better able to face its foe. Reforms were advanced through a committee of Congress that had been named at his instance to discuss with him and recommend to other Delegates such changes in organization as its judgment and the counsel of officers suggested. Most of these committeemen came to camp and remained there during part of the period of hardship—a most fortunate circumstance because it gave them an understanding of what Washington had to endure. The four supreme needs, as Washington saw them, were strengthening of the officers’ corps, assurance of recruits for the infantry, improvement of the cavalry and better organization of the Quartermaster’s, the Commissary and other weak departments.
The plea for a reorganization of the Quartermaster’s Department included the assertion that the principal post should be filled by a man of military training. Reports and parliamentary maneuvering of the usual sort delayed action but ended in the conclusion that Philip Schuyler would not be acceptable as Quartermaster General and that Mifflin was unwilling to resume the duties. Mifflin, in fact, had left his post on the Board of War and had quit York, where Congress was now meeting, in a huff because, he affirmed, he was falsely accused of seeking to displace Washington. The ablest man available for the post appeared to be Nathanael Greene, who was most reluctant to accept but at length was prevailed upon to do so. No similar man was procurable immediately for Commissary General. Trumbull’s letters showed him to be unhappy and in ill health. His Deputy of Purchases, Jeremiah Wadsworth of Massachusetts, was the man who seemed most likely to succeed, but election was delayed.
The draft of militia for twelve months, as recommended by the General and approved by the committee, involved politics and public sensibilities that frightened every time-server in Congress, but it was endorsed in its essentials. Because two months of the year had passed when the Delegates voted, they decided that needs for 1778 would be met if the draft were effective for nine months from the time the recruits reached the prescribed rendezvous. The design for the organization of larger cavalry regiments was not questioned but was postponed temporarily, along with other details of the “Establishment of the American Army.”
Partial reorganization was effected, and the miseries of Valley Forge were endured while Washington was having an extraordinary adventure in command. General Conway had returned to camp late in December from York, where he had spoken, to quote Lafayette, “as a man sent by heaven for the liberty and happiness of America.” The Marquis observed, half humorously, “he told so to them and they are fools enough to believe it.” At York and everywhere else that politicians gathered, they still were talking of the difference between Washington’s apparent failure and Gates’s manifest success. Washington’s early resignation was predicted; Gates, Conway, Mifflin or Lee, on release, were put forward as his successor. Lafayette was shocked to observe the dissension in Congress and hear—as he wrote Washington—that “stupid men who without knowing a single word about war, undertake to judge you, to make ridiculous comparisons. . . .”
Washington explained his difficulties to Lafayette and, while the committeemen of Congress were in camp, he disclosed to them the conditions that were paralyzing the Army. John Harvie, a Virginia member of the committee, waited until he was alone with Washington and then said earnestly, “My dear General, if you had given some explanation, all these rumors would have been silenced a long time ago.” Washington’s answer was a question: “How could I exculpate myself without doing harm to the public cause?” He did not ask this in vain of Harvie or of other discerning members of Congress. They understood. Henry Laurens, now President of the Congress, wrote his son, the General’s aide: “In [Washington’s ruin] would be involved the ruin of our cause. On the other hand his magnanimity, his patience will save his country and confound his enemies.”
Washington’s patience was a virtue that had limits which already had been passed with Conway. The Commander-in-Chief had concluded that ambitious pretensions and incredible self-esteem made the Irish-born Frenchman an “incendiary” who would not hesitate to stir up dangerous contention and to set comrades against one another. The rank and the office of the new Inspector General were to be regarded; Washington would work as best he could with those men Congress assigned him. Personal relations were another matter. Conway was a personal enemy and must be faced.
This was the situation when Conway called at Headquarters to pay his respects. He was received with flawless, cold courtesy—the “ceremonious civility” which Washington had once described as tantamount to incivility. Conway came again and had precisely the same treatment, such a reception, he protested later, “as I never met with before from any General during the course of thirty years in a very respectable Army.” As if to avoid unnecessary personal contact, Washington next sent Col. John Fitzgerald to inquire what methods Conway proposed to employ in the new office of Inspector General. The Frenchman replied, December 29, with an explanation of his plan to prepare models, together with printed rules and regulations and, meantime, to begin the verbal instruction of officers and NCOs from each regiment. This was followed by the statement that the rank of major general was “absolutely requisite” for the discharge of the duties. Conway went on: “. . . if my appointment is productive of any inconvenience or anyways disagreeable to your excellency, as I neither applied nor solicited for this plan, I am very ready to return to France where I have pressing business, and this I will do with the more satisfaction that I expect even there to be useful to the cause.”
The offer in those final clauses might be accepted as arrogantly defiant or as patriotically subordinate. Washington was not concerned over alternative interpretations, but he was resolved to write the Frenchman a letter that would represent the issue as one of justice to American brigade commanders, whom the Inspector General now outranked. In words as formal as those of his reception of the ambitious Inspector General, Washington disposed of the essential matters of business and proceeded to assure Conway, “Your appointment of Inspector-General to the Army, I believe, has not given the least uneasiness to any officer in it.” Washington continued:
By consulting your own feelings upon the appointment of Baron de Kalb you may judge what must be the sensations of those Brigadiers who by your promotion are superseded. I am told they are determined to remonstrate against it; for my own part, I have nothing to do in the appointment of general officers and shall always afford every countenance and due respect to those appointed by Congress, taking it for granted that, prior to any resolve of that nature, they take a dispassionate view of the merits of the officer to be promoted, and considered every consequence that can result from such a procedure; nor have I any other wish on that head but that good attentive officers may be chosen, and no extraordinary promotion take place but where the merit of the officer is so generally acknowledged as to obviate every reasonable cause of dissatisfaction thereat.
At this point the exchange might have ended with tacit assumption by Conway that he possessed the special merit to justify advancement; but he apparently was as confident of his finesse in debate as of his skill in war and replied at once with a long letter, polite to the point of sarcasm. Four things in this angered Washington—manifest insincerity of the manner in which Conway linked his name with that of Frederick the Great, the insinuation that Conway had not been received properly at Headquarters, the assumption that nobody in the Army had thought previously of creating a system of inspection, and finally the statement that Conway could “expect no support” in the discharge of his official duties because of the Commander-in-Chief’s dislike for him personally.
Washington’s decision was instant and sharp: If, improbably, Congress so desired, it could make its choice between him and the Frenchman. As a soldier and a gentleman, his concern was to denounce the intimation that he would fail to support Conway—or anyone else—in the performance of duties assigned by Congress. On January 2 Washington transmitted to the Delegates in York his correspondence with Conway and in plainest words told Congress how he felt:
If General Conway means, by cool receptions . . . that I did not receive him in the language of a warm and cordial friend, I readily confess the charge. I did not, nor shall I ever, till I am capable of the arts of dissimulation. These I despise, and my feelings will not permit me to make professions of friendship to a man I deem my enemy, and whose system of conduct forbids it. At the same time, Truth authorizes me to say that he was received and treated with proper respect to his official character, and that he has had no cause to justify the assertion that he could not expect any support for fulfilling the duties of his appointment.
Before this was read in Congress, Washington received an excited communication of December 8 from Horatio Gates who had heard of Washington’s first letter to Conway, with the quotation Stirling had sent. Gates was much disturbed: Conway’s letters to him had been “stealingly copied,” he said, “but which of them, when, and by whom, is to me as yet an unfathomable secret.” Gates’s letter contained no denial of the accuracy of the quotation. Moreover, he twice mentioned “letters” from Conway as if they might have been sufficiently numerous to make it .difficult to determine from which the extract might have been taken. Gates wrote, also, of the possibility that the letter containing the offensive words might have been shown Washington by a member of Congress: did this mean that correspondence of Conway and Gates, critical of Washington, was being circulated among Delegates?
Washington faced the same sort of challenge he had read in Conway’s persiflage, a challenge of his integrity, because there was, he thought, an intimation in Gates’s letter that he had received in some discreditable manner an extract from a paper “stealingly copied.” Previously, Washington would have written directly to Gates about this; but now that the commander of the Northern Department had laid the indirect accusation before Congress by sending a copy of his letter to its President, Washington decided to send through the same tribunal a letter in which his statement of the facts would be his sufficient denial. In doing this, Washington could see no impropriety in saying that Gates’s own aide, James Wilkinson, had talked of Conway’s letter while on the way to York with Gates’s victory dispatch.
As it happened, perhaps fortuitously, both Conway and Wilkinson now became objects of attack. The Brigadiers had determined to protest the promotion of Conway to Major General; the colonels were preparing to direct a similar paper against Wilkinson who overnight was given the brevet of a Brigadier for bringing a paper from Saratoga to York, though many colonels who had shared in all Washington’s campaigns had been denied advancement. Nine of the Brigadiers joined in the “memorial” to Congress regarding the promotion of Conway and forwarded their paper to Washington with the request that it be transmitted to the Delegates at York as soon as convenient. Greene added a personal protest, deferential and at the same time firm in its warning that if regular promotion were denied “a sense of injury [would] mean a lessening of military service.” Congress received the memorial and the communication of Greene and defiantly laid them on the table. Members doubtless affirmed they would not permit soldiers to dictate to them; but as a matter of practical politics, they did not disdain the protest. Nor could they overlook the fact that most of the senior American officers disliked, if they did not actually distrust, Conway. Manifestly, Washington did not have to fight alone against forces that sought to displace him.
With his reply of January 4 to Gates’s letter Washington left the issue. Gates might answer, if he saw fit, and, meantime, might settle accounts with Wilkinson. The colonels’ protest against the promotion of that gentleman to Brigadier had not yet been received by Congress, but the rumble of their dissatisfaction already had been audible. “A plan is laid by sundry members of Congress, which I believe will be carried out, to remove him by the way of appointing him Secretary to the Board of War or by sending him to Georgia.” Appointment by the Board of War was made without waiting to ascertain whether it would please Wilkinson or placate the colonels over whom he had stepped.
Conway did not wait on Congress or on Gates or on anyone else. He informed Sullivan: “I depend upon my military promotion in rank for to increase my fortune and that of my family. I freely own to you it was partly with a view of obtaining sooner the rank of Brigadier in the French army that I have joined this.” In that unabashed pursuit of fortune, he again wrote Washington and asked if the Commander-in-Chief intended to order an inquisition because an officer wrote such a letter of criticism as any subaltern in Europe might indite without having the least notice taken of it by his superiors. Washington had decided to answer no more of Conway’s communications and did not waste time in analyzing this letter. From reports brought Washington, Conway wished a place in an expedition the Board of War was hoping to organize for an irruption into Canada. Washington did not believe this enterprise feasible but was reserved in passing judgment on the project because titular command was to be vested in his trusted young friend Lafayette.
Before the Canadian adventure took form, Conway had or thought he had, on January 19, the most powerful possible reenforcement. Gates arrived in York and brought with him the original of Conway’s letter, alleged to include the reference to a “weak General” and “bad counsellors.” Gates showed this paper to Conway and other friends and satisfied them it did not contain the sentence Stirling had quoted. Conway was anxious, he said, to have it printed, but he was discouraged by Henry Laurens to whom he spoke of the text, though he did not offer to let the President see it. Laurens read a copy confided to other hands and wrote that some of the contents were “ten times worse in every way” than the alleged original. In a short time it became generally known that the letter was primarily a display of Conway’s military wisdom in a critique of the Battle of the Brandywine, for the loss of which the Frenchman assigned no less than thirteen reasons.
Not until January 22 did Gates receive Washington’s reply of the fourth. The next day Gates wrote a long answer that said of Conway: “The reasons which, in his judgment, deprived us of the success we could reasonably expect, were methodically explained by him; but neither the ’weakness’ of any of our Generals, nor ’bad counsellors’ were mentioned.” The communication closed with some words of regret that Washington had predicted—in a letter “which came to me unsealed through the channel of Congress”—that Conway would be proved an “incendiary.” Nowhere, among all Gates’s assurances of the “harmless” character of Conway’s critique, was there a single quotation from that paper or the hint of an offer to let Washington have a copy of it.
Gates’s letter was followed by one in which Conway made similar assertions and averred that only the arguments of Laurens and others had deterred him from publishing what he had written Gates, but he, too, failed to send a copy to prove what he affirmed. Washington had no intention of resuming personal relations with Conway and ignored the letter. The case with Gates was different. Conway was imposing on Gates, perhaps, but Gates must not be permitted to impose on Congress and the Army. It was of small importance to know what was in the critical letter, but it was a matter of duty to expose the duplicity that attended the circulation and then the suppression of it.
On February 9 an answer to Gates’s defence of January 23 was completed, an answer that wisely was hung on a few brief questions, especially: If the letter of Conway was so “harmless,” why was it not made public? Washington did not permit his letter to indicate that he merely differed with Conway on a question of strategy or tactics concerning which there could be two opinions. The issue was one of sincerity or its equivalent, military bona fides. He was determined to make that clear:
Notwithstanding the hopeful presages, you are pleased to figure to yourself of General Conway’s firm and constant friendship to America, I cannot persuade myself to retract the prediction concerning him; which you so emphatically wish had not been inserted in my Last. A better acquaintance with him, than I have reason to think you have had, from what you say, and a concurrence of circumstances oblige me to give him but little credit for the qualifications of his heart; of which, at least, I beg leave to assume the privilege of being a tolerable judge. Were it necessary, more instances than one might be adduced, from his behaviour and conversation, to manifest, that he is capable of all the malignity of detraction, and all the meanness of intrigue, to gratify the absurd resentment of disappointed vanity, or to answer the purposes of personal aggrandizement, and promote the interests of faction.
Before this was dispatched and probably before it was written, Henry Laurens informed his son at Headquarters that he thought Gates desired a reconciliation with Washington. The younger Laurens showed part of this letter to Washington, who remarked, in effect, that Gates was merely the instrument of dangerous men. Greene was not precisely of that mind. He thought Mifflin was at the head of the opposition to Washington and suspected that Gates was party to it. Whoever the men might be that supported Conway in his cabal against Washington, they were, Greene thought, in great discredit and were “prodigiously frightened.”
Washington scarcely cared whether they were aggressive or disheartened. He would scotch Conway; for the rest, he wished all friends of America to work amicably together. In this state of mind he received on February 23 Gates’s acknowledgment of his letter of the ninth, which apparently had not reached York until the eighteenth. Gates said:
. . . [I] earnestly hope no more of that time, so precious to the public, may be lost upon the subject of General Conway’s letter. . . . In regard to the parts of your Excellency’s letter addressed particularly to me, I solemnly declare that I am of no faction; and if any of my letters taken aggregately or by paragraphs convey any meaning, which in any construction is offensive to your Excellency, that was by no means the intention of the writer. After this, I cannot believe your Excellency will either suffer your suspicions or the prejudices of others to induce you to spend another moment upon this subject.
Washington replied the next day:
I am as averse to controversy, as any Man and had I not been forced into it, you never would have had occasion to impute to me, even the shadow of a disposition towards it. Your repeatedly and Solemnly disclaiming any offensive views, in those matters that have been the subject of our past correspondence, makes me willing to close with the desire, you express, of burying them hereafter in silence, and, as far as future events will permit, oblivion. My temper leads me to peace and harmony with all Men; and it is peculiarly my wish, to avoid any personal feuds with those, who are embarked in the same great National interest with myself, as every difference of this kind must in its consequences be very injurious.
Washington prudently made reservation in the words “as far as future events will permit.” He had reason for doing this because of a letter from Patrick Henry, who enclosed an anonymous missive that repeated most of the complaints against Washington. Not once was the name of Washington used, but the innuendo was that of his incompetence in command. The author took good pains to say that if his handwriting gave a hint of his identity, the name must not be mentioned. “Even the letter,” one anxious sentence ran, “must be thrown in the fire.” To Washington’s astonishment, the autograph unquestionably was that of Dr. Benjamin Rush, who, Washington wrote Henry, “has been elaborate and studied in his professions of regard for me, and long since the letter to you.” Nothing was to be gained by raising an issue over this, but it was enough to keep Washington on the alert.
Whether or not rivalry and backbiting were renewed, Washington thus far had profited by what now had come to be known as “Conway’s cabal.” If any ambitious officer or politician had been under the impression that amiability and politeness covered a compliant nature readily dominated by more positive minds, they discovered in the exchange with Gates that the head of the Army could be a vigorous, unflinching adversary—a man best left alone or treated with the deference he showed to others. He might not be invincible in controversy but, with the resources he commanded, personally and through his friends, he was not to be assailed by any who took their task lightly.
All the supporters of Washington felt sure that Conway arrogantly had conspired against him—and probably had hoped for larger pay and greater influence under a new head of the Army; but few could believe the Frenchman had either the finesse or the knowledge of America required to lead so complicated an enterprise as that of getting rid of a leader whose popularity still was greater than that of any other soldier or any Delegate.
Who, then, was prompting Conway or using him as a mouthpiece? Gates and Mifflin were the two men most widely suspected, and they were thought by some to have given indisputable proof of their purpose to supplant Washington. Their ambitious wish was taken for granted: their hostile acts could not be specified to the satisfaction of all of Washington’s supporters. Alexander McDougall wrote Greene, for example, “I have heard much of the machinations of a certain junta to intrigue our Chief out of command, but I want such proof of it as will bear the public eye.” In the case of Mifflin, even those most convinced of the Pennsylvanian’s leadership in the cabal were well nigh baffled in their attempts to draw a moral indictment of a man who fast was acquiring the arts of political equivocation.
Gates was in a category different from that of Conway and Mifflin. The victor of Saratoga was believed to be anxious to succeed Washington and was proved to have corresponded with Conway. Gates’s disregard of the channels of command was deliberate and must have been designed to establish independent relations with Congress. In the same way, his early acts as President of the Board of War were not those of an official disposed to cooperate with the Commander-in-Chief. Washington believed Gates to be hostile, but from the time Gates was caught in the inconsistencies of refusal to make Conway’s letter public, Washington apparently felt that Gates would not again associate with the Frenchman or make another effort at an early date to win first place in army command. Even so, Washington kept up his guard.
It would have been miraculous if every influential officer at Valley Forge had remained uncritical of Washington throughout the hardships and hunger, the crowding and the shivering of the weeks-long torture in the wintry camp. Complainants may have been numerous; active sharers in the move to displace Washington were few. When the immediate exchange of correspondence and gossip had ended, he wrote:
That there was a scheme of this sort on foot, last fall, admits of no doubt; but it originated in another quarter . . . with three men who wanted to aggrandize themselves; but, finding no support, on the contrary that their conduct and views, when seen into, were likely to undergo severe reprehension, they slunk back, disavowed the measure, and professed themselves my warmest admirers. Thus stands the matter at present. Whether any members of Congress were privy to this scheme and inclined to aid and abet it, I shall not take upon me to say, but am well informed that no whisper of the kind was ever heard in Congress.
Although Washington did not name the individuals who told him of the attitude of Congress, those who gave him assurance included, among others, President Laurens and Charles Carroll of Maryland. At strongest, the hostile, the disaffected and the unacquainted in Congress and in the Army showed themselves so feeble when challenged that this question rises: Should Washington have given attention to the cabal? Washington made no effort to answer the question while the maneuvers against him were in progress, and later he had more important concerns. His observations, at one time or another, show that he had mixed motives for giving serious attention to the affair: he confessed to Henry Laurens that knowledge that a “malignant faction” had been operating to his hurt “could not but give me some pain on a personal account. . . .” That was one consideration. The second and “chief concern,” he told the same friend, arose “from an apprehension of the dangerous consequences which intestine dissensions may produce to the common cause.” As he explained to Lafayette, the cabal involved the “fatal tendency of disunion.” For that reason he was convinced that it should be resisted to the utmost. Washington took the action he did, in the third place, because he regarded Conway as a treacherous personal foe. The Frenchman’s malignancy and, later, Gates’s evasion violated Washington’s sense of honor, aroused his wrath and made him resolve that he would not permit a self-seeking faction to drive him from his post of duty, service and honor. His enemies sneeringly styled him “demigod,” but he was in nothing more completely human than in dealing with the Conway cabal.
Resolute as Washington proved to be in facing the cabal and trying to hold the Army together in the winter of 1777-78, he could not say until after the end of April that he had defeated Conway finally and irrevocably. While the Frenchman was at Albany preparing for the Canadian irruption, he had been deep in discontent, particularly after the coming of Kalb. By the beginning of April Conway was outraged that another man now had the place he had desired as Inspector General. Once again he professed his willingness to resign, and injudiciously did so, in tones promptly described as “taunting.” Congress accepted the resignation and refused to reconsider when Conway expostulated that he had not meant his letter to be more than a private communication to President Laurens. Conway’s strange influence was at an end.
Washington could not write that word “end” at the bottom of the story of Valley Forge on March 15 or on April 1. Even when the mud dried in the roads and green appeared in the fields, he had no assurance his troops would get sufficient meat every day. There was emergence, not deliverance, from the miseries of Valley Forge. If at last, by good fortune, Washington did not have to fear that his men would be half-starved before a week was out, he always had an accumulated burden of business, the most galling part of which was put on his shoulders by men who wished to leave the Army.
No particular regret was recorded when Joseph Spencer resigned the Rhode Island command and his commission as Major General, but as neither Putnam nor Heath was acceptable in his stead, Washington had to send Sullivan and with no guarantee that Congress would elect an additional officer of divisional rank. At the time the command in Rhode Island was being discussed, it was apparent that a change would be necessary in New York also. On March 16, McDougall was named to relieve Putnam whose standing as a commander was alleged to have been destroyed by indolence, ignorance and patent incompetence. Among field and company officers the “rash of resignation” had become a disease that menaced and might prove mortal. It was especially severe in the cavalry and in the Virginia regiments but was so nearly pandemic that Washington estimated the number of resignations at more than two hundred within eight months.
The Count Pulaski and the Marquis de Lafayette became problems. Pulaski spoke no English, did not understand Americans and soon found himself in so much difficulty that he resigned the general command of the cavalry and successfully solicited permission to organize an independent corps, in which he was authorized by Congress to enlist deserters if Washington approved. Washington had no intention of allowing this. The Commander-in-Chief consequently was surprised and provoked to learn, a little later, that Pulaski had been recruiting among prisoners of war. It was in part because of Pulaski’s mishandling that Washington saw little prospect of having the cavalry take the field in the spring, though there was reason to hope for good performance by young Harry Lee who was promoted to Major and entrusted with recruiting and directing independently two companies of light dragoons. Lafayette was a problem of a different sort. He was able, diligent, appreciative and almost embarrassingly affectionate. At the same time he was ambitious and so insistent on the avoidance of any impairment of what he considered a high reputation that after the failure of the irruption into Canada, he had to be nursed and coddled by Congress and by Washington.
When all the whims and frailties and derelictions of malcontents were added to the doubts of the campaign, Washington still found hope for America in the performance of two men that spring, one a newcomer and the other an old lieutenant with a changed assignment. On February 23 an attractive German soldier had come to Valley Forge with letters from President Laurens, who introduced him as “Baron Steuben” and explained that Congress had voted its thanks for the gentleman’s tender of service as a volunteer and had directed him to report to Washington. Washington’s questions elicited the admission that Friedrich von Steuben, who said he had been a Lieutenant General in the service of Frederick the Great, was interested in the training of troops and would be glad to receive the rank and pay of a Major General, though he did not desire the command of a division.
The apparent candor, the asserted rank and the delightful personality of Steuben prompted Washington to approve a temporary arrangement which soon created confidence in the character, equipment and zeal of the Prussian. Within little more than a fortnight, Washington detached one hundred men as a supplementary Headquarters Guard and assigned them to Steuben for training. By the end of another week Washington was writing of Steuben as a “gentleman of high military rank, profound knowledge and great experience in his profession,” who was to be “at the head” of a “department of inspection.” Washington announced that Steuben “[had] obligingly undertaken to exercise the office of Inspector General” and, until the pleasure of Congress was known, was to be obeyed and respected in that position. Congress soon approved and made him a Major General.
While Steuben was introducing uniform and expeditious maneuver, Washington saw that better equipment and transportation would be made available to the Army through the skillful, industrious and military approach of Greene to his new duties as Quartermaster General. Hampered as Greene was by the resignation of Mifflin’s deputy, he proceeded to employ to advantage the business experience of able new assistants and devote his energies to what he knew to be a task of great complexity.
Training under Steuben and the improvement of the quartermaster service by Greene soon could be left to the men in charge. Sound methods were solving a few of the difficulties that had baffled Washington’s previous attempts. An arrangement by which hides were bartered for shoes worked out surprisingly well and, by the end of April, supplied footgear for most of those in painful need. Nakedness was not yet covered. The Clothier General was regarded by some officers as arbitrary and inefficient and was increasingly unpopular. As for provisions, Washington was able on March 1 to thank the Army for the patience it had shown during the days of shortage, which Commissary officers appeared to have overcome. Congress now was nervously concerned over the failure of the Commissary and no longer was disposed to defend the system disastrously adopted in 1777. Wadsworth was prevailed upon to become head of the purchasing division under amended regulations. Soon the word from optimistic officers was, “we fare much better than heretofore,” though it was undeniable that life in the camp still was meager, uncertain and dirty.
A little later in the spring, evidence of jealousy of the Army on the part of a certain element in Congress led Washington to protest:
. . . without arrogance or the smallest deviation from truth it may be said that no history, now extant, can furnish an instance of an Army’s suffering such uncommon hardships as ours have done, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude. To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with; marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day’s march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till they could be built, and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled.
Perhaps it was not unnatural that some Delegates felt the jealousy of which Washington sought to make them ashamed by recounting the misery his men had endured. A Congress of few members, and most of them undistinguished, was laboring long hours and expending too much of its time on financial accounts it tried to discharge with a currency that continued to depreciate.
Long bargaining over a special exchange of Charles Lee and Gen. Richard Prescott was successfully terminated. During the last stages of this negotiation, Washington had instructed Elias Boudinot, the Commissary-General of Prisoners, not to permit trifles to stand in the way because, said Washington, he never had needed Lee more. When final arrangements were made for the parole of Lee within the American lines as a preliminary of his full exchange, the Commander-in-Chief fashioned for his senior lieutenant such a reception as would have been accorded the victor in a campaign that had liberated Philadelphia or New York. An escort of horse under a member of Washington’s staff awaited the paroled General at the British picket on April 5. The Commander-in-Chief and most of his senior officers went out to meet Lee at the lines and escorted him to Headquarters. Mrs. Washington was hostess to Lee and to those who came to do him honor.
He proved to be the same self-confident individualist. If any change had occurred it was of the sort that disposes a prisoner or invalid to be autocratic and to covet more power than usual because he has been exercising less. Even before Lee’s parole ended in complete freedom of action, he forwarded Washington a new “Plan for the Formation of the American Army in the least Expensive Manner Possible . . .” with the statement, not altogether jocular: “I have taken it into my head that I understand it better than almost any man living.” Reluctant to be matched with the inconspicuous Prescott, he had proposed that he be exchanged for Burgoyne. Said Lee to President Laurens: “. . . to speak plainly and perhaps vainly I am really convinced as things are circumstanced, I am of more consequence to you than General Burgoyne is to the other party.” Although it may have bruised the conceit of Lee, he was traded for Prescott, not for the loser at Saratoga, and back on duty, he soon was trying to prevail on Congress to give him the rank of Lieutenant General.
Whether Lee would justify by his counsel and leadership his conception of his importance or would repeat the part he had played in the dark drama of the late autumn of 1776, Washington required all the sound counsel the Army could get, because, as April advanced, the American cause had to face the possibility of a double, perhaps triple, British offensive. One prong of the coming attack was to be political. Lord North had introduced two “reconciliation bills,” one to set forth the intentions of Parliament concerning the exercise of the right to tax the Colonies and the other to appoint commissioners to “treat, consult, and agree upon the means of quieting the disorders subsisting in certain of the Colonies, Plantations and Provinces of North America.” Washington wrote Laurens:
The enemy are determined to try us by force, and by fraud; and while they are exerting their utmost powers in the first instance, I do not doubt but that they will employ men in the second, versed in the arts of dissimulation, of temporizing, negotiating genius’s.
It appears to me that nothing short of independence can possibly do. The injuries we have received from Britain can never be forgotten, and a peace upon other terms would be the source of perpetual feuds and animosities. Besides, should Britain from her love of tyranny and lawless domination attempt again to bend our necks to the yoke of slavery, and there is no doubt but that she would, for her pride and ambition are unconquerable, no nation would credit our professions, nor grant us aid. At any rate, their favors would be obtained upon the most advantageous and dishonorable terms.
All the Delegates were of this mind and promptly adopted resolutions designed to convince the people that the British proposals were nothing more than a snare for unwary feet. When Governor Tryon sent copies to Washington of North’s bills, the American commander acknowledged the documents and said they would have a “free currency” among his soldiers. As a return compliment Washington forwarded prints of a resolve of April 23 in which Congress recommended that the States offer pardon to those citizens who had joined or aided the British forces in America. Tryon was asked to distribute this paper.
The British offer of peace thus was blunted before it was delivered. Would there be one other offensive, or two, a campaign by General Howe from Philadelphia and one by Sir Henry Clinton, based on New York City? Washington was not sure. In anticipation of active combat involving all the American forces, Washington recalled absent general officers and studied closely the confusing movement of ships to and from Philadelphia and New York; but he could ascertain nothing tangible. Reports of heavy reenforcement of Howe’s army in Philadelphia seemed to be unfounded. Washington considered the possibility of an attack on New York and sought on this the counsel of McDougall. On the subject McDougall was to study, Congress had opinions of its own. Its members had been thought negligent in not providing for the better defence of the Hudson, but at length they ordered the demolition of what remained of Forts Independence and Ticonderoga and directed Gates to resume command of the Northern Department. As a result, McDougall could come back to the main Army, where he would be most welcome; Gates would be free to make his own plans which he might or might not communicate in advance to Washington. Nothing was done by Congress to reduce the authority of the Commander-in-Chief; nothing was said of any restriction of Gates’s command within his department, but Congress quietly made it plain that Washington remained in fact what he was in title. Washington was “authorized and directed” on April 18 forthwith to convene a council of war and, with its advice, “to form such a plan for the general operations of the campaign as he shall deem consistent with the general welfare of these States.” To this instruction, a few amendatory lines were added that may have seemed perfunctory—”that Major Generals Gates and Mifflin, members of the Board of War, have leave to attend the said council.” The purpose was unmistakable: As Major Generals, these critics of the Commander-in-Chief were subject to his summons and under his orders. Congress gave them leave from the Board that they might answer the call of their superior officer.
Washington had intended to take counsel with Gates, and now he wrote not only Gates and Mifflin but also Gen. John Armstrong and invited all of them to the council. The letter to Mifflin was stiff but unexceptional. Gates could not leave York as soon as he had hoped, for which reason the council had to be deferred; but the delay was not of consequence, for by April 23 it was reported that Gen. Sir William Howe had been recalled to England and that Gen. Sir Henry Clinton was to succeed him in command. While Washington suspected Howe might try to strike a parting blow, he doubtless reasoned also that some weeks might elapse before the new commander would have a plan ready to put into execution. Washington and his senior officers meantime could consider alternatives he already had formulated—offensive against Philadelphia, attack on New York, or continued defensive. If Gates or Mifflin or anyone else could demonstrate the superiority of one plan over the others, Washington wished it done. The larger relation of Gates to the plans of the Commander-in-Chief, and of Washington to administration on the upper Hudson, was clarified by Congress on April 21 when instructions to the head of the Northern Department were adopted. Gates was not to stop supplies sent to the main Army from New England; when called on to do so, he must dispatch Continental troops to reenforce Washington, while privileged to ask for help from the divisions in the middle States. Gates was to conform, also, as far as practicable, to the plan adopted at the council of war Washington was to assemble.
In anticipation of that council, the general officers at camp were expressing a diversity of opinion. Most of them favored an offensive but all of them took into account the difficulties that compelled the Commander-in-Chief to list as the third possibility: “remaining quiet in a secure, fortified camp, disciplining and arranging the Army, till the enemy begin their operations, and then to govern ourselves accordingly.”
Almost everything in the Army had suffered direly from neglect, or despair or incompetent direction during that frightful winter at Valley Forge. . . at no period of the war,” Washington had to write Congress, “have I felt more painful sensations on account of delay than at present. . . .” Richard Henry Lee was to be more outspoken in a letter he soon was to write Thomas Jefferson: “For God’s sake, for the love of our country, my dear friend, let more vigorous measures be quickly adopted for re-enforcing the Army. The last draft will fall greatly short of the requisite number.”
It was now the end of April; 1778 thus far had been a nightmare of cabal and intrigue in command, and of pallor, hunger, tatters and foul odors at Valley Forge. For what torture of spirit must Washington now steel his soul? That very morning of April 30, he had written Henry Laurens an appeal for a half-pay bill and almost despairingly, had said:
I do not to this hour know whether (putting half-pay out of the question) the old or new establishment of the Regiments is to take place; how to dispose of the officers in consequence; whether the instituting of the several other corps, as agreed to by the committee, and referred by them to Congress, is adopted or not; in a word, I have no ground to form a single arrangement upon; nor do I know whether the augmentation of the Cavalry is to take place, or was rejected, in order that I may govern myself thereby. . . . In short, our present situation (now the first of May) is beyond description irksome and dangerous. . . .
There had been other letters to answer and as the day wore on there came two more by express, one from McDougall and the other from Simeon Deane, a stranger. Washington opened and read: Deane had left Brest on March 8, aboard La Sensible, and after a swift voyage had reached Falmouth April 13. He had hurried on to York in order to deliver to Congress five packets. One of them contained the text of a treaty, signed February 6, at Versailles, by which France recognized the independence of the United States.
