Meanwhile, Cornwallis led a second British army through the South. At Camden, he met Horatio Gates, in command of the southern department. Gates fought, was beaten, then ran, leaving his army and galloping a hundred and eighty miles in three days. Alexander Hamilton said that such a ride “does admirable credit to the activity of a man at his time of life. But it disgraces the general and the soldier.”
Things only grew worse. The Hudson, and Washington himself, were almost lost to the perfidy of Benedict
Arnold. The man whom many considered the best field general on either side—frustrated by his treatment from Congress, in need of money, married to a Tory—had turned traitor. Washington was heartbroken.
Meanwhile, the troops continued to grumble over worthless money. Some threatened a march on Congress in protest. Others mutinied, and their ringleaders were hanged. Washington wrote, “We are at the end of our tether, and now or never our deliverance must come.”
Some small hope arrived with the Articles of Confederation, which outlined the powers of Congress, though the beast with thirteen heads still stalked the land, or perhaps it was thirteen separate beasts.
I might ascribe the following scene to a toothache, of which the General was suffering many; or perhaps to my frustrations over the approval of the Articles of Confederation, which created a toothless and taxless Congress; or perhaps the simpler explanation was that both of us had worked the night through on correspondence for Rochambeau.
The scene occurred at the headquarters, at New Windsor on the Hudson, one February morning in 1781.
The work of the day, as always, was heavy and pressing, with aides hurrying to and fro, making the house a great beehive of business. I passed the General on the stairs, and he informed me that he wished to speak to me.
I answered that I would wait upon him presently, then went below and delivered to Mr. Tilghman a letter. Then I passed by the Marquis de Lafayette, and we discussed some matter for perhaps a minute. Then I hurried on.
Instead of finding the General, as usual, in his room, I found him waiting for me at the top of the stairs, where he accosted me in a very angry tone: “Colonel Hamilton! You’ve kept me waiting here ten minutes. I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect.”
I replied, without petulancy, but with decision. “I am not conscious of it, sir, but since you have thought it necessary to tell me of it, we part.”
“Very well, sir,” he said angrily. “If it be your choice.”
And by this I did not mean that we parted for a short time. I had done with such scenes. I was leaving his service. That very day.
Within a half an hour, the General sent Mr. Tilghman to tell me of his candid desire to heal the difference, blaming it upon a moment of passion. This was typical of the General’s overall spirit. But my mind was made up.
I did not like the position of aide-de-camp. It had in it a kind of personal dependence. And though I held high place in the General’s counsels, I had felt no friendship for him. Our dispositions were the opposite of each other, and the pride of my temper would not suffer me to profess what I did not feel.
I will tell you that the General was a very honest man. His competitors were men of slender ability and less integrity. His popularity had been essential to the safety of America. But I yearned for field command,
like my friend Lafayette. And I had been subjected once too often to the temper that he showed to me on the stairs, a temper he showed more to his family than to anyone. But as we were family, he showed us as well his understanding, and by July, I had a command.
My years at his headquarters, however, had made it plain to me that it would be by introducing order into our finances—by restoring public credit—not by gaining battles, that we would finally gain our object.
Well, that spring the British come into Virginia. I ’member the day. A fine April mornin’. I’se workin’ in the mansion house, sweepin’ out the new north room, what they called the large dining room. Walls is all roughed in, fireplace is finished, jess like the General order it … . Do you know, even in ’76, with the British tryin’ to push him off Harlem Heights, he write Massa Lund ’structions about the buildin’ of that room? Reckon such thinkin’ relax him … .
Comin’ onto six years since the General leave. And we has our own way of doin’ things now. And I has to say it: things is nice.
Alice be in the kitchen, makin’ up dinner for Massa Lund and his fam’ly, like always. And my daughter, Narcissa—she’s ’bout twenty-seven—she’s hangin’ laundry out by the spinnin’ house, like always.
And every time I sweeps my pile out to the west door, I see her there, workin’ in the sun. She’s a fine-lookin’ gal. But I don’t look so much at her. ’Tis her
little Billy that catch my eye. He’s only two … settin’ on the ground nearby, babblin’ to his mama … can’t talk much, see. But he’s the apple of Grandpa’s eye, ’cause one of the words he do know is “Grandpa.”
So I stand there in the doorway, sweepin’ and watchin’, wishin’ that the boy she jump the broom with ain’t such a damn fool. When he hear that they’s a British army down Richmond way, he decide to run away and join up, fight for his freedom ’gainst the white massas. So little Billy got no papa, see. But tha’s the way ’tis with most slave chilluns. Leastways he got a grandpa.
I give Billy a wave. He don’t see me, so I give a little hoot. And tha’s when the plantation bell commence to ringin’.
Down by the kitchen door, Skunky Tom be poundin’ the bell. He git his name ’cause he sprayed by a skunk once and don’t never smell right again. He’s poundin’ the bell and shoutin’, “The British is comin’! The British is comin’.”
I look out at the river—I can jess see it ’cause the leaves ain’t filled out yet—and sure ’nough, they’s a ship out there, and a boat comin’ ashore under a white flag, with a dozen redcoat marines and a officer in a nice blue coat.
Massa Lund, he come runnin’ out from the mansion house whilst the overseers and servants and slaves all gather ’round.
And one of the overseers shout, “Mr. Lund, the British is here to burn us out. Burn us out for certain, like they done in Maryland.”
Massa Lund look scairt, but he keep calm. “We ain’t certain of nothin’.”
“What’s certain,” say the other overseer, who been
to the dock, “is that one of our cutters is headin’ out to the ship now, carryin’ ’bout a dozen slaves.”
Massa Lund, he be tall, see, but he ain’t what you call a straight-up man, not like the General. He be kind of slumped and skinny. Don’t have no air about him. When he wear a simple brown coat, he don’t look like a true massa dressed for comfort. He jess look like a man who got nothin’ to wear but a simple brown coat. And he don’t know what all to do.
I reckon ’tis a good thing Miz Washin’ton ain’t there.
Massa Lund shift his eyes from the overseers to the slaves and back, and you know, funny thing, there ain’t so many slaves as jess a minute ago. Seem like they’s siftin’ off into the woods. Disappearin’, maybe.
I looks behind me, and I see Alice, but Narcissa be one of the disappearin’ ones. And little Billy gone with her.
Now Massa Lund give some orders. Then he go runnin’ off down the path.
Th’overseer, a bulky feller named Smoot, with a nose that look like a prune, he tell us all to git back to work.
I takes Alice by the arm and move back some, but nobody else move at all. So Smoot finger the whip he carry coiled up in his belt. Never see coiled whips when the General be about, but times change, they do.
Now, they’s a slave by the name Ned, bad-tempered boy who already run off more ’n once. He say, “I hear tell ’bout how these British, they give you your freedom if’n you goes and fights for ’em.”
And Smoot snort through his pruney nose, “Git back to work.”
But nobody move. ’Cept me and Alice. We start backin’ toward the house. This here don’t look too
good. I ain’t thinkin’ no more ’bout Narcissa and Billy. I’se wonderin’ if the mansion house slaves is all fixin’ to rise up.
But right then another overseer and two white servants come runnin’ out the big house with muskets. That break things up right quick, and everyone go back to they business. Everyone still there, that is.
But Narcissa ain’t there, nor little Billy. I look in the kitchen, over by the laundry, back in the room where she live. But she jess plain gone.
’Bout four hours later, I go on that British ship.
I’se part of the slave crew that come out in two big rowboats loaded to the gunwales with food, see. Good food—Mrs. Washin’ton’s hams, salted herrin’, cornmeal, cider, molasses … Hell, we empties the pantry and the smokehouse, too.
I hears Massa Lund standin’ on the back of the ship, and the British captain talkin’ with him.
“My dear sir,” the captain say, “how kind of you to bring two boatloads of provisions. One would have been sufficient to save your plantation.”
“Well, you see, sir”—and Massa Lund’s voice shake—“I’ve brung the second boat to trade.”
“Trade? Trade for what?”
Massa Lund point toward the front of the ship. “For them.”
And there was the slaves, all clustered together, like the cap’n still tryin’ to figger out where to put ’em all. They’s twenty-five, mebbe. Mostly from our plantation, but I see some strange faces in there, too.
I got me a big ham over my shoulder, but I walks toward the front, tryin’ to see if my daughter be there.
Then one of them redcoat marines puts his musket in front of me, and he growl, “Git back there, you.”
Then I hears it, plain as day. “Grandpa!”
And I see my little Billy, in his mother’s arms, and his mother’s right in the middle of that crowd of Negroes.
I say, “Narcissa, what all is you doin’?”
“She runnin’ away!” shout one of the other slaves. “Runnin’ to freedom.”
“Yes, indeed,” say the British captain, and he come forward to a place where he’s right in front of the slaves. “They’ve all asked for freedom. By the decrees we’ve made, I’m bound to give it.”
And Massa Lund, he say, “Sir … sir, we’re prepared to trade our second boatload of provisions for all the Mount Vernon slaves.”
The captain say, “Sorry, sir, but I’ve given these people my word.”
And them damn hoe niggers, they fall in with sayin’ “Yassuh, cap’n,” and “Thanks, boss,” and all like that.
But I jess keep my eyes on Narcissa, and all’s of a sudden, she yell, “Come on, Pa! Come and join us!”
And you know what? For a second I wants to. I wants to run away to freedom and find my boy. But what about Alice? What about Mount Vernon? I say, “Narcissa, you gots to come home. This ain’t nothin’ good for you, honey.”
She shout, from all the way across the deck, “I gots to go. I gots to find Billy’s pa.”
“You ain’t never gonna find that boy. He gone!”
“Mr. Lund Washington,” say the captain, “remove this nigger.”
And Lund tell me, real sharp. “Get off the ship.”
And Narcissa yell, “I ain’t goin’ back, Pa. This be my only chance.”
I gits to the little gangway, and I look back. Tha’s when my heart feel like it might bust, ’cause Narcissa take little Billy’s arm and wave it at me.
Then I hear the British captain say to Massa Lund, “I’ll give you none of the slaves by the fo’c’stle. But I’ll trade the second boatload of provisions for the slaves who’ve brought the first boatload aboard.”
Then he make a big show of countin’ how many of us they is. “Six. Yes. Those six slaves shall remain your property, through the goodness of His Majesty. And I shall not burn Mount Vernon.”
Well, ’bout fifteen minutes later, we’s rowin’ away, see, and I look up at the ship and there’s Narcissa, callin’ to me, “Don’t worry, Pa. I’se goin’ to a better place. Me and Billy both.”
First my boy, and now this. Jess don’t seem right.
C.D.—Washington wrote to Lund, “I am thoroughly persuaded that you acted from your desire to save my property and rescue the buildings from impending danger. But to go on board their vessels, carry them refreshments, commune with a parcel of plundering scoundrels, and request the favor of surrendering my Negroes was exceedingly ill-judged and might become a precedent for others. It would have been less painful to me to have heard that they had burnt my house and laid the plantation in ruins.”
Washington may actually have believed his words, because, as always, he knew that his actions defined his reputation. But I think he was secretly pleased
that his home had been saved. After all, he concluded the letter: “You shall never want of assistance, so long as it is in my power to afford it.”
Meanwhile, the war raged on in Virginia. Washington sent Lafayette to provide some resistance. The young Frenchman marched with an army of about twelve hundred, mostly Virginians and men drawn from New England regiments.
We marched into Alexandria in late April.
Lafayette sent me ahead, hopin’ I could prepare the Alexandrians for the bad news: we needed wagons and horses and food and shoes and … well, ’twas the usual predicament of the Continental army.
Lafayette guessed ’twould be better if a Virginian did the beggin’ in Virginia. So he give the job to the man who owned the Alexandria Gazette.
But from the minute I rode into town, I knew there’d be nothin’ for the army. ’Twas a market town. Lived and died off trade. And with the British blockadin’ the coast, there was damn little trade goin’ on, damn little hard money, and too damn much Continental paper. Grass grew between the boards on the docks. And the warehouse of Draper Importin’ and Printin’, ’twas plain empty. Even the mice had went elsewhere.
But still, Charlotte done her best. Even before we got there, she put an article in the paper about us comin’.
Then we printed up a handbill: “Alexandrians! A Patriot Army, come for your defense, calls to you for
aid! We are in need of wagons, horses, shoes, et cetera, et cetera. For the sake of your state, for the sake of your country, help us.”
We sent our apprentices out to spread the handbills. Then Charlotte and me went back to our house and slipped between the sheets.
Only did it once before we got up and had ourselves some supper with Lafayette. She loved seein’ him, of course. And he played the admirin’ boy, like always. He had all the tools to be one fine ladykiller—charm, flattery, and that smilin’ lack of guile. Women loved him.
But Charlotte came back to bed with nobody but me. And you know what we did when we got to bed? We went to sleep. That’s what happens when you get late in your forties. I wouldn’t tell things so private, but the one truth you shouldn’t ever forget is that life goes by faster than a long-dicked stallion chasin’ a proud mare. So enjoy every minute, even the misery.
Now, once the folks of Alexandria got a look at them handbills … well, they did what self-respectin’ patriots should do: they hid everything.
So Lafayette asked me if I’d go ’round and impress wagons and such. He explained, with that wide-eyed innocence he could play so well, “I would like a Virginian to do it. And you may use sergeants and privates, handpicked, so that we may be certain of their delicacy toward the inhabitants.”
I said, “You mean you want me to go around, all nice and delicate, and say to folks, ‘I need your wagon and your best horse, and here’s a certificate for the value in Continental dollars.’ Is that what you want?”
“It is my hope.”
“General,” I said, “I have to live here after the war.”
“Ah, yes.” And Lafayette raised his eyebrows, as though that fact had not yet occurred to him. “I see what you mean. I’ll send someone else.”
But no one could get much out of those people. Just a few wagons and a few more horses. And between Alexandria and Fredericksburg we didn’t see so much as a swaybacked mare. That’s how quick folks was to hide things out of fear of those damn near worthless Continentals.
So Lafayette kept the men movin’ on foot, but he never wore them out in the heat. The longer the war went on, the truer that nickname was—the Soldiers’ Friend. Lafayette said it best about the march: “When we are not able to do what we wish, we must do what we can.”
And as I marched, I thought of how much of my life had gone by without Charlotte. And of how much money we’d lost in that damn war.
Fact was, officers had gone home by the hundreds because their families had gone to poverty. ’Twas one of the worst parts of the whole struggle. Washington fought tooth and nail for the promise of half pay for life for all officers. That was the way the British did things. ’Twas the right way, too.
Finally Congress come ’round. They made that promise. But that didn’t mean anything would ever happen, because nobody believed Congress about anything.
C.D.—My uncle rode with Lafayette all through that Virginia summer. Cornwallis had announced, “The boy cannot escape me.” But for three months the boy played catch-as-catch-can with the great general. Finally, his
bag empty yet again, Cornwallis was ordered back to the coast to await supply or withdrawal. He took a position between the York and James Rivers, at a place called Yorktown, and dug in.
That was when the French commanders saw a chance to strike a blow in Virginia. They informed Washington that Admiral de Grasse would bring his fleet north for six weeks, but he would come no farther than the Chesapeake.
At first, Washington resisted a move south. He believed that New York was the most strategic spot on the continent and he hoped, by retaking the city, to erase the humiliations of 1776. But as so many of my narrators had said, he was ever a practical man. He knew that the time had come for action.
So he ordered Lafayette to hold Cornwallis in check. Then he began a grand campaign of deception. He allowed papers to fall into enemy hands, outlining an invasion of New York. He built an encampment in New Jersey, complete with ovens for the baking of bread, and he hauled barges toward the Jersey Shore, all to convince the British that he was preparing to attack lower Manhattan.
Then he marched his army from above New York toward the Jersey encampments. Then he marched them right past the encampments. Then he put them on the road to Virginia. By the time the British realized what was happening, Washington and Rochambeau were halfway to Yorktown. And the French fleet was approaching the Chesapeake. The trap was closing.
I cannot imagine what was in my husband’s mind on the September day when he rode up to Mount Vernon for the first time in six and a half years. So often, in so many cold camps, he had spoken so longingly of his fine prospect above the Potomac, and for so many years, it had seemed that defeat would prevent his ever seeing it again.
Oh, yes, my husband knew what the fruits of defeat would have been: a gallows, perhaps, or banishment, most likely. And how often the house faced the threat of destruction by the British.
But there it stood, shining before him in the dusk, larger and handsomer than he had left it. He had ridden the sixty miles from Baltimore in a day. And he was greeted that night not only by a loving wife, but also by Cousin Lund and his wife, by Jacky and Nelly, and perhaps most wondrously, by the four little children born to them in his long absence.
I shall never forget that night and the ineffable joy of having my husband beside me in our house once more, if only for a few days. The next morning, General Rochambeau and his family arrived, so there were meals to plan, sleeping arrangements to see to, but, oh, how much easier it was in our own home than in some cramped farmhouse in New Jersey.
I have to say the massa change some in them years. He be more than half gray, and he look real grave, but he still have that fine carriage.
And when he go in his office to talk with Massa Jacky Custis, they’s no doubt he’s still the man in charge.
I never like Massa Jacky. His mama coddle him somethin’ terrible, see, and ever since little Miss Patsy die, she coddle him even more. And he jess don’t seem a man to stick to. And for most of the Revolution, he ain’t. But now there’s this night in the office. He say to the massa, “I think you could use me, Papa.”
“Use you, in what way?”
“In the coming campaign. As an aide, perhaps, to help you in your dealings with the French. They must be very complicated.”
“The dealings or the French?”
“Both,” say Jacky.
And that bring a smile to Massa’s face. “You’re right.”
“Please, sir. I have a fine knowledge of manners, which the French take very seriously. I’ve done you no service till now. It would give me considerable honor to be part of a victory in Virginia.”
“It would give all of us honor … . What does your mother say to all this?”
“Oh, sir, she approves.”
“Are you prepared for the life at camp?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you prepared to be punctual, and not to wander off when the tedium of the work no longer suits
you?” Massa startin’ to sound a little harsh now. He know Massa Jacky real good.
“Oh, yes, sir,” say Massa Jacky.
“Then you’ll serve as a civilian volunteer aide. I can always use another well-mannered gentleman.”
A man and his son … or stepson. Nothin’ closer. Nothin’ further apart.
Later that night he must be thinkin’ on that, see, ’cause he ax me ’bout my son. I say, “Massa, I ain’t never seen or heard of him since the day he run away.”
He jess nod and say what a shame it be that Match run away, then my daughter and my little grandson too. “But … perhaps ’tis all for the best.”
I say, “What?” Jess like that. ’Tain’t like the massa to say that a slave runnin’ away be all for any kind of good.
He don’t say no more but jess take the candle and go to bed.
By and by I’se walkin’ back to the slave quarters, when I hears Billy Lee come up behind me.
“How ya been, Jake?”
“Oh, jess ’bout the same,” I say. “What about you?”
“Gittin’ along. I’m married now. To a free mulatto gal up in Philadelphie.”
I chuckle. “Bring her down. Mebbe she can show us all how to git free.”
“Mebbe after the war. I don’t think the General like her too much, though.”
We walks along some, till after a time, I ax him, “What do you hear ’bout the slaves what run away to join the British down Williamsburg way?”
“I hears bad things,” he say, real low and real sad. “They all follow the army. Every British officer have two or three servants and a woman to wash his clothes. They say Cornwallis has a bunch of runaways diggin’ his trenches down there, workin’ ’em damn near to death ’fore he feeds ’em.”
“He wouldn’t take no woman with a baby to do no diggin’.”
“He’d jess cut a woman loose. Or maybe she’d fall in with some greedy officer who’d sell her to the Indies. I hear that been happenin’.”
And I bring my hands to my ears and say, “Don’t tell me more.”
“But you asked. Why don’t you ask ’bout your son?” And Billy give me a sly grin, see, like a trickster slave who jess steal a gallon of cider from the massa’s stock.
Well, suh, I tell you, to this day, I can still ’member the way my stomach turn over when he say that. I say, “My son? What ’bout him?”
“He’s one fine man.”
“What … what you sayin’?”
“I seen him.”
“Seen him? Where?”
“He’s with the Fourth Massachusetts Infantry. Fightin’ for freedom.”
And I start to bawl. I brings my hand to my mouth to keep from makin’ noise, and I jess start to shakin’ with all the happiness and all the sadness all mixed in, like a gray porridge somebody fill with apricots.
I goes runnin’ fast back to the cabin, back to Alice, to tell her the news. I throws open the door. This don’t set too good with Skunky Tom and his woman
Kate, who move in with us after our daughter run off, but I don’t care.
I shout, “He’s alive! Match is alive!”
Billy Lee say, “Don’t tell anybody, or the massa have both our hides.”
I look over in the corner. The blanket is goin’ up and down on top of Skunky Tom, and I say, “You hear that?”
He say, “I don’t hear nothin’. I never hears nothin’.”
Me and Alice go out together and walk under the stars. I don’t tell her what’s-all’s happenin’ to slaves like Narcissa. I jess talk ’bout the good thing—our boy be standin’ on his own two feet. Then I wonder, what do the massa mean when he say, “Perhaps ’tis all for the best.” Do he know somethin’?
’Tis hard to believe that everything worked at Yorktown. You didn’t even need to be a bird to see that battlefield.
The town was a little semicircle of buildings huggin’ close to the river. Surroundin’ it was a semicircle of British earthworks. Surroundin’ them was a five-mile semicircle of entrenchments and encampments, with both ends anchored at the river—the product of more plannin’, more hard work, and more luck than had ever been seen, up to that point, on the North American continent.
And remember what I told you about luck? Washington always had it. He might have run out of food and clothin’ and money in the Revolution. Hell, he
came damn close to runnin’ out of men. But he never lacked for luck. He was lucky when he did dumb things, like plannin’ to send green troops across the Back Bay in boats. He was lucky when he was smart enough to see what could be done at Yorktown. And he always had the fortitude to take advantage of his luck.
At Yorktown, we had sixteen thousand troops—French regulars, Continentals, and the Virginia militia, who come swarmin’ as soon as they smelled a victory. There were also more than a hundred cannon, includin’ some of the biggest siege guns we’d ever seen, brought by ship all the way from the French post at Newport, Rhode Island. And out there in the bay somewhere, a French fleet had already driven off the British rescue force.
As one general said, we had got Cornwallis handsomely in a pudding bag.
We started by buildin’ a line of siege works at the lower end of town. ’Twas the old business of “regular approaches,” just the way the British had done it to us on Long Island. But, Lord, how things had changed.
Washington turned the first shovelful of dirt, and a few days later, on a sunny October afternoon, he stood at a redoubt in the first parallel trench, some six hundred yards from the British works, while Henry Knox aimed the siege gun that would begin the bombardment.
When Knox first laid eyes on that gun, I thought he might try to mount it, he was so excited. The barrel was ten feet long, the carriage was as high as a man, and whatever it hit stayed hit.
With a big flourish, Knox handed Washington the linstock for firin’.
Washington kept that serious mask on while he raised the linstock, all very slow and graceful, like an actor, raised it in a big wide arc above his head, just like he was s’posed to. The match touched the hole, and there came the loudest roar I had ever heard from a single gun in my life.
And the ball was so big, you could almost see it shootin’ toward the British works. And for certain you could see it hit and send an explosion of dirt a hundred feet into the air.
Jacky Custis, who was now makin’ a nuisance of himself at headquarters, shouted somethin’—“Bravo,” I think it was.
And Washington could not keep a smile from his face. He told Knox, “General, begin your cannonade.”
Over the next day and night, some thirty-six hundred cannonballs and shells went flyin’ into Yorktown. ’Twas the most thunderous, hellacious, beautiful bombardment I ever saw. Not a man in our army slept for the watchin’ of it and the thunder of it. And ’twas for certain that not a British soldier could’ve slept under it. Rockets traced comet tails across the sky, shells burst, the earth shook. And it went on like that for five days more.
C.D.—My uncle called Yorktown a battle to warm the heart of any man who wrote military manuals. It was as carefully staged and directed as a play.
If battles must be fought in the Age of Reason, let them be battles like Yorktown.
The British defended two redoubts on their left, as a matter of honor. The Americans took them, as a
matter of honor. Everyone’s honor was satisfied inexpensively, except for the nine who died and the thirty who were wounded. And Alexander Hamilton, who led the assault against the redoubts, gained the battlefield glory he yearned for.
On the morning of October 19 a drummer boy appeared atop the British works and beat the call for parley. At first, no one could hear him over the thunder of the American guns, but they could see him, and one by one, the guns fell silent. After a few minutes, all that could be heard on the wide plain around Yorktown was the beating of a single drum.
Put this bit of wisdom right next to the things I’ve said about luck. It doesn’t matter how many battles you lose, so long as you win the last one.
The tune that the British marched to on the day of the surrender was “The World Turned Upside Down.” A jaunty little somethin’ that I hummed a lot.
The surrender was done in a big field about two miles from town. The Americans was all on the left side of the road, the French on the right. And the British, in their red coats and white breeches, came down the gauntlet, shamblin’ more than marchin’, lookin’ as sullen as children on their way to church. But ’twas hard for any of us Americans to see their faces, because they wouldn’t look at us. They just kept their heads to their right, to the French.
Couldn’t blame them. After all, who would you rather say beat you? A line of tattered rebels, some
wearin’ blue coats, some wearin’ brown, but most of them in dirty overalls and huntin’ shirts and buckskins? Or those pretty French lads, with all their feathers and their black gaiters and their white broadcloth coats with the different-colored facin’s?
After all our years of runnin’, fightin’, and starvin’, the British wouldn’t give us the satisfaction of lettin’ us see the loser’s scowl. So, as they came past, Lafayette called for “Yankee Doodle” from his band. ’Twas the song the British played to poke fun at us whenever they could, and now we played it for them. And the British snapped their heads around like they were bein’ slapped in the face.
“Yankee Doodle, keep it up. Yankee Doodle Dandy.” ’Twas a fine moment.
When the front of the British column come to where our commanders were sittin’, everything stopped, includin’ the music. The wind puffed and fluttered the flags—our thirteen-star banner on one side of the road, the French fleur-de-lis on the other. ’Course, the British colors were cased, by order of Washington.
British General O’Hara dismounted and tried to give his sword to Rochambeau. That Frenchman, God bless him, he just gestured across the road to Washington and said, “There is our commander in chief.”
For that redcoat general, it must’ve been the longest walk in his life to go over and look up at that big Virginian.
Washington had his reins in his left hand and his right hand pressed against his hip, just like a statue. Didn’t even incline his head. Just lowered his eyes. I don’t know how good he felt right then, but I felt better than I did the first time I felt a woman. And then
do you know what I thought about? Fort Necessity, and how far we’d come.
O’Hara craned his neck and said to Washington, “You’ll beg the indulgence of Lord Cornwallis, sir. But he is indisposed due to illness.”
Washington knew ’twas a plain lie, but he just sat his horse with that dignified air, actin’ like receivin’ a surrender was the naturallest thing in the world. He said, “As you are second-in-command, you’ll turn your sword over to my second, General Lincoln.”
That was Benjamin Lincoln, who’d been humiliated by the British when he lost Charleston.
I noticed Hamilton sittin’ behind Washington, lookin’ as proud as if he’d won the war himself. Or maybe now he was plannin’ how he’d turn everyone into Federalists. Hamilton was a puzzle, you know. Smart and brave, likable, too, but as egotistical as old Charles Lee.
’Course, all of them were egotists—Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson … the lot of ’em. They had to be to do what they did. They thought they were buildin’ a better future, and most of them thought they knew exactly how to do it. They were the men with all the answers, but Washington was smart enough to ask the right questions.
He acted, failed, learned, then acted again, from those wild dice rolls at Trenton and Princeton, to this fine work of art at Yorktown.
The sun was gettin’ low in the sky. British soldiers were trampin’ onto the field and throwin’ down their weapons like the sorest losers in the world. And the air was dancin’ with golden flecks. Couldn’t quite figure out what the flecks were at first. Golden flecks? Of what?
Then I realized that as the British walked across the field, their boots broke up the hay stubble. The wind lifted it into the air. And the afternoon sun turned it to gold. Like golden snow, or maybe a sign from Providence.
Whenever I think of Yorktown, I remember flecks of gold dancin’ in the air.
Whenever I think of Yorktown, I remember the tragedy.
Why does the Divine Being prepare us the table as he does, with a joyous meal followed by the bitterest fruit?
My husband wrote me several times of the progress of the battle, in letters that grew increasingly optimistic.
And it sounded as though Jacky were having an excellent experience. In his only letter, he thoughtfully informed me that “the General, though in constant fatigue, looks well.” He was always a boy concerned with his mother’s peace of mind. He was also becoming a young man who was serious about his property.
“I have made every possible inquiry after the Negroes,” he wrote, “but have not seen any belonging to Lund Washington, the General, or myself. I have heard that Ned is in Yorktown as a scout for the British; Joe is in the neighborhood, though I have not seen him. They say that Narcissa was seen by a roadside trying to suckle a small child who was dead. I fear that most of the slaves who left us are not existing.
The mortality that has taken place among the wretches is really incredible. I have seen numbers lying dead in the woods, and many so exhausted that they cannot walk. Also, I should be glad to hear from Mr. Lund whether he has sold any of my horses; they are not high in price in comparison to what they sell for here.”
A letter full of chatty insights and mature concerns, it was.
Then arrived the grand news of the surrender of Cornwallis and his seventy-five hundred troops. We could not know that this would be the final battle of the war, as the British were still well set in New York. Nevertheless, we rejoiced.
Then, a week after the surrender, another letter arrived, this one from Eltham, the home of my brother-in-law, Burwell Basset. Jacky had taken ill with the camp fever and had been moved there for his recovery. My daughter-in-law, Nelly, and her oldest daughter, Elizabeth, and I hastened to Jacky’s bedside.
We did not send word to my husband for several days. He was still thirty miles away, at Yorktown, completing the business of the army so that he could return to Mount Vernon for a week of rest. When our news reached him, he was writing in his diary. He stopped in mid-sentence and left immediately for Eltham.
He arrived at around seven o’clock. He did not need to ask the condition of the patient when he stepped into the foyer. I am certain that it was written on the faces of Nelly, me, and everyone else in the house.
But at the sight of my husband, I remember that my hopes rose. Jacky always tried to please him, and perhaps now Jacky would respond to his presence.
I led him upstairs to the sickroom. Lamps were lit on either side of the bed, casting dim yellow light. But they could not burn away the odor. With the windows shut tight and the drapes drawn to keep out the bad airs, it was very strong. It was the odor of death, though I could not admit it.
My husband stood over him and said his name, very softly. “Jack … Jack …”
Then he looked to Dr. Craik, who had come from Yorktown, at our request. The General needed not a single word to Craik.
The doctor shook his head ever so slightly, as if I might not see it.
But I had watched every motion of Craik’s eyes, every inclination of his body during my son’s sickness, in the hopes that I could read in them the things he might not be saying.
And now, like a hand strangling me, I felt my own emotion, and, oh …
Camp fever—that was what we called it, though it was in fact the typhus.
Jack Custis had been showing early symptoms on the day of the surrender, but he had insisted upon remaining to witness the grand ceremony. Then, as sometimes happens, he demonstrated a small recovery.
Dr. Rush has theorized that the camp fever is carried by lice, as we find them often in the blankets and clothing of those who succumb to the disease. When men are living well apart, this fever is uncommon. But
in crowded conditions, where clothing and bedding of one and another come into contact, it becomes quite prevalent.
But I have another theory. It always seems that it is the newcomers who are struck by the illnesses of the camp. The veterans are so hardy that not only have they subsisted on meager rations and survived enemy bullets, they have also risen superior to disease.
Whatever the cause, Jack Custis came to the field hospital with a mild fever, left a few days later, feeling better, and then was struck down.
Now that the General had arrived at Eltham, Mrs. Washington and their daughter-in-law seemed to lose what little resolve had been holding them together. The merest shaking of my head had sent the mother out of the room. And the wife, Nelly, could barely enter.
Jack Custis had sunk to the last extremity. His chest and shoulders were covered in the petechiae, the purplish spots and peeling skin of the typhus. His forehead was burning. And he was all but insensate.
“Have you bled him?” asked the General.
“Several times,” I answered. “Consider him a casualty of your last battle.”
The General stepped close to him and put his hand on his stepson’s forehead. The young man’s face had drawn in upon itself and lost all of its youthful—some would say sybaritic—roundness. And the skin, normally flushed with sunshine and often with wine, had a waxy yellow pallor.
“Such an amiable young man,” said the General. “Such a devoted son—”
Here words failed him. In the matter of Jack, words often failed him.
The patient’s breathing grew labored. I took his pulse and found that it was all but gone. I told the General to summon his wife and daughter-in-law.
The ladies hurried in. They took Jack’s hands, they touched his forehead. It was a scene the like of which I had witnessed hundreds of times. It was a part of my profession that had grown as natural as sleep. And yet it was a terrible pain, especially when the person dying was only twenty-seven.
But after all the death I had seen in the war—death from wounds, from infections, from disease—it was a small blessing that a man had died with his loved ones around him. This was nae a blessing, however, to the loved ones. Nelly Custis and her daughter descended into spasms of inconsolable grief, and Martha simply sat, holding her son’s hand, in a state of utter disbelief.
It was some time before Martha could be persuaded to leave the body. The General knelt beside her and whispered to her, whispered words that I could nae hear, nae was meant to hear. Then he led her away from her son’s body.
He was, I know, uncommonly affected by his stepson’s death. The boy had nae met the standards that Washington had set. And though he had gone to the scene of the fighting in Cambridge in the first winter of the war, I dinna think he was ever made for a soldier. But there existed, at the time of his death, a most affectionate and manly friendship.
Once the Washingtons had left the room, I called their slaves to prepare the body. I watched and mused upon one of the more miserable ironies I had witnessed in my life. In moments of grandest glory, tragedy may still stalk us.
Soon’s we hear the news, we bring out black crepe and set it around the doors of the mansion house. I even tear off a little piece and nail it to my cabin door, too, ’cause by then I know ’bout Narcissa and little Billy.
I hears it through the slave grapevine: they’s thousands of dead slaves down there. Nobody ever gonna know how many. They go runnin’ for freedom, and all they git is used and throwed away … jess like always.
So me and Alice be about as sad as we ever been, and as happy, knowin’ the good news ’bout our son. Life sure be strange and sad, ain’t it?
Few weeks later, the General set out for winter quarters.
For three or four days afore, it go like this: Miz Washin’ton say to pack her things. Then she say to unpack. Then pack agin. Then unpack. And always me and Alice do the job.
Po’ woman, she don’t know if she comin’ or goin’. And every night you hear her cryin’ behind her bedroom door. Cryin’ and sobbin’, gettin’ quiet, then startin’ in agin.
One night the General standin’ out on his piazza, lookin’ at the river in the moonlight. He call me outside, ’cause he know I jess done unpackin’ Miz Washin’ton’s things agin. He say, “You must be patient with her, Jake. She’s suffered a terrible blow.”
“Terrible, suh, terrible.”
“I had expected to feel such joy here. But ’tis a house of mourning.”
I say, “We’s all sad, suh. We all like Massa Jacky.”
“We all liked Narcissa, too.”
“Thank you, suh.”
And the General try to make me feel a little better. He say, “You know, after the surrender, we sent soldiers out to round up runaways, for reward. Narcissa may have been taken, and we just haven’t heard the word.”
I tell the General thanks. But I know by then, no Continental soldier findin’ my daughter … alive, that is. I’se tryin’ to look ahead, lookin’ to hear from my boy. I don’t tell the General that when he go back to his army headquarters, Billy Lee bringin’ a message to my Match, my Matt Jacobs.
C.D.—The war was not over. But while the British still had the strength to fight, they had lost the will. The American Revolution had ignited a world war between England and France. British troops were needed everywhere. And French ships were needed in the Caribbean. The French had also said that while Rochambeau would stay for a time, not another penny would go from their treasury to America.
And therein lay the last great peril of the Revolution.
October of 1782. In Paris, John Adams and Ben Franklin had been negotiatin’ for eight months. But in New York City, an army of fifteen thousand British still sat and waited. And up on the Hudson, at Newburgh and New Windsor, our Continental army sat and watched them.
’Twasn’t much of an army anymore. A lot of the boys had been sent home. A lot of the officers had been furloughed. I’d spent six of the last eighteen months in Alexandria, gettin’ to know my wife again, and tryin’ to get our business back on a payin’ basis. Fact was, there was no money for investin’, so we just kept printin’ the gazette.
We held our share of Continental certificates, too. Charlotte had emptied all our warehouses and sold everything to the army. Then she took what hard money we had and started buyin’ up Continental paper held by farmers and shopkeeps and folks who liked the feel of silver in their pocket more than they liked havin’ faith in the future.
I didn’t approve, but she said she was just showin’ folks what she believed about her country.
I could’ve resigned and gone home for good, but I didn’t. Believed in seein’ a thing through. Learn by doin’, and do by finishin’. My motto now had two parts. And don’t forget, in the worst days of ’81, Washington got Congress to promise that every officer who finished the war in uniform would receive half pay till the end of his life.
I’d be damned if I wasn’t goin’ to get my fair share. Wouldn’t be like last time, with me half drunk and shoutin’ that I’d been swindled.
But there was a problem. Congress had about as much power over the thirteen states as I had over the stars and the moon. And worse than that, when they learned that the states didn’t want to pay us, Congress started wheedlin’ their way out of their commitment, too.
This didn’t set well with the officers at Newburgh. And they weren’t fools. They knew the only strength in the country was right there on the banks of the Hudson. ’Twas the army and the man who commanded it.
Why, in the spring of 1782, one officer had even proposed to Washington that he make himself king. Feller’s name was Lewis Nicola. Wrote to Washington that there were plenty who thought this would be a good idea.
Washington tore him up one side and down the other.
Nicola showed me the letter.
Washington wrote: “Let me conjure you, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or anyone else, a sentiment of like nature.”
Even if he’d wanted to be king, which he didn’t, he’d made a promise to Congress in 1775. And a man who reneged on a promise was not a man who deserved the respect of his peers. And remember, nothin’ mattered more to George Washington than respect … and reputation. But the difference between the young George of Fort Necessity and the victorious general at Newburgh was that one tried to protect a reputation he didn’t have by threatenin’ to quit every other week, while the other built a reputation that was rock-solid by refusin’ ever to think about quittin’.
What that’s called, I think, is growin’ up.
And part of growin’ up is learnin’ to see the world through other men’s eyes. That’s why Washington sympathized with his officers over their pay, and why he granted three of us leave to go to Philadelphia and press our case.
After something more than a year, I was able to go on again, in the small ways that we must if we are to live in the world.
I could awaken each morning, come to consciousness, see the light falling through the bedroom window, and not be jolted into full waking by the realization that I would never look upon Jacky’s smile again. I could think of his children and, in the thinking, not think of our loss but of their promise. I could think of Mount Vernon and not feel that there were rooms I would not be able to enter again.
And I thought often of Mount Vernon during those days when we were living on the Hudson, waiting for the war to wind down like an old watch.
We had planned to return for the winter just before Christmas of ’82, but one cold afternoon, following a conference with Henry Knox and several of his other officers, my husband came to the small bedroom where I was knitting a sweater for our newest grandchild.
“I’m afraid we can’t go to Mount Vernon, Patsy,” he said. “I fear the mood of the officers. They want their pay.”
“They should have it, shouldn’t they?”
“That is not disputed. ’Tis the method by which they get it that concerns me. They’re more irritable than at any time since the commencement of the war.”
“Then … then you’d best stay here.”
“Like a physician, preventing disorders from getting to an incurable height.”
Though I was now well married to Betsy Schuyler for almost three years, and little Phil was a year old, I determined to throw away a few months more in public life and then retire a simple citizen and good paterfamilias.
I had been pretty unanimously elected to Congress, and I saw the object now to make our independence a blessing. But to do this we had to secure our union on solid foundations. Our supreme task in that direction was to satisfy the many public creditors who had taken on the debt of the Revolution, and perhaps the most important of those were the soldiers whose very service was a form of credit extended to us.
A deputation from the army arrived at Philadelphia in January of 1783—General McDougall, Adjutant General Stewart, and Colonel Draper. I was on the committee that received them one bitter night, and in hearing their argument I was made to feel a mortification that we could not fulfill their expectations.
It was most disconcerting to have General McDougall frame the question in such stark terms as these: “What if it should be proposed to unite the influence
of members of Congress with that of the army and the public creditors to obtain funds for the United States?”
Without looking at the other congressmen, I said, “Any combination of force, General, would only be productive of the horrors of a civil war, might end in the ruin of the country, and would certainly end in the ruin of the army.”
Colonel Draper said, “Does that mean we won’t get paid?”
“It does not mean that at all,” I answered.
“That’s good,” he responded, “because I wouldn’t want to go back to New Windsor with bad news.”
Congressman James Madison leaned across the table and said, “Is there a threat implicit in that remark, Colonel?”
Draper gave Madison a grin. He was a smiling fellow, altogether too smiling. “Those officers aren’t in the mood for cool deliberation, sir. A disappointment now might throw them into what you’d call … blind extremities.”
Yes, I thought, a threat. But the army was a fine tool with which to advance the business in which we were engaged—forcing the states to come to the steady and reliable support of the government in Philadelphia. Otherwise, we would be thirteen separate entities, all weak, all insignificant, conducting our petty affairs in a petty way.
After the meeting, I spoke with the officers outside and told them that their presence was much appreciated. I added: “I am your best friend in this business, gentlemen. I am trying to overcome mountains of prejudice to help you.”
When a man says, “I am your friend,” I look for a corner to back into, so I can watch the room. When he tells me he’s my “best” friend, that’s when I pull a table in front of me and set out a brace of pistols.
I knew what Hamilton was up to.
He was playin’ both ends against the middle. Figured he’d stir up the officers with little squibs of information about the way Congress might cheat them. Stir up Congress and the states with some worry about the mood of the army. Stir up Washington, in the hopes that he’d be the binder to hold everything together. Stir it all the way you mix pigment and oil and lead to make paint. And hope that when the stirrin’ is done, you have the color you want.
I was for as much local control as I could get, for as few men as possible standin’ between me and wherever I wanted in life. The more men in your way, the more rungs to the ladder. But I wanted my pay.
Galled me plenty to have to play into Hamilton’s hand like this. Galled plenty of congressmen, too.
Arthur Lee was a Virginia congressman I knew. Visited him just before I left Philadelphia. He said, “Be careful in this business, Draper. Every engine is at work here to obtain permanent taxes. The terror of a mutiny in the army is played upon with considerable efficacy.”
I didn’t like that. But as I say, I wanted my pay. And I wanted to see that the foot soldiers got their due. They hadn’t been paid in months; some of them were dressed like they’d just retreated through the Jerseys;
and that diet of pickled beef and beets was only a little better than fire cake. So I’d let Congress think the army might mutiny and march, even if I felt like a stick stirrin’ Hamilton’s paint.
Our committee brought the news back to Newburgh in late February. And the stirrin’ began right away.
And do you know who provided an office to do the stirrin’ in? Horatio Gates. Yes, sir. Two years after his embarrassment at Camden, Congress had finally put away its resolution for a court of inquiry. All was forgiven, and Gates slipped right into the second-in-command position, behind Washington.
“It’s good to see you, Draper.” Gates squinted at me through his spectacles.
“And you, sir,” I said.
Some men aged well. But Gates wasn’t one of them. He was fifty-seven and as round-shouldered as an old widow. Had a little potbelly beneath his buff waistcoat and a sag to his face that was more than age. ’Twas sadness, slicin’ all the muscle away so the fat could swing free.
Think of all that had happened to him. While he was in the South, tryin’ to figure out how to fight the British, his son had died. Then he lost a battle, his command, and a long measure of self-respect at Camden. Now his wife was sick and dyin’ in Virginia.
I asked after her.
Gates removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “I’m planning to go to her sometime this month. It all depends on events here and in Philadelphia.” He put the spectacles on again. “I assume the city treated you well?”
“Philadelphia did. Congress is the problem. ’Tis always the problem.”
The old man nodded. “Something must be done.”
“What would you suggest, sir?” I’d learned long ago that with superior officers, when you tread marshy ground, ’tis safer to ask questions than answer them.
Gates looked out the window of his farmhouse office. “As soon as peace arrives, this force will be disbanded. Then there’ll be no chance for any officer to obtain what he’s earned. The army may be the best tool that any of us has to bring about fair treatment.”
Rememberin’ that they hang mutineers, I decided to keep my counsel. With some men, if you try to wait them out and make them talk, they’ll just sit and stare, make it a contest to see who speaks first. Washington was like that.
But Gates started chatterin’ again. “What say you to helping one of my aides—young Armstrong—to prepare a pamphlet on the next step we should take?”
“I’d say he’s a competent young man. He can do it himself.”
Gates leaned across his desk. “This would all be anonymous, of course.”
“Then,” I said, “you won’t need my name on it, will you?”
Gates gave me a little smile that bespoke more annoyance than pleasure. “You know, Draper. I feel as poignantly for the distresses of the poor men who’ve been our faithful companions through the war, as if those distresses were all my own. I can live without a payment plan. Perhaps you can as well. But many of these officers cannot.”
He was two-thirds right: many could not, and I probably could, thanks to my wife’s brains. But I knew
that Horatio Gates was up to his eyeballs in debt, and he owed most of his money to Robert Morris, the financier who’d saved the Revolution more than once with infusions of hard money. Gates owed Morris, and Morris was behind Hamilton. And … hell, it all gets so dizzyin’ it makes you think you’re lookin’ into that paint bucket, watchin’ the pigment swirl.
I have been accused of attempting to manipulate the army and Washington in this business so that I might advance the cause of a strong national government. But the crisis developed of its own. I simply urged Washington to take the kind of action that he had always taken—direct, incisive, and in the best interests of the nation. In short, he should, one last time, take direction of the tool that he had in his hands.
I wrote to him: “The great desideratum at present is the establishment of general funds, which alone can do justice to the creditors of the United States, of whom the army forms the most meritorious class; restore public credit; and supply the future wants of government. This is the object of all men of sense. In this, the influence of the army, properly directed, may cooperate.”
Gates didn’t need me to write his pamphlet. His aide did a fine job, anonymously. He wrote like he was talkin’ to the officers, and ’twas like throwin’ a match in the magazine: “After seven long years, peace returns. But to whom? A country willing to redress your wrongs, cherish your worth, and reward your services? Or a country that tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries, and insults your distresses?”
You could almost feel the pulses startin’ to throb at the temples of all the hundreds of officers readin’ these words.
“Suspect the man who would advise more moderation and larger forbearance.” That was a brickbat for Washington. “Let a man who can feel, as well as write, be appointed to draw up your last remonstrance. Tell Congress that the slightest mark of indignity from them must now operate like the grave and part you from that august body forever. In any political event, the army has its alternative.”
And the alternative was plain: a show of force against the duly elected, though damn near incompetent, civil representatives.
The pamphlet called for a meetin’ on March 11 to stir up the boys even more. But such a meetin’, without authority, was itself a mutiny.
So Washington canceled it. But he knew the mood of his men. He replaced it with an official meetin’ for March 15, where the officers could air their grievances and General Gates could convey them to Washington. By then, cooler heads would have prevailed. And Washington set about coolin’ them.
I was summoned to his headquarters at Hasbrouk House, a fine little stone farmhouse, with a view of the Hudson that was better than the view of the Potomac at Mount Vernon. Washington’s office was simple—a little desk in the corner, a little fireplace, nothing but a map on the wall.
He told me to sit, which I took as a good sign; then he came right to the point. Showed me that he still thought the worst of me, too. “You should know, Draper, that I’m issuing a general order to arrest mutinous officers on the spot.”
“I have no intention to mutiny, sir, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get my pay.”
“We’ll all be damned if there’s a mutiny.” Then he softened his tone. “You’ve been in communication with General Gates?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded, almost to himself, as if this confirmed some suspicion.
“Sir, General Gates knows what I know: these men have served for seven years to build a nation. They just want their due.”
“You know that certain congressmen are trying to use the army as puppets to establish a continental funding system?”
“You mean taxes?
“Taxes. Revenues. A central government. These things we must have. But not like this.”
I sat back and said nothing. Didn’t think the silence would work with him the way that it did with Gates, but he kept talkin’. Shows you how agitated he was.
“Draper, my predicament, as citizen and soldier, is as critical and delicate as you can conceive. The sufferings of this army on the one hand, the inability of
Congress and the tardiness of the states on the other, they are the forebodings of evil.”
He was fifty-one, and he still looked like he could travel eight hundred miles in a bad winter, swim an ice-caked Allegheny, and show up in Williamsburg full of complaints about his rank. He had those long, strong arms, big hands, and thighs that were all muscle after a lifetime in the saddle. But age was comin’ on. The color was leechin’ fast from his hair, though he was still reddish brown on the top. He was growin’ jowls. And if he had a false tooth to put in where that left canine was missin’, he wasn’t wearin’ it.
But one thing was plain: he still meant what he said.
So did I. “General, I won’t do anything to bring on evil. Only justice.”
“Tell this to the other officers: I’ll pursue the same steady line of conduct that has governed me till now. I beg them to do the same at their meeting.”
I don’t think I had ever seen my husband more disturbed and distracted than the night before the officers’ meeting.
I brought him tea. He was working late over a long page of paper on which he was writing in a very large hand.
“The meeting is tomorrow?”
“Yes. Gates presides.”
And I expressed a small bit of intuition. “You know, I have never liked him, not since Boston.”
“You’re wise,” he said, “for the source of these
troubles may be easily traced. The old leaven is again beginning to work, Patsy, under the mask of dissimulation and friendliness.”
“Gates?”
“I have proof of nothing. But we know that the incendiary pamphlet came from his office. I don’t think Gates is alone, though.”
“Another cabal?”
“I don’t know. There is something very mysterious in this. Alexander Hamilton warned me of agitation, which did not seem to exist. Then, as the officers returned from their meeting with Hamilton, so did the agitation. Then comes the noise from Gates’s office. Then Hamilton’s urgings to me …”
“George, you’ve been a doctor with an agitated patient for months.”
“We’ve come to the crisis. Tomorrow the fever breaks or the patient dies.”
They were all there, the great and the small, the young and the old, all crowded into what they called the tabernacle, a big rough-hewn hall they’d thrown up so the officers would have a place for worship on Sundays and socializin’ the rest of the time.
I was sittin’ near the front, next to Gates’s aide, Colonel Armstrong.
I had a little speech prepared, because Gates said I’d be one of the first men called. I wasn’t sure Gates would like what I had to say, because Washington had certainly gotten through to me.
Up at the front, there was Gates, steppin’ to the pulpit to start the business. Sittin’ in chairs behind him were Israel Putnam, more of an Old Put than ever; Timothy Pickering, Washington’s adjutant and one of the noisiest of the protesting officers; and Henry Knox, always loyal, but just as mad at Congress as anyone else, and fatter than ever.
’Twas a bright, sunny March day, and even though there was no heat in the big building, the two hundred officers who’d crowded in warmed the place up and steamed the windows right quick.
Young Armstrong said to me, “He didn’t come.”
“Who?”
“Washington. He said he wouldn’t. But I was worried. Worried that he might get in the way of our deliberations.”
And I thought, Deliberations? This twenty-five-year-old colonel was a boy with a pimple on his nose. He knew nothin’ of deliberations.
He also knew nothin’ of Washington, because just then a side door swung open at the front and a strong shaft of light dropped across the faces of Knox, Putnam, Pickering, and Gates. And the usual hum of conversation that you get in a crowded hall, it ended like a wave rollin’ from the front to the back.
There he was.
I folded up my speech and put it away. Knew I wouldn’t need it now.
He said a few words to Gates. Then he came to the pulpit and looked out over the crowd. He seemed agitated. He started to say somethin’, then caught himself, looked behind him once or twice. Then he pulled a speech out of his coat pocket. ’Twas written on long sheets of paper in a hand so big you could see the letters
from the front row. And from the way the paper was shakin’, you could see that his emotion had reached out to every extremity.
This was the man who had ridden between enemy armies. And his hands were shakin’ before his own officers.
As you’d expect, he began with a plea for calm and consideration: “By an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to convene you together. How inconsistent this is with the rules of propriety, how un-military, and how subversive of all order and discipline, let the good sense of the army decide.”
For fifteen minutes, he attacked the arguments of that anonymous pamphlet, written by the squirmin’ little Gates-raised lackey beside me.
He promised us that “so far as may be done consistently with the great duty I owe my country, and with those powers we are bound to respect, you may freely command my services to the utmost of my abilities.”
’Twas some of the best writin’ I’d ever heard from him.
Gates squirmed at this line: “Express your horror and detestation of the man who wishes to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.”
But Washington was no spellbinder. I heard men coughin’, feet shufflin’, swords scrapin’ on the floor as men shifted in their seats. And I didn’t see many officers doin’ anything but scowl. They weren’t even moved by the way he finished: “You will, by the dignity of your conduct, let posterity proclaim, ‘had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last
stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.’”
Thunk. That’s what it sounded like. Fine words, but the effect in that room was as if he’d walked in and dropped a ten-pound sack of potatoes on the floor.
No cheers, no clappin’, no nothin’. Just a stone wall of faces.
I felt sorry for him then. But remember about Washington—even when he looked like he was beaten, he never quit, not retreatin’ across the Jerseys, and not now. So he reached into his pocket and pulled out another sheet of paper.
“Gentlemen, I hold in my hand a letter that might better inspire you. It comes from Mr. Jones, in Congress, and it describes their efforts to pay you, and it … unh … ‘Dear General Washington, It … it …”
For a second, he just stopped and looked out at us. He wet his lips with his tongue. Then he squinted at the letter again and looked out at us again, very embarrassed, as though he’d suddenly forgotten how to read.
Then, very slowly, he placed the sheet on the lectern in front of him, and from his pocket he pulled out a pair of spectacles. He kept his head down as he put them on, almost as if he was afraid to let us see him do it. When he looked up, ’twas as if the whole room had just taken a deep breath.
And he said, “Gentlemen, you’ll forgive me, but not only have I grown gray in the service of my country. Now I find myself going blind.”
And for a moment he stood there, lookin’ out at us, just lettin’ us see a man who had given everything he had.
Then Henry Knox brought his hand to his mouth, as if to stifle his emotion. I swear I heard somebody sniffle. I glanced behind me and two or three officers were lookin’ up at him the way young men look up at their fathers when they finally realize that their fathers are mortal. I saw tears, actual tears.
Who knows if he planned that little gesture with the glasses? He was actor enough. But he was also smart enough to seize the moment. Smart enough to know his audience. And smart enough to get off the stage.
He folded the letter from Congress, put it back into his pocket, and said, “Gentlemen, you know my mind and my heart. Good afternoon.”
And he was gone. The door closed behind him, and a moment later we heard him gallop off.
Then Henry Knox shouted, “A motion! A motion of thanks for the General’s counsel.”
Right then George Washington had saved the republic. You can have the tearstained scene at Fraunces Tavern six months later, when he bade good-bye to all of these men for good. You can have the ceremony at Annapolis, when he turned over his commission and his army to Congress.
That moment at the New Windsor Tabernacle was the crowning moment of his generalship.
Come June, we was discharged. I got my settlement certificate, which promised me my pay someday. I sold mine for thirty cents hard money on the dollar, so’s I could buy some decent clothes. Willard done
the same. Then I got a message to Billy Lee to come and see me in the camp.
Billy was lookin’ older. He liked to drink, and that can age a man. He told me how the General promised to pay for to bring his Margaret to Mount Vernon, now that the Revolution was over. But Billy didn’t know if Margaret would go.
I said, “Can’t blame her. She’s free. Why she want to live like a slave?”
Billy just shrugged. “She ain’t been around but a few times here. Maybe she don’t love me no more … . You comin’ back?”
I just chuckled. “No, Billy. But I’d be obliged for a favor. I’d be obliged that you tell my papa and mama I done good. Tell ’em I love ’em. Tell ’em, I’m goin’ fishin’, like Papa taught me.”
“I surely will.” I reckon there was tears in Billy’s eyes. A few in mine, too.
The next day, me and Willard set out for Marblehead.
“How far you reckon?” he axed.
“About two hundred miles,” I said. “Just about due east.”
“Hell and damnation, but I’m sick of walkin’.”
They would call him the father of his country, though he had no children of his own. This is a thing of great sadness. But think of all who carried his name: George Washington Craik, son of James, born in 1765; George Washington Reed, son of Joseph,
born in 1780; and Georges Washington Lafayette, son of Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, born in 1777.
C.D.—And George Washington Jacobs, son of Matthew, born in 1785.