Jefferson and Hamilton (16 page)

A month earlier the army had taken up winter quarters there, a site at the juncture of Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River a few miles northwest of Philadelphia. By the time Hamilton arrived, all the men were housed and the horrendous scarcity of food of the first days in camp had passed, but misery remained rampant. The winter of 1777–1778 was not the coldest of the war, but it was cold enough to torment the Continentals. It snowed now and again, but more often a cold rain lashed the area. Like “a family of Beavers,” as Thomas Paine put it, the soldiery had been put to constructing housing for themselves and the lower-ranking officers. Forty days passed before the last soldier was finally housed, and their quarters, as Lafayette remarked, were “scarcely gayer than dungeon cells.” Twelve enlisted men were crowded into each leaky, drafty wooden hut; few of the jerry-built fireplaces drew properly and many of the men lacked a blanket. The junior officers had it a bit better. Not only were they more adequately supplied, but no more than five had to share similarly sized cabins. Nevertheless, officers and men experienced the
miasmic conditions of Valley Forge. The place was a sea of mud, and the fetid reek of the stockyards and slaughter pens perpetually hung over the cantonment.

About ten days after Hamilton’s arrival, food suddenly was in short supply once again. For two weeks the soldiers had only bread and water for nourishment. Washington labeled it a “fatal crisis,” potentially ruinous for the survival of the army and literally lethal for many men. Still another food crisis occurred in late February, brought on, as were its predecessors, by bad weather and poor roads, shortages of wagons and teamsters, corruption in the supply system, and the proclivity of local farmers to do business with a British army that paid in specie rather than with the Continental army that paid in depreciated paper currency. The deplorable conditions spawned disease, resulting in the death of 2,500 men in about ninety days, one-seventh of those who had entered Valley Forge. The enlisted men were stranded, unless they deserted, and “desertions have been immense,” Hamilton acknowledged that February. However, the officers could resign their commissions and go home, and they did so by the hundreds.
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The field officers, and the aides who dwelled with them, escaped the harsh deprivation suffered by the men. Washington—and Hamilton—spent the Valley Forge winter in a comfortable two-story stone house that was conveniently removed from the always-present stench that pervaded the area where the men were housed. Washington had his own bedroom on the second floor and a private office downstairs. Hamilton shared a lower floor room with his fellow aides. All officers who held ranks of major or higher succeeded in finding snug accommodations. None appears to have ever gone without meat and vegetables, and wine was always served at the main mess at headquarters, though some complained of the privation they faced. General Nathanael Greene, for instance, grumbled that he and his cohorts faced a “hard fare for people that have been accustomed to live tolerable.”
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If Hamilton faced greater hardships than he had endured during his initial thirty months in the army, or if he carped about what he endured that winter, he never committed his feelings to paper. But Valley Forge left its indelible mark on many who survived its abhorrent conditions. For Hamilton, it was eye-opening. Beginning that winter, he struggled to learn how such misery could occur and to understand what could be done to prevent it from ever happening again. The torments and heartbreak of Valley Forge also led some who endured them, Hamilton included, to see themselves as singularly distinct from those who had not experienced that winter’s travail. One day, it would be a factor in coloring how Hamilton looked at Jefferson.

Chapter 4
“If we are saved, France and Spain must save us”

The Forge of War

During the forty months after he returned to headquarters, Hamilton’s daily routine hardly differed from that during his initial year as an aide-de-camp. Nevertheless, substantial changes occurred in his life, the conduct of the war, and the infant American nation, and each led young Hamilton in new directions.

The great American victory at Saratoga changed the war forever. France, which so far had only clandestinely aided the rebels, entered the war, concluding treaties of alliance and commerce with the United States and committing a large fleet to the conflict. London responded by sending half of its army in North America to the Caribbean to defend vital sugar islands, forcing it to adopt a new strategy for the North American theater. Largely writing off the provinces above the Potomac, the British after 1778 focused on retaking their four southern colonies, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia. If Britain succeeded, it might come out of the war with a large American empire that included Canada; the territory west of the Appalachians; the profitable tobacco and rice colonies in the south; Florida, which it had held since 1763; and sugar islands in the Caribbean.

General Washington changed as well. Thinking that the French alliance “chalk[s] out a plain and easy road to independence,” Washington grew more cautious. He was willing to fight, but only to retake New York, and only then if the French fleet participated. But the French squadron that arrived in the summer of 1778 remained in American waters only briefly before departing for the Caribbean. No other French fleet was seen north of Georgia for three long years. During all that time, Washington remained inactive, convinced that time was on the side of the allies. He was certain that a stalemated war would sooner or later compel Great Britain to make peace and recognize American
independence. Year in and year out, Washington kept his army on the periphery of Manhattan to prevent the enemy from seizing control of the Hudson, but also to be in position to campaign for New York should the French navy return.

Hamilton saw action in only one major engagement between 1778 and 1781. It came when the British army abandoned Philadelphia in June 1778 and retreated to New York. Washington, with an army about equal in size, shadowed the redcoats across New Jersey, looking for an opportunity to engage. From the start, Washington was uncertain whether to hazard another full-scale battle, as at Brandywine, or something smaller and in line with the Fabian strategy he had off and on espoused. As the British neared New York, Washington convened a council of war to consider the options. With abundant French assistance thought to be imminent, nearly all the dozen general officers who were present opposed risking a full-scale clash. Instead, they recommended that a small force of some 1,500 men—less than a tenth of the rebel army—“annoy” the British rear. Washington consented. However, when Generals Nathanael Greene and Anthony Wayne begged him to do more, the commander waffled. Hamilton, who had taken minutes at the council of war, sided with those who favored a bolder, riskier action. In private, he sneered at the wariness of the majority of generals, saying that the course they advocated “would have done honor” to a “society of midwives.” Though he did not lack in effrontery, it is unlikely that Hamilton made known his feelings to the commander. Nevertheless, Washington, after some deliberation, quadrupled his attack force—to 5,340 men—and ordered it to strike the British rear on both its right and left flanks.
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The Battle of Monmouth, was fought on June 28, 1778. The British commander, Sir Henry Clinton, may have been even more eager than Washington for a major encounter. He rushed in reinforcements. By mid-morning, what had been a three-to-one numerical advantage for the Americans had vanished. Not only were the numbers now on Clinton’s side, but also the British were taking the fight to their enemy. General Charles Lee, who commanded the American strike force, ordered a retreat. His plan was to find advantageous terrain where he could make a defensive stand. Hamilton was soon in the thick of things. Sent by Washington to the battlefield to see what was occurring, Hamilton discovered the retreat. Although he later acknowledged that Lee’s men were falling back “in tolerable good order,” Hamilton claimed to have beseeched Lee to stop the withdrawal. “I will stay here with you, my dear general, and die with you! Let us all die rather than retreat,” he reportedly told Lee.
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If so, General Lee, who had been a soldier for twenty years, must have been startled to be confronted by a twenty-three-year-old who had never commanded anything larger than a company of artillery.

The retreat ended when Washington arrived on the scene and, after a
heated exchange, relieved Lee of command. Washington then proceeded to do precisely what Lee had intended. He fell back behind a ravine and made a defensive stand through a long, scorching afternoon on which temperatures climbed above one hundred degrees. Hamilton fought alongside the commander, impressing observers with his fearlessness, leading some to conclude that he was indifferent to death. He exhibited “singular proofs of bravery,” said one witness. General Knox and Colonel Henry Lee, a cavalry officer, were astonished by his courage under fire, with the latter remarking on Hamilton’s “
paroxysms
of bravery.” Even General Lee acknowledged Hamilton’s “frenzy of valor.” Hamilton remained in the fight at Monmouth until, nearly prostrate from the intense heat and “considerably hurt” when his wounded horse fell on him, he was forced from the field.
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The contest ended inconclusively, and the following morning the British, unimpeded, resumed their retreat to New York. Hamilton was irate at General Lee’s conduct, convinced that the desperate fighting on that broiling summer day had been wasted and that 360 Americans had died in vain. The young aide attributed what he thought was a lost opportunity for a magnificent American victory to Lee’s “silly and pitiful” leadership. Indeed, Hamilton suspected ulterior motives for Lee’s behavior.
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Hamilton’s dark suspicions were not new. Insiders were aware that two years earlier, in the aftermath of the disastrous New York campaign, Lee had questioned Washington’s abilities. Following Gates’s victory at Saratoga and the simultaneous British successes in Pennsylvania—due to a series of questionable actions by Washington, or at least that was how some saw things—fresh doubts arose about America’s commander. Some army officers and congressmen hoped Washington could be forced out and Gates named as his successor. Whether or not Gates was involved in any discussions among the discontented has never been determined. Nor has anyone ever conclusively established the scope of the conspiracy against Washington, but the commander thought it was widespread, and he fought back.
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He mobilized loyal officers to court members of Congress. For instance, Hamilton’s friend and fellow aide-de-camp Colonel John Laurens was dispatched to speak with his father, Henry Laurens, the president of Congress. Washington also availed himself of Hamilton’s eloquent pen. Hamilton alerted high-placed New Yorkers of the “monster” plot afoot to overthrow Washington. He characterized the conspirators as “villainous” and “vermin,” and he warned that should their intrigue succeed in removing Washington, it would “shake” the United States to “its center.” Hamilton never specifically charged that Gates was part of the plot, though it would not have required a leap of imagination for anyone reading his letters to reach that conclusion.
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The cabal against Washington was foiled, but as the summer of 1778 approached, some imagined that the conspirators had turned to General Lee for help in securing Washington’s removal. Lee, who had languished in captivity for nearly thirty months following his capture by the British in late 1776, had never been part of any conspiracy against Washington. However, General Greene, among others, was certain that “the junto will endeavor to debauch and poison [Lee’s] mind with prejudices” against Washington. They did not have had to work very hard. Lee’s views about his superior’s incompetence had never changed, and in fact, in April and May he recklessly carped about conditions in the army and Washington’s weaknesses. Lee supposedly even told another officer that “Washington was not fit to command a Sergeant’s Guard.”
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Some of this got back to Washington in the weeks preceding Monmouth, and it is likely that Hamilton was one of his sources of information. Yet, as Lee was the second-highest-ranking officer in the Continental army, Washington had little choice but to give him command of American force that was to attack the British at Monmouth.

If Hamilton had reservations about Lee before the engagement, he afterward suspected “something much worse.” Hamilton told others that Lee was closely linked to the cabal against Washington, which was possible but unproven. He also conjectured that Lee’s “game” was to avoid scoring a victory, hopeful that more doubts would be sown about the army and its commander. This seems far-fetched today, and it did to many then. What makes greater sense is that Hamilton, who thought of Washington as his patron, saw in this episode the means not only of eliminating a rival to the commander but also of rendering himself indispensable to General Washington.
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Following Monmouth, Lee, humiliated and outraged at having been removed from command during the battle, asked for a court martial to clear his name. Hamilton, of course, was summoned to testify. In his testimony, and in private letters to men of influence, Hamilton painted a dark picture of Lee, one that confirmed the wisdom of Washington’s decisions during the engagement. He charged that Lee had been indecisive—the very accusation that Lee had often leveled at Washington—and also that he had not been “so calm and steady as is necessary … in such critical circumstances.”
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