Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader (15 page)

PART TWO
 

American

4

Boston

George Washington rode into the camp of the New England Army in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 2, a quiet Sunday afternoon. He had left Philadelphia on June 23, escorted by a detachment of cavalry, the Philadelphia Light Horse. Generals Philip Schuyler and Charles Lee were with him, as well as two young men: Joseph Reed, who would serve as his military secretary, and Thomas Mifflin, who had been named his aide-de-camp. Schuyler, a wealthy New Yorker, had been given the New York command; Charles Lee, a former officer in the British army now living in Virginia, would serve Washington in operations around Boston. Both had genuine strengths, and both would serve Washington well and ill.
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Reed was better educated than Mifflin, having been graduated from Princeton and having spent two years at Middle Temple, a legal institution. He knew more than the law, and before the Revolution had received an informal education in British politics through frequent attendance at parliamentary debates in 1764 and 1765 when he should have been immersed in his legal books. Mifflin, like Reed born to a good Pennsylvania family, also graduated from college, the College of Philadelphia (1760), and entered business soon after. His political experience before the Revolution saw him serve four terms in the Pennsylvania legislature and then the Continental Congress, from 1774 until called into the army when the war began.

The Philadelphia horsemen on the ride remained with Washington until New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he spent the night of June 24. He rode to Newark early the next morning—his practice was to travel early, even giving up breakfast, in order to spare his horse and himself the heat of the day. Because of uncertainty about the strength of loyalty in New York, he entered that city the next day by a circuitous route
that saw him proceed up the west side of the North River in order to cross at Hoboken. He was told the day before that the royal governor, William Tryon, who had been in Britain, was about to sail in, carrying unknown intentions and instructions from the king’s government.

In New York, Washington proceeded cautiously. He met with members of the New York Provincial Congress and sampled local opinion. The New Yorkers were eager to learn more about Bunker Hill, and told him of a letter that had come into their hands, written by Massachusetts authorities for the president of the Continental Congress. Undoubtedly it contained information about the battle; would Washington open it and share its contents with them? Washington hesitated—the letter, after all, was addressed to the body to which he reported—but gave in when it was pointed out that perhaps the letter also brought military intelligence. The local seekers were right on both counts—the letter told of the killing on Bunker Hill, and it reported that gunpowder was lacking in the New England Army. This last finding was one Washington would grow weary of hearing. For the moment, he kept this matter to himself.

The New York Congress had other things on its mind besides a desire to discover what had gone on in June at Bunker Hill. It presented a memorial to Washington in a quiet ceremony in which it claimed to “rejoice in the appointment of a gentleman from whose abilities and virtues we are taught to expect both security and peace.”
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With fine sentiments, but ultimately vague, the memorial was probably wise, given the setting of its presentation—a few doors away from the New York meeting in Washington’s honor was William Tryon, royal governor of the colony.

The next day, July 3, 1775, Washington assumed command of the army. It was still a New England Army in most ways—its commander, Artemas Ward, was a former Massachusetts militia officer, and most of its troops were from the New England colonies. Ward, five years older than Washington, was a graduate of Harvard and had made his living in business, keeping a store soon after his graduation. He turned over his command without complaint—perhaps even with a sense of relief.

For as Washington soon discovered, the New England Army, now officially the Continental Army, was not a fine-tuned instrument. It
did not know itself well, an ignorance exposed when he asked for a report on its numbers and on the supply of ammunition available to its troops. His request for an accounting met silence, for neither General Ward nor his staff knew. A week later, the report came in and reinforced his worries. According to what he was now told, the army numbered 16,600 enlisted men and noncommissioned officers, of whom not quite 14,400 were present and fit for duty. He believed that he needed a little over 22,000 soldiers to maintain the Siege of Boston and to repel any British efforts to lift it. Estimates varied of the size of the enemy’s force; at this time, the best held that the British army had 11,500 in Boston. Besides the army, which was much better than the one he commanded, the British navy controlled the waters around Boston; indeed, the Atlantic Ocean was mostly theirs, enabling them to move forces around and concentrate them at strategic points.
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Discovering with any exactness how much powder and lead was available in the various regiments of the colonies proved to be impossible, but all reports suggested that shortages of both were common. Washington concluded in a few days that the supply would not allow even limited use of the field pieces he had. This shortage persisted for months, and there never was a time in 1775 when he felt secure in the knowledge that his soldiers had the ammunition they needed. His first letters to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, revealed his disquiet at this circumstance.
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Even though more ammunition would arrive, it was a feeling that never really left him while he remained near Boston, for in the early months of the siege his army was very much a work in progress. It did not look like an army: Most regiments lacked uniforms; all needed camp equipment; some needed arms, and those who had them had little powder and sometimes fewer musket balls. Discipline was also in short supply. Some soldiers fired off their guns apparently for the pleasure of the sound, while others wasted powder in taking shots at British soldiers in out-of-range outposts. American soldiers made a practice of leaving their own outposts before being relieved, thereby exposing their fellows to attack. Many soldiers were dirty—bathing was not a favored activity of many, and a layer of grime did not trouble them in their slovenly appearance.

Behind all these deficiencies stood bad organization and management. Militia duty in many New England towns by this time made
few demands on anyone, and the many officers had not prepared themselves to lead men. In peacetime, training days frequently were social occasions. New England regiments were led by officers who differed little from their men, in that they were all imbued with a spirit of equality. Status counted—education, family background, wealth, and occupation made a difference—but even though these social differences set men apart, and set some above others, a spirit of equality often undermined such distinctions. The practice by which common soldiers chose their officers made it difficult for officers to issue orders and to train their men, who often were neighbors. If familiarity did not breed contempt, it inhibited forceful measures in training and disciplining men.

“Discipline” was not a word most men in the New England Army wanted to hear. Discipline required that they stay in their camps when they wished to go home, unless given permission to leave. Officers who lived nearby sometimes took advantage of their rank and went home to sleep in their own beds. Washington learned of this habit and forbade it—several times. Discipline also required men to carry out the orders of their officers, a requirement made harder to stomach when the officers giving the orders had no great skill that suggested they were qualified to do so.

The troops Washington led appalled him at times. That they were nasty, dirty, and disobedient was bad enough, but he recognized immediately that their officers were equally deficient, for they had failed to provide the leadership essential to an effective army. They, in a sense, were more responsible than the men for the disorder and confusion that marked the army.

Washington initially felt a certain revulsion when he looked at these soldiers—“nasty,” “dirty,” and “raw” were all words he used to describe them. The overall condition of the army evoked a more dramatic characterization—it was in “chaos.” As far as he was concerned, the source of this condition lay in New England society itself. Its equality of condition—or the absence of gentlemen of status—explained much, he thought, for the officers, cut from the same cloth as the soldiers they commanded, hesitated to give orders that might not find favor in the ranks. Whatever Washington’s convictions about the army he had taken over—and its officers—he was determined to make it into a fighting force. Not all of its officers were irredeemable, and not all
of its men ungovernable. What was needed, he decided early in July, was to purge the army of its weak officers and to drive out its cowards through courts-martial.

The group he most despised were an inheritance from Bunker Hill. Though the Americans had lost the ground, they had won the battle, if British losses were taken into account. Still, the behavior of a handful of officers in the battle festered in the memories of some of the officers (and probably men) in the army that surrounded Boston. A number of those who had quailed in the face of the British attack, some even deserting their troops, remained in command. Those who had not run now brought such conduct to the attention of their new commander. Washington responded by ordering courts-martial and approving sentences already handed down in the three weeks following the battle. These cases gave him an opportunity to instill in the troops the code of a soldier. One notorious case involved John Callender, a captain in a Massachusetts regiment who had been convicted of refusing to return up the hill with his cannon when ordered to do so by Major General Israel Putnam. Only the threat of immediate death at General Putnam’s hands had convinced him to go up the hill again, but once back up and out of Putnam’s gaze, he deserted his post and abandoned his cannon. The court-martial found Callender guilty and sentenced him to be “cashiered and dismissed” from service in the army. Washington seized the opportunity to state, in the general orders announcing the sentence, that cowardice was “A Crime of all others, the most infamous in a Soldier, the most injurious to an Army, and the last to be forgiven; inasmuch as it may, and often does happen, that the Cowardice of a single Officer may prove the Destruction of the whole Army.”
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Callender’s court-martial took place early in July, less than a week after Washington’s arrival. By August 20, five captains had joined him in disgrace, and two colonels were under arrest. One of the two was acquitted. The other, Colonel Samuel Gerrish, compounded his difficulty a few weeks later by failing to repel an attack on Sewall’s Point. Gerrish had refused to order his soldiers to fight and paid for his curious behavior by being charged again with cowardice.
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By the end of December 1775, more than fifty officers had faced courts-martial, and almost all were convicted. Their offenses—additional cases of cowardice, fraud in handling provisions for their soldiers, “beating” their troops, “profane swearing,” striking a superior
officer, abusive expressions, neglect of duty—suggest that Washington had good reason to regard his officers with worry.
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His feelings about the troops were divided. “The Men would fight very well (if properly Officered),” he wrote in late August, “although they are an exceeding dirty & nasty people.” In fact, he went on the say, “had they been properly conducted at Bunkers Hill … or those that were there properly supported, the Regulars would have met with a shameful defeat.”
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Nothing in the conduct of the enlisted men during the remainder of the year softened Washington’s estimate of them. Some of their offenses were typical of those in almost any army at any time: Drunkenness, stealing, being absent without leave, and insulting their officers are representative samples. A persistent source of distress for Washington was the number of those who left their posts without authorization, and another was those who fired their muskets to no purpose. Not all of such behavior brought offending soldiers to courts-martial that were reviewed by Washington. Regiments sometimes dealt with conduct of this sort within themselves—noncommissioned officers undoubtedly corrected with their fists many of those who strayed from the path of military righteousness. Still, other offenses, such as stealing, were punished by courts-martial under the army’s control. Throughout its life in 1775, the army was a ragtag affair, often badly fed, clothed, and paid. Perhaps these circumstances account for the variety of things ordinary soldiers stole—clothing and food were most often chosen—but whatever the reason, when caught they usually felt the lash thirty-nine times.