Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader (29 page)

Congress’s allotment of power to impress supplies was an act born of the recognition that the delegates’ own flight from the British deprived them of the capability to give Washington aid. It was, all things considered, a strange form of testimony of confidence in him. By mid-November the confidence had begun draining away—a consequence mostly of the defeat at Germantown. By early December, disillusioned and discontented, Congress began lecturing their general. Their new president, Henry Laurens, did not agree with the charges and complaints made by Congress, but he could not stop them.
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Congress took the easy way out of problems it had failed to solve by
telling Washington that he had not used his powers to seize the needed supplies; nor had he used supplies of grain and forage available in the counties near his army’s camp—Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester. His “forbearance” in failing “to use his authority may, on critical exigencies prove destructive to the army and prejudicial to the general liberties of America,” it insisted. According to Congress, Washington had resorted to “distant quarters” for the food to sustain his army. These charges annoyed Washington—they were indeed shocking in their inaccuracy, to say nothing of their crudity—but he replied with clarity and calmness.
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What Washington felt as he read these rebukes cannot be known. What he thought can be. His thought took two forms: the first was a quiet account of the facts about army efforts to supply itself; the second, a brilliant assessment of the people’s opinions of military governance. On the first question—the collection of food and forage might have elicited a question—“What do you in Congress know about it?” Such a sardonic reply probably did not occur to Washington, and if it did, he put it aside, contenting himself by telling the Congress that it was mistaken in assuming that he was surrounded by abundance—for “Forage for the Army has been constantly drawn from Bucks & Philadelphia Counties and those parts most contiguous to the City,” and it was “nearly exhausted … entirely so in the Country below our Camp.” Flour from these same counties had also been collected. The millers in these areas had been reluctant to grind grain, out of “disaffection” or “fear” (presumably facing the British army), which made for a low level of supplies. As for livestock, he did not know whether there was much available or if much had been taken from close by.
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This reply to Congress’s sniping relied on knowledge of what had actually been done. That the implications of these actions had not been examined by Congress or anyone else besides Washington was clear. He made those implications stand out in the most thoughtful part of his answer to President Laurens and the Congress, written in mid-December. He had not revealed his assumptions about what underlay civilian reactions to military force, but now, in a letter to Laurens, he did. “I confess,” he began, “I have felt myself greatly embarrassed with respect to a rigorous exercise of military power.” His reasons for this feeling, he explained, began with an “Ill placed humanity perhaps and a reluctance to give distress [that] may have restrained me too far.” These were explanations he drew from examining his own feelings,
and they referred to the suffering that was brought to a peaceful society. There were others that had little to do with how he felt but everything to do with what he understood to be deeply held attitudes of the American people. There was, he argued, a “prevalent jealousy [he might have used the word
suspicion
] of Military power.” The “best and most sensible among us” harbored this attitude and considered such power “as an Evil.” Recognizing this attitude had induced a “caution” in him, lest his actions in the use of power should increase the fear of the military. At the same time, he added, he wished Congress to understand that “no exertions of mine,” as far as “circumstances will admit, shall be wanting to provide our own Troops with Supplies on the one hand, and to prevent the Enemy from them on the Other.” What had hampered him in providing the supplies to the troops, he said—in a mild phrasing—was “the change in the Commissary’s department at a very critical & interesting period.”
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All of Washington’s explanation of the failure to supply the troops up to this point in his letter to Laurens had stayed close to the actual circumstances in which the army found itself. His conclusion to this long explanation was similarly down-to-earth, and arose from a wish that “Civil authority” in the states, perhaps encouraged by recommendations from the Congress, would “adopt the most spirited measures” and do the job. It would be a most appropriate action, he suggested, because it would be in keeping with the deepest values and a long tradition in America. For, he said in a probing statement that revealed his knowledge of the public’s disposition, “the people at large are governed much by custom. To acts of Legislation or Civil Authority, they have ever been taught to yield a willing obedience without reasoning about their propriety. On those of Military power, whether immediate or derived originally from another Source, they have ever looked with a jealous and Suspicious Eye.”
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Understanding the problems of getting supplies and the deep-seated reasons for not simply impressing them were not strictly helpful in improving the army’s condition. It remained hungry, badly clothed, and literally out in the cold as both tents and more substantial housing continued to be elusive. What to do with this army, poorly provisioned as it was, was a question that had to be answered.

The loss of Forts Mercer and Mifflin had at least simplified Washington’s strategic problems. He knew that he would not make an
attempt to expel Howe from Philadelphia; he knew also that he had to find winter quarters for his troops, a problem that was as much a political matter as it was military. The Congress now sat in York, to which it had removed just before Philadelphia fell to the British, and the government of Pennsylvania, such as it was, had retired to Lancaster.

The main body of the army, at Whitemarsh, was far enough away from Howe’s troops to avoid a surprise attack, and smaller units gave some protection to lower New Jersey. The Pennsylvania authorities in the state council and assembly were clamoring for defense of the country east of Schuykill. Fortunately for the Americans in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, General Howe did not feel strong enough to make still another attempt at destroying his enemy anywhere, and he had his own problems in supplying his army. Opening up the Delaware had made his life and that of his troops much more comfortable, though few British officers found the army’s situation to be much more than tolerable.

The logistical problems of the Continental Army were to persist for many months—intractable problems that affected virtually every action Washington took in the next year. Coupled with the difficulty in holding the army together as a fighting force, they were familiar to him. But their intensity grew as the supply services fell apart; and it seemed, at the end of the year, that as commissaries and their deputies resigned or went home to look after their own affairs, the army would shrink into nothing.
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In late October, Washington received reliable news of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga; he had received reports a few days earlier, but nothing from Gates, and nothing in fact from anyone in the Northern Department. The opportunity to add to the strength of the “main army,” his army, now seemed feasible if, as the reports implied, the military threat from Canada had been ended with Burgoyne’s surrender.

The surrender itself marked the greatest triumph of American arms in the war up to that time, and Washington was delighted. (He did not use the word “delight,” but his pleasure was clear.) It did not give him rest, however, and among his reactions was a suggestion to Israel Putnam, commander of forces just north of New York City, that he lead his troops down one side of the North River and Gates begin to
move down the other, in order to drive General Henry Clinton, who had recently marched up to support Burgoyne, back into the city. And if Putnam should find it possible to insert himself between Clinton and the city, he might then actually take it. This was a suggestion made in haste and, as Washington himself admitted, without much knowledge of what was happening on the ground. It soon disappeared from his mind, not to be heard of again.

His primary reaction was simply to use the victory to get more done in the war against the British. Among his first reactions, one stood out: With Burgoyne’s army in captivity, he could draw on the northern American force to strengthen the main army. He did not remind his commanders or Horatio Gates that he had, since 1775, sent many of his best soldiers to the North. He had, after all, favored the strategy that called for such shifts of regiments, and he had been among the first American leaders to define the areas of battle, with the northern corridor being a point of extraordinary importance. Even as he thought of how to exploit the new situation in the North, he could not avoid comparing his army’s record with that of Gates. Recent experience in New Jersey as well as Pennsylvania had sharpened his awareness of the weakness or unreliability of militia. But the militia in the northern sector had proved to have ability not present in those available to him. The northern group fought with spirit, standing up to British regulars and Hessian mercenaries, while those he called up shirked when they did not actually desert before battle. The North offered an instance in which militia performed with distinction, and Washington said so—privately—in a letter to his friend Landon Carter. The northern militia, he wrote, “shut the only door by which Burgoyne could Retreat, and cut off all his supplies. How different our case! The disaffection of a great part of the Inhabitants of this State—the languor of others & internal distraction of the whole, have been among the great and insuperable difficulties I have met with, and have contributed not a little to my embarrassments this campaign.” As if aware that this recitation of his trials might disillusion Carter, he ended with “but enough! I do not mean to complain, I flatter myself that a superintending Providence is ordering everything for the best—and that in due time, all will end well.”
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He was complaining, of course, and he did not stop with this letter to Carter. He had already written Gates, expressing his disappointment
that he had not received the news directly from him, but in letters from others, thereby reminding Gates that he, Washington, was his superior officer, and he was not pleased with the neglect of the chain of command.
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Gates, in fact, had been strengthened by his victory over Burgoyne and for several months acted almost as if his command were independent of Washington’s. Almost, but after he felt Washington’s displeasure he gave way to his commander’s will. The displeasure was made clear to him by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, whom Washington sent to Gates in early November to explain that he was expected to release two brigades to the main army, plus other units. In all they numbered five thousand Continentals and twenty-five hundred militia. Gates struggled against the inevitable for a few days—Hamilton reported to Washington that Gates’s ideas “did not correspond with yours”—but he soon agreed to provide some troops. He was taken aback by Hamilton’s forceful presence, and though he knew that he was popular in the New England states and in New York, he did not wish to test his newly won renown against Washington’s. Still, he tried to deflect criticism Hamilton brought, by pretending to have an attack on Ticonderoga in his plans. His agreement came in a surly spirit in a passage he seemed to cross out, in a letter to Washington, saying that “I believe it is never practiced to Delegate that Dictatorial power to One Aid de Camp sent to an Army 300 Miles distant.” Wounded pride spoke clearly in this letter—and a strong antipathy to Hamilton, who had not hidden his disgust at Gates’s inflation of himself.
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For a brief moment, Brigadier General Thomas Conway, Irish by birth but at this time an officer from France, seemed to threaten a more serious dissatisfaction. Conway had been with a Pennsylvania regiment at Brandywine and had performed well under fire there, and soon after at Germantown. He was agitating at this time for promotion to major general, and he may have thought that the way up the ladder was to attach himself to Gates. In any case, in a letter to Gates, he compared him with Washington in terms denigrating Washington. The letter—or a copy—fell into the hands of Lord Stirling at Whitemarsh. Stirling, always a loyal admirer of Washington, sent this excerpt to him: “Heaven has been determined to Save your Country; or a Weak General and bad Counsellors would have ruined it.” In the context of the letter, the designation “Weak General” meant George Washington.
For Conway to have written in such fashion would not have surprised anyone who knew him. He was a man who did not guard his tongue.
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Historians have sometimes assumed that Conway was at the center of a cabal—one that included delegates to Congress—that aimed to get Washington removed from command. This group presumably had selected Horatio Gates as Washington’s replacement. Belief in conspiracy comes easily to men under tension, and Washington may have been such a man, though how seriously he took the possibility of a Conway-Gates alliance is not clear. What is clear is that he despised Conway and felt no affection for Gates. That Conway had genuine ability made no difference to Washington, nor to most officers in the army. Conway had the annoying habit, common to many of the officers who came to America from France, of letting his provincial colleagues know of his superior qualities. Nor did he conceal his ambition for higher rank, and as a brigadier general he agitated for promotion to major general. Such agitation was unseemly in American eyes, especially to those around Washington, who had little regard for either Conway or Gates.
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