by Ron Chernow
For one woman in the crowd, the contrast between the splendidly uniformed British troops who had just left and the unkempt American troops in homespun dress who now straggled in conveyed a telling message:We had been accustomed for a long time to military display in all the finish and finery of garrison life; the troops just leaving us were as if equipped for show, and, with their scarlet uniforms and burnished arms, made a brilliant display. The troops that marched in, on the contrary, were ill-clad and weatherbeaten and made a forlorn appearance. But then they were our troops, and as I looked at them and thought upon all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my eyes were full and I admired and gloried in them the more, because they were weatherbeaten and forlorn.8
For seven years, the British had flattered themselves that only they could maintain order in this raucous city. In a self-congratulatory spirit, they had insisted that anarchy would descend without them. But when one British officer returned briefly from his ship to retrieve some forgotten personal items, he was struck dumb by the law-abiding crowds. “This is a strange scene indeed!” he commented. “Here, in this city, we have had an army for more than seven years, and yet could not keep the peace of it . . . Now [that] we are gone, everything is in quietness and safety. The Americans are a curious, original people. They know how to govern themselves, but nobody else can govern them.”9
Casting his eyes beyond the jubilant onlookers, Washington could discern a desolate city of empty lots, burned-out buildings, and churches despoiled of pews to house British troops. Animals roamed the streets freely. The British surrendered only five hundred American prisoners at the end, which attested both to the large number already freed in exchanges and the appalling number who died in captivity. Most had been kept aboard British prison ships anchored in the East River, where they languished in infernal conditions. Stuffed in airless spaces belowdecks, they had been wedged together in vermin-infested holds slick with human excrement and forced to eat worm-infested rations or devour their own body lice. Typhus, dysentery, and scurvy were common scourges. For years afterward the bones of dead prisoners washed up on East River shores. The American Revolution was never a bloodless affair, as is sometimes imagined. Of 200,000 Americans who served in the war, about 25,000 died, or approximately 1 percent of the population, making it the bloodiest American war except for the Civil War.
During eight hectic days in New York, Washington’s calendar was crowded with dinners, receptions, and fireworks galore. Suddenly an avid consumer again, he went shopping for teapots, coffee urns, and other silverware for entertaining guests at Mount Vernon. Earlier that fall, when inquiring of his nephew Bushrod about silverware purchases, he had asked “whether French plate is fashionable and much used in genteel houses in France and England,” showing that the great American liberator was still enslaved to European styles. On Saturday night, November 29, a rare earthquake struck New York—three quick tremors rumbled through town after midnight—and people started from their sleep, darting into the streets for safety. Asleep at the former Queen’s Head Tavern, a three-story brick building at the corner of Broad and Pearl streets better known to history as Fraunces Tavern, Washington scarcely stirred: a man accustomed to the alarums of war wasn’t about to be unsettled by the earth’s minor trembles.
On December 1 Sir Guy Carleton wrote to Washington that, if wind and weather permitted, he hoped to remove the last of his troops from Long and Staten islands and depart by December 4. Washington sent back such an exceedingly polite note that he might have been saying goodbye to an affable weekend guest at Mount Vernon: “I have received your favor [i.e., letter] of yesterday’s date, announcing the time of your departure, and sincerely wish that your Excellency, with the troops under your orders, may have a safe and pleasant passage.”10
When it came time for Washington to bid farewell to his officers, Fraunces Tavern seemed the ideal spot. The innkeeper, Samuel Fraunces, was a West Indian called Black Sam; his nickname probably refers to a swarthy complexion rather than African parentage. An excellent cook and a Freemason, Fraunces was partial to wigs and fancy clothing and had a rather aristocratic air. A secret friend to the American cause during the war, he had helped to relieve the agony of American prisoners held in New York and also worked to thwart a plot to assassinate Washington. Congress would later repay him handsomely by housing government offices in Fraunces Tavern. Well aware of his heroism, Washington wrote to Fraunces warmly that summer and thanked him for his “constant friendship and attention to the cause of our country.”11
Shortly before noon on December 4, Washington assembled his men in the long banquet room on the second floor of Fraunces Tavern. One tends to picture Washington on this occasion surrounded by a full complement of officers, but those on hand represented the sturdy, resilient band who had held out until the very end. Only three major generals—Knox, Steuben, and McDougall—and one brigadier general attended; a handful of lesser officers rounded out the crowd of thirty or forty. When Washington strode into their midst in his familiar blue and buff uniform, they all rose in respect. He invited them to heap their plates with cold buffet meats but was too overwrought to have much appetite himself. Amid what one officer described as “breathless silence,” glasses were handed around and filled with wine.12 Raising his glass with a shaking hand, Washington began to speak, his voice breaking with emotion: “With a heart filled with love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”13
The officers, moved, lifted their glasses and drank in silence. Tears welled up in Washington’s eyes, as if he suddenly relived eight emotional years of sacrifice with these battle-tested men and was pained at the thought of parting from them. “I cannot come to each of you,” he said tenderly, “but shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.”14 The moment was legendary, not for any feat of oratory, but for the simple heartfelt emotion palpable in Washington’s words.
The first officer to step forward was Henry Knox, a mere bookseller before Washington had drawn him from obscurity and boosted him to chief of artillery. Famous for his self-control and his reluctance to let people touch him, Washington not only shook hands with Knox but hugged and kissed him in silence while tears streamed down their faces. Then Steuben, the fake baron whom Washington had allowed to train troops at Valley Forge, stepped forward and was similarly embraced. All the officers were “suffused in tears” as they surged forward for a final farewell kiss from Washington. As Benjamin Tallmadge wrote, “Such a scene of sorrow and weeping I had never before witnessed . . . The simple thought . . . that we should see his face no more in this world seemed to me utterly insupportable.”15 The moment captured many of Washington’s finest qualities: his innate dignity and laconic eloquence, his frank affection behind the impassive front, his instinctive command of the theatrical gesture. He had a magisterial way of directing the major scenes in his life. One senses that, as he struggled with deep feelings, he feared that he would surrender control of his emotions if he said any more. No moment in his life showcased his gift of silence to better effect.
After all the junior officers had come forward to be clasped, Washington walked across the room, lifted his arm in a stately gesture of farewell, and left without looking back. The spell was hypnotic and the officers shuffled out “in mournful silence,” according to Tallmadge.16 When Washington arrived at the Whitehall wharf to board the ferry that would take him to New Jersey, a large crowd of citizens had gathered for an emotional goodbye. Washington raised his three-cornered hat, and his officers and the throng waved their hats in response. Then he stepped into the boat, and twenty-two oarsmen swung into motion, rowing him across the water until he vanished from sight.
Washington’s destination was the State House in Annapolis, Maryland, where an itinerant Congress had taken up residence after leaving Princeton (hoping that with its theaters, balls, and other amusements, Anna
polis might entice absentee delegates to attend sessions). Once he resigned his commission as commander in chief, Washington planned to return to Mount Vernon, vowing to Martha that he would join her for Christmas dinner. Having slept in 280 houses during the war, he must have had a special craving for the banal comforts of home. It took him four days to reach Philadelphia, and even as he mused about returning to private life, the trip showed how profoundly his life had changed. He had surrendered all right to privacy. Wherever he went, he was draped with honors and became a captive of the invariable crowds. A stream of letters trailed him, entreating his aid in securing employment or other favors. All the while he had the burden of having to act like a model citizen and was allowed no normal moods or imperfections.
The extraordinary hero worship Washington inspired can be vividly seen in the correspondence of Gerard Vogels, a Dutch businessman in Philadelphia. Writing to his wife of the commander’s arrival in Philadelphia, Vogels made it sound as if the Messiah had stepped down from the heavens: “I saw the greatest man who has ever appeared on the surface of this earth. His Excellency arrived at 6 o’clock escorted by light cavalry . . . We all waved our hats three times over our heads. Then came the excellent Hero himself, riding an uncommonly beautiful horse . . . I don’t know if, in our delight at seeing the Hero, we were more surprised by his simple but grand air or by the kindness of the greatest and best of heroes.”17
Happily or not, Washington seemed resigned to being a form of public property. “His Excellency promises to walk daily through the town to give the grateful Americans the pleasure of seeing him,” Vogels informed his wife. “Then he says farewell to all honors and the world’s turmoil to live quietly in retirement on his estate.”18 At receptions Washington must have wondered whether he was the honored guest or a prisoner. All the turgid toasts in his praise drew forth from him equally stilted replies, as he took refuge in safe platitudes. Evidently there were limits to how much reverence the Hero could endure. He had always seemed uncomfortable with compliments. He left one concert as the chorus was about to sing a hymn in his honor, set to music by Handel. Vogels, who was in the audience, commented afterward, “Evidently His Excellency is above hearing his praise sung and retires before the just acclamations of his people.”19 He noted how Washington’s presence acted as an aphrodisiac on the panting ladies: “It was amusing to see how, in a place so crowded with the fair sex, everybody had eyes only for this Hero. Indeed, we only now and then stole a glance at our girls. His Excellency drew everyone’s attention.”20
Before Washington arrived, the Pennsylvania assembly had ordered construction of a triumphal wooden arch in the classical style; suspended in the center was an enormous transparency of Cincinnatus, returning to his plow, his brow crowned with laurels. In case anyone was dim-witted enough to miss the allusion, the legislature said the “countenance of Cincinnatus is [to be] a striking resemblance of General Washington.”21 The portrait commission went to Charles Willson Peale, and Washington more or less good-humoredly submitted to a session under his studio skylight. Washington left a whimsical image of his cooperation, telling one correspondent that “no dray moves more readily to the thill than I do to the painter’s chair”—that is, no workhorse was more readily harnessed to the shafts of a wagon than himself.22 Peale exchanged letters about Washington with Benjamin West, the great expatriate painter in London, who had risen to become court history painter to George III. One day the king asked West whether Washington would be head of the army or head of state when the war ended. When West replied that Washington’s sole ambition was to return to his estate, the thunderstruck king declared, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”23
Before Peale had finished the portrait, Washington decided to quit town; he left Philadelphia on December 15 with a diminished retinue. As he slowly shed the trappings of power, he retained only two aides, David Humphreys and Benjamin Walker, and a team of slaves. For a short stretch of the journey, one of his companions was John Dickinson, Pennsylvania’s chief executive, who anticipated a problem that was to harry Washington in his postwar incarnation. Washington had negotiated neither a pension nor an expense account to entertain the hordes poised to descend upon Mount Vernon. Dickinson had privately warned Congress that “the admiration and esteem of the world may make [Washington’s] life in a very considerable degree public, as numbers will be desirous of seeing the great and good man . . . His very services to his country may therefore subject him to improper expenses unless he permits her gratitude to interpose.”24 Congress failed to take action, and it would prove a serious omission in the coming years as the pilgrims to Mount Vernon imposed gigantic expenses.
On December 19 Washington approached the outskirts of Annapolis and was greeted by a delegation of dignitaries that included Horatio Gates. Both men must have been struck by the totality of Washington’s triumph and Gates’s demotion. Accompanied to George Mann’s Tavern, Washington arrived to thirteen blasts of cannon fire, a cliché of which Washington surely tired. The next day he submitted a letter to Thomas Mifflin, his former aide and disloyal critic during the Conway affair and now president of Congress, asking whether he should submit his resignation in writing or in a public ceremony. Washington wanted to do everything in his power to dramatize his humility before civilian power. Congress decided that, after being feted with a magnificent dinner on December 22, he would return his commission before that body at noon the next day.
Several hundred people attended the celebratory dinner, which exuded a mood of uproarious good spirits. “The number of cheerful voices, with the clangor of knives and forks, made a din of a very extraordinary nature and most delightful influence,” James Tilton wrote.25 After suffering through the obligatory thirteen toasts, Washington made a toast with a pertinent point: “Competent powers to Congress for general purposes.”26 The toast suggested that Washington’s mind still fretted over the inadequate Articles of Confederation and that his postwar retirement might be short-lived. The message, in many ways, foretold the rest of his political life. After the dinner Washington attended a brilliantly lit ball, dancing first with twenty-two-year-old Martha Rolle Maccubin, a prominent local belle. With women fawning all over him—the fashionable style dictated thirteen curls tumbling down the neck—Washington never left the dance floor and must have grown slightly giddy from the adulation. “The general danced every set, that the ladies might have the pleasure of dancing with him, or, as it has since been handsomely expressed, get a touch of him,” reported Tilton.27
The next morning Washington squeezed in a last personal letter to Baron von Steuben. Among other things, he reassured Steuben that the country would reward his inestimable service during the war. The quiet fervor of this letter says something about the enduring tie uniting the two men. “I wish to make use of this last moment of my public life to signify in the strongest terms my entire approbation of your conduct,” Washington wrote. “. . . This is the last letter I shall ever write while I continue in the service of my country. The hour of my resignation is fixed at twelve this day; after which I shall become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, where I shall be glad to embrace you and to testify [to] the great esteem and consideration” in which he held him.28
Washington’s resignation was a minutely prepared affair, designed to show a doubting world that this new republic would not degenerate into disorder. Shortly before noon he arrived at the State House, wearing his familiar uniform for the last time. He was greeted by Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, who led him to a seat on the dais, where he was flanked by David Humphreys and Benjamin Walker. In the audience was a sparse contingent of legislators, only twenty representatives, who sat with their hats on. This was no sign of disrespect but an antimonarchical gesture: in European kingdoms, commoners always stood in the presence of royalty and doffed their hats. Then the doors opened, and the leading Maryland politicians and town gentry poured into the hall, with men crowding into seats downstairs and b
right-eyed ladies packing the galleries. Everyone pressed into the hall to sneak a peek at this historic transaction.
As the audience sat in rapt silence, Thomas Mifflin rose. “Sir,” he intoned, “the United States in Congress assembled are prepared to receive your communications.” 29 Following a precise script, Washington rose and bowed to the congressmen, who removed their hats out of respect and then returned them. As Washington spoke, he held the speech in his right hand, which began to shake so violently that he had to steady it with his left.
In a voice hoarse with emotion, he recalled his feelings of inadequacy when first appointed commander in chief and stated that he had been sustained only “by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the union, and the patronage of heaven.”30 He paid tribute to the men who had served with him and gently urged Congress to take care of them, reminding them of the troops sent home unpaid. It was at this point that he had to grasp the speech with two trembling hands. When he recommended “our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God,” said James McHenry, Washington’s voice “faltered and sank and the whole house felt his agitations.”31 After a pause he regained his composure and closed on a poetic note, hinting at his permanent withdrawal: “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of action; and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of all the employments of public life.”32 Then, drawing the original parchment commission from his coat, he handed it to Thomas Mifflin along with a folded copy of his speech. The emotional impact was overpowering. “The General was so much affected himself that everybody felt for him,” commented a woman named Mary Ridout, who said that “many tears were shed.”33