Lion of Liberty

by Harlow Giles Unger

  In his letter to Henry, Washington confided,My caution to avoid any thing which could injure the service prevented me from communicating but to a very few of my friends the intrigues of a faction which I know was formed against me, since it might serve to publish our internal dissensions; but their own restless zeal to advance their views has too clearly betrayed them and make concealment on my part fruitless. . . . General Gates was to be exalted on the ruin of my reputation and influence . . . and General Conway, I know, was a very active and malignant partisan, but I have reason to believe that their machinations have recoiled most sensibly upon themselves.16

  Overall responsibility for the cabal to displace Washington remains unclear. Although Conway was arch-facilitator and Gates and Rush were evident co-conspirators, the plot may well have originated in the War Ministry in London, which generated most British espionage plots. The cabal began to collapse after Gates sent Major General Marquis de Lafayette—a close and loyal aide to Washington—on a quixotic mission to take command of the Northern Army in Albany in mid-February 1778. Once there, he was to mount an improbable expedition in the dead of winter to seize Canada from the British. When Lafayette arrived in Albany, however, there were too few troops and no money, arms, ammunition, or other supplies for the expedition. Neither the area commanders nor the commissary were aware that Gates had authorized a mission to Canada. “I have been deceived by the Board of War,” Lafayette wrote to Washington. “It would be madness to undertake this operation.”17

  With Lafayette’s revelations, the Conway Cabal, as it came to be called, collapsed. Congress ordered Conway demoted and transferred to an insignificant post along the Hudson River valley; Gates and the Board of War resigned, with Gates returning to his former post as commander of the Northern Army. Congress restored Washington to supreme command, giving him dictatorial powers and abandoning the concept of directing the war by committee.

  Washington would never forget Henry’s loyalty. “I can only thank you again, in language of the most undissembled gratitude, for your friendship,” Washington wrote after crushing the cabal.

  Henry proved his loyalty to Washington and the Revolution in other ways during the Continental Army’s winter at Valley Forge. On a wooded plateau some twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia, Valley Forge gave Washington’s small army the advantage of elevation if it had to defend itself against a larger enemy. Washington ordered his men to raise a city of huts, which—even in the bitter winter that followed—might have been tolerable had the Quartermaster General provided clothes, blankets, foods, and other supplies that Washington had ordered. “The soldiers lived in misery,” according to Lafayette. “They lacked for clothes, hats, shirts, shoes, their legs and feet black from frostbite—we often had to amputate. . . . The army often went whole days without provisions. . . . The misery prevented new enlistments.”18

  By Christmas, desertions, disease, exposure to subzero temperatures, starvation, and thirst—for there were no springs on the Valley Forge plateau—had reduced Washington’s Continental Army of 11,000 men to 5,000. Some froze to death; those who survived were too weak to fight. When Washington’s pleas for supplies went unheeded by Quartermaster General Thomas Mifflin, he pleaded with Congress and the governors of every state for help.

  “It is not easy to give you a just and accurate idea of the sufferings of the troops,” Washington wrote to Patrick Henry at the end of 1777.

  I fear I shall wound your feelings by telling you that on the 23rd [of December], I had in camp not less than 2,898 men unfit for duty by reason of their being bare foot and otherwise naked. . . . I can not but hope that every measure will be pursued . . . to keep them supplied from time to time. No pains, no efforts can be too great for this purpose. The articles of shoes, stockings, blankets demand the most particular attention. ...19

  Henry responded immediately, seizing nine wagonloads of clothing and blankets to meet the needs of Virginia’s troops at Valley Forge. He promised Washington that “added to this supply, £15,000 worth of woolens etc. proper for the soldiers will set out from Petersburg in a few days. These last are procured under an act of Assembly empowering me to seize necessaries for our troops wherever they may be found.” He said he had issued orders “to both Carolinas” for blankets and clothes and pledged that “nothing possible for me to effect will be left undone in getting whatever the troops are in want of.” He also obtained and sent on to Washington enough funds to pay every Virginia soldier an attractive bonus for reenlisting. He was unable, however, to send Washington any additional troops, saying that he had sent two battalions south to support the Georgians and Carolinians. “Add to all this our Indian wars and marine service, almost total want of necessaries . . . deserters . . . small pox . . . there remains little prospect of filling the six new battalions from this state.”20

  As Henry was dealing with the crisis at Valley Forge, George Rogers Clark returned from the West with a plan to defeat both the Indians and their British sponsors. Rather than a frontal attack in Indiana and eastern Illinois, Clark proposed a surprise attack with a small force of irregulars on the rear of the British fort at far-off Kaskaskia, on the western border of the Illinois territory by the Mississippi River. If successful, he would then move eastward across Illinois, while a second force advanced from the east to trap the British in a vice and force them to flee northward to Canada. Impressed by Clark’s daring and assuredness, Henry commissioned him a lieutenant colonel and scratched up enough money and supplies for him to recruit 175 men and set off for the West.

  In the weeks that followed, Virginia’s officers at Valley Forge informed Henry that some supplies he had sent via the Quartermaster General had never reached camp. In addition, they wrote of having found large stores of food and clothing in nearby towns that had not been sent to camp. Henry wrote to the Virginia delegation in Congress demanding an explanation. “I found upon enquiry,” he wrote sternly, “that eight or ten thousand hogs and several thousand fine beeves might have been had very lately in a few counties convenient to the camp.” He told the congressmen that he had commissioned three merchants “to purchase beef, or pork, to the amount of ten thousand pounds and drive it to camp in the most expeditious manner, and advanced them the cash. I have also directed Colonel Simpson to seize two thousand bushels of salt on the eastern shore . . . and reserve a thousand more to answer further orders that may become necessary.” He said he hoped that “these several steps” would ease the immediate crisis among Virginia regiments at Valley Forge. “But Gentlemen,” he scolded,I cannot forbear some reflections on this occasion, which I beg you will be pleased to lay before Congress . . . It is with the deepest concern that the business of supplying provisions for the grand army is seen to fall into a state of uncertainty and confusion. And while the [Virginia] executive hath been more than once called upon to make up for deficiencies in that department, no reform is seen to take place . . . no animadversions [adverse criticisms] that I know of, have been made upon the conduct of those whose business it was to forward it to the army . . . this country abounds with the provisions for which the army is said to be almost starving . . . the perilous situation of the American Army will be relieved when a reform takes place . . . from mismanagement in which have flowed evils threatening the existence of American liberty.21

  To Henry’s consternation, his letter produced no response. Indeed, a month later, he received this astonishing letter from Washington:For several days past we have experienced little less than a famine in camp, and have had much cause to dread a general mutiny and dispersion. . . . From every appearance there has been heretofore so astonishing a deficiency in providing that unless the most vigorous and effectual measures are at once everywhere adopted, the language is not too strong to declare that we shall not be able to make another campaign.

  Isolated in his Valley Forge headquarters, Washington said he had no way of knowing whether the sought-after provisions had fallen into “improper hands” or whether “a diminution of r
esources and increased difficulties in the means of procuring” had caused the shortages. “I address myself to you,” he wrote to Henry, “convinced that our alarming distresses will engage your most serious consideration and that the full force of that zeal and vigor you have manifested upon every other occasion will now operate for our relief.”22

  Arriving, as it did, after his own letter to Congress and the shipment of ample supplies from Virginia to Valley Forge, Washington’s letter outraged Henry. “I am really shocked at the management of Congress,” he vented to Richard Henry Lee. “Good God! Our fate committed to a man utterly unable to perform the task assigned to him! . . . I grieve at it . . . I am really so harassed by the great load of continental business thrown on me lately that I am ready to sink under my burden.”23

  Fortunately, Henry did not sink under his burden. His relentless letters spurred Washington’s aides to look into the activities of Quartermaster General Mifflin. A Philadelphia-area merchant before the Revolution, he had sought to profit from his office by waylaying supplies bound for Valley Forge into his own warehouses, where he sold them to the highest bidders. When Washington confronted him, he resigned and Congress reassigned him to an obscure military post where he could do no harm. Washington persuaded his trusted friend, Rhode Island Major General Nathanael Greene—also a merchant in private life—to accept the Quartermaster General’s post. Within days, Valley Forge had a surplus of clothing, food, and other supplies.

  Elated over resolution of the supply problem, Henry sent Washington “a stock of good rum, wine, sugar and such other articles as his Excellency may think needful . . . to the preservation of [Washington’s] health.” A grateful Washington thanked Henry, saying the “agreeable present” had found him “in a humor to do it all manner of justice.”24

  On May 1, 1778, an aide rode into Washington’s headquarters at Valley Forge with a letter from Benjamin Franklin in Paris that the French government had signed two treaties with the United States: the first, a treaty of amity and commerce, the second a treaty of alliance pledging direct French military aid to the United States once England declared war against France.

  At Valley Forge, Washington proclaimed an official day of “public celebration,” beginning with religious services and followed by “military parades, marchings, the firings of cannon and musketry.”25 Patrick Henry rejoiced at the news and predicted an early end to the war news: “I look at the past condition of America as at a dreadful precipice from which we have escaped by means of the generous French, to whom I will be everlastingly bound by the most heartfelt gratitude.”26

  Within weeks, Washington and his army left Valley Forge to attack the British and end the young republic’s longest and coldest winter, but worse was yet to come.

  Chapter 10

  Obliged to Fly

  The announcement of the French alliance with America spurred renewed British efforts to reconcile differences with the Americans. When, however, Lord Carlisle arrived in America with a three-man commission to negotiate with Congress, Henry grew incensed that Congress might end the Revolution short of independence. He warned Richard Henry Lee that Britain “can never be cordial with us. Baffled, defeated, disgraced by her colonies, she will ever meditate revenge. We can find no safety but in her ruin, or at least her extreme humiliation. . . .

  “For God’s sake, my dear sir,” Henry pleaded with his friend, “quit not the councils of your country until you see us forever disjoined from Great Britain. Excuse my freedom. I know your love to our country, and this is my motive.”

  With Henry’s warning resounding through the chamber, members of Congress refused even to receive—let alone negotiate with—the British commissioners and declared any individual or group who came to terms with Carlisle’s commission an enemy of the United States. The only issues open to discussion with England, Congress asserted, was withdrawal of British troops and American independence. Should Britain “persist in her present career of barbarity, we will take such exemplary vengeance as shall deter others from a like conduct.”1

  Lord Carlisle tried bypassing Congress with a “Manifesto and Proclamation to the American People” threatening “to desolate” the country if Americans rejected his offer to negotiate. “Under such circumstances,” Carlisle warned, “the laws of self-preservation must direct the conduct of Great Britain.” Carlisle offered to negotiate with the “Provincial Assemblies” and promised a general pardon to all who ended their rebellion. When an aide to Lord Carlisle delivered the offer of a general pardon to Williamsburg, Henry called it “calculated to mislead and divide the good people of this country” and ordered the aide “to depart this state . . . with the dispatches and to inform him [Lord Carlisle] that, in future, any person making a like attempt shall be secured as an enemy to America.”2

  With no confederation yet in place, Henry, as head of a sovereign state, undertook to establish formal diplomatic relations with both France and Spain, appointing one of Richard Henry Lee’s brothers—William Lee—as Virginia agent to France. Lee was able to purchase almost V£220,000 in artillery, arms, and ammunition from the French ministry of war using the state’s own printed money—the “Virginia pound.” Henry also made an unsuccessful application to the Spanish governor of New Orleans for a loan.

  With the western part of the state still under siege, land values in the West plunged, and two of Henry’s friends shared an opportunity with him to buy 30,000 acres for V£15,000 in depressed Virginia pounds. In effect, Henry and his partners paid the equivalent of V£3,333 for the lands, with each partner taking outright ownership of his share. Henry’s 10,000 acres straddled Leatherwood Creek, a tributary of Smith River, in Henry County, near present-day Martinsville.

  On May 29, 1778, Virginia’s Assembly reelected him governor for a third term by acclamation, with no other name even placed in nomination. As he had after election to his first term, Henry fell ill after taking the oath of office and remained bedridden for more than a month. Still distraught over the disappearance of his son John after the Battle of Saratoga, Henry sent Washington an emotional letter asking his help in finding the boy. In accord with Henry’s request, Washington burned the letter and began a discreet search. Months later, in September 1778, Washington forwarded to Patrick Henry “a letter for Capt. Henry, whose ill state of health obliged him to quit the service. ...”3 Shortly afterwards, Dolly assuaged some of Henry’s concerns over his son by giving birth to her first and his seventh child, a girl they named Dorothea—the first child of a sitting governor to be born in a governor’s mansion in America. It was customary to name firstborn girls for their mothers, just as parents named firstborn boys for their fathers.

  A month after baby Dorothea’s birth, Washington again wrote to Henry that “I was informed (upon further enquiry after him) that he had got no further than Elizabeth town in the Jerseys and was there rather distressed for want of money, having been indisposed at that place for sometime.” Washington said that the commanding officer in Elizabeth “readily understood to furnish what money he wanted and in other respect help him.”4 John eventually found his way home, and his father lopped off 1,000 acres from his 10,000-acre Leatherwood plantation for the boy to farm on his own, giving him seven of the forty-two slaves at Leatherwood.

  On June 17, the British declared war on France, and when a French fleet set sail for America with troops to support Patriot forces, the British evacuated Philadelphia to consolidate their forces in New York. On June 18, 3,000 Redcoats boarded ships and sailed down the Delaware River to the Atlantic and the sea route to New York, while the remaining troops began the overland trek northward through New Jersey. With their artillery, military equipment, and baggage train of 1,500 carriages stretching twelve miles, the columns provided just the sort of slow-moving target Washington had been seeking. Instead of direct confrontation, his army could trail the British convoy and harass them with deadly sniping from the sides and rear. He did not believe the Continental Army was large enough or strong en
ough to defeat the British army in direct, head-to-head confrontations, but he was certain his Americans could weaken and demoralize the British with constant harassment. Attrition and exhaustion, he believed, would eventually force them to abandon the field and sail home to Britain.

  With the beginning of the summer campaign, Washington issued his usual call to Congress and states for more men and materiel. He faced constant depletion of his forces because of the short enlistment periods—often as little as thirty days—that many states had been forced to offer as incentives for army service. Farmers, especially, had to leave the army and return to their fields in spring and fall to plant and harvest crops to sustain their families. “Public service seems to have taken its flight from Virginia,” Henry lamented to Richard Henry Lee, “for the quota of our troops is not half made up, and no chance seems to remain for completing it.

  Dorothea Henry, Patrick Henry’s first child by his second wife, also named Dorothea and to whom her daughter was said to bear a close resemblance. (FROM A NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPH OF A PAINTING)

  The Assembly voted three hundred and fifty horse and two thousand men to be forthwith raised, and to join the grand [Continental] army. Great bounties are offered, but I fear the only effect will be to expose our state to contempt, for I believe no soldiers will enlist. . . . Let not Congress rely on Virginia for soldiers.5

  Even with near-dictatorial powers, Henry found he could not force Virginians to do his bidding and march off to battle. “I ordered fifty men to be raised,” complained one captain to Governor Henry, “only ten appeared.” He said that militia members fail even to appear at musters, saying that “they can afford to pay . . . the trifling fine of five shillings . . . by earning more at home. . . . With such a set of men, it is impossible to render any service to country or county.”6