by John Ferling
Greene, a Quaker from Rhode Island who had never soldiered before 1774, had been chosen as one of the original general officers when the Continental army was created in 1775. He quickly caught Washington’s eye. An extraordinary judge of men, Washington saw things in Greene that escaped others. In time, Greene became Washington’s most trusted advisor. By 1780, he had acquitted himself as a leader under fire in engagements in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. If anyone could succeed in the South—and so far no one had—Washington believed it would be Greene.63
Following his appointment, Greene had a long meeting with Washington, then rode to Annapolis and Richmond to confer with the governors of Maryland and Virginia. He sat down with Jefferson two days after learning that Leslie had departed for South Carolina. Greene wanted immediate help, and he provided Jefferson with a lengthy shopping list of things he needed from Virginia. He told the astonished governor that he wanted ten thousand barrels of flour and five thousand of beef or pork; he also asked for two hundred hogsheads of rum or brandy, one hundred wagons, each furnished with four horses and an experienced teamster, forty skilled workers from assorted trades, and five thousand pounds in specie. He insisted that Virginia meet its quota by furnishing three thousand men to the Continental army, and he asked Jefferson to immediately provide him with an entire corps of militia adequately supplied for a winter campaign. Before leaving Richmond, Greene revealed that he had appointed General Friedrich von Steuben to command the Continentals in Virginia and to drill the state’s troops.64
Jefferson went to work, and within thirty days most of the supplies that Greene wanted were on their way to North Carolina. But Jefferson protested to Congress that Virginia should not be expected to arm the Continentals. He acknowledged that it was the state’s responsibility to arm its militia, which it had done, and he ordered the militiamen requested by Greene to march for North Carolina. However, when they arrived, Greene fumed that these men were “destitute of everything necessary either for comfort or convenience.” Barely containing his anger, Greene lectured Jefferson that it served “no good purpose to send men here in such a condition…. There must be either pride or principle to make a soldier. No man will think himself bound to fight the battles of a State that leaves him to perish for want of covering.”65 Stung, Jefferson secured authorization from the legislature to do what Washington had done unilaterally in 1777 when he sent Hamilton to Philadelphia with authority to confiscate civilian property. If it was the only way to obtain the items, Jefferson announced that he would “provide cloathing and blankets for the troops by seizing” them.66
Jefferson had boldly responded to the crisis that followed Gates’s defeat and Leslie’s raid, but Virginia was overextended and overwhelmed. It was defending itself from invasion, helping in the struggle against Cornwallis, and waging war on the trans-Appalachian frontier. The sacrifices required in the never-ending war were taking a toll. During the fall, what Jefferson called a “very dangerous Insurrection” that aimed at thwarting militia mobilization was uncovered in two counties; both were suppressed just in the nick of time. But Jefferson presumed that the “dangerous fire” of rebellion against civil authority had not been “smothered” forever, and he was correct. Within a month, some militia officers who had been ordered to join Greene refused to march until they were paid and better supplied. The state met their demands.67
Jefferson privately confessed his mortification at the conduct of many Virginians. It ate at him. He grew more melancholy, a downcast turn fed by his longing to return home and pursue his “Love of Study and Retirement.” Around the time of his meeting with Greene, Jefferson confided to Page that he would not accept a third term as governor and that he might immediately resign. Other Founders, including General Washington, experienced similar moments of black despair, but none resigned. Page discouraged his friend from taking a step that would finish him forever as a public official. Nearly every state official thought him “eminently qualified” for his post, Page advised. He added that it was widely acknowledged that no other Virginian could have managed the recent war crises more adroitly. Only six months remained in Jefferson’s second term, Page added, and they would pass rapidly. He closed with an admonition: “Deny yourself your darling Pleasures.”68 Jefferson did not resign. But he had hardly read Page’s missive before his problems worsened immeasurably.
On the last day of 1780, a Sunday, a courier brought word to Jefferson that a British flotilla of twenty-seven vessels—considerably larger than the one Leslie had commanded—had been spotted off the Virginia coast. Two weeks earlier, Jefferson had learned from Washington that a British force would soon sail from New York. It was “destined Southward,” said Washington, but he could not be more specific.69 A year earlier, Washington had sent a similar warning. Jefferson had not summoned the militia to active duty, and it had been a wise decision. When Washington’s latest notification arrived, Jefferson thought it unlikely that another British fleet would descend on Virginia barely two months after Leslie’s departure. Besides, he was again hesitant about calling up the militia. On that Sunday when he received word of an enemy flotilla, Jefferson weighed his choices. He made an educated guess. He guessed wrong.
For leaders, wars are filled with guesses. Inevitably, many are incorrect. Some wrong choices are forgivable. Jefferson’s response in this crisis was un-pardonable. Jefferson was informed at eight A.M. on Sunday, December 31, that a large fleet was sailing northward in the Chesapeake. It was already close to the mouth of the James River. The sentinel system had worked and, in light of Washington’s recent warning, Jefferson should have responded with haste. Yet throughout that long Sunday, and Monday as well, Jefferson did nothing. He did not call out the militia, nor did he notify the Council of State of the possibility of an imminent threat. He did not act until he had absolute confirmation of the presence of the enemy’s naval squadron. In mid-morning on Tuesday, exactly fifty hours after first learning of the potential threat, Jefferson finally summoned the militia. He later claimed that he was slow to act because he did not know whether the fleet was friend or foe.70 It was not a persuasive explanation. When bold, decisive leadership was essential, Jefferson had failed.
He was not the only important official to hesitate in the face of peril. Washington had often acted slowly and indecisively, at times with unfortunate results. But Washington was almost always spared public criticism. That was not the case with Jefferson.
The fleet that bore down on Virginia in the closing hours of 1780 carried a force of 1,600 men commanded by Benedict Arnold. After he had turned his coat, the British rewarded him with the rank of brigadier general and gave him an army of regulars, Hessians, and American Loyalists. Arnold’s objectives, like Leslie’s before him, were to sow terror, wreak destruction, deflate morale, fortify the Elizabeth River, and garrison Portsmouth, from which the British could close the supply lines to General Greene.
The first of Arnold’s green-clad soldiers landed in Newport News and Hampton on New Year’s Eve. Before sunset the following day, the invaders had seized four vessels and their cargoes. By early January 2, the day that Jefferson at last called to arms some 4,600 militia, Arnold’s force was already within five miles of Williamsburg. Two days later Jefferson was awakened before dawn and notified that Arnold’s fleet was about fifty miles up the James River, roughly halfway between Portsmouth and Richmond. Jefferson summoned the “whole militia from adjacent counties” and ordered the removal of government papers from the capital. He also commanded the destruction of all arms and munitions that could not be taken from the city. For five hours, Jefferson rode about the town on horseback directing operations. Just before noon, he took Martha and his three small daughters a few miles up the James River to Tuckahoe, the estate where his mother had been raised and he had first been schooled.
On Friday afternoon, January 5, Arnold reached Richmond with some nine hundred infantry and cavalry. They marched in nearly unopposed. The militia that Jefferson ha
d summoned the day before had not reached the capital, and those who had been called to duty earlier in the week were scattered and unable to keep pace with the raiders, who were transported by sailing vessels that glided swiftly, thanks to what Washington once called their “canvass wings.” Only two hundred militiamen were in the capital when Arnold’s men landed. Some bravely offered resistance, but they were heavily outnumbered.
Jefferson had returned from Tuckahoe to a safe location across the river from the beleaguered capital. Climbing a small knoll and using a spyglass, he was able to watch the marauders as they carried away their booty and set fires. Soon, a black, choking smoke hung like a blanket over the town. Arnold’s men—sometimes supervised, sometimes not—acted quickly. Within twenty-four hours, the raiders destroyed two warehouses, hundreds of hogs-head of liquor, a foundry, mills, stores of food, a score of carriages, twenty-six artillery pieces, several residences, stores, and a church or two. In addition, they confiscated crafts large and small, more than two thousand muskets, and large stockpiles of grain. One residence that was plundered was the home of the governor.
The raiders departed after one day, carrying off “all kinds of merchandise” in forty-two vessels of assorted sizes. Arnold got just about everything he was after, though he came away empty-handed with regard to Governor Jefferson, whom he longed to apprehend. A couple of days earlier, Arnold’s men had done extensive damage to Berkeley plantation, the home of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Through scuttlebutt in the Continental army, in which Arnold had been a general officer for four years after July 1776, he may have known that Jefferson was the document’s principal author. Even if he did not know that, capturing the governor of Virginia would have been a great prize.71
Arnold’s raiding expedition came to a rapid end. He had sown considerable destruction in Richmond and at plantations along the James, and he had liberated scores of slaves. However, a week after arriving in Virginia, his army went into winter quarters in Portsmouth, which he had been ordered to fortify. Arnold’s plan was await reinforcements and better weather, then to strike again.72
Virginia had been roughed up. The damage to Jefferson had just begun. Jefferson had made mistakes, his plodding response when warned of Arnold’s approach the most egregious of all. Yet, given the debilities of his office and the military challenges that Virginia faced, failure likely would have stalked any who served as the Virginia’s chief executive at this juncture of the war. Nevertheless, Arnold’s calamitous raid had occurred on Jefferson’s watch, opening him to blistering criticism, sometimes even from old friends. One censured him as “obstinate, lethargic,” while another railed at his “neglect and supineness.”73 Jefferson was also accused of indecisiveness and incompetence. John Page ranted that the entrance to the James River had been left unfortified and the militia ill-equipped. Edmund Pendleton complained to Washington that the governor had not been “sufficiently attentive” to intelligence and did not respond to the threat until “it was too late.” General Steuben intimated to Washington that a stronger, more assertive governor would have done more to prepare the state for the crisis. Jefferson did not know of all the attacks on him, or who assailed him in private, but he knew that much of the blame for the debacle was being assigned to him. He responded with the claim that poor intelligence had been to blame. Few were convinced.74
Angry and humiliated, Jefferson sought to get his hands on the man who had brought the troubles down on him. He approved a scheme to rig a ship with explosives and crash it into Arnold’s vessel, killing or capturing him when he tried to escape the blazing craft. The plan never materialized, but Jefferson soon turned to the notion of raising a party of militiamen who were to be paid five thousand guineas apiece if they succeeded in bringing Arnold to him, dead or alive. If Arnold was brought to him alive, Jefferson pledged, he would first make a “public spectacle” of “this greatest of all traitors,” then he would have him executed.75
Chapter 5
“Our Affairs seem to be approaching fast to a happy period”
Glory for Hamilton, Misery for Jefferson
Several moments might qualify as the nadir of the Revolutionary War. The best known might be Washington’s seemingly hopeless retreat across New Jersey in 1776 and the dreadful Valley Forge winter in 1778. But for contemporaries, the mood may never have been blacker than at the outset of 1781. In earlier crises there had been the promise of rescue by France, but by 1781 rumors were buzzing that France wanted out of the war. Even worse, the year began with mutinies of Continental soldiers. “[W]e are bankrupt with a mutinous army,” declared a Massachusetts congressman.1
At Washington’s headquarters and in war-torn Virginia that year, the feeling was palpable that the tide had to turn or America might be compelled to return to the British Empire. In such an event, Americans might have greater autonomy than before the war, but they would not be independent and there would be no United States. No one summed up the mood better than Hamilton. The “people have lost all confidence in our public councils,” he said, adding that “our friends in Europe are in the same disposition.” Like others, he wondered whether “we shall after all fail in our Independence.”2
Hamilton and Jefferson were filled with despair, and not just for America’s future. Hamilton’s lust for glory seemed unlikely to be fulfilled. Jefferson’s public career seemed on the brink of ruin.
Hamilton had long wanted an independent command. By becoming Washington’s aide and gaining his respect, he had believed he would eventually be assigned his own brigade. Then, as a field officer, he would see action and have a shot at achieving distinction. But Washington found him too useful at headquarters to let him go. Year after year, Hamilton had remained tied to a desk, and now he suspected that the war was nearly over. Hamilton anguished that at war’s end he would be just another obscure soldier. He had gained notoriety among powerful figures in New York, but despite six long years of soldiering, he had failed to become an heroic figure revered for his dauntless exploits. “The stars fight against [me],” he said. “I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself,” he declared, sinking into despondency.3
If the war was lost, Hamilton believed that history would blame the defeat on the absurd political and constitutional system that left Congress with insufficient “powers … for calling forth the resources of the country.” The stubborn shortsightedness of the states, he thought, was robbing America of a victory it should long since have won. Yet, while Hamilton thought that America’s economic woes had prolonged the war, he was also convinced that a myriad of factors had brought the United States to the brink of the abyss. Among the failures, in his judgment, were a surfeit of mediocre army officers, the refusal of too many men of talent to serve at the national level, and a fatal overreliance on the militia.4 Then there was the matter of General Washington. Hamilton never criticized Washington’s generalship, and in fact he thought him superior to his “competitors.” He never said that he thought Washington was the best man for the job, but he never said the contrary either. However, Hamilton, like quite a few others, appears to have believed that Washington shared some of the blame for the war having gone on for so long. Washington had been reluctant to send his men to the Southern Department, and he had refused to support the enlistment of African Americans, steps that might have prevented the string of defeats in Georgia and the Carolinas, and which might have brought Great Britain to the peace table. In 1779, and again in 1780, Washington had resisted Congress’s pleas to invade Canada, a step that at the very least might have compelled London to withdraw its army from the South. In fact, during the thirty months since Monmouth, Washington had remained largely inactive.
Hamilton had to be guarded in expressing his views, but it was apparent that he did not like Washington. “I have felt no friendship for him and have professed none,” he said, adding: “I discovered he was neither remarkable for delicacy nor good temper.” Hamilton’s ingrained cynicism,
together with his resentment at the general’s aloofness and denial of his wished-for field command, colored his opinion of Washington. Nevertheless, Hamilton had seen the unguarded and unvarnished Washington, the “ill-humor[ed]” man who was carefully hidden from public view. Like a handful of others who saw the commander up close, Hamilton came to view Washington as hard and coarse, and sometimes petty, vain, ill-tempered, inconsiderate, insecure, inelegant, and unoriginal in his thinking. Like nearly everyone else, Hamilton found Washington to be distant and cold. Although “all the world is offering incense” to Washington, Hamilton wanted no part of it. Yet for all that he disdained in Washington, Hamilton not only acknowledged that the commander was honest and honorable but he also thought it “essential to the safety of America” that the public see Washington in mythically heroic hues. What Hamilton was saying was that the cause required a fabricated Washington, one that the American people could believe in and rally round in order to sustain morale and maintain national cohesion.5
Hamilton once said that he had “always disliked” serving as an aide, in part because he detested “having … a kind of personal dependence” on any individual, whether Washington or someone else. All of his frustrations, contempt, and simmering resentments surfaced in a flash on February 15. Summoned by Washington, Hamilton was slow in getting to the commander’s office. Washington, whose nerves were already stretched to the breaking point by the recent mutinies and countless other difficulties, upbraided Hamilton “in a very angry tone,” telling him, “you … treat me with disrespect.” Hamilton resigned on the spot. An hour later, Washington, who truckled to no man, sent Hamilton an apology and asked him to reconsider. Hamilton refused, though as weeks or months might be needed to find a suitable replacement, he agreed to remain on the commander’s staff until his position was filled, and in fact he continued as an unofficial aide for another six months. He stayed on in part from his commitment to the cause, but also as it afforded the best prospect of fulfilling his ambition for a field command. Hamilton hoped to rejoin the artillery when a position opened or to find a post with the army in either the Carolinas or Virginia.6