Revolution Song

by Russell Shorto

  The welcoming trees—sassafras and locusts, dogwoods and maples and tulip poplars—lazed in their late season fullness. Down below loomed the Potomac: massy, blue, wide enough that it could have been a bay opening toward the ocean. It was August 30, 1774, when two men, Edmund Pendleton and Patrick Henry, having made the trip from their homes further south, rode their horses into the serenity of this landscape. Martha Washington greeted them at the door of the fine house that stretched across the hilltop, surrounded by its crosshatched fields. They found that she had an impressive presence. While Pendleton later condescended in calling her a “dear little woman,” they observed that in fact as she moved about the house, settling them, ensuring that their beds and meals were prepared, she engaged them in serious conversation. Her husband, in contrast, was mostly silent, deferring to her and doting on her, calling her “Patsy.” Martha Washington not only knew perfectly well what these men were about but all but instructed them on it, telling them that their undertaking would demand all their strength. “I hope you will stand firm,” she said. “I know George will.” In the morning the three men set out on horseback for Philadelphia.

  A month earlier the Virginia Convention—as the members of the dismissed House of Burgesses called themselves—had voted to take part in a Continental Congress, an unprecedented gathering of representatives from all of Britain’s American colonies. They had then voted Pendleton, Henry and Washington to be part of Virginia’s delegation. The three men clattered into Philadelphia’s cobbled streets on September 4, weary from the journey but braced for business.

  A volcano of chatter erupted the next morning in the carpenters’ guild hall on Chestnut Street, as seemingly all of the fifty-six delegates began speaking at once. Or at least fifty-five of them seemed to do so. Washington, who was never loquacious to begin with, was uneasy being surrounded by so many lawyers and other varieties of professional orator, all of whom were filled with pent-up energy and convictions and perspectives. But he didn’t need to engage others; they came to him. They had known that among the delegates chosen by the Virginians was the man whose fame from the days of the war with France still resonated. He met John Adams, the chatty and self-righteous lawyer from Massachusetts, famous for having taken, as a matter of principle, the case, in 1770, of British soldiers who had shot and killed five people during what became known as the Boston Massacre. And he met his cousin Samuel Adams, who had led opposition to the Stamp Act. He met John Jay, the celebrated New York lawyer, who was also the brother of Frederick Jay, who was at this moment the guardian of Margaret Moncrieffe. He met William Livingston, the lawyer who had run the radical Whig journal the Independent Reflector and had served as mentor to Abraham Yates.

  Many of them later gossiped about their first encounter with Washington. They noted his “easy Soldierlike Air” and his “manly Gait.” One observed that he spoke little and had a cool refinement about him, “like a Bishop at his prayers.”

  It quickly became clear that the delegates were divided into two camps regarding how to proceed, or even what they wanted. One group thought they were in Philadelphia to work out a joint strategy for reconciling with the British government. The other wanted to agree on a list of rights to submit to England as an ultimatum for their continued allegiance. Everyone knew that Massachusetts, which had been at the forefront of activism against British policies, was in the radical camp. Some were surprised to learn that Virginia’s representatives—whose planter-constituents had felt their economic independence especially impinged by British politicians—were just as radical in how far they were willing to press matters. John Adams declared them “the most spirited” members of the Congress.

  Both camps wanted the same thing: “freedom.” The question was whether it was to be had under British rule or not. Though he spoke little, Washington made his feelings known. He was guided, as he had written to an associate before setting out for Philadelphia, by “an Innate Spirit of Freedom.” But freedom was not simple; it could be cleaved, apportioned, shaded. Most of the delegates maintained a stark double standard, which Washington expressed in the same letter. “The Crisis is arrived,” he said, “when we must assert our Rights, or Submit to every Imposition that can be heap’d upon us, till custom and use will make us as tame & abject slaves, as the Blacks we Rule over with such arbitrary sway.” Like many of his fellow slaveholding Virginia radicals—Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry—he was able to positively assert the “innate spirit of freedom” for Virginians whose ancestors had come from Europe and at the same time to positively deny it to Virginians whose ancestors had come from Africa.

  The delegates spent two months hashing out their differing views (“tedious beyond expression,” Adams called the debates). In the evenings they carried the discussions to taverns; they continued them over card games (Washington won seven pounds) and between dances at balls. They were getting to know each other, and in doing so were uniting colonies that had always seemed foreign to one another.

  In the end, they agreed on a lengthy list of “resolves” to be sent to the king: statements of their rights as British subjects, and of specific acts of Parliament that violated these. They agreed further to a continentwide boycott of British goods. And they authorized the creation of “committees of safety” throughout the colonies, to carry out the boycotts, and if need be to act as de facto governments.

  Washington was back at Mount Vernon at the end of October. Though he had spoken little in Philadelphia, he wholeheartedly backed the resolves. And though he didn’t know what was to come, he confessed anxiety to a fellow planter on returning home, saying “the times are ticklish.” He then set about doing his part to put the resolves into effect. All the colonies were building up their militias. He put his old militia officer’s uniform on and rode out to help drill local companies of recruits.

  In the spring of 1775 he was observing the blossoms on his cherry trees when profound news reached him from two quarters. There had been an actual military confrontation, or rather a pair of them, in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. British troops had attempted to secure the colonials’ military stores. Militiamen had gotten wind of the plot and engaged them in a series of violent battles; first reports were that dozens had been killed on each side. Meanwhile, the British had succeeded in a parallel maneuver in Virginia, taking the militia’s gunpowder store in Williamsburg. War had arrived, even as Washington and other leaders were still debating its inevitability. Many Virginians wanted to follow the lead of the Massachusetts militia and attack. Peyton Randolph, the chairman of the Virginia Convention, asked for calm. Washington supported him, advising the Fairfax County militia to stand down. At this news, a twenty-five-year-old up-and-coming political force in Virginia named James Madison—a small, nervous, sickly man, but a passionate proponent of radical Whig philosophy concerning the sanctity of individual freedom (who nevertheless owned more than 100 slaves)—lashed out at what he guessed was timidity in Washington and other planters, whom he accused of backing down because their “property will be exposed in case of a civil war.”

  There may have been something to that. Washington had, through enormous exertion and considerable ingenuity, built a small empire for himself. Britain’s economic policies were attacks on it; but actual war would be a more visceral threat, as he knew better than neophytes like Madison.

  And yet, of course, everything he had been about had tended toward this. The steadily building tension between the colonies and the home country—the taxes, the threats, the boycotts, the tea dumped in the harbor, the diplomatic and political maneuvers—all of it had followed from the period of his youth and early manhood, the military disappointments that the British system had visited on him.

  He was busy now, preparing to travel. As luck would have it, the Continental Congress had scheduled its second meeting for a week hence. Clearly, news of the violence in Massachusetts would completely rewrite its agenda. A young recruit wrote Washington before he left, saying what all Virgin
ia knew: “It is imagined the first thing that will come on the carpet at the meeting of the Congress will be that of establishing Regular Armies. . . .” The young man wanted to be kept in mind for a commission. Why write to Washington? That too seemed obvious to people: “there is not the least doubt,” he wrote, “but you’ll have the command of the whole forces in this Colony.”

  On a hot, still morning in early May, Washington headed back to Philadelphia. This time he chose not to ride on horseback but to take a coach and livery: he wanted to make a particular impression. And this time he packed his uniform.

  Ships arriving at London carried grim news. “We were fired on from all sides,” an officer wrote of the confrontations at Lexington and Concord. Massachusetts militiamen had ambushed the British regulars who were sent to seize military stores, shooting from inside houses, from behind hills and trees. Some of them, intent on venting their fury, fell on wounded soldiers and “scalped and cut off the ears.” Further, officers reported that British leaders were wrong to think the American militiamen were “Fools and Cowards,” for “they take all possible pains to improve themselves in military skill.” Perhaps most alarmingly, the officers noted that the Americans expressed outright “abhorrence” for Lord North, the prime minister of England. It was “shocking,” one wrote, “to pass the streets and hear what imprecations are thrown out against the King’s ministry.”

  The first, confused reports finally clarified: 73 British soldiers had been killed and 174 wounded at Lexington and Concord. Englishmen in the street were stunned. Members of Parliament assumed that the violence meant the failure of Lord North’s policy and that his government would fall.

  George Germain took a different view. “The news from America is as bad as possible,” he confided to a friend, but the correct response, he insisted, was not to change course but “to adopt real offensive measures.” He began a campaign in Parliament, urging his colleagues to move aggressively against the now openly rebellious colonists. Others counseled patience, but Germain was inexorable. His energy became a magnet. Ministers turned to him for guidance. Henry Howard, the Earl of Suffolk, who at thirty-five was the youngest man in government (he was Secretary of State for the Southern Department, which included the American colonies), wrote to Germain asking for his counsel.

  Germain responded with a primer on the situation. He already considered the state of affairs “a war.” He advised that General Thomas Gage, the highest-ranking officer in America (under whom Margaret Moncrieffe’s father served and in whose household she had lived for a time as a young girl), “finds himself in a situation of too great importance for his talents.” He suggested replacing him with General William Howe. He then outlined a course of action for rapidly defeating the colonials, which involved bringing in forces from Canada and focusing not only on subduing the boisterous Bostonians but also taking New York City, the most vital port in the colonies.

  The old soldier also analyzed the situation that British troops had found themselves in at Lexington and Concord. He faulted them for following European-style tactics, saying that British commanders should have learned from Braddock’s debacle that in America troops must “separate and secure themselves by trees, walls or hedges” rather than fight in the open.

  In all of this, Germain was reflecting on the Seven Years’ War, and not just on the tragic mistake of Braddock. His own disaster at Minden had never left his thoughts. This time there would be no wavering. He counseled for “the utmost force of this kingdom to finish this rebellion in one campaign.”

  Still, there was resistance in Parliament. Some members had been swayed by Edmund Burke, who carried out his quarrel with Germain at the philosophical level, by going on—maddeningly, Germain thought—about this airy notion of “freedom.” Only weeks earlier Burke had laid out his argument: “First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom.” The Americans “are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles.” There were times in history, Burke argued, when abstractions became real and tangible. The American resistance to taxation without representation was not reprehensible but in fact laudably patriotic, a carrying-forward of the English Bill of Rights. Freedom was an abstraction, yes, but in America just now it was “fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing.” Freedom was alive in the Americans, Burke declared: “they felt its pulse.”

  But the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord swept away Burke’s rhetoric. The government committed itself to taking hard steps. And Prime Minister North was convinced that George Germain’s grit and experience made him the right man for a crucial job. Undersecretary of State William Eden offered it to him in the most flamboyant language: “There never perhaps was a commission of such importance for any individual in the annals of mankind.” The plan the government had concocted was to prepare for war but at the same time to send a commissioner to America who would be authorized to “settle everything.” The entire quagmire with the colonials, ranging from economic issues to lofty concerns about freedom and rights, would be in the hands of this commissioner. He would be given the broadest powers to make deals, to avert war. And, Eden told Germain, the prime minister “thinks you the fittest man in the Kingdom.”

  George Germain was highly susceptible to flattery. He plumped like a peacock when he was being praised. The words and the trust behind them were deeply pleasurable. But he declined the offer. He could see perfectly well that in creating this role of commissioner the government was setting up a scapegoat. Though North and the other leaders made a show of preparing for war, they wanted a magical diplomatic solution; if the commissioner failed in this, the commissioner would be to blame. And putting himself an ocean away from the center of power would in itself be professional suicide; it would give his enemies free rein to pick him apart. As before, he held to the truism that America was not a place to realize ambitions but to have them demolished.

  No sooner had he declined, however, than another offer was put in front of him. Britain’s irresolute prime minister continued to be captivated by Germain’s steadfastness. Since Germain had called his bluff, he now upped the stakes. He asked him to serve as Secretary of State for the American Department.

  This brought Germain up short. Truly, he had to think. This was an entirely different role.

  In a way, it had to be amusing to him. Unlike many of his colleagues, he had never in his life exhibited a fascination for America. He had never even expressed a desire to travel there. His interests, beyond politics and the military, were chiefly confined to England: its rolling hills and splendidly rocky coasts, its great estates, the broad civilized thoroughfares of London. Beyond England he gave some scant attention to the Continent as a cultural entity: German symphonies and Italian art. And that was it. But America simply would not leave him alone.

  He had to admit that he had amassed a great deal of knowledge of the colonies over these years of increasing turmoil, which, combined with his long military experience and the historic nature of the current crisis, put him in a unique position. And American Secretary was a ministry position: it didn’t require actually going there. Indeed, he would be at the very center of power. If there was to be all-out war, he, in that capacity, more directly than anyone else in the government, would be the man running it.

  Most of all, this was shaping up to be a historic test. The real fight was not against ragtag rebellious outlanders; it was within the halls of the British government. It was a fight for Britain and for empire; it would be a fight to dispel the hopelessly vague notion that the turmoil in the colonies was over gauzy issues of “individual freedom,” which he knew in his soul to be window dressing, pablum to appease the masses. Men such as Burke and Wilkes—not to mention the Americans themselves—needed to be taught a lesson. And Britain needed leadership. Conflicts such as this were not about ideas; from the time of Caesar they had been and a
lways would be about power.

  Indeed, power was George Germain’s meat and wine, and this offer was one of unprecedented power. It was a chance, surely the only one he would ever get, to exorcise the demons that had plagued him since Minden. It was, in the end, too sweet a thing to refuse.

  One hundred and fifty miles after Washington’s coach left Mount Vernon, and just six miles from its end in Philadelphia, it was met by a disturbance. Looking out the window, Washington and his fellow delegate Richard Henry Lee saw a crowd of 500 or so people. What seemed at first like a gathering riot turned out to be a contingent of militiamen and others from the city who had come out to greet them. A band struck up. And so they were escorted into Philadelphia in style.

  The Second Continental Congress, meeting this time in the colony’s assembly hall, contained some new delegates. From Massachusetts was John Hancock, a shipper who would serve as president of the Congress. Thomas Jefferson joined the Virginia delegation. Benjamin Franklin, seventy years old and feeling moody, had just that week returned from more than ten years in London, where he had served as representative of the Pennsylvania colony and more recently of the colonies as a whole. (Just before leaving he had met with British leaders—including Edmund Burke—in a failed attempt at conciliation.) He had barely had time to rest from the voyage before hastening the few blocks from his home on Market Street to join the Pennsylvania delegation.

  Committees formed. People debated interminably. Slowly, they voted: to borrow money, to procure weapons and ammunition, to recruit companies of soldiers. Washington, with his soldierly striding among the tables, stood out. “Col. Washington appears at Congress in his Uniform,” John Adams wrote to his wife, “and, by his great Experience and Abilities in military Matters, is of much service to Us.”

  Then came the moment Washington knew would come. June 15, a Thursday, at the end of the day, the delegates resolved: “That a general be appointed to command all the continental forces raised or to be raised for the defence of American liberty.” There were several candidates for the position, including John Hancock. The next morning Hancock himself, as president of the assembly, announced the result. Washington was the unanimous choice.