by Terry Golway
As at Brandywine, there was little doubt about which side won the battle. And, as at Brandywine, the Americans left the battlefield in curiously good spirits. But for bad luck here and there–the fog, the friendly fire, the siege at Chew House–they believed they could have beaten not a detachment of Hessians, as at Trenton, but General Howe’s main army. General Wayne described the battle as a “glorious day.”
Some of Washington’s colleagues, along with several members of Congress, saw nothing glorious about the defeats at Brandywine and Germantown and the British occupation of Philadelphia. Their whispered complaints about Washington and the men around him increased in volume and in vehemence when, just three days after Germantown, Horatio Gates’s northern army defeated the British at Bemis Heights near Saratoga in upstate New York. Dr. Rush, the influential physician, gave voice to what many others were thinking when he praised Gates in a letter to John Adams. Gates, Rush said, had planned his campaign in northern New York with “wisdom and executed [it] with vigor and bravery.” What a contrast with Washington, who had been “outgeneralled and twice beaten.” Adams hardly needed to be reminded of Washington’s failures. After Brandywine, he had vented in his diary: “Oh, Heaven! grant us one great soul! . . . One active, masterly capacity would bring order out of this confusion and save this country.”
Nathanael Greene heard the grumbling. He may not have heard specific complaints about Washington, but he knew that Horatio Gates was being touted as the new great hope of the Continental army. Greene and Gates had gotten along well enough in the war’s early months, but when Gates quietly emerged as a possible rival to Washington, Greene turned against him. He insisted that Gates was not, in fact, the hero of Saratoga–an assessment historians would later share. It was General Benedict Arnold who had turned the tide of battle with reckless and inspiring courage, despite, incidentally, having been relieved of command several days before by none other than Horatio Gates. Greene snarled that Gates was a “mere child of fortune.” His bitterness and anger were clear in a letter written about a month after Germantown, as complaints about Washington intensified. He conceded, not very graciously, that Gates had won a great victory. But the credit, he said, belonged to others, including Gates’s not particularly competent predecessor, General Schuyler.
[The] foundation of all General Gates’ successes were planned under [General] Schuyler’s direction. . . . General Gates came in just timely to reap the laurels and rewards. Great credit is due to all the Northern Army, but that army has been much stronger than ours and a far less force to contend with.
Defensive as always in the face of real or imagined criticism, Greene complained that Gates’s good luck even extended to his militia. They were, he wrote, much more “spirited and gallant” than the militia he and Washington were stuck with in Pennsylvania.
If the Southern Militia had lent the same aid to his Excellency that the Northern Militia did to General Gates Mr. How never could have got possession of the Rome of America. We have had two severe and general actions. . . . Our force has been too small to cover the country and secure the city. The Inhabitants, so very unfriendly, [have] render’d the task still more difficult.
Washington was not the only general whose flanks were exposed to the grapeshot of congressional and collegial criticism. Greene was, too, and he knew it. “I have been . . . told there has been some insinuation to my prejudice respecting the Germantown battle,” he wrote. Indeed there was; critics in the army and in Congress were saying that his late appearance on the battlefield had led to the American defeat. It was unfair and uninformed criticism, but then again, Greene himself was not particularly fair to Horatio Gates, either.
Greene made inquiries among his friends to find out what was being said about him and by whom. He learned that critics–among them General Thomas Mifflin, another fallen Quaker and the army’s quartermaster general–believed he had had too much influence over Washington during the Philadelphia campaign. For the remainder of the war, German-town remained an especially sensitive subject with Greene, and he never tired of explaining and justifying his actions that day.
The British were in command of Philadelphia, but they did not rule the Delaware River. The Americans controlled two strategic forts along the river, about five miles south of the city. Along with Washington’s continued presence in the area, the forts presented General Howe with a problem, for he needed the river clear of an American presence to secure his lines of supply and communications. From the American perspective, if the forts could be sustained and Washington could block some of the roads leading to Philadelphia, the British might have to withdraw for want of supplies.
Fort Mifflin, named for Greene’s fellow Quaker and critic, was on Mud Island in the river itself, and Fort Mercer, named for the general killed at the Battle of Princeton, was on the New Jersey riverbank. Like Forts Lee and Washington on the Hudson River, Forts Mifflin and Mercer were across from each other and offered the Americans command of the narrow river. Adding to the hazard were the remains of ships sunk to further block the river, and a small American fleet operated just north of the forts.
Colonel Christopher Greene, a cousin of Nathanael Greene’s, commanded the garrison at Fort Mercer. With him was Nathanael Greene’s young friend Sammy Ward, who had been taken prisoner during the Canadian expedition two years before but had since paroled and returned to service.
The British and Hessians attacked the two forts in late October and found them well defended. Christopher Greene’s four hundred Rhode Islanders beat back a Hessian force of some two thousand, to the delight of his cousin. “Honor and laurels will be the reward of the garrison,” Nathanael Greene told Christopher. A siege ensued, which Greene monitored closely for both professional and personal reasons. Not only did the forts hold out hope for a much needed victory, but his kinsman and his friend Sammy were among the besieged.
Greene and the rest of the army moved to within a dozen miles of Philadelphia in early November, hoping to draw Howe’s attention–and some British troops–away from the siege along the Delaware River. The new camp at Whitemarsh provided Greene with an unexpected distraction, which he was pleased to describe in a letter to Caty, still living with the Lott family in New Jersey.
[Close] in the Neighbourhood of my quarters there are several sweet pretty Quaker girls. If the spirit should move and love invite who can be answerable for the consequences. I know this won’t alarm you because you have such [a] high opinion of my virtue. It is very well you have. You remember the prayer of the Saints, tempt me not above what I am able to bear.
Caty no doubt found this letter terribly reassuring. She might have smiled just a bit to learn that not long after her husband entertained her with his thoughts of infidelity–and with Quaker girls, no less–his horse reared up and threw him ten feet. He landed just inches away from a nasty encounter with a stone wall. “One foot farther,” he said, “would have given me a passport.” He was lucky to walk away with just a sprained wrist.
After days of bombardment, Fort Mifflin, on Mud Island, fell to the British on November 15. Washington immediately ordered Greene to cross the Delaware into New Jersey to reinforce Christopher Greene and the other Rhode Islanders at Fort Mercer. General Cornwallis also crossed the river with quite the opposite assignment: to put an end to Christopher Greene’s stubborn resistance. Cornwallis was first to arrive near the fort, and he soon had his victory. Christopher Greene decided that the fort was doomed, so he ordered his troops to set the place ablaze and then make good their escape. Nathanael Greene learned of the fort’s loss while marching through Burlington, New Jersey.
His mission in New Jersey was moot, but Greene was eager for a fight anyway. He would try to get a sense of how many troops Cornwallis had with him. And then, he told Washington, “If it is possible to make an attack upon ’em with a prospect of success it shall be done.” In his reply on November 22, Washington told Greene that an attack “would be a most desireable judgment.” Later that da
y, Washington sent Greene another message, this one more adamant. He told Greene he was “inclined” to have him attack Cornwallis “as much in force as possible.” Washington was determined to salvage some victory, however small, from this long and frustrating campaign.
While Greene was eager to show Washington’s critics, and his own, that Horatio Gates had no monopoly on bold action, he tempered his enthusiasm when he learned that Cornwallis had been reinforced and now had five thousand troops. Greene had only about three thousand Continentals, and his militia force of about eight hundred was shrinking as militiamen drifted away from camp. He sent a long message back to Washington, explaining why he believed he could not carry out the general’s wishes. “I cannot promise myself Victory, or even a Prospect of it, with Inferior Numbers,” he wrote. “The Cause is too important to be trifled with . . . and your Character too deeply interested to sport away upon unmilitary Principles.” Having, at some length, explained his reluctance to attack, he also assured Washington that he would do otherwise if given the order: “For your Sake, for my own Sake and for my Country’s Sake, I wish to attempt every thing which will meet with your Excellency’s Approbation.” As he read this message, Washington must have appreciated his loyal lieutenant Greene all the more.
Greene’s forces skirmished with elements of Cornwallis’s force, but Greene never did launch the attack he and Washington had discussed. Greene recrossed the Delaware on November 29 and joined Washington in camp in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. Almost immediately, Washington asked him to meet with his army’s other generals to decide what they ought to do next. An unorthodox winter campaign was not out of the question, in fact, Congress was all for it, and, perhaps not coincidentally, the commander in chief seemed eager to take on General Howe one more time. Amid rumors that the British were preparing to attack, Washington told Greene on November 28, “I shall not be disappointed if they come out this Night or very early in the morning.”
There was no British assault, and Greene joined with the vast majority of Washington’s generals in advising a retreat to winter quarters. But where? Greene, in a long memo to Washington dated December 1, advocated the area in and around Wilmington, where they had encamped before marching to defeat at Brandy wine and Germantown. He told Washington that winter quarters ought to be located as close to the enemy as reasonably possible to prevent the troops from losing their edge. “If we retire so far back as to be totally out of danger, pleasure and dissipation will be the consequence,” he told Washington. “Officers of all ranks will be desireous of visiting their friends. The men will be left without orders, without government–and ten to one but the men will be more unhealthy in the spring than they now are and much worse disciplined.”
The issue of winter quarters or winter campaign remained unsettled. A committee from Congress arrived in camp on December 3 to talk about prospects of renewed assaults on the British. It was clear the politicians were not prepared to see the army retire for a few months, allowing the British a comfortable winter of balls and parties in the city that had given birth to American independence. Washington asked Greene and the other generals to put their views in writing. Greene wrote long into the night, producing a well-written analysis that showed yet again just how far his self-education had taken him.
However desirable the destruction of General Howe’s army may be and however impatient the public may be for this desirable event, I cannot recommend the measure. I have taken the most serious View of the subject in every point in which I am able to examine it and cannot help thinking the probability of a disappointment is infinitely greater than of Success. We must not be governed in our measures by our Wishes.
Greene’s argument carried the day. He was an optimist, it was true, but he was no fool. He was eager for battle, but he knew there was no point in risking the army. There would be no renewed attack on Philadelphia. General Howe’s troops would be free to enjoy the winter respite among the Tories and Quakers of the former rebel capital.
The Continental army soon broke camp and marched from Whitemarsh to winter quarters in a place near Philadelphia named Valley Forge.
8 Low Intrigue
The march toward Valley Forge, twenty-five miles northwest of Philadelphia, signaled a temporary halt in the war, but a battle within the Continental army itself raged all the same. Exhausted American soldiers trooped into camp on December 19 and began building log huts to shield themselves from the cold, yet nothing could protect them from political maneuvering and a scandalous lack of supplies. Intrigue would not keep them clothed, they could not live on whispered plots, and the heat of dissension in Congress did nothing to keep them warm in Valley Forge.
Nathanael Greene’s most formidible opponents in the winter of 1777-78 were not snow and ice, not Howe and Cornwallis, but some of his putative colleagues and fellow patriots. The defeats at Brandywine and Germantown, the fall of Philadelphia, and the loss of the Delaware River forts inspired a movement against not only the commander in chief but one of the men accused of manipulating him into bad decisions: Nathanael Greene.
His sternest and most powerful critic was, ironically enough, the army’s only other Quaker general, Thomas Mifflin, Washington’s onetime aide-de-camp and a respected warrior, businessman, and former member of the Continental Congress. The defeats of autumn 1777 left Mifflin distinctly unimpressed with Washington’s military skills and with his choice of intimate advisers. He was not alone in this judgment, but he was uncommonly open about his opinions. Mifflin especially loathed Greene, believing he was both incompetent and too cautious. The fall of Philadelphia, where Mifflin had been based as the army’s quartermaster general, only increased his complaints and criticisms. Philadelphia might have been saved, Mifflin said, but for Washington’s indecisiveness and Greene’s timidity. Greene, ever watchful for criticism–whether intended or not–was well aware of what Mifflin was saying behind his back. “General Mifflin and his creatures,” he wrote, “have been endeavouring to wound my reputation. It is said that I govern the General and do every thing to damp the spirit of enterprize.”
That was precisely the criticism of the moment: Washington was weak and indecisive–a pale imitation of a commander when compared with the great Horatio Gates of Saratoga fame–and he was unduly influenced by Greene’s cautious strategies. Mifflin had complained that the “ear of the Commander in Chief” was “exclusively possessed by Greene,” a development he deplored. Greene, Mifflin said, was “neither the most wise, the most brave nor the most patriotic of counselors.”
Mifflin’s dyspeptic view of Washington and Greene had little trouble finding a friendly hearing within both the army and Congress. Benjamin Rush concluded that either Horatio Gates or the Irish immigrant Thomas Conway, a very junior brigadier general who had been at Brandywine and Germantown, ought to replace Washington. And the Adams cousins, John and Samuel, resented Washington’s fame, which John Adams regarded as a danger “to our liberties.” But no member of Congress was as openly hostile to Washington, and to Greene, as another delegate from Massachusetts, James Lovell. He referred to Greene and Henry Knox as Washington’s “privy counsellors” and said he spoke for many “disgusted patriots” who had come to despise “the reigning Cabal” around Washington. It was just a matter of time, he said, before the army “will be divided into Greenites and Mifflinians.”
Even before the march to Valley Forge, tensions between Washington’s supporters and his opponents worsened when Congress reorganized its moribund Board of War to reassert its authority over the army, which it had surrendered in late 1776 at Greene’s urging. Thomas Mifflin won appointment to the three-member board, and he immediately resigned his position as quartermaster general. It was a scandalously selfish decision, for it left Washington without an officer in charge of supplies on the eve of winter. Mifflin soon persuaded Congress to expand the board to five members and just as quickly sponsored the nomination of Horatio Gates as the board’s president. Gates now was well positioned to undermine W
ashington and establish himself as the heir apparent. Congress, in mid-December, further drove home a message to Washington and Greene by naming General Conway as the army’s inspector general and promoting him from brigadier to major general. As inspector general, Conway was given power to periodically visit camp or the front lines and report his findings directly to Gates, Mifflin, and the other members of the Board of War. Greene regarded Conway as nothing less than a spy working on behalf of Mifflin and other anti-Washington forces, a sentiment the commander in chief seemed to share. When Conway complained to Congress that he had been “cooly received” when he showed up at Valley Forge, Washington replied in even chillier language. “My feelings,” he wrote, “will not permit me to make professions of friendship to a man I deem my enemy.”
And that enemy, Conway, and his sponsor, Mifflin, were now in a position to do more than merely criticize Washington and Greene. Mifflin, a talented and serious foe, had maneuvered brilliantly to find a prominent position for the very man he believed better suited to the job of commander in chief, Horatio Gates. Conway was in place as an independent auditor of Washington’s army, answerable only to the board itself. And Gates, though not inclined to plot or conspire, seemed willing to entertain the idea of stepping into Washington’s shoes.
Greene never doubted that there was a full-fledged conspiracy to overthrow Washington and replace him with Gates. A certain faction, he wrote, “is said to be forming under the auspices of General Gates and General Mifflin, to supplant His Excellency from the command of the Army and get General Gates at the head of it. How success swells the vanity of the human heart.” Greene knew that if his commander in chief fell, he, too, would fall and be replaced by the likes of Conway or Mifflin. Historians have since suggested that the anti-Washington officers, members of what was called the Conway Cabal, never actually went beyond their pointed criticisms. Greene didn’t believe it.