Blood of Tyrants: George Washington & the Forging of the Presidency

by Logan Beirne

  Greene also shrewdly adopted Marion’s guerilla tactics against Cornwallis’s larger force. Outnumbered and inexperienced, Greene’s small regiment was still no match for Cornwallis. Avoiding an all-out battle (in stark contrast to Gates’s disastrous approach), Greene instead pestered the British force with a hit-and-run campaign. Utilizing the Americans’ knack for fast retreat, he adroitly picked side skirmishes that he could win and then slipped away before Cornwallis could squash his army. Hamilton marveled at Greene’s ingenuity with his “destitute” troops, praising his ability to strike and quickly retreat as “a masterpiece of military skill and exertion.”18

  In an attempt to keep up with his nimble foe as he chased the patriots throughout 1780 and into 1781, the infuriated Cornwallis destroyed all of his own heavy tents, most of his wagons, and even all provisions in excess of what his men could carry.19 Determined to decimate the Americans, he even resorted to grapeshot, a messy technique in which cannons were loaded with items ranging from metal slugs to rocks and glass. Unlike a single large cannonball, these pieces scattered throughout the field, ripping through soldiers’ flesh. Grapeshot was tactically costly, however; it was impossible to control, and the British therefore lost many to friendly fire. In one battle, between grapeshot and Greene’s relentless barrage, Cornwallis lost a quarter of his men.

  Although Greene retreated repeatedly into 1781, leaving Cornwallis with technical triumphs, one British politician quipped from London, “Another such victory would destroy the British Army.”20 Cornwallis, still emotionally numb from the loss of his beloved wife, seemed to care little about the inhumanity of it all as his army disintegrated.

  The American forces gradually wore down the once-superior British forces with masterful maneuvers. Washington monitored the southern campaign from New Jersey, where he was pinning Clinton down in the Northeast to prevent him from reinforcing Cornwallis’s beleaguered army. Washington and Greene were proving to be a dynamic tag team.

  Though they did not realize it at the time, the Americans were drawing near to their great victory. And Washington would make sure that victory did not come at the expense of his fellow citizens’ liberties.

  Washington defined the American commander in chief as the people’s defender. Fighting to establish a new republic in which the (white) American people enjoyed the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he saw it as his duty to protect them from all threats—whether foreign or domestic.

  On this principle, he ordered his troops “to preserve tranquility and order . . . and give security to individuals of every class and description [from] every species of persecution, insult or abuse, either from the soldiery to the inhabitants or among each other.”21 Even the Loyalists, he wrote, “those execrable Parricides, whose Counsels and Aid have deluged their Country with Blood, have been protected from the Fury of a justly-enraged People.”22

  Washington strove to ensure that no American’s life or freedom would be torn away without a proper trial, as defined by the civil authorities. Thus, he routinely referred citizens to the courts that they prescribed.23 While these courts were typically lenient, they did occasionally apply severe penalties: they locked up Loyalists indefinitely, inflicted bizarre corporal punishment, and executed many. But Washington saw it as their prerogative to do so. He would reinforce the procedures determined by the civilian government, and let the cards fall where they may.

  He was similarly careful of American property rights. Even though supplying his forces was a vexing problem,24 he confiscated property only with congressional approval and a plan for repayment.25 He took special care to avoid “greatly distressing the families” and to employ the proper procedures that citizens deserved.26 Washington would rather risk the lives of his troops than permit the military to violate citizens’ liberty. While the American commander in chief had vast powers in dealing with enemy combatants, he was conscious of his limitations when it came to impinging on the rights of fellow citizens. 27 Americans were to be protected and their liberty cherished.

  The old bur oak that stands in Boyd-Parker Memorial Park in western New York may be viewed in two different lights. As the “Torture Tree,” it serves as a dark symbol of the horrors of war. Each side inflicted death and destruction upon the other. On this very ground, the Seneca mutilated patriots in the most horrendous manner imaginable. In turn, Americans under Washington’s command obliterated the thriving village that encircled the oak.

  The tree may also be viewed as a beacon. Washington’s destructive response did not stem from cruelty, but from an ardent desire to defend Americans. In describing the character of the United States, Washington wrote, “Liberty is the Basis, and whoever would dare to sap the foundation, or overturn the Structure, under whatever specious pretexts he may attempt it, will merit the bitterest execration, and the severest punishment which can be inflicted by his injured Country.”28 Liberty was the battle cry of the Revolution, and Washington guarded it, ruthlessly.

  Washington was intent on guarding against precedents by which the military might later subjugate freedom. He preached for the new nation to “avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.”29

  Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, “The Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”30 He was not thinking of this bur oak, but in a way the Torture Tree is like the tree of liberty. Patriot blood watered that tree during Washington’s battle to protect his new nation. Those scouts’ sacrifice helped create the United States and define its principles. It is because of great American patriots like them and the many service men and women of subsequent generations that the oak stands in the peaceful little park today. The 250-year-old tree has withstood the ages as an enduring reminder of the ongoing struggle to preserve American liberty.

  VI

  COULD HAVE BEEN KING

  “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

  —KING GEORGE III, 1783

  America has lost a crucial piece of her history. But unlike the metaphorical sense in which time robs us of our memories, this piece was literally stolen. It was a pair of reading glasses, with surprisingly heavy frames made of solid silver, artfully hinged and elaborately hand engraved. The small, circular lenses were designed with +3.50 magnification to correct the presbyopia that afflicts all people as they age.1 Aside from being old, these tarnished glasses were seemingly ordinary. What made them priceless was the person whose vision they were believed to have corrected—George Washington.

  In Washington’s time, eyeglasses were considered a sign of weakness. They displayed a vulnerability of which most men were deeply ashamed. Glasses were seen as a “humiliating disfigurement,” akin to a clubfoot or hunchback, but early America made an exception for this specific pair.2 These spectacles were cherished as a great relic of national history. They were enshrined at Independence Hall, which came to be a temple to the nation’s founding after the Constitutional Convention.

  Prominently featured on the “New York” table near the bar in the Assembly Room, the glasses drew the fascination of Americans from all walks of life.3 Washington’s figurative vision had helped to forge the nation, and this simple device had helped to make his literal vision 20/20. The symbolism was likely not lost on the many proud men, women, and children who viewed them; these eyeglasses were treasured as a precious piece of Americana.

  In fact, the spectacles proved to be all too precious. They were reported stolen at 9:35 A.M. on Saturday, August 19, 1967, in a mysterious heist that remains unsolved to this day.4 And with them, a tangible link to our past was lost. Without it, many more Americans are sure to forget that Washington’s eyeglasses quite literally saved the republic.5

  The chapters in this part examine America’s approval of Washington’s wartime actions as detailed in Parts II through V. W
ashington saved the new nation from near destruction and led the way to victory. For doing so, he was revered to the point of near deification and became the model for all future American commanders in chief. Returning full circle back to Part I, this section explains how Washington’s wartime precedents defined the powers granted in the new Constitution to all future presidents.

  32

  O God! It Is All Over!

  Washington was beloved. As victory neared, his celebrity intensified. From soldiers to politicians to the general citizenry, the American people praised his military leadership. They had scrutinized Washington’s actions for years, avidly following the letters, newspaper reports, pamphlets, and (most often) word-of-mouth accounts that chronicled his exploits. Whether he was explaining the justification for torture, dictating military strategy, convening military tribunals, or defending citizens’ liberty, Americans watched intently as the nation hung in the balance. They liked what they saw.

  By 1781, it had been years since Washington had won any great victory on the battlefield, but he was still adulated. As he orbited around New York City, hoping in vain to recapture it, he fought only small skirmishes. But his esteem was deeper and more subtle than that of a coach with a winning scorecard: he was the personification of the revolutionary struggle. Washington did not have many victories, but after nearly six years of battle, he still held the hearts of the people.

  Americans credited his “good destiny and consummate prudence [for having] prevented want of success from producing want of confidence on the part of the public.”1 They praised not only his bravery and leadership, but also his impeccable character and astute handling of the messy war. “He was received with that heart felt exultation, which superior merit alone can inspire, after having, in his progress through the states, been honoured with every mark of affection and esteem which they conceived were due the man, the whole continent looked up to for safety and freedom.”2 And he soon won that freedom for them.

  Nothing catapulted Washington’s popularity higher than winning the war. And thanks to Nathanael Greene’s southern campaign, he was on the verge. The American Southern Army had driven Cornwallis to Yorktown, Virginia, an unremarkable piece of southeastern Virginia that jutted into the York River. Inhabited by fewer than a couple thousand citizens nestled around its harbor, Yorktown was a diminutive port village that Cornwallis fancied a prime location from which to exploit Britain’s sea power. But the British could no longer count on their naval supremacy—the French fleet was finally on its way.

  In a strange twist of fate, a failure of communication between Washington and his Southern Army proved crucial to winning the war. The Southern Army sent a message to Washington requesting that he support their Yorktown assault, while Washington simultaneously sent a message outlining his objective of retaking New York City. Only one reached its intended recipient. Fortuitously, Washington’s plan was intercepted, putting Clinton on high alert for an attack on New York and thus unwilling to divert troops to reinforce Cornwallis. But while Clinton was fretting over the north, Washington had received the Southern Army’s request for support. Having grown highly adaptable, he quickly devised another sneak attack back in his home state.3

  Before he left his perch outside New York, Washington concocted a “judiciously concerted stratagem” to throw Clinton into alarm and prompt him to call back part of his forces from Virginia in order to defend his New York garrison.4 Washington—this time intentionally—began cultivating false information about a fake plan to attack Manhattan via Staten Island. He left a small skeleton army behind in order to create the illusion of an invasion force, ordering his men to pitch tents, keep the fires burning, and lay pontoons so that Clinton might believe they were preparing for an amphibious assault.5 His ruse set, Washington then ordered as many men as he could spare to march southward.

  His designs were so secret that his own army was flummoxed. A doctor attending to the Continental Army described the situation as being like “some theatrical exhibition, where the interest and expectations of the spectators are continually increasing, and where curiosity is wrought to the highest point. Our destination has been for some time a matter of perplexing doubt and uncertainty.”6 That is exactly what Washington wanted.

  However confused they were by his intentions, the troops held Washington in such high esteem that they placed “the fullest confidence” in his “capacious mind, full of resources.” The soldiers marching south had no idea where they were going or where they would fight, but they would follow their commander unquestioningly, trusting in the plans he held “under an impenetrable veil of secrecy.”7 Many of them believed they were preparing for an amphibious assault on New York rather than a 550-mile march down to Virginia—and so did Clinton.

  Soon, Washington’s caravan of men, weapons, wagons, and camp wives and children streamed through New Jersey. Keeping step to the unusually swift beat of the fife and drum on those dry summer days, the soldiers kicked up a cloud of blinding dust into the hot air. His men were happy to follow their esteemed leader blindly (at times literally so, due to the dust) in order to fulfill his secret plan. As they raced, the ragged soldiers were “cheered with enthusiasm by the populace, who hailed them as the war-torn defenders of the country.”8

  Clinton had no idea of Washington’s true intentions until the Continental Army had already marched all the way through New Jersey and crossed the Delaware River. He had duped his old adversary, but Washington worried that his plan would still fall apart. He was very much dependent on French naval support to block both Clinton’s reinforcements and Cornwallis’s retreat. Therefore, he and his officers had lobbied hard to get the French ships to leave their posts defending France’s interests in the Caribbean and come to assist in the American siege. The American Revolution had become a world war, with the French forces harassing the British from the Caribbean to Egypt to India. While such far-flung warfare indirectly aided the Americans by diverting British power, the Americans viewed the situation more myopically: they wanted the French to be directly involved in their fight. With only a small window of opportunity, the French agreed to make a detour to the waters surrounding Yorktown. Washington could only hope they would hold true to their word.

  As the days ticked by without any sign of the French, Washington grew increasingly nervous that Cornwallis would slip away before his forces were positioned. He was “distressed beyond expression,” questioning whether the French warships would arrive before the British fleet could “frustrate all our flattering prospects.”9 When masts were spotted out over the water, both sides watched in great suspense to see which flags they flew. To the Americans’ jubilation—and Cornwallis’s dread—the summer horizon filled with fleurs-de-lis.

  Winning the race, twenty-four French ships took up defensive positions in time to repel the nineteen British rescue warships that had finally been sent from New York City.10 “So unexpected a naval superiority on the side of the enemy—which far exceeded everything we had in prospect—was not a little alarming,” wrote a stunned Clinton, “and seemed to call for more than common exertion to evade the impending ruin.”11

  When the aggressive French cannon sent the British ships recoiling back to New York, the Americans knew they finally had the upper hand. An officer informed Greene that they had gotten Cornwallis “handsomely in a pudding bag.”12 Another said, “Cornwallis may now tremble for his fate, for nothing but some extraordinary interposition of his guardian angels seems capable of saving him and his whole army from captivity.”13

  Washington began pounding Cornwallis with a terrifying artillery barrage. He sent his French troops and a contingent of Americans under his trusty protégé Hamilton to confront British defensive positions. The allied forces trounced the British, and Cornwallis grew desperate to escape with what was left of his men. His guardian angels did not save him after all. Once again, the elements came to the Americans’ aid, as a sudden storm prevented Cornwallis from fleeing northward into the night.14 The
allied American and French forces had sealed him in.

  Riding to the front line, Washington appeared almost godlike as he fearlessly dismounted his horse amidst the British fire. One of his aides, “solicitous for his safety,” suggested nervously, “Sir you are exposed here. Had you not better step a little back?” To which Washington replied, “if you are afraid, you have liberty to step back.”15 Washington struck a few ceremonial blows into the ground with a pickax and the Americans dug in for a siege. Finally, they were the ones attacking.

  As Cornwallis and his men hunkered down within the city praying for Clinton to rescue them, the American and French forces rained metal upon their prostrate bodies. One patriot described the ships as “enwrapped in a torrent of fire . . . spreading with vivid brightness among the combustible rigging” against the night sky, “while all around was thunder and lightning from our numerous cannon and mortars.” In his eyes, it was “one of the most sublime and magnificent spectacles which can be imagined.” The Americans marveled at the magnitude of the cannon fire hitting the town and the river beyond, sending up “columns of water like the spouting of monsters of the deep.”16

  Cornwallis found the spectacle far less entertaining. He realized that reinforcements would not arrive in time, and “thus expired the last hope of the British army.”17 Thinking it “wanton and inhuman to the last degree to sacrifice the lives of [his] small body of gallant soldiers,” Cornwallis drafted his surrender in October 1781.18 Washington, expressing his “Ardent Desire to spare the further Effusion of Blood,” accepted the surrender on generous terms: Britain’s army at Yorktown would surrender to Washington and its navy to the French.19 The Americans would take the common soldiers prisoner, but allow Cornwallis and his officers to retain their private property and return home. Washington thus came off as not only triumphant, but magnanimous.