Silas Deane. Although overshadowed by Benjamin Franklin as ambassador to the court of Louis XVI of France, Deane was primarily responsible for encouraging Steuben to journey to the United States. His enemies in Congress succeeded in securing his removal from France shortly thereafter. (Library of Congress)
The Comte de Vergennes. Minister of foreign affairs under Louis XVI of France, Vergennes collaborated with Deane, Franklin, Beaumarchais, and the war minister St. Germain to get Steuben to America. At the end of the war, he refused to honor St. Germain’s promise to find Steuben a place in the French army. (Library of Congress)
Silas Deane took the lead. Unlike Franklin, who would have preferred not to act as talent scout for the Continental Army, Deane saw the task of feeding military experts into the American war machine as a vital part of his duties. He also took Beaumarchais seriously—again, unlike Franklin, who referred disparagingly to the womanizing, sometimes flippant Frenchman as “Monsieur Figaro.” Beaumarchais, in turn, set great store by Deane. “I have found a great difference between the honest deputy Deane, with whom I have negotiated, and the insidious politician [Arthur] Lee and the taciturn Dr. Franklin,” he lamented to Vergennes after Congress recalled Deane from his post in November 1777.16
Deane conducted the interview with Steuben while Franklin sat by quietly. “I…could not bring the Doctor to pay the least attention to him, or to give the Baron any encouragement,” Deane later recounted. Deane knew what his Prussian guest wanted; he did not question Steuben’s qualities and character, nor did he doubt for a moment that Steuben had a great deal to contribute to the Continental Army. But he still did not dare to promise Steuben a commission, let alone put him on the Continental Army payroll. Congress would not tolerate it. Henry Laurens, president of Congress and no friend of Deane’s, had already complained that Deane was incapable of “say[ing] nay to any Frenchman who called himself Count or Chevalier.”17 Deane also knew that, regardless of Vergennes’s and St. Germain’s support, the French crown would do little or nothing to help Steuben without being pushed to do so.
The crafty Deane took another tack: he told Steuben not to go to America.
I candidly and impartially stated to the Baron the situation of our affairs in America, and our unfavorable prospects in France, and told him that unless the Court of France had resolved to give us effectual aid it would, in my opinion, be to no purpose for him to run the risques of a voyage, and the loss of his time and other prospects, in going to America; for it was extremely probable that without such assistance America must make the best terms in her power.
It was a ruse. Deane suspected that since government spies were everywhere, a private conversation at the Valentinois would be anything but private, and very soon Vergennes would know precisely what advice Deane had given to Steuben, word for word. Deane’s hope was that his talk with Steuben would lead the cautious Vergennes to believe that the American rebels were on the verge of making peace with Britain, and therefore into pushing harder for a greater French commitment to Steuben and to the American cause.18
Steuben, however, was not privy to Deane’s subtle game. He was disappointed by the diplomat’s counsel, but as yet undeterred. He was ready to run the risk of rejection in America. As soon as the esteemed commissioners could get him a berth aboard a westbound ship, he would be packed and ready to leave.
But then came the crushing blow. Steuben asked only for funds to cover his voyage to America. “Mr. Deane made no kind of difficulty,” the Baron noted. “But Doctor Franklin started a great many.” Franklin refused even to pay Steuben’s travel expenses, and his voice would be the deciding one. He tried to placate his guest, who was obviously taken aback by Franklin’s inflexibility. Perhaps Congress, Franklin conceded, might see its way to reimburse Steuben with a grant of land deep in the American wilderness, but even this could not be guaranteed. Beyond that, Franklin could do nothing. He stated brusquely that “he was not empowered to make any [cash advances], & that he could not even enter into the least engagement with any Officer whatever.”
Steuben did not know, could not have known, the fetters that bound the hands of Deane and Franklin. He knew little of American politics or the scope of the commissioners’ powers. To him, it seemed that he had been betrayed, or at least misled, and the offer was nothing short of insulting. It was not even an offer, really. To travel to America at his own expense, with no firm prospect awaiting him at the end of the journey? Why, anyone could do the very same thing, with or without military experience or recommendations from the chief ministers of the French crown. Anyone, that is, with the money to buy a passage overseas, and that Steuben did not have. Franklin’s tone of voice, which Steuben found condescending—“he told me that with an Air & Manner to which I was then little accustomed”—repelled him. Infuriated, he ended the interview. Stomping out of the house, he mounted his horse and, with scarcely a look backward, rode back to Beaumarchais’s residence on the Rue de Condé.19
JUST AS HE WAS PREPARING to leave Paris for good, Steuben received welcome news: he was wanted in Karlsruhe, at the court of the Margrave of Baden.
The margrave had been as good as his word. A vacancy had opened in his army, and he was holding it for Steuben. Steuben would be a fool not to seize it. Employment with the margrave would be a substantial prize. Baden was not Prussia or Austria, but it was of respectable size, with a respectable budget. The margrave could offer a much more generous salary, and far greater prestige, than the prince of Hechingen had. Steuben left Paris, but in leisure, confident that he had finally found a guaranteed position. The margrave knew him well; the Baron would not have to prove himself.
But Steuben never got that far, for what he found waiting for him at Karlsruhe was not an officer’s commission, but a rumor—a horrible, vicious rumor. Someone at Hechingen had lodged a foul accusation against the former chamberlain: that while at Prince Josef’s court, Friedrich von Steuben had “taken familiarities with young boys” in his charge. This was a serious allegation. In the self-consciously masculine society of the Prussian army, homosexuality was not an issue of grave concern, nor was it an absolute taboo. Prince Henry’s more than professional interest in handsome young officers was a matter of public knowledge; the great Frederick himself was widely rumored to be homosexual, a notion that the king did little to discourage. In Europe in general, however, homosexuality was not acceptable, and even open-minded and progressive intellectuals such as Voltaire considered it to be a great moral failing. And pederasty, because it involved innocent youths, was doubly reprehensible.
The allegations concerning Steuben’s behavior were never proven, but they were no less damning than if they had been. Most of his friends at Hechingen, with the notable exception of Chancellor Frank, distanced themselves from him. The charges effectively killed Steuben’s chances for employment in Baden. As a friend at Karlsruhe noted, the rumors would have to be disproven or “declared calumnious” before the margrave could even think of taking Steuben into his service. The burden of proof would therefore be on the Baron himself.20
Coming on the heels of the failed interview at Passy, this new development was devastating. Steuben was trapped: he dared not show his face at Hechingen, and a continued stay at Karlsruhe would have been unimaginably awkward. Broke, aging, and an accused pederast to boot, he had few options. He was unemployed and unemployable. The matter would never surface again—Steuben himself never mentioned it in his correspondence, and made only a vague reference to it later in life—but it clearly was the greatest crisis of his life.
Just at that very moment he was offered a way out of his predicament. While he was at Karlsruhe, considering his next move, letters arrived for him from France. Beaumarchais and St. Germain had written to him in great urgency: he must return to Paris, and at once. Without pausing to reflect on the meaning of this ambiguous summons, Steuben fled to Paris. He had little choice. The path to his salvation would have to lead through Passy to America.
HE ARRIV
ED IN PARIS sometime in mid-August 1777, where he visited Franklin and Deane once again at the Valentinois. Franklin, he found, had not changed his tune, but Beaumarchais and St. Germain had put their heads together and come up with a new plan. Steuben would still proceed to America as a volunteer, nothing more, with no commission in hand and no promise that he would get one upon arrival. He would proceed to Pennsylvania and meet with the Continental Congress, bearing written endorsements from the American commissioners. But Beaumarchais would underwrite the costs of his travel with a personal loan. Steuben would set sail from France as a guest of Roderigue Hortalez et Compagnie.
There may have been an additional incentive to entice Steuben. A British agent in Paris reported that the “Baron Steinben” had worked out a secret, lucrative deal with St. Germain: once he had served three years in America, he would return to France and receive a commission in the king’s army. There was never any written confirmation of such an arrangement, but if true, then it helps to explain much about Steuben’s subsequent conduct: why, for example, he was so eager to reconsider the American offer, and why, when he later grew disenchanted with the Continental Army, he was so confident that the French would take him back in a heartbeat.21
Beaumarchais and St. Germain were not simply going out of their way to help their mutual friend. Assisting Steuben was also in their best interests, and France’s, too. If the Prussian proved to be half as useful as they thought he might be, he would fill an obvious gap in American military leadership: the lack of officers experienced in the areas of army organization, logistics, training, and planning—all Steuben’s strong suits. No one expected him to be a military savior, the man who would enable the Americans to win, but then, that wasn’t their intention. St. Germain and Vergennes did not want the rebels to achieve independence on their own. They wanted America to need France, to be indebted to France for their very existence. The Americans would just have to be capable of holding on until France was ready to jump with both feet into the fray. If Steuben could be placed in a position of authority, perhaps he could help the Continental Army do just that. He would help Vergennes and his allies achieve their aims—while France got the credit. Steuben would be their gift to the Revolution.
The problem was that Steuben was essentially a nobody. Other foreigners already in the American army could boast of much loftier ranks and greater honors. Steuben, on the other hand, had been nothing more than a humble captain. Although his abilities were the kind that would quickly have become apparent to another military man after a few moments of conversation, they did not come across on paper. If Freiherr von Steuben were to find favor with Congress, his qualities would have to be made obvious to civilians unfamiliar with the language of war.
If Steuben was ever a fraud, he became one at Passy. Up until this moment, he had not publicly misrepresented himself or his credentials. But in August 1777, he would lay claim to distinctions and experiences that were not actually his.
The act of deception was not actually Steuben’s but, rather, a team effort in which all of his promoters—Vergennes, St. Germain, Beaumarchais, Deane, and Franklin—took part. Deane and Beaumarchais were the principal conspirators. In the first days of September 1777, they composed their promotional materials for the Freiherr: a series of letters to be carried by Steuben and delivered in person to General Washington and to leading personages in Congress. The recipients were carefully chosen. Silas Deane wrote to Robert Morris, the Philadelphia financier whose vast personal wealth and fiscal acumen gave him tremendous influence in Congress; Deane and Franklin wrote to Washington jointly; Louis de L’Estarjette, Deane’s secretary, wrote to Henry Laurens of South Carolina, president of the Continental Congress.22
All three letters made roughly the same claims on Steuben’s behalf. He was, they wrote, a “Lieutenant General in the Prussian army” and had “seen more than Twenty Years Service under the King of Prussia,” “whom he attended in all his Campaigns.” For a portion of that time he had served the king in person as “Quarter Master General” and another portion as “Aid de Camp” to the king. Steuben bore written testimonials from Prince Henry and “other great Personages”; he was also “warmly recommended by the Ministry here who are acquainted with his Person, & Character.” His “distinguished character and known abilities” were attested to by “two of the best Judges of military Merit in this Country,” namely Vergennes and St. Germain, “who have long been personally acquainted with him.”
As if these accolades were not enough, their authors waxed poetic over Steuben’s motives. He was travelling to America “with a true Zeal for our Cause & a View of engaging in & rendering it all the Service in his Power.” He “goes over to America upon no other motive than to render himself useful in our good Cause, and [to] humble our Enemies.” Steuben’s ardor was reportedly so great that he had turned down “a very important and lucrative Post in one of the German Courts” in order to serve Congress. Congress could not possibly turn away such a talented soldier, whose “20 Years Study & Practice in the Prussian School may be of great Use to our Armies.” Congress would be remiss in its duties if it did not accept such a great gift, freely given.
Nearly every statement was falsified or exaggerated, every detail—about Steuben’s rank and experience—deliberately misrepresented.
If there were any doubts that the American commissioners were behind the charade, Silas Deane readily implicated himself. When he wrote to Robert Morris, he went out of his way to explain why it was that Steuben had nothing on paper to verify his military rank and experience. The Baron, he admitted freely, had come to Paris nearly three months earlier, but had left when he could not be guaranteed a place in the Continental Army. He returned to Paris only “after some of Our Freinds here…generously defrayed the Expences of his Voyage.” Steuben had been in such a hurry to get to Paris this second time, however, that he carelessly left his personal papers behind in Karlsruhe. Deane was not overly concerned, he related to Morris, for he had already seen written proof that Steuben was who he purported to be, so when Steuben suggested that he arrange for his papers to be delivered to Paris, Deane stopped him. “I advised him not to delay his setting out…. I thought it would be only The Loss of Time.” Steuben, in other words, had not hoodwinked Deane. Instead, the American knowingly covered for Steuben, hoping that Washington and Congress would simply forget about the specifics of his past.
The arrangements were made. The Baron de Steuben, late lieutenant-general, quartermaster-general, and aide-de-camp to Frederick of Prussia, would set out on the first available ship that Beaumarchais had at his disposal, and then make his triumphal entry into the United States.
CHAPTER 3
This Illustrious Stranger
[SEPTEMBER 1777–FEBRUARY 1778]
If I am Possessor of some talents in the Art of War, they should be much dearer to me, if I could employ them in the service of a Republick such as I hope soon to see America.
STEUBEN TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS,
DECEMBER 6, 17771
DEANE, Beaumarchais, and the others had taken the first steps in selling the Baron de Steuben, packaging him neatly in flashy titles that would temporarily substitute for manifest ability. Since it would be next to impossible to convey, in a few pithy phrases that anyone could understand, what it was that made Steuben worthy of attention, superficial qualities would have to do for now. Deane and the rest could get the Baron to Congress’s doorstep; once there, Steuben would be on his own.
In America he would be completely out of his element, so he would have to prepare carefully while in France. First he would need to assemble a retinue. No self-respecting general could travel without a personal staff, whether he was on active duty or not. Like any gentleman of high birth, he had to have at least a servant or two to help him dress, to cook and clean for him, to perform all of the routine daily tasks that no nobleman should have to do for himself. But he would also need a few literate junior officers to assist him with military and ad
ministrative responsibilities: a secretary to handle his correspondence perhaps, and a couple of aides-de-camp, protégés who could run errands for him and with whom he could consult.
Steuben’s staff would serve an obvious practical purpose—since the Baron did not know English, and few Americans spoke either French or German, he could not get by without a couple of assistants who could translate for him. But a staff would also give Steuben an air of importance that he would lack if he travelled alone. Just as wearing the proper attire could convey the appropriate impression of professionalism, being surrounded by a busy staff of professional soldiers would show that he took his craft seriously, and that he was bred to command. And it expressed something that the Baron considered just as important: an appearance of nonchalance. For if he could afford to maintain a staff even while he was unemployed, he was clearly a man of considerable means. It meant that he did not need anything from the Americans, and the Baron did not want to look needy. Doing so would compromise his newly fashioned persona.
Beaumarchais, who had a personal stake in Steuben’s future, was glad to help select a few men who served his own purposes as well as the Baron’s. First there was Jean-Baptiste Lazare Theveneau de Francy, who was not to be officially attached to Steuben but would travel with him anyway. Francy was assigned to act as an agent for Roderigue Hortalez et Cie., representing Beaumarchais’s business interests in America. “A handsome man, and what was called a beau in those days,” Francy spoke English passably well but could not write it.2 Beaumarchais’s nephew, twenty-year-old Augustin François Des Epiniers, came with Francy. Beaumarchais thought his nephew spoiled and inept, but perhaps a tour in the Continental Army might make a man of him. Silas Deane had already given Francy a commission as captain of engineers nearly nine months before. A lieutenant in the French army, Louis de Ponthière, was hired as the Baron’s personal aide-de-camp.
The Drillmaster of Valley Forge Page 5