Lee could not do much harm to Washington at the end of 1777—he had been taken prisoner by the British in December 1776—but there were plenty of others who mirrored his sentiments. Lee’s fellow British veteran Horatio Gates—an unimaginative man perhaps, but ambitious and self-righteous—thought poorly of Washington, too. The Baron de Kalb dubbed Washington “the weakest general” he had ever known.
What made this small group of disaffected generals dangerous was that they had political backing in Congress. The most vocal congressional opposition to Washington came from that faction known as the “true Whigs,” radical revolutionaries who firmly believed that a sense of patriotic duty—civic virtue—was in itself sufficient to guarantee victory over the British. Men such as Thomas Mifflin and Dr. Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania, and Sam Adams and James Lovell of Massachusetts, eschewed any measure that played to self-interest, convinced that virtue would lead all true patriots—military or civilian—to do the right thing. It was an impractical stance, to be sure, but in wartime it was dangerous, too. As a rule, the Whigs did not like the idea of a standing professional army, which they saw as a necessary evil at best; they far preferred reliance upon a militia of virtuous citizens. Washington represented everything they opposed, for he was both the commander and chief advocate of America’s standing army. Worse still, he had been unwilling to risk the destruction of the Continental Army to save Philadelphia. He lacked the kind of virtue they were looking for in a patriotic general.
As 1777 drew to a close, the anti-Washington elements in Congress and within the army command coalesced into a coordinated plot to have the general-in-chief removed from command and replaced by Horatio Gates, the darling of the true Whigs. In Congress, the newly constituted Board of War, created in November 1777 to take over primary direction of the war effort, was slanted from the beginning against Washington. Three of its four active members—Gates, Mifflin, and Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts—were inimical to the commander. Soon one of Washington’s own generals—the Irish-born Thomas Conway, a veteran of the French army—expressed the utmost disdain for Washington. “Heaven has been determined to save your Country,” Conway carped to Gates, “or a weak General and bad Councellors would have ruind it.” Washington and his supporters caught wind of this irresponsible talk, and the fight was on.
The resulting power struggle, which has come down through history as the “Conway Cabal,” reached its peak in January–February 1778. Even as Washington and his allies moved decisively to squelch it that winter—Washington proved to be a much more agile political opponent than any of the true Whigs had anticipated—its poisonous effects could not help but trickle down into the army itself. When added to the fall of Philadelphia, the imminent expiration of enlistment terms in the army, and the rigors of the Valley Forge winter, it cast a pall over the Cause as 1778 dawned. Both the army and the Cause were sick, and they would need a strong dose of stern medicine if they were to survive the winter and face their opponents in the next campaign with any hope of success.15
THE BARON DE STEUBEN knew something of the situation into which he was headed. His hosts in Boston had not been able to hide the fact that there was was something amiss in Pennsylvania that winter. “Our army (if army it might be called) were encamped at Valley Forge,” Duponceau noted tersely, “destitute…of every thing but courage and patriotism; and what was worse than all, disaffection was spreading through the land.”16
Steuben knew, too, that he was not guaranteed a warm handshake from Congress or from Washington, for as he suspected, the sentiment in both quarters had turned against foreign officers. Not six months before, the Marquis de Lafayette—already in possession of a major general’s commission, signed by Silas Deane—had met with an icy reception in Philadelphia. James Lovell, the sharp-tongued Whig from Massachusetts, had harangued him loudly and in public on the steps of Independence Hall, telling the astonished marquis that his services were not needed.17
Things had been going even worse for the foreigners since then. Almost on the very day that Steuben and company had departed Paris, Congress had decreed that all commissions given out by Silas Deane—“this weak or roguish man,” as Lovell called him—be nullified. In November 1777, Congress recalled Deane from his post. Even more unsettling was the fact that Deane’s most vocal enemies in Congress, the brothers Richard Henry Lee and Arthur Lee, were on good terms with the current president, Henry Laurens of South Carolina. Washington was under pressure to stifle foreign intrusion into the officer corps. When Lafayette and the Baron de Kalb were given generalships, it unleashed a storm of protest from envious American-born officers. Washington could not abide that kind of grousing, especially when he agreed with the general tone of it. Steuben, as a foreigner and one of Deane’s creatures, did not appear to have much of a chance.
Map of the northeastern United States, 1777
First, Steuben would have to get to York. In January 1778, that was easier said than done. With at most an additional servant or two to accompany them, and a guide provided by Hancock, the group—Steuben, Francy, Duponceau, Des Epiniers, Ponthière, Carl Vogel, and Azor—trudged along the roads that took them west through Massachusetts, into western Connecticut and to the Hudson Valley and beyond. They made remarkably good time, given the difficulties of winter travel in eighteenth-century New England and the special precautions they had to take. John Hancock had warned them to be on their guard for Loyalists en route. Tories were thick in the Massachusetts backcountry, and British successes in recent months had emboldened them.
Steuben’s group encountered at least one Loyalist. One miserable night in late January they were passing through the village of Spencer, not far west from Worcester, Massachusetts. The snow was piling up fast around them, making further travel impossible, so they sought refuge in the only tavern nearby. Its proprietor, a man named Whitt-more, was well known for his Tory sympathies, but they had little choice. The party entered the tavern, stomping the snow from their boots and brushing it off their woolen cloaks in big clumps. The innkeeper gave them a cold greeting. He informed them abruptly that he had neither food nor lodgings to offer them. Duponceau and Francy pleaded with the man as best they could, but to no avail, until Steuben caught wind of what was going on. Although he was not yet conversant in English, he knew enough to grasp the situation, and he instantly flew into a rage. He called out to Vogel: “Pistolen!” The manservant disappeared into the night, only to reemerge in moments bearing one of the Baron’s gigantic horse pistols, which he had fetched from a pommel holster attached to his saddle. Steuben seized the pistol, drew back the hammer to full cock, and pushed its yawning black muzzle directly into the proprietor’s face. He barked a few unintelligible curses, and then asked—still shouting, and in German—if the innkeeper might reconsider; did he or did he not have food, drink, and beds to spare? The innkeeper did not wait for a translation. He recalled that he did indeed have plenty of each, adding that he would be happy to oblige his guests. Steuben and his staff stayed up well into the night eating, drinking, and talking around the hearth, with the innkeeper waiting patiently on the group as if nothing unpleasant had happened.18
On they rode, through Springfield and Hartford, and into New York, where they crossed the Hudson by ferry near Fishkill. The trip was an unusual experience for all of the Europeans in the party. Steuben was, to say the least, an accomplished traveler. He had journeyed far and wide in the lands of the Empire, in Russia, and through much of France, and now he was venturing across the northern half of the American landscape, from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania. But this was not like travel in Europe. Places to stop and rest were relatively few and far between, and on many days the group was on the road from sunrise to dusk without encountering a single hamlet in between.
Duponceau found the whole thing fascinating. He jotted down the name of every village they passed through, every tavern that lodged them, every proprietor or proprietress who took them in—and, in the latter case, if the hostess were pr
etty or not. He was especially taken by the names of the establishments where they stayed: the General Wolfe, the Liberty Tree, the Sign of the White Bowl. The fare was not worthy of comment, except at one inn in New Jersey. “There was neither bread nor milk, nor any beverage except Whiskey,” which curiosity impelled him to try.19
The Baron pushed on as if he had a pressing deadline to meet, taking only a single day to rest at Fishkill before crossing the Hudson. He allowed himself to relax a bit as they made their way through the towns west of Philadelphia, a region heavily populated with fellow Germans. Duponceau noticed Steuben’s mood lighten as they passed tavern after tavern bearing the “Sign of the King of Prussia.” The party stopped for a meal at one such inn in the village of Manheim. Nailed to a wall inside the tavern was a “paltry engraving…on which was represented a Prussian knocking down a Frenchman in great style,” accompanied by the inscription “A Frenchman to a Prussian is no more than a mosquito.” Steuben noticed it and “enjoyed it exceedingly”; he grabbed Duponceau and pointed it out excitedly to the teenage secretary, flashing him a sly and knowing smile.20
It was at Manheim that Steuben also had his first encounter with a serving member of Congress. Robert Morris, a portly and exceedingly wealthy Philadelphia merchant, came out to greet the Baron, accompanied by Continental postmaster-general Richard Bache. Bache, Ben Franklin’s son-in-law, already knew Steuben by reputation. The three men had a cordial meeting over dinner, with both Bache and Morris adding their own written references to the growing pile of testimonials the Baron carried in his portfolio.21
Steuben must have felt as if he were walking straight into a lion’s den as he and his friends approached York. A face-to-face meeting with Congress was an intimidating prospect. The Baron was by now well aware of the collective skepticism about foreign officers that prevailed at York, and about the rifts caused by the Conway Cabal—all of which made for a delicate situation. A careless word or unthinking gesture on Steuben’s part could easily set one faction or another against him, inadvertently making enemies, and destroying his career before it had even begun.
But he was well prepared for his meeting with Congress, whether he knew it or not. Having been coached, he knew what Congress wanted to hear and what they definitely did not want to hear. When he wrote to Washington, Henry Laurens, and Congress right after his landfall in Portsmouth, he had said just the right things. He emphasized, modestly, the sacrifices he had made to come to America, and referred obliquely to his military experience in Prussia. He asserted that his highest goal was to use what talents he had “in the service of a Republick”—a key phrase, since he made no overblown statements about his devotion to America, but rather to republican principles, an eminently plausible claim. Most important, he made no demands. “I have made no condition with your Deputies in France, nor shall I make any with you,” he informed Congress. With Washington, he was careful to address the officer corps’ resentment of foreign officers in such a way as to allay any fears that Steuben would contribute to that resentment: “If the distinguished ranks in which I have Served in Europe should be an Obstacle, I had rather serve under your Excellency as a Volunteer, than to be a subject of Discontent to such deserving Officers as have already distinguished themselves amongst you.”22
Thus the Baron, with much outside assistance from his American friends, deftly skirted the dark pit into which so many European hopefuls had fallen. He danced just as skillfully around the ongoing Conway controversy. At this point, Conway and Mifflin had already been largely marginalized, but Horatio Gates was not, and as president of the Board of War, he was not a man to be casually shunted aside. Prudently, Steuben made an effort to cultivate Gates. At Sam Adams’s urging, he wrote to the general from Boston shortly after Christmas:
I must express the esteem I have for you, and the eagerness I have to make the personal acquaintance of the man who vanquished Mr. Burgoyne. Your operations in the last campaign (of which Mr. de Malmidy has given me a written account) earn you the admiration of all those who practice the profession of arms, and although I have studied that profession for twenty-two years in a very good school, I will keep [that written account] for myself as a valuable lesson.23
It was a very politic gesture, to flatter the notoriously vain Gates. By contacting the general directly, Steuben ensured that he would not be seen as a partisan of Washington before he had his day with Congress.
CONGRESS WAS NOT ONLY READY for Steuben but also eagerly anticipating his arrival. His letters from Portsmouth had worked their intended effect. Two days after receiving his letter in mid-January, Congress resolved to present the Baron with the thanks of a grateful nation, and to “cheerfully accept of his service as a volunteer in the army of these states.” Since that time, newspapers across the States heralded his progress from Boston, and men who had met the Baron along the way bombarded their friends in Congress with effusive praise for this selfless warrior of great renown. Congress was sold on him before he even set foot in York.
Steuben rode into the capital on February 5 accompanied by Duponceau and Ponthière; Francy and Des Epiniers had since headed off on their own to visit the army at Valley Forge. It was an exceptionally cold day in a winter that was otherwise not remarkable for its severity. The Susquehanna River was already choked with ice. Although the members of the Baron’s party were not caked with dust or spattered with mud—the sole advantage, perhaps, of travelling on frozen roads—they had ridden four hundred miles in twenty-two days, a jolting pace, and it showed. They were bedraggled, saddlesore, and very tired, and their new uniforms were showing signs of premature wear and tear.
York was a small and unattractive town, with less than two thousand inhabitants, yet this makeshift capital of the United States was nonetheless a welcome sight for the weary travellers. They would have the chance to relax before Congress expected anything from them. Horatio Gates came out to greet them as soon as they arrived, offering the Baron the use of his personal residence. Steuben graciously declined. There was no sense in attaching himself too closely to Gates. Instead, he and his companions took quarters in a house that John Hancock had once used.24
Congress was not exactly an intimidating audience. Its move from Philadelphia and the winter weather had thinned its ranks. Less than two dozen delegates convened each day in their meeting place, the second floor of the town’s new brick courthouse, and five of them had recently gone to Valley Forge to observe the army. It came as a great shock to Steuben that the domestic affairs of an entire nation and the conduct of a war against one of Europe’s great powers would be directed by a mere handful of men. While the Baron took a day to recover from his journey, Congress appointed a four-man committee to meet with him, informally, in his own chambers. That committee—John Henry of Maryland, Thomas McKean of Delaware, Francis Lightfoot Lee of Virginia, and the president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), Dr. John Witherspoon—had no particular claim to military expertise, but then, judging Steuben’s qualifications was not their purpose. They wanted only to know what motivated this man, what had driven him to America, and what he wanted from them.
Witherspoon, the only ordained clergyman in Congress, conducted the interview, his spoken French tinged by his broad Scots brogue. Steuben answered in French equally colored by his Brandenburg German accent, while the other three men sat in silence, listening intently but waiting for Witherspoon’s translation. The Baron put on a performance worthy of a great actor. He asserted that he had never been promised a Continental commission, not by Deane or Franklin or anyone; he did not ask for one now, and in fact he pointedly refused to accept any for the time being. Nor did he “require or desire any command of a particular Corps or Division.” His only ambition was to serve Washington as needed “and be subject to his orders.” He had learned, “before he left France, of the dissatisfaction of the Americans with the promotion of foreign officers, [and] therefore makes no terms, nor will accept any thing but with [the] general approbation and part
icularly that of General Washington.” Although in coming to America he had been compelled to give up a substantial income and several political posts in the Holy Roman Empire, he would not accept any pay, only the reimbursement of professional expenses he might incur in Continental service.
The last statement was a lie, of course, but it was an attractive lie, one that appealed to a money-conscious Congress while demonstrating that Steuben was not like the other foreigners. He added only one condition: if, once the war was over and independence gained, Congress should determine that he had contributed something of real value to the victory, then he should be reimbursed for his travel to America and be given an annual salary of six hundred gold guineas, paid retroactively from the summer of 1777, with interest. Congress would continue to pay him this same salary from the end of hostilities until his death. Six hundred guineas, coincidentally, was precisely the amount of the annual income he claimed to have given up in Europe.
Witherspoon and his colleagues couldn’t have been more delighted. They weren’t going to get something for nothing, but here was an offer that was the very definition of accountability. It was easy to promise a salary that wouldn’t have to be paid until some time in the remote future. Steuben’s demeanor, his spirit of cooperation and sacrifice—or the appearance of such—were the qualities that Congress had hoped to find in a foreign military expert, and except in the case of Lafayette, they had so far been disappointed. The committee reported back to Congress the very same day: Steuben was the genuine article and should be given every encouragement.
The Drillmaster of Valley Forge Page 7