The Drillmaster of Valley Forge

by Paul Lockhart

  To further bolster his arguments for a strong, assertive inspectorship and his right to command troops on campaign, Steuben solicited written opinions from two European soldiers in the Continental service: Henry Leonard Philip, the Baron d’Arendt, and Martial-Jean-Antoine Crozat, Chevalier de Crénis—the first a veteran of the Prussian army, the second of the French army. He knew that Congress already thought highly of him, and armed with these affidavits, he hoped to convince the delegates, newly reconvened in Philadelphia, that his ideas should be accommodated whether Washington liked them or not.

  And if reasoned argument didn’t do the trick, the Baron would present an ultimatum: he would resign his commission and go back to Europe.

  Washington knew for certain that Steuben was up to more than just visiting friends in the capital. Steuben wanted him to know, and let the sympathetic Hamilton in on his plans. The commander in chief was not pleased. He did not care for insubordination—he had experienced enough of that martial vice in the past two years—but mostly he was disappointed in Steuben, whom he had grown to value and trust. “I regard and I esteem the Baron, as an Assiduous, Intelligent and an experienced Officer,” Washington told Henry Laurens. “The Baron’s services in the line he is in can be singular.”12 Yet Steuben had put his pride ahead of his dedication to the Cause, like so many foreign officers, who

  in the first instance tell you, that they wish for nothing more than the honour of serving in so glorious a cause, as Volunteers—The next day sollicit rank without pay—the day following want money advanced to them—and in the course of a Week want further promotion, and are not satisfied with anything you can do for them.13

  It was an accurate, if ungenerous, description of Steuben’s behavior so far, behavior that offended Washington’s sense of patriotic devotion. The worst part was that Steuben knew the furor that would erupt if Congress were to accede to his demands, and the headaches they would cause at headquarters. For Washington, that could not be tolerated.

  With a plan to intercept Steuben before he could do any damage, and with no wish to hurt Steuben’s feelings, Washington quietly contacted two trusted allies in Congress: Henry Laurens and Gouverneur Morris, the latter an unusually young and womanizing New York delegate who had proven at Valley Forge that he was one of the best friends the army had in Congress. Congress must do something, anything, Washington impressed upon Laurens and Morris, to create a functioning inspector general’s department. For starters, La Neuville must be put in his place. Beyond that, Congress could not grant Steuben’s requests, Washington insisted, even if the Baron threatened to resign.

  I am extremely sorry, that this Gentlemans situation and views seem to have determined him to quit the service…. [He] resolves not to continue in the Service unless he can hold an actual command in the line…. [T]he Baron has in every instance discharged the several trusts reposed in him with great Zeal and Ability…. I regret that there should be a necessity that his Services should be lost to the Army. At the same time I think it my duty to explicitly observe to Congress, that his desire of having an actual and permanent command in the line cannot be complied with.14

  American officers, Washington pointed out—as if it really needed explanation—“will not submit much, if any longer, to the unnatural promotion of men over them, who have nothing more than a little plausability, unbounded pride and ambition.” Giving the Baron a field command, Washington believed, would “have the whole line of Brigadiers in confusion.”

  Alex Hamilton tried to intervene, too, and without consulting his master. His loyalties were split. On the one hand, he owed his primary allegiance to Washington, but he was also one of the Baron’s sansculottes from the long, cold nights at Valley Forge. And like John Laurens, Hamilton believed that Steuben’s position was the reasonable argument of a professional, and that those who opposed him spoke only from envy and were men who, lacking the Baron’s abilities, sought to snipe at him from the shadows. If lost to the army, Steuben would be irreplaceable. Hamilton wrote in confidence to his friend Elias Boudinot, asking him to find some way of placating the Baron. “Whether any expedient can be adopted, to reconcile difficulties, and retain him in the service at the same time, that no disgust is given to others, who ought not to be disgusted, I cannot certainly determine”: maybe not a permanent field command; maybe, instead, a promise that Steuben could hold temporary commands from time to time. “Far be it from me to contravene [Washington’s] views, you may be assured that they cannot be essentially departed from without serious inconvenience,” Hamilton concluded. “But if anything could be done consistent with them to satisfy the Baron, it would be extremely desireable.”15

  AS HE RODE from White Plains to Philadelphia, Steuben’s temper cooled. The prospect of visiting the city was in itself an exciting one. It would be his first extended stay in the largest and wealthiest city in the United States, and doubtless there would be much to take his mind off of his predicament in the army.

  In Philadelphia, too, there were men who genuinely liked him, enjoyed his company, and—after Valley Forge—considered him a miracle worker. His closest personal bond was with Richard Peters, the brilliant Philadelphia lawyer who served as secretary on the Board of War. Peters and Steuben had first met at York in February, and had struck up a warm friendship in no time at all. When the Baron rode into Philadelphia at the end of July 1778, Peters insisted that he stay with him and his young family in Belmont, their spacious mansion. The Peters clan—Richard, his wife, Sarah, and their little son, Ralph—adopted him as if he were a much-beloved uncle. Young Peters, only a toddler, took a shine to the affectionate Baron, who in turn showered him with gifts and called him his “little aide-de-camp.” Richard was infinitely indulgent of his Prussian friend. When Steuben left the city later that autumn, Richard paid the Baron’s debts—he had racked up quite a set of bills with a tailor and a saddler—without complaint, and laughed it off when Carl Vogel inadvertently took off with some of the Peters family’s silver.16 Going to Philadelphia was as close to going home as Steuben could get.

  Though he was put off a bit by the high cost of living—“How unmercifully We poor Strangers are flayed alive by the people of this country,” Steuben grumbled to Richard Peters—the city did wonders for his mood. Best of all, Congress seemed to be taking him seriously, appointing a committee to review his proposals. Unaware that Washington had tried to undermine him, he wrote to thank the commander in chief for his support, vowing that he would work with Congress to create an inspector general’s office “on such principles as may be agreable to your Excellency & the Army in general.”17

  In his quarters at Belmont, Steuben sat down with Ternant to draft a detailed proposal for the “constitution” of the inspector’s office. Duponceau took notes and translated. The plan was based on the reports of Crénis and the Baron d’Arendt, but adapted to what Steuben believed were the guiding principles of the American republic. In France and in Prussia, inspectors wielded sweeping powers over all other officers. They could issue any orders they pleased concerning the discipline, training, and good order of the troops, and could countermand any orders given by another officer. In France, the authority of an inspector general superceded that of provincial governors. In both armies, inspectors were also field officers who commanded troops in accordance with their rank. Steuben was not about to ask for the right to order the state governors around, or to strike down Washington’s orders at will, but he did believe, and fervently, that he should have the power to do anything necessary to make the army combat-ready, without regard for the objections of the other generals. In his proposal, the inspector general would also have the power to reorganize regiments and brigades as he saw fit, to maintain a uniform structure in the army. On the march and in battle, he would command troops like any other officer of his rank—therefore he, as a major general, would lead a full division.18

  Steuben’s proposal was based on proven principles that had served European armies well. It was also bound to fa
il, with or without Washington’s subterfuge. As a Prussian, Steuben was raised in a political climate that put efficiency ahead of all other virtues. The science of public administration—often referred to as “cameralism”—was all the rage in German princely courts. While cameralism emphasized talent over birth as the principal qualification for holding office, it was not democratic. Democracies are inefficient, and hence democratic thought had no place in a well-ordered army. Steuben as yet did not grasp the subordination of military authorities to civilian control, a principle to which Washington was dedicated. He certainly did not fathom that there were those who believed that standing armies were in themselves a necessary evil at best, and a tool of tyranny, a direct threat to liberty, at worst. Many of the men with whom the Baron had rubbed elbows while at Boston and York, men like Sam Adams and James Lovell, felt this way.

  Congress, strangely, didn’t do much to discourage Steuben, though Gouverneur Morris had promised Washington otherwise. “The Baron has a Claim from his Merit to be noticed but I never will consent to grant what I am told he requests & I think Congress will not,” he reported to Washington on August 2. “At least they wont if I can help it.”19 But for some reason, perhaps fear of an unpleasant confrontation with a popular man, Congress held back. The committee appointed to hear Steuben’s proposals, dubbed the Committee of Arrangement, consisted of three men who were not likely to find fault with the inspector: Joseph Reed, Elias Boudinot, and Samuel Chase of Maryland. After a brief meeting with the Baron, they made only a handful of recommendations, and these were on the least controversial points: that the inspector should compose regulations for the use of the army, and that he should review the troops regularly. With regard to La Neuville, the committee sided with Washington and Steuben, asserting that Gates’s inspector must submit to Steuben or else resign.* The committee said nothing about the rest of the proposal, which they left to Washington’s consideration. They, in short, passed the buck.20

  But Washington had his hands full elsewhere. The strategic situation in Rhode Island was deteriorating rapidly. D’Estaing, his fleet damaged by heavy storms, retreated to Boston for repairs, leaving John Sullivan’s makeshift force of Continentals and militia to fend for itself against the British at Newport. Congress panicked; fearing that failure at Newport would turn popular opinion against the French alliance, they sent Steuben packing for Rhode Island to help Sullivan in any way he could. Sensing the possibility for action, the Baron did not object, but Washington stopped him en route at White Plains. He was needed with the main army, and since when did Congress have the authority to order his staff about? Steuben, confident that approval of his proposal was a mere formality now, didn’t object to this, either, even though the wasted trip had wreaked havoc on his personal finances.21

  It wasn’t long before his hopes were dashed. Washington finally reviewed Steuben’s proposals and passed them along for his generals to examine. The generals—fourteen of them—were far from happy with the plan; in fact, they hated it. They “view[ed] with concern that resolves so dangerous in their consequences to the united States…should ever have been penned.” The inspector’s “inquisitional authority” would “form a new fangled system of powers…uncontrolled and unchecked.” The only good thing they had to say about the proposal was that Congress had not approved it yet.22 Washington was kinder, but not by much. His main concern was the reaction of the other generals, their “jealously and disapprobation.” “The authority of those Officers in their respective Corps is reduced to a shadow [by Steuben’s plan] and no man of spirit will continue in the service.”23

  A blind man could have seen this coming. Yet Steuben did not. He was taken by surprise by the universally negative reaction, and it dealt him a hard blow. What he had proposed reflected reason and experience, and established practice in the great armies of the civilized world. Americans, whether in Congress or in the army, were beginning to strike him as disingenuous: to his face, they praised his abilities and craved his advice, but none of his suggestions was ever good enough. As he saw it, his presence in the United States so far had meant nothing. He vented to the French resident ambassador in Philadelphia, Conrad-Alexandre Gérard:

  It is with pain that I tell you that our army finds itself again in the same condition as I found it upon my arrival [at Valley Forge]. The regiments are not complete, the troops are not clothed, there is no order, no discipline, no organization, and despite all my cries…I do not see even the smallest preparations made to remedy these deficiencies for the coming campaign. I had believed that the establishment of an inspectorate would lead us to make all of these important arrangements. But so far I have been unable to obtain a final resolution of this goal. We will be finished as soon as we begin this campaign.

  What made this lack of discipline even more depressing, Steuben thought, was that it pointed to a certain complacency on the part of Congress and the American people, an unwillingness to see the war through. “It is said that Congress has given the order to suspend recruitment in all the states,” he railed to Gérard. “Are we to believe that the war is already over? I desire it, but I very much fear that we are deceiving ourselves…I believe that a peace treaty signed at the head of a strong army is always more advantageous.”24

  The frustration was almost more than he could bear. “[W]hen I see that a solid formation of this army is so absolutely opposed,” he groused, “…I put away my papers and reassert my regrets of having made a mistake when I left the position of lieutenant general in the service of the margrave of Baden, where I was fine in all respects.”25

  It was bad enough that the Continental Army was leading itself to its own demise by ignoring his prescriptions. What made it worse was the idleness. His resignation threat had been a bluff; he had nothing to do and nowhere else to go. He was stuck at his headquarters in the sleepy little hamlet of Fredericksburg, New York, miles from anything that even vaguely resembled civilization. “The inactivity in which I now live, and the little use made of my Military Talents makes me despair of ever having a Right to ask for so high a Reward as the Town Majority of Fredericksburg,” he intimated to Richard Peters.

  “Experience teaches me that Offered services do not always prove acceptable,” Steuben continued. He had done all that he could. “If the Arrangements I have proposed for the Good of the Army are not accepted of, by having fulfilled a Duty I had imposed upon me I have acquitted what I owed to myself, as Well as to all the Military.” He would “wait in respectful Silence for the Orders of Congress” and ride out the war until he could get a better offer elsewhere.26

  THE SKIES OVER NORTHERN NEW JERSEY were clear but moonless on the night of September 27, 1778, when the scarlet-clad soldiers emerged, silent as ghosts, from the woods and fields along the Kinderkamack Road, not far from the border-town of Old Tappan. Their features—indeed their very presence—were completely obscured by the impenetrable darkness. Unbetrayed by the soft glint of moonlight on polished musket barrels, or by the cry of an alarmed sentry, they crept stealthily toward a stone house and its outlying barns.

  The Redcoats, twelve companies of elite light infantry, were on no ordinary night patrol. Nothing showed that better than the fact that the man breathlessly urging them along was one of most distinguished commanders of His Majesty’s troops in North America. General Charles “No Flint” Grey was something of a legend in the British army. He had earned his chilling sobriquet the year before at Paoli, Pennsylvania, where he had caught Anthony Wayne’s detachment completely unaware in the night, his men rushing into the American camp and bayonetting the slumbering Continentals in their tents. He had, it was said, ordered his men to remove the flints from their muskets so that they would not be tempted to shoot. They would have to rely on their bayonets and on the crushing force of musket butts swung by brawny arms.

  Grey’s men had a similar intent this night. In the barns and stone buildings that lay ahead of them in the thick darkness, near a stream crossing that bore the ominous Dutch
name of Overkill, were around one hundred men of the Third Continental Light Dragoons. They were Virginians mostly, whose nickname—“Lady Washington’s Guards”—gave them a chivalric air. Part of a larger mixed force of local militia and Continentals, they had been screening Lord Cornwallis’s incursion into New Jersey.

  Grey’s advance toward Old Tappan had already scared off most of the militia, who had scampered away without alerting the men of the light horse. The dragoons were bedded down for the night in the six barns belonging to old Isaac Blauvelt. Their commander, Col. George Baylor, set guards on the bridge at Overkill to the south, and along the road north of the Blauvelt house—though the guards complained that the night was so black that the pickets were of no use. No one could possibly see an approaching enemy in that darkness.

  Their reports proved to be tragically prophetic. The British took to the road at ten o’clock that night, enveloping the Blauvelt farmstead and cutting off any chance of escape. Sometime after one o’clock in the morning, the Redcoats materialized from the darkness. They were upon the hapless American pickets in a flash, dispatching them with bayonets and clubbed muskets before they even had a chance to utter a sound. Grey and a few men took possession of the Blauvelt farmhouse, where Colonel Baylor and his second-in-command, Maj. Alexander Clough, were quartered. According to local tradition, Baylor and Clough tried frantically to hide themselves in a chimney. Baylor escaped; Clough, who was discovered, was bayonetted repeatedly as he pleaded for mercy.