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Thomas Gage, born around 1719—general, commander in chief of British forces in North America in 1775—was also governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and is best known as the man who ordered the raid on Lexington and Concord. As a boy, he spent eight years at England’s Westminster School where he came to know future Revolutionary War figures (all British, of course) John Burgoyne (the later general), George Sackville (the later Lord Germain, secretary of state for American affairs), and the brothers George and Richard Howe (later general and admiral, respectively). Considered too passive (sometimes called George III’s “mild general”), he did allow the Colonials the initiative immediately after the war’s first shots were fired—they mounted the siege of Boston that forced the British to evacuate the port city in March 1776. In the meantime, Gage was called home in late 1775, never to return to America, even though he was married to an American-born woman. One of his enemies in Lord North’s ministry had been Gage’s onetime schoolmate Lord Germain, who had been trying to find ways to remove Gage even before Lexington and Concord.
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William Pitt, born in 1708, Second Earl of Chatham, the Great Commoner, so named for his oratory in the House of Commons, was prime minister during the worldwide Seven Years’ War. A towering figure in his day, he was in ill health and declining in influence by the time the Revolutionary War broke out. He had struggled into Parliament shortly beforehand to make a dramatic speech calling for repeal of the Stamp Act and had worked closely with Benjamin Franklin in efforts to head off war in the last months of peace. Franklin once called him “that truly great man,” while Pitt, for his part, described Franklin as “an Honour, not to the English Nation only, but to Human Nature.”
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Frederick North, born in London in 1732, Earl of Guilford, was the prime minister the American rebels loved to hate…he, in fact, succeeded to Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1767, upon the death of Charles Townshend, author of the fiercely despised Townshend Acts. No enthusiast for those particular measures, Lord North nonetheless stood squarely behind them—and behind Parliament’s right to impose taxes upon the distant colonists, while also endorsing the dispatch of troops to keep order in Boston. He became prime minister in 1770 and retained that post until 1782. His long stewardship during a stormy period has been credited to his support from King George III, his own abilities as a politician and debater before the House of Commons, his expertise in governmental finances, and a pleasing personality that often disarmed his critics. He would have preferred compromise with the Americans but felt that Britain’s own economic well-being would be threatened if the Colonials controlled their own affairs. Once he heard about the Battle of Bunker Hill, however, he told his king that Britain now faced a foreign war. North suffered from bouts of depression that sometimes shut down his leadership activity for weeks at a time. The death of a child and Britain’s defeat in the Battle of Saratoga, New York, triggered two such episodes.
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General Sir William Howe came to the Revolutionary War as a professional soldier who had led the way for the British climbing the cliffs of Quebec to the Plains of Abraham above—to achieve victory over the French in 1759. Arriving in Boston at age forty-six, shortly after Lexington-Concord, he was a drinker, a gambler, and a womanizer popular with the troops. Whatever his faults, he was a proven and courageous fighter, and most comfortable with light infantry tactics. Soon to be commander of British forces, he was vigorous in confronting the Americans, but would suffer strategically for his habit of delay and regrouping after achieving apparent victory over the rebel forces. His older brother George, incidentally, had been killed in the assault on the French at Quebec…with the Americans then taking part as allies of the British. Another brother was Sir Richard Howe, admiral of the British fleet sent to quell the American rebellion. General Howe returned to England in the spring of 1778, largely to defend his performance in America.
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Arriving in Boston with Howe in 1775, General Sir Henry Clinton was a native New Yorker, born there in 1738 as the son of a royal governor. He was considered a brave and resourceful leader, but lacking in flair and sensitive to criticism. He became senior man in America with Howe’s departure but feuded with his subordinate Lord Cornwallis. With the latter at his elbow, Clinton at last succeeded in capturing the key port city of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780. Leaving Cornwallis to a campaign all his own in the South, Clinton returned to New York. What had upset Clinton with Cornwallis in the first place was the latter’s report to Howe of a disparaging remark by Clinton. Although Cornwallis later apologized, Clinton never quite forgave such “tattling.”
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A third British general destined to make a name (of sorts) for himself in the rebellious colonies was John (“Gentleman Johnny”) Burgoyne, fifty-three years old upon his arrival at Boston in 1775. Known for humane treatment of his troops, he came to America contemptuous of his enemy—yet at Saratoga, New York, in 1777, he would suffer one of Britain’s worst defeats of the entire Revolutionary War. Perhaps he still could take some satisfaction from his modest success back home in England as a playwright.
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Lord George Germain, First Viscount Sackville, born in 1716, came to the American Revolution in an administrative role…as Lord North’s American secretary. He had a strong interest in the military operations of the war, perhaps an echo of his own checkered military past. He had refused an order to attack in the 1759 Battle of Minden, complaining that the order was poorly conceived and that he quite properly delayed. Nonetheless, he was dismissed from the army and court-martialed, with seven of the fifteen judges calling for his execution. He survived that controversy, but his reputation was so damaged that he was kept from any major governmental post until Lord North brought him into the cabinet in 1775 to succeed Lord Dartmouth. In the meantime, a duel with Governor George Johnstone of Pensacola had tended to offset lingering accusations of cowardice at Minden, but not completely. Later, he would be among the scapegoats blamed for the loss of the American colonies.
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No listing of the major British “players” in the Revolution would be complete without prominent mention of Charles Cornwallis, Second Earl and First Marquis of Cornwallis…the man forever linked with the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, the event signaling the final outcome of the war and setting peace talks into motion. Born the last day of 1738 in London’s fashionable Grosvenor Square, this Peer of the Realm attended Eton before launching a long army career at the age of eighteen. As a member of the House of Lords, he was sympathetic to colonial pleas—he voted against the infamous Stamp Act. When dispatched to America in 1776, he didn’t really think England could win the Revolutionary War. He took part in the failed British assault on Charleston, South Carolina, in June of that year, then participated in the Battles of Long Island, Kip’s Bay, White Plains, and Forts Lee and Washington, all significant British victories. Cornwallis then led the chase after the retreating Continentals across New Jersey to the Delaware River. He and Howe had gone into winter quarters in New York when George Washington struck back at Trenton. Days later, Cornwallis allowed Washington to slip away once more and defeat the British at Princeton. Late in 1777, Cornwallis joined Howe in the campaign that resulted in the occupation of Philadelphia. Cornwallis went home for a short respite, returned for the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, and the summer campaigns of 1778. He then returned to England—this time to be at the side of his dying wife. Returning to the colonies in mid-1779, Cornwallis convinced Clinton to assault Charleston the next year. With that benchmark victory behind them, Cornwallis launched his Southern campaign, which, unfortunately for all of Britain’s players, fetched him up at Yorktown with his back against a river the English fleet could not reach.
George Washington’s Day
WITH HIS APPOINTMENT AS COMMANDER OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY IN JUNE of 1775, the master of Mount Vernon was set upon a course that would keep him away for six years,
and even a bit more, with no visits home the entire time. For this sacrifice, George Washington would draw no salary.
He didn’t exactly live in a pup tent, but he was with his troops in the field at nearly all times. In his first three years as their head, he left them only once—for a quick visit and consultation with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
With his wife Martha only occasionally able to join him, Washington spent most of his days and nights in a dizzying assortment of private homes, and the occasional tavern. And though he did not share a crude log hut with his troops during the harrowing winter spent at Valley Forge, he was on hand in a nearby farmhouse.
As time passed, none could complain that he hung back from the dangers of battle or accuse him of abusing his position of power. He appears to have taken no advantage of the public adulation that was his by the end of the Revolutionary War.
He had left his command role with the Virginia regiment—a creature of the Crown—fifteen years before taking on his leadership role against the Crown. In that interim, he had married the wealthy widow Martha Custis; expanded his inherited Mount Vernon estate on the Potomac River by thousands of acres; acquired another sixty thousand acres of frontier lands; and had become a cattleman and manager of personal timber and fishing ventures. He also owned nearly one hundred slaves (who, in his will, were granted freedom after both he and Martha died).
The prospering gentleman farmer from Mount Vernon, born to relatively humble promise by comparison, also had held a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He enjoyed his pleasures—convivial visits to a tavern for cards or billiards, and his favorite sport, fox hunting.
The Revolutionary War changed all that. After his congressional appointment in June 1775, the forty-three-year-old Washington established a hardworking, no-nonsense daily routine. He slept and worked in his many borrowed headquarters and rarely “left home to go to the office.”
He usually rose about five o’clock in the morning and attacked his paperwork alone for three or four hours in whatever room, that served as his personal chamber for the moment. On occasion, he spent his time not merely “in the field,” but rather in the woods or fields with the troops, occupying a special tent that has been on view at the National Park Service’s Visitor Center at Valley Forge in recent years.
On a typical day, his paperwork stint was followed by exercise and recreation typical of the era—about forty-five minutes riding his horse. Then he had a light breakfast.
Now he was ready for the central business of the day. For the next four or five hours, Washington directed staff meetings, took part in conferences, greeted visiting dignitaries, made plans, decided on crucial issues…all the activities of a commander, especially one short on supplies, professional soldiers and, quite often, congressional support.
Then came another core event of the day: Washington’s midafternoon dinner mess, with his officers, visitors (both military and political), aides, and even visiting officers’ wives. He made sure that his younger officers—such as the headquarters’ officer of the day—were included on a regular basis.
After this get-together of two hours or so, Washington went back to work until about eight in the evening. He then put aside the papers for a light supper—wine and fruit, it seems—and an evening of relaxation in comfortable company.
This routine, of course, gave way at times to the demands of battle and military campaign. Every once in a while, Washington and his staff would find the time for an outdoor picnic, a ball, a turn at wickets, or a theater outing. Martha was able to join her husband for a few weeks out of the year, usually during the non-campaigning winter months.
On the road six years, through life-and-death peaks and valleys for the struggling new republic…what kind of a man could carry such a load for so long?
There were those, to be sure, who called him cold, aloof, and occasionally hot tempered. His longtime aide Alexander Hamilton said that Washington was vain and “neither remarkable for delicacy nor good temper.” (But then… wasn’t it also Hamilton who turned aside Washington’s apology after a minor tiff and initiated a transfer out of Washington’s headquarters entourage?)
Vain? Perhaps. But perhaps not…certainly ambitious and strong of ego. But then, what leader of men isn’t? Naturally, Washington had to be tough-minded to order men into battle—into facing death itself—even when the odds appeared to be against them.
He could be tough-minded another way, as well. Almost all who ever knew John André, the captured British spy, whether American or British, considered him a charming, outstanding, and honorable officer who simply carried out his duty to Crown and country as Benedict Arnold’s contact with the British hierarchy in New York. But Washington allowed his execution by hanging to go forward with no attempt to stop it. Fortunes of war.
Neither did Washington ask any favors, whine, beg, or plead for mercy when his own fortunes of war were at a terribly low ebb, and his entire army’s, as well. After forcing the British to evacuate Boston in 1776—in large part by their own decision against fighting the rebels—Washington, in the summer and fall of 1776, almost managed to lose the war with a series of bad decisions that cost him the Battles of Long Island, White Plains, Fort Washington, and Fort Lee, all within the New York–New Jersey area. Close to year’s end, he and a fast-disintegrating army had been forced into Pennsylvania. That, of course, is when the worm turned and struck back—first at Trenton, then at Princeton. From then on, there would still be defeats here and there, but the fortunes of war favored George Washington and his improving army through the lynchpin victory at Yorktown in 1781.
By then, and even before, Washington was being called the Father of His Country—or derivations such as “the first of the Age,” or “first Man in this World,” according to historian John Ferlin, editor of the book The World Turned Upside Down. The famous Marquis de Lafayette went so far as to say that without Washington, “There is nobody who could keep the army and Revolution [going] for six months.”
For six years rather than six months, it would be quite a journey, and quite a different life for the master of Mount Vernon. And in the end, say what they would, even his strongest critics could not deny that, at the best and worst of times in the American Revolution, George Washington was always at his post, the epitome of sacrifice and devotion to duty, for more than six years—during which he never paid even an overnight visit to his beloved Mount Vernon plantation on the Potomac.
“A Most Violent Gust”
STORMY WEATHER, DID IT HELP OR HINDER THE REVOLUTION?
Item: fall of 1775. Benedict Arnold’s remarkable march through a northern wilderness—now the state of Maine—into Canada. Not only did cold, wintry weather come early that year, but three days of unending rain flooded the Dead River at a critical point in the difficult journey. His boats—bateaux, they called them—were swamped. Men on foot became lost in the flooded landscape.
The column’s provisions were in such short supply that Arnold had to plunge ahead of his near-starving men to send back rations. They were so hungry in the interim that they boiled leather moccasins over their campfires to produce a thin soup. They also made a gruel, it is reported, from shaving soap. Thanks to the terrible weather, few game animals were left to provide meat for the six hundred or so men in his column.
Despite all obstacles, Arnold and his tattered column finally emerged on the St. Lawrence River in Canada and prepared to assault Quebec. The British had learned of his approach, however, and were rushing reinforcements from Montreal. Clearly, he should attack right away, before the enemy became too strong. But now a major winter storm struck the area and delayed his crossing for a fateful three days. By then, the British garrison in Quebec had been greatly strengthened. He had to hold back.
Even so, Arnold had reinforcements of his own on the way—a second American column led by General Richard Montgomery, who had taken Montreal, but then lost many of his men to expired enlistments. They simply had turned for home. As
a result, he could add relatively few to Arnold’s original force. Their combined ranks, also ridden by deadly smallpox, were far inferior in number to the British force now quartered behind Quebec’s walls. The two American leaders were still resolved to attack, but they would await one necessary ally—a stormy night.
It came the evening of December 30, and the Americans attacked, but Montgomery was killed at the outset, Arnold was wounded, Montgomery’s second in command withdrew his men, and many others were captured wandering in confusion on the streets of Quebec. The attack had failed.
In the case of Arnold’s expedition into Canada, the cumulative—but obviously random—effect of severe weather was helpful to the British. But there would be much more to the Revolutionary era’s “weather story”…even if as simply a memorable, awesome phenomenon.
Item: The storm that struck New York City on August 21, 1776, the evening before the British began landing their troops on Long Island, came at sunset and lasted for three hours—a great roiling cloud that swirled round and round above the city spitting endless sheets of rain, bolts of lightning, and crashes of thunder.
Best Little Stories from the American Revolution Page 15