Washington

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  Washington was justified in looking now to Philadelphia instead of to Williamsburg. The hours of the last days before departure were eaten up by visitors. Among others, came Washington’s long-time friend, Horatio Gates, who had commanded an Independent Company in Braddock’s expedition. Gates now was a half-pay Major, residing in Berkeley County, and was wondering, no doubt, what place, if war came, he could find in the armed forces of the Colonies whose cause he had resolved to espouse. On May 3, while Gates still was at Mount Vernon, Richard Henry Lee arrived with his brother Thomas Ludwell Lee and Charles Carter. The parlors in the evening were a rostrum for much discourse on the part of the two Lees, Carter and Gates. As host, Washington listened and, when he had observations, made them briefly. Perhaps, when the guests had gone to their rooms, and Washington was alone with Martha, there was some of the sadness of farewell, but optimism had the upper hand of grief: it was only another visit, unpleasantly long, perhaps, though in a pleasant city. When the Congress adjourned, he would come back—unless that affair at Concord and Lexington, that bloody clash of Colonials and ministerial troops, meant war. Even in that event, one campaign would decide whether Britain would recognize the rights of the Colonials or would suppress the uprising and punish the leaders. Should the darker fate be America’s, then there would be a refuge on those frontier lands Washington was trying to save.

  Washington rode off from Mount Vernon with his colleagues on May 4. The next day he reached Baltimore, where he was invited to review on the sixth the volunteer companies. There was significance in the invitation. For ten years and more Washington had been welcomed as a wealthy planter who had been a conspicuous Colonial soldier. Now the scale of values was tipped the other way: he was one of the few experienced military officers in the Colonies and, by chance, a man of high financial standing.

  When Colonel Washington and a number of other Virginians were within six miles of Philadelphia on May 9, they met a party of horsemen later reckoned at five hundred. These were officers of the military companies, together with leading citizens, who had come out to welcome the Delegates. Guests and hosts rode four miles towards the city and there found a band and an escort of foot and riflemen. From that point onward, the column was a parade. The spirit of almost everything seemed encouragingly different from the opening of the Congress of 1774. Most of the suspicious rivalry of the previous year had been dissipated by the volleys on the Concord Road.

  Where that temper prevailed, no time was lost in organization. On the tenth, the Delegates met in the Pennsylvania State House, re-elected Peyton Randolph President and, on the eleventh, ordered the doors closed for deliberations that were to remain secret until a majority voted otherwise. Procedure was smooth; papers were submitted to the Congress as if it were an established parliament. In the mass of communications, the one that meant most was from Dr. Joseph Warren, acting President of the “Provincial Congress” of Massachusetts. “We have . . . passed,” he wrote, “an unanimous resolve for thirteen thousand, six hundred men, to be forthwith raised by this Colony; and proposals are made by us to the Congress of New Hampshire, and governments of Rhode Island and Connecticut Colonies for furnishing men in the same proportion.” Thirteen thousand from Massachusetts alone! Warren justified the number with sound military logic: “. . . We beg leave to suggest,” he wrote, “that a powerful army, on the side of America, hath been considered by [Massachusetts] as the only mean left to stem the rapid progress of a tyrannical ministry.” Clearly he saw: “Without a force, superior to our enemies, we must reasonably expect to become the victims of their relentless fury: With such a force we may still have hopes of seeing an immediate end put to the inhuman ravages of mercenary troops in America. . . .” In the very hour of the conception of an American army, he had laid down the germinating ideal—superiority of force.

  The first application of military policy by Congress came during the opening week of the session, in answer to an inquiry by New York: British troops were en route to the city at the mouth of the Hudson: what should American sympathizers do? The decision of Congress was that so long as the Redcoats remained in their barracks, they should be left alone, but if the British constructed fortifications, committed hostilities, or invaded private property, they must be resisted. This raised a question in answering one: If that was the policy for New York City, what of the Colony? To aid in deciding this, Washington received his initial assignment. He was named to head a group that included Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Thomas Lynch of South Carolina, and all the New York Delegates.

  Patrick Henry arrived on the seventeenth or early on the eighteenth and gave details of occurrences regarding which the Virginia Delegates already had a variety of rumors. Word of the fighting at Lexington and Concord had reached Henry and his neighbors ahead of information concerning Randolph’s letter to the troops at Fredericksburg. The wrath of Henry already had been aroused by the seizure of the powder at Williamsburg; this intelligence of a British march to purloin the supplies of the Massachusetts people convinced him that the Ministry was proceeding swiftly and systematically to destroy the Colonials’ means of defence. Outraged, the orator sent for the Hanover County Committee and had the commanding officer order the volunteer company to assemble at Newcastle on May 2. Henry proposed that they make reprisal in an amount large enough to purchase as much powder as Dunmore had seized. The crowd shouted its approval. Capt. Samuel Meredith, the company commander, resigned his commission so that Henry might exercise full authority. Henry thereupon had the Committee pass a resolution for the detachment of a party of seventeen to proceed to the home of Receiver-General Richard Corbin, and demand the money. If it was not forthcoming, the detachment was to seize Corbin and bring him to Henry who would be moving meantime towards Williamsburg with the remainder of the company.

  Corbin chanced to be in Williamsburg, but when news reached the town that Henry had demanded payment for the powder and was marching on the capital, the Governor arranged that a bill of exchange for £330, the estimated value of the powder, be sent in Corbin’s name to Henry. The leader of the expedition triumphantly receipted for the money, which he said he would turn over to the Virginia Delegates in Philadelphia, to be laid out in powder. Then, after conference and assurances that all was quiet in Williamsburg, the men of Hanover marched home again.

  Washington temporarily could dismiss his concern for his own Colony and could devote his mind to his committee assignment, which had new importance because of surprising news from upper New York. On May 10 a loose organization of Colonials had overrun Fort Ticonderoga at the northern end of Lake George. If that site or Crown Point or even the southern end of Lake George could be held, the British route between Canada and the waters around New York City would be blocked. That possibility was of first importance to Washington and his committee in their study of the defence of the Colony of New York; but the daring of the plan for the seizure of Ticonderoga and the boldness of the execution startled Congress. Colonials had assumed the offensive. With such information as could be supplied by the messenger from Ticonderoga, Washington and his committee finished their report in time to submit it May 19. Randolph left on May 24 to attend the session of the Virginia General Assembly that Dunmore at length had called. In his place, John Hancock, of Massachusetts, was named unanimously to preside over the Congress. It was under Hancock’s rulings, that the committee’s report concerning the defence of New York was approved May 25.

  No sooner had Washington discharged this duty than he received more formidable assignment—the chairmanship of a committee of six, “to consider ways and means to supply these Colonies with ammunition and military stores and to report immediately.” With him were to work Philip Schuyler, Thomas Mifflin, Silas Deane, Lewis Morris and Samuel Adams. The committee proceeded to confer, but little could be done immediately except to recommend that the Colonies collect the supplies already in America and that they undertake to manufacture gunpowder where practicable.

  Washington continued to
vote with the majority of the Delegates for all measures that looked to a reconciliation, but he had no faith in the success of any of them. As he fashioned plans and read reports, his soldierly impulses rose. He had brought with him from Mount Vernon a uniform he had worn in the French and Indian War—and now he was wearing it daily, as if to signify to his fellow-Delegates that he believed the time had come to take the field. He scrutinized all the accounts he could get of the fighting at Concord and Lexington and found encouragement in them. Gratifying as it was to know that Americans could and would fight, the tragedy of fraternal conflict oppressed him. He wrote: “Unhappy it is, though, to reflect that a brother’s sword has been sheathed in a brother’s breast and that the once-happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?”

  On June 2 Congress had before it this puzzling question from Massachusetts: What should the Colony do about the establishment of civil authority, which had, in effect, been suspended? To their own inquiry on this subject, leaders of the Bay Colony added counsel: “As the Army now collecting from different Colonies is for the general defence of the right of America, we would beg leave to suggest to your consideration the propriety of taking the regulation and general direction of it, that the operations may more effectually answer the purposes designated.” Still again, money was demanded for everything the Congress undertook. On June 3, therefore, Congress voted to appoint a committee to estimate the funds that had to be raised. That Congress had not yet acted on the report Washington and his colleagues had filed June 1 on procuring ammunition and military stores did not excuse him from additional service; he was named to this new committee.

  There was zeal; there were endless proposals for advancing the American cause; so much was urged on the floor or asked in letters from the Colonies that members doubtless became confused. When they took up proposals for active defensive preparation, they could do little so long as they were uncertain whether differences were to be reconciled or a struggle for independence had to be faced. Cruel tasks multiplied and difficulties piled up hourly. The best minds, after hardest effort, could suggest little that was genuinely useful. Confidence was changing to discouragement, but spirit shone in the resolution Congress adopted June 12 for the observance of a fast day July 20. The Congress incorporated a firm assertion of the “just rights and privileges of the Colonies”; and two days later authorized the raising in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia of a total of ten companies to march to Boston.

  The next decision had been shaping itself for days, perhaps for two weeks, because imagination, as always, outran action. In the paper for raising the ten companies it was specified that when these troops reached Boston they should be employed as light infantry “under the command of the chief officer in that army.” A leader of ability and character must be commissioned in the name of the United Colonies and must be sent to Boston to take command of troops paid and fed by “the continent” and reenforced promptly with volunteers from every province. Such a leader must personify the unity of Americans, their character, their resolution, their devotion to the principles of liberty. Perhaps a majority of the New Englanders favored the selection of Artemas Ward, Commander-in-Chief of the Massachusetts troops in front of Boston, or some other of several general officers familiar with their own region. John Adams, increasingly the spokesman of the best judgment of Massachusetts, thought it politic to name a man from a different part of America. Elbridge Gerry and Joseph Warren favored Charles Lee. If he was unacceptable because he had not been born in America, they looked with favor on “the beloved Colonel Washington.”

  Washington had known for days that he was being advocated by some Delegates. One after another had told him, in effect, “You are the man.” Every such expression alarmed and depressed him. His reluctance was manifest to his colleagues. He did not once “insinuate”—the verb was his—that he wished the command, and he did his utmost to restrain his friends from advocating his election, but, now, he had Edmund Pendleton draft a will for him; and in his letters to Martha, he avoided any mention of the probable time of his home-coming. As the middle of June approached he began to feel that destiny, and nothing less than destiny, was shaping his course.

  Washington went to the Congress on the fourteenth and listened to discussion of the number and type of troops that should be raised. At length John Adams rose. Adams was a convinced advocate of separation from Great Britain, but his reputation as a revolutionary did not weaken his position as the most influential representative of New England. He proceeded now to show the need of action to save the army in front of Boston. The Colonial forces, Adams argued, must have heartening evidence that the whole of British North America was behind them; this could best be done by placing the army under the direction of a man who represented the Congress and the continent. For his part, Adams went on, he did not hesitate to say that he had one person in mind, one only. At the words Hancock showed manifest pleasure, as if certain Adams was about to call his name. Washington, fearing otherwise, felt embarrassment creep over him. Adams did not prolong the suspense: The commander he had in mind, he said, was a gentleman from Virginia. On the instant Hancock’s expression changed: his disappointment was beyond concealment. Adams went straight on: he referred, he said, to one whose skill and experience as an officer, whose independent fortune. . . . With that, Washington bolted for the adjoining library: Adams could be talking of no other than of him.

  He went out; he stayed out; but after adjournment, he of course was told what happened. Mild dissent was immediate, though not general. Several members reasserted the familiar argument that as the whole of the army came from New England and had succeeded in confining the British in Boston, the men were entitled to a general of their own. In this view, Edmund Pendleton concurred. All who expressed this opinion were careful to state that their objection was not to Washington personally. The debate ended that day without any decision, but now that Washington’s name had been proposed, those who advocated him did not hesitate in seeking to convert friends. Southerners who cherished regional pride but had deferred to New England needed to hear no other argument than that the choice of Washington would be acceptable to Massachusetts and Connecticut; men from the threatened Colonies had no answer to those of their neighbors who told them the election of Washington was expedient because it would assure full Southern support of the struggle against the British. No advocate of Washington’s preferment showed any disposition at the outset to attribute superlative military qualities to him. Expediency prevailed even where the impression of Washington’s martial ability did not convince some of the members that he was preeminently the man to head the Army. Within a few hours after Adams spoke, the opposition to Washington evaporated.

  When the discussion was resumed on June 15, everything pointed to the selection of Washington. He stayed away and knew nothing of the deliberations until, about dinner time, the Delegates left the hall and, as they met him, greeted him as “General,” and told him how, when the Committee of the Whole finished its debate and went through the formality of reporting, Congress resolved “that a General be appointed to command all the continental forces, raised, or to be raised, for the defence of American liberty.” Then Thomas Johnson of Maryland rose and proposed Washington. No other name was put forward; election was unanimous; adjournment followed almost immediately.

  Washington was overwhelmed, but he did not have time to think at length of the immense task he had taken upon himself. He had to attend a meeting of the committee to draft regulations for the government of the Army. Opportunity had to be found, also, for the preparation of a reply to the formal notification he was to expect the next day. In this he had the aid of Pendleton, but he doubtless specified that Pendleton make it plain he did not seek the command and did not feel qualified for it. Washington wanted it understood, also, that he did not accept the position for the pay of five hundred dollars a month that Con
gress had attached. Were he to take the salary, critics would say he wanted to make money rather than to serve his country. If he waived all pay and failed later, he could not be accused of having acted from mercenary motives, and, if he won, he would have the warmer praise and gratitude because he had no monetary compensation.

  The next day Hancock had recovered somewhat from his disappointment over failure to receive the command, and he solemnly began: The President had the order of Congress to inform George Washington, Esq., of the unanimous vote in choosing him to be General and Commander-in-Chief of the forces raised and to be raised in defence of American liberty. The Congress hoped the gentleman would accept. Washington bowed, took out the paper and read his acceptance.

  Congress agreed to name a committee to draft a commission and formal instructions for the General and then, after some discussion of Indian relations in New York, decided that it later would choose two major generals, five brigadiers and various staff officers whose pay was fixed forthwith. The next day, Washington’s commission was reported by the committee—Richard Henry Lee, Edward Rutledge and John Adams. The paper ran in the name of “The Delegates of the United Colonies,” each of which was specified. It proceeded to assign him the command of all the forces for the defence of American liberty and for repelling invasion; “and you are hereby vested with full power and authority to act as you shall think for the good and welfare of the service.” Obedience and diligence were enjoined on Washington’s subordinates; he was himself exhorted to “cause discipline and order to be observed in the army,” to see that the soldiers were exercised, and to provide them “with all convenient necessities.” When Congress approved this document, the members unanimously declared that “they [would] maintain and assist him, and adhere to him, the said George Washington, Esq., with their lives and fortunes in the same cause.” All this was as well done as the members knew how to do it and it could not be otherwise than acceptable to Washington. If his experience as a soldier made him realize that it would be difficult for a committee of Congress to direct a military campaign, his common sense told him there was at the time no source of authority other than Congress, which had to act through committees. In the best of circumstances, with the wisest of committees, the morrow of the contingency of war would be dark, dark, dark! Washington knew that and he agonized over it. As he talked with Patrick Henry of his lack of training, the new General had tears in his eyes. “Remember, Mr. Henry,” he said, “what I now tell you: from the day I enter upon the command of the American armies, I date my fall, and the ruin of my reputation.”