Washington

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  The nearer puzzle of British strategy continued to irritate and baffle the American commander. He had to confess: “I am every day more and more at a loss.” Knox complained: “we cannot draw a conclusion of what will be done by what [the British] ought to do, for they often act directly against their own interest.” Washington had thought Clinton and Howe might have been waiting on the result of the Peace Commissioners’ efforts but when the failure of that venture was manifest, the armed forces of King George still nodded by their campfires or looked vacantly from portholes. In disgust Washington wrote of his adversaries: “They are indecisive and foolish.”

  Still another puzzle now was added to the mystery: D’Estaing left Nantasket Road with his entire fleet on November 4 and gave Washington not even a hint of his plans or objective. When Washington learned the French fleet had left Boston, he could do no better than guess that it might call at Newport and assuredly would proceed to the shifted scene of international war, the West Indies. British seapower again might be uncontested in the waters of New York and New England, but it now was November. A British General who had done little since July was not apt to send out his columns to shiver in the wind. With no special misgiving, Washington put the American infantry in winter quarters at Danbury, Connecticut; West Point, New York; and Middlebrook, New Jersey, with the relative size of each station determined by the availability of supply and the strength of nearby garrisons. To find forage, the cavalry had to be dispersed all the way from Durham, Connecticut, to Winchester, Virginia.

  Washington decided to establish his own Headquarters at Middle-brook, and on November 28 left for his new station with the intention of examining en route the progress of work at West Point. He stopped at Elizabeth, New Jersey, in order to see Stirling and while there received an alarming report on December 4 that fifty-two British vessels were sailing up the Hudson. This started him toward Paramus, but news that the enemy had turned downstream again permitted him to resume the march to Middlebrook, where he arrived December 11. Headquarters were opened four miles from the village.

  Conditions were incredibly different from those that had existed when the half-frozen Army had halted at Valley Forge. Provisioning now was easier, because the troops were divided. There was even greater difference in clothing, shoes and blankets. “Hutting” progressed steadily but so slowly that many men remained in tents for long weeks.

  The news most frequently discussed while the huts were being raised at Middlebrook was that of final action in the case of Charles Lee. After one or two false starts, the Delegates on October 23 began intermittent discussion of the court-martial findings in circumstances that showed Lee high in the estimation of some members of Congress and still confident of acquittal. He figured in two sensations during the first week of December. One of these was a challenge to a duel with Steuben, who was satisfied when given assurance that Lee had not meant to reflect on him during the court-martial. The other was an article Lee printed in the Pennsylvania Packet under the heading “General Lee’s Vindiction to the Public.” Indirectly the paper was an exposé of the defeats Washington had sustained, but it failed to influence Congress. The Delegates voted December 5, six States to two, that the sentence of the court be executed.

  Men still were discussing the case when Washington received a summons to Philadelphia for consideration of plans for the campaign of 1779. He quickly turned over command to Stirling and left Middlebrook December 21. In Philadelphia, Martha gave warm welcome, but an unpleasant number of changes had occurred: Henry Laurens had resigned as President of Congress, and John Jay had succeeded him; the Board of War was undergoing another reorganization; John Laurens had challenged and shot Lee seriously but not fatally in a duel provoked by the article in the Packet, which the young aide had felt that Washington could not resent in terms of “the code”; Mifflin was under accusation of negligence or worse because one of his deputies was alleged to have used public wagons for the transportation of private property in what appeared to be formal trade.

  The reception accorded Washington had about it no echo of any unpleasantness. Everything was done with deference and with the fullest honor on the floor of Congress, at the committee table, and in the city. Almost every night he was guest at an elaborate dinner, where he met friends of long acquaintance and officers who had come to Philadelphia on business or on leave. He was the more heavily committed to this pretense of gaiety because he and Martha were lodged at the Laurens residence, in front of which, so to say, half the carriages of the town drew up, and he was scandalized by the “idleness and dissipation” he observed. Conditions in general were vastly better at the year’s end than they had been twelve months previously, but Washington encountered one progressively unpleasant surprise: The quality of Delegates to Congress manifestly was declining. The strong men and the wise were fewer in number.

  Washington had prepared carefully the subjects he wanted Congress to review and now, day after day, he discussed them with the committee named for that purpose. His approach was to the fundamental, “the great impediment to all vigorous measures in the state of our currency.” Lack of money made defensive strategy almost the sole military policy America could pursue, except perhaps for operations to stop Indian outrages on the frontier of New York and Pennsylvania. The Army must be strengthened by vigorous recruiting and the reenlistment of men for the duration of the war, even if a substantial bounty was necessary. Officers must receive better allowances, more consideration and, on retirement, half pay for life rather than for seven years.

  Washington got little of what he sought for the better defence of the country. Congress authorized the General to offer such additional bounty as he thought proper, not exceeding $200 each to qualified new soldiers and veterans who would reenter the service for the remainder of the war. Washington received orders “to superintend and direct the military operations in all the departments in these States,” subject to the general orders of Congress. Nearly everything else that Washington advocated for the campaign of 1779 was deferred through indolence and suspicion or lost in the mangle of administrative detail.

  Several military decisions of importance were made, some with the approval of Congress and some on Washington’s own account—to abandon the joint operation against Canada, to attack Staten Island if conditions were favorable, to forego an attempt to burn British shipping at St. John on Richelieu River, and to proceed with plans against the Six Nations. More immediate was the conclusion, by January 28, that the British had landed on December 27, 1778, a considerable force in Georgia and had defeated the few troops General Howe had assembled for the defence of the southernmost State. Savannah had been occupied by the enemy; Howe had been compelled to cross the river and, in effect, abandon Georgia to the invaders; Benjamin Lincoln wrote courageously of reentering the state as soon as he had sufficient force, but he said he had been told he could expect seven thousand men, exclusive of militia, and actually had fourteen hundred. Washington did not believe the enemy would gain anything in Georgia except provisions; at the same time he could not disregard the anxiety of Delegates from the southern States. Help had to be given: whence was it to come?

  That question was the companion of Washington every hour. By the end of January he had discussed all phases of it with Congress, discharged his social obligations and given hours of his time to Charles Willson Peale, whom the Executive Council of Pennsylvania had commissioned to paint his portrait. With this under the artist’s finishing brush and all other duties done, Washington procured the Delegates’ approval and set out for camp on February 2. He was in deep depression of spirits over the plight of the currency, the wrath of factions and the divisions in Congress. Burdened in heart, Washington reestablished himself at his former station and undertook to answer the questions which he brought back with him from Philadelphia and those he found at camp.

  First, what could be done to keep the British from overrunning South Carolina? His answer was to send Pulaski’s troopers there. Further aid
must depend on Virginia and North Carolina.

  The second question arose, in part, from the first: If the main Army could do little for itself and less for Lincoln, what assistance could be expected from allies? The term was plural, because there was a flurry of hope that Spain would enter on the side of America; to say nothing of rumors of British readiness to make peace; but Washington applied the question primarily to the French: How would they help? The American had no answer until late April when Minister Conrad Alexandre Gérard and Don Juan de Miralles, the unofficial Spanish agent, came to camp. Washington had been told he might expect from Gérard some “very important information.” This proved to be a highly confidential announcement that d’Estaing was to come to the mouth of the Delaware and then might proceed to the conquest of Halifax and Newfoundland. The Admiral wished to know whether America could garrison these posts, if seized. Washington replied that he could not use militia to hold the northern posts, because these temporary troops could not be trusted. He would be compelled to employ Continentals. To detach them from the feeble main Army would be to take the risk the British would overrun the middle States. Serious as this might prove, Washington would consider the possibility of such an expedition as his French colleague had in mind, provided d’Estaing had definite naval superiority over the enemy. A better plan might be the muster of all forces, land and naval, American and French, for the defeat of the British in New York and on Rhode Island. In event d’Estaing did not have superiority of force, the Admiral should assist in the liberation of Georgia and then, perhaps, he could operate against New York. Would the French fleet be more powerful than the British? Guarantee of that had to be given before Washington could make the heavy outlay for a concentration. When Gérard could give no such assurance, the alternative of French aid in the Georgia campaign was developed.

  That possibility raised the third question: If the French might come to the coast after a successful campaign in the South, was it wise to detach an expedition to the New York-Pennsylvania frontier? Congress left the question to Washington who decided to proceed. His aim was to throw a superior force into the country of the Six Nations on both sides of the boundary between New York and Pennsylvania. Over the plans for this expedition, Washington labored day after day, and when Gates declined the command he gave it to Sullivan.

  During the whole time that he was working his way out of these tangles Washington had to deal with discontent among his senior officers. Schuyler resigned as Major General and felt that Washington believed him justified in doing so; Heath was anxious to be employed actively again; Greene complained that Congress was doling out money for the Quartermaster Department in an amount “no more equal to our wants than a sprat in a whale’s belly”; Wayne’s high spirit was rankled by slurs of Lee whom he resolved to challenge to a duel; whether Mifflin could be court-martialed after Congress at length accepted his resignation was an issue of many legal thorns; Putnam, in charge of New England winter quarters, was anxious to go home; several other Generals were in distress of one sort or another.

  In dealing with most of these officers, Washington had both patience and understanding and was sufficiently experienced to administer the medicine each man needed. Many other individuals were holding reluctantly to their commissions, when every month’s service cost them part of the capital they had possessed in 1775. To Washington “the discontents and distresses of the officers” were symptoms of a most dangerous disorder. Congress’ refusal even to consider half-pay for life and the endless contention in the Army over rank and seniority kept scores of Washington’s subordinates seething.

  Washington received under date of April 6 a letter in which John Jay enclosed an extract from a communication Gates had addressed to Congress. Gates had written of the various lines of advance into Canada and had referred to an exchange in which Washington had expressed disagreement with his opinion. The commander of the Eastern Department observed: “This being the only letter I have received from his Excellency since December, Congress will immediately judge of the extent or limitation which it is proper to observe in their instructions to me.” This seemed to Washington to be an effort to “prejudice” him “in the public esteem,” and as such it was blasted in a long reply which was devastating in detail and accompanied by exhibits of letters that went back as far as the Conway cabal. The finished letter did not leave Gates much reputation either for strategy or for courtesy, but it might well have puzzled the man to whom it was sent. Was it necessary to employ 3500 words in order to demonstrate that Washington’s dislike of Gates was justified and as deep-seated as Gates’s bias against his Commander-in-Chief? In relation to the American cause, this incident made it plain that the longer the mileage between the two Generals, the better the service each of them could render.

  During the winter the enemy in New York had disturbed the Americans by nothing more serious than a demonstration against Elizabeth, New Jersey, February 25 and a simultaneous futile movement by Governor Tryon to Horseneck, Connecticut. During March and April some mysterious concentration of shipping had been observed; for a few days a maritime raid on New London seemed certain; but scares and alarms died away for a time. Washington could not believe the enemy would remain inactive long after May 1 and told his subordinates again and again they must have all in order by that date.

  When May came with magazines unready, ranks thin and the country as negligent and greedy as ever, Washington was depressed, wrathful and alarmed in every nerve. His observation the previous month had been: “It is a melancholy thing to see such a decay of public virtue, and the fairest prospects overcast and clouded by a host of infamous harpies who, to acquire a little pelf, would involve this great continent in inextricable ruin.” Now his warning was that unless leaders in the States bestirred themselves “our affairs are irretrievably lost.” He never had seen a time, he said, when, in his opinion, the issues of independence “were at so low an ebb.”

  Danger was created to be overcome. That was the creed of Washington. He was ready, now as always, to apply it. On May 31 he gave Sullivan final instructions, and he read with steady eye dispatches that told for the first time of a British advance to White Plains. St. Clair must proceed at once to Pompton; another division temporarily under Woodford must follow. Then, on June 2, came word that the enemy had landed at King’s Ferry, which linked Stony Point on the west side of the Hudson with Verplanck’s Point on the east. From Stony Point the distance by road to West Point was barely twelve miles, but King’s Ferry itself was a position of prime strategic value; it was the easiest crossing of the lowest stretch of the Hudson on which it was safe for American barges to operate.

  No defences of any strength had been constructed at Stony Point. At Verplanck’s a small post, styled Fort Lafayette, had been erected and garrisoned with a few score men. An adversary who had warships and transports in sufficient number could reach and occupy King’s Ferry by a rapid movement whenever wind and tide favored. The important duty of the American commander was, if possible, to save Fort Lafayette and, afterward, at almost any price, keep West Point from falling into hostile hands. The Virginia Division consequently was ordered to follow St. Clair immediately; the Maryland troops were put on the alert to move on June 3.

  That day brought bad news: The enemy was throwing up earthworks at King’s Ferry; St. Clair wrote that Fort Lafayette had surrendered and that the intelligence forecast an advance by the enemy on West Point. Kosciuszko’s defences of the Hudson citadel had been declared by Duportail feeble and incomplete; the loss of the post would be a calamity that might wreck the American cause. The whole Army must march. “Appearances,” said Washington, “grow more and more serious.”

  In the first stage of the advance from New Jersey to the Hudson, though the spirit of the Army was high, the danger of a shortage of provisions seemed so acute that Washington had to threaten seizure. Fortunately, by a reversal of usual conditions, the supply at West Point was found to be larger than had been assumed and, in general,
the service of the Commissary was improved. By June 5 Washington had reached Ring-wood Iron Works. The British had occupied Verplanck’s Point, had closed King’s Ferry to the Americans, and had begun to fortify the western bluff, Stony Point, as if they intended to remain there. Washington himself had not attempted to garrison and hold permanently the high ground on the right bank, because he had not felt he could spare troops for that purpose; Verplanck’s, in turn, had been allotted little more than a nominal force. These considerations did not lessen Washington’s chagrin at the loss of Stony Point and of the convenient, much-used ferry there. He moved closer to the river and opened Headquarters near the tavern in Smith’s Clove. Washington perceived, of course, that Clinton had acted with wisdom in seizing the southern outpost of the highlands, even though the British commander was proceeding slowly and did not appear to contemplate an early attempt at West Point. After a few days, American officers could say with Gates: “[Clinton’s] delay has ruined him; he will be beat if he attempts [to take West Point] now; if he retires he will be disgraced in the eyes of his army. . . .” Clinton seemed aware of this and appeared anxious to reach a strategical compromise. The greater part of his fleet dropped down the river ere long and left the garrisons at Stony Point and Verplanck’s to fend for themselves.