With this, he drew his commission from his uniform coat, folded the copy of his address, went forward, handed the two papers to Mifflin, stepped back, and remained on his feet. Mifflin then answered on behalf of Congress in a finely phrased tribute to Washington’s leadership and constant respect for civil authority. Thomson handed Washington a copy of the answer. Washington took it and bowed once more to the President and Delegates. Then, George Washington, Esq., walked from the chamber. A minute later, after he had stepped into an anteroom, the spectators were dismissed, and, when they had left, Congress formally adjourned. Washington thereupon reentered the place of meeting and shook hands and said good-bye to each Delegate.
Once, by desperate riding, he had covered the distance from Annapolis to Mount Vernon in a single day. That was impossible now, because of the late start, but the General and his companions pressed on. The next morning, December 24, home was the magnet that drew him—home, Martha’s embrace and the shrill, excited voices of Jack Custis’ younger children—all this a richer reward than the addresses of cities, salutes of cannon, and approving words of the President of Congress.
The morrow brought the greatest of Christmas gifts, the satisfaction of knowing that when historians asked how a seemingly hopeless revolt had ended in victory and independence, the answer would include these five factors: the persistence of a few leaders, the cost of British campaigning so far from home, the blunders and sloth of most of King George’s commanders, the valuable aid of France, and the service of Washington and the Army under him. The order and the relative value of four of those reasons might be disputed; the fifth certainly would not be adjudged the least weighty and, if justly considered, always would be presented in terms of the difficulties encountered as well as of the results achieved.
There was never a time during the entire period of hostilities when Washington possessed every essential of sustained operations. Something always had been lacking. The country was feeble in manufacturing and poorly organized to deliver what it could produce; the Continental government had not commanded full public support and had no central executive who could unify effort; Congress lacked effective power to collect troops, supplies and equipment. Direction of the Quartermaster Department and of the Commissary changed almost continuously. Financial support was based on paper which depreciated until it became worthless. Except for open revolt against Congress by some of the States, the American cause encountered every barrier which could have obstructed the road that led to independence. Short-term enlistment, inadequate clothing, scarcity of provisions, and feeble transportation kept the Army close to dissolution. Training was rendered doubly difficult because nearly all company officers were inexperienced and, at the outset, without any system of inspection.
The higher command throughout the war was uneven in ability and in willingness to subordinate personal interest to the common cause. Greene, Lafayette and Knox were all that a commander could ask, except for Greene’s single great miscalculation at Fort Washington. Wayne probably was next to these, particularly as a combat officer, but he had an element of rashness. Heath and Sullivan showed themselves moderately good administrators. Few of the other general officers were better than average, and some were petty or incompetent or both. Only recruitment and subsistence were more difficult tasks for Washington than the maintenance of a qualified, contented and cooperative command.
This feeble, changing Army with mediocre leadership and crude equipment faced troops who were admirably equipped, disciplined and trained. Numerically, the British and German forces were adequate for nearly all field operations and were supported by a navy which, until the summer of 1781, usually had full command of the sea. Washington was never able until the autumn of 1781 to assume a prolonged offensive. The American commander had not won a single major, pitched battle, prior to the coming of the French, and he had sustained numerous defeats.
In spite of hunger and defeat, its reeking rags and its valueless pay, the Continental Army was kept alive, and primarily through the efforts of its commander. When the floodwaters of calamity were at their crest, Washington’s bold action at Trenton dammed the stream of disaster. He or Greene subsequently repaired every serious hurt the enemy inflicted. Most of Washington’s lieutenants were shaken into a cooperative mood or made ashamed of their pettiness. Willing men were trained, the incompetent placed where they could do the least harm. Washington overcame some of the disadvantage of having no central executive, and he brought to troops the little that Congress could provide. When America at last had allies, he won and retained their goodwill and respect. Always he saw clearly the role of seapower. The instant he had assurance of naval superiority, he used it to effect the swift concentration that proved decisive. These were among the reasons almost all Americans believed that the leadership of Washington was one of the most powerful influences in winning a war which, without him, scarcely could have ended in complete victory, even with the aid of France.
To have described Washington’s Army is to make plain the fundamental of all the cumbering factors: Washington’s strategy had to be patiently defensive. He did not wish it to be so, and he used every power of persuasion to procure strength for an offensive that would drive the enemy from America. It was in vain he pleaded. For six years he had to adhere to enforced defensive as the only means of avoiding the danger that his feeble Army might suffer irretrievable defeat. While no condition tempted Washington to abandon his general defensive strategy until he felt able to do so, he shifted to the offensive-defensive whenever he could. He was careful to draw a line between attempting too much and doing too little. If a choice had to be made, he preferred active risk to passive ruin; he always sought the largest gain for the least gore.
In this investment of the lives of his men he usually was lucky and in nothing so fortunate as in his adversary’s lack of enterprise. With the exceptions of Cornwallis and Arnold, every senior British commander opposing Washington seemed to hold blindly to the opinion that the people of the “provinces” were erring children who could be redeemed from the wiles of rebel leaders by a combination of severity and coaxing. To outguess them, Washington sought the best strategical device and had no pride of authorship. The excellence and not the origin of a plan was decisive with him. He learned by listening as well as by observing and reflecting. During the greater part of the struggle he had to be his own chief intelligence officer, and he did so with considerable success. Always he tried to learn what was not happening as well as what was, and he frequently undertook the careful analysis, in person, of conflicting intelligence reports.
In applying tactically his strategical principles and his cumulative intelligence reports, Washington overcame his initial disadvantage of having to operate on a scale much greater than that of his experience prior to the Revolution. He made surprise his chief tactical device. Frontal assault he found too costly or too hazardous; flanking operations were beyond his numerical strength and the experience of his men; until Yorktown, he never was able to employ land and naval forces together except on a small scale and with light craft, though he gave some evidence of talent for this type of warfare. Washington displayed caution in giving battle; but when necessity or opportunity led him to engage, he usually met emergency with sound decision and swift strokes. His greatest weakness tactically appears to have been his failure to apply the doctrine of concentration in superior force at the point of contact even when he was weaker than his adversary in the larger theatre of action.
Burdensome was the word to apply to Washington’s administrative duties around the clock and through the year. Hundreds addressed to him their petitions, complaints and proposals for the country’s good. Army business was as vexatious as it was large. Commanders of other American forces looked to him; the President and various committees and members of Congress addressed him; so did several of the state governors; visitors at Headquarters were numerous; after the arrival of the French, Washington had an extensive and delicate correspondence, half mil
itary and half diplomatic, to conduct with men who used a different language; many reports had to be compiled, sometimes at length and after much inquiry and conference. For the transaction of this business as an administrator, Washington never had an adequate staff. He consequently had to rely on his personal staff, and even this he did not enlarge adequately because he disliked to increase public expense and, in addition, could not shake off his old habit of doing too much of his own paper work. The staff officers were almost without exception able; several might be described as brilliant. The aides did their utmost for their chief, but they could not relieve him of those duties that required personal study and negotiation, as, for example, his transactions with the heads of the departments of supply. Successive Quartermasters General, Commissaries General and Clothiers General in some instances were not and had not been army officers. Their position was somewhat anomalous and consequently difficult for Washington, except insofar as the individual might be disposed to cooperate. It is not easy to say how a man with his unshakable regard for civil authority could have gone further than he did in trying to save his men from hunger and cold; but the fact remains that the Army under Washington suffered from almost every physical hardship to which men could be subjected in the temperate zone. He may have been a good administrator, but with respect to supply his Army certainly was not well administered.
If this paradox denies him first rank in that sphere of military fame where he might have been expected to shine, he had administrative distinction in his dealings with officers who commanded other geographical departments. His policy was of the simplest: all that he could do to assist Gates, Sullivan, Heath or Greene, he did promptly, and he abstained consistently from the tender of strategical advice. His inborn caution would have prompted this restraint; his poor communications with distant theatres of war made the undesirable the impossible. He did not attempt to intervene where he could not be certain either of the ground or the circumstances; and he took pains to be certain he supplied the information and the guidance properly expected of him. The great triumph of Washington as an administrator was in his relations with Congress. His practice in dealing with Delegates does not appear to have been calculated. More probably it reflected innate respect for authority, desire to avoid blame for withholding information, resolution to do his utmost for the American cause, and memory of what he personally had needed in endeavoring as a lawmaker to pass intelligently on issues of moment. Washington was not involved in any serious misunderstanding with Congress, and he never lacked the support and confidence of a majority of its members, except, perhaps, for a short time in the early winter of 1777-78, when Gates’s star was at its zenith.
This, then, was the soldier, the leader, the administrator. He and his Army had lost the battles but they had won the war. His place as a captain was established in part by what he had achieved in the absolute and, still more, by what he had accomplished in terms of the forces and equipment he commanded. How had he done so much with so little?
Washington had deep and dedicated love of country, a patriotism that sprang, originally, from his belief that Americans were being denied their inherited rights, surrender of which without a struggle was unworthy of self-respecting men. As the concept of union slowly developed, he began to see that independence would establish a new empire. Combativeness and ambition hardened the steel of Washington’s patriotism. The more his country was endangered, the more firmly did he resolve to defend her to the last; the more nearly hopeless his task, the greater his ambition to discharge it. His courage and will matched his patriotism; above all, he had the courage and will to go straight on where the road was blackest.
Caution was a characteristic as marked as his courage, but it never was displayed in a manner to sap his fortitude or give the least suggestion of cowardice. When he hesitated to attack, it was because he feared the defeat of his Army might be the ruin of the American cause. Personally his caution had roots that went to the very heart of the man. He did not wish to become involved in personal disputes or to make embarrassing connections. Sound judgment seemed his very nature. He would listen to half a dozen proposals, deliberate on them, and almost certainly choose the best. It was the same with the interpretation of spies’ reports; so it was in his choice of men for a particular task whenever choice was open to him.
“Patience,” Washington said, “is a noble virtue, and, when rightly exercised, does not fail of its reward.” He exemplified his maxim and scarcely ever lost patience except in dealing with three classes—cowards, those he believed to be of habitual rascality, and, above all, those who were cheating the American people for their own profit in the life-and-death struggle for independence. He was as diligent and systematic as he was patient and, whether directing a battle or a day’s affairs, usually was calm and cheerful. Another essential element of his character was inflexible justice. Infused into every other attribute and a marked virtue in itself was unfailing regard for civil authority. Nothing offended him more than the suggestion of any sort of dictatorship. Ambition had always to yield to law. The object of war was peace. Every soldier had a supreme, compelling duty to respect the government that would guard his rights and property when independence had been won.
Most of these characteristics were the flowering of qualities Washington had shown, perhaps immaturely, by the end of the French and Indian War. Besides these, Washington had numerous lesser characteristics of which his officers spoke with puzzlement, surprise, or admiration. He displayed good will to decent men, even though he might not be prepared to accept them forthwith as friends. His consideration was equally broad. Washington disliked personal clashes and sought to avoid them. If he thought he had shown temper in dealing with an individual, he went out of his way to be sure he atoned for it. The General still had no spontaneous sense of humor and when he occasionally indulged a laugh it was over a bit of horseplay or some ludicrous harmless accident. Possessed though he was of every type of courage a man might covet, public censure was his supreme fear.
The strangest mystery of Washington’s life was his lack of affection for his mother. Added years and understanding brought no improvement in his relations with her. As a matter of filial duty he left instructions with Lund that his mother’s calls for money were to be met, but apparently he did not write her even once during the war. He who had so much magnanimity and patience in dealing with human frailty was so much like his mother, in most money matters, that he felt she had been grasping and unreasonable. A similar contrast in his nature existed between pity and grief. He always had pity. It inspired much of his charity and no little of his effort, though his pity was mingled with wrath against those responsible for human misery. Grief was different. Doubtless it was personal to him but outwardly in his attitude to it he had not changed since his youthful days when the death of his benefactor, Col. William Fairfax, brought from his pen a tribute of one clause only.
These minor characteristics of Washington were as plain to his discerning Revolutionary associates as his major virtues were. Deeper in the soul of the man there was a frontier where he set up a barrier of defence, probably because he still was not sure of his strength and weakness there, and also because the citadel of his soul lay close beyond that line. Here was the scene of more than one spiritual dispute and here the battleground of his resentments. “Personal enmity I have none, to any man,” he awkwardly wrote the Rev. Jacob Duché, when the repentant former Chaplain of Congress sought to return to the United States. Washington had wrestled with himself to achieve that goal and believed he had conquered his temper, but on occasion, he still flared up. To this same uncertain frontier of Washington’s mind his personal religion had been brought after the years of peace had led him to conform without heart searching to the practices of the church. He had believed that a God directed his path, but he had not been particularly ardent in his faith. The war convinced him that a Providence intervened to save America from ruin. Now that the war had ended and the Providence that Washington wo
uld observe was that of rain and sunshine and season and storm, not that of marches and battles, it remained for the returning soldier to see whether God became personal to him.
Another uncertainty was the effect of the adulation Washington was receiving. As a young man his modesty had been listed with his amiability as one of his most attractive qualities. His distrust in 1775 of his qualifications for supreme field command may have originated in a cautious regard for the reputation he previously had acquired, rather than in modesty, but the result was the same: it led his colleagues in Congress to believe that he did not “think more highly” of himself than he should. Within less than a year after that he was subjected to the praise of the grateful city of Boston, which expressed the wish that “future generations” might “raise the richest and most lasting monuments to the name of Washington.” He frankly liked this. Congress voted a medal; all America smiled in approval. Then, in the summer of 1776, began the grim succession of defeats and disappointments. These events certainly presented no temptation for Washington to exalt himself—and neither did they have contrary effect. There was nothing self-deprecatory about him, then or thereafter. Until after the French alliance, his behavior bespoke a belief that modest manners were an evidence of good taste proper for a gentleman. Later, the French soldiers, particularly some under Rochambeau, poured out a sort of praise for which Washington was not prepared. His admiring allies called it compliment; the British would have stamped it flattery; but it showed Washington that he already had in Europe a measure of the approbation he sought to win in America. When to this was added in 1783 the vote of an equestrian statue, the laudation of the continent, and receptions that had the spirit of triumphant entry, had they combined to turn Washington’s head? If ultimate victory and the homage of the people failed to move him, he would have been the strangest of mortals; and if he felt no pride in the completion of his task, he would have depreciated the magnitude of what had been accomplished. He did have pride, but there was at the end of the war no evidence in him of exalted self-esteem.
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