Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor
Page 28
The second request, though more straightforward, had equally momentous consequences. Noting that several colonies were now organizing their own militia forces, the Massachusetts legislators asked the Continental Congress to take formal responsibility for the “regulation and general direction” of the army, by which they meant, to create a “continental army.”5
The Congress received the Massachusetts letter on June 2. Following their usual procedure, the delegates elected a committee the following day to consider the requests. That committee, consisting of John Rutledge, Thomas Johnson, John Jay, James Wilson and Richard Henry Lee, fairly represented the spectrum of opinion in the Congress concerning the most appropriate next steps to be taken to deal with the rapidly escalating crisis. Lee and Johnson were on the militant side, Jay and Wilson urged caution and John Rutledge, as was often the case, tried to occupy both sides. In this case, however, all of the committee members seemed to come together, and their recommendation, made on June 9, was promptly approved. The members of the Congress concurred in the logic of the Massachusetts provincial assembly’s letter: by altering the charter of the colony, dissolving its legislature and virtually eliminating the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, the British Parliament had acted unlawfully. Therefore, the Congress recommended that the colony’s extra-legal legislature write formal letters to the inhabitants of all of those towns entitled to representation in the assembly, requesting them to elect new representatives to a legislative body that would, under the terms of the Massachusetts Charter of 1691, have a claim to be the duly constituted assembly of the colony. The new assembly would then elect “councillers” (meaning, members of the Governor’s Council, which itself had become virtually defunct in the wake of the Massachusetts Government Act), and together the assembly and council would exercise the powers of government. The offices of governor and lieutenant governor were to be considered as vacant “until a Governor of his Majesty’s appointment will consent to govern the colony according to its charter.” In essence, the Congress had encouraged the political leaders of Massachusetts to go forward with the forming of a new government, based on the consent of the people of that colony, and not on that of the king or Parliament. While nowhere was the word “independence” mentioned, the practical implications of authorizing the creation of institutions based on a source of authority other than those of the king or Parliament, certainly led in that direction.6
While some in the colony would have preferred the stronger step of drafting a new constitution, thus declaring Massachusetts an independent state, members of Congress, in addition to being wary of any move that might be interpreted as an outright endorsement of independence, realized that the time and disputation involved in replacing the old colonial charter with a new constitution would result in an unacceptable delay in putting Massachusetts government on a solid footing. Of the Massachusetts delegates, the two Adamses are the only ones who recorded their opinions. John was reasonably content with the outcome. He grumbled a bit that “this continent is a vast, unwieldy machine,” making it impossible to “force events,” but he nevertheless believed that the Congress’s recommendation was a step in the right direction. Sam Adams, although he continued to keep a low profile, acknowledged the frustration that “Business must go slower than one would wish.”7
The decision on how Massachusetts should organize its government was the easy part. Massachusetts’s request that the Continental Congress take over the command and control of the armies of the several colonies already involved in combat with the British proved much more difficult. Clearly, the direction of events on the battlefield was making it harder for the members of Congress to evade that responsibility, but still they hesitated. Writing to the members of the Massachusetts provincial convention notifying them of their recommendation respecting the colony’s government on June 10, John Hancock equivocated, telling them that the Congress was so busy that it had been prevented from “Determining upon the other matters mention’d in your Letters to them.”8
In fact, Hancock probably knew the direction in which the Congress was heading. John Adams, once again violating his oath of secrecy, wrote Abigail, telling her, strictly confidentially, that plans were in the works to field an army of 10,000 men in Massachusetts and 5,000 in New York “at the Continental Expence.” That phrase would prove to be of crucial importance, both at that moment and in subsequent months, even years, for it meant that the Congress would take its first step not only in raising an army but also in seeking to find some way—as yet unknown—to pay for it.9
On June 14 the Congress moved in precisely the direction that Adams had suggested it would, agreeing to support 10,000 militiamen from Massachusetts and 5,000 from New York. More important, recognizing that the military conflict was not likely to be confined to Massachusetts and New York, the Congress unanimously agreed to raise ten companies of riflemen, six from Pennsylvania and two each from Maryland and Virginia. Notably, each rifleman to be enlisted in this new army was to sign a statement acknowledging that he was “voluntarily enlisted . . . as a soldier in the American continental army.”10
With that, seemingly casual phrase, “American continental army,” the Congress created the first, truly American army. It would prove to be a momentous step. At the time of its creation, the army was still viewed by many, perhaps most of the delegates, as a defensive force, not as the vehicle by which the American colonies would be the first political entities in the history of the world to fight for their independence from an imperial power. Few could have imagined that that defensive force would remain in the field for eight years of extraordinarily hardship and sacrifice. And few could have imagined that at the end of that time the existence and persistence of that army would, perhaps even more than the act of declaring independence, help forge a truly American national identity.
The next day, June 15, the Congress initiated what was probably the most important step in ensuring the success of its newly created “continental army.” Secretary Charles Thomson’s typically spare prose did not do the moment justice. The Congress first “Resolved: That a General be appointed to command all the continental forces, raised, or to be raised, for the defence of American liberty,” with the sum of $500 per month allotted “for his pay and expences.” Following that entry, Thomson wrote: “the Congress then proceeded to the choice of a general, by ballot, when George Washington, Esq. was unanimously elected.”11
George Washington, Commander-in-Chief
The decision to select George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army would be one of momentous consequence, not only for the future of the American struggle for independence, but for the very future of the colonies as a unified nation. Washington, forty-three years old at the time and a colonel in the Fairfax County, Virginia, militia, was the only man in America who could claim to have a military reputation that went beyond not merely the borders of a single colony, but, indeed, all the way across the Atlantic. During the French and Indian War, first as a lieutenant colonel and then a commander of the Virginia militia, he had proved himself a leader of uncommon bravery and coolness under fire. Although the battles in which he was engaged just as often ended in defeat as in victory, Washington always managed to come away from them with his reputation enhanced. In one of those engagements, a battle with the French near Fort Duquesne in the Ohio Country in 1754, he recorded his impression: “I heard Bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound.” That observation, which circulated widely both in America and abroad, caused even King George II to take notice of the brave and self-confident American.12
When on May 4, 1775, Washington set out for Philadelphia in his impressive chariot, guided by a coachman and a postilion (and accompanied once again by his servant Billy Lee), he had already heard news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord—he knew that America—or at least Massachusetts—was now at war. Washington had packed the blue and buff uniform of the Fairfax County, Virginia, militia in his lug
gage, and beginning sometime in late May he began to wear the uniform to sessions of the Congress. Had any other delegate to the Congress—a civilian body—turned up in full dress military uniform, his fellow delegates would have regarded it as not a merely inappropriate, but a pathetic attempt to electioneer among the delegates for the appointment of commander of a continental army that had not even yet been created. But Washington? He no doubt appeared to the delegates as entirely in character—possessing what Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush described as “so much martial dignity in his deportment that you would distinguish him to be a general and a soldier from among ten thousand people.”13
During the month between its opening session on May 10 and June 15, as the Congress transformed itself from a debating society concerned primarily with defining the limits of British power to a wartime legislature, Washington began to play a much more active role in the Congress’s business. Though he continued to remain relatively silent as a speaker in the Congress, his military experience made him an invaluable member of a large number of committees charged with the task of mobilizing American defenses.
Much has been written about the behind-the-scenes politicking that led up to the decision to select Washington as commander of the army. That there is still a perception—or misperception—that Washington faced significant competition for the post of commander of the Continental Army can be credited (or blamed) on the always voluble John Adams, who went to great lengths in his own recollections to put himself at the center of the decision-making process. If we are to believe Adams, the selection of Washington was not only not inevitable, but unlikely, and indeed, that the ultimate outcome of the decision to select Washington owed largely to Adams’s efforts.
As John Adams recollected the events of the days leading up to Washington’s selection, the effort to have Washington appointed to the post began a few days before June 15 while he and his cousin Sam were walking in the State House Yard. As they walked John unloaded all of his worries about the dire state of affairs upon his cousin, and then informed him that he intended that day to stand up in the Congress and propose the creation of a continental army with Colonel Washington in command. But, Adams further recalled, there was considerable sentiment in the Congress for appointing someone from New England to the post, for, after all, that region was bearing the brunt of the fighting. Adams also claimed that there were many delegates, both from Virginia and elsewhere, who opposed Washington’s appointment on other grounds.14
The most likely candidate from New England was Artemas Ward, who had been serving admirably as commander in chief of the Massachusetts militiamen currently fighting the British in Boston. Another candidate was a Virginian, the forty-four-year-old Charles Lee. Born in England, he had spent nearly his entire adult life as a professional soldier, or, more accurately, as a soldier of fortune. He had fought for the British army in the French and Indian War in America and had a brief stint in Portugal, but he had also fought for both the Polish and Russian armies in such faraway places as Poland and Turkey. He returned to the American colonies in 1773 and in early 1775 settled in Berkeley County, in the northwestern portion of Virginia, in what is today West Virginia. Upon hearing of the conflict at Lexington and Concord, Lee rushed to the Bay Colony to offer his services, immediately demonstrating his abilities as a brave and experienced officer.
Although Horatio Gates’s military career was perhaps not as colorful as that of Charles Lee, in other respects their lives went down similar paths. Gates had also lived most of his life in England and, like Lee, had fought valiantly in the French and Indian War wearing the British uniform. In the early 1770s, realizing that his upward advancement in the British army was being thwarted by his lack of sufficiently prestigious connections, he moved to America, and, like Lee, settled in Berkeley County. In the aftermath of Lexington and Concord, he too volunteered his services to the American cause, and, owing in part to a warm recommendation from George Washington, who had come to know him during the French and Indian War, established himself as an invaluable officer in the military conflict that was escalating in Massachusetts.
Finally, there was the president of the Congress, John Hancock, who, though his actual military experience was nonexistent, fancied himself a natural leader more than capable of carrying out the tasks of commander-in-chief. In his autobiography, John Adams expressed some doubt as to whether Hancock would actually have accepted the appointment had he been offered it, but he left no doubt that Hancock wished to be offered the appointment, if only “to have the honor of declining it.”15
Adams was convinced that it was his championing of Washington, overcoming the objections of the New Englanders and even those of a few of Washington’s fellow Virginians, that swung the balance toward Washington. In his account:
I rose in my place and in as short a Speech as the Subject would admit, represented the State of the Colonies, the Uncertainty in the Minds of the People, their great Expectations and Anxiety, the distresses of the Army, the danger of its dissolution, the difficulty of collecting another, and the probability that the British Army would take Advantage of our delays, march out of Boston, and spread desolation as far as they could go. I concluded with a Motion . . . that Congress would Adopt the Army at Cambridge and appoint a General [and] that though this was not the proper time to nominate a General, yet I had reason to believe this was a point of the greatest difficulty, [and] I had no hesitation to declare that I had but one Gentleman in my Mind for that important command, and that was a Gentleman from Virginia who was among Us, and very well known to all of Us, a Gentleman whose Skill and Experience as an Officer, whose independent fortune, great Talents, and excellent universal Character would command the Approbation of All America and unite the cordial Exertions of all the Colonies better than any other person in the Union.
Adams went on to recollect that at that point, Washington, hearing his name mentioned, discreetly slipped out of his seat in the Virginia delegation and “darted into the Library Room” in order to allow the debate to proceed freely without his presence. John Hancock’s reaction, according to Adams, was quite different: “Mortification and resentment were expressed as forcibly as his Face could exhibit them.” Adams then reported that a lengthy and acrimonious debate followed. It was only after extensive consultations “out of doors,” that those dissenting from Washington’s appointment withdrew their opposition. At that point, Thomas Johnson of Maryland formally nominated Washington, after which the Virginian was unanimously elected. The only portion of Adams’s recollection substantiated by other accounts is the last: Thomas Johnson did indeed nominate Washington, and the Virginia colonel was indeed then unanimously elected.16
If one pieces together the other accounts of the maneuverings behind Washington’s appointment, the picture that emerges is of a decision that was less acrimonious than the one described by John Adams and certainly less dependent on Adams’s politicking. While it is true that some of the New Englanders favored the appointment of Artemas Ward, they were also aware that Ward’s health was in a precarious state. They were certainly open to other candidates, though they may have continued to prefer an individual from their own region. Other New Englanders, however, realized that the appointment of someone from outside their region would help counter the still-prevalent feeling that the actions of Massachusetts alone had gotten the American colonies into the fix they were in in the first place. And though there was support in some quarters for the appointment of Charles Lee, the fact that Lee had not been born in America and seemed willing to fight for anyone who would pay him appeared to some a disadvantage.
Whatever maneuvering there may have actually been surrounding Washington’s appointment, the delegates’ reaction to the Congress’s decision was uniformly positive. Silas Deane, writing to his wife on the day of Washington’s appointment, was unrestrained in his praise of the new commander: “Our youth look up to THIS Man as a pattern to form themselves by, who Unites the bravery of the Soldier, with the mo
st consummate Modesty & Virtue.” Connecticut’s Eliphalet Dyer, who was one of those who not only wished to slow the progress toward independence but also would have preferred “one of our own” (which is to say a northerner) as commanding general, nevertheless acknowledged that Washington was “discreet & Virtuous” and “Sober, steady, and Calm.” And Robert Treat Paine, writing to break the news to Artemas Ward, whom he had favored for the post, assured Ward that Washington was “heroic & amiable,” and, as a bit of consolation, notified Ward that he had been appointed second in command.17
This sense of Washington as a man who somehow stood—literally and symbolically—above all the rest, had begun to take shape among the delegates from nearly the first day they encountered him during the First Continental Congress. The delegates immediately began to repeat the story—possibly apocryphal—that Washington had, in the weeks following passage of the Coercive Acts, volunteered to raise and support an army of 10,000 men at his own expense and march them to Boston for the defense of the people there. And although there is no record of his ever having given a significant speech in either the First or Second Continental Congresses, he had earned a reputation as a man whose actions spoke louder than words; he had supported all of the boldest recommendations in the two congresses, and his influence on other delegates out of doors—in the informal meetings of delegates in the taverns and private homes of Philadelphia—was almost certainly profound.18