Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor
Page 29
Washington never revealed whether he wanted the job. There were certainly reasons why he wouldn’t have, among them his pride of ownership of his highly successful plantation of over 8,000 acres looking majestically over the Potomac River. Although he had more than 100 slaves helping him with the cultivation of wheat and tobacco, the raising of livestock and running a small fishing enterprise, the task of keeping all of the many parts of his self-contained empire at his beloved Mount Vernon was time-consuming, and, according to Washington, immensely satisfying. Indeed, one of the most striking characteristics of nearly all of the Washington’s letters back home during the many years when he found himself away from Mount Vernon is the extent to which they focus on every detail of the operations of his plantation, from the amount of manure to be used in fertilizing his crops to the precise placement of fences on the property.
John Adams’s recollection that Washington immediately absented himself from the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House when the delegates began to discuss the matter of the commander of the army is probably accurate, for Washington, in one of his very few comments at the time of his appointment, made it clear that he had never desired the position nor made any effort in his behalf to obtain it. In letters both to his wife, Martha, and to his Virginia neighbor Burwell Bassett, he insisted that the appointment was “an honour I by no means aspired to.” Indeed, he claimed it was “an honour I wished to avoid,” both because of his “unwillingness to quit the peaceful enjoyment of my Family [and] from a through conviction of my own Incapacity & want of Experience in the conduct of so momentous a concern.” He went even further in a comment he apparently made to Patrick Henry, in which he asked his fellow Virginia delegate to “Remember 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.”19
Washington persisted in these expressions of humility in his acceptance speech to the Congress, a speech in which at the same time he expressed his gratitude at the “high honour” accorded him, he confessed his “great distress, from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important Trust.” Washington would repeat a version of this self-deprecation in virtually every important address he would give from that time forward—in countless speeches to gatherings of his officers over the course of the war, in his speech accepting the post of President of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and in both his First and Second Presidential Inaugural Addresses. At some point in his career, Washington’s consistent displays of humility assumed a ritualistic quality, an expected part of the behavior of a man whose reputation for selfless virtue and unquestioned integrity was known by all. But on this occasion, Washington’s first decisive moment on the continental stage, it was probably all the more heartfelt, and, therefore, all the more impressive to those who heard him speak.20
Organizing and Financing the Continental Army
In the two days following Washington’s appointment as commanding general, the Congress dealt with a plethora of issues relating to the further organization of the army. The delegates agreed on a pay scale for all of the officers and enlisted men in the army (a scale, which, according to the parsimonious John Adams, seemed a bit on the high side). They also recognized the man who had led the Massachusetts militia forces in resisting British assaults, appointing Artemas Ward as first major general, effectively Washington’s second in command. They also appointed Charles Lee as second major general, and Horatio Gates as brigadier and adjutant general, thus finding suitable subordinate positions for the other principal candidates for the position to which Washington had been appointed. If Washington’s appointment had been relatively noncontroversial, the decision about the rank order of his principal subordinate generals provoked considerable argument among the delegates, with both regional and purely personal jealousies getting in the way of a speedy decision. John Adams, once again ignoring the vow of secrecy, reported to Elbridge Gerry back in Massachusetts that “the natural prejudices and virtuous attachment of our countrymen to their own officers” made the decision on the rank order an especially contentious one. Adams, in spite of his New England attachments, would have preferred to see Lee appointed second in command, but such “dismal bugbears were raised,” presumably relating to Lee’s reputation as a soldier of fortune with no strong allegiances to the patriot cause, that Ward was given preference over him, an outcome that Adams reluctantly endorsed.21
Within several days of those decisions the members of Congress would decide that four generals—Washington, the ailing Artemas Ward and the two recent arrivals to Virginia—were not sufficient. Whatever the military soundness of their reasoning, the political imperative of defending the interests of their own colonies or regions caused the delegates to increase the number of major generals from two to four and of brigadier generals from four to eight. By this action, New York (Philip Schuyler) and Connecticut (Israel Putnam) could each claim a major general, Massachusetts was given three brigadier generals, Connecticut two, and New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New York each one. Although the provincial motives behind this expansion of the officers’ corps may have been dubious, the practical effect was probably beneficial, for among three original appointees, Ward would soon retire from the field due to illness, Lee would flame out in a series of controversies and Gates, though he would serve for the duration of the war, would develop a bitter rivalry with his Virginia neighbor and former patron, General Washington.22
Over the course of what would be an excruciatingly longer war than either side could have imagined, many of the subordinate officers in the Continental Army would become embroiled in predictable rivalries and quarrels. But Washington’s steadfast refusal to engage in self-promotion or self-aggrandizement would give to the army a stability and camaraderie that it might otherwise have lacked. The officer corps of the Continental Army would never be free of competition and intrigue, but Washington’s leadership certainly helped keep it under control.
The principal problems faced by the army were rooted not in the character of its leadership, but in the pathetic weakness of its finances. It was one thing to constitute an army and designate its officer corps. It was quite another to find the means of paying and equipping the army—officers and enlisted men alike—as it confronted the most powerful military force on earth.
On June 17, New York’s James Duane wrote to the provincial congress of his colony observing that since the colony “had made no progress” raising the 5,000 soldiers mandated by the Congress, troops from Connecticut would be employed in their stead. He also agreed that the provincial congress’s complaint about the “want of money” to pay troops was a valid one, and promised that the Continental Congress would soon come forward with a remedy. In fact, the Congress was already actively considering the remedy. On June 22 it announced that it was prepared to issue bills of credit in the amount of up to “two million Spanish milled dollars” to help support the escalating military effort. These bills of credit were essentially IOUs, and indeed, IOUs issued by a Congress that had no formal legal authority and no means of raising the revenue to make good on them. The second part of the Congress’s announcement revealed the source of the money—the “twelve confederated colonies” (Georgia had still not formally joined the Congress at that time) would all pledge to chip in to make sure that the bills of credit were eventually redeemed at their face value. Of course, none of those colonies had made such a pledge, and, as future events would prove, few of them would step up to meet their obligations in any way that could be considered adequate. As the historian of the Continental Congress, Edmund Cody Burnett, has written: “Congress had launched the vessel of its hope upon the uncertain sea of paper money; but through what storms the ship would pass, at what far port it would find land and in what condition, no man could foretell.” In fact, the storms would be of hurricane proportions, and their duration—seven arduous, spirit-sapping years of warfare marked by constantly shiftin
g momentum—would extend far beyond anything anyone could have imagined at the time.23
Washington Departs Amidst an Escalating War
George Washington, now General Washington, stayed in Philadelphia for another week before departing for the scene of battle in New England. Never an expansive letter-writer, he spent a good deal of time during that week writing to friends and family sharing the news of his appointment and, in what was a constantly recurring theme, expressing great uncertainty about what lay ahead of him on the “tempestuous ocean” on which he would now voyage. And, with thoughts of the dangers that he would face on that tempestuous ocean very much on his mind, he sent to his wife Martha a copy of a new will.24
There had been a good deal of business to be settled before his departure. Although he had been appointed chief general, his duties, his authority and his relationship with the raft of other generals that the Congress had appointed in the days after his own appointment still needed to be worked out. He scarcely knew the four major generals and eight brigadier generals whom the Congress had appointed in the aftermath of his own appointment. Astute observer of politics that he was, he could see that much of the rationale behind those appointments had more to do with minimizing provincial rivalries and achieving sectional balance than it did with assembling the most effective possible officer corps. Moreover, although the formal instructions issued to him by Congress on June 20 gave him authority to recruit additional soldiers “not exceeding double that of the enemy,” the Congress also made it clear that he was expected to consult with the large corps of adjutant, major and brigadier generals, forming themselves in a council of war, before making any strategic decisions about the conduct of the war. Reporting to a Congress riven by myriad regional and ideological divisions and working with a group of generals who were themselves riven by those same divisions, Washington knew that the challenges he was about to face would not be solely those on the field of battle.25
By the time this lithograph was completed in 1846, the destruction of the 90,000 pounds of tea in Boston Harbor by the “Mohawk Indians” on the night of December 16, 1773, had become a part of American legend. (National Archives)
This portrait of Samuel Adams by John Singleton Copley displays a respectable-looking gentleman, rather than the “New England fanatic” so thoroughly detested by British officials both in Boston and London. (Library of Congress)
London it was not, but the skyline of Philadelphia, as seen from the Delaware River, was unquestionably the most impressive of any city in America. (Library of Congress)
Benjamin Franklin’s confrontation with Lord Wedderburn in the “Cockpit” may have been the moment in which the American scientist and diplomat ceased to consider himself a loyal subject of the British Empire and embraced an identity as a defender of American liberty. (Courtesy of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California)
The unofficial after-hours meeting place for the delegates to the Continental Congress, Smith’s City Tavern, may have been the site of as much important business relating to America’s relationship with Great Britain as the Assembly Room of Independence Hall. (Library of Congress)
This 1776 map of Philadelphia depicts the original, symmetrical layout envisioned by the city’s founder, William Penn, as well as the intense concentration of the city’s 28,000 residents in the streets nearest the Delaware River. (Library of Congress)
Portly, prematurely balding, John Adams admitted that “By my Physical Constitution I am but an ordinary man.” But his intelligence and his passion for defending American liberty were anything but ordinary. (Independence National Historic Park)
Tall, slender, John Dickinson was, in his physical appearance and cool emotional demeanor, the polar opposite of his frequent rival, John Adams. But he was at least Adams’s equal both in intelligence and in his commitment to defending American liberty. (Independence National Historic Park)
This “backyard view” of the Pennsylvania State House, eventually to become America’s iconic Independence Hall, was in fact seen by most Philadelphians at the time as the front entrance to the building. (Library of Congress)
Philadelphia’s Carpenters’ Guild Hall would serve as the meeting place for the First Continental Congress. (Courtesy University of Pennsylvania Library, Volume 2 of Benson John Lossing’s The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution (New York: 1851–1852))
The Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses and the most respected member of one of his colony’s most prestigious families, Peyton Randolph was unanimously elected by his fellow delegates as president of the First Continental Congress. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ6-834])
Charles Thomson would serve as Secretary of the Continental Congress from its inception in September of 1774 until its replacement by the First Congress of the United States in 1789. His fervent patriotism was unquestioned; his miserable secretarial skills were perhaps equally well-recognized. (Independence National Historic Park)
When Patrick Henry arrived at the First Continental Congress he was dressed modestly in a simple gray suit of country clothing. This elegant portrait of Henry painted by Thomas Sully portrays the fiery Virginia patriot in more aristocratic garb. (Independence National Historic Park)
This sketch of Joseph Galloway perhaps unfairly depicts him as a rather sour and ill-natured fellow, but, in fact, Galloway won few friends or allies among his fellow delegates to the First Continental Congress. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-47131])
Lord Frederick North, the king’s chief minister during the six years leading to America’s independence, no doubt thought of himself as a “peacemaker,” a British statesman trying to find a way of keeping the North American colonies in the British Empire. The American people, on the other hand, tended to view him as the embodiment of all that was evil about the much-detested British ministry. (Library of Congress)
John Hancock, never lacking in self-confidence or in pride in his personal appearance, was no doubt pleased by this portrait by the artist John Singleton Copely. (Library of Congress)
This portrait of George Washington by Charles Willson Peale was painted in 1779, during the Revolutionary War. It depicts Washington at the Battle of Princeton, which took place two years earlier. (Library of Congress)
This highly stylized, and wholly mythical, depiction of a battle scene at Bunker Hill, painted in 1786 by the artist John Trumbull, is nevertheless an accurate reflection of the way in which that bloody battle was perceived in the minds of the American colonists. (Library of Congress)
The Scottish aristocrat, John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia and perhaps the most detested man in the colony. (Virginia Historical Society)
Perhaps no British sovereign, no matter how wise or politically astute, could have prevented the secession of the American colonies from the British Empire. King George III, though neither the devil nor the tyrant the Americans believed him to be, certainly did not possess either the wisdom or the political skill to avert that outcome. (Library of Congress)
Tom Paine, armed simply with his pen, would do as much as any man in America to move the “united colonies” toward independence. (Independence National Historic Park)
Charles Willson Peale painted this portrait of Thomas Jefferson in 1791 when Jefferson was Secretary of State. Peale then hung the portrait in his museum with other portraits of notable Americans. It is one of the few portraits that shows Jefferson’s natural red hair. (Independence National Historic Park)
An outspoken advocate of bold opposition to British policies from the moment he began his service in the First Continental Congress, Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee would introduce into the Congress the resolution for American independence on June 7, 1776. (Independence National Historic Park)
John Trumbull’s 1817 painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, takes many liberties with the actual events of that
day. But perhaps more than any painting in American history, it has shaped the image that most Americans have of their nation’s founding. (Library of Congress)
George Washington was not pleased with the lack of discipline shown by his troops when, on the evening of July 9, 1776, they pulled down the equestrian statue of King George III. But some practical good resulted from the effort, for the 4,000 pounds of lead in the statue were subsequently melted down to make 42,000 bullets! (Library of Congress)
Washington also tended to his personal and professional needs. He purchased five new horses and a new four-wheeled phaeton that would carry him and some in his party when he did not wish to ride on horseback. He ordered a new uniform. There being no official uniform of the Continental Army at that time, he used the design of the Fairfax Independent Company, his militia company in his home county of Fairfax, Virginia. The uniform, with its blue coat, yellow buttons, and gold epaulettes, would be featured in countless portraits of Washington from that time forward.26