First of Men

by Ferling, John;

  The next day, a Saturday, Congress quickly named Artemas Ward as the first major general. That much was easy. Not only was Ward reputed to be an excellent soldier, but New England—and Ward—had to be mollified for the appointment of Washington. The remainder of the day was spent in a squabble over the next two positions, a protracted, petty, acrid quarrel, the most tortuous he had yet experienced as a congressman, John Adams told a correspondent.13 What made it worse was that no one pretended that one nominee was really better qualified than another; congressmen simply wished to have favorite sons and their friends selected. In the end, after six hours of squabbling, Washington used his influence to secure Charles Lee’s appointment as the other major general and Horatio Gates’s selection as the adjutant general. Congress then quit for the weekend, but when it returned on Monday it was no more inclined to disinterestedly choose the best men for these posts. In fact, so many names soon were in the pot that Congress sought an escape by creating more generalships. Now there were to be four major generals and eight brigadiers. But even so, four more days of debate were needed to complete the list of thirteen general officers.

  Philip Schuyler got one of the two top posts that remained. Israel Putnam of Connecticut got the other, giving New England half the major generalcies. New England also attained seven of the eight brigadier slots. The exception was Richard Montgomery, the former British officer who now resided in New York. The other brigadier generals were Seth Pomeroy, William Heath, and John Thomas—all of Massachusetts—John Sullivan from New Hampshire, Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island, and Joseph Spencer and David Wooster from Connecticut. Most had some military experience. Indeed, Pomeroy and Wooster had served in King George’s War in the 1740s. Only Greene and Sullivan had never borne arms in wartime.14

  Once these appointments were completed—and three days after his own selection—Washington finally wrote Martha of the recent epic decisions made by Congress. (And Congressman Deane thought it odd that Washington did not first return home to visit his wife before he journeyed to Boston!) Martha must have suspected that her husband would be made an officer, although she may not have been prepared for the news that he was to be the army’s commander. His letter to her was couched in a defensive, almost apologetic tone: he had not sought his new post, it had been imposed upon him by “a kind of destiny,” he began. Were he to have refused the assignment, he continued in language almost identical to that he had employed twenty years earlier in telling his mother that he planned to soldier, it would have exposed “my character to such censure as would have reflected dishonor upon myself.” He realized that this turn of events left Martha with the unpleasant prospect of living alone, and he encouraged her to move to Alexandria or to move in with the Bassetts at Eltham. Finally, he worried whether the job was not “a trust too great for my capacity,” though all that remained was to put his reliance in God, who “has heretofore preserved and been bountiful to me.”15

  Washington remained deeply troubled over Martha. He remembered how she had suffered following the death of Patsy and the loss of Jackie through matrimony. Now she was losing him as well. The next day he wrote his brother and his stepson asking each to assist her, and he suggested that it would be wise for Jackie and Nellie to return to Mount Vernon in his absence. And just before he left Philadelphia he wrote his wife a second time, a missive in which he expressed “an unalterable affection for you, which neither time or distance can change.”16

  Washington also continued to fret over his abilities, and he turned to Bur-well Bassett to pour out his misgivings. He knew his greatest shortcoming was his lack of experience, only about five years of service, all of it in command of a small force in comparison to the army besieging Boston, and most of that time he had fought Native Americans, not a professional European army. Whatever happened, Washington went on, he could promise three things—his belief in the American cause, his unwavering devotion to his responsibilities, and a wholly honest commitment to public service. He could pledge no more. He comprehended that he “now Imbarked on a tempestuous Ocean,” but he would leave for the front comforted by the realization that he had “acted to the best of my judgment,” and trusting that “some good to the common cause” would result from his actions.17

  Joseph Reed, by Charles Willson Peale (c. 1776). Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  Thomas Mifflin and his wife Sara Morris Mifflin, by John Singleton Copley (1773). Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  He could not leave Philadelphia, however, until two matters were out of the way. He had to await his orders, the document formally authorizing him to assume command. Moreover, Congress had voted him a stipend so that he might select two adjutants, a skelton staff that would partially ease the crushing work load he was about to bear. He knew from his days with the Virginia Regiment that there were not enough hours in the day for the commander in chief. Endless rounds of appointments, daily inspections, and a staggering amount of correspondence left a man with no time to think. He needed capable aides, men whom he could trust and with whom he could be comfortable, for the adjutants would be privy to his private thoughts and in attendance at confidential meetings. Washington pondered the matter for days, then he requested the services of Thomas Mifflin, his congressional colleague, and Joseph Reed, the young Philadelphian he had met the previous autumn. Each man was nine years younger than himself, each was well educated and quite experienced in Pennsylvania’s political wars. These were men whose intellectual talents were beyond doubt, whose deft political skills might help in navigating the troubled and murky—and partisan—waters that surely lay ahead.18

  Washington’s offer came out of the blue. Mifflin accepted the post immediately, but Reed hesitated. Not only did he have no military experience, but to take the position would be to abandon a lucrative law practice, his sole source of sustenance. Still, to be an amanuensis to the general was nothing short of a breathtaking opportunity, a chance to become known, to go places. It was a difficult decision, one with which he wrestled for four days before he agreed only to accompany Washington to New York; then, he said, he would make up his mind once and for all.19

  Washington agreed to those terms and, at last, a week after his selection, he was ready to head for the front. His final day in Philadelphia was a busy one. There were last-minute meetings with congressmen, consultations with this and that committee, farewells to new and old friends. Then, to add to this frantic milieu, a courier astride a weary mount galloped up before the State House with exciting news: another battle had been waged before Boston, an even more important clash than those at Lexington and Concord: the colonists, he said, had scored a great victory at a place called Bunker Hill.

  In the weeks following the clashes at Lexington and Concord, General Gage had remained inactive, bottled up in Boston by General Ward’s siege army, a force nearly seven times greater than his own. Late in May British reinforcements arrived, raising Gage’s troop strength to approximately six thousand men. But the Americans still possessed a four-to-one numerical advantage. Too weak to assault the American siege lines, Gage planned instead simply to occupy the elevated points outside Boston, the heights in Dorchester to the south, Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill in Charlestown northwest of the city. Unfortunately for the British, word of Gage’s scheme leaked out to the Americans, and on the night of June 16 General Ward seized the heights in Charlestown. American artillery now stared down on Boston and its lifeline to the homeland, the city’s harbor. Gage was in an untenable position. He had to take the hill or relinquish Boston.

  Two days after Washington was selected to replace Ward, Gage chose to assault the hill. He selected Sir William Howe, who had arrived with the British reinforcements, to lead the attack. Howe, the scion of a wealthy and influential family, had chosen a military career, and he had risen quickly, making lieutenant colonel before he was thirty. During the French and Indian War he had fought with great courage, leading the victorious assault on the Heights of
Abraham during the campaign for Quebec. Tall and with an edge of toughness, callouness even, in his countenance, he looked like a soldier. And he liked to fight, impressing some in the colonial wars with his lust for battle. Besides, he liked the masculine environment of an army, its camaraderie, adventurousness, and affable forbearance toward man’s profligacy.

  The British took Bunker Hill, but at a frightful cost. Nearly a thousand redcoat soldiers were killed or wounded in the engagement; 42 percent of the British troops who fought that day were victims, and eighty-nine British officers were casualties. Although unscathed physically, Howe too was a victim that day. Never before had he borne responsibility in an action that resulted in such catastrophic losses. Although Howe never acknowledged that he was moved one way or another by what he subsequently would call that “unhappy day,” yet he did seem to change from a daring and eager warrior to a soldier less prone to gamble with the fortunes of his men. After Bunker Hill, Howe was a man reticent to act until every ounce of intelligence had been gathered and exhaustively scrutinized, until the odds were demonstrably in his favor.20

  It was Bunker Hill’s impact on Howe that made the battle so important, for when Gage shortly thereafter was recalled by London, he was succeeded by Sir William. Thus, at perhaps the only time Britain could have won the war, the years 1775–77, a time when the Continental army still lacked military experience and before the colonists had secured foreign assistance, General Howe, now rendered irresolute and overly cautious, would be the commander of Britain’s forces in America.

  General Washington learned few of the details of Bunker Hill from the courier who dashed into Philadelphia. If anything, however, the news of the battle left him more eager than ever to set out for Massachusetts. At last, a week after his selection as commander, everything was ready. Washington had used his expense account to purchase a light phaeton and five new horses, sending his own carriage and dobbins back to Mount Vernon, and on June 23, just as the first rays of sun began to appear in the eastern sky, he was up to supervise the loading of the vehicle. Soon Reed and Mifflin arrived to accompany him, then Schuyler, and Charles Lee, who had come to the city to lobby for his own selection as a general officer, joined them as well. In the half-light of the early morning several local militia units assembled, prepared to lead the general’s entourage out of the city. Most of the congressmen had arisen to see them off too, as had several local and provincial officials.21

  The horses pranced nervously. There was an air of excitement and apprehension among the men as well, a sense that Washington’s imminent departure would symbolize the beginning of a change in America’s relationship with the mother country. When everyone was present and all the baggage was loaded, the men said their good-byes, wishing one another well. Washington joined Lee and Schuyler on horseback. A martial band struck up a jaunty tune, and the procession slowly began to rumble forward, bouncing and clattering along the cobblestones, past the still dark stores, over the empty streets, then into the gloomy countryside. The commander of the new American army at last was on his way, off to fight a foe whose chances of victory were diminished by the events on Bunker Hill, off to take command of an uncertain colonial military force.

  Rattling along in their carriages, bouncing over dust-choked roads, wearied by an oppressive June heat, Washington and his traveling mates were on the road for ten long days. When he reached the Jersey shore the general draped a purple sash over his uniform and donned a hat adorned with a vivid plume. Looking properly dashing, Washington was ferried across the Hudson River to Colonel Leonard Lispenard’s spacious estate, about a mile north of New York City. Washington paused there for dinner, leaving his escort of nearly five hundred soldiers to lounge about the host’s lawn in the hot sun.

  While dining Washington at last received definitive word on the battle at Bunker Hill. At New Brunswick, on the first day out of Philadelphia, he had run across a courier bearing ill tidings, word that contradicted the previous messages about the engagement. Now he saw a letter from James Warren, president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, which described the American victory. Ominously, however, Warren also reported that the army’s supply of powder was “by no means adequate” for waging war. Washington told the others, including the troops outside, of the great victory, then he rode into New York, through streets jammed with an excited, festive multitude. Three hours later Governor William Tryon, returning from fourteen months abroad, came ashore at the southern extremity of the island, greeted by a small crowd that included many fickle well-wishers who had cheered the American general earlier in the day.

  Washington spent only twenty-four hours in town, much of the time in conference with Schuyler. Two matters were on the commander’s mind. New York had to be safeguarded from attack by the British fleet and the royal marines who lay in the city’s harbor; before he left town Washington agreed to place General Wooster in charge of the defense of the city. In addition, Washington was concerned about Canada. Capture of the St. Lawrence River not only would be an extraordinary morale-builder and negotiating tool, it would have real military benefits. The colonists’ possession of Canada would close the back door to the colonies, preventing a British invasion from that direction; moreover, the fall of Canada might be a powerful inducement to foreign powers to assist America, should that expedient ever be required. Schuyler and his commander discussed these matters far into the night, then again the following morning, sometimes conferring privately, sometimes admitting the other officers. Forty-eight hours later Congress sanctioned what the two generals had already decided, directing Schuyler to take such steps as were necessary to prevent an invasion from Canada, and, in addition, to invade Canadian soil if that step was “not . . . disagreeable to the Canadians.”

  Before departing the city Washington appeared at a brief ceremony before the New York Provincial Congress. Speaking quietly and concisely, as was his custom, the general assured the assemblymen that the struggle with Britain was for reconciliation, and he pledged never to forget the supremacy of civilian rulers. Those rites out of the way, he set off once again, hurrying to reach a war that already was two months old. He paused only in New Rochelle, there to meet for the first time with General Wooster (and, presumably, for the first time to hear an officer complain of his rank, for Wooster had been demoted from a major general in the Connecticut militia to brigadier general in the Continental army); from there Washington proceeded to Massachusetts, along the way spending his nights in New Haven (where he reviewed a volunteer company of Yale College students), Wethersfield, Springfield, and Marlborough, before finally reaching Cambridge on July 2. Surprisingly, for an age that loved martial pageantry, Washington’s arrival to take command of the American army was accomplished without pomp. He arrived in Cambridge in the midst of a Sunday afternoon rainstorm. Only the sentries were present when the general reached the army’s lines, but one of these men hurriedly rounded up a small escort to shepherd him to his new residence, the home of the president of Harvard College.22

  General Washington soon found his accommodations to be undesirable. The college president, though shunted to a single room, was underfoot. Moreover, some of Washington’s men fretted that the house was visible from the nearby Charles River, and that it might make an inviting target for British gunboats. So after less than two weeks on campus, Washington moved to the Vassall house, a larger, more opulent mansion that had been built only fifteen years before by a wealthy merchant, a man who had remained loyal to the Crown and who earlier had fled to the safety of General Gage’s army. Washington paid £2 to have the house thoroughly cleaned, then toward mid-month he moved in, occupying a bedroom as well as a stark white chamber that he settled on for an office. A large retinue followed him. He employed two cooks, a maid and a washerwoman, four servants, and five slaves, one his long time body servant Billy Lee, who soon “married” one of the servants. Both food and beverages were consumed in abundance. The commander’s accounts indicated an expenditure of about £35 a
month for wine, including an order for over two hundred bottles for October alone.23

  The general quickly found himself inundated with work. He spent long hours with the field officers who still were present. (Two were sulking at home, incensed at their rank.) Undoubtedly in these guarded conversations Washington probed for clues to the personality and disposition of each man. What he did find was considerable rancor. Some of the displeasure was directed at Congress, which in its wisdom had elevated a subordinate (Putnam) over his former superior officer (Spencer); in addition, in three months of service inevitable petty jealousies had arisen among these men. Between coping with these matters, Washington had to inspect the fortifications that had been thrown up by the militiamen. He was not surprised to find the facilities in good order; after all, the men were mostly healthy, robust artisans and farm boys accustomed to physical labor. But to his mortification Washington learned that no one knew the precise state of the army’s manpower or its supplies. A rapid audit revealed that he had more powder than he had been led to expect, though conservation still was essential. On the other hand, instead of the twenty thousand men he thought he commanded, he found to his dismay that he had fewer than fourteen thousand troops present and fit.

  At times it must have seemed to Washington that there were too few hours in the day to meet the requirements of his job. His precious time, moreover, frequently was consumed by politicians who came pleading. (The Massachusetts Provincial Congress, for instance, sent a delegation to complain about Pomeroy and Heath outranking Thomas.) Curious civilians came too. Abigail Adams was one of the earliest visitors, and she was swept off her feet by Washington. “I was struck,” she gushed, by his ability to combine “Dignity with ease, and complacency.” The “Gentleman and Soldier look agreeably blended in him,” she added. “Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.” She also met Charles Lee during her visit to headquarters, but she was not so taken by him, characterizing the shaggy General Lee as “a careless hardy Veteran.” Lee was bowled over by her, however. He fetched his dogs—one so huge that a civilian guest swore he would have mistaken it for a bear had he seen it in the forest—and had them perform for Abigail, making one sit and shake hands with her, an act that this farm mistress probably found far less unpleasant than some historians have imagined.24