Washington had to be gratified by these trends. Although silent on matters of independence, he gave every indication of having cut his ties with the parent state by the time he assumed command. Certainly his response to Common Sense, as well as to British policies since 1774, suggests that his sympathies lay with the separatists. His amicable feelings toward his “lordly masters” in London long since had vanished, while his realization had grown that foreign assistance might be crucial for American military success. And, like Paine, he knew that certain European powers would extend a helping hand only if America altered its war aims from reconciliation to independence.
George Washington, by Charles Willson Peale (1776). Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund. Washington, age forty-four, sat for Peale during his visit to Congress in 1776.
Martha Washington, by Charles Willson Peale (1776). Courtesy of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union. Martha Washington was forty-five when Peale made this painting.
Before he left Philadelphia Washington reluctantly agreed to sit once again for Charles Willson Peale, a session commissioned and paid for by sycophantic John Hancock. Martha’s portrait also was to be painted, but she refused; wan and tired from having only recently completed the ordeal of a smallpox inoculation, she was too weak to endure a protracted sitting. Rather than offend the president of Congress, George consented, but whereas in 1772 he had told Peale how he wished to be rendered, he now permitted the artist a free hand. The result was a stiff, artificial pose, fairly typical of that century, aside from the work of a more adept craftsman, someone like John Singleton Copley, for instance. With the scenes of the late siege of Boston forming a backdrop, Washington is shown with his left hand thrust inside his buff and blue waistcoat, his right arm, twisted in an awkward, affected manner, resting on a walking stick. Washington is overweight, looking every bit like a man who had just completed a tour of enforced inactivity behind a desk; his inelegant middle-age paunch endangers the buttons on his waistcoat, a noticeable double chin gropes toward his collar. His face—almost certainly drawn too long, too oval by Peale—is expressionless, characterless, betraying neither smugness nor satisfaction, neither confidence nor apprehension.39
Washington returned alone to New York immediately after Peale dismissed him. Martha stayed behind for a brief spell until she had recuperated fully, then she rejoined him at headquarters. Her trek to New York was pointless. On June 29, just a few days following her arrival, American officials glimpsed the lead ships in the British invasion armada, their great white sails and majestic, multicolored flags bobbing in the glistening waters off Long Island. One hundred and thirty-two sails were counted, all lapping into view within the space of five hours. This was it! The summer campaign at last was near. Washington did not hesitate. He indicated that Martha must leave immediately, and less than twenty-four hours after the first of the enemy’s vessels were spotted she set out by carriage on the long, weary ride back to Philadelphia, where she intended to stay pending the course of events.40
With Howe’s arrival Washington brimmed with fervor, giving every indication that he was keen for battle after a year of the tedium of headquarters. He knew that he occupied center stage in a stirring historical drama, and he gloried in it. The next few weeks would determine “whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves,” he told his soldiers. “The fate of unborn Millions” depended on his army, he continued, sounding more like Paine than himself. The choice was stark: “conquer or die. . . . The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises....” Privately, however, Washington acknowledged that he did not believe this campaign would end the war, but he did think it probably would be the turning point, for the victor here would have a decided psychological edge over his foe.41
The euphoria that Washington temporarily exuded upon the British arrival soon was buried beneath a profusion of new troubles. On an almost daily basis, reports crossed his desk that must have caused him to wonder at the capability of his army. To his considerable alarm illness spread rapidly through his legion. The new militia troops brought fevers with them, touching off an epidemic of affliction.42 But that was only the beginning of his troubles. The rate of desertion accelerated rapidly that summer, particularly after the men glimpsed the forbidding sight of the huge British fleet; week after week, with monotonous regularity, courts martial ordered thirty-nine lashes for offenders, but the punishments were as ineffective as they were repetitive.43 Men sometimes vented their frustrations and anxieties upon one another, and at times pointed sectional differences disintegrated into open fighting as men from one part of the country fought their brethren from another region. Nor were the enlisted men the sole source of his difficulties. In violation of his orders officers repeatedly led their men on pillaging forays, stealing and plundering innocent civilians, and causing Washington to express his concern that New Yorkers soon might fear the army sent to protect them more than they feared the army about to invade them.44
Washington anticipated problems with the local Tories and he was not disappointed, but when evidence was uncovered of Loyalist machinations within his own army he was mortified. An alleged Loyalist plot against Washington was discovered after an imprisoned counterfeiter grew suspicious of some of his fellow jailbirds. One of the inmates in New York City’s gaol was Sergeant Thomas Hickey, not only a Continental soldier but a member of Washington’s guard. Incarcerated for passing bogus bills, Hickey supposedly was overheard chatting with visitors about his plans to kidnap or to assassinate the general. When Hickey’s gaolmate snitched, an investigation was opened. Twenty or so presumed Tories were seized, and under heavy pressure some offered incriminating testimony against Hickey. New York buzzed with rumors of the plot. Hickey was doomed. Still in jail, that unfortunate soldier suddenly found himself charged with mutiny and sedition. In a court martial that lasted less than a morning, the defendant was confronted by a parade of frightened suspects and obsequious plea-bargaining prisoners; moreover, with a British assault imminent, some in the high command thought this the perfect opportunity to provide soldiers and civilians alike with an example of the fruits of disloyalty to America. The military tribunal found Sergeant Hickey guilty and sentenced him to death. General Washington refused to intervene. Before nearly twenty thousand spectators—most of them soldiers—Hickey was hanged. Few men ever have been convicted or put to death upon such flimsy, uncorroborated evidence. Whatever he was up to—if anything beyond passing green goods, and, in fact, he was never convicted on that charge—Hickey was the victim of a churning hysteria, a frenzy that had penetrated headquarters itself.45
Hickey soon was forgotten at headquarters, however. One ominous tiding after another seemed to be rolling in. On July 12 two British warships, a schooner, and two tenders blithely sailed up the Hudson, effortlessly gliding past the snares that Washington’s men had labored for three months to install, and easily evading the Americans’s shore batteries. Washington’s cannoneers discharged nearly two hundred rounds. More might have been attempted, but at least half the artillerists failed to heed the call to arms, some because they were too intoxicated to respond, although the poor marksmanship might suggest that some inebriated gunners did report. “I am apprehensive,” Washington wrote that afternoon. That was an understatement. He now knew full well how easily the British could cut off his withdrawal from Manhattan, for he had presumed all along that should worse come to worse he could escape across the Hudson or to the northeast via King’s Bridge. In addition, he feared that the British could now sever his communications with Albany, and thence with the army in Canada. Three weeks later Washington was jolted by still more unfavorable news. Sir Henry Clinton, with a force of three thousand men, sailed into New York harbor. His return from the South was an eventuality that Washington had not considered. With Clinton present, together with the foreign mercenaries who were expected daily, Howe would have an army of thirty thousand, not to mention the stupendous fleet t
hat would assist his every move. Washington reported 10,514 as present and fit for duty.46
On top of this portentous intelligence was a steady flow of bad news from the front in Canada. Part of the problem was Schuyler, who remained in Albany while the war was being waged far to the north; this made as much sense as if Washington had sought to direct the siege of Boston from under his rear portico at Mount Vernon. Congress was part of the problem too, for it permitted this state of affairs to continue, although the congressmen faced a predicament. The last thing Congress wished to do was offend Schuyler and his fellow New Yorkers on the eve of Britain’s invasion of that province. Schuyler aside, however, the most serious problem confronting the army in Canada—as General Lee said—was simple: the Americans lacked the manpower and the heavy artillery to win that war.47
The manpower situation only grew worse. As soon as British reinforcements arrived in the spring, Governor Carleton took the offensive. By early June the American army had been sent reeling back toward the border. Even worse, General Sullivan, whom Washington had earlier dispatched with six regiments of reinforcements, suddenly found himself to be the ranking officer. Anything but a slacker, Sullivan counterattacked. Predictably, his move failed, and with disastrous losses. By July the “lifeless” army, as Sullivan called his force, was back at Crown Point in New York, and with nothing to show for its ten-month adventure—save for the loss of perhaps thirty-five hundred or so soldiers.48
The legacy of this fruitless, ugly northern war persisted, however, even after the last shot had been fired. Almost from the moment that Sullivan had assumed command in Canada, Congress had been anxious to replace him with a more experienced officer. It was a notion with which Washington concurred, for while he found Sullivan to be “useful and Good,” a man of probity and knowledge, an “enterprizing genius” even, he also was aware of “his foibles.” These he listed as “a little tincture of vanity, and . . . an over desire of being popular, which now and then leads him into some embarrassments.” Washington favored Gates for the Canadian command, although he did not lobby for his appointment; albeit, with considerable skill Washington did use his influence to prevent Gates’s appointment as the commander in Boston, thus keeping him open for the Canadian slot. It was a masterful stroke, betraying Washington’s skill in bureaucratic infighting. Ultimately, too, he got what he wanted. In the spring Congress named Gates to the post in Canada. At the same time, General Ward was assigned the command in Boston, a site no longer near the military front.49
As early as mid-May Washington knew that the American sortie into Canada was almost over, and he dispatched no additional reinforcements to that theater. His need for troops was greater. He directed Ward to send some of the artillerymen left behind in Boston, then he issued urgent requests for state troops from Connecticut and Pennsylvania, telling the governors of those two states that “at such a time as this” he would not “scrutinize with the Terms of the Inlistment,” or with much else for that matter.50
Washington got his troops in many ways. Some served because they were conscripted, others volunteered more for the cash bounty offered by most states than because of an overzealous sense of patriotism. Some men were bamboozled into enlisting by glib clergymen and local luminaries, others were plied with alcohol by ignoble recruiters who knew that elixir was more persuasive than they ever could be. Some men volunteered to please their fathers; some joined to defy their fathers. More than one man enlisted in the hope that some village maiden would be impressed by his pluckiness. There were those who sought adventure, and there were those who indeed were stirred by patriotic fervor.51 One way or another General Washington’s army was assembled.
And then he waited. There was nothing else he could do. General Howe would decide when the war would begin in earnest.
7
Washington’s War Begins
“A Wilderness of uncertainties and Difficulty”
The “Enemy have made no movements of consequence:—They remain in the same state” as they have been in for the past month, General Washington reported to Congress in mid-August 1776. But he knew it would not be long before the blow fell. The summer was vanishing rapidly, and in a hundred days or so the British command would have to think of winter quarters.1
Washington had expected the attack for weeks. What he did not know was that General Howe had been ordered to postpone his strike until reinforcements arrived. The order had come down from the new colonial secretary, Lord George Germain, who had succeeded Dartmouth the previous autumn. A discredited former soldier (he had been convicted of disobeying orders on the battlefield during the Seven Years’ War), Germain somehow had resuscitated his career and landed this major cabinet office. One reason he got the post, perhaps, was that he shared the prime minister’s myopic view of the American rebellion. Like Lord North, Germain persisted in the belief that the great majority of colonists remained loyal to Great Britain. Get enough troops to America, they thought, and one sharp campaign ought to restore the pro-British governments to their rightful places. Thus, Germain had wheedled redcoats from various and sundry remote outposts, although the bulk of the reinforcements were to be German mercenaries, about half of whom would come from the little principality of Hessen-Kassel. The princes of that state had been in the business of hiring out their soldiers for a century; the British had been renting their services for half a century. As soon as the news of Bunker Hill reached London the government dispatched an emissary to the Continent in search of troops, and, by Christmas, Whitehall had concluded treaties that committed three German principalities to furnish seventeen thousand troops. The Hessians had agreed to contribute eight thousand of these men, and they sailed for America in the spring of 1776.2
While the Howe brothers awaited the arrival of these additional units, they exchanged their military headdress for peace bonnets. Appointed peace commissioners by the North government, the Howes had nothing new to offer. In fact, they even were constrained from negotiating until the colonists had surrendered and informally acknowledged the supremacy of Parliament. Nevertheless, the Howes were anxious to test the waters, and two days after the admiral arrived in New York—and less than forty-eight hours after the men-of-war Phoenix and Rose had glided provocatively past the American batteries and the Hudson’s chevaux-de-frise—they sought an interview with Washington. Under a flag of truce they dispatched a naval officer with their missive. Washington sent Reed to receive the gentleman.
“I have a letter, sir, from Lord Howe to Mr. Washington,” the officer said, after bowing graciously to the American adjutant.
“There is no such person in the army,” Reed replied coldly. “I cannot receive a letter for General Washington under such a direction.”
Would he at least look at the letter? Yes, said Reed. But when he saw it was addressed to “George Washington, Esq., etc., etc., etc.,” he refused to accept it for the general.
What title would be acceptable?
“You are sensible, sir, of the rank of General Washington in our Army,” Reed replied with acerbity.3
Within the week the problem of titles was resolved (the British now referred to him as “General Washington”), and the general agreed to talk with Howe’s adjutant general. Held at Knox’s headquarters on Broadway, the session was cordial, though unproductive. The British officer, who throughout the interview addressed Washington as “Excellency,” began with the remark that General and Admiral Howe wished to open negotiations toward a peace settlement. Washington countered those tidings with the news that he lacked the power to conduct such talks. He turned instead to the matter of American prisoners of war in Canada, but as it turned out the Howes lacked jurisdiction in that quarter. So after a few brief minutes the parley ended. Still, with Washington’s sanction Reed met three times later in the week with Lord Howe’s emissaries; all that came of these sessions, however, was confirmation that the British were unprepared to offer any substantive new peace proposals.4
Washington had never ex
pected much to come of such talks. Now he was confident that Britain’s failure to offer more than a pardon in exchange for a surrender would solidify public opinion behind the war effort. It was the second event within a week that had served as a morale-builder. On July 9 he learned officially of the Declaration of Independence, and that evening, while the still-hot sun beamed down, he summoned the army to the parade ground to hear the document read. Up and down the line brigades of men heard stentorian-voiced officers read Jefferson’s stirring document; then they listened as the same officers read a somber statement by the commander in chief. Independence, Washington began, “will serve as a fresh incentive to . . . act with Fidelity and Courage.” And, he cautioned, independence will depend “solely on the success of our arms.”5
Buoyed by these developments, and hoping to strike before the mercenaries arrived, Washington briefly contemplated an assault against Howe on Staten Island. Manpower shortages and a lack of naval craft soon forced him to abandon such thoughts, however. But if it was action that he hungered for, Washington knew that he would not have a long wait. Early in August, Clinton’s army returned from South Carolina, and a week later the initial batch of Hessians dropped anchor below Long Island. Now Howe’s blow could not be far away.6
When a week passed without an attack, Washington attributed Howe’s inaction to the chronically inclement weather of that August. In reality, the British had delayed their assault because nearly eight hundred of their German auxilliaries were afflicted with various ills, ranging from dysentery to fevers to scurvy, the legacy of a baneful nine-week voyage to the New World.7 These problems were not unique to Washington’s adversaries. By mid-August he was complaining of the “Sickly condition” of his own men, including an alarming number of field officers. One of the most seriously ill was Nathanael Greene, in command of the Continental troops in the Brooklyn sector; stricken by fever and nausea on August 15, he still was bedridden five days later when all signs pointed to an imminent attack, and one now almost certain to commence in the vicinity of Brooklyn. Greene had to be replaced. But by whom?
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