George Washington

by Stephen Brumwell

  31. Diaries, 1, pp. 321–26.

  32. Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1999), pp. 7–8.

  33. GW to Crawford, September 17, 1767, in PWC, 8, p. 28; Charles H. Ambler, George Washington and the West (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1936), p. 7.

  34. See Holton, Forced Founders, pp. 10–11; Colin G. Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America (New York, 2007), pp. 44–48.

  35. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 104.

  36. Diaries, 2, p. 289.

  37. Diaries, 2, p. 304. On the role of Guyasuta (Kiashuta) as an advocate of Indian unity, see Richard Middleton, Pontiac’s War: Its Causes, Course and Consequences (New York, 2007), pp. 35–38, 41–42; Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America, p. 32.

  38. Wright, Washington and the American Revolution, p. 49; Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 104–105.

  39. GW to Muse, January 29, 1774, in PWC, 9, pp. 460–62.

  40. Charles Coleman Sellers, Charles Willson Peale: Early Life, I (Philadelphia, 1947), p. 109.

  41. Rasmussen and Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths, p. 37; Longmore, Invention of George Washington, p. 100.

  42. Anderson, Crucible of War, pp. 643–44.

  43. GW to Dandridge, September 20, 1765, in WW, 2, pp. 425–26.

  44. GW to George Mason, April 5, 1769, in PWC, 8, pp. 177–81.

  45. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 112–13.

  46. GW to Bryan Fairfax, July 4, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 109–11.

  47. For this brief overview, see especially Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 5, 119–21, 172–73.

  48. Annual Register for 1766, cited in Sheila O’Connell, London 1753 (London, 2003), p. 177.

  49. See Alan Axelrod, Patton: A Biography (New York, 2006), p. 10.

  50. London Gazette Extraordinary, March 23, 1762; Paul David Nelson, General Horatio Gates: A Biography (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1976), pp. 34–35.

  51. See “American Strategy: Charles Lee and the Radical Alternative,” in John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (New York, 1976), pp. 137–38.

  52. “Strictures on a Pamphlet Entitled a ‘Friendly Address to All Reasonable Americans,’” in Collections of the New-York Historical Society: The Papers of Charles Lee, 4 vols. (New York, 1872–75) 1, pp. 151–66: 161–62; John Richard Alden, General Charles Lee: Traitor or Patriot? (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1951), pp. 51–53, 62–65.

  53. GW to Thomas Lewis, February 17, 1774, and to James Wood, February 20, 1774, in PWC, 9, pp. 481–83, 490.

  54. The Continental Association of October 20, 1774 is given in Peter D. G. Thomas, Revolution in America: Britain and the Colonies 1763–1776 (Cardiff, 1992), pp. 76–78.

  55. Mackenzie to GW, September 13, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 151–62; also McKenzie to GW, August 12, 1760, in PWC, 6, p. 454; GW to McKenzie, November 20, 1760, in PWC, 6, pp. 479–80; National Archives, WO 1/5, fols. 309–310: “State of the 58th Regiment of Foot When Captured by the French, July 21st 1762.”

  56. GW to Mackenzie, October 9, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 171–172.

  57. William Milnor to GW, November 29, 1774, in PWC, 10, pp. 189–98.

  58. GW to George William Fairfax, May 31, 1775, in PWC, 10, pp. 367–68.

  6: His Excellency General Washington

  1. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1961), 3, pp. 322–23. This is the only account of the debate over Washington’s appointment to command the Continental Army.

  2. Longmore, Invention of George Washington, pp. 160–62.

  3. The “Olive Branch Petition” was formally adopted by Congress on 8 July 1775. It is reprinted in Thomas, Revolution in America, pp. 83–4.

  4. Although it has been suggested that Washington attended Congress wearing his old Virginia Regiment uniform, as depicted in Peale’s 1772 portrait, the one he had recently worn as head of the Fairfax Independent Company is more likely. This outfit—dark blue, with buff breeches, waistcoat, and facings—became the model for general officers’ uniforms in the Continental Army.

  5. Rush to Thomas Ruston, October 29, 1775, in L. H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, 2 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey, 1951), 1, p. 92; Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 16, 1775, in L. H. Butterfield, ed. Adams Family Correspondence, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963–65), 1, p. 246.

  6. Address to the Continental Congress, June 16, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 1.

  7. Cited in George W. Corner, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush (Princeton, New Jersey, 1948), p. 113; GW to Martha Washington, June 18, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 3–4.

  8. Instructions from the Continental Congress, June 22, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 21–22.

  9. Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789 (New York, 1971), p. 211; see also the same author’s George Washington and the American Military Tradition (Athens, Georgia, 1985), pp. 76–77. On Wolfe’s rejection of his brigadiers’ plan at Quebec, see Stephen Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (London, 2007), pp. 249–51, 260–62.

  10. Address from the New York Provincial Congress, June 26, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 40.

  11. GW to New York Provincial Congress, June 26, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 41.

  12. Charles K. Bolton, ed., The Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York, 1774–1776 (Boston, 1902), pp. 52–53.

  13. John C. Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence (Chicago, 1980), pp. 2–4. Both men gave their testimony in old age to support their pension applications.

  14. Houlding, Fit for Service, pp. 214–15.

  15. Loftus’s medal is illustrated in 1776: The British Story of the American Revolution (London, 1976), p. 50.

  16. GW to John Augustine Washington, July 27, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 183.

  17. General Orders, Cambridge, July 4, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 54.

  18. GW to Lund Washington, August 20, and to Richard Henry Lee, August 29, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 372–73.

  19. General Orders, Cambridge, July 7, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 71–72, 74, note 1.

  20. Petition from Captain Spaulding’s company, August 10, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 285.

  21. GW to Hancock, August 31, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 390–91.

  22. General Orders, Cambridge, July 17 and August 1 and 28, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 114, 207, 371.

  23. General Orders, Cambridge, July 17 and 23, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 114–15, 158.

  24. James Thacher, Military Journal of the American Revolution (Boston, 1827), p. 33.

  25. GW to John Hancock, July 10–11, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 88–89.

  26. Thacher, Military Journal, pp. 33–34.

  27. GW to Samuel Washington, September 30, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 73. For Washington’s ownership of a rifle in the Fort Necessity campaign, see James Mackay to Washington, August 27, 1754, in PWC, 1, p. 194.

  28. Greene to GW, September 10, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 445, and note 1, pp. 445–46; also Aaron Norcross Diary, September 10, 1775, cited in John A. Ruddiman, “‘A record in the hands of thousands’: Power and Negotiation in the Orderly Books of the Continental Army,” WMQ, 67 (2010), pp. 747–74: 755–56.

  29. General Orders, Cambridge, September 11 and 13, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 449, 454–55; Proceedings of the Committee of Conference, Cambridge, October 18–24, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 195.

  30. See Trask’s testimony in Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered, pp. 408–409. This recollection is accepted as genuine by Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York, 2010), pp. 197–98. David Mccullough, 1776 (New York, 2005), p. 61, notes that while Trask’s story “may or may not be entirely reliable” it “portrays vividly the level of frustration and tension among the troops and Washington’s own pent-up anger and
exasperation.”

  31. GW to John Hancock, August 4–5, 1775, and to Nicholas Cooke, August 4, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 227, 221.

  32. GW to Gage, August 11, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 289–90.

  33. Gage to GW, August 13, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 301–302.

  34. “Royal Proclamation of Rebellion, August 23, 1775,” in Thomas, Revolution in America, pp. 86–87.

  35. See French to GW, August 15, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 311; and September 18, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 10; Thomas Seymour, Chairman, Hartford Committee of Safety, to GW, September 18, 1775, and GW to French, September 26, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 13, 47–48.

  36. GW to Hancock, September 21, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 24–30. The enlistments of the Connecticut troops actually expired on December 10. See General Orders, Cambridge, December 3, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 475.

  37. Circular to General Officers, Cambridge, September 8, 1775, and Council-of-War, Cambridge, September 11, 1775, in PWRW, 1, pp. 432–44, 450–51.

  38. Council-of-War, Cambridge, October 18, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 184; JCC, 3, p. 270.

  39. General Orders, Cambridge, September 5, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 415.

  40. See Stephen Conway, “Britain and the Revolutionary Crisis, 1763–1791,” in P. J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998), pp. 325–46: 338–39.

  41. James Wilkinson, Memoirs of My Own Times, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1816), 1, p. 29.

  42. Council-of-War, Cambridge, October 8, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 123–25; General Orders, Cambridge, November 12, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 353–55. On the question of whether the “new army,” like the old one, should utilize black manpower, it was agreed unanimously “to reject all slaves, and by a great majority to reject negroes altogether,” in PWRW, 2, p. 125.

  43. Reuben Fogg to GW, October 20, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 208; GW to the Falmouth Committee of Safety, October 24, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 225–26.

  44. GW to Reed, November 30, 1775, and to Arnold, December 5, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 463, 494.

  45. GW to Hancock, December 4 ,1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 486.

  46. Instructions to Col. Henry Knox, November 16, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 384–85.

  47. GW to Reed, November 28, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 448–49.

  48. Jonathan Trumbull Snr to GW, December 7, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 511.

  49. Lund Washington to GW, December 10, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 526–28.

  50. GW to Hancock, December 18, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 574.

  51. GW to Arnold, December 5, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 493.

  52. GW to Schuyler, December 5, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 498.

  53. GW to Reed, January 4, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 24; General Orders, Cambridge, December 30, 1775, in PWRW, 2, p. 620.

  54. General Orders, Cambridge, January 1, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 3; GW to Reed, January 4, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 24.

  55. GW to Woodford, November 10, 1775, in PWRW, 2, pp. 346–47.

  56. See Robert K. Wright, Jr., “‘Nor Is Their Standing Army to Be Despised’: The Emergence of the Continental Army as a Military Institution” in R. Hoffman and P. J. Albert, eds., Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1984), pp. 50–74: 66.

  57. Quebec veteran Captain William DeLaune noted this point inside a copy of the 6th edition of Bland’s book that Wolfe gave him in the early 1750s. See John Clarence Webster, ed., Wolfiana: A Potpourri of Facts and Fantasies, Culled from the Literature Relating to the Life of James Wolfe (privately printed, 1927), pp. 16–17. For the relevant coverage in Bland’s Treatise of Military Discipline, see pp. 133–34 of the 6th edition (London, 1746). On Bland and Washington’s other recommended titles for Woodford, see Spaulding, “Military Studies of Washington,” in American Historical Review (1924), pp. 678–79.

  58. See, for example, GW to Major General Philip Schuyler, August 20, 1775, in PWRW, 1, p. 332.

  59. Freeman, Washington, 4, p. 6.

  60. GW to Hancock, February 18, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 335.

  61. GW to Reed, February 26–March 9, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 373.

  62. Powell, ed., “Elisha Bostwick’s Memoirs,” WMQ (1949), pp. 98–99.

  63. GW to Hancock, March 7–9, 1776, in PWRW, 3, pp. 422–24.

  64. See Matthew H. Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775–1783 (Norman, Oklahoma, 2008), pp. 141, 217.

  65. GW to Hancock, March 19, 1776, in PWRW, 3, pp. 489–90.

  7: The Times that Try Men’s Souls

  1. Lee to GW, February 19, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 340.

  2. GW to Lee, March 14, 1776, in PWRW, 3, p. 468.

  3. Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783 (1964; repr. Lincoln, Nebraska, 1993), pp. 39–40, 61–62.

  4. GW to John Augustine Washington, May 31–June 4, 1776, in PWRW, 4, p. 412.

  5. Wright, Washington and the American Revolution, p. 104; GW to Howe, in PWRW, 2, p. 576.

  6. Lee to Rush, June 29, 1776, Lee Papers, 2, p. 95. On the siege of Charleston, see David K. Wilson, The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780 (Columbia, South Carolina, 2005), pp. 36–58.

  7. Butterfield, ed. Letters of Rush, 1, p. 103.

  8. General Orders, New York, July 9, 1776, in PWRW, 5, p. 246.

  9. General Orders, New York, July 10, 1776, in PWRW, 5, pp. 256–57.

  10. GW to Hancock, July 10, 1776, in PWRW, 5, p. 260.

  11. Nathan Schaner, ed., “Alexander Hamilton Viewed by His Friends: The Narratives of Robert Troup and Hercules Mulligan,” WMQ, 4 (1947), pp. 203–25: 210.

  12. See Franklin’s “Journal of Negotiations in London,” in a letter to his son William Franklin, March 22, 1775, in Leonard W. Labaree and William B. Willcox, eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 36 vols to date. (New Haven, Connecticut, 1959–), 21, pp. 565–74.

  13. GW to Hancock, July 14, 1776, in PWRW, 5, pp. 305–306.

  14. Edward H. Tatum, Jr., ed., The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe, 1776–1778 (San Marino, California, 1940), p. 35.

  15. Ira D. Gruber, The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution (New York, 1972), pp. 94–95.

  16. GW to Stephen, July 20, 1776, in PWRW, 5, pp. 408–409.

  17. General Orders, Head Quarters, New York, August 1, 1776, in PWRW, 5, p. 534.

  18. General Orders, Head Quarters, New York, August 13, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 1–2.

  19. GW to Jonathan Trumbull, Snr, August 24, 1776, and to Lund Washington, August 26, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 123, 136.

  20. W. B. Wilcox, Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence (New York, 1964), p. 105.

  21. Nelson, General James Grant, pp. 85–87.

  22. “Extract of a letter from New-York, dated Sept. 1,” in Maryland Gazette, September 12, 1776.

  23. Grant to Edward Harvey, September 2, 1776, cited in Mccullough, 1776, p. 179.

  24. Henry Clinton, The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of his Campaigns, 1775–1782, with an Appendix of Original Documents, ed. William B. Willcox (New Haven, Connecticut, 1954), p. 44.

  25. Charles Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War, 2 vols. (London, 1794), 1, pp. 198–99.

  26. GW to Hancock, August 31, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 177–78.

  27. GW to Hancock, September 2, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 199–200.

  28. Tatum, ed., Journal of Serle, p. 91.

  29. Greene to GW, September 5, 1776, in Richard K. Showman, ed., The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 13 vols. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1976–2005), 1, pp. 294–95.

  30. GW to John Hancock, September 8, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 248–52.

  31. “From Certain General Officers” to GW, September 11, 1776, GW to Hancock, September 11, 1776, and Council-of-War, New York, September 12, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 279, 280–81, 288–89.

  32. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiograp
hy of Adams, 3, p. 422. Adams’s recollection on this point is corroborated by the minutes of the meeting made by the peace commission’s secretary, Henry Strachey, and given in Labaree and Willcox, eds., Papers of Franklin, 22, p. 599.

  33. Rush to Mrs. Rush, Philadelphia, September 14, 1776, in Butterfield, ed., Letters of Rush, 1, p. 109.

  34. See Gruber, Howe Brothers; also Brumwell, “Band of Brothers,” History Today (June 2008), pp. 25–31.

  35. Rawdon to Lord Huntington, September 23, 1776, cited in Paul David Nelson, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of Hastings: Soldier, Peer of the Realm, Governor-General of India (Cranbury, New Jersey, 2005), p. 47.

  36. GW to Hancock, September 16, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 313; Weedon to John Page, President of the Virginia Council, September 20, 1776, in Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants (New York, 1975), p. 467; Greene to Governor Cooke of Rhode Island, September 17, 1776, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 1, p. 300.

  37. GW to Hancock, September 16, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 314.

  38. Joseph Reed to his wife, September 17, 1776, cited in Commager and Morris, eds., The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six, pp. 468–69.

  39. Greene to Governor Cooke, September 17, and to William Ellery [?],October 4, 1776, in Showman, ed., Papers of Greene, 1, pp. 300, 307.

  40. JCC, 5, p. 762–63; JCC, 6, pp. 944–45, 971. See also GW to Hancock, September 2 and October 4, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 200, 463.

  41. GW to Hancock, September 25, 1776, in PWRW, 6, pp. 393–400.

  42. GW to Patrick Henry, October 5, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 482.

  43. GW to Hancock, October 4, 1776, in PWRW, 6, p. 464.

  44. William Tudor to John Adams, New York, September 6, 1776, and John Adams to James Warren, September 25, 1776, in Robert J. Taylor, ed., The Papers of John Adams, 8 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979), 5, pp. 13, 38, and pp. 39–40, notes; Butterfield, ed., Autobiography of John Adams, 3, pp. 409–410.

  45. “Howe’s Orders, 1776,” in Collections of the New-York Historical Society: The Kemble Papers, Volume 1, 1773–1789 (New York, 1883), pp. 287–88.