American Crisis

by William M. Fowler Jr.

  Lincoln’s reply gave no solace. In looking to Congress for justice, the secretary advised Washington that he would only find “Chagrin and disappointment.”84 Robert Morris, with whom Lincoln had apparently shared Washington’s letter, offered a view that Washington must have found even more distressing. Contrary to what the general thought, it was not, Morris opined, “high time for peace.” War was more “likely than Peace to produce funds for the public debt.” It was war, not peace, that would give an “increase of authority to congress, and vigor to the administration as well of the union.”85 Lincoln decided that circumstances warranted a personal visit to camp.

  Chapter Nine

  Lincoln met washington at Verplanck’s Point on October 20, arriving at a most inconvenient time. Washington was bidding farewell to the French, who were on their march from Yorktown to Boston to embark for the West Indies.1 At the same time, the commander in chief was busily organizing the American army for the move to its winter encampment across the river at New Windsor. Thankfully, the secretary’s “short visit” lasted only four days, but long enough for Washington to arrange for “the whole American army” to turn out and salute him.2 In response to the honor Lincoln expressed his “fullest approbation.” That compliment did not echo back, for the soldiers on the parade ground felt something far short of “approbation” toward him and the politicians in Philadelphia. Indeed, despite his public praise, the secretary left camp shaken by the “heavy and universal complaint” Washington and his senior commanders had heaped upon him.3

  Back in Philadelphia Lincoln reported the army’s dire situation to Congress. While he did not quote Washington directly, it is clear that the two men were in agreement: officers had to be paid and soon; and since Congress had no money, it ought to look to the states, at least for the present, for compensation. Nationalists, including James Madison, were wary of turning soldiers toward dependence upon the states, which they feared would lessen the power of Congress. Nonetheless, even he had to admit “that some pay must be found for the army [but] Where it is to be found God knows.”4

  That Lincoln and Washington had caved in to the officers at the expense of strengthening the Union was unfathomable to Robert Morris. Over dinner the financier told Lincoln that the proposal would have “a bad influence as it regards our union.”5 Notwithstanding nationalist resistance, Lincoln assured the commander in chief that the proposal seems to be “generally approved,” and on November 22 Congress ordered Morris to prepare a report by which “the several states [might] satisfy the Officers and Men of their respective Lines for the sums due to them for pay.”6

  When Morris seemed to be taking an extraordinary amount of time with this task, two members, Alexander Hamilton and Samuel Osgood, paid an unannounced visit to his home to inquire about progress. Morris was unexpectedly absent. According to his diary, he had gone to visit an unnamed “friend,” “dangerously ill,” and so was not available for consultation. A few days later he delivered his report and minced words.7 “Balances” due to officers must “be certified in the usual Form … and the Principal and Interest thereof be payable in like Manner with other public Debts of the United States.”8 “Usual Form” was Morris’s way of saying that it would take a long time.

  Congress too was less than eager to plow ahead, and the report sat for a week before being assigned to a committee composed of Hamilton (who was increasingly involved in this matter), John Taylor Gilman, and Thomas FitzSimons. The committee may have met, but it never made a formal report. In any case it did not matter. While Congress dithered, a storm was rising behind Snake Hill, a granite eminence on the east side of the New Windsor winter encampment where a number of regiments, including several from Massachusetts, were “hutted.”

  In September officers of the Massachusetts Line had petitioned the House and Senate of the commonwealth for half pay, only to have their appeal rejected largely because of a very critical letter aimed at them. Written by Samuel Osgood, a Massachusetts delegate in Congress, the letter was addressed to his friend John Lowell. “Our officers are very numerous and many of them have not performed” was the crux of these disparaging remarks.9 To Osgood’s embarrassment, Lowell made the letter public, creating a furor that doomed the petition. News of the petition’s failure caused “much chagrin,” according to the usually discreet Henry Knox. He warned Lincoln, “Something must be done to relieve the recent distress which is intolerable.”10 Another Massachusetts officer was less restrained. Daniel Salisbury exploded that the “Almighty will never forgive nor forget our General Court. Damn their souls.”11

  Pushed from pillar to post by the Congress and their own state, the Massachusetts officers vowed to take action. Theirs would not be the polite approach made by the Connecticut Line—a quiet dinner with powerful politicians and a respectful petition for redress. On November 16 officers from the Massachusetts regiments gathered. Knox and Washington knew of the meeting, but neither attended. Although from Massachusetts, Knox was a staff officer and thus not part of the regimental chain of command. As for Washington, he was, conveniently enough, away from camp on a visit to Kingston, New York.12

  The officers met at the headquarters of the Third Massachusetts Regiment. Colonel John Greaton, commander of the regiment, presided.13 They elected a committee of seven men—Henry Knox; Colonels Rufus Putnam, John Crane, John Brooks, and Greaton; Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Maxwell; and Dr. James Thacher—to collect “in writing” from the officers of the line “a list of the several grievances of which they complain, and at the same time convey … their sentiments on the most probable measures to be adopted for ensuring a happy issue to their recent undertaking.”14

  Spurred by frustration and anger at what they had endured at the hands of elected officials, the committee, under Knox’s direction, wasted no time. Within hours clerks in every regimental headquarters were busily copying down lists of “grievances.” The men of the First Regiment set the tone, demanding that a “spirited address [be sent] to Congress hoping that the issue may be favorable to our wishes if otherwise we shall be obliged to take some other mode of procedure.”15 The soldiers of the Tenth Regiment expected nothing less than a “categorical answer” to their grievances while those of the Fifth Regiment set a deadline of January 1 for a response.16

  The fountain of discontent spewing from the Massachusetts regiments spilled over into other camps. Rather than letting Massachusetts stand alone, officers from the entire army at New Windsor, including New York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire regiments as well as a Maryland detachment, signed on to the protest. The streams flowed together. A general committee of officers assembled at West Point on November 24 and elected a subcommittee led by Knox to write a memorial. One week later the full committee reconvened at the quartermaster general’s headquarters to approve the work. As usual, Washington remained distant. Knox, however, was at the very center and kept his commander informed. The general committee approved the memorial and circulated it to all the regiments.17 After a full week the memorial had made the rounds, and on December 7 it was approved and ready to be signed. The address began in the name “of the officers of the army of the United States.” Unlike any other military petition to Congress, this plea came neither from a particular group of men nor from a single state. This was an address from the “army of the United States.”18

  The memorial began by acknowledging Congress as the “supreme power.” The officers had neatly sharpened a double-edged sword. At one and the same time they played to the vanity of that body while also putting the members on notice that inasmuch as they were in charge, they had the authority to deal with the issue at hand. They would have no reason, other than through their own fecklessness, to hand the matter off to the states.

  “We have struggled,” the officers wrote, “year after year” for redress, hoping “that each year would be the last.” Every time “we have been disappointed.” By now the accumulation of the years of “embarrassment” weighed so heavily that they were “unable to g
o further.” Taking a swipe at greedy merchants, profiteers, and politicians who had done well in the war, they noted that all they had were promises unfulfilled; “shadows have been offered to us while the substance has been gleaned by others.” They hammered this point deeper, decrying the fact that “citizens murmur at the greatness of their taxes, and are astonished that no part reaches the army. The numerous demands, which are between the first collectors and the soldiers swallow up the whole.” Because many citizens did not understand or were deceived, the army had become in their eyes an “odious” institution with an insatiable demand for resources. This was demonstrably untrue and unfair. Nevertheless, “our friends are wearied out and disgusted with our incessant applications.” “Our distresses are now brought to a point. We have borne all that men can bear … The uneasiness of the soldiers, for want of pay, is great and dangerous; any further experiments on their patience may have fatal effects.” The army had been too long “sufferers by hunger and nakedness.”

  Having laid down powerful markers, the officers stepped back to offer a compromise. To seek “harmony,” they wrote, “we are willing to commute the half-pay pledged, for full pay for a certain number of years, or for a sum in gross, as shall be agreed to by the committee sent with this address.”

  While some might have labeled such blunt language as impertinent, perhaps mutinous, the officers claimed that they had no choice for “it would be criminal … to conceal the general dissatisfaction which prevails, and is gaining ground in the army, from the pressures of evils and injuries, which, in the course of seven long years, have made their conditions, in many instances, wretched.” They concluded, Congress must convince “the army and the world that the independence of America shall not be placed on the ruin of any particular class of her citizens.”19

  To carry the memorial to Congress, the committee elected three senior officers: Major General Alexander McDougall, Colonel John Brooks, and Colonel Matthias Ogden. The delegation was neatly balanced. McDougall, irascible and dour, came with impeccable patriotic credentials and a capacity to be outspoken, as he had demonstrated during his recent encounter with Heath. He had also served in the Congress and so had political insight as well. Brooks, a physician from Reading, Massachusetts, and a veteran of Lexington and Concord, commanded the Seventh Massachusetts Regiment. Ogden, commanding officer of the First New Jersey, had been the organizer of the failed plot to kidnap Prince William Henry.20

  On December 7 the committee gave the officers their instructions. They were to present the army’s demands “in that ready manner that is expressive of the characters of the officers,” in other words, straight and direct. Knowing Congress’s tendency to dance and delay, the men were further instructed to “continue with Congress until you obtain their full determination on our address.”21 They were to deliver the memorial and stay to lobby.

  As if to underscore the pathos of the officers’ condition at Newburgh, the delegation delayed its departure to give McDougall time to take up a collection among his brother officers to finance the journey. While McDougall and his fellow officers were passing the hat and packing for Philadelphia, the commander in chief was discreetly preparing Congress for their address. Rather than writing directly to the president of Congress, who might then be required to make the letter public, he instead shared his view of events at camp in a private communication to his old friend, and Virginia delegate, Joseph Jones.22 Knowing how critical it was that his letter arrive in advance of the delegation, he took the unusual step of sending his aide Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman to deliver it in person. In addition to trusting Tilghman with the letter to Jones, Washington gave the colonel verbal instructions to meet with Robert Morris and brief the financier on the army’s desperate situation.23

  Washington painted a bleak picture. “This Address,” he told Jones, “tho’ unpleasing is just now unavoidable.” “The temper of the army” has become so “soured,” lamented the commander in chief, that contrary to his deepest desires, and the wishes of his wife and family, he had decided to remain at Newburgh for the winter. “The disaffection of the Army [has] arisen to alarming height.” There are “combinations among the Officers.” In his absence he feared the army might collapse, and so he would remain with his men. Although he gave his usual acknowledgment to the authority of Congress—“What the Honble Body can, or will do in the matter, does not belong to me to determine”—he also suggested that it consider “soothing measures.” With ominous words he reminded Jones that when disaffected soldiers had rebelled in the past, the officers “at the hazard of their lives” had stood firm and “quelled very dangerous mutinies.” Given all that these men had suffered, he could not vouch that such would be the case again.24

  Knox added his voice. He wrote Lincoln, “The expectations of the Army from the drummer to the highest officer are so keen for some pay that I shudder at the idea of them not receiving it.” There would be, he wrote, “convulsions.”25

  December 1782 was a month of despair in Philadelphia. It had been a tempestuous time. Rhode Island’s delegate David Howell had been pilloried by his fellow members for breaking confidence and sharing privileged information with his constituents. The language was bitter and personal, laying bare the deep divisions in the Congress over the very nature of the union. The debate centered on Rhode Island’s sole opposition to the impost. In a style Madison described as “extremely offensive,” Howell defended his state and justified his own actions as a legitimate expression of free speech.26 Members let loose attacks on one another that deepened old wounds and opened new ones.27 According to the outspoken Connecticut delegate Eliphalet Dyer, Philadelphia had become a place “of Dissipation, unbounded Avarice, a City of Gambles,” and Congress, tormented by “Divided Councils, Exhausted Finances,” lay paralyzed. As for the army, he despaired that there was “no plan, System or practical method” to grant relief.28 Alexander Hamilton, sunk in pessimism, wrote to his friend John Laurance, “God grant the union may last but it is too frail now to be relied on, and we ought to be prepared for the worst.”29

  Hampered by “bad and cold weather,” McDougall and the colonels took a week to reach Philadelphia, arriving just before Christmas. The trip had been especially hard on the general, whose health was failing. Upon arrival in the city, McDougall found comfortable quarters at the popular Indian Queen Tavern on Fourth Street just south of Market and only two blocks from Independence Hall.30

  Judging it “expedient,” the officers decided “to converse with the delegates of the different States” privately before they delivered their memorial in public, making the rounds over several days.31 On the evening of December 31 the officers made their most important visit, not to a member of Congress, but to Robert Morris. In his usual laconic style and with classic understatement, the financier described the meeting in his diary as a moment when “we had some Conversation respecting the want of Pay for the army.”32 Having lobbied nearly everyone, the following Monday, January 6, the officers were ready to present their memorial to Congress.

  As soon as the officers laid their memorial on the table, Congress, according to Madison, “as a mark of the important light in which the memorial was viewed,” assigned it to a “Grand Committee” made up of representatives from all the states present.33 The memorial was “important” to the members in different ways according to their own political agendas. A significant number in the chamber viewed the memorial as yet another attempt by the nationalists to use the army as a lever, to move their political agenda and strengthen the central government at the expense of the states by granting Congress the compulsory power to collect revenue. The opposition was ready. The first sign of trouble for the nationalists came when the Grand Committee elected a chair: Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut. Five years earlier when the states had voted to grant officers half pay for seven years, Wolcott and James Lovell of Massachusetts were the only delegates to vote no. Since then, nothing had altered Wolcott’s position on military pensions.34

&
nbsp; Wolcott’s election was only the first warning sign. Even before the committee convened, some members let loose with their opinions, most of them hostile. Samuel Osgood insisted that the committee ought not to “hold out any longer vain and delusory promises to the Army.”35 Robert Morris joined the verbal fray, warning the committee that “it was impossible to make any advance of pay in the present State of the finances to the army and imprudent to give any assurances with respect to future pay until certain funds [that is, impost] should be previously established.”36 The situation was, in his words, “alarming” and could only be calmed by recognizing the army’s just claims and funding them through a national revenue. Madison shared Morris’s views, citing the crisis as “proof of our poverty and imbecility.”37

  In a bit of cruel irony it was in the interests of both sides, nationalists and antinationalists, to reject the officers’ memorial. Hamilton summed up the nationalist strategy to his friend Governor George Clinton. Rejection, he argued, “may be turned to good account [for] every day proves more and more the insufficiency of the confederation. The proselytes to this opinion [that is, a stronger central government] are increasing fast.”38

  Late Friday afternoon, January 10, the Grand Committee gathered. Although not a member of the committee, Morris arrived by special invitation. Also present were Colonels Ogden and Brooks. McDougall, the officers explained, having suffered greatly from the hard journey, was ill and confined to his quarters at the Indian Queen Tavern. They asked if the committee might adjourn to the tavern to accommodate the general. That sparked a discussion about the dignity of Congress. The committeemen agreed that it would be “derogatory” to the image of Congress for them to wait upon the general; instead they voted to adjourn until the following Monday, giving as their reason the lack of sufficient members in attendance due to “the extreme badness of the weather.”39