American Crisis

by William M. Fowler Jr.

  Over the weekend the weather improved, but not the mood of Congress. On Monday morning the chamber took up, yet again, the tedious matter of national finance. This time the debate circled around the question of implementing article 8 of the Articles of Confederation: “All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several states, in proportion to the value of all land within each state.”

  As usual, a cacophony of voices filled the chamber. Not having been present at the creation of the confederation, Madison felt at liberty to describe article 8 as “chimerical” and impossible to execute.40 The problems were “too vast” and “insuperable” to find solution.41 Indeed, there was no practical way to determine “the value of all land within each state.” For nearly the entire day members wrangled until finally, unable to craft a solution on the floor, they consigned the question to another “Grand Committee.” That evening the army’s Grand Committee met with the recovering McDougall accompanied by Colonels Ogden and Brooks.42

  Wolcott called the meeting to order and recognized McDougall, who, after a few pleasant remarks, turned quickly to the matter at hand. He distilled the memorial into three principal points: “an immediate advance of pay, adequate provision for the residue, and half pay.”43 The outspoken “old revolutionary,” according to Madison, described the woeful condition of the army “in very highly coloured expressions.” If nothing were done, he told the committee, “serious consequences” would follow. The “seeming approach of peace” was a worry to the army for they feared that in a rush to end the war Congress would abandon them. Brooks and Ogden added to the glumness of the moment by relating their own tales of misery, describing the poverty in which the army struggled. Ogden went so far as to tell the committee that he would not “return to the army if he was to be the messenger of disappointment.” After detailing all their grievances and sufferings, they concluded by reminding the members that they were in fact willing to compromise. They would swap the promised half pay for a commutation to any equivalent. Pressed by the committee to speculate what might happen should Congress not act, the word mutiny came back. The “temper of the army was such that they did [not] reason or deliberate coolly on the consequences” of their acts. “The army,” warned McDougall, “were verging to that state which we are told will make a wise man mad.”44 In previous mutinies officers had stood firm and put down uprisings. This time, warned McDougall, leaders of the army, particularly “those of inferior grades,” might waver or stand aside.

  Having delivered their memorial, made their pleas, and answered questions, the officers took their leave. Committee members remained behind and after some discussion elected a subcommittee of Hamilton, Rutledge, and Madison, instructing the trio to prepare a report, in concert with the superintendent of finance, on the officers’ memorial.45

  Late in the afternoon of January 15 Hamilton, Rutledge, and Madison met with Robert Morris. The town was abuzz. Earlier in the day Congress had received official news from General Nathanael Greene that the British had evacuated Charleston. The fact that the war might truly be coming to a close was sinking in. That reality made Robert Morris uneasy. He knew that “the present Union of America is from Necessity. It is a Vessel whose Parts are kept together by exterior Compression. When that is entirely Removed, trivial Causes may burst it asunder.”46 With the news of Charleston and the perils of peace on his mind, Morris welcomed the subcommittee to his home, where they had “a long conference … on the business of the Army.”47 Prepared to hear once again a lecture from the financier about the want of money for the army and his inability to pay the officers and men, the delegation was stunned when Morris promised to provide a month’s pay for the army at Newburgh. When they asked how he could make such a promise, Morris revealed to them that early in December he had dispatched in secret an American frigate to Havana to convoy home more than seventy thousand in gold coin, part of the loan secured by Adams from the Dutch.48

  While he undoubtedly saw the justice in his act, Morris also had political goals which he did not share with his visitors. Should the army disgrace itself in mutiny or disappear into the countryside, Morris and his nationalist allies would lose their most powerful ally. The “Army [must] be kept together,” Morris observed.49 By offering the men of the regiments a taste of what they might eventually receive, should Congress have a national revenue, Morris was trying to buy time and cultivate their support.

  It was an extraordinary gamble. Two days later, January 17, Morris invited McDougall, Ogden, and Brooks to his home for a private meeting.50 In an oblique reference to the Havana gold he told them that he “had taken Measures to obtain a Sum of Money for the Purpose of … [the army’s] Pay [but] those measures are not yet ripe.”51 If all went well, troops and noncommissioned officers would soon receive one month’s pay, and from his own private resources he pledged a month’s pay for officers.52 He admitted that it was not all that they might justly expect, but he asked them to be patient and “give time for wise Measures.” One week later, at a moment when the members of Congress were absorbed in selecting “a list of proper books for the use of Congress,” their attention was diverted by report of a letter from the superintendent of finance. He was resigning.53

  According to those who knew him best, Morris was in a state of emotional “despondence.” He had reached a point of physical and financial exhaustion. He had come to a point, he wrote, where he could do nothing to see “justice done to the public creditors,” the army properly paid, or “public finances placed on an honorable establishment.”54 The news shook Congress. Nathaniel Gorham lamented that the departure produced “a vacancy which no one knew how to fill and which no fit man would venture to accept.”55 James Wilson of New Jersey moved that Congress not accept the resignation and instead urge Morris to stay. Even Morris’s friends thought that was too much. For its own sake Congress could not “condescend to solicit Mr. M even if there were a chance of its being successful.” It was “improper.” Still not sure of what to do, and fearful that news of the resignation would roil the nation’s already fragile financial markets, the members could think of no alternative but to keep the news secret.56

  Morris’s tenacious enemy and a perpetual opponent to “permanent taxes,” Arthur Lee saw sinister hands at play. “Every engine is at work here to obtain permanent taxes,” he warned.57 In Morris’s resignation Lee and his allies saw a grand plot aimed at deepening the financial crisis to the point where Congress, driven by fear of what the army might do and by sheer desperation, would see no choice but to adopt the nationalist agenda. In this poisoned atmosphere Hamilton presented his committee’s report on the officers’ memorial.58

  The committee laid several recommendations on the table. All of them in one form or another had passed through the chamber before, and they all required new money. Debate followed, airing the usual tired arguments from both sides over the power of Congress to raise revenue and the propriety of pensions. On one critical point, however, the members agreed. Thanks to what they had heard from McDougall, Ogden, and Brooks, the delegates knew that the army at New Windsor was seething with anger, and unless soothing measures were taken, mutiny, mass desertion, or both were likely to happen. They also knew that Morris had some cash from Havana, and so they directed him “to make such payment and in such manner as he shall think proper.”59

  Morris had no intention of paying the soldiers in one lump sum. No one had any illusions about what cash-starved soldiers, bored by the endless routine of winter encampment, would do with coin. Sutlers stood ready to pour home-distilled whiskey in any amount, and local brothels were prepared to swing open their doors.60 Discipline would collapse. Instead Morris presented a plan to dole out cash to enlisted men and noncommissioned officers at only fifty cents per week. At that rate of cash flow, he estimated he had enough money on hand to las
t thirteen weeks, betting that was enough time for other sources of money such as a French loan to arrive.61 Whatever small satisfaction the enlisted ranks might draw from Morris’s decision, the officers gained almost nothing. Instead of specie he offered them sixty-day “Morris notes” drawn on his own account.62 In the matter of half pay Congress remained undecided.

  After six weeks of endless meetings with members of Congress, McDougall, Ogden, and Brooks had failed in their mission. The sop of specie to enlisted men might ease tension in the ranks, but that would last only as long as the money, and those who had sent them, the officers of the army, aside from the personal notes drawn on the financier, got virtually nothing. Congress remained deadlocked over half pay. “Some of our friends,” reported the officers, suggested that they ought to turn to the states, recognizing those with a nationalist bent opposed that route since it would weaken Congress.63

  Colonel Brooks volunteered to carry the bad news back to Knox. McDougall, preferring the comforts of Philadelphia to a winter on the Hudson, opted to remain in Philadelphia to continue, he said, lobbying for the army. Ogden, true to his pledge, announced that he would not return to camp as a “messenger of disappointment.” He went home to New Jersey.64

  Brooks left Philadelphia on February 9. Before he departed, a small group of men including Ogden and McDougall, as well as members of Congress, among them Hamilton, joined by the ever-active bureaucrat Gouverneur Morris, and by Robert Morris, discussed the urgent situation. They were convinced that the only force that could move Congress, and the nation, was the threat that the army might either collapse or mutiny. They needed to seed a storm over New Windsor that would sweep down onto Philadelphia. To do this, they laid a plan to cajole Washington, Knox, Gates, and the officer corps to their side.65

  Next to Washington, Henry Knox was one of the most respected and important senior officers in the army, the only person who might influence “His Excellency.”66 The first tactic was for Brooks, on behalf of the officers, to deliver to Knox, as chair of the committee that had sent them to Philadelphia, their lengthy report, which they asked that he share with other officers. Written principally by Ogden and McDougall, it laid out in detail the tale of the weeks of frustration spent with the Congress. Even so long a report was inadequate to express all that they had endured at the hands of a dithering, divided body, and so preferring not to put everything “in the compass of a letter,” they instructed Colonel Brooks “to give particular detail.”67 In addition to the public report, Brooks carried a personal letter from Gouverneur Morris to Knox—one not to be made public.68

  Morris’s confidential letter aimed at undermining Knox’s notion, which he had expressed previously, that the officers might depend upon the states for half pay. Setting aside the usual rhetorical formalities, Morris began the letter “My Dear Knox.” He continued, “It has given me much Pain to see the Army looking wildly for a Redress of Grievances to their particular States.” The states were faithless, and any law that they might enact for the officers’ benefit “they [would] repeal as soon as they [found] it expedient.” He went on to warn of the dangers of peace and disbandment. “During the war they find [the army] useful, and after a Peace they will wish to get rid of you and then they will see you starve rather than pay a six Penny Tax.” Morris told his “dear friend” that the army’s only hope was to connect itself “with the public Creditors of every Kind both foreign and domestic” to force Congress to enact measures to create “general permanent Funds.” With dramatic flourish he concluded, “The Army may now influence the Legislatures and if you will permit me a Metaphor from your own Profession After you have carried the Post the public Creditors will garrison it for you.”69

  With rumors of peace wafting in the air, there was no time to lose, and Brooks rode quickly. He arrived at Knox’s headquarters on February 13 with both the report and the private letter. He likely spent the evening filling in the general with “particulars” and then the next day continued his journey to Washington’s headquarters.

  To what degree Brooks shared all the “particulars” with Washington is uncertain. Thus far the commander in chief had stayed out of the fray. Until Washington’s position was better known, it was best to be cautious. What Brooks did tell him, however, was that a train of heavily guarded wagons was “on the road to camp, laden with money for the army.” The commander in chief immediately dispatched “a Captain and fifty Men” to secure the “Treasure.”70

  Chapter Ten

  Congress’s debates and maneuverings through the cold winter months of December and January left the army at New Windsor wondering sadly about its future. Not far away the mood at Hasbrouck House was equally glum. Out of an “official family” of at least a half dozen senior officers who ordinarily attended Washington, only two remained: Colonel David Humphreys and Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Walker. The others, including Colonels Jonathan Trumbull and Tench Tilghman along with Lieutenant Colonel David Cobb, had taken winter furloughs to be home with their families. When a junior officer, Major Hodijah Baylies, unwisely asked for a leave, Washington could barely restrain himself. “Nothwithstanding some Officers of the Army have supposed, there was nothing, or at least very little to be done in Winter Quarters, yet for my own part, I must confess I have never found it so, but on the contrary have frequently had as much business to be done by myself and Aids [sic] in that Season as in any part of the Campaign.”1

  Not only had members of his “family” departed for more comfortable environs, but so too had his generals. Of “nine Generals assigned to the command of the Troops in this Cantonment,” he reported, “seven are either actually gone or have made application to be absent.”2 Of the senior commanders, only Generals Horatio Gates and Robert Howe had stayed with Washington, albeit reluctantly since neither of them were pleased at the prospect of a winter on the Hudson. Howe had already asked for leave to return to Boston, to which Washington had responded, “You will not leave camp.”3 And Gates was pacing about his headquarters, the former home of John Ellison located near the cantonment five miles from Hasbrouck House, waiting for word from his wife back in Virginia from whom he had been “without a Letter” since late October.4 Having left her when she was ill, he had good reason to fear the worst.5

  Adding to the depressing mood was the sour presence of the quartermaster general and critic at large Colonel Timothy Pickering. He had lingered (too long, thought Washington) in Philadelphia with his wife and seemed determined to remain longer until on Christmas Day Washington ordered him, given the “bad state of Affairs” in his department, “to proceed without loss of time to join the Army.”6 Pickering did what he was told but with little grace. His letters to his wife and others were replete with cynicism and venom. Pickering was more prickly than usual. He was still smarting from a recent unfortunate encounter he had with the local sheriff. As quartermaster general he had given out promissory notes drawn on Congress, but over his signature, to merchants in payment for supplies. Not surprisingly, the notes were overdue. One evening as he was escorting Mrs. Washington and a friend to their carriage after a convivial dinner, he was confronted suddenly by the sheriff, who served him with a suit from local merchants naming him the debtor and demanding payment. Pickering was furious and rightfully blamed Congress for his humiliation.7

  Even the usually upbeat Knox was in a low mood. The war had worn him out. His wife, Lucy, had suffered as well. Like Martha Washington, she had stayed with her husband for a great part of the war, including moments of personal tragedy. They were together in the summer of 1779 at artillery headquarters in Pluckemin, New Jersey, when their infant daughter, Julia, died. On December 10, 1781, they rejoiced at the birth of a son, Marcus Camillus Knox, and invited Washington to be the godfather. In spring 1782, when the commander in chief moved his headquarters to Newburgh, Knox took command at West Point, where he brought his wife and infant son. Tragedy followed the family north. “I have the unhappiness my dear General,” wrote Knox to Washington on Septembe
r 8, “to inform you of the departure of my precious infant, your Godson.” While grieving his departed son, Knox was deeply anxious over Lucy’s well-being. Remembering what Washington and his wife had endured in their own family—Martha had lost all her children—he shared with him his hope that by leaning on “reason and religion” Lucy would survive “this repeated shock to her tender affections.”8 Washington shared his friend’s sorrow over the loss of his son and held out hope for Lucy that “the lenient hand of time will no doubt be necessary to soothe the keener feelings of a fond and tender mother.”9

  Agitated generals, absent officers, and unpaid soldiers cast a gloomy atmosphere. Washington was increasingly alone. Seven years of war had taken a heavy toll on the weary commander. Martha was with him, as were the Knoxes, but his closest comrades from former days with whom he had shared victories and defeats were absent: Greene was in the Carolinas tidying up after the British evacuation, von Steuben was in Philadelphia, and Lafayette was home in France. “I am,” Washington wrote, “fast locked by frost and snow.” Surrounded by “rugged and dreary mountains,” he prayed that this winter would be his last in the field.10

  Adding to Washington’s melancholy was ill news from home. Only twice during the entire war had he been home—brief visits before and after Yorktown. He had left his beloved Mount Vernon in the hands of his cousin Lund. Washington had hired him before the war to manage the plantation during his occasional absences. Since the plantation was his “only means” to support his family, he told Lund, he was anxious about its condition. He was pressing Lund, who incredibly had not made a full report in over four years, to send forward “the long promised account.” When it arrived in late January, to Washington’s dismay it turned out to be “irregular.” That sent him into a verbal rage. He suspected Lund of mismanagement and demanded that he send to him immediately “accounts of [his] receipts and expenditures.”11 Anticipating an end to the ordeal of war, he told Lund, “I want to know before I come home (as I shall come home with empty pockets whenever Peace shall take place) how Affairs stand with me, and what my dependence is.”12