Prelude to Glory, Vol. 5

by Ron Carter

  Washington stopped, and Hamilton waited for a moment before he responded.

  “You wrote something to Conway? There’s talk about it.”

  “Yes.”

  Both aides straightened when Washington drew two documents from a stack on his worktable, glanced at them, and offered them. Their duties included opening and reading the general’s mail and answering it when directed by Washington. But at times Washington wrote his own answers, and these they had not seen. They had never expected the general would draw them into such a delicate, personal conversation.

  Washington gestured. “There is the note I received from Stirling on November eighth and a copy of the note I sent to Conway the next day.”

  Laurens spread the note from Stirling to Washington on the tabletop, and both he and Hamilton leaned forward to read it: “The enclosed was communicated by Col. Wilkinson to Major McWilliams, my aide. Such wicked duplicity of conduct I shall always think it my duty to detect.”

  The enclosure read: “In a letter from Genl. Conway to Genl. Gates he says—‘Heaven has been determined to save your country; or a weak general and bad counsellors would have ruined it.’”

  Both men had seen the correspondence when it was received, and they recalled the shock that a general officer would dare refer to General Washington, in writing, as a “weak general.” They again felt the outrage that such subversive correspondence would pass between a major general and a brigadier general in the Continental Army.

  Laurens raised the second document. “This is a copy of the note you sent to Conway in response?”

  “Yes.”

  Washington had written the note and sent it by private courier. Neither Laurens or Hamilton had seen it. Laurens unfolded and they read:

  November 9, 1777

  Sir:

  A letter which I received last night, contain’d the following paragraph. In a letter from Genl. Conway to Genl. Gates he says: “Heaven has been determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad counsellors would have ruined it.”

  I am, Sir, Yr. Hble Servt.

  Genl. Thos. Conway.

  For several seconds Laurens and Hamilton sat with their eyes locked onto the brief document, instantly aware of the devastating impact that such a blunt, brutal statement from the commander in chief would have on a brigadier general. Hamilton spoke. “This is what you wrote back to Conway?”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand Conway responded to you in writing.”

  “He did.” Washington drew another document from the paperwork and handed it to Hamilton. Again, this document had come by private courier, and neither aide had seen it.

  “I am willing that my original letter to General Gates should be handed to you. This, I trust, will convince you of my way of thinking. I know, sir, that several unfavorable hints have been reported by some of your aides de camp as the author of some discourse which I never uttered. These advices never gave me the least uneasiness because I was conscious I never said anything but what I could mention to yourself.”

  Hamilton lowered the document, surprised at Conway’s candor.

  “Did you reply to him?”

  “No. On November fourteenth Conway submitted his resignation to Congress.”

  Laurens started, then settled back. “Did they accept it?”

  “Not yet. A committee is considering the entire matter.”

  Laurens shook his head. “Another committee. Like the one they sent here to determine where we should establish winter camp for the army. Have you heard the results of their visit?”

  “Not yet. They inquired far beyond the question of selecting a site for winter quarters. They were interested in the reasons for our failures at Brandywine and Germantown. The statements and recommendations of most of our officers were generally the same. We made mistakes, but the real reason for our failures was the inability of Congress to provide the necessary things to sustain an army.”

  Washington paused, then went on. “As for winter quarters, I can wait no longer. Most of the scouting reports support the decision to winter in Valley Forge. That is where we are going.”

  Laurens laid the documents back on the desk, and Hamilton spoke. “I know Conway and maybe Gates are ambitious men. They want command. Rush and Pickering and some others are in league with them, pushing Congress for a change. Rumors are out that General Greene and Knox and a few others are going to resign if Conway is advanced in rank ahead of them.”

  “I’ve heard. Conway is junior to all the twenty-three brigadiers in this army. If Congress advances him ahead of them, it could create a serious problem. I wrote to Richard Lee in Congress about Conway’s efforts to replace me.” He handed Laurens another document, and Laurens read:

  “The appointment of Conway would be as unfortunate a measure as ever was adopted, and I may add (and I think with truth) that it will give a fatal blow to the existence of the army. General Conway’s merit as an officer, and his importance in this army, exists more in his imagination than in reality; for it is a maxim with him to leave no service of his untold, nor to want anything that is to be had by importunity.”

  Both aides recognized that they had been allowed to see one of the games that is played at the highest levels of governmental control, and Hamilton responded.

  “Did Lee answer?”

  “Yes. He assured me Conway would not be advanced in rank so long as it would produce ‘evil consequences’ to the army. But he also said that Congress was discussing the reorganization of the Board of War. They were considering placing Timothy Pickering on the board. You will recall that Pickering is presently the adjutant general. They’re considering replacing him with Conway as adjutant general.”

  Laurens’s mouth fell open. “What? Conway? They’ll commission him a major general if he replaces Pickering!”

  Washington nodded, and for five full seconds no one made a sound. Then Hamilton rounded his mouth and blew air lightly. Vapors rose from his face.

  “That explains it. Greene, Knox, Schuyler, Lafayette, Stirling, Cadwalader, Varnum, Morgan, Hamilton, Tilghman—they’ve been talking. And they are all using the same words: Conspiracy. Cabal. They know Rush and Mifflin and Pickering and some others are listening to Conway and Gates, and they’re incensed. Should matters come to it, they’re prepared to descend on Congress en masse to set them straight.”

  Washington nodded. “I’ve heard. And apparently so has Gates. I received a letter from him in which he does everything possible to distance himself from Conway. It is apparent he does not want to risk damaging his own ambition to replace me, should these matters erupt in Congress. He not only wrote a letter to me denying any support of Conway, but to Congress as well.”

  “Did you answer Gates?”

  “Yes. In uncomplimentary terms.”

  “Congress?”

  “I do not know how they received Gates’s letter to them. I suppose I will in due time.”

  “This whole thing is dividing the army,” Laurens said.

  “And Congress,” Washington added.

  “What can be done about it?” Hamilton asked.

  Washington shook his head. “Tell them the truth and move on. Hope they see what’s happening. Despite all the weaknesses of that body, despite all their misguided efforts, I will not do anything that will undermine their control of military affairs. The military of this country must . . . must . . . remain subject to civilian authority. When the military is the foundation of any government, wars will never cease.”

  Washington watched their eyes, and he saw the profound glimmer that crept into them as they began to comprehend the depths of the great truth Washington had laid before them. Laurens closed his mouth, then wiped at it, unable to speak a word for a time as he recognized that he had been given the gift of a brief glimpse into the heart of one of the great souls of his time. A sense of near reverence came welling up in his chest as he stared at Washington.

  While Laurens sought to bring himself back under contro
l, Washington stood, and the two aides immediately got to their feet.

  Hamilton spoke.

  “Sir, there is one more thing.”

  “What is that?”

  “You recall the two young men you sent north to do what they could against Burgoyne? Both from the Massachusetts Regiment? Their names are Billy Weems and Eli Stroud.”

  A light came into Washington’s eyes at the recollection of the two young men—one from the city, one from the wilds of the northern wilderness. “I do.”

  “Corporal Weems returned to camp this evening. His company captain thought you might like to hear his report.”

  All three men recognized that the rare minutes of intimacy, of talking openly and frankly of personal things, painful things, were over, and the men accepted it. Each had given the others something needed, something precious. They had reached over the wall, and they had given and taken without injury. Each knew they would never speak of these things outside the tent, nor would he share them with others.

  Washington nodded. “I’ll take his report in the morning. Nine o’clock.”

  Hamilton nodded. “I’ll arrange it, sir.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen.”

  “Thank you, sir. Good night.”

  Notes

  Following the American defeat in the battle of Germantown, the five American generals named in this chapter were in serious jeopardy, as herein described. Further, only seven men remained in Congress from those who had supported the commission granted to General George Washington to serve as commander in chief of the Continental Army. See Freeman, Washington, pp. 364, 366.

  Congress did send a committee to investigate the proper place for the Continental Army to establish winter quarters, but they were dilatory in their conclusions, and Washington had to push ahead. He selected Valley Forge. See Freeman, Washington, p. 371.

  The exchange of letters between Conway, Gates, Stirling, Washington, and Congress, with the resulting rising alarm that a conspiracy, or a cabal, was developing with the objective of replacing Washington with either Gates or Conway is accurate. The whole affair became known in history as “The Conway Cabal.” See Freeman, Washington, pp. 368–69; Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, p. 220.

  The Conway Cabal caused a split in the officers of the army, with nine stalwarts supporting Washington and others taking a position adverse to him. The officers on both sides are named in this chapter. See Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, pp. 218–21.

  Philadelphia

  December 2, 1777

  CHAPTER XVIII

  * * *

  In the spotless, austere parlor of her Quaker home, midwife Lydia Darragh, small, thin, frail, aging, sat facing her flax clock-reel, feeding the long, thin threads of spun flax thread onto the cross-arms as they revolved. On the fortieth revolution the clock ticked. She stopped the cross-arms to carefully remove the thread, loop the thread end around the coil, and tie it. She laid the coil on top of those already finished and said quietly, “Eighteen. Two more and the skein will be finished.”

  She touched the nearly finished skein gently, almost reverently, as did most women who paid the price of making their own flax thread for knitting and making clothing. It was early May when she had scattered last year’s flax seed in a cleared field not far from her home, quietly reciting to herself the verse:

  Good flax and good hemp to have of her own, In May a good huswife will see it be sown, And afterwards trim it to serve in a need, The fimble to spin, the card for her need.

  When the plants were four inches high, she and two of her grown children had moved through the crop to thin it, barefooted to avoid damaging the tender plants, facing the wind so that injured plants would be brought back to standing position. In early July they pulled the ripe flax plants and turned them in the sun for two days to dry. Then they rippled them by drawing them through a large iron comb that stripped the bobs onto a sheet to be saved for seed for next year’s crop, and the remaining stalks were tied in beats. The beats were stacked crosswise in water vats, covered with boards, weighted with rocks, and left for five days to soak the leaves rotten and get rid of them. The cleaned flax was again tied in bundles, dried, and taken to the flax brake in the kitchen to be methodically smashed by the heavy arm. It was then scutched for further cleaning, scutched again, bundled into strikes, swingled, pounded soft with a pestle-shaped beetle, hackled, and finally laid out in long threads to be sorted, spread, drawn ready for the spinning wheel, and finally, spun into thread to be coiled on the clock-reel, forty rounds to the knot, and bundled into skeins, twenty knots to the skein.

  Considering the unending labor to bring them into being, the finished skeins of flax thread were looked on by women with much the same pride and affection they felt for their own children.

  Lydia was reaching for the next long threads to be mounted on the cross-arms of the clock-reel when movement in the narrow cobblestone street caught her eye, and she paused to peer out through the lace curtains. Her breath caught for a moment as she recognized the black tricorns with the gold braid, the heavy black capes, and the crimson tunics of four approaching British officers in the frigid, late afternoon sun of a wintry Philadelphia day. She moved the curtains aside for a moment to be certain, then turned and hurried into the kitchen to move a large copper teakettle from the top of the oven onto the round, black iron plate of the stove. She gathered her apron in her hand to lift the hot latch and swing open the small door to the firebox. She thrust in two more sticks of kindling, slammed the door shut, gave the handle to the grate two hard shakes, and turned toward the breadbox, with its hand-painted scene of springtime in Pennsylvania on the lid.

  How vividly she remembered the confusion in late September when General Washington marched the Continental Army through the streets of the city, moving south to meet the British one day. And then almost immediately, on September twenty-sixth, thousands of British soldiers marched into Philadelphia from the west, led by General Charles Earl Cornwallis, to claim the city without firing a shot. Without notice or inquiry, the British officers simply commandeered the homes they wanted for their own quarters, invited the owners and residents to go elsewhere, and moved in while the soldiers filled the city.

  Terrified when the pounding came at her door, Lydia had stood trembling behind William, her stern schoolteacher husband while he faced two British officers to inform them that he and his wife were of such an age that they could not, and would not, be ousted from their home of thirty years. The British officer peered at both of them for a moment before he tossed a hand indifferently. “So be it,” he declared. “You both may remain on the sole condition that you will be house servants for all needs of myself and my staff. You will take quarters in the attic or the cellar.” He paused a moment before he finished. “And you will interfere with nothing, absolutely nothing, pertaining to the business of this army.”

  He was General Albert Dunphy, the adjutant general of the British under command of William Howe. With smoldering indignation her husband nodded, and the two of them became servants, living in the attic of their own home.

  She lifted a loaf of fresh-baked cinnamon bread from the box, laid it on the cutting board, and with quick, deft strokes sliced it, then arranged the pieces on a china platter as the teakettle began its piercing shriek. She stood on tiptoes to reach her silver serving tray from the second shelf in the cupboard, then set the platter of cinnamon bread on it before she reached back into the cupboard for her large, silver teapot. Hastily she poured the boiling water into the teapot, set it on the tray, followed by the silver bowl of crushed tea leaves, the matching sugar bowl, four silver spoons, four snowy-white, ironed linen napkins, and four china cups and saucers.

  She heard the front door open, then the muffled voices of four men as they unhooked their capes and hung them on the pegs by the door, together with their tricorn hats. They walked into the parlor to stand before the stone fireplace for a few minutes, hands extended, palms outward tow
ard the flame. They rubbed their hands together, exclaimed about the cold, extended their hands again, then turned to peer at her as she entered the room, carrying the great silver tray. She set it carefully on the table in the center of the parlor, curtsied, and had turned back toward the kitchen when Dunphy’s voice stopped her.

  “Thank you. You may serve our evening meal at precisely half past six o’clock in the library. In the meantime we will require absolute privacy.”

  She silently bowed, then turned and hurried back through the kitchen, out the back door to the root cellar. She heaved the heavy plank door upward and descended the five steps into the chill darkness. Quickly she seized a jar of cream and hastened back to the kitchen to pour a small silver pitcher half full, then hesitantly approach the archway into the parlor. She could hear the voices of the men, sometimes low, intense, sometimes loud, occasionally a laugh. She gathered her courage and walked into the parlor with quick steps, where the men were all seated around the table, working with their steaming cups of tea. In the moment of her appearance the talk ceased and all heads turned to follow her as she placed the cream pitcher on the large, silver tray beside the sugar. She straightened and nearly trotted back to the archway into the kitchen. She could feel the stern stare from General Dunphy boring into her back as she disappeared from their sight.

  She stood in the kitchen, shaking, and heard a chuckle from the parlor, followed by the voice of Dunphy saying, “Don’t be concerned. She’s a Quaker. Harmless,” and once again the voices continued in their low conversation while the teacups clinked.

  Don’t be concerned! She’s harmless! She stood wide-eyed as she pondered, and then her breath caught in her throat as realization opened in her mind. What are they discussing that they should be concerned about me?