Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  What happened next is a matter of dispute. In a letter to Montgomery’s father-in-law Robert Livingston, Colonel Donald Campbell offered his account of the deadly encounter. It is the most complete report written in the period just after the assault. Campbell placed Burr at the head of the troops as they reached the first stockade. After the fatal blast had eliminated Montgomery and the others, Lieutenant Richard Platt informed Campbell (who was to assume command) that his general was dead. After discussion with his remaining officers, Campbell ordered a retreat. Only Captain Gershom Mott contested the decision, and he was voted down. Burr, along with Mott and Campbell, remained behind to cover the withdrawal. None of the bodies was recovered.25

  Campbell’s version is challenged by Chaplain Spring’s claim that Burr tried to recover the general’s body. Much later, in 1807, Spring told Senator William Plumer: “Burr returned back alone & attempted, amidst a shower of musquetry, to bring on his shoulder, the body of Montgomery—But the general being a large man, & Burr small, & the snow deep, prevented him.” According to English records, Montgomery’s corpse was found on New Year’s Day, buried under heavy snow, and lying on its side (“curled in a fetal position”). One arm protruded above the snow.26

  It is worth asking: Did Burr try to save the general’s body or not? Why would Spring spread such a story, if he felt uncertain of its veracity? It is clear that the chaplain was not present at the site of the initial assault. At that time he was in the hospital, nowhere near the place where Montgomery’s troops attempted to enter the city. His version nevertheless had early on gained currency, for it appeared in Brackenridge’s 1777 poem. In all likelihood, the poet heard it from Spring, Burr, Bradford, or some other Princetonian. Surely Bradford would have been privy to the same favorable report about Burr that was being circulated in Congress. If Burr’s heroic gesture had not been widely disseminated, then the poet would not have repeated it.27

  Strangely enough, Matthew Davis did not include the incident in his authorized Burr biography of 1836. He incorrectly described the scene in Trumbull’s painting, asserting that the artist had drawn the general falling into Burr’s arms. In an earlier testimonial concerning Burr’s military career, written in 1814, Richard Platt, present at the assault and later Burr’s business associate, made no mention of Burr trying to save the body. Platt contended that Burr—not Gershom Mott—had opposed the retreat. He had “animated the troops, and made many efforts to lead them on,” and would have succeeded, if not for Campbell’s orders. Platt’s opinion that Burr’s efforts might have “saved Arnold’s division from capture” reconfirmed the rumors that had circulated among the soldiers in Quebec. John Henry (who wrote his version of the assault) called Campbell a cowardly “poltroon,” whose retreat and failure to recover the bodies was unpardonable. To shield himself from criticism, the vulnerable Campbell had every reason to diminish Burr’s role.28

  Rumor and report—what really happened during and after the fateful assault? Why did Platt, who claimed to have seen everything, fail to mention Burr’s valiant act? Why is Davis silent, if he wished to portray Burr positively? We know that if Burr had tried to recover the body, he would have been placing himself in an extremely vulnerable position. The Canadian militiamen in the blockhouse would have had a clear shot at him, especially as he struggled to lift the heavy corpse. Unless he decided to rush headlong, imprudently, this version seems suspect.

  One tantalizing fact remains: the position of the corpse. Wounded in both thighs, groin, and face, Montgomery might have collapsed in pain into a “fetal position.” But why was his arm in the air? Perhaps Burr indeed had tried to lift him, and had draped the arm over his back. Was the chaplain Spring telling tales, or was Campbell, a jealous junior officer, ignoring Burr’s valor by putting his pride before the truth? As with many stories about Burr, the truth remains elusive.

  The defeat in Quebec was devastating. The commander, five other officers, and 46 privates died in the assault; 34 were wounded, 372 captured. Almost all of Arnold’s command were taken prisoner. By the spring of 1776, the small, sickly, humiliated force that remained was driven from Canada, removing all trace of Montgomery’s victories of the previous year. General Montgomery had refused to contemplate such a fate. Because fortune favors the audacious (as he had confidently written to his father-in-law in December 1775), he assumed he would prevail. And he added that he anticipated no “fatal consequences.” He was, of course, wrong on both accounts. Fortune did not favor him, except, perhaps, with “warrior’s fame.” Even that, it seems, was not eternal.29

  “MY DEAREST SOLDIER”

  In the aftermath of the defeat, friends and family waited anxiously for news. Burr’s brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve, expressed both relief and satisfaction when he learned that Burr had escaped “imminent danger” and had been commended for his “intrepid conduct.” Uncle Timothy showed his approval of Burr’s actions by claiming that he, too, wanted to enlist. Others of Burr’s admirers were saying the same thing. One of them, Jonathan Bellamy (the son of Reverend Joseph Bellamy), opened his letter to Burr with the salutation “My Dearest Soldier,” and recounted a dream he had had of visiting Burr in his tent. He described the Burr of his imagination as a man who was “agitated by every emotion,” in having “come to the resolution to risk his life for his country’s freedom.” In his dream, Bellamy watched Burr “stand up, clasp your hand upon your sword, look so fiercely . . . it almost frightened me.” It was Quebec, and Burr’s recent reputation for gallantry, that filled the dreamer with “exquisite delight.”30

  Other men fawned over Burr in their prose. Future U.S. Attorney General William Bradford claimed that Burr had so inspired him that he had “thrown away his books & taken up the sword.” Another acquaintance, future Hamilton ally Theodore Sedgwick, despite being ten years Burr’s senior, assumed a self-deprecating tone in one of his letters: he wondered whether he merited Burr’s attention, as he went on to praise the “young, gay, enterprising martial genius.”31

  Clearly, Burr invoked among his friends what the philosopher Immanuel Kant had called “a special reverence for the soldier.” Perhaps they most admired his ability to carve out his own destiny: he had become both a bold and enterprising “martial genius” and the master of his passions. There was no more noble energy in the well-established masculine code of conduct that arose during the age of the Enlightenment. As the eighteenth-century Scottish intellectual Hugh Blair contended, passion, in this sense, “renders the mind infinitely more enlightened, more penetrating, more vigorous and masterly than it is in its calm moments.” A man actuated by passion becomes “greater than he is at other times,” “is conscious of more strength and force . . . conceives higher designs, and executes them with a boldness and a felicity.” To return to Kant’s description, Burr’s actions acquired, in the eyes of his friends, “something sublime.” In a few short months, he had lost all traces of that effeminacy that the eighteenth-century gentlemen associated with an overly civilized existence. He had shed the weakness and selfishness that his friends now associated primarily with their domesticated lives on the homefront.32

  A similar hyperbolic praise attached to George Washington throughout his public career. Burr’s fan club was echoing the prevailing fascination with the “citizen-soldier.” Lacking a strong military tradition, the Revolutionaries instead chose to celebrate the idea of the noble and enlightened volunteer. The volunteer put aside his books or his plow, to engage in what General Washington described as a “vigorous and manly exertion.” In this way, patriots could claim that the American military was different from the British army. A future secretary of state, Timothy Pickering, made the case in his popular military manual of 1775: American soldiers did not need the “trappings (as well as tricks) of the parade” nor the “splendor of equipage and dress” to be “awed into servility.” Mindless manipulation would never inspire Americans to fight, as it did less enlightened populations, who, Pickering reminded, c
ould be “duped by a glittering outside.” American patriotism did not have to be coaxed. Citizens took to military discipline, to the command structure, on the basis of virtuous example.33

  Burr imbibed this culture, in which officers were taxed to perform before their peers. Unlike the English officer who was “born to his station,” acquiring rank through class background, the American officer could not rely solely upon such fragile props as class and gentility. Many did not come from the upper crust of colonial society; recall General Montgomery’s bitter complaint that so few of his officers were “gentlemen.” Insecure officers found themselves needing to defend their reputation—especially their masculine rectitude. Because class alone could not make a man into an officer, Revolutionary soldiers took masculinity as their proving ground, and defense of honor as the means of asserting leadership qualities.34

  In letters to his family during the march to Quebec, Burr described the daring feats of his comrades, despite “insuperable” obstacles. He also stressed the kindness and courtesy of people he met along the way. Two hundred miles outside Boston, at Fort Weston on the Kennebec River, he appreciated the hospitality he received from complete strangers, simply because he was a soldier. For his sister, he painted a humorous portrait of himself in his Continental outfit. He described a fringed coat, topped with a foxtail and feather in his hat, and asked her to imagine him carrying tomahawk, gun, and bayonet, plus a blanket slung over his back. He doffed his hat to her: “And pray how do you like him?”35

  At the same time, he was quick to acknowledge that a soldier’s life could lose its luster. While camping outside Quebec in 1776, a month after the failed assault, he described himself as “dirty, ragged, moneyless and friendless.” In this candid letter to his sister and her husband, he voiced a sudden cynicism for the war effort. Congress was “either drunk or crazy,” he wrote, for sending such a small army to blockade the city. And he dismissed the patriotic fervor that called for converting Canadians to the American cause. Catholic priests, “our unalterable enemies,” had had generations to indoctrinate their neighbors. “To think of instilling any principles of belief of liberty into the Canadians is perfectly idle.” Neither Protestantism nor patriotic cant would sway the Canadians to declare independence on American terms.36

  Burr’s perspective on military life was changing. Women still toyed and teased, he wrote once again to his sister, but instead of enjoying a verbal repartee with them, he reported that he behaved with “natural bluntness.” No “dirty and “ragged” officer, as he now referred to himself, could play the part of the gentleman convincingly. Just as his dress now failed to suggest his rank, so did the sermons and speeches about liberty seem out of touch with actual conditions in Quebec. Burr was showing signs of disenchantment with military life at the same time as he was being touted as a hero back home.37

  The real war, then, was rarely glorious, and most of the time boring. He had lost none of his Revolutionary ardor, but the stalemate at Quebec offered little hope. The 600 men who remained on the outskirts of the garrisoned city were waiting for their inevitable withdrawal, occasionally embarking on pointless raids, designed to alarm the inhabitants. Yet Burr’s deeper source of discontent was that he felt friendless. While he was left behind in Quebec, wasting his time and talents, his friend Ogden had been selected by Benedict Arnold to deliver news of the defeat to Congress.

  Ogden had been gone since the end of January 1776, and informed Burr in March that General Washington had asked him to join his staff. Was Ogden boasting? Burr must have felt so. He sent Ogden an angry response, accusing his friend of having a “fickle heart,” enjoying the “caresses of the great, and the flatteries of the low,” while forgetting his real friend in Quebec. Both men were ambitious, yet Burr resented that Ogden had put his career ambition before honor and sincerity—two qualities that Burr valued greatly.38

  The breach between the young men healed. Yet the following year Burr wrote Ogden with equal candor, again, on the subject of ambition. He said he had few expectations of promotion, whereas most of his “former equals, and even inferiors in rank” had already passed him by. He had been given “assurances from those in power,” which he did not request, though none of these promises was fulfilled. His reputation was in the hands of unpredictable others, but he claimed he still found satisfaction in public service. “We are not to judge our own merit,” he demurred, “and I am content to contribute my mite to any station.”39

  This was more than mere posturing. Burr had no intention of groveling for a promotion. As he wrote to Ogden, “I have never made any application, and, as you know me, you know I never shall.” He knew how the game was played. It was not a game he was prepared to participate in, and he knew that Ogden had—willingly.40

  Honor, as Burr understood the concept, curbed the excesses of ambition—curbed, that is, vanity and fickleness. This was how proud men of the eighteenth century were saved from being womanish. Burr and Ogden lived in a culture in which weakness was measured in gendered terms. As Burr was discovering, the military tended to reward the womanish traits of gossiping, displaying vanity in one’s appearance, and engaging in petty quarrels over exaggerated slights of honor. It is not insignificant that Burr steered clear of duels throughout his career in the military. His unwillingness to play the game of the courtier was an integral part of who he was. His determination to pursue his own destiny without relying on the “caresses of the great” was an unabashed part of him.

  “MY GOOD OLD GENERAL”

  While Burr worried about his future prospects in Quebec, the British army left Boston and headed for New York. General Charles Lee had been sent ahead in February 1776 to fortify what he considered an indefensible city. In mid-April, Washington set up his headquarters in Manhattan. In a few short months, the city became a military fortress: breastworks blocked the streets that led to the water, artillery batteries were set up along the Hudson River, streets were torn apart, and sunken ships were placed in the rivers to deter the British fleet. As hundreds of residents fled the city, American military forces occupied the abandoned homes. By the time Burr arrived in June, Washington’s staff occupied a Greenwich Village mansion known as Richmond Hill—a house that Burr would later purchase as he began building his legal and political career in New York.41

  After forcing the British to abandon Boston in March, Washington exuded confidence, as he anticipated a massive battle in New York City. He seemed somehow certain that his untried troops would repulse the British. A modern biographer has termed him optimistic, if not utterly naive. In fact, New York would prove to be one of Washington’s most embarrassing defeats. The British armada moved into New York Bay on June 29, just as final debate ended in Philadelphia and the Declaration of Independence was put on parchment. Over the next two months, 353 enemy warships took control of the harbor, causing one contemporary observer to remark that masts were “as thick as trees in the forest.” The two armies were mismatched from the start: the British commander, General William Howe, fielded a total of 30,000 professional British soldiers and German mercenaries, while Washington could muster only two thirds that number, perhaps even less, and they were poorly trained.42

  When, on August 22, Howe finally made his move, he landed some 15,000 soldiers on Long Island, feinted in one direction, then divided his forces and marched unopposed along two different routes, successfully surrounding the American army four days later. Exposing Washington’s relative lack of experience, Howe caught the Continentals completely by surprise, resulting in a British rout of the Americans in less than half a day’s fighting. Three hundred Americans were killed, 900 were taken captive, and two of Washington’s generals, John Sullivan and William Alexander (known as Lord Stirling), were taken prisoner. It was a demoralizing defeat. Overcome with fear, the American forces broke ranks and scattered in confusion. Some drowned as they desperately sought to escape the British juggernaut.43

  Burr watched these events un
fold. His friend Ogden had helped Burr secure a temporary post on Washington’s staff until June 22, when he was transferred to General Israel Putnam’s force, assuming the position of the general’s aide-de-camp. Putnam, a hero of the June 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, was Washington’s second-in-command, in charge of Long Island, and would play a pivotal role in the evacuation of American troops.44

  Though much has been made of Burr’s initial encounter with Washington, there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that the two men took an instant dislike to each other.45 Burr simply wanted a more active role in the war. He wished to leave Washington’s staff even before he met the general. Assigned to Putnam, Burr stood to exercise more influence. As Putnam’s right-hand man, he would not have to compete for attention in the way he would have as one of several aides in Washington’s large military family.

  Writing to Ogden, Burr defended his “good old general,” as he affectionately referred to Putnam. The farmer-warrior had few pretensions; their relationship, according to Burr, was based on mutuality, on utter honesty. A canny and fearless fighter known for his drinking stories and lack of polish, the Connecticut Yankee stood in stark contrast to the unapproachable, aristocratic Washington.46

  Burr did not dismiss Washington or disparage his abilities at this early date, though he would come to distance himself from the insular world of the commander’s staff. Burr was unwilling to pursue success if it demanded that he pander or feign respect (as he wrote to Ogden), in which case it would not suit him to link his career to Washington’s rise. The events that produced Washington’s visceral hatred for Burr, and the younger man’s utter disdain for the general, did not occur until the 1790s, when the two were prominently identified with opposing political factions. By then, both men viewed the past through a somewhat warped political lens, employing historic memory of the Revolution as a weapon of partisan warfare. But at this point, they had no reason to dislike or distrust one another.