The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel

by John Ripin Miller

  At the beginning of the war, the General had been repeatedly frustrated by the lack of training and discipline among the men. This changed when, in the horrible winter we spent in Valley Forge, a middle-aged Prussian general named Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (at least he and Ben Franklin claimed he was a general) arrived in the camp. With his Italian greyhound Azor by his side, shouting in German at the men and often telling his translator to “swear at them for me,” I first thought von Steuben seemed like a joke. But he did teach the men how to load and reload rifles and use bayonets. And, bless him, he did show us the use of latrines. I saw his impact when I looked at the neat rows of log cabins in New Windsor. After that winter in Valley Forge, von Steuben wrote the Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, a book carefully reviewed and approved by the General. I am told the army used the book for decades. Still, von Steuben was an easy target for regimental humor, and the General often laughed at von Steuben’s complaint that, before anything would happen, he had to tell American troops not just to do something but why they must do something. (The General told me he himself had learned that lesson back in the French and Indian War and then had relearned it at the beginning of this war.)

  The General looked down at the letter and read aloud the part about the hardships shared by the anonymous letter writer with the men. The General seemed annoyed and perhaps rightly so. Was this not a criticism of the General? With the letter in his hands, the General asked me, “Have I not taken the best care I could of my men? Yes, they have not been clothed or fed properly, but did I not write hundreds of letters to the Congress, governors, and the French pleading for money and supplies? Have I not, over and over, praised their ardor to Congress and have I not been their strongest advocate? Did I not institute sanitary practices to reduce disease? Did I not insist on mass inoculations against smallpox when many opposed it and did this not save many lives? Josiah, have I not shared the trials and tribulations of the army?”

  I did not respond because I knew the questions were rhetorical. I just nodded. He had done all the things he said—I had written most of those letters. We lost twice as many men to disease as to battle. I know sixty years later, with the advances in treatment, that seems hard to believe. Still, that rate was probably lower than the British and the Hessians suffered, although that might have had less to do with the inoculations the General was so proud of and more to do with our being on the run and shifting campsites so often.

  Then there was the matter of the General literally sharing his men’s trials and tribulations. Perhaps the General claimed too much credit there. When we camped, the General always had the biggest tent or commandeered a farmhouse. The men did not begrudge this as they knew that the British generals by comparison lived in opulence and luxury. Perhaps I noticed because, despite coming from a wealthy family, as a Quaker I had been taught to live a life of simple frugality. Not that I ever complained about sharing his quarters and offices. And the General at Valley Forge and here in Newburgh had not set up quarters for himself and his aides until tents or cabins had been built for all the men.

  The General looked at the letter again and stared at the ceiling. “Josiah, this obviously came from within our camp, perhaps with the encouragement of some in Philadelphia.” I was glad the General had dismissed the idea of a British plot.

  Then he turned to the courses advocated. He at least partly echoed my own views. “The suggestion that we withdraw from our families to the West is hardly doable, although we could just stand down and stop firing at the British. The other course implied is that we march on Philadelphia . . .” Here the General’s words trailed off. I noticed that he had used the word “we” in describing the choices put forth.

  Then the General, perhaps realizing his use of words, asked me: “Josiah, do you think this diatribe against following the counsel of moderation is directed against me?”

  “I don’t think there’s any question about that, sir. Who else are they afraid of successfully urging restraint upon the army?”

  The General nodded and remained silent for a moment.

  “Josiah, tomorrow morning I want you to go about the camps and try to gather information. Whom do the officers believe wrote the letter? How is it being received? What was the reaction to my postponing the meeting until Saturday? Report back to me before dinner tomorrow.”

  “Yes, General,” I replied, realizing the meeting was at an end but expecting more instructions. The General waved me out of his study.

  I stepped out of Hasbrouck House, realizing I badly needed a breath of the winter air blowing in from the Hudson. Was this all the General was going to do? Was he just playing for time before making a decision? That seemed likely, given the request for information and the General’s propensity for delaying action until the last moment. Still, unless the mutineers abandoned their quest, which seemed highly unlikely, the General was going to have to make a decision. Was he planning on leading the mutiny? Or planning on opposing it? Or just standing aside? I couldn’t tell which way he was leaning.

  I started thinking about some of those letters we had received urging the General to seize power before the young country destroyed itself. I’ve told you about the letter from Reverend Duché. Just last May the General had received a letter from Colonel Lewis Nicola. The colonel, age sixty-five, had been born in Dublin and served all over Ireland in the British army before moving to Philadelphia and joining the revolutionary cause. Nicola was a man greatly admired by the General and the officer corps. He had conceived and executed the idea of taking partially disabled men and forming them into an Invalid Corps to guard powder magazines, ports, hospitals, and bridges and take on other light duties. The Invalid Corps struggled with the same problems as the rest of the army, and Nicola in his letter to the General railed against the lack of pay, awful food, and bad clothing, and blamed this all on the Congress.

  In a premonition of the anonymous letters, Colonel Nicola feared “the settling & satisfying [of the army’s] just demands will be little attended to, when our services are no longer wanted.” Nicola saw a dire future: “the recompense of all our toils, hardships, expense of private fortune, during several of the best years of our lives, will be . . . beggary.” Writing in a tone similar to that of the anonymous letter writer, he stated, “We who have borne the heat & labor of the day will be forgot and neglected by such as reap the benefits without suffering any of the hardships . . .”

  Like the anonymous writer, Nicola predicted the army would after peace not give up their arms unless Congress fulfilled its promises, which he doubted: “From several conversations I have had with officers, & some I have overheard among soldiers, I believe it is generally intended not to separate after the peace ’till all grievances are redressed, engagements & promises fulfilled . . . [but] neither officers nor soldiers can have any confidence in [congressional] promises.”

  To Colonel Nicola, the blame for the army’s plight rested completely with the congressional form of government under which the states existed: “large bodies” of “wise and moderate” representatives could not lead with the “energy” of a king. “A monarch may often be governed by wise & moderate counsels, but it is hardly possible for larger bodies to plan or execute vigorous ones.” Looking into history of “modern republics,” he noted that they were few in number and “their luster has been of short duration, and, as it were, only a blaze.” Nicola pointed to the Dutch Republic—which while “mistress of nearly half the commerce of the earth”—didn’t have a strong enough government to protect itself and was forced to rely on neighboring monarchies.

  Nicola feared that such would be the fate of the fledgling United States without a king: “Has it not evidently appeared that during the course of this war we have never been able to draw forth all the internal resources we are possessed of, and oppose or attack the enemy with our real vigor? . . . This war must have shown to all, but to military men in particular, the weakness of republics.”


  Colonel Nicola proceeded to explain to the General his plan in which all those who had served in the army would be compensated with land in the West. It was clear to him what form of government the veterans should have: “I have little doubt, when the benefits of a mixed government”—a limited, constitutional monarchy—“are pointed out and duly considered, . . . such will be readily adopted.”

  A monarch, of course, meant naming a king, and Nicola, without naming the General, left no doubt who that king should be: “in this case it will, I believe, be uncontroverted that the same abilities which have led us, through difficulties apparently insurmountable by human power, to victory and glory . . . would be most likely to conduct and direct us in the smoother paths of peace,” particularly since the abilities of this unnamed person “have merited and obtained the universal esteem and veneration of an army.” Nicola delicately allowed that since “some people have so connected the ideas of tyranny and monarchy as to find it very difficult to separate them, it may therefore be requisite to give the head of such a constitution as I propose, some title apparently more moderate” than king, although he argued there was a “strong argument” and “material advantages” for the “title of king.”

  The General’s response to the colonel’s letter was blunt and forceful. Dictating to my fellow aide, David Humphreys, the General was at pains to make clear that “no man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice done to the army than I do.” Still, he expressed “surprise and astonishment” at Nicola’s proposal. The General stated his strong disagreement and that he would be the last person to consider such a scheme, which he viewed with abhorrence; further, he thought “such ideas existing in the army” was “painful” to him. The General urged Nicola to “banish these thoughts from your mind.” The General’s response was certainly direct, and Colonel Nicola, intimidated and perhaps fearing for his command, apologized three times to the General. And yet I don’t believe the correspondence, unlike with Reverend Duché’s letter, was rushed to the Congress. Nicola’s letter struck a chord with the General’s aides, and I know some copied the letter and showed it to others.

  My thoughts returned to the second anonymous letter. I wanted to believe that the General was not the author. After writing thousands of letters under the General’s dictation, I was pretty sure the General had not dictated this letter. It was too flowery—definitely not the General’s style and probably beyond his abilities. But had he ordered it? And if he had not, was he going to seize the leadership of the mutiny? Maybe the diatribe against “moderation” was meant to convince others it was not the General’s doing.

  The General’s orders to gather information seemed such an inadequate response if he wanted to stop a mutiny. Why not call in officers for questioning and threaten court-martials? Then again, the General was obsessed with gathering information and intelligence before making any decision. Some said this obsession was a fault that had led to opportunities being lost throughout the war. But then again, in this way, big mistakes had been avoided. The General was known for being tempestuous and brave. He was that, but I also knew him to be a very cautious man—some said too cautious—when it came to throwing his troops into battle.

  “Josiah,” he was fond of saying, “delay in gathering information may lead to loss of a tactical victory here and there. That may prolong the war. But failure to gather information may lead to the destruction or capture of our small army. As long as we persevere, the British and the Parliament will eventually grow weary of the struggle.”

  He did not have to say that the capture of the army meant the capture of himself. I knew from reading the intercepted British letters that many of the king’s officers believed that the bagging of the “gray fox,” as the General was called, would mean the Crown’s triumph in the war.

  Chapter Three

  DAY THREE—WEDNESDAY

  The Third Anonymous Letter

  All, all is ready.

  The factious leaders are our friends, that spread

  Murmurs and discontents among the soldiers.

  They count their toilsome marchers, long fatigues,

  Unusual fastings, and will bear no more

  This medley of philosophy and war,

  Within an hour they’ll storm the Senate-house.

  —Sempronius, Cato, Act II

  It was too early on a frosty Wednesday morning to head for the Red Tavern, where the junior officers congregated, but the task of gathering the information the General had requested couldn’t wait. I rode through the camps in New Windsor where the troops were housed and some officers were already on duty, making my way from state to state, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. I did not have to ask many questions. Where officers gathered around campfires or lolled in headquarters’ tents, the conversation seemed to not touch any subject other than the letters. “It’s about time” and “I don’t care who he is, he speaks for us” were commonly held views, not only among the officers but also the soldiers.

  I started in the Virginia camp. The attitude toward the General seemed full of wistfulness and hopefulness. A captain in the Virginia regiment came right out and said, “We and the General have been patient long enough. It’s about time the General led us to the right city . . . and I don’t mean New York.” His comment was echoed by other officers, who said it had become far more important for the General to lead the army to Philadelphia, where the Congress resided. In the New York camp, some said if the General wouldn’t lead, someone else would, and it was clear they were referring to the second-in-command, General Gates, although his name was not mentioned, perhaps because some knew I was on the General’s staff.

  Once I ventured to ask about the practicality of settling in the West or holding on to our arms. A junior officer responded, “Any course is better than the present.” A lieutenant said, “We know what the letter writer really wants and that is what we all want: to march on Philadelphia. We need to finish the job that the Pennsylvania mutineers started two years ago.”

  There was some, but not much, mystery about who wrote the letter. At the Massachusetts camp, one officer, Captain Noah Allen, thought it might be a British plot, but he was one of few. Most of the rumors focused on General Gates’s aides, Majors John Armstrong Jr. and Christopher Richmond.

  In the New York regiment, I ran into Colonel Courtland, whom I respected greatly. When I asked how the letter was being received, he said, “with glee and approbation, Josiah.” When I asked if he had any ideas who wrote the letter, Courtland confidently named Gates’s aides: “The writing on the copies is Richmond’s, but I have heard the author is his friend Armstrong.” Colonel Courtland’s aide claimed others had seen Major William Barber, another aide to General Gates, deliver the letter to the adjutant’s office, which distributed orders and letters by high-ranking officers to all units.

  Other officers, such as Colonel Swift and Major Webb in the Connecticut regiment, shared Colonel Courtland’s view. I knew Armstrong to be ambitious, headstrong, eloquent, and devoted to General Gates. If he was the author, he would not have written the letter without General Gates’s authorization.

  Still, many of the officers I questioned didn’t know and didn’t care who wrote the letter. “Whoever wrote that letter, Colonel, sure knows how to write” was a common refrain.

  While I was making my rounds, I saw the General stop at the campgrounds of the New York regiment to review the troops. As usual, there were huzzahs for the General. It may have been my imagination, but I thought the cheers sounded more dutiful and less enthusiastic than usual. But then, when he appeared before the Pennsylvania troops, the huzzahs seemed louder. Jumpy as I was, I imagined that might be because the troops anticipated that the General would agree to lead the mutiny.

  I sought out, discreetly, my cousin Benjamin. He told me the Pennsylvania troops would happily march on Congress again but that it might take leadership from the officers. Benjamin raised his eyebrows. “Many resisted last time, but if the senior officers le
d the way . . .”

  Benjamin’s regimental commander, Walter Stewart, had returned from Philadelphia and was known to have visited many units throughout the army, spreading word of the dismal reception given our latest petition to Congress. Stewart, as I well knew, was a close friend of General Gates.

  I had reached the encampment of the New Hampshire regiment and was starting to sound out some of the officers gathered around a fire when Colonel Joseph Reed, whom I knew, handed me still another anonymous letter that was circulating. “Here, Colonel, have you seen this?”

  The letter was neither as short as the one requesting a meeting nor as long as the one prodding the army to revolt. It had obviously been written upon receipt of the General’s order shifting the meeting to Saturday. The writer artfully acknowledged that his earlier letters might have alarmed those who had never heard such sentiments so openly expressed. “Ye well knew that it spoke a language, which till now had been heard only in whispers, and that it contained some sentiments which confidence itself would have breathed with distrust.”