The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel

by John Ripin Miller

  Fearful that the General’s order might be interpreted as disapproval of the call for a meeting, the anonymous writer cleverly argued that the General, by calling the Saturday meeting, was displaying his approval of the writer’s intentions.

  Till now, the Commander in Chief has regarded the steps you have taken for redress, with good wishes alone, though ostensible silence has authorized your meetings and his private opinion has sanctified your claims. Had he disliked the object in view would not the same sense of duty which forbad you from meeting on the third day of this week [Tuesday], have forbidden you from meeting on the seventh [Saturday]?

  The writer then went on to voice approval of the General’s delay of the meeting until Saturday, making it seem as if the General’s opinion was the same as the writer’s.

  “Is not the same subject held up for your discussion, and has it not passed the seal of office, and taken all the solemnity of an order—this will give system to your proceedings, and stability to your resolves, will ripen speculation into fact, and while it adds to the unanimity, it cannot possibly lessen the independency of your sentiments.”

  The writer then explained the anonymity of his three letters, saying his name was not necessary since his views reflected the feeling of the entire army. However, he closed with a threat to reveal his identity if it would be “necessary . . . to hold up any individual among you as an object of the resentment or contempt of the rest.”

  This, I thought, was clearly an attempt to intimidate any officers who might dare to speak against his call for action at the Saturday meeting. Was this a message to the General to join the mutiny or be denounced in front of his officers? I thanked the New Hampshire colonel, put the letter in my pocket to show the General that afternoon, and, covering up my consternation as best as I could, tried to continue my rounds.

  Back at headquarters before the afternoon dinner, I showed the latest letter to the General. He grunted and, after reading it, put it on his desk with the others. Otherwise he showed no emotion. After motioning to me to sit opposite him in my usual perch, the wooden straight-backed chair, the General asked what I had learned on my morning visits. I told him that Major Armstrong was the probable author and that there seemed to be a yearning among many of the troops that the General lead the mutiny. He showed no surprise and simply thanked me.

  “Well done, Josiah.” Then, after a pause, he muttered, “Well, the Old Leaven”—our nickname for General Gates—“is again beginning to work under a mask of the most perfect dissimulation and apparent cordiality.”

  I was relieved that the General had finally accepted that General Gates and officers inside the camp were pushing the insurrection. Still, if the General believed this and disapproved, why did he not order General Gates and Major Armstrong to our headquarters and ask for an explanation, or even arrest them for sedition? Of course, such arrests would portray the army as divided to the outside world and the Congress, which I knew went against the General’s desire to portray the army as having one voice.

  I waited for any further orders, expecting that he would at least ask me to summon General Gates or Major Armstrong. Instead he simply stated, “I want a letter drafted to Congressman Jones.”

  Joseph Jones was a Virginia congressman whom the General had learned to trust and who the General knew would pass on his thoughts to many of his congressional colleagues. The General asked me to include copies of the three anonymous letters and his order postponing the meeting. Then he dictated the letter to me, a lengthy one.

  I remember writing—and have confirmed from looking at my notes—how the “temper of the Army” was “very irritable on account of their long protracted sufferings.” I then conveyed the General’s suspicions about the propagation of schemes in Philadelphia linked to “dangerous combinations . . . forming in the Army” and that since the return of a certain gentleman from Philadelphia, sentiments had been circulating in the camp that “the Army would not disband until they had obtained justice.” The General was referring to Colonel Stewart, cousin Benjamin’s commander. The General, however, as I well knew, had an aversion to making direct accusations. Perhaps he was just following Rule 89 in his Rules of Civility: “Speak not evil of those who are absent for it is unjust.”

  The General then referred succinctly to his order delaying the meeting, stating that “I did this on the principle that it is easier to divert from a wrong to a right path, than it is to recall the hasty and fatal steps which have already been taken.”

  I remember thinking that the General may not have been a writer on a par with some of his compatriots, but he had no trouble expressing himself with deft phases.

  Toward the end of the letter the General seemed to be portraying himself as all that stood between the Congress and mutiny. “It is commonly supposed, if the Officers had met agreeably to the anonymous summons, resolutions might have been formed, the consequences of which may be more easily conceived than expressed. Now they will have leisure to view the matter more calmly and seriously. It is hoped they will be induced to adopt more rational measures, and wait a while longer for the settlement of their accounts.”

  Then the General returned to the justness of the army’s cause and his displeasure with Congress. “There is no man . . . who will not acknowledge that Congress have the means of paying . . . Are we to be disbanded and sent home without this?” The General went on to lay out the army’s fear that Congress would continue to stall until peace and the disbanding of the army had occurred and then do nothing. The General asked that I close the letter with what could be considered a warning or a threat:

  Let me entreat you therefore, my good Sir, to push this matter to an issue—and if there are delegates among you, who are really opposed to doing justice to the Army, scruple not to tell them—if matters do come to extremity—that they must be answerable for all the ineffable horrors which may be occasioned thereby. With great truth and sincerity I am—Dear Sir Your Most Obedient and affectionate servant,

  George Washington

  What was the General intending? He was clearly informing Congress of the threat of mutiny. He was conveying suspicion of congressional involvement and implicitly warning Congress not to meddle with the army. He was asserting the justice of the army’s demands. He was portraying himself as loyal to the Congress and trying to avoid the mutiny. Finally, he was warning that Congress better act if it did not want to suffer terrible consequences and perhaps dropping just the slightest hint that he, George Washington, would not protect the Congress from those consequences.

  There were many themes indeed, and I could not puzzle them all out. But no sooner had I finished taking his dictation of the letter to Congressman Jones than the General was dictating a letter to Congressman Alexander Hamilton. “Include copies of all three anonymous letters and my order postponing the meeting with this letter too, Josiah.” He said to tell Hamilton that “it is firmly believed by some that the scheme was not only planned but also digested and matured in Philadelphia.”

  The General paused, smiled, and said to me, “Josiah, add that ‘of course I will suspend my opinion until I have better grounds to found one on.’” The General continued, “Also add some language about the justness of the army’s cause and my earnest desire that its demands should in a lawful manner be addressed.”

  The letter was for the most part similar to the letter to Congressman Jones, but I detected a suspicion on the part of the General that Congressmen Hamilton and Madison might have encouraged the events of the last three days.

  Did the General really believe the plot originated with congressmen instead of General Gates? Did he fear some combination of the three? The evidence I had gathered seemed to point to Gates. Maybe the General wished to just make sure that certain congressmen like Hamilton and Madison did not support Gates. It was always hard to tell with the General. But I was sure of one thing—no one of the congressmen or politicians who the General dealt with was more astute in the art of politics than the General. T
o say that “some” said the plot had been hatched in Philadelphia but he was “suspending” his own judgment was a fine touch.

  The General, I knew, held Hamilton in high regard. He had earlier been an aide to the General, but Hamilton’s zeal for military glory had driven him to ask for a combat assignment and led his fellow aides, behind his back, to call him the Little Lion when we weren’t calling him Hammy. Perhaps my dislike for Hamilton was based on the way he strutted around exulting in his eagerness for battle. Did people like Hamilton really have no fear? I had fear. I did not want to admit some others had no fear. Maybe they just covered up their fears better than I did.

  As an aide, Hamilton had quarreled with the General several years before. Some silly business about Hamilton asserting the General had not shown him sufficient courtesy. The General apparently had summoned Hamilton and then waited at the top of the stairs for Hamilton, who was slow to appear. When the General expressed irritation, Hamilton exploded and announced his departure. We all tried, without success, to convince Hamilton to calm down and stay. The General tried to make amends with Hamilton and ignored his huffy resignation letter, but the latter would have none of it.

  I always wondered if Hamilton had used the incident to get transferred to his own command. Anyway, things had been patched up. Hamilton had performed ably, even gloriously, at Yorktown, leading the charge against the outer British redoubts. All was forgiven. The General recognized military merit, and Hamilton was a great admirer of the General, although I always thought Hamilton, an ambitious man, must have realized, at least belatedly, that he could not rise far in any postwar government without the General’s patronage. In any event, the General knew how hotheaded Hamilton was and just weeks ago had written him a veiled warning that “the Army was a dangerous instrument to play with,” as if he feared Hamilton would encourage what was happening that week.

  Looking back, I am now fascinated by how the General reacted to Hamilton and others we now in the 1840s call our Founding Fathers and how they reacted to him. The General was certainly aware of how others referred to Hamilton as “that West Indian bastard” and admired him for his humble upbringing as well as his bravery and intellect. Hamilton’s ambition—once Abigail Adams, visiting the General, compared Hamilton to both Julius Caesar and Cassius in the same sentence—did not bother the General, who thought Hamilton’s openness about his ambition was rather charming. At times, I thought the General looked upon Hamilton as a wayward son, but a most promising one.

  With Thomas Jefferson there was no closeness, although they both came from Virginia. The General thought him very talented but impractical. Traveling all over the colonies, the General saw the future of the country in manufacturing, while Jefferson thought everyone should stay a farmer and that anything commercial was demeaning.

  The General and Jefferson also had different views of the opposite sex. I understand Jefferson changed later, but back then he did not like men mixing with women in public meetings—something about such mixed contacts leading to the degradation of morals. The General had no such qualms. He loved the ladies and engaged with them as equals in conversations.

  The General and Jefferson came to have different views on slavery. I recently read Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, and I cannot comprehend how a man who had earlier written about the iniquities of slavery could now write of Negroes as “inferior.” We knew back then that Jefferson was a hard taskmaster determined to make a profit on every slave, and that, unlike the General, Jefferson continued to buy and sell slaves, even breaking up families. Later, I learned that Jefferson had turned down a gift of thousands of dollars from the Polish nobleman Tadeusz Kosciuszko to help free and support his slaves. But, as I will soon relate, I discovered during the war that the General intended to take a different course.

  For a man who prided himself on his love of science, Jefferson had some peculiar views. I read later that he was opposed to medical research in hospitals, goodness knows why. The General prided himself on being practical. He was always asking the doctors what they were learning about wounds and diseases.

  Still, the General appreciated Jefferson’s advice and talents. “Thomas has a fine pen,” he said after having the Declaration of Independence read to the troops in the summer of 1776. Only later did I realize that Jefferson had lifted most of the opening line of the Declaration from what the General’s neighbor, George Mason, a man the General greatly admired, had written in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights.

  The General’s aides, but not the General, mocked Jefferson when, as Virginia’s governor, he ignored warnings from the General and others, did nothing to call out the militia to defend Richmond, and then fled the advancing British army. The Virginia legislature conducted a full-scale inquiry of Jefferson’s alleged cowardice—he was rumored to have fled in his pajamas and hidden in a tobacco barn. I was more sympathetic. If the British sent a brigade to hunt and kill me, I wondered if I would not have run and hid in a barn. Upon hearing about Jefferson’s travails, my fellow aide David Humphreys remarked to the General, “That will be the end of Jefferson’s career,” but the General said Humphreys should not be so harsh. “Not every man is born to be a fighter,” said the General. “Thomas is a thinker and a writer. And a mighty fine writer for whom we should be grateful.” As one who was constantly in fear of being exposed as a coward, I was relieved to hear the General’s defense of Jefferson. The General certainly went out of his way to seek Jefferson’s opinion on political matters during the war.

  Jefferson had recovered from his earlier disgrace and, after being cleared by the legislature, was now over in France with Franklin and Adams. The General was not sure Jefferson was fit for this role. “He understands and admires the French. Whether he really understands Americans who live outside his own Virginia circles is another question.”

  John Adams described how Jefferson seemed “to appear meek with his stooped, lounging manner, but he is as ambitious as Oliver Cromwell.” In the General’s mind, ambition was a good thing, but he could not understand why Jefferson would hide his ambition behind apparent meekness. Of course, as I well knew, the General hid his own ambition behind not meekness but the appearance of patriotic disinterestedness.

  When the General became president later, I am told that Jefferson would criticize the General behind his back. When he talked openly with the General during the latter’s presidency, however, I’m sure he was very deferential and careful, such as when he reportedly urged the General to run for a second term, telling him, “The states will hang together as long as they have you to hang on.”

  I do think Jefferson, like so many others, was jealous of the General. I cannot understand why he wouldn’t participate in any of the public memorials after the General’s death, but maybe he was busy plotting his own presidential campaign. By the 1800s, sensing the overwhelming public sentiment, Jefferson had resumed calling the General a “great man.”

  Of Benjamin Franklin, the General had no doubts. “There is a man who understands America and the French too.” The General’s respect for Franklin dated back to the French and Indian War. He told me that Franklin had come through with horses and supplies in western Pennsylvania when all others had failed him and said he was not surprised at Franklin’s ability to outfit privateers such as John Paul Jones to raid the English coast from France. “That man has extraordinary abilities.”

  I suspected that the General, who had come from what we now call the middle class and had made himself into a surveyor—the wealth from his wife, as I’ve noted, came much later—admired the way Franklin had come from middling origins and had started out by teaching himself the trade of printing and then gone on from there.

  The General’s praise of Franklin may have had something to do with Franklin keeping the General well informed on what he was doing in Paris. He flattered the General by putting a bust of him in his Paris office and letting the General know he had done so. Then again, Franklin probably thought this was go
od politics with the French. I learned after the war that the French idolized Washington as much as they admired Franklin and that Franklin obtained the last French loan by promising the proceeds would go to the General rather than the Congress. Some of Franklin’s letters on military strategy amused us, as, when hearing of the shortages of arms and powder, he recommended the use of pikes, bows, and arrows.

  While the General would have denied it, I always thought he was as susceptible to effusive praise as any man. And Franklin, either genuinely or not, was quick to supply such praise. He reported to the General that the French considered him “one of the greatest captains of the age,” and, after Yorktown, a letter arrived from Franklin telling the General that our triumph there would “brighten the glory that surrounds your name and that must accompany it to our latest posterity.” With such letters from a man as celebrated as Franklin, that week I could not help but wonder if the celebration of the General’s deeds might tempt him to take power.

  John Adams puzzled the General. Adams had nominated the General to be commander of the American army, but according to the General, he constantly talked about the General having too much power and fought giving him the power to appoint his own subordinates. “Josiah, he seems to want to command the army from the halls of Congress.” During that week in Newburgh, more than once I began to suspect that Adams might be right about the General wanting too much power.

  In many ways they were opposites. The General was tall, muscular, and athletic; Adams was short, rotund, and ungraceful. It must have been hard for Adams, a scion of austere New England Puritans, to be easy friends with one whom he perceived to be the descendant of an opulent Virginia planting family. The General respected Adams’s learning but was made uneasy by the way he tried to show it. While Adams spoke of the General as “the exemplification of the American character,” when word got back to the General that Adams regarded the General as “unread and unlearned,” the General was not surprised.