Perhaps because Adams was concerned with his reputation almost as much as the General was with his, the General was suspicious of Adams—after all, it is easy to cast as a flaw in others a trait you yourself possess. But the General must have felt empathy over the one infirmity they both faced: trouble with their teeth.
Sometimes the General’s virtue, or show of virtue, offended Adams. Adams resented the General’s not taking a salary during the war, fearing the General was putting the country in his debt as a way to gather more power. I believe that, while the General cared about Adams’s opinion, he cared more about the opinion of his countrymen. The General calculated every action, including the refusal of salary, in terms of what his countrymen might think. Since the war and the General’s death, I have heard that Adams bemoaned the pain of seeing someone “wear the laurels I [Adams] have sown,” and I have also heard that Adams privately denounced the celebration of the General’s birthday as “idolatry.”
Adams, like the General, cared about his place in history. My friend Benjamin Rush told me that Adams wrote him that “the history of our Revolution will be . . . that Dr. Franklin’s electric rod smote the earth and out sprang General Washington . . . and thence forward these two conducted all the policy, negotiations, . . . and war.” Maybe this feeling of jealousy is understandable. The General eclipsed everyone—after all, before the war was even over, towns, colleges, counties, and mountains were being named after the General, coins were being minted with his image, and his birthday was being celebrated. Of one thing I am certain, however: while the General expected his due—why, he resigned as an officer in the French and Indian War because he felt the British were not showing him proper deference—jealousy of others was not one of his flaws. Maybe that was because he overshadowed all those around him and never needed to feel jealous.
I felt then and feel now that one of Adams’s criticisms of the General might be partially justified. Adams is reported to have derided the General as a “great actor.” Even to me, who saw the General up close, it was hard to tell how much of him was real and how much was a carefully constructed persona. Did the legend create him or did he create the legend? Then again, does it really make a difference if one acts virtuously, cultivates virtuousness, or is really virtuous? Does it matter if a general acts with courage and discipline in battle or if he is really disciplined and courageous? And if the outcome is the same, what is the difference?
Abigail Adams was another matter. The General charmed her, as he did all the ladies, and was in turn charmed. “Josiah,” said the General, “John Adams thinks he knows more about military matters than anybody in the army, but he knows far less of such matters than his wife.” He repeated the line to others, leading me to believe that he wanted his opinion to get back to both Mr. and Mrs. Adams.
Then again, it got back to the General that Abigail had written a friend that the General “has a dignity which forbids familiarity: an easy affability which creates love and reverence. He is a temple built by hands divine.” I don’t doubt she wrote that. Mrs. Adams came out of one meeting with the General, turned to me, and said, “The General is a singular example of modesty and diffidence whose dignity and majesty surpasses any European king.” The General could do that to people.
Even Mrs. Adams’s admiration, however, was mixed with trepidation. Once she told me that “if he was really not one of the best intentioned men in the world, he might be a very dangerous one.” Those words floated through my mind that week in Newburgh.
The General’s views on Patrick Henry were surprising. Most seem to think that the General was put off by Henry’s radicalism. But this was not the case. Of course, perhaps we should not consider Henry a Founding Father since he opposed the Constitution under which we have prospered, but then so did James Monroe and many other heroes of the Revolution. (Still others, like Jefferson, had trouble making up their minds.) The General admired Henry’s courage, not only for speaking out so early against British rule but for his willingness in the House of Burgesses to argue for expulsion of a previously respected member accused of taking a bribe.
The General also admired Henry for what he did afterward as governor of Virginia. “Josiah, to oppose repudiation of the debt and back levying taxes to support the war—that took courage.” The General appreciated that Henry, a great orator, backed the war with more than words. He had led a campaign in 1776 to raise funds for blankets that kept large parts of the army from freezing to death.
The General and Henry were actually a mutual admiration society. Perhaps that was because their skills complemented each other. The General was in awe of Henry’s oratorical abilities. I am sure the General was not the first one to say of Henry, “Josiah, he speaks like Homer writes.” After all, the General, while he occasionally uttered fine phrases, on big occasions often stammered. Henry, who realized the General’s lack of formal literary training, went out of his way to praise the General’s other attributes. He has “the charisma of competence,” Henry said. Henry was quite ready to praise the oratory skills of his colleagues at the Continental Congress, but he was quick to say, “If you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is the greatest man on the floor.”
We all knew that these two Virginia governors, Henry and Jefferson, hated each other during the war. The General thought it had something to do with Henry’s more outward manifestation of his religious views, but he stayed out of that feud despite entreaties from friends. The General was very careful to husband his resources for the struggle against the British.
Another nonsupporter of the Constitution whom Washington admired was Thomas Paine. During the bleak fall of 1776, when all seemed lost as the army stumbled in retreat across New Jersey and thousands pledged loyalty to the king, Paine had published Common Sense. It was indeed a “time that tried men’s souls.” When some of our fair-weather friends in Congress and the military were sniping at the General, Paine remained a stalwart supporter. The General bought up hundreds of copies of Common Sense and distributed them among the troops.
The General and Paine shared an interest in science. One aide told me they had boated down a New Jersey river at night studying the emission of gases. Later, to the General’s pleasant surprise, Paine had helped draft petitions by officers to the Congress for back pay. I understand that after 1789, when the General became president, Paine turned on him. Paine got himself thrown in jail over in Paris during the French Revolution, and the General—at least in Paine’s opinion—did too little to help secure his freedom.
The two men the General most admired were his neighbor George Mason and the Marquis de Lafayette. I got the impression that Mason, several years older than the General, was a mentor—certainly the General made clear his opinion that Mason had the greatest political mind in the colonies. They did not correspond much, but an aide from Virginia told me that, before the war, the General did not make a speech or advance a motion in the House of Burgesses without Mason’s guidance. (The General’s deference to Mason came through in a rather paradoxical way to me. The General, with some pride, told me more than once that he had designed the expansion of Mount Vernon himself while his great neighbor had hired an architect.) The General was always interested in hearing news of what Mason was saying and thinking. After the war was a different story. Mason also opposed the Constitution and, while such opposition did not hinder the General’s relations with others, this apparently cooled their friendship, perhaps because of their previous intimate political association.
As for Lafayette, the General believed he should be considered a Founding Father of our nation despite the fact that Lafayette was not an American. I believe that the reception given the marquis by the Congress and the whole country in 1826 was fully deserved, and if the General was still alive, I am sure he would have heartily approved. The marquis was unlike many foreign officers who came with great pretensions, little military talent, and a desire for high salaries, and who had won their rank because Congress beque
athed it on them. He charmed and disarmed the General immediately. At their first meeting, when the General apologized for the condition of our troops compared to what Lafayette must have been used to with French troops, the marquis dismissed the comment and replied, “I have come here to learn, mon général, not to teach.” There may have been some self-interested flattery in that remark, but noble sentiments were ingrained in Lafayette’s everyday discourse. Once he told me, “I would have gladly stripped Versailles of its furnishings to have clothed our troops,” and I do believe he meant it.
Lafayette soon won the General’s confidence not only with his ability to lead troops in battle—he became one of the army’s top generals—but with his ability to persuade his French peers of the desirability of joining and helping to finance our struggle. Unlike most other foreign officers (including his compatriot comte de Broglie, who envisioned himself with a rank exceeding the General’s), Lafayette wanted no salary or high titles, and he quickly endeared himself to the Americans put under his command. “Our marquis,” as we called him, didn’t hurt himself with the General by his loyalty back in 1778 at the time of the Conway Cabal—when General Gates, the French-Irish adventurer General Conway, and some congressmen were trying to either remove or rein in the General’s authority. Given the General’s pride, neither did the General’s opinion of the marquis lessen when the marquis named his son “George Washington Lafayette,” and the General became the son’s godfather.
What I found most extraordinary about the marquis was his incredible idealism and his willingness to express his sentiments, even if they were sometimes grandiose. “Josiah, our country,” he said, referring to America, “fights for liberty for all countries and all generations.”
This idealism extended to other issues, and while he was in awe of the General, he was not afraid to challenge him. The abolition of slavery was one such issue. Many of the General’s aides, including Hamilton and me, could see the contradiction between constantly calling for freedom from British slavery while maintaining the slavery of the Negroes. We knew from the General’s correspondence back to his cousin Lund at Mount Vernon that the General, unlike other Southern planters, had ordered Lund not to buy or sell human beings, so as to keep families together. We also knew that he had ignored Congress’s order banning Negro soldiers, established free black regiments, and implicitly approved the unsuccessful efforts of Colonel John Laurens to convince the South Carolina legislature to free slaves to fight the British. Still, as I said earlier, we attributed some of these actions to his pragmatism about winning the war. We knew the General was still a slaveholder and that, while the General had stopped buying and selling slaves, he had still tracked down some of his slaves who had sought freedom. All this made us reluctant to raise the subject with him. Possibly this was because of what we imagined Lady Washington’s view on slavery to be. Well, not exactly imagined—Lady Washington often commented on how “bad” and “lazy” the Negroes were.
In Cambridge, the free Negro poet Phillis Wheatley sent the General a poem extolling the General’s virtues and urging he be given a throne and crown. The General ignored the invitation to power but graciously invited Miss Wheatley, “a person so favored by the muses,” for a visit. We noticed, however, that the visit took place when Lady Washington was away at a party for the wives of officers. Some of the Southerners may have thought the meeting of the General, a slaveholder, and the Negro poet Miss Wheatley odd, but if so, they did not dare challenge the General.
Anyway, when Lafayette embraced a cause—and abolition was one—nothing would deter him from pursuing it with anyone at any time or place. I still remember back in 1779 when he announced to me that he was going into the General’s study to urge the General’s support of abolition. The meeting went on for almost an hour, and when Lafayette emerged, he was ebullient. I asked him what had happened.
“What a magnificent man is the General,” he responded. When I asked for a more detailed account of the meeting, he was more than willing to respond. “Well, Josiah, I started by espousing the view that if we wanted freedom from the British we could not deny it to American Negroes. I expected the General to object, but he readily agreed. ‘Slavery is debilitating not only to the enslaved but to those who enslave them. I can see that just looking at my Virginia neighbors. I wish with all my soul, my dear marquis, to see the development of a plan by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees involving education of the slaves. Otherwise, our country will see much mischief.’ I asked him, ‘Why not abolition at once?’ and he told me that the slaves he knew had been denied the right to learn to read, and education was needed if abolition was to succeed.”
I tensed up. This was a subject that all of us aides had never dared broach with the General, particularly knowing Lady Washington’s views. Finally, I said, “That may be all well and good, Marquis, but what is the General willing to do about it?”
“That,” replied the marquis, “was what was so extraordinary. I suggested he write an essay telling the American people why slavery ultimately must be abolished.”
“And what did the General respond?” I asked, already guessing the General’s response.
Lafayette continued, “The General grumbled about writing an essay, said it was beyond him and that he was more suited to deeds.”
When I heard this, I was not surprised. I could not help think of Thomas Jefferson, who had already written great essays on the iniquity of slavery but had also become known for his harsh treatment of his slaves. The General, with so little confidence in his own education, certainly abhorred writing essays. Whether it was the war, religious freedom, the union, or in this case slavery, he always shied away from putting his views on paper in favor of setting a personal example. Still . . .
Lafayette anticipated my next question and said, “So, Josiah, I asked him, ‘What deeds do you have in mind, General?’ and he replied, ‘I intend upon the death of Martha and myself to free all my slaves and provide for their welfare and education.’”
While the marquis was jubilant, saying “what a great man” the General was, I was less so, thinking that, while this would be a great act, why not take the action now? But the reference to Martha was telling. We on the General’s staff all knew that Martha had decided views on the rightness of slavery and held title—what a terrible word—to the majority of slaves at Mount Vernon. And we also knew that the General did not cross Lady Washington.
The marquis continued, “I then asked the General if he would subscribe to a colony of free slaves I wanted to establish in the Caribbean, and he said he would.”
This didn’t seem like a very practical idea to me, but the marquis was not one to be stopped by practicalities.
Well, here we are in the 1840s, and we are still talking about colonization. Our representative, Abe Lincoln, keeps touting the idea, and I suppose it is better than President John Tyler’s suggestion that we lessen slavery by annexing Texas and “diffusing” slavery westward. Still, I have come to believe there can be no ultimate solution but the one the General suggested: abolition preceded by and coupled with education.
While I was skeptical, the General did free his slaves and provide for their education and welfare under his last will and testament. I wish the General had acted sooner, but he was ahead of his time. Some Founding Fathers were abolitionists, but they were not born into slaveholding families. And I don’t know of any Southern planters in 1799 who freed their slaves, let alone dipped into their own pockets to provide for their slaves’ education and welfare. I suppose that’s why next week our local abolition group here in Illinois will hold its annual meeting on the same day it celebrates the General’s birthday.
But back to the Marquis de Lafayette. Given his propensity for grandiose sentiments, I truly believe he looked upon himself as a romantic hero from medieval times and upon the General as the greatest dragon slayer of them all. While Lafayette could stand up to the General on issues such as ab
olition, he was blind to any flaws in the General’s character. “Josiah,” he told me, “when I first met the General, I beheld a man so tall and noble and majestic. Our great advantage over the British is our General. He is a man formed for this revolution and is worthy of the adoration of his country.”
As one who had shared the General’s quarters for years, I thought at the time this was a great exaggeration born of Lafayette’s desire to see himself as a knight-errant giving devoted allegiance as his lord pursued the grail of our revolutionary struggle.
Why did so many swoon over the General? Was I the only one to see, along with his good deeds, his temper, vanity, and posturing?
The General was quite calculating in how he appeared to men like Lafayette or women like Abigail Adams. Every step, every word, every pose was, I thought, designed to impress whoever was in his company. My Quaker upbringing had taught me that one should present oneself in a simple and forthright manner without artifice (although I admit that on occasion I liked that Prescilla looked on me as a shining knight).
The General was certainly simple when it came to his uniforms—probably because he was following Rule 52 in those infernal Rules of Civility: “In your apparel, be modest and endeavor to accommodate nature rather than to procure admiration.” He never wore the medals that states and foreign governments bestowed upon him. However, even before a battle, he spent minutes having Will make sure every hair and thread was in place—just another example of how the General calculated his every military and political move.
That week at Newburgh, and the years since, have, in some ways but not all, altered my opinion of this part of the General’s character.
In any event, none of these figures whom we look back on today as Founding Fathers, except for the General, was present that week in Newburgh. How the drama played out rested with the mutineers, the army, and the General.
The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel Page 8