I suspect, however, that the General’s wide-ranging church attendance was due less to a thirst for religion and more to a desire as the nation’s leader to draw Americans of different faiths together. In Massachusetts, I saw the General stop our troops from burning an effigy of the Pope on Guy Fawkes Day.
The General certainly believed in religion as a force for good in public life. The hall where the meeting was to be held on Saturday was built primarily as a chapel because the General wanted to encourage religious devotion. He fulminated against alcoholism, gambling, and swearing among the troops, but since he partook of both liquor and gambling, I suspect his tirades were more directed at excesses that would undermine the army than based on religious principle.
Once, he issued an edict against swearing, but he soon realized the hopelessness of enforcing such an edict. Despite what Parson Weems has written in his glorified account of the General’s life, I can assure you that the General did swear, albeit on very rare occasions such as when he saw his officers fleeing the British in New York and strove to stop their flight.
After dealing with Governor Harrison’s request, I stood there looking at the General and wondering what he was thinking. He turned from the window, sat down at his desk, picked up a pen, and began scratching away on a piece of paper. I hesitantly asked if he needed my help. He was not in a good mood, for he did not answer my question but grimaced and waved me away with a brusque swing of the hand. Generally, he would stand when I entered the room. After all, Rule 28 of his Rules of Civility instructed him, “If anyone comes to speak to you while you are sitting, stand up although he be your inferior.” Not today.
I awkwardly withdrew, my mind full of questions. Was he writing a letter to the troops to be presented at the meeting he apparently was not going to attend? If so—the question uppermost in my mind—was he intending to welcome and lead the insurrection or oppose it? Or was he just writing still another letter to Congress pleading for payments to the men?
As I sat down at my table to get back to work, I tried to list the countervailing forces tugging at the General. On the one side was the General’s vision of a republic, which he had pledged to uphold many times to Congress and various state legislatures. Often I had heard the General speak with contempt of Cromwell’s overthrowing of the English king and installing himself as a dictator. Just as often I had heard him speak with admiration of the Swiss cantons that had formed themselves into a republic. He himself had served for years in and, I believe, had some fond memories of his service in the House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress.
And yet . . . there were all those letters and pleas he received to assume control of the government and to become dictator, if not king. It was not just the mutterings of the troops or the villagers in the towns we passed through, although there was plenty of that. In many of the states, outstanding citizens had voiced the same sentiments. Merchants and farmers hailed the General because he restrained our troops from seizing goods and crops. I have told you about the Duché letter and then the Nicola letter in May of 1782. I earlier mentioned the letter on monarchy from Major General James Varnum of the Rhode Island militia. That came two months after Nicola’s letter, and the writer, Varnum, was a man of far higher reputation than either Reverend Duché or Colonel Nicola.
Varnum—a big, vigorous, college-educated lawyer who never held back from telling the General his thoughts—had earlier in the war successfully proposed the idea of raising black troops from slaves. Greatly respected by the General and Varnum’s fellow Rhode Islander General Greene, he had left the Rhode Island militia to be his state’s delegate to Congress and was not pleased with what he found there. He expressed outrage at the lack of respect shown the army by Congress. Varnum found our then system of government too weak (a sentiment shared by most of us), described the Articles of Confederation as “that baseless fabric,” and did not think our countrymen up for the challenge of democracy. “The Citizens at large are totally destitute of that Love of Equality which is absolutely requisite to support a democratic Republick: Avarice, Jealousy & Luxury control their feelings,” he wrote the General.
General Varnum’s solution to the people’s failings was simple: “absolute Monarchy, or a military State, can alone rescue them from all the Horrors of Subjugation.” Varnum, like many, did not fault the British system of government so much as that the system was imposed from three thousand miles away by an incompetent monarch without our consent.
When the letter arrived, I remember thinking, If these are the sentiments of a leading citizen of a state such as Rhode Island where republican suspicions of the military run strong, imagine what the feelings must be elsewhere. I could not think of many men with both military and legislative experience (it was later that he became the chief justice of the Northwest Territory) more respected than General Varnum, and I knew that respect was shared by the General.
The General replied to Varnum that he could not “consent” to Varnum’s view, but unlike in his reply to Nicola, he did not specifically disavow Varnum’s proposal. Again, as with Colonel Nicola’s letter, and unlike with Reverend Duché’s letter, no copies of Varnum’s letter were passed on to the Congress.
The General once said with a laugh, “Josiah, no one will fear me as a monarch because I have no natural children to whom I can pass the throne.” I could not figure out whether this was really a joke or a realization of how easy it would be to become king of our new country. I did not know how many times in letters or private conversations officers or civilians had made proposals similar to Duché’s, Nicola’s, or Varnum’s. I was sure there were many such pleas, not to mention all those comparisons to Moses.
Was the General starting to change? I noticed that the tone of his letters to General Benjamin Lincoln had changed. As always he complained of the troops getting meager rations and being released with “not a farthing of money to carry them home,” but to this was added the criticism that the congressmen and other civilian officials were still regularly getting all the salaries of their offices. “It is vain,” Washington wrote, “to suppose that Military men will acquiesce contentedly with bare rations, when those in the Civil walk of life (unacquainted with half the hardships they endure) are regularly paid the Emoluments of office.” It was the first time I had noticed the General not just pleading for his men but showing irritation at the conduct of the civilians who had appointed him. Had he reached the point where, although being the last person to “consider” installing himself as king or dictator (as he had responded to Colonel Nicola), he was now considering just that? The General had always sympathized with his unpaid troops from the days of the French and Indian War, but now he added the criticisms of, and implicit threats to, civilian-elected officials.
Just months earlier, the General and I had passed a tavern in a small New York town on our way to Newburgh. Its old sign—a picture of King George—lay on the ground against the tavern wall. Swinging above us was a new sign featuring a picture of a different George. I commented on how he had replaced the king in the eyes of our people, but the General merely grunted and said nothing. I knew, and the General must have known, that across the states, the toast of “God save the king” had been replaced by “God save great Washington.”
Reflecting on what the General would do tomorrow inevitably led me to reflect on what would happen after the General’s decision. If he refused to lead or bless the rebellion, would it still take place and succeed? It seemed possible, given the mood of the men, but not probable. Who, other than the General, could lead such a rebellion and win public support? General Gates was the obvious choice. His aides adored Old Granny, as they called him, but his ignominious defeat at Camden had dimmed his support among the troops, the political leaders, and the people. Still, he was an ambitious man eager to claim fame and glory, and the frustration of the officers and men would give him a potent force to lead on Philadelphia. I knew from the earlier mutinies that, if Gates’s units followed him, other units might
quickly join. The New Jersey unit had joined the Pennsylvania units a year before, and I knew how worried we were in headquarters about commanding the loyalty of other units that might be called upon to put down that mutiny. And that was a mutiny without any officer leadership, let alone a top-ranking general like Gates.
But what if General Washington joined and led the rebellion? Or what if he stood aside but gave it his blessing? I did not like the idea, but I had to admit the chances for success were great. The army at Newburgh would follow him gladly, and I was pretty sure other units, which had the same grievances, would follow also. I thought again of all those mutinies during the war. There was the expectation they would fail because of deft and strong actions by the General to quell them. Still, the politicians had fled Philadelphia for Princeton while the General had worked his magic. With the General in the lead, I suspected many politicians in the states, and many congressmen too, would join what they perceived to be the future ruling government.
And what of the people? Many still harbored hostility toward the military dating back to the conduct of British troops in colonial days. And Americans’ repeated noble support for the war was marred by a strange reluctance, particularly in New England, to pay the taxes to fund a standing army. Many surely still believed in republican principles despite the frustrations and deprivations the long war had brought. And yet my cousin Benjamin told me that the Pennsylvania mutineers a year ago had met with a more friendly than hostile reception from the public. The people knew from their relatives in service how ill served our troops had been. More important was the relationship of the people to the General. He could not go anywhere without people applauding and bowing. To many, he embodied the Revolution. He had become the cause. Why else had the British focused so much energy on either assassinating or capturing him?
The war had been just as much to throw off British rule as to establish some little-thought-out republican government. The replacement of a distant parliament and king with a popular American ruler such as the General, instead of with an ineffective and despised Congress, would seem natural and appropriate. And the loyalist population, which was still numerous in the South, New York, and other places, would feel more comfortable with a king, albeit not the one with whom they started the war. Who could better bring the warring citizens together than the General? While success was not a certainty, I was forced to conclude that an insurrection led or blessed by the General would probably succeed.
Suddenly I started thinking about what I had dreaded the whole week. What would I do if the General led the insurrection? I respected the General and thought he would be a wise ruler. Still, I was a republican, and my Quaker upbringing influenced my outlook. No one led our meetings, no one stood between us and the Lord, and this naturally led us to be suspicious of divine or less divine rulers. Still, even among my brethren, there would be sympathy for an insurrection led by the General. Why, even my Prescilla had raised the subject with me one time when she got angry about my failure to receive pay. What if the General expected me to accompany him on the march to Philadelphia? Would I have the courage to say no? Did I really want to say no?
It was in the early evening on Friday, after the midday dinner but before supper, that I was gratefully diverted from worrying about these questions when the General opened his door and waved for me to come in. I practically jumped from my chair and bounded toward his study, certain that the General would have me draft something relating to tomorrow’s meeting or at least divulge his plans. It was not to be. After offering me the usual glass of Madeira, the General seemed determined to talk about every subject but the impending mutiny.
“Josiah,” he said, “what do you think of my writing a book about farming? Would you help?”
“Sir, of course, but, as you know, I have lived my whole life in a city and know little about farming.”
“Well, Josiah, my neighbors talked to me on the way back from Yorktown and suggested I write such a book.”
That the General was obsessed with farming I well knew from his detailed letters I sent almost every week to Mount Vernon’s manager, his cousin Lund, as well as the agricultural treatises from England that often adorned his desk. Still, it seemed incredible to me that he could really be thinking of such things at a time like this.
“Well, sir, why do your neighbors believe you should write such a book?” I asked.
“Oh, because of this new plough I have invented and my idea for a mechanical seed spreader. The crop rotation I have implemented to get away from tobacco. You can’t feed our nation on tobacco. How to diversify the activities on a plantation. You see, Josiah, tobacco is finished as a cash crop in Virginia. I was among the first in my neighborhood to shift land to wheat and corn. Then I was the first to develop a major herring fishery on the Potomac. We’ve caught hundreds of thousands of herring and shipped them to the West Indies. Then we built mills to weave clothing out of flax and hemp. And there is the whiskey distillery.”
The General then paused and chuckled. “Of course, I was also the first to try to mine iron ore in Virginia. That was a complete failure . . . as was my effort to plant wine vineyards.”
Still, it all sounded quite impressive to a city merchant’s son. The General started talking about manures and moving mud from the Potomac and mixing it with animal droppings. “Well, I don’t know much about farming, sir, but if I can help put things together, I will do so,” I said to the General before I started to nod off, thinking of his troubles with punctuation and spelling.
“No,” the General exclaimed abruptly, “it’s not a good idea. People will think I’m immodest.”
I couldn’t see what was immodest about writing a book on a subject you knew something about, but I didn’t argue. The General was always thinking of how he would look to Americans in the future. Maybe he thought later Americans would think he was focusing on his farm instead of winning the war or setting up a government.
“Josiah,” the General said, shifting the subject, “what do you think this country will look like in thirty years?” I mumbled something about a growing population and migration west of the Appalachians. “True,” replied the General, “but will the new Western states stick with us or go with Spain?”
That possibility had never occurred to me. “Why should they go with Spain, sir?” I asked.
“Because right now most of the produce of the whole Ohio Valley goes through the Port of New Orleans. Their cultural and political ties are with us, but their economic interests are with Spain, France, England, or whoever controls New Orleans.”
The General was just warming up. He went on about how religious conflict and slavery boded ill for our new nation. From all the different religious services I had seen the General go to, and my conversation with Lafayette about the General’s views on slavery, these comments did not surprise me. But the General continued on and said that the division between the East and the West was just as threatening, which in retrospect, given our recent North-South arguments, seems surprising. The General went into a rambling monologue on how crucial it was to connect the East and West with canals and roads so that the trade of the Ohio Valley and points westward would flow eastward. Of course, from his correspondence, I knew that the General’s interest in national development was interwoven with his personal financial interests. He had bought land in the Ohio Valley and western Pennsylvania. The General had always been a supporter of the Potomac Canal project to link Virginia with the Ohio Valley and his own lands. I had heard rumors that during the French and Indian War he had pushed General Braddock to march to Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania through northern Virginia. Some said the General urged such a course for military reasons, but others said he was trying to increase the value of his own lands along the route. In any event, General Braddock chose the Pennsylvania route, although I don’t know if that decision had anything to do with his crushing defeat. Similarly, the General’s plans for a Potomac canal never came to fruition. Instead, a couple of decades
ago, New York established the link westward with the Erie Canal. While I know the General would have preferred a canal starting in Virginia, I am sure he would have been pleased with the Erie Canal and the roads that have been built.
I knew to steer away from questions about how canals and roads would affect the General’s finances. The General was incredibly sensitive about any questions regarding public decisions affecting his own financial interests. I have already told you how he turned down a salary for his wartime efforts to show his decisions were uncolored by personal considerations. Lately, with victory possible, he had received letters from several state legislatures suggesting land grants to the General in appreciation of his efforts. Knowing of his insatiable desire for land, I had been surprised at how the General delayed his responses to solicit the advice of many leaders.
Jefferson wrote back that, while accepting the grants was justified, refusing them would “enhance your reputation,” and I knew what the General’s response would be. The issue now was not only ethics but reputation, and reputation trumped all with the General. Nonetheless, I suppose it doesn’t matter why one does the right thing—as the General invariably did—if the right thing is done.
The General poured himself a second glass of Madeira. He was truly in an expansive mood. “You are of course right, Josiah, about the growing population over the coming years. But that will depend on whether we continue to stay the home for the poor, oppressed, and persecuted of the world.” Once the General got on the subject of America as the refuge of the persecuted, especially those facing religious persecution, there was no stopping him, and I knew better than to interfere.
The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel Page 15