My own upbringing as a Quaker, and living in a city such as Philadelphia, which swarmed with refugees, made me an advocate for America playing this role. But I sometimes wondered how this Virginian planter could possibly have become so enthusiastic about America as a beacon to refugees. Perhaps it was a concern for refugees; perhaps it was a desire to fill our lands. As was his wont, however, the General swerved from his idealistic goals to how to pragmatically achieve such goals. “The challenge, Josiah, is how we encourage refugees to come here without so offending their European rulers that they take actions against either the refugees or ourselves. This will involve diplomacy worthy of Franklin.”
This led the General into a discussion of what education the immigrants—or, for that matter, those already here—should receive. Nothing could make the General wax more enthusiastic than the subject of a national university. The General had received no university education—nor, as I have said, much formal education of any kind—but he still considered himself an expert on the subject. He had taken great care with his stepson Jacky’s education at King’s College in New York (I believe it is now called Columbia), although from what I heard, Jacky played more than he studied. The General envisioned most Americans going to a university, but his support for an American national university seemed based on his desire to bring students from the different states together, as well as on his fear that Americans, like some he knew, would go off to Europe for their higher education. The General was suspicious of education abroad and the European manners and habits it might encourage.
Then the General turned to what he really wanted to talk about: what he would do to improve Mount Vernon. It had always amazed me how detailed his letters were to his cousin Lund. He wrote those letters himself and just asked me to check for punctuation. It was good that he thus limited my contribution. While I understood the General when he wrote about the architecture of the house, I had little knowledge of the trees and plants that the General wrote about. Today he did not talk about the added wings, story, and colonnaded porch of which he was so proud. Instead he was thinking about Mount Vernon’s future gardens. Gardens in America, the General had decided, were too much under the influence of the English. He intended to surround Mount Vernon with the first truly American landscaping.
“Josiah, at Mount Vernon there will be no more geometric patterns and English yews and hollies clipped into balls. No, that is what too many of our countrymen think is fashionable. Instead, there will be a vast green surrounded by American trees such as white pines and hemlock from the Northeast and ash and oak trees from the South. There will be pink groves of crab apple. I will get magnolias from South Carolina.”
Lest I found this list too romantic, the General returned to the pragmatic: “All these English gardens have trails that end with statues. We will be practical. My trails will wander off and end among scented flowers with toilets painted white with a red roof. Our own honeysuckle will climb the walls and scent the air.”
The General was surprisingly anti-British when he talked about farming or gardening, but of course most of the books he read on these subjects came from England. Later, I learned that after the war he had hired a farm manager from England. I am sure he used the man’s skills while pursuing what he considered his own American ideas about farming and landscaping.
The General did not confine his gardening desires to his own plantation. He ordered his troops at Newburgh to plant vegetable gardens. Some of his officers looked askance, but the General thought the gardening would be good for the men’s souls and the vegetables and fruits good for their bodies (most importantly, for preventing scurvy).
After talking about his gardens, the General paused. Covered with snow in early March, the Hudson Valley was a dispiriting place for a Virginia planter longing for his land. Finally, he said, “Josiah, I would rather be at Mount Vernon than emperor of the world.”
I think he meant it, but I knew the choice that week was not between Mount Vernon and emperor of the world but between Mount Vernon and assuming power over the states.
The General then lowered his eyelids and drifted off into barely coherent melodramatic mumblings taken from letters to his friends. “At Mount Vernon . . . that, Josiah, is where I wish most devoutly to glide silently through the remainder of my life. The days of my youth have long since fled to return no more. I am now descending the hill I have spent fifty-one years climbing, but I will not repine; I have had my day. What I want, Josiah, is to return to Mount Vernon and just move gently down the stream of life until I sleep with my fathers.” Using his favorite biblical metaphor, the General talked of “just living under my own vine and fig tree.”
The General had lately taken to speaking, writing, and rambling with barely coherent sentiment about his advancing age, although he was only fifty-one. Still, the war had aged him. His hair had grayed, a slight paunch had emerged, his hearing had waned, and he talked incessantly about becoming a private citizen pursuing a private life. He talked as if he were at the end of his career, which may come as a surprise, given his later roles in convening the Constitutional Convention and serving as president.
Considering what was going on at Newburgh that week, when I heard these musings about his death and yearning for the quiet of Mount Vernon, I couldn’t help reflect on whether such wishes meant that he would try to stop the mutiny and then return to Mount Vernon or whether he was just so weary he would let the rebellious officers go ahead while he returned to his estate.
Still, I kept thinking that the General, so vain about his place in history, must be weighing what posterity would think of him. Would he be looked on as the savior of his country for taking over the government or would he be looked on as the savior for stopping the rebellion? While the General tried to avoid looking like he cared about fame or his place in history, sometimes he would slip in my presence. This was the man who had once said to me when dozing off, “To obtain the applause of my compatriots and their descendants would be a heartfelt satisfaction. To merit such applause is my highest wish.”
Sometimes he would explicitly acknowledge his focus on fame by saying, “Josiah, I am growing weary of the pursuit of fame.”
That the General was an incredibly able man I had no doubt. But with my Quaker upbringing, I was uneasy about his constant, albeit somewhat hidden, seeking after applause. Should not human beings seek to do good deeds for their own and the Lord’s sake rather than the approbation of others? Then again, I had never known the General to do bad deeds, so maybe my concern about the General’s mixed motivations was ungenerous.
While my mind raced, the General had been thinking his own thoughts. Soon, fully awake, he dismissed me from his study, leaving me to ponder whether seeking fame was interwoven with, or could be separated from, seeking power.
Chapter Six
DAY SIX—SATURDAY
The Showdown
This sun, perhaps, this morning sun’s the last
That e’er shall rise on Roman Liberty.
—Sempronius, Cato, Act I, Scene 2
I’ll animate the soldiers’ drooping courage,
With love of freedom, and contempt of life.
I’ll thunder in their ears their country’s cause,
And try to raise up all that’s Roman in them.
—Portius, Cato, Act I, Scene 2
The General spent the early morning in his bedroom attended by his aide, Will Lee, as was his custom. To say the General was fastidious would be an understatement. His deep-blue coat was always freshly brushed. His faded-yellow buff waistcoat and breeches always perfectly matched. His shirt was always of the finest linen. The yellow buttons on the lapels and the buckles on his breeches were all as highly polished as his boots. His graying, reddish-brown hair was combed smoothly back in a small queue. Except for the three silver stars on his epaulettes, you would not know his rank. The General’s appearance was elegant but simple. As I have said, he refused to wear the medals that had been given him, declaring to me th
at this would be immodest. For the same reason he abandoned the blue sash he had initially worn across his breast. The French officers, who loved ribbons and medals, found this peculiar. And this, as I said earlier, from the man who had introduced the wearing of medals by his own enlisted men.
Will Lee was almost as well dressed as the General, who ordered his aide’s clothes from either the General’s indentured tailor at Mount Vernon or, where possible, the same Philadelphia tailor favored by the General. Will may have been the General’s slave as well as aide, but we joked in headquarters that he looked more smartly dressed than many of the generals in the army.
Thus, resplendently dressed as always, the General convened our usual staff meeting on Saturday morning without any reference to the climactic meeting approaching later that morning. David Humphreys, Benjamin Walker, and I sat at the big rough-hewn table in that central room, our office, of seven doors and one window. The General faced us. The meeting opened with discussion of what could only be described as a smelly situation. Most of the recently arrived beef at the Contractors’ Issuing Store was so spoiled as to be inedible. Perhaps the weight of the coming meeting was affecting the General as he eschewed his usual diatribes about corrupt contractors taking advantage of our troops. He merely directed, and Walker transcribed, a message to the quartermaster to cut off all dealings with the offending supplier and threaten that gentleman (if he could be called such) with unspecified retribution if the deception was not rectified.
There followed a discussion of a proper response to the French ambassador, who had written the General a lengthy letter about the difficulty of negotiating a final treaty with Great Britain despite agreement on conditional terms. The ambassador held out hope for a resolution soon but also acknowledged that the war might continue for another year. He linked such a possibility with the recent six-million-livre loan, which the ambassador noted, with disappointment, had largely been consumed by Superintendent of Finance Morris on past debts, rather than helping the General in the field where it could do some good in putting an end to the war. The letter included a not-so-subtle plea for the General to continue the pressure on the British in New York so that the British might not put more pressure on the French West Indies. The General asked Humphreys to draft a letter that was sympathetic to the ambassador’s position but reversed the call for pressure by asking that the French fleet look to coordinate with the Continental Army in an assault on New York, thus replicating the triumph at Yorktown.
Last on the list was an easily accomplished thank-you note to an artist in Dublin—a request that the General accept an admiring seal showing him trampling upon what the Irishman obviously believed to be a common enemy. A day did not go by without someone extolling the General with a letter or sending a seal or drawing showing homage to the General.
The General then dismissed us without a word about the noon meeting. Humphreys, Walker, and I looked at each other. How could this be? We all intended to go to the meeting. We knew the General had signaled his intent earlier in the week not to attend the meeting, but not to even mention it seemed a little much. Was it possible the General did not care about what happened at noon? Maybe there was some plan afoot that he was keeping to himself.
Just a few minutes later, however, the General opened his study door, waved me in, and sat down in his chair. “Josiah, go up to the Temple, take detailed notes, and bring them back here. It will be good to have a record of everything that transpires.” I looked at him for further orders, but the General had returned to writing what appeared to be a letter, although in very large script. I hesitated. Did I have the courage to ask him what he expected to come of the meeting? The General finally looked up and gave me that stare with which all his aides were familiar. It was a stare that conveyed impatience, the feeling that you were imposing on his time, and the question of why you weren’t following orders.
“Yes, General,” I said and then retired.
I stumbled back to my desk. My first thought was that the General obviously did not plan on attending the meeting. Did this mean he was just going to stand aside and let Gates’s aides take over the leadership of the mutiny and propel it forward? My fellow aides did not believe this possible—maybe the General had supporters who would speak against such an outcome. Then another thought occurred to me. Perhaps the General had lined up supporters who would lead the meeting, endorse the anonymous letters, and ask him to command the army’s march on Philadelphia to take over the government? I remembered the General had absented himself from the meeting of the Continental Congress when he had been chosen commanding general so that no one would claim he had influenced the proceedings. Was he pursuing the same tactic now? He could explain to any later critics of the government takeover that he was not present and did not influence the army’s decision, that only reluctantly had he accepted the army’s desire that he should lead it to enforce its just claims.
We aides started walking toward the Temple a little after ten a.m. It was almost a two-hour walk, and earlier in the war we might have ridden, but now we were trying to save forage for the horses. Looking at Humphreys’s and Walker’s faces, I believed they shared my anticipation and dread about what was going to take place. One of us mentioned how it was March 15, the ides of March, but none of us speculated, at least out loud, on the connection to the date when Brutus killed Caesar and tried to overthrow the Roman government. Was Gates playing the role of Brutus and stabbing the General? Was the General playing the role of Cato and defending the republic against Caesar? Or was the General playing the role of Brutus, and if so, stabbing whom? With my head spinning, I decided that such historical analogies, while interesting, led me nowhere.
I admit I was as nervous as before any battle, perhaps more so. Soon I could see the streams of officers ascending the hill to the long, one-story, dark-wood Temple. The coterie of General Gates’s aides was just ahead of me. Majors John Armstrong Jr., Christopher Richmond, and William Barber; Colonels Moore and Stewart; and Lieutenant Colonel James Hughes were in a group. I did not see General Gates, but I was surprised to see that surgeon William Eustis and Quartermaster General Timothy Pickering were with them. Pickering had earlier served briefly as an aide to the General. Their circle was wider than I had thought. While most of the officers walking up the hill seemed rather sober and grim, I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that the Gates group seemed rather jaunty and assured, as if they knew what was about to take place.
Looking up at the Temple, I recalled once again how the construction and operation of that project had not always run smoothly. Much lumber had been stolen by troops to sell at a profit to locals. In the end, however, every unit had contributed—wood, nails, labor, etc.—to the building’s construction under the chaplain’s supervision. The General said the purpose was to create a space that would provide not only administrative offices but worship services for a whole regiment—thus the name “Temple.” But the purpose was also to serve as a gathering place where troops from all states could mingle for social occasions—thus, along with the side rooms (for supplies, administration, the quartermaster’s office, and meetings), there was an orchestra pit at the front for musical ensembles.
The General was a believer in both the usefulness of the troops seeking divine guidance—he encouraged Chaplain Evans to hold services there for adoration of the Supreme Being—and the importance of tying the bonds between the troops from east and west, north and south. The General often stated that the army was the only large group with a national spirit, and the Temple was constructed to foster that spirit, both in worship and festivity. As it happened, in the short time the Temple had been available, socialization rarely occurred and for the most part was between members of the same units. The New England troops had different tastes in alcohol than the Southern troops, and the latter were not keen on fraternizing with New England units filled with blacks. Some visitors were puzzled that this building should be the site for both religious observances and parties with alcohol consumptio
n, but this did not seem to puzzle the General.
I doubt, however, he had anticipated its proposed use that week in March of 1783 by officers who were preaching rebellion.
We passed the hitching rail and entered the Temple. It must have been ten minutes prior to noon, but most of the benches were already filled. Still, Humphreys, Walker, and I found seats in the second row. (I wondered if officers were nervous about what might happen and did not want to be seen too close to the front.) We contributed to the general hum of conversation, but I do not remember what we said to each other, except that we were all reluctant to speak about the business at hand.
Precisely at noon, General Gates walked from the back through the murmuring crowd, mounted the podium at the front of the orchestra pit, and banged a gavel. I have never heard hundreds of men become quiet so quickly. There were a few coughs and the shuffling of feet but otherwise not a sound.
General Gates called the meeting to order and asked for the doors to be closed. He announced that the first order of business was to consider the “despairing” news from General McDougall, Colonel Ogden, and the officers who had returned from negotiations with Congress in Philadelphia. Since everyone knew of the documents that had been distributed the past several weeks and reported “no progress” in our efforts to gain back pay or pensions, General Gates opined that there was no need to read these out loud. Instead, he said the floor would be open to anyone who wished to rise and offer suggestions on what the army’s course should be. I assumed one of his aides was about to declaim on the fruitlessness of our efforts with Congress and make a proposal for action in accord with the suggestions of the anonymous letters.
Suddenly, however, cries came forth from the front of the Temple as a door opened and General Washington entered. The General strode to the front of the room, turned to General Gates, and asked for leave to address the meeting. I say “asked,” but the General’s decisive tone showed it was more a command than a request.
The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel Page 16