George Washington

by David O. Stewart

  The forts, as Washington predicted, achieved little. Most were rude stockades where settlers huddled and hoped that their attackers were too few to overwhelm them. In the first half of 1756, Delaware warriors attacked nine Virginia forts, destroying five and killing or capturing nearly three hundred settlers. In early August, Adam Stephen called the forts a useless burden.27

  Amid the carnage and frustration, a moment of unspoken irony arose in August. Washington assembled his troops in Winchester to hear the declaration of war that the British government had recently issued against France. Washington and his men had been fighting the French for two years; now their efforts became part of an official war that would rage for seven more in the global rivalry between competing empires. It had started in that forest glen when a few Virginians and Indians, led by Washington, surprised Jumonville’s expedition.28

  Events in autumn 1756 were no more encouraging. A Virginia Gazette article excoriated the regiment’s officers for their “vice and debauchery,” inexperience, and abuse of common soldiers. Writing from Williamsburg, Austin reassured his sensitive brother that “your character does not in the least suffer here,” but Washington never could shrug off criticism. As one historian has put it, “inhumanly fearless against cannon fire, he could become terrified at the threat of a critical word.” Washington issued his sixth resignation threat in less than a year. Austin briskly replied that if Washington resigned, “you will be blamed by your country more for that than every other action of your life.”29

  Washington’s situation did not improve. The royal government sent a new military commander for North America, Lord Loudoun. With no previous experience in America, he created a Royal American Regiment and demanded that Virginia provide a large share of its soldiers, draining resources from Washington’s thankless work on the frontier.30 Washington undertook a tour of his forts, with a militia escort he described as “whooping, hallooing gentlemen soldiers.” The garrisons, undermanned and indolent, wasted ammunition by gambling on target-shooting contests. As the cold weather approached and the raiding season waned, Washington made a gloomy assessment:

  The ruinous state of the frontiers, and the vast extent of land we have lost . . . must appear incredible to those who are not eyewitnesses of this desolation. Upwards of fifty miles of a rich and (once) thick-settled country is now quite deserted & abandoned.

  His triumphant trip to Boston the previous winter must have seemed very long ago.31

  * * *

  Through Washington’s difficult 1756, the horror-filled events left little room for the private man. His brother Jack married Hannah Bushrod in mid-April, but Washington could not attend. Until 1758, Jack would manage Washington’s lands, moving among Mount Vernon, Ferry Farm (with mother Mary), and Bullskin Creek. Through life, Washington always felt closest to Jack, and placed the greatest reliance on him.32

  Youngest brother Charles, who was eighteen, wanted to join the regiment, but their mother blocked him. She had lost George to the military, but would not see her youngest in uniform. In mid-June, Washington visited her in Fredericksburg and loaned her money, a coolly businesslike arrangement for a mother and son.33

  Washington’s military responsibilities did not eclipse entirely his interest in the opposite sex, as reflected in somewhat ribald letters from fellow officers. Writing from South Carolina a year later, George Mercer reported that the women there lacked “those enticing heaving throbbing alluring . . . exciting plump breasts common with our Northern Belles.” The passage suggests bawdy fireside conversations among frontier soldiers. Yet, except for his February flirtation with Miss Philipse in New York, Washington saw few eligible young ladies. That he was familiar with women in the taverns and paths of scruffy Winchester cannot be ruled out.34

  Expected to defeat a skilled foe with too few men, who had too little training and not enough supplies, an apparently depressed Washington summed up his quandary in early August. “I am wandering,” he wrote, “in a wilderness of difficulties, and am ignorant of the ways to extricate myself.”35

  Chapter 12

  Biting the Hand

  Washington’s mood darkened further during the autumn of 1756. Constant strain was dulling his political senses. He sparred with Governor Dinwiddie over Fort Cumberland, which Washington yearned to close, insisting it was vulnerable to attack. Dinwiddie replied that they could not close a “king’s fort,” but then left the decision to Washington. When the regiment’s officers opposed closing the fort, as did Lord Loudoun, Washington backed off. In August, he sent to Speaker Robinson a laundry list of grievances against Dinwiddie, claiming that the governor’s directions were consistently ambiguous and uncertain. Robinson gave Washington’s gripes to the legislative committee overseeing the regiment, revealing to a wider audience the corrosive rift between governor and commander.1

  In November, the governor scolded Washington, calling one complaint “unmannerly” and another unexplained. He ordered Washington to march one hundred men to Fort Cumberland, enclosing Executive Council minutes that reaffirmed the need to hold that fort.2

  Washington’s reply included an apology for “unmannerly” expression; no Virginia gentleman could wish to be unmannerly. Yet his tone was petulant. “If my open and disinterested way of writing and speaking has the air of pertness and freedom,” he wrote, “I shall redress my error by acting reservedly; and shall take care to obey my orders without offering at more.” Washington pounced on Dinwiddie’s order to send one hundred men to Cumberland. Since Washington had only eighty-one soldiers fit for duty at Winchester, he pledged to march them all to Cumberland, vowing to leave in Winchester “not a man . . . to secure the works, or defend the King’s stores.” His sarcasm was surely ill received.3

  In reply, Dinwiddie admitted to having incorrect information about Winchester’s manpower; he afforded the commander discretion to assign appropriate garrisons at any western fort. But the governor also reinforced his emphasis on defending Cumberland by enclosing Loudoun’s direction that Washington abandon smaller forts to strengthen the defense of Winchester and Cumberland.4

  Washington complied resentfully. To Speaker Robinson, he complained again about Dinwiddie:

  My strongest representations of matters relative to the peace of the Frontiers are disregarded as idle and frivolous; my propositions and measures, as partial and selfish; and all my sincerest endeavors for the service of my Country, perverted to the worst purposes. My Orders are dark, doubtful and uncertain; today approved, tomorrow condemned: Left to act and proceed at hazard: accountable for the consequence; and blamed, without the benefit of defence!

  Washington concluded that his best course, despite his weakening political position, was to appeal over Dinwiddie’s head to Lord Loudoun.5 But grinding frontier violence had diminished his heroic reputation as Virginia’s unquestioned military leader, while also seasoning officers like Adam Stephen, who might replace him. Washington had support from the Fairfaxes and Speaker Robinson, but Lord Loudoun seemed indifferent to him. Without Loudoun’s backing, Washington feared that he balanced “upon a tottering foundation indeed!”6

  To shore up that foundation, Washington replayed the gambit he had deployed against Captain Dagworthy of Maryland. He would appeal directly to the British commander in America. This time, however, the playing field was different. He was challenging a royal governor (Dinwiddie), not an army captain, and was appealing to a man he had never met—Lord Loudoun. Washington’s escalation of the spat with Dinwiddie was intemperate, and a distraction. Both men agreed on the best strategy for fighting the war: to sever French support for the tribes by seizing Fort Duquesne. Without that bold stroke, the purgatorial status quo would continue on the frontier.

  * * *

  When Loudoun arrived in America in the late spring—before the Washington-Dinwiddie split widened—Dinwiddie endorsed Washington’s pursuit of a royal commission. Over the summer, Washington wrote Loud
oun a brief note expressing the Virginia Regiment’s “singular satisfaction and sanguine hopes” for the new commander. Loudoun ignored both overtures.7

  The new commander embodied the British tradition of promoting rich men with titles, without regard to military skills. He had lost several battles during the 1745 Scottish rising. A senior minister dismissed him as a “pen and ink man,” and attributed Loudoun’s failures to his “great corpulency added to his short sight.” Indeed, Loudoun’s great talent was for inaction. Ben Franklin compared him to “St. George on a tavern sign, always on horseback and never rides on.” Loudoun was, however, wonderfully rich. He arrived in America with two secretaries, a surgeon, seventeen servants, a cook, a groom, a coachman, a postilion, a footman, uncounted helpers, two women (only one of whom was his mistress), and nineteen horses to pull lavish coaches.8

  Washington’s impassioned petition to Loudoun stretched for 4,500 words, a mountainous output for a man still uncomfortable with literary effort. It covered all three years of fighting on the Virginia frontier. Through that entire time, the letter explained, Dinwiddie and the General Assembly had stumbled repeatedly, while Colonel Washington had never been wrong.

  A good deal of Washington’s analysis was accurate. Virginia paid its soldiers poorly, provisioned them worse, and recruited from society’s lowest rungs. The militia was slow in responding to emergencies and ineffective when it arrived. Yet Washington misjudged how his complaints might be received. Indeed, a logical response to Washington’s cri de coeur would be to speedily disband the evidently hopeless Virginia Regiment. Washington’s combination of self-righteousness (professing to be “sickened” to serve in such a ragtag military) with flattery (Loudoun’s appointment caused “the dawn of hope [to] arise in my breast”) was poorly calculated. The letter was such a transparent exercise in settling scores that a reader might well conclude that its author was a chronic complainer best excused from public office.9

  Washington had hoped to hand his screed to Loudoun when the new commander visited Virginia, but that visit was canceled, so the Virginian submitted it through one of Loudoun’s aides. To press his case, Washington requested leave to travel to Philadelphia, where Loudoun was to meet with colonial governors. Dinwiddie approved the leave but added a dry observation: “I cannot conceive what service you can be of in going there.”10

  Loudoun vindicated his reputation for sloth, arriving in Philadelphia weeks late. While the Virginian waited, a local printer began selling copies of the journal Washington had kept during the Battle of Fort Necessity; the document had fallen into the hands of the French, who had published it. Washington insisted that the French had altered his entries, but fresh reminders of his bitter defeat could only undermine his appeal to Loudoun.11

  Brooding, Washington drafted another complaint to Dinwiddie, this time on the subordination of the Virginia officers to men who held British military commissions. Washington abandoned the servile tone he used with Loudoun and questioned “why we, who spend our blood and treasure in defense of the country are not entitled to equal preferment.” British arrogance was chafing him.12

  When Loudoun finally arrived in Philadelphia, Washington attended a couple of conference sessions, which rejected making an advance against Fort Duquesne in favor of attacking Canada. Far from supporting Washington in his quarrel with Dinwiddie, Loudoun shrank the Virginia Regiment by ordering four hundred Virginia troops to South Carolina. Having unwisely aired to a wide audience his differences with Dinwiddie, Washington’s sole good news was that Maryland troops would take over Fort Cumberland, relieving him of that responsibility.13

  * * *

  Returning to Winchester, Washington found more vexation. He still had to defend two hundred fifty miles of frontier, but now with only four hundred to seven hundred soldiers. He abandoned all but seven forts. Indian raiders rampaged at will. The House of Burgesses reduced the number of regimental companies to seven, so several captains had to be demoted or discharged. Legislation canceled Washington’s 2 percent commission on regimental purchases.14

  Ironically, Washington finally could call on Indian allies, because Dinwiddie had invited Catawba and Cherokee warriors to support the British on the colony’s northwestern frontier. But Washington lacked the gifts the Indians expected to receive before they would fight. “An Indian,” he observed with regret, “will never forget a promise made to him.” Often cheated in trades with local settlers, the supposed Indian allies turned on the Virginians, stealing horses and much else. The colony was forced to hire “conductors” to hurry the Indians back southward to home while trying to restrain their larcenous impulses.15

  With warmer weather came false alarms of enemy attacks on Cumberland and Winchester, where Washington began building a fort named for Lord Loudoun. Washington longed to attack Fort Duquesne, but could not without Loudoun’s support. Militia remained useless, often abandoning assignments without explanation. Desertion ran as high as 25 percent.16

  Once more, Washington imposed harsh discipline. On a single day in late July, a court-martial handed out ten death sentences, directed that four men receive fifteen hundred lashes, and ordered one thousand lashes for four others. Finally holding legal authority to execute soldiers, Washington boasted that Winchester had a gallows forty feet high. In August, he hanged two frequent deserters.17

  Washington did not abandon the struggle with Indian raiders. He ordered his captains to keep scouting parties out and “take great pains to make your soldiers good marksmen.” Washington also ordered them to stop “licentious swearing and all other unbecoming irregularities,” to preserve the soldiers’ clothes, and to “study of your profession.” He concluded in ringing terms: “Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.”18

  He was shouting into the void. The Indian raids continued. When half of a contingent of draftees deserted upon arrival, Washington could no longer summon anger. “They tire my patience,” he wrote, “and almost weary me to death.” The few remaining local residents, Washington reported, “are terrified almost beyond expression.” Without capturing Fort Duquesne, he predicted, “this country will not be another year in our possession.”19

  The bad news continued. Washington lost a mentor when Colonel Fairfax died in late summer. In October, while attending the colonel’s funeral, Washington learned that his quartermaster was embezzling. Soldiers were trading stolen equipment at Winchester’s taverns. The bloody flux struck Washington hard, incapacitating him on some days.20

  In low spirits, Washington sniped at Dinwiddie. “I am convinced it would give pleasure to the Governor,” he wrote to Speaker Robinson, “to hear that I was involved in trouble: however undeservedly, such are his dispositions toward me.” In July, when Washington asked for leave to attend to brother Lawrence’s estate, Dinwiddie turned him down.21

  Both men were becoming petty and ill tempered. The governor, having his own health troubles, repeatedly asked Washington to list the soldiers arriving on the frontier; Washington grudgingly agreed. When Dinwiddie expressed surprise at a change in the regiment’s roster, Washington snidely replied, “If your Honor will take the trouble of looking” at Washington’s reports, “it will immediately remove your surprise.” Dinwiddie griped that Washington had not forwarded a letter and wondered why the construction of Fort Loudoun was taking so long. For months, they argued over how many servants a regimental officer might have, with Washington insisting on the same number allowed to British officers; Dinwiddie pushed for fewer to save money. Addressing payments for Indian gifts, the governor complained of Washington’s “loose method of writing,” adding, “it’s your duty to be more particular to me.”22

  In a convoluted response, Washington apologized while jabbing back. “It is with pleasure I receive reproof, when reproof is due; because no person can be readier to accuse me, than I am to acknowledge an error, when I am guilty of one.�
�� But, Washington added, he faced accusations “in matters where I think I have rather exceeded than fallen short.” Dinwiddie, unimpressed, repeated his previous complaint.23

  The carping between two sick men—Dinwiddie’s ailments led him to ask to be replaced as governor—reached another level when Washington learned of a rumor in Williamsburg that he had incited the frontier war in 1754 to advance the land claims of the Ohio Company. He exploded.

  “It is evident,” he wrote to Dinwiddie, “from the change in your Honor’s conduct towards me, that some person . . . has made free with my character,” giving the governor “so ill an opinion of my honor and honesty!” Washington could not control himself. “No man,” he wrote, “that ever was employed in a public capacity has endeavored to discharge the trust reposed in him with greater honesty, and more zeal for the country’s interest, than I have done,” yet he found “my character arraigned and my actions condemned without a hearing.”24

  The governor denied hearing the rumor that so inflamed Washington, but added his own offended cry of pain:

  My conduct to you from the beginning was always friendly, but you know I had great reason to suspect you of ingratitude, which I’m convinced your own conscience and reflection must allow I had reason to be angry.

  Dinwiddie closed by announcing his departure for England in November: “I wish my successor may show you as much friendship as I’ve done.” Instead of bidding Dinwiddie a gracious farewell, Washington responded with a long harrumph: “If instances of my ungrateful behavior had been particularized, I would have answered to them. But I have long been convinced, that my actions and their motives, have been maliciously aggravated.”25