Burr

by Gore Vidal

  General Washington stood beside his desk as I entered. In response to my salute, he gave me his gravest stare. He was a master of solemnity.

  “Major Burr, you are welcome to stay here in the house until you find yourself a proper billet.”

  “Thank you, General, I am most sensible of the honour …” I was about to ask, as tactfully as possible, for a command in the field when Washington began to speak, formally, somewhat hesitantly. Conversation was not easy for him with anyone.

  “We have heard excellent reports of you, Major Burr. From every source except Colonel Arnold.”

  “Colonel Arnold and I had but one disagreement. I thought it pointless to continue to send insulting messages to the British governor when we were in no position to do him the slightest damage.”

  “Why did we not take Quebec?”

  “May I speak candidly?”

  His answer came smoothly, from much practice. “I have always laid it down as a maxim to represent facts freely and impartially.”

  “We failed, General, because my plan was not followed.” I saw no reason not to go down firing.

  “Your plan, Sir?” The small dull eyes in their vast sockets stared at me with wonder.

  I told him in detail my strategy for scaling Cap Diamond. He was not impressed. “Wiser heads no doubt prevailed.”

  “One of those wiser heads, Sir, was shot off. I was at General Montgomery’s side when he was killed. The other wise head now commands a depleted and broken force.”

  “You are most certain, Major, of your military gift.”

  “No, Sir. But it is a fact that the other strategy failed. I had hoped only to imitate the same tactic King Frederick set in motion during the siege of Dresden.” Young and opinionated, I hoped to impress my commander not only with my own military prowess but with my wide knowledge of modern warfare. Like so many young officers in those days, I had studied closely the campaigns of Frederick the Great.

  General Washington, however, did not read books; he knew as little of Frederick as I did of tobacco farming, a business in which he had only recently failed. The wealth of his wife notwithstanding, Washington was in some financial difficulty when he took command of the army. He had not done well farming despite all sorts of theories about river mud being the best of manures (it is not), and the invention of a plough (shades of Jefferson!) which proved to be so heavy that two horses could not budge it even in moist earth.

  Although Washington was always short of money, he lived grandly. Later in the war, we were all startled and amused when his mother put it about that son George had robbed her of everything and so, being destitute, she was forced to apply to the Virginia Assembly for a pension. I am reasonably certain that Washington was innocent in this matter. He was, apparently, a dutiful son and the mother a source of much distress to him. When word came of her son’s “victory” at Trenton, the virago was quoted as saying, “Here is too much flattery.” It is plain she always disliked her son and he must, finally, have hated her. How odd not to like one’s own mother! I always thought I would have adored mine, who saw fit to die before we could properly meet.

  General Washington rang a bell. A staff colonel entered.

  “Please instruct Major Burr in his duties. He will stay here, until billetted in the town.” The General turned to me. “I shall want a full report of what happened at Quebec.”

  Interview ended, the General crossed to a long table covered with papers and began, at random I rather think, to read. From the back his heroic figure was only somewhat disfigured by a huge rump. Neither of us knew that even as we spoke, Montreal had been re-captured by the British, and our Canadian adventure was a failure.

  Longing for military glory, I found myself seated at a desk for ten hours a day copying out letters from Washington to the Congress. Although defective in grammar and spelling, owing to a poor education, the General was uncommonly shrewd in the way he flattered congressmen. But then he had not spent fifteen years as a burgess in the Virginia Assembly without learning something of politics. Ultimately, I think, he must be judged as an excellent politician who had no gift for warfare. History, as usual, has got it all backward.

  After ten days in which my most useful work was the examination of several bales of under-sized blankets from France, I was happy to receive from John Hancock an appointment as aide to General Israel Putnam … yes, I had gone over General Washington’s head to the president of Congress. I had no choice if I was to serve usefully in the war. In fact, as I pointed out to Hancock, I would rather be out of the army than clerk to a Virginia land-surveyor.

  There are of course many legends about my relations with Washington during those two weeks I spent at Richmond Hill. He is supposed to have been shocked by my licentiousness. I daresay he would have been had he known how I and a number of other young officers conducted ourselves on those rare occasions when we were free to visit New York City. But he knew nothing of such matters. It is true, however, that he was most puritanical.

  Soon after I arrived a soldier named Hickey had been hanged for treason, to the delight of 20,000 New Yorkers. I was not present at the execution but I did read with amusement Washington’s statement to the troops. According to our commander, the English-born Hickey had gone over to the British not for money but because he was a life-long prey to lewd women! It was a sermon worthy of my grandfather. Incidentally, the private soldiers disliked Washington as much as he disdained them. On the other hand, the young officers (with at least one exception) adored their commander, and it is the young officer not the private soldier who eventually decides what is history.

  I have never known New York so gay—despite the British fleet which materialised in the harbour June 29. The Battery was regularly subjected to bombardments that did no damage. The girls, however, enjoyed squealing with excitement and rushing for protection to our strong arms.

  On July 3, the British army under General Howe disembarked on Staten Island, a Tory stronghold. Although our position was perilous, everyone had confidence in Washington. A confidence that was to evaporate when presently he contrived to lose both Long Island and New York City.

  As I have already noted, Washington had had very little experience of actual war before 1776. Years before he had been involved in a few disastrous skirmishes with the French and their Indian allies on the Ohio. His first fame was the result of a despatch he sent to the Virginia governor in which he referred to the sound of the bullets that whistled past his head as “charming.” Strange word. Strange young man.

  In my view had Gates or Lee been placed in command of the army the war would have ended at least three years sooner. Each was brilliant. Each understood the enemy (Lee, in fact, knew personally the British commanders). Each won true victories in the field against the British, something Washington was never able to do. But though Washington could not defeat the enemy in battle, he had a fine talent for defeating rival generals in the Congress. At the end he alone was at the pinnacle, as he intended from the beginning.

  Washington did have a most unexpected penchant for espionage. Our intelligence was almost always better than that of the British. Unfortunately Washington’s judgement sometimes disallowed facts. For instance, despite every possible warning, he never believed that the British would attack New York Island when and where they did. Yet he must be given credit for tenacity. Although the war dragged on year after year due to his eerie incompetence, I suspect that the kind of victory he did achieve could only have been the work of a man who combined resolute courage with a total absence of imagination.

  I fear that I did not properly appreciate being an aide to Washington. I did not enjoy copying out letters asking Congress for money that was seldom forthcoming: the American soldier was as mercenary as any Hessian. No money, no battle. Nor did I much enjoy listening to the worshipful talk of the other aides who flattered Washington monstrously, to his obvious pleasure. I, on the other hand, was prone to question his judgement although I had been advised by everyon
e that independence of mind was not a quality he demanded of subordinates. We were happy to be rid of one another.

  I was to have a better time of it with my good, old General Israel Putnam whose headquarters I joined in July 1776 at the corner of the Battery and the Broad Way. A former tavern-keeper, Putnam had the amiability of that class as well as a good if crude intelligence. His only fault was a tendency to repeat himself. Whenever the enemy drew close, he would invariably instruct the men not to shoot “till you see the whites of their eyes!” Having made the line famous at Bunker Hill, he tended to plagiarize himself, to the amusement of everyone except those officers who thought the firing ought to begin long before the whites became apparent to some of our myopic riflemen.

  On July 9, I took the salute at General Putnam’s side in the Bowling Green. Then at the request of the Continental Congress, our adjutant read aloud to the troops a document newly received from Philadelphia.

  I confess to not having listened to a word of the Declaration of Independence. At the time I barely knew the name of the author of this sublime document. I do remember hearing someone comment that since Mr. Jefferson had seen fit to pledge so eloquently our lives to the cause of independence, he might at least join us in the army. But wise Tom preferred the safety of Virginia and the excitement of local politics to the discomforts and dangers of war.

  Living at Putnam’s house was a pretty girl of about thirteen whom I have been accused of having seduced. Margaret Moncrieffe was the daughter of a major with the British army; she was also a cousin of General Montgomery (how tangled our personal relationships were in those days!). Since her father had been a friend of Putnam, the General took her in. If nothing else, the girl had spirit. I was present when she baited General Washington himself at Putnam’s table.

  As dinner ended, a toast was proposed to liberty or victory or some such sentiment. All drank but Margaret.

  “You do not drink your wine.” Washington gave the child that cold dull serpent’s glance he usually reserved for those private soldiers who were about to be flogged on The Horse (“Discipline is the soul of an army” was his favourite maxim). A disagreeable child, Margaret was not without courage. She raised her glass. “The toast is—the British Commander General Howe.”

  Washington’s face went red in blotches. “You mock us, Miss Moncrieffe …” Washington began and then stopped, unable as usual to organize a sentence that contained a new thought.

  The good Putnam came to everyone’s aid. “What a child says, General, should amuse not offend us.”

  Washington regained his usual serenity of expression. With an elephantine attempt at gallantry, he said, “Well, Miss, I will overlook your indiscretion on condition that you drink my health or General Putnam’s when you next dine with Sir William Howe, on the other side of the water.”

  I did not like the girl at all. Thought her precocious and sly. When I discovered that she spent hours on the roof with a telescope, looking across to the British encampment, I cautioned General Putnam but he took no notice. She then began a series of flower paintings to be sent as presents to her father. Watching the girl at work one day, I said, “Do you believe there is such a thing as a language of flowers?”

  Margaret blushed prettily (she was full-bosomed at thirteen) and stammered. “Yes. I mean no. Not really.” Suddenly I was aware of a true alarm that had nothing of the flirtatious in it. Obviously the language of flowers could communicate troop positions. The girl was a spy.

  With some effort, I convinced General Putnam that she would be safer and happier farther removed from the potential line of battle (I suspect the good general of having known the child best of all).

  Margaret was removed to Kingsbridge. Later she was returned to the British. Her subsequent life has been romantic and untidy. She lives now in London. For some years she was the paramour of the King’s minister Charles James Fox. I am told she gives to me the honour of having been the first to take her virginity. But I do not think that would have been possible.

  By the end of August 1776, General Howe had assembled on Staten Island some 34,000 men. It was his intention to seize New York City, take command of the Hudson and split the colonies in two. May I say, what he intended to do, he proceeded easily to do.

  Immediately after the arrival of the British, I was sent by Putnam to every one of our outposts from the Brooklyn Heights to the Haarlem Heights. I had never seen men less prepared for a battle with anyone, much less with fresh modern European troops. Junior though I was to the great commanders, I took seriously my task which was to assess our situation as accurately as I could. My gloomy written report to General Putnam was sent on to the commanding general.

  Two days later I encountered His Excellency on the Battery. A sulphurous New York August day. Tempers were short. Sweat mixed with the chalk the General used to powder his hair trickled down cheeks fiery from heat and bad temper. His mood was not improved by the sight of the British fleet making complicated manoeuvres just opposite us, cannon beautifully polished, white sails pretty beneath a leaden sky.

  “What, Sir, do you think the result will be should the enemy begin an assault?” I was taken by surprise: Washington seldom asked such questions of senior officers; never of junior officers.

  “Why, Sir, we shall be routed,” I said with stupid honesty.

  “Never!” The “never” was from a permanent member of the chorus of worshippers that was to follow Washington throughout the Revolution … nay, throughout his long life, even to the grave! No man was ever so much praised and fortified by those about him.

  I continued. “It is my belief, Sir, that the wisest course would be the one you have so far pursued with such success since Cambridge.” Yes, I was a courtier, too.

  “What, Sir, do you think that to be?” Our suspicious war-lord suspected even then that I was not entirely in thrall to his legend which, quite mysteriously, continued to grow from month to month no matter whether he won or lost or, as was more usual, did nothing.

  “To imitate Fabius Cunctator. To avoid meeting head-on a superior enemy. To draw him away from his supplies. To draw him deeper and deeper into the continent where the advantage is ours not his. Sir, I would abandon New York City today. Give General Howe the sea-coast. He will take it anyway. But by withdrawing now, we keep intact the army, such as it is …”

  I had gone too far. One of the aides reprimanded me. “The best troops of the colonies are here, Major Burr. The best commanders …”

  “You under-estimate us, Major.” Washington was unexpectedly mild. With a lace handkerchief, he mopped his chalk-streaked face; the pits from the small pox were particularly deep about the mouth.

  “You have asked for my report, Sir.”

  “Yes.” Washington turned his back to the port and gazed at the sooty old fort that used to dominate what was still a small Dutch town with rose brick houses and slender church-spires. But then John Jacob Astor was still a butcher boy in Waldorf, Germany.

  “We shall defend the city.” Washington’s mistakes were always proclaimed with the sort of finality that made one feel any criticism was to deface a tablet newly brought down from Sinai.

  “Sir, I would burn the city to the ground tomorrow and withdraw into Jersey.”

  “Thank you, Major. My compliments to General Putnam. Good day, Sir.”

  In defence of Washington, I must note that at the time very few of us knew much about the powerful secret forces at work upon him. There is evidence that he would have liked to destroy the city but was stopped by the local merchants (to a man pro-British) and by the Congress at Philadelphia which, eventually, ordered him under no circumstances to fire the city. Yet it was his decision—and no one else’s—to confront the enemy with all his forces at Brooklyn in Long Island. This was to be Washington’s first set battle; it was very nearly the last. Even today’s hagiographers admit his sole responsibility for the disaster.

  Right off, Washington split into two parts an army which, entire, was not capa
ble at that time of stopping a British brigade. Then he chose personally to respond to a dazzling series of British and Hessian feints: in a matter of hours, he was out-manned and out-generaled.

  Thrown back to his main line of defence, the Brooklyn Heights, Washington was faced with the loss of his entire army if he remained on Long Island or humiliating defeat if he chose to give up the Heights and withdraw to New York Island. He chose humiliation.

  On the unseasonably cold and foggy night of August 29, I stood in a water-melon patch near the slip of the Brooklyn ferry and watched the evacuation of the army. All night boats went back and forth between New York and Brooklyn. Low dark shapes appearing and disappearing into a strange soft fog. The only sounds the soft moans of the wounded, the whispered commands of officers, the jangle of General Washington’s bridle as he presided over the débàcle he had devised for us.

  On September 15, 1776, the British fleet appeared at Kip’s Bay about four miles north of the Battery. As usual, we were surprised. A powerful bombardment began at 11.00 A.M. Then the British and Hessians disembarked. Our troops promptly fled, despite the presence of Washington himself who shrieked at his own men like a man demented, broke his stick over a brigadier’s head, cut a sergeant with his sword—to no avail. Raging and weeping, he was dragged away to the sound of British bugles mocking him with the fox-hunter’s “View, halloo! Fox on the run!”

  Washington retreated up the island to the Morris mansion on the Haarlem Heights (now the home of Colonel and Mrs. Aaron Burr cidevant Jumel) which was to be his headquarters for the rest of September. This must have been the lowest point of his career; worse, in some ways, than the winter at Valley Forge.

  I sit now in what was his office, as I amend these notes, and think of him more than a half-century ago, scribbling those long, ungrammatical, disingenuous letters to the Congress, trying to explain how he managed at such cost to lose Long Island and New York City.